"...and the life everlasting. Amen."

Can you believe it?

‘Everlasting life’ is the answer to the question, ‘Christianity, why bother?’  There are countless other benefits to believing in some religion, even Christianity.  Love. Sacrifice. Equality. Justice. Mercy. Grace. Welcome.  Hospitality. Resurrection. I preach all of that. But, in the final analysis, Christianity fills the vacuum in my mind and heart which wants to know ‘what then?’  The corpse, the ashes, after they rise, what then? Die again, like Lazarus? Sit on a log and endlessly stare at bullfrogs? Float in some ether-like cloud of reality?

What ultimately and finally makes sense of Christianity for me is that all who die in Christ receive new bodies which actively reside, work, play, embrace, laugh,  praise God on a New Earth amidst New Heavens in an endless morning and evening, what is commonly referred to as ‘Heaven’.  I don’t know that it is a ‘place’ like we think of places. I don’t know that it is ‘next’ in the way we think of time because ‘time’, as we think of it, is no more for the saints in glory. It is an experience in which we know no anxiety, no shame, no guilt, no separation, no groans, no pain. No tears.

Our Resurrected Bodies will experience  what ‘no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no human heart has ever imagined…’ (I Corinthians 2:9)  No one can describe that experience for you. But, try this: imagine your most beautiful time on this earth. Where are you? Who is with you? What are you doing?  How are you feeling? Now, imagine that scene as a gazillion times more beautiful, everything about it just thrills every fiber of your being. And the feeling never stops.  “Heaven” is still better than that, because you cannot imagine it.

When we recite with believers the Creed’s final words, claiming our confidence in ‘the life everlasting’, we are ‘groaning with all creation’, the rocks, rivers, plants and parakeets, that all of it and us will be ‘liberated from its bondage and decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.’ (Romans 8:21)

We were created to dwell with God. God is from everlasting to everlasting. (Revelation 21:3) Forever. Dwelling. With. You. “Amen”: meaning, “this shall truly and surely be”. Believe it.

"...the resurrection of the body..."

When you are standing at the bedside of a young man, Kevin, who is in hospice care. Standing next to Kevin’s bed, holding his hand which clings to your own…for life.

When your presence there is meant to bring comfort to Kevin’s wife and children, grandpa and grandma, sisters.

When your words are, perhaps, among the final words Kevin’s mind will cling to for hope in his last breath.

At such a time, what can you say? What dare you say?

“I believe in…the resurrection of the body.”  It takes faith to offer such hope to Kevin, and even greater faith for believers, like Kevin and those surrounding him, to accept those ancient words of hope as ‘gospel’, as good news.  If there ever is a time to pray that the souls speaking the Creed with you understand it, accept it, believe it, it is when you are holding the hand of a dying man.

Christian hope is not just a pious bromide of optimistic blather.  Christian hope is accepting by faith that because God has done something in the past he is certain to do it again in the future. Our Future Hope is in a future event guaranteed by God, the belief in which moves the Creed’s faithful reciters from faith to hope to knowledge to sight to celebration.

So it is that believers confess, first, “On the third day he rose again.” And then, since we know by faith that Jesus arose and lives, we can say by faith that Kevin arises and lives, body and soul.

That, in his flesh, with real eyes, arms, legs, Kevin will see his wife, hold his children, run with the wind; that his new body possesses a promised place in the New Heavens and New Earth.  With you.

Praying For a Win

Duke University is a juggernaut in the world of men’s college basketball. They get the best players, have arguably the best coach and get the best media coverage. Which might explain why there are so many ‘ABD-ers’, as in ‘Anybody But Duke’ fans. So, on a Tuesday night in November, in a game which #1 Duke was favored with the most lopsided odds of the season, the boys of Stephen F. Austin (I don’t know; look it up) took on Duke.  A couple of hours later Duke was undefeated no more. In a last second play, SFA’s Nathan Bain made the shot heard round the basketball universe.

That’s interesting to basketball fans, but here is why everyone else should care, and why maybe God did too.

Nathan Bain is from the Bahamas. Hurricane Dorian decimated his family’s home, community and his father’s church and school.  A Go Fund Me page was set up to help. Before the upset of Duke the website had collected $2,000.00.  On the day after the UPSET OF THE YEAR (so far), the Bain fund had collected over $62,000.00. Now the church and school will be rebuilt, along with the community around it, and God will be worshipped and children will be educated.  SFA’s Bain says it best himself in an interview quoted by espn.com:

"That's really our main focus, to make sure everyone has a place to worship and to make sure the school is taken care of so these kids can get a proper education."

I don’t know if God cares whether SFA beat Duke, but I am guessing that God answered a lot of prayers that night in a way that very few expected.  And in the end, of course, God won.

The takedown of Duke by Stephen F. Austin will likely be lost in the hype of March Madness as Coach K leads his young team toward an NCAA Championship.  It will be remembered in the Bahamas for a long, long time.  And that, as they say, is why they play the game and why maybe, just maybe, God does care who wins.

"...the forgiveness of sins..."

Which is a harder concept for you to believe: (a) that God in Christ Jesus chooses to forgive sins and remember them no more;  (b) that your sins are forgiven; or, (c) that God forgives the sins of others?

