Theology where?
Thinking ahead from writing this, I realize that many of you will be reading it on the day it comes out in St. Paul’s e-News, when we also have one of our Theology Pub outings. That St. Paul institution is one I inherited when I arrived in 2019. I took it on gladly, I must say; theology and pubs are “two of my favorite things!”
Beyond my personal affections, though, there’s something about Theology Pub that seems right for the church. Bringing our deepest questions, wildest ideas, most irksome anxieties, and profound commitments together in the casual, everyday, middle of life that a pub embodies is theology at its most engaged.
In the Lutheran tradition, and the Reformation more broadly, pulling theology out of the scholar’s study and the bishop’s cathedral was a central theme. Translating the Bible into the common language, so that one didn’t need to know Latin to read it, was one of Luther’s earliest major projects. Lifting up the work of common people–laborers, clerks, homemakers, even brewers (!)–as not just jobs but vocations, callings from God to exercise one’s gifts to benefit the community, was a central theme. Focusing faith on the gracious act of God to redeem and save us, rather than on the church’s mediations and machinations by which to gain God’s blessing, lies at the heart of the entire movement. In this tradition, if the gospel is not walking the street and chatting in the public square, it is not touching human life where God would have it.
The image is clear already in Scripture. God accompanied biblical Israel through the wilderness for forty years, not because they lost their way but because they faltered in their following–and yet God stayed with them. The prophets spoke to kings and commanders, judges and priests, about the most pressing issues of their day. Although Jesus may be most famous as a teacher for the Sermon on the Mount, our current Sunday readings follow him “through one town and village after another” as he makes his way to Jerusalem (Luke 13:22). The Apostle Paul got “down and dirty” about food, hair, sex, boasting, lawsuits, slavery, and more in working out what Jesus-faith meant for his communities.
This isn’t only about Theology Pub. It’s also about people planting gardens and delivering food with Tapestry Farms. It’s about youth on mission trips and the Appalachian Service team currently in Virginia. It’s about book groups reading all manner of fiction and nonfiction, about Soil Stewards with dirty fingernails, about a preschool program and hospital visitors and Confirmation sponsors and soup kitchen volunteers and so much more. Some people might say that these widespread, community-focused ministries somehow make St. Paul a special place. Rather, I would suggest, they make it a faithful place with an energetic, creative edge.
We gather week by week for worship, receiving what God offers as sustenance and renewal. At the end of each service, we hear the urging, “Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” To the pub or wherever, let us go, indeed, taking the gospel into our lives and communities.
Nancy Ingelson
…our deepest questions, wildest ideas, most irksome anxieties and profound commitments…” pretty much covers what and who we humans are, Pastor! May we work to turn more spaces into
Theology Pubs 🙂
Linda Creighton
I just love to listen to you speak & write, I learn so much, thank you! As it has been said so many time before you are going to be so missed!
Paul Bieber
Theology pub is terrific, extremely enjoyable. Pastor Pettit will be greatly missed!