That Guy

Well, the presents are under the tree. Evidently Santa has arrived. Many of our family members and church family members have helped to make this another wonderful christmas. There are, thankfully, presents under the tree. Can't wait to see the kids faces.

That said, there's a new sense of hope in the air. This was the first christmas in many many years where we didn't add to the red side of the balance sheet. More notably, I've been blessed to see several mini-miracles; like the one at church tonight.

During the Children and Family Christmas Eve service, a collection of coats was taken up to benefit the people served by the Salvation Army. Most of the children had been invited last week to bring a new or gently used coat to donate for a child in need. This little girl's family didn't know about the collection, though. Probably their first time attending anything at our church. The little girl had a coat, though: the one she wore to the service. She looked at her mom, and in a whisper asked if it was OK. Her mom nodded that it was. Indeed it was. She left her own coat for another child to benefit from.

It was a chilly night tonight. Not freezing, but not warm either. The little girl probably had goose bumps on her way to her car. But she warmed the hearts of a blessed few who had the eyes to watch a Christmas miracle unfold, and her gift will warm the body of a blessed girl somewhere. That little girl won't know the story, but it will warm her just the same.

Then there's the call from an old friend - haven't spoken with him in more than a year; there's the offer from someone at church to help us do some last minute preparing; there's the divinely-infused conversation earlier this evening; there's the gift card that I re-gifted that bought a badly needed pair of shoes; the 'here's a little something' presents from Benson memorial folks;

I know in the last post, I said I was 'that guy'. I think I still am. We are still that family. Nothing much has changed. Even when I was seeing the role with tears in my eyes, God invited our family to be faithful. All we decided to do, together, was to wait and see what happened. It was worth the wait.

Merry Christmas

Just which Christmas is it beginning to look like?

We live in a world of contrasts. Just this past Sunday, within the span of a few brief moments, one of those contrasts drove me to tears.

Our senior pastor, Skip Williams, was delivering a fine example of an Advent sermon. During the sermon, he told the obligatory story of Christmas morning - children, gathered around the tree, looking at the piles of presents, drooling and squealing with the anticipation of tearing through them. His encouragement was to pause, and to read the Christmas story in Luke's gospel, and to pray. Wise advice, indeed.

A few minutes later in the service, as is the custom at our church, some of our members performed a "modern nativity", replacing the angel in the Christmas story with a Wake Med Life-flight nurse, shepherds with a wounded vet and a fireman, wise men with a business man and a doctor. And Mary and Joseph were recently homeless from the foreclosure crisis, living out of a suitcase with their very much alive (and very cute) baby "Jesus".

This year, Christmas won't be easy for my family. We really haven't been able to put away much for presents or Christmas travel, and in all seriousness, for the first time in my life, I'm not sure where the money for Christmas presents is going to come from.

That meant that I was a blubbering mess in church last Sunday; I was moved to tears. I'm a paycheck away from being 'that family'. I stand at a distance, almost from outside the windows, gazing at families with mountains of perfect gifts piled under the tree. I tremble at the thought that somehow I won't be able to provide the best Christmas ever. When the overwhelming voice of our culture screams "Make your kids happy by having lots of gifts under the tree", while the overwhelming Christian culture overwhelmingly screams, "In your perfectly decorated house, make sure you have a beautiful austere manger scene displayed", in the midst of the din the silent night, the lonely cold cave, the unwed mother, the uncomfortable newborn, the temporarily homeless parents, the poor shepherds, are so easily drowned out. It becomes, for those who find themselves outside the reach of the cozy hearths, a question of faith: just who is God with, anyway? With the 'us' that devours it's presents, or with the 'us' that stares longlingly from the outside in, taking only warm comfort in the assurance that God might have come to be even with us? A study in contrasts, indeed.

Complete Joy - 4/19/09 Sermon - Part 3

This morning, I was tempted to share with you a long litany of the lives that have been changed as a result of God’s working through this church, through the church. Make no mistake, that litany was a long one. There are many wonderful stories of testimony, of courageous action in the name of Christ, of the life-giving power of God manifest in our midst. Praising our WIHN efforts, our children’s ministry, our scouting program, our Sunday School. All of those beacons of light, reflections of the divine in our midst. I was trying my best to follow the form of this letter of 1 John:
"Concerning that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen and with our hands we have touched, which we have looked at an now proclaim"
But I think If that was the sermon I would have preached, we would have missed the point. 1 John talks about God’s light, and an awareness of our own sin as being necessary for true fellowship and complete joy.
So, it seems to me that a better, more glorious sermon, a sermon that is true to the spirit of 1 John, would be to discuss our shortcomings. The things that set the alarms off from within. An acknowledgement that we’re not there yet – we’re not even close.

