White Bluff Presbyterian Church (USA)

“From the Pastor’s Desk”

A monthly column which is published in the White Bluff Presbyterian Church newsletter, The Chain.

DAFFODILS

April, 2012

Last fall, two weeks before the 10^th anniversary of the violence of September 11, 2001, I handed out daffodil bulbs.  They were an illustration for the sermon that day.  Actually, I wish I could take credit for the idea, but as I said in the sermon that day, it came from something I read in the months following September 11, 2001.  A Presbyterian pastor somewhere got in the pulpit on September 16, 2001, the Sunday following the terrorist attacks, and told his congregation that words failed him.  He could not speak in a way that could express what needed to be expressed from the Gospel that day, so instead, that congregation was going to plant bulbs.  And so, they trotted out in their nice dresses and creased khaki pants, carrying trowels and rakes in their hands, and planted bulbs on the church grounds.  And those bulbs represented the Good News that needed to be preached that day:  God is in charge, God can take something as ugly as a daffodil bulb and bring something out of it as beautiful as a flower, and God can take something as ugly as a terrorist attack and use it to proclaim the beauty of life.

There were a few daffodil bulbs left over that day, so I told Cheryl that she and the kids could plant them around the old church bell in the courtyard in front of the sanctuary one Sunday.  So, a couple of weeks later, I was wandering around before worship, and I saw Cheryl and Jenifer and the kids who were in Sunday School that day trotting out to the courtyard, wearing their nice dresses and khaki pants, carrying trowels and rakes and the mesh bag with those ugly, brown bulbs in them.  They dug some holes, they dropped the bulbs in, and they covered them again with dirt.  I’m not really sure how Cheryl explained the Gospel meaning of that act to the kids, and I am not sure how they felt about the whole thing.  But I think they had fun digging the holes, at least.

I hope all of you had a chance to look out in the courtyard a few weeks ago, though, because the daffodils were gorgeous.  The ones I saw on the night of the spaghetti dinner for the Tutoring Program were my favorite kind:  the ones with the intensely yellow centers, surrounded by creamy white petals.  I made sure to point them out to Cheryl and to Jenifer.  I also took the picture you see here.

I have been thinking about those daffodils ever since because I think we need them right now.  This year during Lent, many of us have spent a lot of time at the church celebrating the lives of people we have loved, we have worked with, we have cared for, and we have received care from through four generations in this congregation.  One of the most difficult moments of walking through a funeral with a family is the time when a casket is lowered into a grave, and the workers come to shovel the dirt and bury the body in that casket forever.  Some families cannot bear to watch, and some cemeteries insist on waiting for a family to leave before they “close the grave.”  I think of those children shoveling dirt on the daffodil bulbs, wondering if there is any meaning in just digging a hole and burying something like that.

But Lent is a time to prepare for Easter, and those daffodil bulbs are on my mind as we approach that festival season, too.  Jesus’ body was sealed in a cave after he died, just like those daffodil bulbs were buried around the old bell in the courtyard at the church.  And early in the morning, on the first day of the week, the women went to the tomb to find no body, no seal, no tomb, but only the shining glory of God.  And they discovered the Good News which needed to be preached that day, and which needs to be preached again and again and again, in the face of national terror, and in the face of personal grief, and in the face of any time we are searching for meaning:  God is in charge, God can take something as ugly as a daffodil bulb and bring something out of it as beautiful as a flower, and God can take something as ugly as death or grief or terror and use it to proclaim the beauty of life.

On our home page, you can see the opportunities we have to worship during Holy Week as we remember Jesus’ death and resurrection.  I hope you will take advantage of those opportunities to seek meaning, to seek joy, to seek beauty, and to seek the eternal and abundant life which God has made real in Jesus Christ.

FASTING

March, 2012

I have long been fascinated by the spiritual practice of fasting.  On the one hand, fasting is an act of self-control.  It is a choice we can make.  It is an expression of our independence:  our ability to determine for ourselves what will happen inside our bodies.  Some people see it as such:  they fast in order to lose weight, for instance, because they want their bodies to take on a different shape.  I am by no means an expert on eating disorders, but I have heard that part of the way to understand them is as a way that people try to control their circumstances when they feel like everything else in their lives is out of control.  If I can’t keep my parents from divorcing, or the kids at school from teasing me, or my employer from laying me off, at least I can control the size and shape of my body.

On the other hand, though, fasting teaches us about dependence.  We depend on food to survive; we can only fast for so long before our bodies start to shut down.  And most of us, particularly in the modern world, cannot acquire for ourselves all of the food we need.  We depend on other people to help us get food, by growing it and shipping it and selling or giving it to us.  We are not independent.

Some people do not have unlimited choices about food.  People who are diabetic, for instance, could not participate in a fast from food.  Those who advise fasting as a spiritual practice note that, for those who cannot fast from food, there are other ways to fast.  One of the most interesting for me is fasting from excess noise:  turn off the radio in the car, the television and other noise-makers at home, and see what it means to encounter God in the silence.

Lent traditionally was a time for fasting, and this variety of approaches to fasting helps me understand why.  We grow closer to God through all of these approaches.  We grow closer to God when we exercise self-control because we are not as easily distracted by our impulses.  We grow closer to God when we recognize that we cannot see ourselves as independent because we know God as the One who provides all good things. We grow closer to God when we are physically unable to fast because God has the power to meet us even when we are limited in our choices.  Even when fasting becomes distorted into an eating disorder, one antidote that some people have found is to learn to see their bodies as beautifully created in the image of God, not to be controlled, but to be loved.

I recently read an article by someone who fasted last year for the entire 46-day period of Lent.  He drank all the water he wanted, but otherwise, he had a minimal amount of nutrition each day just to keep himself going.  What fascinates me about fasting, as someone who has not experienced it personally, is well-expressed in the way he described how his mind and spirit changed as his body was being deprived.  He said, “At the beginning of my fast, I felt hunger for the first two days. My body then switched gears, replaced hunger with focus, and I found myself operating in a tunnel of clarity unlike anything I’d ever experienced.”

As we move through Lent and look toward Easter, I pray for the blessings of this season of fasting for each of us.  I pray that we can grow closer to God in whatever way we need to:  through acts of self-control, through bearing witness to our dependence on God and one another, through acknowledging the limits of our ability to choose, through seeing our beauty as creatures made in the image of God.  I pray that our bodies, minds and spirits can work together to focus our attention on the life God has for us.

BOARDS + BYLAWS

February, 2012

There was a time in this congregation when the Session was made up of three men.  Those three men had each been elected when a previous member of Session had either left the congregation or died, and it was assumed that each of those men would continue to serve until he either left the congregation or died.  That was more or less the way things were run through most of the history of this congregation; in fact, I know that some of you remember when that was how it worked.