You probably know the story of Jesus forgiving the convicted criminal.  The crook was being tortured to death on a cross next to the one on which Jesus was dying too. (Luke 23:33-43) The crook confessed his sins and his faith in the saving power of Christ. A death-bed conversion, we might suppose.  Could Jesus really forgive him? Would Jesus really forgive him?  If ‘yes’ and ‘yes’ are your answers, when you think about your life, are you able to really confess your sins; are you able to really believe that Jesus, on his Cross forgave your sins too? If ‘yes and ‘yes’, believe that there is a place in Paradise for you too. Really. Truly. “There is therefore no room to doubt that he is prepared to admit into his Kingdom all, without exception, who shall apply to him.” (John Calvin, Commentaries)

Your sins are never a burden too many or too big for God to forgive. Your sins are never a burden too few or too small to make the confession of them unnecessary.  It is never too soon to truly profess your belief in the forgiveness of sins. It is never too late to receive that forgiveness of sins. It is never too soon nor too late for your to extend the same forgiveness to someone else.

“A poet wrote of a man killed as he is thrown from his horse: ‘Betwixt the stirrup and the ground, Mercy I asked, mercy I found.’” (William Barclay, Commentaries)

The next time you recite the Apostle’s Creed, professing your faith in the forgiveness of sins, know that before the words slipped from your lips it happened.   

Go and do likewise.

"...the communion of saints..."

Standing shoulder to shoulder with people we may or may not know, the leader invites us to stand and to recite the words of our ancient faith.  Nearing the end of the Apostles’ Creed we declare our belief in the universal Church and then we glide through these words: ‘the communion of saints’.   There is never, in my experience anyway, a chance to stop and think about what we just proclaimed. If I was making a new custom for the church liturgy it would be this one:

“I believe in…the communion of the saints [SILENCE]”

In our hurriedness to get to the next item in the worship service, or because we have said it together so many times, we are at risk of failing to appreciate the glorious thought we proclaim. Because of our true faith, because we belong to this universal gathering of believers we know as the Church, we are bold to declare our ability to commune, communicate, experience community with all of the others whom God has ‘gathered, protected and preserved’ from the beginning of time until its end.

To say these words is to enter into a holy reunion with someone you love, to enter into what Samuel J. Stone calls ‘mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won.’  And as we call to mind the shapes of their faces, the sounds of their laughter, the smells of their favorite scents, the quirks of their unique spirits, we become one again with them in Spirit.

“Oh happy ones and holy!

Lord give us grace that we,

Like them the meek and lowly,

Oh high may dwell with Thee.” (Stone, The Church’s One Foundation)

"...the holy catholic Church..."

This wasn’t a trick question, the one she was asking me in the line of folks I am greeting after Sunday worship.  Sometimes the comments of folks are humbling, or funny, or needling (good-natured).But this question was sincere: “Pastor, why do we say we believe in the holy catholic Church? What does it mean, ‘catholic’?”  With one hundred people behind my friend a short, snappy answer was in order: “Well, when we say ‘catholic’ it means ‘universal’.”  “Oh, OK.” Meaning, I think, that she understood she was not professing her faith in the Roman Catholic Church, but in the world-wide Church of Jesus Christ, which, when spoken with its companion phrase, ‘…the communion of saints…’, means the church that spans time as well, the gathering of saints on this earth and in heaven awaiting our re-uniting.

One of the joys of leading the particular church I pastor is that people in worship are (or were) Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodists, Baptists, Christian Reformed, Reformed, Presbyterian, a few agnostics and one or two atheists.  I don’t know if these latter folks recite the Apostles Creed with us.  But the rest do. It is a statement of faith used by the Western Church since at least the late 300’s in many, many denominations, sung by ‘a thousand tongues’. It is as close as the Church can come to a universal statement of faith other than the Bible’s “Jesus is Lord”.

But, what does it mean, ‘catholic Church’? Henri Nouwen offers a beautiful summary:
“The Church is the people of God. The Latin word for ‘church’ is eccelesia (which means ‘to call out’). The Church is the people of God called out of slavery to freedom, sin to salvation, despair to hope, darkness to light, an existence centered on death to an existence focused on life. When we think of the Church we have to think of a body of people, travelling together…supporting one another on their long and often tiresome journeys to their final home.” (Bread for the Journey, October 16)

This is the work of the universal Church gathered in millions of outposts, mega and mini.  We are all called out to help each other finish our walk home together; the holy journey of a people everywhere following Jesus: ‘…the holy catholic Church’.

"Behind the Lady Who Dances"

“Behind the corpse in the reservoir, behind the ghost on the links,

Behind the lady who dances and the man who madly drinks,

Under the look of fatigue, the attack of migraine and the sigh

There is always another story, there is more than meets the eye.” At Last the Secret Is Out, W.H. Auden

I am trying to understand.  You.

There must be another story.  There must be more than meets the eye.

I want to forgive. I want to be forgiven. 

But I don’t know your untold story. I cannot comprehend what my eye cannot see.

I offer you blank pages, with no columns for judgment, for you to tell me your story. I seek to understand you finally.  I search to see you fully.

I want to love you real, as God who knows all your stories loves.

Tell me another story…tell me please.

A Meditation on Psalm 139:1

What If We Could Take It With Us? Part 2

“Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.” (1 Timothy 6:18)

Why?  Well, while we cannot take our money and stuff with us, our ‘good deeds’ are investments which pay dividends in this life and in the life to come.

When we do good and generous things our brains reward us by making us feel better about ourselves and the world. As we express our gratitude to God for true life as we do good and share generously,  God rewards us through our a built-in reward system.  Doing good and being generous with your time and money is good and good for you.

