Head and Heart

Anniversary Song

2012-01-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

(Today is our fifty-first wedding anniversary. I couldn't find anything more appropriate to say than what I wrote two years ago on our 49th--I still believe it holds true today.)

49 Years.

Where did they go?

49 Years.
What do they mean?
49 Years.
It all began under an October harvest moon.
49 Years.
She was 21 – I was 25.
49 Years.
We are much older now than our parents were

dressed in their finery that snowy evening.
49 Years.
Loving the little girl, then the
little boy who graced our lives.
49 Years.
Wearing a gold ring that never
turned green.
49 Years.
Of struggle, fear, frustration and
fun, fun, fun.
49 Years.
Of lying next to the one
who keeps you warm and safe.
49 Years.

Of packing and moving and packing
and moving and packing and moving.
49 Years.
Of saying goodbye and hello and
goodbye and hello.
49 Years.
Of fighting over the tiniest of things.
49 Years.
On agreeing on what really matters.
49 Years.
Like water on a rock—altering, changing
making smooth and shiny.
49 Years.
Of stretching and forgiving
and hurting and healing.
49 Years.
Where did they go?
49 Years.
What do they mean?
49 Years.

Finally learning love not an emotion
or an act or a word but much, much more.
49 Years.
Love is a bridge that helped me/us
over many troubled and peaceful waters.
49 Years.
Grateful. Humble. Joy-filled. Maddening.
Comfortable. Confusing and Right.
49 Years.
Where did they go?
49 Years.
Much, much too fast.
49 Years.
What do they mean?
Every thing.
Everything.

Mr. Gingrich and Cheap Grace

2012-01-21T17:01:00.000-08:00

"...my only duty as a Christian is to leave the world for an hour or two on a Sunday morning and go to church to be assured my sins are forgiven. I need no longer try to follow Christ, for cheap grace, the bitterest foe of discipleship, which true discipleship must loathe and detest, has freed me from that. Grace as the data for our calculations means grace at the cheapest price, but grace as the answer to the sum means costly grace. It is terrifying to realize what use can be made of a genuine evangelical doctrine. In both cases we have the identical formula--'justification by faith alone.' Yet the misuse of the formula leads to the complete destruction of its very essence."
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

We moved to South Carolina just as the Republican primary here was just beginning to crank up. We’ve heard a lot of cranking from these quarters the last few weeks. Most of the attacks, strangely enough, were not directed toward our sitting President. Most of the missiles were hurled at each other. Since South Carolina has been known to break or make Republican presidential contenders—the candidates have felt much was at stake in this deep-South state.

The most lethal attacks were directed toward the two primary horses in the race—Romney and Gingrich. And those attacks came from the two leading contenders themselves. The ugliness came from Gingrich’s remarks and Romney’s behind-the-scenes advertising. Stephen Cobert weighed in with enough levity to put this whole charade in perspective.

In the last debate on Thursday night I felt it was a cheap shot for Moderator John King to begin this debate by asking Mr. Gingrich about his former wife’s charge that he wanted her to engage in an open marriage arrangement. Gingrich, rightly so, was furious. He lashed back: “I can’t believe you would begin a Presidential debate with a question so scurrilous and inflammatory about my personal life when so much is at stake in this election.” Gingrich was right in his angry retort. This was no way to begin this debate and I felt it was unfair.

And yet—for months Mr. Gingrich has painted a picture of someone who has made serious mistakes in his personal life and yet has joined the Catholic Church and found forgiveness. And yet this third-time husband cannot just sweep his past under the rug. I remember that while he was still married and having affair with his third-wife-to-be he piously said that he would never speak in public again without mentioning Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Certainly there was more than an aroma of hypocrisy about those statements.

I do hope that Mr. Gingrich has found forgiveness and closed the tawdry chapters in his own personal life. Yet I kept thinking about Bonhoeffer’s contrast between cheap grace and costly grace. He wrote in his book, The Cost of Discipleship that “cheap grace is the deadly enemy of the church. We are fighting today for costly grace.” He continued: “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack’s wares...Cheap grace means justification of sin without the justification of the sinner.”