From what I have heard, it was in the late 1950s or early 1960s when some folks started to say things needed to be run differently.  New people had moved into the congregation and community.  They said that the Session should have more than three men; that women should be able to serve, too; that each elder should serve a term of a specific length; and that no one should just be elected again and again without taking a break to give someone else a turn.  I understand there were some strong feelings about the changes, and that people lined up in camps, and that some left the church because of what they perceived as a bad decision.  But ever since then, the Session has been made up of twelve members, divided into three classes, and each Session member has usually served only one, three-year term before taking at least a year or two off.

The changes were made because the times were changing, and the congregation was changing, and the community was changing.  The old way was perfectly appropriate for a small church in the country full of people who had always known each other.  But in a suburban community, people were used to modern structures like they encountered in the businesses they worked for and the governments and other organizations that provided services to them.  And this part of Savannah was quickly becoming a suburban community.  The church had to adapt its ways of doing things to better accomplish its mission as its community changed.

Some of us have been asking whether these decisions folks made in the early 1960s are still right for us.  People nowadays have a lot to keep them busy.  Our current Nominating Committee struggled to discern who was called to serve on the Session and Board of Deacons this year.  Several people have mentioned in Session meetings or other conversations whether it would make sense to have smaller boards.  At the same time, our denomination changed parts of our written constitution this year in ways that give us more freedom to make exciting decisions like how many members constitute a quorum for a congregational meeting.

I will admit:  these questions may seem dull.  But they are important because they challenge us to make sure once again that our current structure is serving our current ministries and mission well.  So, at our January meeting, the Session appointed a small group to ask around, figure out what would work well, and make some recommendations.  We came up with three questions for the group to engage:

- Should the size of the Session and Board of Deacons be reduced?

- Should the tasks of the Officers on Duty be reassigned to better use the gifts of the officers and reflect the size of the boards?

- Should the Corporate Bylaws or policies of the congregation be changed to address recent changes in the Book of Order?

We even came up with a cool name for the group and a funky font to type it in.  And so, ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

The Boards + Bylaws Task Group

(I know; it sounds really exciting, doesn’t it?!?)

The three members of the team are Elders Ruth Love and Ann Snope and Deacon Jackie Morgan.  We plan to have the work done, with recommendations made to the Session, in a few months.

As part of the process, we will be asking for help.  We would like to start by talking with folks who have served previously as Elders or Deacons, as well as people who have not served in those roles but might have some perspectives on the work of the two boards.  Ruth, Ann, Jackie, and I will be asking in the next few weeks for a little bit of time to talk with the PW circles, the Men of the Church, the adult Sunday School classes, and other small groups in the congregation.  Then, we will compile our congregation’s thoughts and have further conversations with the current Session and Board of Deacons before we make our recommendations.  If you do not have a chance to comment in one of those groups, please get in touch with one of us and let us know your thoughts and feelings.

And, please pray for this group as we engage in this important work to make sure our structures fit well with the work we are called to do!

Growth

by Joy Cowley

reprinted from Everything ‘round Us Is Praise (Ave Maria Press, 1997), p. 18-19

If a tree were capable of reflection

would it have doubts about its growth?

Would it worry endlessly

about the direction it should take,

or when it should produce new leaves?

Would it sometimes imagine

that its life was without design?

Would it think that its height and shape

had been self-determined

through random acts of will

amounting more to good luck

than good management?

Because that’s what I’m like.

True, I feel God working in my life,

but at no given time

is the direction clear to me.

I seem to have so many decisions

to make about the future

that I’m always concerned

about choosing the wrong thing.

But then, just as I imagine

that I’m acting out of confusion,

I stop and look back

on my journey until now.

What do I see?

From my birth to the present time

there is a clear straight path.

Everything I thought was deviation,

everything I counted as unnecessary,

missed, wasted, wrong, foolish,

is a part of that straight path.

I see that an infinitely loving God

has used every thread of my life

to weave a perfect fabric of truth.

Don’t ask me how.

In awe, I surrender my confusion,

knowing only these two things:

that as long as I choose to grow,

my loving God will take care

of the other choices in my life;

and that as a tree must grow towards light,

so must I grow towards God.

I have used this poem in New Year’s Eve worship services in the past.  I find it helpful around the changing of a year because of the way the way this writer looks at time.  When we are in the midst of things, we can start to feel like we have no direction, that we are victims of things which happen to us at random, or even that the direction we are headed in is just plain wrong.  But this writer takes a different view, looking back not at day-to-day confusion, but at the long path of her life.  And instead of randomness and confusion, she sees a clear direction.

This poem can obviously help us each reflect on our individual lives as we look back on the old year and look forward to the new.  But I wonder how it can help us be reflective as a church.  On the one hand, things look confusing.  Our worship attendance is lower than in previous years.  We have struggled to have enough money to cover our expenses.  We are having a difficult time discerning who is called to serve on our Session and Board of Deacons.  Many of us are dealing with new health problems, financial problems, changes in our families, and other stresses and grief.  We wonder if all of these struggles are the result of bad decisions.  On the other hand, we have had a year filled with wonderful gifts.  Thanks to the hard work, faithful dedication, and generous giving of many of our members, our Social Hall is newly renovated to serve us well into the future.  We have a staff person dedicated to overseeing our children’s education programs.  Our new Bible Study has been getting us to think new thoughts about our faith.  Thanks to the generous response of church members, we will end the year with our finances well in the black.  Our Tutoring Program is serving more students this year.  And we continue to make a significant impact in the lives of people in our community through our service, our care for one another, our teaching and learning, and our willingness to reach out in faith.

But how can we think differently about the life of this community of faith if we take a longer view?  Some of you have been around long enough to know about our ups and downs not only of the past year, but also of the past 10 years, 20 years, or more.  How can those ups and downs be seen not as bumps and road blocks, but as a part of the straight path of our life together?  And how does God see our growth:  as a meandering path of indecision and uncertainty, or as a bunch of threads woven together into “a perfect tapestry of truth?”

I pray that, as we enter a new year of ministry together, we will look at our growth through God’s eyes, so that we can continue to respond and serve faithfully.

ENDURANCE

December, 2011

It started with a conversation about communion cups.  You may remember that we replaced the disposable communion cups and used our glass communion cups during our worship on All Saints’ Sunday at the beginning of November.  At the Worship Committee meeting afterward, someone talked about just how surprised she was at the meaning she felt in drinking the juice of communion from the glass cups.  Somehow, they helped her feel connected with the church, connected with all of the people who used those cups before, and connected with the act of drinking from that cup in remembrance of Christ.  She recognized the convenience of cups that are used and then just thrown away.  But somehow, the endurance of the glass took on a meaning that made the plastic cups seem cheap, temporary, and, well, disposable.

