The Journey

Last Sunday’s massacre of 26 men, women, children… and even the unborn as they gathered in a “Sanctuary” for worship may have finally awakend the church to how vulnerable we are as we worship on Sunday mornings. A 32-year-old former Air Force airman Court Marshalled, given a year’s confinement and a Bad Conduct Discharge walked into the church of his ex-wife and mother-in-law and fired over 450 deadly rounds.

I know a lot of my clergy colleagues will disagree with me, but, for me, the time has come for churches to protect its members. We have a requirement in the United Methodist called “Safe Sanctuary” which is basically to make sure that children and women are safe from assault and/or abuse. This came out of the tragic events of the Catholic Church. It has been mandated and yet many Methodist churches have yet to take it seriously or do anything whatsoever about this.

Now a new threat has crossed the horizon… a lone guy coming into a Bible Study in South Carolina or a sanctuary with 15 magazines filled with 30 rounds of ammunition. Some good old church people will say “Jesus will take care of us. So we don’t need to do that.” Let me share with you where I come from. I spent four years in the United States Marines. I am qualified as an expert with a 45 and a M-14. I am pretty good with both, haven’t practiced much in the last 50 years, but I can get back to an expert level rather quickly. I was at Khe Sanh during Tet in 1968. We lost a lot of men. I was so very fortunate not to have lost any of my men. To me that is one of the hardest things to imagine… losing someone under your leadership, training and responsibility.

I have given a lot of thought about losing people I am responsible for in the church to some person coming to the door with long rifles, pistols and a whole bunch of rounds intent on doing as much harm as possible. It would be unforgivable for me personally to have had the chance to prepare and failed to do anything about it. That would be hard to live with.

My last church had it right – took responsibility – made a plan and carries it through every Sunday and whenever the church meets. Additions we made after I got there was to respond to two break-ins by adding inside motion detectors and night vision cameras. We were fortunate to have a former Assistant Police Chief in our church who helped to lead and train us to take care of our members. It all began with the ushers. They were not just people who gave out bulletins, they locked all outside doors, except the main entrance, once the service started, walked the halls, checked classrooms, bathrooms, and the parking lot looking for anything out-of-place. In addition to these things there was always at least one person in the narthex and … and there were several trained people in the congregation who were conceal carry trained who carried a weapon every Sunday. This program and these people opened my eyes to the need to actually and practically care for and protect the people of my congregation. 

If you really care about your people and want them to be safe in worship, meetings and studies then get your leaders (at least a couple of level-headed ones) and meet with a police official who could give you insight and help you with your planning – talk about the good and the not so good of putting a safety plan into action.

Okay, the answer you may have been waiting to hear is “No, I am not a supporter of the NRA. The NRA is about selling guns not protecting people.” Back in the days before guns it was called the National Rock Association and their tag line was “Rocks Don’t Kill People… People Do.” Hey, but if the rocks were not nearby we would be throwing flowers at each other. We are going to hurt people with whatever is near and easily accessible when rage gets out of hand. If it is rocks we will do a lot less harm than we will with an AK-47 with a 50 round magazine.

So, do some deep soul-searching about you standing there seeing many of the people you baptized lying dead in the sanctuary…. that is if you are not one of them. Many times they will go after the preacher first. May God be with us all as we ponder what God would have us do.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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A parable is told of a farmer who owned an old mule. The mule fell into the farmer’s well. The farmer heard the mule ‘braying’ – or – whatever mules do when they fall into wells.

After carefully assessing the situation, the farmer sympathized with the mule, but decided that neither the mule nor the well was worth the trouble of saving. Instead, he called his neighbors together and told them what had happened…and enlisted them to help haul dirt to bury the old mule in the well and put him out of his misery.

Initially, the old mule was hysterical!

But as the farmer and his neighbors continued shoveling and the dirt hit his back, a thought struck him. It suddenly dawned on him that every time a shovel load of dirt landed on his back, he should shake it off and step up!

This he did, blow after blow.

“Shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up…shake it off and step up!”

He repeated to encourage himself. No matter how painful the blows of dirt, or distressing the situation seemed, the old mule fought “panic” and just kept right on shaking it off and stepping up!

It wasn’t long before the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of the well.

The dirt that seemed would bury him, actually blessed him. All because of the manner in which he handled his adversity. Shake it off and step up….

