Pentecost . . . the End?

This Sunday we celebrate the ancient festival known as Pentecost. Pentecost, or "fiftieth day" commemorates the arrival of the Holy Spirit among the early church. You remember the story from Acts, where the disciples poor out of the upper room and begin preaching to all passer byes in languages that all the hearers could understand.

It is understood today as the beginning of the church, and the beginning of the work of the Holy Spirit among us.

So, here at PPC, we are commemorating this important beginning by . . . .end our Sunday school for the summer. The church is born today, see you next fall!

Actually, summer breaks coinciding with Pentecost is on an idiosyncrasy of the calendar this year, and so I'm overstating the case a bit.

Here on the blog, we will continue with our reflections and updates, but we will probably address issues that come up through the week instead of following the rigid lectionary schedule. Be sure to check back often, and participate when you feel led.

We will go back to our regular weekly schedule come Labor Day.

Systemic Failure

Last night I watched Frontline on PBS, which was devoted to the recent collapse in the financial markets.  I was impressed (and somewhat DEpressed) by the interconnectedness of all of our financial and corporate entities.  It was this close relationship between seemingly widely divergent industries and markets that caused our current economic struggles.

It went something like this:  Speculation (read "get rich quick") in the real estate market coupled with deregulation of the financial services industry led to a secondary market in questionable mortgages.  This led to a increase in questionable loans, as now there was a ready market to buy these previously unattractive assets.  One of the companies that was heavily invested in these mortgage-backed securities was Bear Stearns.  Once Wall Street got a glimpse at Bear's portfolio, and its heavy mix of troubled assets, the traders voted with their bids, and Bear found itself with almost no value.  Employee stock accounts were now trading at $2.00 a share, when only days before they were in the $80.00 range or higher.

The government stepped in and forced JP Morgan Chase to buy Bear (and backed it with billions in federal dollars).  

Problem solved, right?

Um, no.  Turns out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were also top heavy in bad mortgages.  The government stepped in again, this time in the form of huge guarantees from the Federal Reserve.   But then the market noticed that Lehman Brothers was also addicted to bad mortgage money.  The government decided it had had enough, and didn't intervene with Lehman.

Lehman failed.  The markets plunged.  Credit evaporated.  Balance sheets became violently red overnight.  It was September 15, 2008, and strong companies like General Motors couldn't get a loan for one day because even the banks were out of money. 

You remember the rest of the story - huge billion dollar bailouts of the insurance industry giant AIG, automotive behemoths GM and Chrysler, and the entire banking industry.

Almost a trillion dollars went out the door of the federal reserve in the last quarter of 2008.

And the economy still tanked.

What does this have to do with us here on the eMMAUS road?  Well, one of the motivations for saving all of these troubled companies was the idea of systemic failure, that is, the fear that one company could collapse, and all of the companies invested in, and related to, it could collapse, and so on.  Its kind of a negative Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme situation.  All these companies failing would cause the whole economic system to collapse.

It strikes me that this situation is very much in keeping with our Reformed faith.  We believe that the "system" is broken inasmuch as our world is a fractured place that is not working the way it should.  We also believe that we are connected to each other both inside the church and in the world at large so that we all rise and fall together in the end.

Our scripture this week is another selection from the Gospel of John (John 17:6-19).  It is a difficult read (at least to me) and I struggled to find the point for awhile.  But ultimately it occured to me that Jesus is talking about how we are all connected - to Him, to each other, and to God.  

It is this interconnectedness that is the answer, I believe, to the systemic failure going on in our world.

How could our relationships change the seemingly insurmountable problems facing us?  What are your thoughts on this issue?

One more thing . . .

Not to go back to last week's discussion, but the WWJT debate continues all around us.  You may remember last week we talked on the blog and in class about our views on torture, both as Americans and as followers of Jesus.  Needless to say, we had a good spirited discussion, and ended up with opinions on all sides.

Well, yesterday I came across this AP article that rehashes much of our in-class discussion.  Included is a quote from former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, who supports the view that Jesus would be allright with "enhanced interrogation techniques."  TV talking head Keith Olberman opined in response to Bauer during his "Worst Person in the World" segment last night, watch:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Friending Each Other

First things first - you may notice that the "This Week's Text" widget isn't working. I don't think its a problem here with the trusty blog, it looks like it might be a problem with the feed from elsewhere.

