No Chicken Sandwich for Sabbath

Dear Sabbath Seekers,

I was home from college on winter break many decades ago when I stopped by the Fishkins' for a visit. Art and Jane Fishkin were the parents of my high school classmate Charlie, and I had been a guest at their Passover table for many years. Charlie was my former debate partner; we both left for the University of Chicago and were sharing an apartment on Ellis Avenue in Hyde Park with a third roommate, Jim Smither (Hinsdale Central, '78). Art and Jane rushed to greet me. Hellos at the Fishkin household were not for the faint at heart; they involved hugs and backslaps that left the greeted gasping for air.

Art and Jane were excited and proud that I was considering a career in pastoral ministry, occasionally calling me a future ‘Protestant rabbi,’ and followed my progress from college through graduate school and ordination as if I were their adopted son. They were Orthodox Jews but decidedly not Zionist; these were the days when that was not considered an oxymoron. Jane was constantly sharing books and articles with me on positive Christian-Jewish dialogue, and they were both extremely delighted to discover my choice to be ordained Presbyterian as it was (and is) the only major denomination to require Hebrew language study for ordination. 

On this particular visit, Jane had another book to gift me. It was an autographed copy of Dennis Prager’s Nine Questions People Ask about Judaism(with Joseph Telushkin, Holiday House, 1981). It was a good read, and I finished it before driving back to Hyde Park with Charlie and his brother Jim, who we dropped off in Iowa City where he was working on a degree in Political Science.

This whole musing flashed into my head this morning when I was reading an article about Chick-fil-A’s corporate choice to remain closed on Sunday. Truett Cathy, Chick-fil-A’s founder (d. 2014), was a conservative Baptist who wanted to ‘honor the Lord’ by not conducting commerce on Sundays, and his sons maintain the corporate policy as a requirement for franchise ownership. The article, from Business Insider, suggested that the practice of Sunday closing, established for moral reasons, was also part of the formula for Chick-fil-A’s success. Offering a stable day-off for franchise owners and employees made scheduling easier and strengthened staff loyalty. Additionally, the article said, creating a weekly scarcity for the product built customer enthusiasm for the brand.

I thought back to Jane’s gift to me, Prager’s book, because question nine was, “How do I Start Practicing Judaism?” and the second answer to that question started with Sabbath observance. For Prager, keeping the Sabbath day holy (commandment #4) was only partially about commerce; it was more about mindset. One day a week we refrained from creating in order to be blessed by creation. Prager suggested Sabbath observance was more about shifting spiritual energy than restricting behaviors. So, on the Sabbath we should enjoy great meals prepared the day before and dishes done after sunset to dine undistracted by cleaning and cooking. We should walk through nature and celebrate the garden rather than arriving to pull weeds. Sabbath observance is setting aside creative activity in order to receive the benefits of creation. Read but don’t write, sing but don’t rehearse, converse with your family but don’t teach, beand not do.

It saddens me that the corporate families of Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby have led us to associate Sunday closing with an anti-woman, anti-gay social agenda, perhaps because for them it is an expression of prohibition rather than liberation. Freed from the tyranny of seven-day-a-week productivity, the fourth commandment invites us to unite with creation rather than assert our dominion over it. It is a model set for us by the Holy One (Exodus 20.11).

Seeking Sabbath rest from a busy week, I remain, 

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor

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Conspiring for Camp
Conspiring for Camp

Dear Happy Campers: 

In 1930, Walter Strong, publisher of the Chicago Daily News, constructed his country getaway summer home for his wife Josephine and their five children. Josephine’s brother, architect Maurice Webster, designed the home to resemble a Tudor castle, knowing Strong’s affection for his European travel and the writings of Sir Walter Scott. Quarried from local limestone, the house sits on a perch above the Rock River with sixteen bedrooms, nine baths, eight fireplaces, gargoyles and several playful secret passageways. Strong, however, never fully enjoyed this fanciful retreat house, as he died suddenly in 1931. 