This fellowship – it’s made up of people with rough edges. The people who have been here for awhile know the rough spots we’ve been through. While most folks come here dressed up, all the folks here are up to their eyeballs in sin. Not all of us cheat on our taxes, very few of us (I hope) are murderers or serial killers, the great majority of us really do try to honor our fathers and mothers, but when you shine God’s light into the deep recesses of our hearts, it’s not very pretty. We’re all the same in that regard. Different sins, same sinful nature. We all stand in need of mercy before God. And yet, some here are the recipients of complete joy. Honest fellowship. The ones who experience this peace, this joy, this unity, they get what brother 1 John is telling us – we’re not perfect. We need Jesus. Now get out there and find some other folks who need to hear that or who already live it.

I close with this illustration. I’ve got two kinds of materials here. I want to make something strong. Something that will hold up under pressure. Something that will weather the storms of life. Here’s one material – a plastic Easter Egg. It’s shiny – smooth – put together. Quite nicely. It’s very pretty to look at. But if you want to make something out of it that will last, well, good luck.

Here’s another material – a rough jagged stone. Dirty. Rough edges. Who knows where it’s been. But look at how well it fits together. Imagine 3 or 4 hundred of these stacked together – and you’ve got yourself by the grace of God – something that lasts.

On Christ the solid rock we stand – all other ground is sinking sand. Brothers and sisters, I share with you what I have seen and heard and touched – concerning the word of life – that we may have true fellowship with the one who is before all things and with one another, and that our joy may be complete. Amen.

(Stone Wall picture from North Wales Picture Library, Paul Mattock)http://www.northwalespicturelibrary.co.uk/Landscape%20folder/pages/stone%20wall(toned)%20copy.html

Complete Joy - 4-19-09 Sermon - Part 2

(This sermon is based on 1 John 1:1 - 2:2)

Concerning that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen and with our hands we have touched, which we have looked at an now proclaim
Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance, where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor disturbance. Where there is poverty with joy, there is neither covetousness nor avarice, Where there is inner peace and meditation, there is neither anxiousness nor dissipation . . . Where there is mercy and discernment, there is neither excess nor hardness of heart. (St Francis of Assisi, Francis and Clare, p. 35, as printed in the People’s Companion to the Breviary, p. 431)
I know a man whose life became one of fear and trepidation when he received news from the IRS that his tax records didn’t add up, and he was being audited. It caused fear in the depths of his heart because he really did have something to hide – evidently the numbers looked suspicious because he was not being honest. He was not being honest because he believed he needed the money more than the government did. But, to be honest, he didn’t want to tell the government that. He chose to hide it from them. Truth be told, that kind of cowardly self-confidence was pervasive in his life, and it keeps him bound in some measure of fear.
I know of another man who suspected his elementary school daughter stole something. He came down very hard on her. Thing about it is, I also know because of his boasting that he didn’t report all of his income this year. I find the two positions grossly inconsistent.

1 John 1:8-10
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

Contrast that with a movie I watched this week – I finally got around to watching Ben Kingsley’s marvelous portrayal of Mahatma Ghandi. As an Indian native in South Africa during the time of apartheid, there is a scene in which Ghandi speaks out against the pass system. The South African government was requiring that all Indian folks carry a pass and be fingerprinted like criminals. Ghandi organized a small rally to protest the system, and proceeded to burn his pass in public, the police standing by to discourage such insurrection. Perhaps if you’ve seen the movie, you remember the scene, Ghandi loudly proclaiming the reason for his defiant action, then placing his pass in the fire. The police responding with a sharp blow to his arm. When Ghandi reaches with the other arm to burn the pass, he is struck again. He reaches to burn another pass. He is struck again. There is great courage in his actions – fully transparent – not fearing any punishment his captors could inflict. Not lashing out or attempting to retaliate against the authorities, trusting that the ultimate good for which he stands will win out over the violent system of oppression.

1 John 1:5-7
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

What really impressed me about Ghandi in the movie, though, was what happened when the nonviolent movement that he started became violent. I had learned somewhere that Ghandi had used a hunger strike as part of his protest against British rule. What the movie portrayed was that Ghandi decided to fast – to go without food – because his own movement had lost its way – the people that were fighting for his own ends had gotten caught up in sinning. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, he said. The sin was not out there, it was also inside.

Complete Joy - 4-19-09 Sermon -- Part 1

As some of you know, Benson Memorial is the second church that Amy and I have served. Our first church was Rush Chapel United Methodist Church – a beautiful small old country church in Northwest Georgia. Rush Chapel was a country church. We were moving from the big city to the country, and Rush Chapel had a parsonage right across the road. From a suburban neighborhood cul-de-sac to a beautiful, albeit rural country road. Just up the road was a trailer park – in fact many of our neighbors lived in mobile home trailers – single or double-wide models, that had been endowed with some sense of permanence by the addition of a wood deck or skirting around the bottom. This was to be a far different neighborhood, and I dare say it was going to take some getting used to.