We began to recognize that affinity for things which can be used again and again, connect us with the people of God who have been here before us, and endure into the future, as a theme in our congregation’s life this year.  The biggest example is the social hall.  We had been saying for over twenty years that we just needed to throw the old hall away, to tear it down, and to replace it with something new and modern.  But in our conversations as a congregation, culminating in our decisions at the beginning of 2011, we also came to realize that seeing that hall as just one more disposable thing was expensive, so we began to see how we could freshen it up a bit, at least for a while.  Now, after many, many hours of work and a smaller amount of money, we have a space for our fellowship together which feels newly fresh and useful, but which is really the same old building.  And in that building, many of us have said how great it feels to be in a space which has endured in this place for several generations, even as it is newly updated for this generation.

And then, someone else began to talk in a more personal way.  We feel a new connection with Christ and the saints who have lived the faith here before us when we don’t just throw away our communion cups.  We feel a new connection with this part of Christ’s body because we didn’t just throw away the old building, but have built it up for new beauty and usefulness.  And in this place, we don’t throw people away, either.  A number of us are going through tough situations and big changes in our lives, and sometimes those changes make us feel like we are worthless and we ought to just be thrown away.  Some of us hear from the larger culture, too, that we are disposable, because of who we are or what we have done or what is going on in our bodies or minds or spirits.  But when we come here, we are told that is not the way God works.  No one is worthless; everyone belongs here, and everyone has something to contribute, no matter what else might be going on in our professional lives or social lives or family lives or lives in general.

And that is where our Advent, 2011, theme came from.  Advent includes the four Sundays before we celebrate Christmas.  In the church, Advent is not a time to prepare for Christmas.  It is a time to remember that we are waiting for Christ to come again and finally, fully, re-create the world the way God wants it to be.  It is a season for waiting, for watching, for preparing, and for hope.  We looked at the scripture lessons we will read in this coming season, and we knew right away what can express the good news for our congregation this Advent.  In Isaiah 40:8, the prophet spoke to us:  “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.”

That is the truth we are discovering:  there are so many things in our modern world which seem disposable, which are just thrown away, which wither and fade.  But that is not where our hope lies.  And this is a season to recognize where our hope lies.  Our hope lies in the Word of God, and that Word will stand forever.  We are not waiting for things that do not endure.  We are not watching for things that get thrown away.  We are not preparing for disposable things.  Those things are nothing to base our hope in; they cannot save us, they cannot tell us what our value really is.  Our value, our hope, and our salvation are based only in what will endure.  Just like glass communion cups rather than disposable plastic ones, just like buildings that connect us with our past while they are updated for our present, just like all God’s people, who belong here and have something meaningful to contribute, the Word of our God endures.

In the coming weeks, we will have many opportunities to worship, to serve, to sing, to pray, to study, and to hope.  My prayer is that we may also see this as a time to connect with those things which endure, hoping and preparing and watching and waiting for the Word of God to be finally, completely, and joyfully fulfilled.

NOVEMBER

November, 2011

November is an odd month for us Christians.  In the Christian calendar, November begins with All Saints’ Day.  All Saints’ Day helps us remember all the people whom God has called to be saints.  Our word “saints” is the translation of the word agioV in Greek, which is also translated “holy.”  So, the saints are literally “the holy ones.”  They are people set apart by God to live special lives:  lives of holiness, of righteousness, and of faithfulness.  They are called to be different from everyone else.

But here’s the catch:  in most of the New Testament, the people who are referred to as “saints” are all Christians.  When Paul wrote to the people of the churches in Rome, Corinth, Philippi, Colossae, and all the other places he wrote to, he addressed the people of those churches as “the saints.”  All of the members of the churches were called to be different from everyone else:  their Roman and Greek and Jewish and pagan neighbors.

So, the category of “saints” is not limited to people who have done something that few of us have done.  It is not limited to people who are revered for their poverty, or whom others have said have performed some sort of miracle.  And it is not limited to people who are dead.  In fact, just by being a part of the church, you are different from everyone else.  You are a saint, just like all the people who have been a part of the church before you.  And, you are called to live a life of holiness, of righteousness, and of faithfulness.

By the end of November, we will be a few days into the season of Advent.  Every year, I hear someone say that Advent is a time to prepare for Christmas, and when I hear that, I get a little snarky (as well as a little self-righteous).  Advent is not a time to prepare for Christmas.  In the Christian calendar, Advent has its own meaning.  It is a time to remind us that our world is preparing and waiting for Christ’s second coming.  It is a time to take the attention off of us once again and focus it on God, who, at the end of it all, will re-make the world.  That act of re-making the world was begun in Jesus Christ, but has yet to be fulfilled.  And the glory that will be revealed when God re-makes the world will be so much better than anything that can be represented with plastic tinsel or jolly cries of “Ho-Ho-Ho.”

So, as Christians, our tradition tells us we are all holy, righteous, and different from everyone else.  And one way we do that is by celebrating Advent.  Someone has started a page on Facebook, and launched an account on Twitter, called “Occupy Advent.”  The name picks up on the Occupy Wall Street protests that have been in the news lately.  The point is to issue regular reminders about the ways that we can “reclaim the holy season of waiting and watching for the Lord.”  Their suggested strategies are to “simplify and slow down.”  In recent years, someone else has run a campaign called “Advent Conspiracy,” which has a goal of “restoring the scandal of Christmas by substituting compassion for consumption.”  The strategies they promote for the four weeks of Advent are to “worship fully, spend less, give more, and love all.”  You can see their website, with some really well-produced videos as well as practical suggestions for implementing their strategies, at adventconspiracy.org.

November is an odd month, bracketed by these two observances.  So maybe November is a great time to live in between All Saints’ Day and Advent.  Maybe it is a good time to claim our place as saints:  people who are holy, set apart, and called to be different than our neighbors.  And maybe it is a good time to prepare our own protest movement, making a plan of how to occupy the coming season with full-on worship, less spending, more giving, and a generous, overflowing love.

I wish you an odd November!

QUESTIONS

October, 2011

There are a lot of churchy folks who like to ask provocative Big Questions.  The kind of folks I am thinking of are the people who come as speakers to conferences, or who work as consultants for churches who want to do something new or need help working through a problem.  Usually, the questions they ask are interesting, but they are for other congregations in different places than we are.

But there is one of those Big Questions that a lot of folks are saying a congregation should ask itself that interests me:  if your congregation suddenly ceased to exist, who would miss it, and why?

Just think about it for White Bluff:  if we disappeared, who would miss us?  Would our members miss us, or could they just find other congregations which do about the same thing?  Would our neighbors miss us, or do they not interact enough with us to notice whether we are here or not?  Would there be a big hole left in our city if we were gone?

The question gets at what makes us unique.  The assumption behind the question is that each congregation has something special to offer:  some things we do which no one else can do nearly as well as we can.  Those unique gifts may be in programs that are run really well or events that people count on.  They may be our own way of interacting with each other, or caring for each other.  They may be mission projects that meet a real need, either for the people being served or for the people doing the serving.  They may be a distinctive way of expressing God and reflecting on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ that is unlike the other churches in our community.