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FPCLG Election Strategy

Dear Election Deniers:

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No Obligation Subscription - Hoping Inspiration Works
No Obligation Subscription - Hoping Inspiration Works

Dear Subscribers:

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If You Don't Feel Full, It's not Righteous

Dear Hangry Diners: 

Having just stepped away from my morning news feed, I’m inclined to observe that the world is a mess. Of course, 24-hour news cycles and constant doom scrolling would lead even the most stable among us to become unmoored, assuming the great apocalypse is only moments away. But that’s how it works when attention is monetized. The financial incentives are out of whack—the purpose of information is not to keep me informed, but to keep me glued, to awaken in me an insatiable hunger for the next screen. I’m ashamed to admit how well it works, because even as I write this I am tempted to click back on the updates of some story, issue, poll or commentary. It all triggers in me a

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Dear Real Intelligence (RI?) Seekers:

Last year my brother Bruce (Prof. Emeritus electrical engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, and Founding Director CMU Africa) was interviewed by CNBC Africa regarding current technological developments on the continent. In the interview, which may be found here, he discussed the importance of context in Artificial Intelligence (AI) learning models. In our conversations, my brother has talked about the vast difference between American and European AI models and African continental models relating to everything from logistics to health care to banking. 

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One Painting is Not an Exhibition

Dear Art Dealers, 

From 1870 to 1871, impressionist painter Claude Monet lived in London, where he had arrived from Paris in self-imposed exile to avoid conscription in the Franco-Prussian War. That first exposure to London’s smoggy air inspired the young artist, who was fascinated by what the moisture and pollution did to the refraction of light. After returning to Paris, Monet was determined to revisit London, which he did many times over the subsequent decades.

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Don't Try to Be Happy

Dear Happy(?) Campers:

Happiness is a byproduct, not a goal. I heard that quote during a podcast interview last week and it is stuck in my head. 

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Leisure, A Sign of Failure?

Dear Busybodies, 

Labor Day—that last gasp of summer as we slip our summer whites into storage and prepare for the seasonal responsibilities of harvest. A day for workers to set aside the drudgery of Mondays for one fleeting glimpse of how life could always be had we been born into the luxury of the leisure class. Except these days we no longer mark success as freedom from responsibility, but rather prove our worth by a flurry of perpetual busyness.

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Wishing It Were True

Dear Seekers:

This past week I attended a required clergy continuing education program hosted by the Presbytery of Chicago. A portion of the day was devoted to helping us understand the importance of monitoring our stress. When we are under pressure, we are more likely to violate the personal boundaries of others; we become less supportive of their needs, and our tolerance for their behavior wears thin. At the same time, the presenters wanted us to appreciate how stress helps us grow, building our resilience, so they offered this illustration...

Biosphere 2 was a research project constructed in the Arizona desert in the late 1980s to determine if it was possible to create a closed ecological system which, in the future, might sustain human life on other planets. It’s a massive domed structure that replicates

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The Gospel of Success

Dear Wealthy Investors:

If you’ve missed the fact that I think a “prosperity gospel” is heresy, then we haven’t talked. Religious hucksters have been around since the beginning of time. Even the early church struggled with that brand of phony. 

In Acts 4.32, we’re told how many people sold property to place the money before the Apostles so they could distribute it to any who were in need. In Acts chapter 5, Ananias and his wife Sapphira wanted in on the action. Christians were digging deep to support the work of the early church. So Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property, but they held back

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The Pervasive Power of Patrons

Dear Political Patrons:

I’m not a Chicago native, but I’ve spent nearly three times as many years as a resident of the Windy City as I had in my hometown of Omaha, and all of that time on the South Side (if one counts Hyde Park as the South Side). When I arrived in Hyde Park, Michael Bilandic was Mayor, and the fact that he was Croatian was of little consequence to my newfound awareness of Chicago politics. The Irish were kings of the South Side ever since Mayor Richard J. Daley’s mother, Lillian, announced that she wanted more for her son than being a policeman. Richard J. didn’t disappoint.

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When Spiritual Misses the Religious

Dear Collective Clergy:

As you may gather from my sermons over the past several weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot about community, about interdependence, about sharing. Perhaps because there are few things less independent or self-sufficient than caring for someone who is ill; or perhaps because I am old enough to realize there are some things I will never accomplish in this life. Whatever the reason, I’ve been musing about how spirituality has become a personal responsibility. We’ve privatized it. We are taught that each of us is responsible for working out our own salvation, our prayer life, our meditation, our scriptural devotion, even our emotional health and faith. I’m not so sure that’s right.