Mr. Gingrich seems to have overlooked or forgotten that we have to live with the consequences of our sins and misdeeds. What happens in Vegas or Washington or Atlanta cannot stay there. The ripples we all make in the stream just go on and on--often with deadly consequences. The debris left behind his affairs and three marriages cannot be swept under the rug so easily.

It is appalling to see so many Evangelicals put aside their principles so casually when it comes to Mr. Gingrich’s marital failings. Bonhoeffer wrote that in supporting a casual grace that makes so few demands on the person ”the Christian (then) can live like the rest of the world, let him model himself on the world’s standards in every sphere of life, and not presumptuously aspire to live a different life under grace from his old life under sin.... Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

Bonhoeffer was right when, in the title of his book, he states that discipleship is always costly. For the Christian, ethics always comes before politics. And when we reverse that order we might remember what happened in Nazi Germany when churchmen and supposedly good Christians forgot what comes first for the followers of Jesus.

Mr. Gingrich is no Hitler. But he has forgotten his Baptist heritage on its good days and his new-found Catholic faith when it, too places its priorities in the proper order. This does not mean that I am not about to get out a Romney for President placard—but it does mean that I do not scrap his name simply because of his Mormon faith.

T.S. Eliot, in another age reminded us:

“Remember the faith that took men from home
At the call of a wandering preacher,
Our age is an age of moderate virtue
And of moderate vice
When men will not lay down the Cross
Because they will never assume it.
Yet nothing is impossible, nothing,
To men of faith and conviction.
Let us therefore make perfect our will,
O God, help us.”
--T.S. Eliot, Choruses from 'The Rock'

Martin Luther King Helps Us Remember

2012-01-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

On this birthday of Martin Luther King I wonder what he would think of the state of our nation today. Behind the hoopla toward our President I cannot but believe if you follow the string far enough back you will find racism pure and simple. I remember reading about the first black football players to break the color line in colleges in the South--they were scorned and spat on and had a hard time. Maybe we ought to remember that change is a long time coming.

What would Dr. King say about the discriminatory laws that have been passed in several states toward immigrants. Republican Alabama state senator Bill Holtzclaw responding to critics who said the state's immigration law was the meanest in the nation said, "I want you to know I am a Christian. I'm a Methodist, and I voted for this law. This legislation was written by Christians." On the other side Mary Bauer of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, AL recently spoke about she felt about Alabama's new law as it affected migrant families. "I'm wondering when that day will come where they will be asked to wear the yellow star."

Take any social issue and there is a strand of hatred toward anyone who just might be poor or gay or an immigrant. What would Dr. King say about the disciminatory laws passed in several states which require voter ID before someone can vote? Legislators must surely have known there were people in their constituency who had no driver's license or identification card of any kind. Are they first class citizens or should we just ignore them?

On this special day when we honor that "Drum major of justice" my mind goes back to the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. On September 16, 1963 a bomb shattered that church on a Sunday morning. When the dust had settled four little girls who had come to Sunday school that morning lay dead. (Spike Lee told that story in his film, "Four Little Girls.") Many were injured that day when the church was damaged. Word of that tragedy spread around the world. And in Cardiff, Wales children began to collect money to help replace the church's shattered glass windows.

An artist, John Petts of that country offered his services to create a special window for the church. A local newspaper editor there launched a campaign to raise money for the venture. The maximum donation would be half a crown (thirty pennies) so that the window would come from all the people of Wales and not just the well-heeled.

The project took two years. Petts delivered his gift from the people of his country to the church when it was completed. If you were to go there today and stand in the pulpit and look out on the rows and rows of pews you could not miss this window. It dominates the whole church. As the light filters through the colored glass it touches those that worship there. A rainbow surrounds a huge black Jesus with his arms outstretched. His right hand pushes away hatred and injustice. His left hand holds out forgiveness. Underneath the figure of Jesus, Petts has etched into the window: You Do It to Me. Underneath the window is inscribed: "Given by the people of Wales."