But, our good deeds, generosity and sharing are also investments for the future. They are a ‘firm foundation for the coming age.’ (1 Timothy 6:19)  What’s more, we are promised that as we leave this world and enter the world to come, that is, when we die, here’s what happens to all the good, generous, sharing investments made on this earth. We are blessed when we die because our deeds will follow us.  “’Yes’, says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.’” (Rev. 14:13)

That’s right, you can take it with you. Not money and stuff, but your good deeds. They are in the U-Haul which the angels drive behind you as you enter the next life. Salvation comes by grace through faith, all gifts from God, that is for sure. But, the reward we experience will be far greater for those who heed the admonition to be rich in good deeds on this life’s journey.

The richer we are in good deeds during this life, the richer when we will be as we enter our divine rest.

May the angels need to rent a semi-trailer to carry your investments down heaven’s highway,  and may Jesus prepare a place for you which is large enough to store your reward for eternity.

What If We Could Take It With Us? (Part 1)

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,...” Truth. (Job 1:21)

“and naked I will depart.”  Again, Truth. Rich, poor, middle-class, when the clock strikes midnight we all turn into the same thing.

All to prove what many wits have said, “You Can’t Take It With You.”  What kind of response is that supposed to create?  According to Job it is supposed to result in our praise of the name of the LORD. Really? Is the fact that we enter and leave this life naked supposed to be a comforting thought, a wake-up call or a depressing thought which causes us to ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die?’ 

Couldn’t God have made it so that we enter life with a million bucks in an account paying 8% interest which we can take with us, along with our full collection of Beatles records? If God wants to bless us, wouldn’t that have been a better plan for Adam and Eve, et al.

What if we could, Augustine wonders?  “What if we could  take something, wouldn’t we be devouring people alive?  What is this monstrously avid appetite, when even huge beasts know their limit?” Animals know when they are full, so they stop eating, but we human beings, our appetites for ‘stuff’ is insatiable.  If God had designed the afterlife so that we could take our possessions with us can you imagine how stingy we would be in this life?  Think about it: you get past St. Peter and the Pearly Gates and the first thing you see is a money changing booth, where your savings can be turned into the currency of heaven.  I don’t know what the exchange rate would be, but people would be dying to find out.

Think about what our last will and testament would read like if we could take it with us?  Would charities stand a chance at getting 10% of our net worth? Would our children receive more than a token percentage?  Our mansions in heaven would need garages the size of football fields, but at least our kids wouldn’t have to hold estate sales (or rent dumpsters).  Still, wouldn’t you like to know that the treasure you accumulate in this life is going to pay some dividends in the life to come?

Felicity's Sentence and Grace

Felicity Huffman, famous actress, will spend 14 days in prison.  She is an admitted criminal, having committed fraud, helping her daughter cheat in her college admission tests.  She also will pay a $30,000 fine, spend a year under court-ordered supervision and serve 250 hours of community service.

If you research this story you will find ‘outrage’ voiced from those who believe her sentence is too light when compared to sentences given to other non-white criminals.  (See, for example, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/us/felicity-huffman-sentencing.html) That is a worthwhile discussion to have, whether our criminal justice system is really ‘blind’, meaning that it should render justice without any partiality to a person’s skin or status.  While I could join that chorus, I want to use Ms. Huffman’s sentence to get us thinking about another topic: the nature of grace.

God’s grace.  I wonder if we truly understand how scandalous grace really is. We sing about it as being amazing, but that is because we think about it in the context of God forgiving and accepting ‘me’.  We all, mostly, agree that it is amazing and wonderful that God should forgive ‘me’ for ‘my sins’.  But, what about Felicity?  Should God ‘remember her sins no more?’, which is one description of how completely God forgives us? Should Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross be used to cover the sin of fraud by a rich and famous white woman?

You see, that is how grace works.  Here’s a little of what Ms. Huffman confessed to the Judge, which I am giving her credit for being a heart-felt statement of contrite repentance.  “I was frightened, I was stupid, and I was so wrong. I am deeply ashamed of what I have done….I take full responsibility for my actions." When God hears a confession like this, if it is sincere, God through Christ forgives the sin completely.  Does that make you happy or sad, this amazing grace we profess?

Human justice (imperfectly) serves society’s goals of retribution and rehabilitation.  God’s goal is to bring God’s children home. When I hear stories like Ms. Huffman’s I am thankful that God is a Judge who sees me just as I am and loves me anyway.  That is grace, and I want Ms. Huffman, and all criminal offenders, to know that scandalous and amazing grace.

Driving Jesus Mad

Road rage. Who among us has not engaged in it, either as the perpetrator or the victim, likely both. Lately, people with guns have taken to settling their rage with shots.  What’s up with drivers?

I read an article on the psychology of road rage (credit: ‘Why do some drivers allow road rage to take over behind the wheel?’ Stephanie Blaszczyk, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Published Aug. 16, 2019). Studies show the reason otherwise ‘normal’ people act like lunatics behind the wheel is that we are ‘anonymous’ and ‘social conventions’ don’t apply. You know, like, don’t throw toys, share the sandbox, etc. When we are in a vehicle we believe we can act as if (a) we own the road; and (b) everyone else had better respect my right to drive like the freeway is the Indy 500 track.

But, for people of faith, most of us are taught that God is always with us. ALWAYS. (See Psalm 139) There are plenty of circumstances in which we would prefer to not think about that. One time we really don’t believe it is true is when we have just been cut off on the highway.  Fingers are raised. Language is spoken which we would never say in church (or even the grocery store.) What if we really believed that Jesus is riding in the passenger seat as we get stuck in the fast lane behind someone going the speed limit?  Would we then race around and cut in front of the car thinking, ‘that’ll teach them to take my lane!’  Or would we look over at Jesus, smile and say, ‘Boy, that person really obeys the law, what a good model for society, right Jesus?’