Much of this started with the Reformation. The reformers denounced the special position priests held in mediating God’s presence for the people through the

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A Little Love Note to a Church

Dear, Dear Friends:

Letters from the pastor are traditionally epistles of reprimand. Seeing oneself as constrained by a stiff-necked people, the pastor attempts to write the congregation into submission. Confident that the only limit to their ministerial wonderfulness is spiritual stubbornness, they dedicate their pens and preaching to browbeat the very congregation to which they are called. I sometimes wonder how church members tolerate such dismissive paternalism. There must be something irresistible in the friendships, or the choir rehearsals, or the coffee that brings people back to endure their weekly scolding. I have on occasion, submitted my congregations to such smug condescending judgmentalism, and now looking back, I am sorry. My regret arises not only from the absurdity of ‘biting the hands that feed me,’ but

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Is Our Welcome Upside Down?

Dear Welcoming Worshipers:

This may come as a bit of a surprise, but occasionally I muse about things other than political temperament or cultural erosion; sometimes I muse about the church—and not just its niche in society or role in public discourse. I sometimes think about how we ‘do’ church and how we ‘are’ church.

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The centerpiece of our community in both energy and focus is our gathering

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Pointless Performative Posting

Dear Fatigued Faithful:

Now that the state of Louisiana has codified posting the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom, attention has been given to commandments 7 (Thou shalt not commit adultery) and 9 (Thou shalt not bear false witness) and whether or not the politicians who endorse the policy live up to these commands. Those who defend the posting of the Decalogue claim it is a bedrock document of American law, and as such a piece of history without religious prejudice. My musing over this issue, and the recent state school superintendent of Oklahoma mandating the teaching of the Bible in schools, has less to do with the documents themselves and more to do with the qualifications of those who will interpret their meaning for young minds.

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Requiem For The Horde

Dear Bugged Ones: 

As many as 1.5 million cicadas per acre emerged a few weeks ago in our region of Illinois. With great anticipation, people dreaded the endless sound of their mating screech. It was amazing how finding a single cicada in the house and courting him outside could fill the air with so much noise. While larger than most bugs, it still seemed to emit more sound than its size could resonate. The crunching sound too—of thousands of exoskeletons littering the sidewalks—created its own fascinating cringe.  

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Equipped for Ministry?

Dear Keepers of the Faith:

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Cleaning our Plates

Dear Dinner Guests,

Beginning this coming Sunday, June 9, our Adult Education program will feature a series of speakers discussing the lingering spiritual and emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These presentations will rely on materials and research prepared for the spring conference that didn’t happen due to low enrollment. I reflected on possible reasons for our collective disinterest a few weeks back in an essay linked here, and it is quite possible these Sunday post-worship gatherings will garner the same lackluster participation. But in consultation with our Adult Ministry Moderator Joe Yount, we’ve decided to try anyway, because we believe these conversations will be good for you—think of it as educational broccoli.

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Jesus Our Mother Prays for Us

Greetings, Praying Parents:

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A Recipe for Reconciliation Has a Starting Point

Dear Non-Conference Non-Attendees:

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Thoughts and Prayers or Thoughtful Prayer?

Dear Deep Intercessors:

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A Taxing Responsibility

Dear Taxing Filers:

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Keep Looking Up, at least until you're tired
Keep Looking Up, at least until you're tired

Dear Sunward Gazers,

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You Raise Me Up, Because?

Dear Sitters:

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In Gratitude for Your Manifestation of God's Presence
In Gratitude for Your Manifestation of God's Presence

Dear Ones:

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March 9, 2024. Dropping the Mask: A COVID Remembrance - what we lost, what we learned
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Dear Past Pandemic Prospectors,

Four years ago, during the second week of March 2020, the world underwent a profound transformation. Restaurants, schools, libraries, museums, churches, offices, sports arenas—any place where people gathered—shut down for nearly two years. Social connections were reduced to glowing screens, loved ones were glimpsed behind closed windows, learning was confined to laptops, and touch was abandoned. The world functioned at a distance, and remote living seemed safer.

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Knowing Everything/Knowing Nothing
Knowing Everything/Knowing Nothing

Dear God Lovers:

I seldom experience past sermon preparation bleeding over into my Monday brain—by Sunday afternoon I’ve pretty much exhausted all interest in that morning’s texts, and I attempt to create some headspace to welcome the following week’s passages. But yesterday’s epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 8.1-13 has left some spiritual residue about which I have been musing.

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