And whatever it is, the Big Questions folks would say that we are supposed to celebrate those unique gifts.  We need to let our light shine by telling anyone who will listen about those things that make us different from all the other churches and community service groups in town.  And we are supposed to put resources toward making those special gifts of our congregation even better.  And if they are being really provocative, those Big Question folks would say we are supposed to stop trying to do the things other people do just as well as we do them, or even better than we do them.

I am convinced that White Bluff Presbyterian Church is not going to disappear anytime soon.  We have our ups and downs, as many of you who have been here for a lot longer than I have understand.  But we are strong and healthy, and as long as God wants us here, we will keep going.  But it is still helpful to ask a Big Question like that one now and then.  It helps us get our priorities straight.  It helps us think about what we can do better, how we can attract more people to be a part of us, and what we can stop spending so much time, energy, and money on.  It helps us discern what God wants to do with us, or at least what to do next, and how to serve better in the bigger picture of God’s kingdom.

So, I would love to hear from you who would miss us if we were gone, and why they would miss us.  Send us an e-mail, comment on our Facebook page, or talk with me or another Session member sometime.  I would be fascinated by what you have to say.  And, if we get enough of a response, we might do something more formal, such as a working lunch or a brainstorming session, to talk together about what is unique about our congregation’s ministry.

ELDERS, ELDERS EVERYWHERE!

September, 2011

As of July 10, I am no longer a Minister of the Word and Sacrament; in fact, no Presbyterian clergyperson is. That was the day the changes to our Presbyterian Church (USA) Form of Government took effect.  For those of you who need a refresher, the Form of Government is a part of our Book of Order, which is our church’s written constitution.  The Form of Government tells us how the congregation, Session, Presbytery, Synod, and General Assembly operate; it spells out who gets to make what kinds of decisions and how our work is to be organized.  Over the past twenty years or so, there has been some concern in our denomination that the Form of Government had become too wordy, redundant, and inflexible.  So, a committee was appointed to propose a re-write of the whole thing, and after about 4 years of study and thinking, the re-write was approved by the commissioners (elected by the Presbyteries) to the General Assembly as well as a majority of Presbyteries.

One of the big changes in the new Form of Government is what we call ordained Presbyterian clergy.  Instead of calling us Ministers of the Word and Sacrament, the new document calls us “Teaching Elders.”  Likewise, you who are ordained elders are no longer simply called “elders;” you are called “Ruling Elders.”  In order to help people of other denominations understand who our clergy are, we can still be referred to as ministers, but within the councils of the church, we are officially Teaching Elders.  The new titles are actually not new at all; some of you may remember that they are what clergy and elders were called in the Southern branch of the church before the Southern and Northern branches reunited in 1983.

The change may seem simply semantic, but it has some deep theological understandings behind it.  One of the hallmarks of the Protestant Reformation was Luther’s conviction of the “priesthood of all believers.”  Because Jesus Christ has reconciled us to God through his life, death, and resurrection, all Christians can fulfill the roles of a priest as they are described in the Bible.  All of us have equal access to God, all of us are equally able to have a conversation with God, and all of us are equally called by God to serve.  Therefore, we don’t need anyone to speak to God on our behalf.

Our system of church government was set up based on that theological understanding.  The operation of the church is a shared responsibility.  All members have some part in the responsibility of keeping the church working, but we elect some to take on particular functions.  The new language highlights the principle that Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders share power to make decisions in the church as they are each fulfilling their functions.  One is not more important than the other; they both have equal authority and responsibility in keeping things running in the church.

I appreciate this change in title.  I think it clarifies the way I was taught to understand the importance of everyone’s contribution to the life of the church.  In all of the churches where I have worked and served, it has been easy for church members and even elders to defer to the clergy when decisions need to be made, conflicts need to be managed, and problems need to be resolved.  In many other denominations, it is, in fact, the clergy’s responsibility to run the church.  But Presbyterians are different:  clergy primarily serve the function of teaching while others take responsibility for administration of the church, and all of us work together to discern God’s will for the church.  I think our theologically-based understandings of power and responsibility can be better served by these new titles.

And so, although I am no longer a Minister of the Word and Sacrament, I look forward to continuing to work with all of you who are Ruling Elders in this congregation, as well as the Deacons and all of the members.  I am glad to be serving as your Teaching Elder and sharing the responsibilities of serving God through the church with all of you!

WEEDS

August, 2011

My garden has a lot of weeds.  Last summer, the flower bed in our backyard under our bedroom window was so crowded with weeds that I just gave up.  I spent the late summer and fall mowing the lawn around the weeds and doing the best I could to keep the good flowers alive in the midst of them.  But there the weeds sat, all during the fall, all during the winter, and all that time, I know they glared at me mockingly every time I went in the yard to play with our son or clean up after our dog, pointing out my surrender and rubbing it in that I had admitted defeat.

This year, I was determined it would be different.  I raked and hoed and dug and pulled until all of the weeds were cleared from my garden.  I spread a thick layer of pine straw over the beds before I ever planted anything.  I was diligent about pulling up every tiny weed I saw emerge all spring.  My pride was involved; I was not going to be mocked again by that sneering crab grass and dollar weed!  And really things were going very well.  Then, we went on vacation for ten days in June.  In those ten days, the weeds must have noticed that they weren’t being pulled, told all of their friends to take advantage of my vulnerability, and decided together to have another triumphant celebration among my Louisiana Iris and Better Boy Tomatoes.  By the time we came home, they were well on their way to taking the place over again.  I still haven’t pulled them all out; the flower bed under the bedroom window has been re-conquered, but our poor bell pepper plants, bless their hearts, are trying their best to produce their fruit while surrounded by all kinds of unidentified, uninvited intruders.

I sometimes read those books by writers who like to reflect on gardening.  The books I read are not exactly how-to books on gardening methods or what kind of plants to put in what kinds of places.  Instead, they are a chance for writers to make some meaning about the experience of trying to coax something beautiful and/or useful out of the dirt, seeds, compost, sunlight, water, luck, and all of that other stuff which goes into gardening.

In one book I was reading recently, there was a whole section on weeds.  Of course, the writer said, weeds are a problem.  As I know from bitter experience, weeds can actually kill good plants, choking them out until they die from not enough air and water.  But that writer pointed out something less obvious that has stuck with me all during my summer battle with the mocking crab grass:  weeds are a sign that good plants can grow.  If the soil was bad, or the shade was too heavy, or the water was not plentiful enough, then the weeds wouldn’t grow.  Weeds are a sign of potential; they tell us that the conditions are right for certain types of more desirable plants to grow successfully.  In fact, the writer said she spends time each year studying her weeds, noting what kind of plants they are, what kind of conditions of soil pH and how many hours of sunlight those weeds like, and what varieties of more desirable flowers or vegetables like the same conditions.