I know, I know. Some people are really lousy drivers and they don’t get that the law says slower vehicles should travel in the ‘slow lane’.  But, really, when someone gets you hopping mad would you drive like ‘that’ if you were driving Jesus?

Because, of course, you are.  You are not anonymous. And while social conventions may seem to not apply on the road, God’s commands to love your neighbor, even your enemy, do. Drive like you love that other vehicle’s operator. Drive like you love God.

Don’t drive Jesus mad!

Remembering Tony's 'Going Home'

(The following words concluded my sermon in memory of my friend and brother in Christ, Tony Scherg, who died in August 2018, following a very courageous medical battle. We remember, Tony.)

Tony wanted so desperately to go home.  He knew that he would pass from the home where he would be surrounded by the loves of his life to the home where he would receive the victor’s crown: the ultimate reward for those who keep the faith through suffering.

Jesus promised Tony, “To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.” (Rev. 3:21) The promise that became reality for Tony on Sunday morning is not just for him. It is ‘for all who long for the Lord’s appearing.’  It’s what you hope for that defines your death and your life.

Life is not defined by sickness, by cancer, the limits of medical science. Life is defined by the fact that the people who long to see Jesus face to face are promised that their pilgrim journey will finally bring them home.  In Anne Lamott’s book, Traveling Mercies, she writes about a story her minister told.  When she was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. “The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally, a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, ‘You can let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.’”

          

Corry, you brought Tony to this church. Through the three baptisms he witnessed, through the life he witnessed in you, this church became his home.  Mitch and the Praise Team brought him under their wing as he learned to praise God with his bass. And, in time, this church became his home.  And so it is proper that we bring Tony back here, to his church. Because Tony wanted to go home. And he knew he could find his way home from here.

You can too.  If you want to find your way home.

Baseball, Mud and Saving Lives

Ray Chapman died in 1920, hit in the head by the pitch of a slick baseball. That was enough to get the powers that run America’s Pastime to take action.  A baseball should not be a weapon that kills people. ‘Let’s find a solution’, everyone who mattered agreed.

No Major League Baseball player had ever died from getting hit by a baseball before. No one has since either.  When baseballs are manufactured they look nice and clean, but they are very slick. Pitchers can easily lose their grip, and that is what can turn a baseball into a weapon. The baseball authorities knew they could do better. They knew that they must find a solution.

They tried rubbing the new slick baseballs with all kinds of materials. Nothing worked the way they wanted it to until they discovered ‘miracle mud’ in the 1930’s. “Miracle mud’ comes from a one mile stretch of one river in the United States, a secret location, so secret that not even baseball’s owners know it.  But, since the 1950’s, it’s been the rule that this mud must be rubbed on every baseball for every MLB game, some 240,000 baseballs a season.

Pretty amazing, don’t you think. Someone dies.  The governing authorities decide they need to do something about it.  Not just lament Ray Chapman’s death; find a way to prevent the next one. Then, with the will to change in place,  the genius of the American mind works, experiments, until a solution is found. Then, that solution is written into the baseball rules. Everyone must follow the rules, because mud on baseballs saves lives.

The American mind, the American spirit. Creatively making life safer.

When there is a will, we find a way.

Hmmm.

(Source and credit: Sports Illustrated, July 29-Aug. 5, Stuck in the Mud, by Emma Baccelieri)

Community Picture

We came for the music. We stayed for the community.

The western sun brilliant in the cloudless sky. Thursday’s twilight approaching.  A sample of a local brew safely perched in the cup-holder in my blue fabric sling chair.  Some Gouda and Wheat Thins for in between sips.  Live jazz like you hear in the big city, right here in downtown small city.  The crowd was an eclectic mix of boomers and millennials, of X-ers and Z-ers, and whatever today’s toddler generation will be named.  No one asked who anyone loved, married, or didn’t. I couldn’t tell the citizens from the guests as a thousand folks mixed and mingled, danced and laughed.

I didn’t love the music. I did love the food. A buffet of food trucks to feed every appetite: Asian, Mexican, Greek, American.  We found old friends and we sat together, laughing about getting old, admiring how diverse our city had become. Where did all of these people come from, we wondered? These were the people our growing economy is bringing to town, giving them gatherings to entice and retain, we surmised. The future and the past all together, sitting in random rows, as dogs and babies entertained.  An unintentional intentional community had formed right around us.

A community drawn by the light; by the bread; by the wine; by the friends of many languages and nations. And by the music.

I asked my wife, only half in jest, ‘I wonder where all of these people go to church?’ The answer is that some 60% of them don’t attend.  And for the other 40%, they divide into churches of many tribes with many rules and admission tests, lest ‘impurity’ stain each other’s tribe.

I can only begin to imagine the joy on Jesus’ face as the community gathers on Thursday nights in the public square…all God’s children.  I can only imagine the quizzical frown on Jesus’ face as the Sunday community continues two centuries of failure to replicate that picture of Thursday’s community.

When did we decide that the people we party with on Thursday could not worship with us on Sunday? Talk about fields ripe for harvest.

Churches and Hospitals: Which is the Neighbor?

The parking lot was filled to overflowing.  A woman dressed in a burka, trailed by three children, passed me on the parking lot.  She looked at me with a look that I can best describe as fear. I smiled at her and said ‘hello’.  I don’t know if it helped ease her fear. 

In the bridgeway from the parking lot to the hospital I was passed by black and brown and white children and their parents.  Some small kids were carried on backs of moms. Some children were pushed along in wheel chairs. Some parents were chatting and walking as if they had just received very good news. Some were quietly moving forward as if  the news was difficult to comprehend.