Grace and Peace
Steve

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“And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard,
neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard;
thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger:
I am the Lord your God.”
Leviticus 19:10 (KJV)

These days, there is a certain tyranny that accompanies utmost efficiency and accountability. When every single seat on every single flight is booked, those on standby are always left stranded. I was very fortunate back in the 60’s traveling from Greensboro to California and back, there was always that one seat in all those airports. When every slice of bread is sold to those who can buy it, those who can’t afford it are left wanting. When every minute of the day is planned and prescribed, there is no time for unexpected interventions of the Holy Spirit.

Have you ever decided to attend an event at the very last minute, but it was so well-planned and executed that when you arrived there was not an empty seat to be found? Then, suddenly, you spot just one. You rush over and timidly ask the person seated next to it, “Is anyone sitting here?” The person smiles and says: “Yes, someone is sitting there. You are.” And if the person is extra kind, she might add, “We reserved this seat just for you.”

In our concerns over balanced budgets and fiscal accountability, how well are we planning to accommodate those who just arrived in our midst; those, who for countless reasons didn’t feel welcomed until very recently; or those whose names were for so long either omitted or deleted from the invitation list; or those who got lost and just made it in?

In the book of Leviticus, God’s call for holiness among God’s people was a call for compassion to strangers and generosity to the poor.  So important was this principle of holiness that God did not leave it up to individuals to come up with their own notions of what compassion and generosity in society meant. God’s instructions were clear: generosity and compassion were to be built into the system of reaping and harvesting. Grapes and grain were to be intentionally left behind, and that which was left behind was not considered waste or entitlement. It was really a divine reservation for the poor and the unexpected stranger.

How prepared are we today to accommodate the strangers, the poor, and those in desperate need whom God sends along our paths?  Someone is standing and looking for a seat.  Is there room near you?

Dear God, we thank you for not leaving generosity and compassion up to chance. Thank you for reserving a place for all of us who missed the first invitation by circumstance or neglect, for those of us who have just arrived. In and through Jesus you have made a seat for us all. Help us to do the same. Amen.

Grace and Peace 
Steve

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“The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”
Psalm 23, KJV

The image of God as a shepherd runs throughout scripture. What exactly does a shepherd do? It’s a job description that the ancient Israelites would have been familiar with, as would much of the world throughout history, when society was more agrarian. But in today’s world of agribusiness, when only a few farmers spend time on the land or with animals, we have become increasingly distant from this image.

Very few animals get to wander in green pastures these days. Instead they lead miserable short lives in factory farms. This image of God as a shepherd calls us back to a better way, a more beautiful life for the sheep and the shepherd.

I picture an Irish man with gray-flecked hair, wellington boots, a worn tweed jacket and a wool cap. He has a few sheep dogs running around his heels until given some subtle signal to run ahead. The sheep, from a distance, are white fluffy dots in a country landscape, little clouds in a sea of verdant green grass, the quaint local pub rising from the distance like an oasis. That’s the fantasy.

But get up close and sheep are a different matter. They are not white but usually dirty and soiled. Their coats are not soft and fluffy so much as tangled and matted. You wouldn’t want to snuggle with them. They smell. They make weird noises. Lambs are cute. Sheep not so much.

But if the shepherd is God, then you know who we are. The sheep. Lovely from a distance, but messy, smelly and a bit dim-witted when you get up close. And yet, God gets up close. God came to earth in human form, to once again be a shepherd.

Dear Lord, we understand as a shepherd cares for his sheep, we are loved. Lord, help us love this earth and the creatures we share it with. Let us return to green pastures, in and through Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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…let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.
Ephesians 4:23

A Re-run

This afternoon, I read a devotional entitled “The Elephant In The Living Room.” I really liked the title but didn’t care for the devotion because it spoke of things that really did not touch my soul at all. I have scanned, searched, and thought about what I could write for my devotion tonight. Here’s the problem. I’m feeling kind of down today. Shirley even asked me “Why are you so gloomy today?” I really didn’t know I was gloomy until I started to write a devotion. And that was when I just seemed empty.

You know I think the real question is not about the elephant in the living room. It’s about how did he get in? I’m looking at the door right now and he had to be awfully small when he arrived. But now the thought is this elephant is huge – so huge we should not miss seeing it. But he had to get in sometime, and I bet he came in when he was small.