Jesus talked about weeds, and I have thought about that writer’s wisdom on weeds in mind as I have read what Jesus had to say, too.  In one of his most famous parables, Jesus talked about a sower who scattered seeds in all kinds of places.  One of the places the seeds lit was “among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them.”  When he explained that parable to his disciples later on, he said that the thorns were “the cares of the world and the lure of wealth.”  Later in the same chapter, Jesus told an interesting story comparing the kingdom of God to a farmer who planted a wheat field only to have his enemy sow weeds among the wheat.  Those stories are in Matthew, chapter 13, if you want to read them yourself.  In general, I think of the weeds Jesus talked about as the stuff of sin:  it is whatever goes against what God knows is best for us, and whatever keeps us from living the joy-filled, peace-filled, grace-filled, Spirit-filled life God wants us to live.

But here’s the thing:  if the conditions are right for sin, then the conditions are right for joy, peace, grace, and Spirit, too.  If we have the time and energy to pursue “the cares of the world,” then we have the time and energy to pursue beauty and truth, too.  If we have the skill to follow the lure of wealth, then we have skills that can build mercy and peace, too.  If we have the resources to infiltrate ourselves into all of God’s creation, then we have the resources to love that creation and everything and everyone in it, too.

I have come to realize that I will have to continue to pull that mocking, sneering crabgrass and dollar weed and all of their friends out of my garden.  But while I do it, I pray that the good soil and water and sunlight which have fed those weeds will soon be able to feed something beautiful and/or useful.

VACATION

July, 2011

Early in our marriage, Mary and I decided that we would try to attend worship wherever we found ourselves during our vacations.  At first, we were a bit awkward about it; we often were with friends or family when we were on vacation, and it felt a bit odd to tell them that we would be going to church on Sunday morning.  Since then, it has simply become part of our vacation experience, and we even look forward to participating in worship with another congregation when we are away.  We have even changed our vacation schedule sometimes to make sure we could worship in a local congregation, delaying our travels on Sundays or making arrangements to be in a particular town so we could worship at a church we wanted to attend.

We have had some wonderful experiences of worship that way.  We have attended worship in small churches and large churches.  We have gone to Presbyterian services and services of other denominations.  We have worshipped in churches that were familiar, and we have worshipped in places where we knew no one.  We have heard friends of ours preach, and we have heard sermons from pastors we had never met.

But we have almost always encountered something different in our worship experiences.  Sometimes, those differences have translated into ideas we have brought back to White Bluff.  Sometimes, they have simply been another way to encounter God, to understand what it means to be a part of Christ’s people, and to see how the Holy Spirit operates in other communities to share the grace and call of God.  These encounters with different ways of worshipping, different styles of preaching, and different ways of being a community together are always refreshing; they break through the familiarity of our routines and remind us of who Jesus is and why we worship Him.

If you are going to be away this summer, I hope you will attend another church.  Then, especially, I hope you will think about how you encountered God at that church.  Come back and share your reflections with us:  tell your Sunday School class or PW circle about it, write up a description for the Chain, or share with our congregation’s leaders some new ideas you think would work well here.  Mostly, I hope you will find ways to be a part of a community worshipping God wherever you are this summer!

EASY?

June, 2011

The weather has become warm again, with the familiar late-afternoon clouds and thunderstorms to keep things humid.  This is summertime in the south, and I am appreciating it more and more every year we live here.  With a young child at home, summertime means being able to spend time at the beach, at the YMCA pool, playing in the fountain in Ellis Square, and, when it gets too hot, finding a friend or two to take to an indoor playground.  These are fun days for our family.  In the church, summertime means getting ready for our Sizzlin’ Summer Suppers, getting ready for Vacation Bible School, doing some different things with our music in worship, changing the pace of our Sunday School classes, witnessing the PW Circles enjoy their fellowship in some local restaurants, and having fun days with our church family, too.

And in the soundtrack of this scene of southern summers, you cannot escape the most famous song from Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess.  I saw online that there are over 2,600 known recordings of the song, “Summertime,” so you can have your pick of whose voice you hear it in.  The slow melody evokes the steaminess of the blues, and the lyrics evoke fun days, with lemonade, fans, front porches, rocking chairs, and whatever else you need to complete the mental picture of summer in the south.

“Summertime” is often used to evoke easy living in the hot season.  But there is something funny about using the song that way.  The song is set in the opera for which it was composed as a fantasy which in no way reflects the real life of the people who sing it and hear it.  It opens the opera as a lullaby which one of the characters sings to her baby.  The baby’s father is gone trying to make the hard and meager living one makes on a fishing boat.  The baby’s mother is struggling just to survive, surrounded by gamblers, drug dealers, and all kinds of other people you don’t want your baby to grow up even knowing about, much less living with.  The song comes up again through the opera:  as violent crimes are committed, as the baby’s parents are killed in a storm, as the baby is taken in by another woman just trying to survive.

There is nothing easy about “Summertime.”  It seems like our congregation members are facing a lot of uneasiness lately, with some facing major medical problems, some caring for family members who are ill, some facing tough times at work, some dealing with bills that are more than the money we bring in, some facing stresses in families and other important relationships, and some just feeling deep pains in our bodies and souls that are hard to explain.  Summertime is just as filled with stress as the rest of the time.

And so we have a choice about how to respond.  We can live as a congregation in a fantasy world, singing lullabies to one another as we put up the appearance that everything is o.k.  Or, we can bear witness to one another about our faith, our real faith, which does not pretend that living is easy, but which tells us that we have nothing to fear, we have only to believe.  Our faith does not let us think that there is nothing wrong in our lives or in the world; in story after story, Jesus confronts people in all kinds of painful situations.  But our faith also does not let us believe that all there is to life is our illnesses or our grief or our job stress or our financial worries or the tensions in our relationships or those pains that are too hard to describe.  Our faith tells us there is something more, something bigger, something much, much better, and that something is active in our world and in our lives, here and now.  That something offers peace when we hurt, and strength when we are drowning, and hope when we look around us and everything we see is caving in.  That something tells us that there is work for us to do, changing the world so that others do not have to suffer as we are suffering.  That something has been here long before we came around with all of our problems; in fact, that something is the source of life itself.  And that something will be around long after our problems are gone; in fact, that something invites us to experience eternity and abundance.  That something will not necessarily take care of our problems, at least not in the way we would like our problems taken care of, but that something will never, ever abandon us, either.

I like “Summertime” as a part of the soundtrack to this time of year, but maybe not for the same reasons others play it now.  I like it because it can remind us to look past the surface, to drop the pretense, and to refuse to allow the music to lull us into thinking everything is easy.  And I like it, too, because it can challenge us to have faith, real faith, which refuses to ignore the pains and stresses, but which also offers peace and strength and hope and abundance and eternity.  I pray those are gifts which we will be able to receive together this season.