At the reception desk, while they made the inquiries to verify that I could join a family as their pastor in waiting for the results of an infant’s heart surgery, I picked up business-sized cards offering access to interpreters in Mandarin, Arabic, Burmese, Cantonese, Spanish, Hmong and Somali.  Disease does not discriminate. Neither should the effort to offer a cure.

What does it mean to be a ‘neighborhood hospital’ today? I grew up a block from a ‘neighborhood hospital’ which served the ‘Protestants’, while the other hospital in town served the ‘Catholics’. At least that is the way I perceived it. Today, I think, the definition of ‘neighborhood’ is closer to what Jesus was trying to get at when he talked about being a neighbor in Luke 10:25-37. A hospital’s ‘neighborhood’, especially one serving a specialized population like children, is not defined by geography or religion or social status. A hospital’s neighbors are those in need of its services.  Anyone and everyone is welcomed to these places of care, and they are doing their best to make sure you feel welcomed. They speak your language.

You might say, “Well, of course, that is what we expect a hospital to be. Healthcare should erect no boundaries, should ask no questions other than, ‘Can we offer you what you desperately need?’”

Is the only question a ‘neighborhood church’ asks of its guests, ‘Can we offer you what you desperately need?’  If Jesus re-wrote the story of “The Good Samaritan” using churches and hospitals as the illustrations, which would be the model ‘neighbor’?

The Reason for Fireworks

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —”

The fireworks celebrate a revolutionary idea: Government exists because the people it seeks to govern consent to it.  People possess power. Without the consent of the people, Government dies.

The fireworks celebrate a foundational statement of faith: that God created all people equal; with Rights that cannot be taken away: Life; Liberty; the pursuit of Happiness.

The fireworks celebrate  a simple truth: People consent to Governments to secure these God-given human rights. 

The Fireworks are an annual reminder to the Government why the Governed allow it to share their power.

Tell you children. Tell your grandchildren. Tell your closest friends, your neighbors, the stranger next to you.

There is a reason for fireworks.

VBS: "The Encouragement of Light"

“How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light against its being, otherwise, we all remain too frightened.” –Hafiz, The Gift (Translated by Daniel Ladinksy; posted by Jim Marsh at inward/outward.org)

Can there be better encouragers of light to budding hearts than the people who make Vacation Bible School happen?  For ten summers now it has been my privilege to observe the opening of roses as laughter, praise and wonder rise up from the eyes, mouths and hands of children displaying their unique brand of enthusiasm for Jesus.  Their praise blesses the church and world.

For ten summers now I have watched our building be transformed into forests, jungles, oceans and more by the most creative, hard-working servants of Jesus you can find.  I have witnessed a couple dozen gifted women and men lead many dozens of children through five mornings of learning the story of the Bible, using their many gifts to stretch bodies, minds and imaginations.

Why would these friends of Jesus offer a summer week, and all of the hours and hours that lead up to it, year after year after year, for children they often do not know and may not see again? Because they are possessed, in the best sense of that word, by the Light; a Light so powerful that it cannot remain within them; a Light which must be set free to press against the darkness, into every corner inhabited by fear, so that the Light can reach the roses within the hearts.

The world is a more beautiful place today because the encouragers set free their light for no better reason than this: God has sent them with a message of his goodness.

When the world is dark, God sends the light.  When the rosebuds are shy, God is good.   

A Love Story About Golf

I was scheduled to play a competitive match against another golfer, so I was focused on being focused. Then the pro shop put another single golfer with us, which is perfectly fine. Except.

My partner’s first question was whether I minded if he played music on his big speaker. As politely as I could, I told him that in fact I did mind. Not the best start to building a friendship. It soon became obvious that my friend really needed his music or he was not nearly as good of a golfer as he imagined in his own mind, so after every bad shot (of which there were many) he uttered some sort of expletive, each one growing louder.

My new friend was playing expensive Titleist Pro V1 golf balls. He lost two of them in two holes, and he became even more upset with Jesus.  We searched far and wide but, alas, they were lost.

After nearly four hours together, he asked me what I did for a living. I had been waiting for this moment.  As soon as I told him I was a pastor in a local church there was this very awkward silence.  He asked me which church, and when I told him he suddenly became very interested in our location and history.  What a transformation!

On the final hole he hit his ball well behind the green and we thought it landed in a parking lot.  But, as we drove toward the area we saw a ball lying on a cart path. I jokingly said he should go check out the ball because perhaps someone had found one of his expensive lost Pro V’s and left it for him. He walked over to it, picked it up and returned to the cart with this strange smile, saying, “You are going to like this. It is a Pro V1. Read what it says.” He handed it to me and I saw that someone had inscribed it with green felt tip ink and the words, “Jesus Loves You.”

I could not have laughed harder or louder.  He offered me the ball.  I said, “No, I think that is one you should keep. Because it’s true.” He put it in his pocket. The rest is up to the Spirit.   

'Rubber Time', or Never Be Late Again

Does ‘time’ own you or do you own ‘time’? I am annoyed when people are late; I get upset with myself when I am running late, manufacturing excuses as I zoom down the road trying to make up time; if I wait on a service provider more than 10 minutes for an appointment I will usually complain and/or leave.  So, yes, ‘time’ owns me.