I wish everyone could see that window. That stained glass memorial is a symbol of forgiveness fashioned out of pain and suffering and racism. On this day when we remember the great King--let us remember where we are as a nation. The mean-spiritedness touches every part of this country. Let us ponder where racism and hatred took us years ago. Let us commit ourselves to a better day and a better time. "Deep in my heart I still believe we shall overcome."

Epiphany Time--Light in Darkness

2012-01-06T08:46:00.000-08:00

This is the second Sunday after Christmas. Most of us have taken down the tree, vacuumed up the needles, hauled the boxes down from the attic and filled them up and lugged them all back up again. Out of sight and out of mind. We have rearranged the furniture and then sat down and held our breath as we opened our January Visa statement. Sometime soon IRS forms will arrive. Since the fourth century the church has called these days Epiphany. Once upon a time the season of Epiphany was one of the three great seasons of the church year—Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost. Advent would become popular later. But this little known season we are in begins at the end of Christmas and extends all the way until Ash Wednesday.

I have been wondering why Epiphany was so popular and why the church loved this season. Two images mark these days—darkness and light. Darkness? Yes. In Isaiah, which is one of the readings for today, the chosen people had been attacked and dragged away into exile. The attackers destroyed everything—cities, their Temple in Jerusalem. They dragged off the best and the brightest. Not just once—there were at least three different deportations. Those exiles lived in cursed Babylon, against their will, for seventy long years. And then word came that they would be set free and could return home. But it was not all joy that homecoming. They hobbled back to a wasteland much like Iraq and Afghanistan must look today. Everything needed attention and work. So they set about the hard task of rebuilding but the work was slow and tedious. They grew discouraged and picked at one another, their leader, and even shook their fists at God Almighty. “You have brought us back to this desolate place of rocks and scorpions and absolute devastation. What kind of a God are you?” Was this the answer to their prayers? They had been promised restoration. We know the words well: “Comfort ye…comfort ye…speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.” And then those wonderful words we have grown to love: “Every valley shall be lifted up…and every mountain will be made low…the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places smoothed out.” That was the promise. But everywhere they looked all they could see was dust and work and chaos and misery. Sorting through the rubble day after day it was hard. No wonder they called it the dark. This was the setting of our Isaiah scripture.

Move now to our second reading. We know it well. Matthew 2—and in the middle of that wonderful Christmas story we find the darkness there too. Darkness? Yes. Oh, I know the baby was born—finally. He was all right. He had all the parts including a very healthy pair of lungs. Yes, the Shepherds, those outsiders, listened to an angel and came to see for themselves. And there under that starry, starry night they stood open-mouthed and filled with wonder. No darkness there. Just Silent Night where all was calm…and all was bright.

But way off in Persia Wise men saw that same star. And those outsiders crossed trackless desert lands to find King Herod and this is where the darkness began. The King did not let them know what was up his sleeve. Kings rarely do. But this new baby-king was a threat to all he had worked for. And so Herod was determined to kill the baby whatever the cost. Every male child under the age of two was murdered. And that first Christmas, blood ran like a river through their streets. And in their sadness they quoted Jeremiah: “Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.” But even with all that murder the King’s men could not find the newborn king. Joseph took Mary and the baby and under cover of darkness fled like refugees and finally found safety far away in Egypt. You see, the darkness is everywhere even in this Christmas story.

And here it is in January and with Christmas gone--the old darkness returns. William Styron, the great writer was stricken with a depression so severe he called it Darkness Visible. You can see it, he said, you can feel it, and you can almost taste it—the darkness. Some of us here wonder about many things. The economy. The church. The future. The Republican primaries seem simply to reflect our time and our mood. No candidate excites. And that includes how many people feel about our President. This year we seem to be stuck in hopelessness and confusion. We are acquainted with the dark.