Regardless, this week's gospel text is John 15:9-17. In it Jesus admonishes us to love one another. He describes this love as the correct response of those who recognize his love for us. In doing so, he uses the phrase "abide in my love" which is an incredibly compelling and tantalizing phrase. What would this look like, or be like?

Jesus goes on to tell his followers (and by extension, us as well) that we should not think of him as a master, but as a friend.

On one level, this is an awesome thought. On another, its humorous:

Did Jesus just "friend" us?

For those of you into social networking on the internet, you will recognize the verb form of the word "friend" as a method of making contact using facebook. It makes me think of Jesus as a member of facebook, and makes me wonder what his profile would look like. Here's a sample of a guess:

Whaddya think?

Now, there is a serious challenge in these verses as well - a way of thinking of friendship as a deeper thing than we usually allow.

Are you up to it?

Am I?

In the News Again

For those of you who read the articles from my previous post, especially the Pew Research survey on torture, here is a followup analysis: by Susan Brooks Thistlewaite, former president of Chicago Theological Seminary. I admit, the Pew Research results have been bothering me for days, and I couldn't come up with a satisfactory explanation for the results. How can we simultaneously worship the most famous victim of government-sponsored torture, and yet wish it to be performed on others? But I think Ms. Thistlewaite has it pegged. What do you think?

In the News

There have been some excellent articles on Christian faith lately, and I wanted to include them here for you to read. In the Washington Post is an article written by Bart Ehrman, a religion professor at UNC Chapel Hill. He writes that Christianity does not stand and fall with the Bible - a theme we have addressed a few times in our Sunday school class.

An op-ed by Charles Blow in the New York Times addresses the phenomenon of the flight of the unchurched to church. It's good news for churches!

And a fascinating survey by Pew Research that shows the more people attend church, the more likely they are to support torture. However, I proudly note that mainline Protestants seem to be an exception.

Today in Poverty: Presbyterian Bloggers Unite

Today, eMMAUS is participating in a one-day "poverty blog" initiated by Presbyterian Bloggers Unite. This is part of an effort to build awareness of the ways that the Presbyterian Church (USA) communities address issues of poverty and to offer ways to mobilize efforts.

Poverty has been much in the news lately. The economy is affecting our incomes, our retirement accounts, our health insurance, and our charitable giving. It is also affecting our government's priorities: non-essential government spending is being cut and school budgets are being slashed as our elected leaders try to figure out how to do more with less.

It's easy to develop tunnel vision and believe that the economy is only affecting us in the U.S. However, our aid to foreign nations will be greatly affected by the economy. In 2000, the nations of the world, including the U.S., agreed to a platform of action known at the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. These 8 goals were collectively designed to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. Christians around the world have committed themselves to achieving these goals, and the goals have been endorsed by PCUSA. The 8 stated goals are:

1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger: Halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015; Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education: Ensure that by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005 and in all levels of education by 2015
4. Reduce Child Mortality: Reduce by 2/3 the under-5 mortality rate by 2015
5. Improve Maternal Health: Reduce by ¾ the maternal mortality rate by 2015
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases: By 2015 halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS; By 2015 halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources; Halve by 2015 the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation; By 2020 achieve a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development with Targets for Aid, Trade and Debt Relief: Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system; Address the special needs both of the least developed countries and of landlocked and small island developing states; Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable; Develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth; Provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries; Make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications

I wonder how we are progressing on the 8 goals - 2015 is not too far away. Leading economists since the 1970s have agreed that if each wealthy nation gives 0.7% of its national income for investments in infrastructure, health, and education in poor nations, those poor nations would be able to become self-sufficient. In 2004, 5 countries gave at the target rate of 0.7%: Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, & Luxembourg. The U.S. gave less than 0.2%, and has rarely given more than 0.2% since the 1970s.

So, when reflecting on poverty today, remember that although times are tough in our own country, there are a great number of people in the world who have been suffering for generations, with no end in sight.

How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 1 John 3:17-18