Maybe I have it all wrong, and the people who don’t worry about being on ‘time’ are the smarter ones.  Doug Bratt, who writes commentary for a Calvin Seminary website, describes how his Indonesian friends refer to ‘rubber time’.  Meeting times are just suggestions.  Indonesians are, Bratt writes, often 30-45 minutes later in appearing than the time originally agreed upon. But, and here is the key, when they show up they are really ‘present’ in the moment.

I think this is a brilliant approach to punctuality.  You will never be late again if you simply train your friends to know that you live by ‘rubber time.’  You are stretching the definition of being ‘on time’ to arrive, say, within the hour.  But, and this is critical, when you show up you will not look at your mobile device; you will not be thinking about where you need to get next; you will be fully engaged in being present in the moment and in the lives of the ones you are with. 

Now, if you decide to try this (or maybe you are already living in ‘rubber time’), I make no promises about how often you will be invited to dinner parties. I give no assurances that your dentist will see you when you arrive.  But, I guess if the ‘cable guy’ and delivery companies can give us three hour windows for a so-called ‘appointment’, why can’t we all try it?

Bratt suggests that perhaps we should look at Jesus’ promise that he is ‘coming soon’ (Rev. 22:20) as a ‘rubber time’ event. Jesus isn’t late, as we in the western world define time. He is going to show up ‘soon’. He isn’t ‘late’ to the promised party, he is just fully engaged elsewhere for now. But, when Jesus does arrive, we will see him face to face. And time will matter no more.

I cannot wait!

"Planting Weekend"

Memorial Day Weekend, here in the Upper Midwest, is for many gardeners the official start of the planting season.  There is a (fairly) good chance that we won’t have an overnight freeze until the late Fall, and the balance of sun and rain should be healthy for life. Memorial Day Weekend, around the United States, is for many, but sadly a dwindling number, a weekend to remember lives which have been sacrificed for the freedoms which our nation enjoys.  In the lexicon of Paul, bodies which are ‘planted’ in the ground are but seeds which will grow into new bodies. (I Corinthians 15:42,ff.) So Memorial Day Weekend is a time to hope in things planted, seeds that will grow into beautiful flowers and that from the ‘hallowed ground’ will grow miraculous bodies. It is a weekend to exercise our capacities to remember, to hope, to commune. It is a time to exercise our faith that seeds planted in faith do not die in vain.

Faith (by Karen S. Bard)

“…all things are less than

they are,

all are more”   -Paul Celan

Consider the seed.

Consider the flower containing the seed.

Consider the stem, that shy messenger, carrying the secrets

of the underworld into the daylight.

Consider the root, fingering its way down, intimate

with the stones, the amazed dirt-

consider the seed, the stem

within the seed, the root

within the seed, the flower

within the seed.

Consider your left palm, warm, familiar, cupped

around a handful of seeds.

Consider your faith.

The Music of Heaven

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty”. “Worthy is the Lamb”.  As you read these song lyrics a tune probably comes to your mind.  Music: melodies, harmonies, lyrics, rhythms, brings our minds to different places, creates memories of people (old flames, grandparents) or places (worship spaces, ballparks).

The lyrics above are taken from Revelation 4 and 5’s songs, the music of Heaven. These are the lyrics all of God’s children sing gathered around the Throne.  But, which notes should go with those words?  Did God give Handel a special revelation of what those notes should be, as captured in Handel’s Messiah?  Maybe Jesus prefers the Hebrew tunes he grew up with, the ones he sang in synagogue as a boy.  Perhaps the angels in charge of worship like to mix it up, ‘I’m a little bit country; I’m a little bit rock and roll.’  I don’t know how ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ would sound in a country twang, but there must be someone who has tried it and people who love it. And what of all of the millions assembled there whose memories are triggered not by organs and cymbals but by African drums, South American flutes, Canadian brass?

I join those who believe that Music was woven into the atmosphere of the Universe because God loves to be praised with music.  He set people free to pluck notes from the air, but God’s ‘middle C’ in Michigan sounds just like a ‘middle C’ in Madagascar.  It is all God’s music.  Just like God loves many languages, God loves many melodies.  Perhaps the songs around the Throne will be like modern churches: if you like hard rock worship tunes go to church X; if you like organ-accompanied 18^th century hymns go to church ‘Y’;  and so on.

We know the lyrics to the music of heaven. But we await the revelation of the melodies. I personally am hoping it sounds close to the final minutes of Mahler’s 2^nd, the Resurrection Symphony. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RONBzkthUjM

When you gather around the Throne I suspect that whatever style of music gets your motor running, you will be able to jam to it like there is no tomorrow.

Because, well, there will be no tomorrow.

“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD!” (Psalm 150) AMEN!

The Languages of Heaven

How many languages does Jesus speak?  On earth he spoke his local dialect, a version of Aramaic, and we can be quite sure he read and spoke Hebrew; maybe some Greek, a little Latin. (English, in case you are wondering, was still five centuries in the future.) 

Then, after his Resurrection, Jesus ascended into Heaven, and there he is, in his new body, surrounded by people from ‘every nation, tribe, people and language.’ (Rev. 7:9)  How does he communicate with them all? Well, Jesus is God, after all, so, we can imagine with some certainty that he knows every language.  But, what about the rest of the ‘great multitude.’  They praise God on the Throne with thousands upon thousands of voices in thousands of ancient and modern tongues. While the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can understand the cacophony of words and songs, can the people understand each other? Is there a language of heaven, or does everyone retain their own language which they knew on this Old Earth?

There is, as you know, this odd little story tucked in Genesis in which the LORD intentionally confuses the one language of the people of the earth into many languages. (Genesis 11:1-9) This in turn causes the people to scatter around the world.  The rest, as they say, is history.