As we met with the super-caring people of Rush Chapel about the parsonage and the preparations for our arrival, a few things became evident. First of all, we were the first young family to have lived in the parsonage for about 2 decades. Secondly, we weren’t from around there. The parsonage was in a state of disrepair. We spent the summer cleaning it up. But it needed a few more significant improvements – namely a fenced yard and an alarm system. As parents of two toddlers – Amy and I were concerned that our young wandering ones would wander right down our little hill and out into the country road, where one of the area Dukes of Hazard wannabe’s would be driving too fast. The other improvement was an alarm system. Maybe we’d watched too many movies, but our suburban house had had an alarm system, and we felt like we needed one on that dark country hill even more. Well, we compromised on the fenced yard – and they built a nice deck with a railing around it and a gate – it proved to be a good container for our young wanderers – keeping them from straying down the hill, and providing a barrier against the roaming packs of neighborhood dogs who included our house and yard in their territory. And we got an alarm system, complete with glass break sensors that listened all the time and gave us some peace of mind. And we all lived happily ever after.
Now, you know how kids are. Every once in awhile, they call for you in the middle of the night – for a glass of water, or because of the dreaded nightmare. It was on one particular night that little Grace had a bad dream. Evidently it was the mother of all bad dreams, because she woke up screaming. That woke us up, of course, but evidently not fast enough, because before we could get there, she racheted up the screaming, evidently to a pitch that matched the sound of breaking glass. Because in addition to her screaming came the deafening siren of our alarm system. Which woke up Noah and started him to screaming. The phone rings, of course, because the alarm company has been notified, and I’m sure there was some cursing because of a stubbed toe, and soon the whole event goes down in the annals of the loudest nights ever spent in a parsonage.

The other thing that happened, not too long afterwards, was that Noah as a 4 year old was climbing on the railing – riding it like a horse – harmless, really, and within arms reach of the gardening that Amy and I were doing; but as he went to get down he miscalculated, his legs didn’t catch him, and he landed the wrong way on his arm, breaking it clean across.
Well, that reminiscing was fun for me – but it does have another point. We get so worried about what’s out there, when the real threats come from within. We were worried about wild dogs, but it was gravity that got Noah’s arm. We were worried about robbers in the night – the alarms were triggered by our own actions.

All In

Last week I spent a lot of time reflecting on a sermon that I told on February 22. The main illustration in that story was my own experience as an adolescent, considering a jump from a hayloft on my grandfather's farm.

I sat there for what must have been hours, considering carefully the
age-old question: to jump or not to jump. It was a beautiful day, and I
had nothing but time. It was mid summer. The northern Michigan
hardwoods in full green. The fallow fields of grasses swaying in the
wind. Two cows - black and white - grazing in the pasture. Earlier
that week they had been my bbgun targets. They seemed not to mind - the
sting from a horsefly (why didn't they call them cowflies?) posing a
more startling irritation than the gentle thwack of a bb.
(Incidentally, a bbgun will do a lot more damage to the window of a 57 Chevy
pickup than it will to a cow's hide). I sat on the weathered wood
with my legs dangling over the edge, considering the possibilities for failure
in my leap of faith. I could catch my pants on a nail or splinter.
The impact might break my leg. I could twist an ankle on a hidden
rock. I could end up with a mouth full of cow manure. I considered,
too, the prospects of glory: Having done it; having overcome some
fear; flying for a few brief moments; bragging rights with my brother;
knowing that I would add some measure of legitimacy to my pursuit of
my grandfather's heroic childhood tales.

At the first service, I told the congregation the outcome of my boyhood adventure, but at the second service, I omitted the final detail - did I jump or not? I left them hanging - unintentionally. On the way out of the service, at least 25 people asked me whether I jumped or not, and several waited more than a week with the question still with them.

Unfortunately, however, the sermon was not primarily about my boyhood leap. It was a faith analogy - and quite an obvious one at that. Now I know that the hearers are intelligent people, and the analogy wasn't lost on their ears. But isn't it a powerful commentary how we take such great interest in the heroic (or foolish) adventures of others, as distractions from answering our own hard questions?

So many people that day commented with a knowing grin, "So I just have to ask you, did you jump?" And in retrospect, my reply ought to have been, "You tell me first. In your faith journey, have you gone all in? Have you weighed the options and taken the leap, come what may? If you won't tell me, I won't tell you."

Mark 11:27 and following says,

They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus
was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law
and the elders came to him. "By what authority are you doing these
things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do
this?"

Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John's baptism -- was it from heaven, or from men?
Tell me!"