DISCOUNTED EASTER

May, 2011

A few days ago, I passed this sign in front of a chain pharmacy here on the Southside of Savannah:

Of course, what the management of that pharmacy meant was that all of the store’s pastel-wrapped candy, plastic eggs, and “grass” that goes in the bottom of the Easter baskets has been discounted 50%.  But I wonder if this advertisement also doubled as a caution for the church.

Easter is more than just one trumpet-sounding, lily-filled, fancy-clothed day in church.  On the other side of Easter, we had the Great Three Days, when we recognized that we could not have resurrection without the loneliness and pain of death.  New life only begins after the old life ends, so we told the stories of Jesus last supper with his disciples, his act of serving them by washing their feet, his command that we should love one another.

We darkened our sacred world as we read about Jesus’ last night, as his disciples betrayed, denied, and abandoned him.  We covered the signs of the promises of God’s love in mournful cloth, and the Light of the World left us.  Then, the next day at about noon, in that plain, dark room, we told the story of Jesus’ trial, crucifixion, and death.  Finally, early in the morning, on the first day of the week, we gathered again, in the cemetery this time, to complete that service of worship, mixing the story filled with angels, messages, and an empty tomb with the ancient words of God’s people proclaiming thanks and praise to God.  If you missed some or all of that worship service encompassing three days, you should go back and read some of the stories for yourself:  John 13:1-35, Mark 14:17-50, John 18:28-19:42, and Luke 24:1-12.

That was on the other side of the celebration of the Great Festival of Easter.  But on this side, the festival goes on, too.  The church throughout the ages has recognized that the message of Easter is something that ought not to be celebrated on one day alone.  It is too miraculous, too powerful, too life-changing, too central to our faith to be finished after one day.  These weeks after Easter are the season of Eastertide, and throughout them, we will keep telling the stories which focus us on Christ and His resurrection.  And, in fact, every Sunday worship service throughout the whole year is meant to be a “Little Easter,” according to the early church leaders.  Our celebration of Easter is meant to so permeate our lives that we spend whole seasons, and in fact, every season, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ and what it means to us and our world.

But so often, the church settles for a discounted Easter.  We take 50% off of Easter, or even more.  We celebrate it for one day, or maybe for a few more days than that, then move on with things.  We discount Easter when we admit that we couldn’t get ourselves “into” Easter this year.  We were just too busy.  There was just too much else going on.  Our focus was on the Social Hall renovations or the preparations for the fellowship events or our travel plans or our families or the quickly-coming end of the school year and beginning of summer.  Easter just seemed so late, and we were ready to move on.  We just aren’t feeling well, and there are too many other things happening in our lives, things that cause us pain and worry and deep, profound sadness.  Who can be festive when there is so much sadness?

Those feelings that keep us from getting “into” Easter are honest and real, but they beg a question:  what are we going to do about it?  Are we going to simply discount Easter, settling for a day that we couldn’t get “into?”  Or are we going to give Easter its full value, studying those stories, reading them over and over again, praying to God about them, giving them a grand view and looking for the details.  Are we going to put ourselves in those stories, imagining ourselves as one of the women who went out with the spices that morning, or as one of the men who received the report of the women.  What it must have looked like that day, and sounded like, and smelled like and tasted like and most of all felt like, inside their guts?

And most importantly, are we going to think hard, and pray hard, about what we have to do to keep from accepting a discounted Easter?  As we read those stories, and participate in them ourselves, what changes in the rest of our lives because of them?  How do we see the world differently because Christ was raised from the dead?  How do we see ourselves differently because “God so loved the world” (John 3:16)?  How do we see the people around us differently because “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited…” (see Philippians 2:5-11) (no, really, go find your Bible and read it; it could change your life if you let it).  How do we have to use our limited time and energy differently because of those stories?

And so I pray that we may refuse to discount Easter, but instead, that we may let Easter change us.  Christ is risen!  Christ is risen, indeed!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

THE SOUL OF A BUILDING

April, 2011

There is good news:  the Social Hall is being renovated!  I am finding the process more compelling to watch than I thought I would.  As I have thought about what compels me, the best I can say is that I am fascinated by the process because it can help us discover the soul of that building.

That building was constructed by earlier generations of members of this congregation.  It was built by the Cramers, the Walls, the Giddenses, the Branches, and many others.  Those people chose the contractors, they contributed the money, and they provided much of the labor and materials themselves.  Everything that is solid and basic about that building came from them.  Since the paneling has been stripped and the ceiling tiles removed in the hallway, you can actually see where the cinder block walls on the first floor meet the floor joists on the second floor.  I look at those junctions, and I realize that we are safe and comfortable in that building because it was put together well by those people who built it.

And that building has been cared for by generations of Christ’s followers who have been in this place since then, some of whom are still among us.  I have heard many stories:  of the process of putting the stucco on the outside to cover the plain, white-painted cinder blocks; of the many days and nights Cecil Giddens and Ben Wall spent one year expanding the kitchen and installing the current cabinets, fixtures, and appliances, just the two of them working together because they each trusted the other to do the work precisely; of the processes the church members have gone through to update the wiring, install the air conditioning, upgrade the fire alarm systems, install the paneling, and do all sorts of other major projects to make the building functional and attractive for each generation of this congregation.  And those memories do not even consider the many small repairs and improvements that have been made over the years to keep things working and make things better in that building.

In its soul, that building, just like this whole congregation, is a gift.  The men and women who constructed, remodeled, and maintained the building over the years have done their work so well that the building has outlived many of them.  And I think they knew it would.  When Barry and his crew uncovered the electrical wiring in the ceilings, we discovered that the junction boxes and some of the conduits have all been carefully labeled in permanent black ink.  It is as if the people installing them knew that someone else, some day, would need to be told where those wires led.  The boxes and lines have been hidden behind ceiling tiles and wall panels for at least a generation, but the handwriting was there, ready to be received as a gift from the saints who came before us.

Because we have begun this work on the social hall during the season of Lent, I cannot help but draw some comparisons between that building and our faith.  The stories of our faith are also a gift.  As we approach Holy Week, we can see the comparison.  In addition to a sturdy structure, that building is in its soul a shelter where a lot of holy meals have been served and fellowship exchanged.  And later this month, we will remember the story of the holy meal Jesus shared with his followers on the night when he was arrested, offering his body and his blood to meet the most basic needs of our souls.  In addition to the cinder blocks and electrical conduits, that building is in its soul a structure where someone, sometime, took a hammer and drove nails through wood to hold it all together.  And later this month, we will remember the story of nails driven through wood and flesh to hold them together, at least long enough for Jesus to cry out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and cry again and breathe his last.  The builders of the building, like the participants in the events of the stories, did not live as long as their work, and we receive them as gifts.

Friends, there is good news, and that good news has nothing to do with a building.  The good news is that the God who created the world and everything in it has offered us an invitation:  “Come to Him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house…to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:4-5).