I bet my gloomy day started out like everybody’s gloomy day, one little cloud at a time. Actually I think my gloomy day started a couple of days ago. Perhaps with Sundays announcement of my retirement and our new pastor coming, it is starting to sink in that I only have a couple of months left at Pine Grove? Maybe it’s the phone call I received Monday informing me that a close former member of a former church had just passed away? It could be that by Sunday I will have officiated at three funerals in eight days? I have tried for two days now to start writing the two remaining messages I want to deliver. But to my dismay, I do not have even the first word started. Tuesday morning before 9 o’clock I had received two phone calls about kids and families in trouble, and these are families and kids I care about, but the only thing I can do is pray.

Now I’m really in trouble, because my elephant metaphor breaks down. Perhaps I should’ve used butterflies which came in one at a time as the door was left ajar. And now they can just fly back out one at a time as I deal with each problem each butterfly brought. Instead, I am left with a huge elephant who snuck in when he was little, and now how in the world can I get him back through that door? Well folks, now I’ve got two problems – one big elephant in the living room, no way to get him out, and a devotion that’s not finished.

Perhaps tonight is the night when I need to ask for your help instead of offering my own advice? When you receive this devotion tonight stop, pray, and ponder ways to solve my problem, and in turn find the solution to when you see that elephant peeking around the corner of your living room.

I have already thought of a chainsaw, but we would lose half the living room wall.

I have thought of pouring alum on the elephant and waiting for it to shrink. But that’s a lot of alum!

I have thought about putting him in the dryer with one of those dryer sheets that would make him fluffy enough to just be pushed through the door. But those things just get stuck in your socks, pant legs and other places we won’t mention.

I have even thought of pouring salt on him like you do on a snail, and therefore having him (bad pun coming) turn from the inside to the outside. That was really bad.

I think perhaps what I really need is to read a good uplifting devotional from someone else, a good night’s sleep, and start fresh in the morning.

Dear Lord, help get this huge elephant out of my room, lift my spirits and help me to be of help to those who need me this week. In and through Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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“If you refrain from trampling the sabbath,
from pursuing your own interests on my holy day…
then you shall take delight in the Lord.”
Excerpt from Isaiah 58:13-14

I happened to recall that a few years ago – when I had a Blackberry – I sat near to a man at the movies who spent the entire time working with his Blackberry and then sending text messages.  Occasionally, he would look up at the big screen, but then he would bow his head to the tiny screens in his lap. Obviously, he had taken to heart the slogan from an ad campaign: “Now anyplace can be your workplace.”

At first, I was a bit annoyed, but then I came to have something like sympathy for the man because his behavior had the look and feel of addiction. More and more it seems as if we are addicted to busyness. It starts with alluring promises (“you will save time, you will have more freedom”). Eventually, however, there is no pleasure in it. We feel trapped. Even though we may begin to sense, “This is not good for me,” we no longer see a way out. We are stuck in patterns we didn’t exactly choose and don’t know how to change.

A friend of mine, speaking of the time she was a pastor, says she felt – like most all pastors feel – that she had to make herself available at any hour, every day of the year. Laughing at herself, she said, “There used to be a time when only God was that important.”

It is precisely the reminder that “only God is that important” that is the basis of the practice of keeping Sabbath. When we stop working for a time we can see that the world does manage very well without us. The sun still shines. The tides still ebb and flow. We are fed. We are not indispensable, but we are valued nonetheless. It is good to have that reminder on occasion. In fact, it is essential if we are to be healthy in our faith.

Dear God, I confess to you the sin of perpetual busyness. Help us all to observe and allow others the gift of observing a Sabbath renewal. I know I have retired – hopefully slowing down, help me to receive the gift of peaceful rest that I may be renewed in my life and in my faith, in and through Jesus.  Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the
house of the Lord forever.”
Psalm 23:6

Henry Beston spent 1928 living in a little grey-shingled one-room house on the far windswept dunes of the Outer Beach of Cape Cod. He spent the year watching, listening, as the constellations, storms and tides, came and went.

It all sounded so “romantic” to live somewhere like our Outer Banks, but I have come to learn that the “Outermost House” is not an easy to place to go, but is a place where many get thrust, by the storms and changes of life.

Some of us discover that it will take a journey of solitude in order to reach the next season of our lives. For others, a crisis thrusts us out here alone where we did not plan to be.  

For his part, Henry Beston loved talking about the “idea” of a year in his “Outermost House” but it took his fiancé to get him there. She told him she wouldn’t marry him until he spent this year letting the seasons do their work in him and writing his book, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.