We live in a world which has many ways to speak all sorts of threats, hate, war. Wars and rumors of war will never cease on this Old Earth. Even if we all understood each other’s languages, we will not all ‘understand’ each other, our fears, our anger, our territorialism.  We try, most of the time, to speak diplomatically, translating words as best we can to help us know what we are trying to say and why we are trying to say it, but we are not very good at it, speaking generally of the human race.

And yet, one day, there we will all be.  The people we mocked, detested, hated even, gathered around the Throne waving palm branches in our white robes.  And then, at last, while we may not be speaking the same languages, we will finally understand each other, why we each and all exist.

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Amen.

Destruction's Day: Reflecting on the Great Fire of Notre Dame

Thoughts on viewing the ashes of Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France, Holy Week 2019

Nothing is indestructible.  The façade of strength hides a weakness which can trigger destruction. So it is with buildings and human beings.

Nothing lasts forever.  On this earth, a century of work can be destroyed in a day.  Do not put your hope in things which ‘moths and rust’, or fire, can consume.

What makes a monument significant is unseen.  Monuments are cherished because of the dreams they represent.  A spire is a symbol of human aspirations to be with God. Spires fall. Spirits rise.

Destruction has it’s day.  But it is only a day.  Hidden underneath destruction’s ashes lies the spirit’s desire to resurrect that which has been destroyed. Death is the last enemy.

Friday is destruction’s day.

But, Saturday, underneath Friday’s ashes, hidden in tombs, the Spirit stirs, undoing Friday’s day of destruction, recreating.

Sunday dawns, for cathedrals and churches and synagogues. For trees and plants and flowers. For oceans and rivers and lakes.  For you and your loved ones and your God.

Sunday is Saturday’s Hope realized. 

Resurrection has a Day.  On its day the sun does not set. Human beings unite, across continents and oceans, overcoming races and languages and politics, to dream of restoration. Resurrection.

Surprise Endings

I am reading a very long tome called Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln and his compatriots. It is something like 750 pages long. It’s a good book, full of fascinating characters, and a story which holds up a mirror to our current national divisions. So, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy reading it, but as I got to page 150 I was thinking, ‘This story is never going to end!’

We live for the end.  We love good endings.  We love to read the book that is full of mysterious twists and turns and our minds begin to imagine the end.  “How will this end?”, we wonder, and the temptation to turn to the last page can become overwhelming.  How can the author bring together all of these plot lines and solve all of the main character’s dilemmas in the remaining pages? 

Sometimes the story is so good that we don’t want it to end.  We would rather stay lost in the writer’s imagination. We don’t want the story to end, because, well, this is the life we want to live and, even though we cannot live that life, we can imagine it. So, we slow down our reading pace, drinking in each word, like the first sip of morning coffee or the last sip of evening wine. 

Today is the Sabbath before the Sunday on which the crowds adored the main character. They loved His story. The king is coming! They couldn’t wait to see how his story would end.

But wait, is he a king or criminal? Who could have dreamt that this is what the Author had in mind? Their songs become jeers,  their palms become swords. He’s dead. End of story. Or is it?

We live for the end. We love good endings. But we are all writing His story into our own stories. In your life, is Jesus an irrelevant, dead man or a living King?  How do you want the story to end?

This Holy Week  don’t skip to the ending.  Live the whole of the journey. Perhaps you will discover that that the ending is still being written, that, SURPRISE, His story is your story. Keep on writing.

Four 'Final' Lessons

For 19 years Tony Bennett has been striving to return to a Bennett-coached team mountain-top of college basketball: The Final Four, the holy grail of Division I Men’s Basketball. Today Tony enters that rarified air as head coach for the Virginia Cavaliers, following in the footsteps of his father, Dick, who did the same with the Wisconsin Badgers. I learned four lessons from watching these men reach the pinnacle of their respective careers, lessons which apply not just for coaches, but for all of life’s pursuits.

In 2018, Tony was the coach of the first number 1 seeded team to lose to a 16-seed. It was as embarrassing a sports performance as one can endure.  Now, in 2019, Tony and his team have gone to the top.  Lesson #1, a quote Tony uses: ‘If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you couldn't have gone any other way.’

Both Bennett-coached teams can be hard to watch. Why are they so ‘boring’? Because they coach a style of basketball which takes advantage of the talent their teams have rather than trying to copy the styles of teams with better athletes. Lesson #2: Be the best person God made you to be rather than try to be a poor imitation of someone else.

Laurel Bennett, Tony’s wife, captures Tony’s approach to life quoting his mantra: Lesson #3: “This is what I do. I’ll give it my best and I’ll live with it. But the other side of that coin is who I am, which is more important than what I do. And I am a child of God, and my values come from something other than my job.”

Tony, and his father before him, took a long and difficult road to the top of their profession. They won a lot; they lost a lot. They had as many critics as fans. But they believed the goal was worth it. Lesson #4: One day all of your life’s experiences will come together in a way that you dreamed, if you dare to dream God’s dreams for you.

Stay strong. Stay true.  Stay humble. Keep dreaming.

Sources: Jeff Potrykus, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; 4.3.19; David Teel, www.dailypress.com; 4.5.19

Justin Bieber's Spring Cleaning

Justin Bieber is stepping away from his music career.  Since I was never a fan of his music this news was not disturbing to me. Yet, I know that he was a ‘teen idol’ to millions of adoring fans.  He came to fame at age 15 and his career path led him to a popularity and fortune that few teens know but most dream of achieving.  If his string of awards from the music industry is any indicator, he is good at what he does.