I hope to see you in worship during Holy Week.

NOT JUST GIVING UP

March, 2011

If you say the word “Lent,” many people probably would have no idea what you mean. If they have heard the word before, they only think about the days when we were told that we were supposed to give something up for Lent. For some, the practice is to give up something that you really enjoy, like chocolate or television. For others, the practice of giving something up is more specifically meant to free up some time and/or money to give more to the poor. For still others, the practice of giving something up for the season has become an effort at self-improvement, in order to break a bad habit, or to lose weight, for instance. I remember in another church that several of the members one year decided together, each for his or her own reason, that they would give up coffee for Lent. By Easter Sunday, there was a big rush of very cranky people for the coffee pot which someone put out before the worship service.

The practice of giving something up for Lent, for whatever reason, is the modern compromise with the traditional understanding of the season of Lent as a time of fasting. But even seeing Lent as a time of fasting is only a small part of the depth of the meanings of Lent. It is a time when we pay special attention to what it means to be a follower of Jesus. In the earliest days of the Christian movement, it was a time when new followers of Jesus went through intense preparation for their baptism, which would happen on the night before Easter. Later, after Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, everyone was encouraged to observe Lent in order to show solidarity with new converts and to deepen the faith of those who were lukewarm adherents to the state-mandated religion.

This year, we will observe Lent together with some special elements added to our worship services. We will be called to worship through drama as we bear witness to the thoughts and feelings of some people who first encountered Jesus. We will pick up on the tradition of remembering the meaning of our baptism each week as we confess our sinfulness and acknowledge our need for Christ’s mercy. We hope you will make it your discipline to join us every Sunday in Lent for worship.

We will also have some special worship services for Lent. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, which is observed on March 9 this year. We will gather for our Pancake Supper beginning at 5:30 p.m., and then have our Ash Wednesday Service of Prayer beginning at 6:30 p.m. In this service, we remember that our lives are limited, both in terms of time and abilities, and that we depend on Jesus’ grace, which we could never earn. The Imposition of Ashes will be a part of this service for those who wish to participate.  At the end of Lent, we will offer our Maundy Thursday Service, which tells the story of Jesus’ last night with his disciples, including the enactment of the Lord’s Supper. That will be Thursday, April 21, at 6:30 p.m. On Good Friday, April 22, we will have our noon-time service of worship, telling the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and praying for God’s mercy. Please plan to come to all of these services; if you need a ride or any other information, please contact the church office.

Mostly, I pray that all of us will be able to observe a holy Lent, preparing us to receive anew the good news of Christ’s resurrected life.

LOVE

February, 2011

A colleague told me recently that his congregation will hang some special banners in their sanctuary in honor of Valentine’s Day.  I had some reservations about that.  The love expressed on most of the greeting cards, heart-shaped chocolate boxes, little candies, and even the red roses that get sent around as February 14 comes up promotes a sentimental, sickly sweet kind of love.  That kind of love is a beautiful thing when it is experienced.  It is the kind of love that we experience when we first begin to love someone:  a new romantic partner, a baby just born, a new friend, or even a new pet.  We get swept up in that kind of love, when everything that another person does is interesting, and everything is understandable, and it seems like the other person never does anything wrong.  That kind of love is special, and it is important.  As I counsel with couples about to get married, I often hear most about that kind of love, and I see it as a good start for marriage.

I understand why someone would want that kind of love represented in the church.  Because many of us want to see our church family in more or less that way.  We want church to be pleasant.  We want to feel good when we come here.  When we come here, we would rather not face the same things we witness in the other people around us:  the obnoxious personalities, the questionable moral decisions, the gossip and judgment and general drama that might happen in our workplaces or schools or communities or families or other places we find ourselves most of the time.  We want to look at the people around us, and maybe even the congregation as a whole, as interesting and understandable and never wrong.

But sooner or later the other person’s habit of leaving their towel on the floor becomes annoying, and the cries demanding attention start to grate on our last nerve.  Pretty soon we learn that our new friend is not always reliable, and the dog digs up the garden.  It is at that point that the Valentines Day merchandise stops making sense.

But it is also at that point when love really happens.  I have been mulling over a verse of scripture recently, and I think it is one of the greatest expressions of what love means in the Bible.  In Romans 5:8, Paul says, “…while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”  We still were sinners.  That person we want to love so purely is still a sinner.  That person still does things that will hurt us.  We will sometimes feel angry with that person, and that person will frustrate us and disappoint us.  That is even true of people in the church, or even of the church as a whole.  We are still sinners.  God knows, we are sinners!

God knows, and God loves us anyway.  God doesn’t pretend that we are perfect, or that we will never do anything wrong.  Instead, God loves us with a love that is willing to sacrifice.  That is what love really is.  That is when love really happens.  We will feel angry sometimes, and we will be hurt, and we will be disappointed and even frustrated.  And there’s no reason for us to lie to ourselves about those feelings, or pretend they do not happen.  They happen with our romantic partners, they happen with our children, they happen with our close friends, they happen with our church.  In fact, they are a part of our love, so much so that if we are ever going to love anyone or anything, we will have to accept those feelings.  They may shock us sometimes, but they will happen, and when they happen, we are going to love best when we are honest about them.

That is the kind of love I think is worth celebrating in the church, and I think it is worth celebrating all the time, not just for the day the greeting card companies have designated.

ARISE! SHINE!

January, 2011

In the church, we are entering the season of Light.  In the Christian calendar, the season of Christmas lasts for twelve days.  That brings us to January 6, when we celebrate Epiphany by telling the story of the Wise Menas they visited the child Jesus.  Around here, we simply call the period between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday “Ordinary Time.”  However, in some traditions, that period is called the Season of Epiphany.  Epiphany is from a Greek word meaning “manifestation.”  God is made manifest in Jesus Christ; in other words, through the life and ministry of Jesus, God is known more clearly than the world had ever known God before.  The scripture readings we will have in worship during this season show that God is known through the signs and teachings of Jesus.  The last Sunday of this season is Transfiguration Sunday, when we will remember the story of Jesus’ transfiguration before some of his disciples on a mountaintop.

All of this talk about the days and seasons of the church might seem a bit technical, and even irrelevant to our daily lives of work, school, and activities, but there is one image that weaves its way through this season which I hope we can keep in front of us.  This is a season of light.  One of the most important signs of the story of the wise men is the star, which, according to Matthew, shined over the place where Jesus and his family lived so the three could find their way to give their gifts to the new King.  And one of the most important events of the story of the Transfiguration is that, as he was transfigured, Jesus’ face shined “like the sun.”  We move in this season from the light of that star to the light of Jesus’ face, and that light shows God to us in a way that is clearer than we have known God before.