Will we let this season do its work in us? To trust that the Living, Creating, Renewing One’s hand is truly at work in “the warm mild weather of home” and in “all the cold” as well. 

Dear Lord, in this season may we join the company of those who have listened and watched the turning of the days and found in them your hand of grace, in and through Jesus.  Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.”
Psalm 23:5

Some days you can just hear the tinny sound of your own empty cup. You drag yourself around the office and the kitchen.  You walk with your head down. You forget to smile.  You forget you even knew how to laugh.

Other days there is a spring in your step, a 23rd psalm on your lips, a lift in your heart. You start sentences with YAY, though I walk through the shadow of death, I fear no evil. You begin from the resurrection instead of from the crucifixion.

What is the difference between an empty cup and a full one?  The difference is in the risk of emptying it. Overflow energy comes after we spill, not before. Instead we hear the waterfall in the background, the replenishing of plenitude released.  Plenitude hoarded gets tinny. Spilled, it flows. Our cups overflow if we empty them.

I think Asa, age 2 years 8 months, can help us.  His mother tells this story of his report card: “Ms. Allison got bumped in the mouth and Asa hugged her and kept saying ‘It’s okay! You’re doing a good job.'” Asa could have cried or stood in a corner or avoided the whole thing. Instead, he connected. His tears spilled with her spill and both were helped by the connection. “Doing a good job” might not be my preferred language in a child but at least he understands that loving is work. I’m not crazy about report cards either but at least now we know what Asa has in his cup and what he is willing to do with it.

O God, give us a way out of the tomb of empty cups and dissolute days, in and through Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.
Psalm 119:102

Well, since around 4pm we have been without power. Can you imagine what that does to a techy? No Television. No Computer…which means no emails, no Facebook, no messaging; No air-conditioning. No lights. But, aha, I have my iPhone. And an oil lamb.

So here I am (picture this) after activating the hot spot on my iPhone so that I can send and receive emails and get internet – sitting here by the light of an oil lamp typing my devotional on my Mac. Kinda reminds you of Abe Lincoln doesn’t it?

Tonight (even though we did get to see the CNN news report of the first indictments of the Mueller Investigation) we are being forced to slow down almost to a crawl, actually talk to each other (not over the noise of the TV), be quiet, retrospective, and think about quieter times. (The cat actually purrs???)

I know that I will be glad when this intrusion into my techy world is over, but perhaps I will appreciate some quiet time – very quiet time at home talking about what our test results will produce.

Trim your lamps and enjoy your PB & J by candlelight. We did.

Dear Lord, you know I do like my techy stuff. Oh how difficult it would be for me to retro to 1900 with the oil lamps and no phones (I or Me or Wii). Thank you for this quiet time to reflect on the many blessings you have giving us, especially the blessing of Jesus. Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels to show
that this all-surpassing power is from God…”
Excerpt from 2 Corinthians 4:4-18

We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, but except on All Saints Day, it hovers over us unnoticed. It’s like our appendix: we don’t need it, so unless it acts up, we don’t know it’s there, or much care. That’s too bad, because unlike our appendix, we need the saints more than we think. Not, like in the Middle Ages, to save us from Hell for a coin or heal our complex ills by the simple application of a left-behind bone. We have politicians and star-power pastors for that.

No, we don’t need them for magic. We need them for lively conversation about the immense dignity of ordinary life, the incalculable value of everyday intentions to follow Jesus, and the inexplicable power of human helplessness to attract the mercies of God. We need them to confirm for us the secret of holiness behind halos and hymns – drudgery and routine; fleshly weakness and the shame of sin; the need for pardon and the struggle to be ready for grace; the groaning labor to reorder selfish affections towards selfless Love; the foolish choice to hope against hope; and the costly return, day after weary day, to the unlovely neighbor’s side, with no one catching any of this stubborn, unremarkable pilgrimage on tape.

Faced with intractable fears and exhausting complexities, the world whips out the sensation, the quick fix, and the magic of celebrity. The church’s ancient wisdom offers instead “mystic sweet communion with those whose race is won.” We have the saints, and if we look carefully, we find that they are us – extraordinary signs that ordinary vulnerability, love and repentance, courage and perseverance still count. They count for a lot. For everything!

Happy All Saints Day, saints of God!

Dear Lord, for all the saints who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name O Jesus, be forever blessed. Alleluia! Amen.

Grace and Peace
Steve

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