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The Lord's Prayer - New Zeland-Style

This morning during my homily on Luke 11:1-13 we discussed the power and use-fullness of prayer - and specifically about the Lord's Prayer, and different interpretations and translations from the Gospels and other sources.  As part of that discussion, I shared this version from the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer:

Photo-75Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and for ever. Amen. 

We'll be using this version in worship the next several months.  Why not continue with a more traditional version?  I'm sure we'll return to that.  But there is something powerful in expressing prayer in new terms - it forces us to think more deeply about what we're reciting and the meaning behind it all.


Sin and Public Life

It is vital that all of us, whether or not we hold positions of leadership, are held accountable for personal transgressions.  Accountability becomes even more important when those who wield authority – politicians, clergy, business leaders and others – abuse that authority for personal gain.  In the language of the church, we are talking about matters of sin.  All of us, at various levels, fall short.

A century ago, Walter Rauschenbusch, talking about the Social Gospel movement that remains an important source of inspiration in the theological life of the church today (using the language of the time that was non-inclusive) noted that sin is not just about mistakes made by individuals but also about mistakes made by societies and governments that harm the common good:

RB
Walter Rauschenbusch
"The social gospel is the old message of salvation, but enlarged and intensified. The individualistic gospel has taught us to see the sinfulness of every human heart and has inspired us with faith in the willingness and power of God to save every soul that comes to him. But it has not given us an adequate understanding of the sinfulness of the social order and its share in the sins of all individuals within it. It has not evoked faith in the will and power of God to redeem the permanent institutions of human society from their inherited guilt of oppression and extortion. Both our sense of sin and our faith in salvation have fallen short of the realities under its teaching. The social gospel seeks to bring men under repentance for their collective sins and to create a more sensitive and more modern conscience. It calls on us for the faith of the old prophets who believed in the salvation of nations." (Rauschenbush, A Theology For The Social Gospel, 1917)

Still today, we pay far too much attention to personal sin – often times matters that should remain private and within the confines of family conversations with clergy and perhaps therapists.  This is not an effort on my part to excuse bad behavior.  Sometimes such behavior crosses such a threshold that it remains impossible for people in positions of authority to maintain their positions because for their personal gain they have used their positions to further relationships or financial dealings, or engage in abuse, that is unethical and raise questions about overall judgment.  We have seen this from certain Wall Street bankers, clergy pedophiles, and politicians like Bob Packwood and others. 

As a society, however, we fall short in recognizing societal sin and the role we all play in that.  Which is the worse sin: the politician who engages in an affair with another consenting adult or the politician who votes to cut food assistance to children or prenatal care for pregnant women (or the public that re-elects that politician)?  If a politician misuses their office for personal gain perhaps they deserve the 24/7 news cycle that inevitably follows.  In a more moral society, however, that same news attention – that same sense of scandal – should follow those political, business and religious leaders who participate in or advocate for sinful economic systems that create poverty, climate change, war and other forms of human suffering. 

Recognizing that, in theological terms, we all sin, perhaps in addition to holding our leaders accountable when they fail we should throw fewer stones and find ways to offer compassion (hard as that might be) even as we take steps to restore the public trust when it becomes broken.  There is too much glee in throwing people in with the lions when all of us, and I include myself, fail to measure up to the covenantal responsibilities put before us to make the world a better and more just place.    


Statement on Homeless Campers at Portland City Hall

Statement on Homeless Campers at Portland City Hall
by Rev. Chuck Currie

July 22, 2013

The homeless campers around Portland City Hall are a minor symptom of a larger problem: our inability to address the crisis of affordable housing plus the growing problems of poverty, unemployment, mental illness, addiction, and the needs of returning veterans and homeless students. The Portland-area needs a permanent source of funding to create affordable housing, either a housing levy or some other funding source, and after that we need a permanent source of funding to beef up the safety net that year after year faces cuts that create a climate of crisis in our social service delivery system. Mayor Hales and the Portland City Council are to be applauded for not cutting safety net programs during a difficult budget year but that isn’t enough. Arresting people and creating new ordinances to criminalize homelessness are short sighted and tired solutions that may answer sometimes valid concerns of downtown and inner-city neighbors who don’t like the crisis of homelessness on their front door or in their back yard but it does nothing to solve the problem and will only continue a pattern of moving people from one neighborhood to another. I would urge Mayor Charlie Hales to bring representatives of the Metro region jurisdictions together with the faith and business communities to consider bolder and more far reaching solutions that create real and lasting change. The moral obligation of any city is to end homelessness, not just manage it. 

Rev. Chuck Currie, Minister, Sunnyside Church and University Park Church, Portland, Ore.

The Courts Failed Trayvon Martin: Can the Church Step Up?

My latest in The Huffington Post:

"As a minister, I want both reconciliation and justice. If you think there is no racism in this nation, you are willfully blind. If you believe there has been no progress towards racial justice, your eyes are not open. But we are still far from being the Beloved Community and the fact that a boy with iced tea and candy could die while doing nothing illegal, and his killer walk free, is evidence of that."

The Courts Failed Trayvon Martin: Can the Church Step Up?


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad


People of Faith: Fight Poverty By Supporting The Half In Ten Act

We've watched poverty grow ever since 2001.  Without President Obama's effort that growth would even be more stark.  But we need a plan to reduce poverty, not just slow the growth, and that is why the National Council of Churches and other people of faith, are supporting the Half in Ten Campaign.  Now is your turn.  Your member of Congress needs to hear that you want them to co-sponsor the Half in Ten Act of 2013.

Action Alert from the Half in Ten Campaign

HalfInTenAct-RevCCurrie-webversionOn May 23, 2013, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) introduced the Half in Ten Act of 2013, calling for poverty reduction to be a national priority. This bill will help mobilize public and political will toward our shared goal of dramatically cutting poverty over the next decade and promoting shared economic growth that renews the American Dream. 

By creating a Federal Interagency Working Group, a coordinated effort across federal departments and offices charged with developing within six months a national strategy to cut poverty in half in 10 years and eliminate child poverty and extreme poverty in our nation, the bill promotes accountability for progress by helping identify problems and successful initiatives and ensures that those with the greatest barriers to joining the middle class are included in efforts to create greater opportunity for all.

Importantly, the bill recognizes that cutting poverty in half in 10 years will require steps to create good, family-supporting jobs as well as to strengthen our network of work and income supports to provide greater economic security to millions of families.

We must build support for this critical legislation and for the policies that will enable us to reach the Half in Ten target. Poverty must be a national priority, and the Half in Ten Act of 2013 is the first step. But this will only happen if we tell our elected representatives to support the bill.

Take action now and urge your member of Congress to support the Half in Ten Act of 2013!