Thanks to MMBB, Sumner, Louis, George and John and all those who in earlier years had the vision and the courage to bring pastoral colleagues together. I too am indebted to your kindness and generosity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When George asked me to share on the open-ended question, \u201cWhat Is on My Mind?\u201d I can only envision that image of the drawing of a person\u2019s head cut open and the host of ideas, thoughts, dreams, pictures and musical notes are jumping out like from a French horn. It\u2019s extraordinarily difficult to isolate for 25 minutes what is really on my mind. Perhaps that\u2019s the reason why I suddenly rose this morning at 5:00 with my mind racing to deduce or discern what\u2019s on my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was packing and gathering all of my things to come to San Diego, I still wasn\u2019t sure what was on my mind that would drive me to share with you for these few minutes that I began to put in my bag a number of things. I put in a few things that I thought I might share from my 6 weeks in Israel. I thought I might share a snapshot of my State of the Church report that I gave on Sunday because that was what was on my mind on Sunday afternoon. I thought about my sermon on the lectionary text, Mark 1:21-28 last Sunday\u2014that was on my mind. I put in a few books that our church just published because they were on my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This morning when I couldn\u2019t sleep, what was on my mind was the realization that what came to my mind is the persistent and constant belief that God is always with us and that my ministry has come to be defined as to enable people to see that God is ever-present in the world and especially in their lives. The theologian, Kosuke Koyama in Three Mile an Hour God, speaks about Christ being \u201cMr. Intersection.\u201d The incarnation intersects both the supernatural with the vernacular, the divine and the human. Jesus makes it possible for us to know God. And when we follow Christ, we live intersected lives\u2014both the extraordinary and the ordinary coming together. Some of our ABC curriculum series spoke about \u201ccrossing points\u201d when an effective lesson plan is to help the student see her life is crossing with God\u2019s plan in the world. The image of Neihbur\u2019s definition of theology is the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper on the other with our mind in the middle is good theology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What has been and continues to be on my mind on a constant basis is how to enable our church people to see God in their everyday lives. As ones who follow the Living Christ, how can we experience Jesus as the disciples did when they dropped their fishing nets to follow him? How do we see Jesus in our lives and in the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our church is in the heart of SF Chinatown. We were started by Baptist missions to proclaim Jesus Christ to the many Chinese men who labored in SF and California in the mid-1800s. In 2005, we celebrated our 125th<\/sup> anniversary. One of the major goals of marking our anniversary is to affirm for ourselves and particularly to the new generations of members and friends and then to our larger community and the world is that God has been present with us for 125 years. We took a picture in front of our church to physically claim that our ministry goes outside of our church doors. We developed a timeline that shows that at the milestones of our church history, we were also in the world and we prayed that we were making a difference by our witness. Under the competent leadership of Dr. James Chuck, our pastor emeritus and Joy as the editor and layout artist, we have published two volumes of Chinatown, Stories of Life and Faith\u2014each a collection of 60 narratives of church members and friends\u2019 stories that connect them to our church and their faith in God. There are two more books in the pipeline. The results of these book projects have been remarkable. People are seeing that their lives are not just ordinary but indeed extraordinary because they have seen how God has and is still intersecting with their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What was on my mind on Sunday was the sermon I gave based on the New Testament lectionary text, Mark 1:21-28. Jesus acted with the authority of \u201cthe Holy One of God,\u201d on behalf of God himself. While Jesus was teaching, this demon charges into the room wanting to take control of the group. The demon questioned Jesus for messing around with the kingdom of evil. He wanted center stage but Jesus had authority over him. Without any magical incantations or special effects, but just his words, Jesus casts out the demon of unclean spirit in the man. The scribes and crowd were amazed and exclaimed that Jesus has a new teaching with authority. We can assume that before the man with the unclean spirit was living at the margins of society but now he is restored to his community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s on my mind is what kind of authority do we have today as pastors and ministers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ministers had more authority after World War II than today. I grew up in a generation of \u201cQuestion Authority\u201d and don\u2019t trust anyone over 30! People are suspicious of political authorities because they have lied so often. People are suspicious of economic authorities because the financial markets have collapsed. People are suspicious of religious authorities because they have failed to act swiftly against abuse in the church. People are suspicious of scientific authorities because the products resulting from their discoveries have in many cases devastated the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is a story about a state governor who arrived at a church dinner very hungry. He asked for a second piece of chicken, and the woman in the serving line told him she was expected to give only one piece of chicken to each person, so that the chicken didn\u2019t run out before the line of people did. The governor tried to take charge of the situation by informing the woman that he was the state\u2019s governor. The woman replied, \u201cYou may be the governor but I\u2019m in charge of the chicken. Move along, Mister.\u201d James Chuck had a lot of authority. But by now, I have no authority at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a Baptist church where for the most part, ultimate authority is vested in the congregation, what authority do you have as the church\u2019s pastor? There is often a \u201cdance\u201d between the pastor and the people, between a minister discerning God\u2019s call and the congregation\u2019s will, between the pulpit and the pew. In our church perhaps like yours, our constitution states that the Senior Pastor is an ex-officio member of all boards with no voting privileges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s on my mind is an opportunity to partner with the Chinatown YMCA directly across the street from our church to renovate their old gym to become a possible worship space for us. You will notice on the cover of one of the Chinatown books that the YMCA is right across the street from our church building. We have missed golden opportunities in the past when the church had a chance to buy a building to expand. Unless we can decide to partner with the YMCA, this window of opportunity will forever be closed to us. The financial conservatives in our church believe that in this economy, we need to save for a bad year to which I quip, \u201cI believe you pay me to lead us into such costly discipleship.\u201d What authority do I have to lead on this opportunity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n To make the text relevant for us today, the demons today may not be the same kind of demon that affected the man in the synagogue, but we may have other things that would kill us just the same. There are demons of fear and apathy, demons of status quo and resignation, demons of living with the illusion of materialism and selfishness. To these demons, Jesus says with authority, \u201cBe silent!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What kind of authority do you have at your places of ministry? Have you at times wondered if your authority is sufficiently effective to lead your church? Wouldn\u2019t we like to have the kind of \u201cfame that spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee\u201d that Jesus had? This is on my mind today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While we might desire to have more authority in order to accomplish greater things for God, it is Christ who ultimately has authority over our lives. When we have Christ as our authority, we do what Christ did: challenge those systems (scribes) that keep people in their marginal places, cast out demons and unclean spirits, restore people back into loving and caring communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s on my mind is this constant command to take the word of God\u2014the lectionary text assigned for a Sunday, the history of our church, the life stories of our church people, perhaps the opportunity to partner with the YMCA across the street from our church and what is my role as pastor and leader with or without authority to enable our church and the world to believe that the Living Christ is with us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When students choose classes to take, they often would say, \u201cTake the professor, rather than the course.\u201d They have learned from experience that the person who teaches the course is often more important than the course that is being taught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus is the teacher with authority. We want to take the course of life from Jesus. The people were astonished at his teaching because Jesus had authority. We couldn\u2019t hear what Jesus was teaching, but the people saw Jesus and they exclaimed, \u201cWhat is this? A new teaching\u2014with authority!\u201d Like those in the synagogue, we too can see and believe that Jesus\u2019 authority is nothing less than the very Son of God among us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What is on my mind is that God is ever-present in my life and in this world and now that I have shared what\u2019s been on my mind, I pray and hope that I\u2019ll be able to sleep through the night until my alarm on my cell phone rings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thanks to MMBB, Sumner, Louis, George and John and all those who in earlier years had the vision and the courage to bring pastoral colleagues together. I too am indebted