One church I was a part of when I was younger frequently used the image of a beacon to describe themselves.  In one form, a beacon is a very, very bright light surrounded by a reflective surface, like a mirror.  The light is intensified by the reflective surface so that the message which the light is meant to convey can travel even further.  Through the light of beacons, ships can know where the shore is, or citizens can know when trouble is coming, or airplanes can know how to avoid crashing into a mountain as well as how to find a safe place to land.

As we enter this season of light, I have been thinking that a beacon is a good image for our work as a church.  The light of God shines on and through Jesus Christ.  And our job is to surround and reflect that light in the most intense way we can, like a mirror surrounds and intensifies the light of a beacon.  We show the way to truth and love and beauty and grace.  We let people know that materialism and greed and self-centeredness and violence and all those other ways that the world operates are dangerous to our souls as creatures of God.  We guide the community in which we dwell to the safety and comfort of God’s love.  As the church, we are a beacon, reflecting the light of Christ to the world.

Things get back to normal around the church during this time.  Classes and rehearsals and meetings and groups get back on their usual schedule after a break for the holidays.  Community groups and Scouts who use our buildings get back to their regular meetings.  The Tutoring Program starts up again for the most intense time of teaching during the school year.  The Session will grapple with some tough decisions as we establish the church budget (please see the article later in this newsletter about the hard work we have to do).  The Deacons will organize themselves anew for their work of caring for the congregation.  The congregation will advise the Session on some decisions about our Social Hall space (see the article later in this newsletter about that, too).  We look forward to some annual events, like the Souper Bowl of Caring and Scout Sunday.

But through all of this return to the routine of ministry, I pray that we remember we are in a season of light, and that we may act as beacons shining the light of Christ to each other, to our community, and to the world in the most intense way we can.  For, as the prophet Isaiah reminded us in our celebration of Christmas, whenever God is manifest, we are called to “Arise!  Shine!  For your light has come!”

PEOPLE, GET READY

December, 2010

Some of you may remember the popular song, “People, Get Ready.”  Depending on your generation, you may remember the jazzy, smooth, slow, descending-chord sounds of Curtis Mayfield’s electric guitar and high-pitched voice with its inviting but not demanding expression.  Or, you may remember Rod Stewart’s re-make with guitarist Jeff Beck.  It is performed much more straight, with rift after rift on the guitar and a slow rock beat on the drums, but still a beautiful expression.

We used the song as our theme for Advent one year at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Boston, where I worked while I was in seminary.  It helped that the pastor was a professional piano player in a rock band in a previous life, but we got the singers together and taught the congregation to praise God through the song each week in worship, as a way to direct our minds to what God is going to do, and what we should do in response to that promise.

That is what Advent is all about:  directing our minds away from the everyday routine and toward the new things God has promised will happen.  The scripture readings for worship come from prophetic parts of the Bible; this year, for instance, we are going to hear all about the time when “the nations…shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks,” (Isaiah 2:4) and “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them…they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:6, 9)

At Christmas, we will remember that those promises already began to be fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ.  But in the four weeks before Christmas, we will also remember that those promises will be fulfilled more completely when Christ comes again to re-create the whole world, as He promised to do.  We already have the kingdom proclaimed by the Prince of Peace, but we also know that there are still too many wars and not enough food to go around; that there is too much violence and not enough living together; and that our world is led by presidents and legislators and dictators and CEO’s who feebly work only for the interests of their nation or party or corporation, not for the good of the whole earth, and certainly not in pursuit of the full knowledge of the Lord.

And in Advent, we also direct our minds to what we should do in response to God’s promise that the world will be re-created when Christ comes again.  And that’s where the song comes in.  The words of the first verse are:

”People get ready, there’s a train a-comin’!

You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board.

All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin’;

Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.”

We should get ready:  get ready to experience the unbounded grace, the unfettered life, the unrestrained gratitude of God’s creation when it will be “full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  And we should get ready:  get ready like we would get ready to go on a long trip: ready to drop everything, ready to follow Someone else’s schedule, ready to get out of the everyday routine, ready to take a risk, ready to really believe in the hope that there is something much, much better about to happen.

You can see the list of special services and celebrations during Advent here.  I hope you will come for worship and fellowship, expecting and hoping and praying for an end to our everyday world, with the violence and hunger and war and misleading which prevail in it.  And I pray that we can get ready for the grace and freedom and gratitude which is coming.

TEACH US TO PRAY

November, 2010

Isaac received a number of very thoughtful and generous gifts for his birthday in October.  But there was one I think you all should know about.  Last spring, you may remember, the Sunday School teachers asked each of the students to color a picture of a child to look something like himself or herself, and to write his or her name on it.  Then, during worship, all of us were invited to come forward and take a picture from a child.  By accepting the picture, it was explained, we were committing to pray for that child regularly.  Isaac was a bit upset about this whole process; he wanted to keep the picture he colored.  But with some help, he went along with it.

Neatly folded and tucked in one of the birthday cards he received from a member of the congregation, we found the picture Isaac had colored.  But it had been changed.  All around the edges of the sheet of paper, there were numbers written.  At the top of the page, in casual handwriting, it said, “Received, Sunday, March 21^st.  I prayed for Isaac March 21, 22, 23, 24, 25…”  Almost every day from the time he let that picture go during worship that morning until his birthday was accounted for around the edges of the picture, and at the bottom of the page it said, “…and I will continue to pray for you…”  The scores of dates written were a record which the person who received the picture kept of the days when she prayed for Isaac.

Mary nearly cried.  Here was a written record that someone cared enough to pray for our child almost every day.  And not just for a few days, but for hundreds of days.  Day after day, over a period of months, that person prayed for our child each day.  Whatever that person was going through, no matter if it was a good day or a bad day, that person prayed for our son.  It was beautiful.

It was beautiful to me not just because of the care it expressed for my own child.  It was also beautiful because of the gift it was to the person who prayed for Isaac.  Prayer is funny like that.  When we pray for other people, we are not simply telling God what to do; we are opening ourselves to let God shape us and mold us and strengthen our faith.  We are telling God what is important to us, and we are letting God help us understand why those things are important.  And we are letting God tell us, too, that we can trust God.  The person praying for Isaac did not know which days he slept well and which days he did not; she probably did not know when he had a cold, and when or why he was sad or fussy.  She did not need to know anything specific to pray for; she only needed to tell God that she was concerned for him, that she understood that all children are vulnerable, and that she wanted him to feel God’s presence and peace as he learns how to live in this world.

I would like to see us do the same for all of the children our church touches.  Can we pray for each of the children of our Sunday School every day for the whole year?  Can we pray for the babies in our nursery and for the teens in our youth program?  If we distribute a list of the names of the students in the Tutoring Program, can we be assured that someone is praying for each of them every day?  If we hand out the names of the children in the families who stay in our buildings with Interfaith Hospitality Network, can we pray for them every day over a period of months or even years?  Such a commitment would be a gift to the children of this church, and it would be a gift to each of us, too.