They discussed it among themselves and said, "If we say, "From heaven, he will ask, "Then why didn't you believe him? But if we say, 'rom Men' . . . " (they feared the people, for everyone held that John really was a prophet.)

So they answered Jesus, "We don't know."

Jesus said, "Neither will I tell you by what
authority I am doing these things."

There's something about committing to the journey before the treasures of faith are revealed. The Fellowship of the Ring wouldn't have existed without Frodo's leap. Neo wouldn't have been able to discover the secrets of the Matrix without choosing the pill of no return. Kate Winslett's character on the Titanic wouldn't have tasted the fullness of life had she not gone below decks to dance with the fiddlers. We won't discover the fullness God has to offer without coming down off the fence, without leaping from our figurative haylofts.

Grace and Peace,
Ed

Many thanks for the photo, entitled "MJ Jumps" by Anna Pieka Valentine, used by permission. http://www.flickr.com/photos/annapiekavalentine/2934256901/

Uncomfortable Flight

Jesus, long ago, was baptized by John in the Jordan. It was a glorious event, with the Gospel recording the heavens opened and the voice of God speaking. But Jesus couldn’t get very comfortable following his baptism. He was led, rather, driven into the wilderness immediately following.
I don’t think God ever lets us get too comfortable. We try to get as comfortable as possible, but spiritually, comfort leads to complacency, and complacent is not really in God’s vocabulary.

TD Jakes says it this way in his book, Before You Do: Making Decisions You Won't Regret (TDJ Enterprises, Atria Books, New York, 2008, p. 186):

"The writer in Deuteronomy says that God stirs up our lives like an eagle stirs her nest. Maybe you’ve been watching Animal Planet more than I have, but let me share what I’ve learned about how mother eagles move their young to maturation. She rearranges her nest, the safe little haven she’s built as a nursery for her brood, so that it becomes as uncomfortable as possible. Why would a mother treat her children this way? She doesn’t want a nest full of dysfunctional birds who cannot move beyond where they began. She knows that if her babies stay in the nest, not only do they miss fulfilling their potential, but they also become an easy target for larger scavengers."

That leads me to ponder my own baptism, and to ponder the spiritual restlessness that I often feel. I wonder in what direction God might be inviting me to travel through the wilderness.

How about you?

Do we dare take on Gaza?

A friend sent an email this week asking for my thoughts, as a Methodist minister, on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in Gaza.
So many thoughts swirl around my mind - I make no claim to the rightness or wrongness of them. I hope to continue to be influenced and educated on the nuances of the situation. Nonetheless, there are some perspectives from which I've given the issue thought in conversations with Jon and on my own:

-- As for the biblical witness, Israel has been coexisting with other religions and persons since their original inception. The issue of what to do with other religions in your midst is treated with a wide range of responses in the Hebrew scripture.
--The Bible reports that the Promised Land was conquered by Israel in the time after Moses, and it was reclaimed by force after World War II. Israel (and Judah) were conquered and reconquered throughout their history; they've been on the giving and receiving end of hostile takeovers.
--Americans don't have much moral ground to stand on here, as the nation as we know it was taken by force and coercion, too. Much of our projection of force in the 20th and 21st Centuries has been in the name of spreading democratic or capitalistic values, often in response to 'unacceptable' incursions into regions of our national interest.
--That said, a HUGE part of the Hebrew scripture is concerned with self-criticism of abuses of power, violence, and other atrocities. The excesses of other countries military strategies are also criticized by God speaking through the prophets.
--The treatment of aliens is an important theme in Torah and the Writings and Prophetic tradition. Aliens, persons with no political power in your midst, are often given equal status with Jewish widows an orphans.
--I would dare say that modern Israel functions and behaves as a political state guided by a parliament and government, not a theocracy, as was envisioned by many of the biblical writings. While some of God's promises are independent of the quality of religious observance by God's people, the vast majority assume that the people of God uphold their end of the covenant with devotion to God and not the state.
--Christians ought to be very cautious about making specific interpretations of apocalyptic prophesy that apply to this conflict at this point in time. Despite the caution, every age has appropriated Revelations and other prophetic words to their own time and situation. I believe that the only thing that makes today closer to the second coming or the end of days is that we live in chronological time - in the same way that I'm one day closer to my next birthday than I was yesterday.
--Jesus had very little to say to nations. So did Paul, for that matter. Just War theory is an ethical construction and one of many interpretive perspectives put forward on the relationships between nations by serious christian thinkers. Pacifism is another such ethical construction with equal, if not superior, merit based upon New Testament writings. That said, I think one would be more easily found huddling in a basement Gaza apartment with cowering innocents, than in the turret of an Israeli tank.
--Radical grace and forgiveness will be necessary to break the deadlock over who gets the land and how. Nations are not very good at either.

Hopefully I'll get the chance to elaborate on these topics in the coming days.

Ed