Now he is in a spat with a former girlfriend, Selena Gomez, about why he married his wife, Hailey Baldwin. Their love lives and feelings, which most of us would express in emails or phone calls or commiserating with a buddy at the corner bar, are played out before thousands of eagerly watching eyes and ears. That isn’t healthy, and it is why Justin Bieber needs to step away to focus on ‘family and mental health.’

So, why am I telling you, a generation of readers who, for the most part, do not consume news of Bieber, Gomez and Baldwin, this story? One, if there are children you love, do not wish for them that type of fame and fortune. Discuss with them that their lives have meaning even when thousands are not following them on Instagram and Twitter; that being truly loved by a few people, and returning that love, deserves a lifetime achievement award worth more than a Grammy.

Second, I agree with therapist Siri Sat Nam Singh who observed, "[Our minds] are like our houses. If you don't clean your house it gets dusty and stinky and filthy. If you don't clean your mind — through reading books or calming exercises or meditation — you don't grow. In Western civilization it's all about matter: Everyone is trying to get rich, everyone is trying to buy the house and get the paper. Thus we lose consciousness in spite of the fact that we really are spirits as much as we are matter." (source: Peggy Drexler, cnn.com 3.26.19)

We are in Lent, an old word for ‘spring’. In this spiritual spring, make time to clean your minds, to renew your spirit. And encourage the young people you know to clean their minds and spirits, just like Justin.   

God Loves You Just Like You Are! Easter 2019 Invitation 1

"Free Food!"

I discovered Costco. I have been there enough to appreciate the superstore’s take on the human desire for ‘free food!’  Is there in fact such a thing as a free lunch? It is enough of a lure to capture the mind of an old Dutch man (me).

Of course, you must be a member, or arrive with a member to get the ‘free food!’, but that’s nit-picking. The food really is free. The drink too. In fact, I am sure there are people who plan their meals around the fact that a day of shopping at Costco will mean one fewer meal to prepare because of all the ‘free food!’  Of course, the premise of the very nice mostly female vendors offering you everything from soup to nuts is that someone is going to actually buy the product. They count on suckers, I mean, people like me who suffer from an immediate and overwhelming sense of obligation to buy ‘free food!’ because we want to help the nice ladies just trying to make a buck.  Costco wins.

Which makes me wonder if this is why God has such a hard time giving away ‘free food!’ on Sunday mornings. Christian churches offer Bread and Wine (or juice) somewhere between daily and quarterly.  You would think that would be an attractive offer, one that would cause the crowds to be breaking down the doors.  And yet, people stay away in droves.  Why? They don’t want to make the time? They were taught it is an obligation, and they don’t like being told what to do? They assume there is some hidden cost they will be suckered into because they believe everybody, especially those priests and ministers, all they really want is money?

God issues an invitation to truly free food and drink which results in everlasting life and love.  Yet the majority of people reject the invitation.  Don’t they understand that  the offer has an expiration date? (Isaiah 55:1-3, 6) It’s one thing to walk past the vendors at Costco; it’s a whole other thing to reject God’s invitation to ‘free food!’ What are we doing wrong?

Perhaps God should stop relying on amateurs like me and hire the Costco marketing department.

"The Flames Will Not Set You Ablaze"

“On March 3 (2019) around 12:58am our department was dispatched to assist Beaver VFD with a structure fire at the Freedom Ministries Church, located in Grandview WV. Though odds were against us, God was not. Picture this, a building so hot that at one point in time, firefighters had to back out. In your mind, everything should be burned, ashes. Not a single bible was burned and not a single cross was harmed!! Not a single firefighter was hurt!” Facebook post, Coal City Fire Department

Here is how God tells his story today. There were over 47,000 ‘shares’ and over 4,500 ‘comments’ of this Facebook post. You can spend a long time being absorbed by the testimonies and praise.  And the main theme of it all, God is still doing miracles.  The description of the event reminds me of Daniel 3, where a king sends three men who worship God into a furnace for refusing to worship foreign gods or idols. The fire is so hot that it kills their captors but the flames do not touch Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. 

The world is desperate to believe that in the midst of life’s struggles, God is still mighty to save.  The world is looking for evidence that what the prophet Isaiah wrote is still true:

When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior… (Isaiah 43:2-3a)

Perhaps you feel like you are standing amidst the flames today; or about to drown in the raging rivers of life.  Can God save you from it? Why do you think God saved the Bibles?

"And when the peony showed up..."

Metamorphóō (Greek), changing from one form into another, still retaining the essence of what one was and one is. Transfiguration. How are we to behold Christ’s glory and live? How can it be that we too are to be transfigured, transformed, that we are to experience metamorphóō in our being? (2 Corinthians 3:18) Some mysteries need a poet’s touch.

Contemplative prayer with peony                                                                                     

by Luci Shaw

So, I didn’t latch onto a holy word                                             

and go into space and, ethereal,

lose touch with my body. But God,

in those thirty slow minutes, you

unfolded in me the bud of a fresh

flower, with color and fragrance

that was more than my soul

was capable of, on its own.

. . . We all, with unveiled face,

behold as in a mirror

the glory of the Lord.

And when the peony showed up,

I knew it as a kind of mirror. This

was glory in pink and cream, with

a smell of heaven. Petals like valves

opening into the colors of my heart.

I saw myself kneeling on a grass border,

my knees bruising the green, pressing

my face into the face of this silken,

just-opened bloom, and breathing it,

wanting to drown in it. Wanting

to grow in its reflected image.

(Source: Christian Century, Nov. 19, 2015)