And Epiphany came in the middle of a deep despair and Herod’s bloody destruction. And Isaiah wrote to those returning depressed exiles: “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.” Israel, he said, the darkness is real but the light is realer. You will have to rebuild and work hard but your efforts will not be in vain. God will be with you.

And this is where our text from Matthew comes in. Blood and despair and confusion really did run through their streets. The child was at great risk. But they couldn’t stay stuck in their own September 11th. Everything changed. There was this star shining in the darkness. First it came to outsiders—Gentile kings that came from the East. But then it just keeps shining over everything and everyone. Rich and poor and strong and weak and old and young and fundamentalists and liberals and unbelievers and snake handlers and Muslims—all of us. And old John, in his gospel, brushed away the tears as he wrote with crooked fingers on a papyrus scroll what he had discovered pondering that first Christmas. “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out.” Not yesterday or the day before—the light shines today. And this is Epiphany. Despite the darkness—very real darkness there is also this incredible light. It is the presence of God that keeps calling all of us and each of us forward. And nothing can stop its power.

So here we are: you and me. It is January and it gets dark too quickly in the evening and most of us have friends very sick and very tired. I told my wife when the Christmas letters came I had never read of much sickness and hard times as those letters revealed. I asked her: Is it just because many of the people we know are older? And Epiphany comes and says the strangest thing: we have a choice as God’s people always have. We can give in to the darkness or we can opt for the light. Is it any wonder we called those that followed the star Wise men.

William Inge was a great American playwright. And one of his great plays was The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. It is a drama about Cora and Rubin and their children. Everyone in the play has his or her own darkness and they are scared and don’t know where to turn. In one scene Cora, the mother, tells her boy, Sonny to go on to bed. He says: “Mom.” Cora says: “I told you to go upstairs.” (She can see he is scared.) And so she sighs, “Sonny, why are you afraid of the dark? And he says: “Because you can’t see in front of you and it might be something awful.” Tenderly the mother says: “Sonny, you are the man of the house. You mustn’t be afraid.” And he says: “I’m not afraid if someone’s with me.” And she moves toward her son and takes his hand and says: “Come boy, we’ll go up together…”

There is darkness and there is light. They are both here. Side by side. And we must choose and we must decide. Epiphany says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot put it out. God is here with us. Even in the hard times. Especially in the hard times. This is a brand new year and it is fraught with incredible possibilities despite what the pundits and commentators say. Thanks be to God.

The New Year--a Chance to Do it Right

2011-12-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

"O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
   Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
    And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
   Missing so much and so much?"
--Frances Cornford, To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train

New Year. Strange to even write: 2012. For months I will have to check myself. How in the world did we ever get to 2012? Who knows? My wife and I have been surrounded by boxes, trying to figure out what should go where in this new house. Discovering after more than twenty years away—that the little old town has changed—much. But haven’t we all. I expected the people at church to look the way they did twenty years ago. And, I am sure they have expected me to look much different that this bald headed old guy.

Stopping for a respite of trying to organize, celebrate Christmas, say goodbye to a multitude of friends and painfully adjusting to a new place—I have been reading a novel. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake. The title sounded a little corny—but I finally picked it up the other day and discovered that this woman can write.

She tells the story of a Postmistress in a tiny place called Franklin—but there’s a war going on and so she keeps skipping from the safety of the United States to London and Europe and the bombs that just kept falling. In London there is a war correspondent that works with Edward R. Murrow. Her words cross the ocean to the people back home. She’s good at what she does and she interviews people scared and wondering what the future will hold. She tells that when she was at Smith College that a noted reporter, Miss Martha Gellhorn came to speak. She talked about the Depression and she told heart-wrenching and riveting stories of the pain and suffering of so many people during those hard days. After listening to her very dark address one of the girls sarcastically asked, “What are we to do about all that?” Miss Gellhorn took her time to answer. “Pay attention,” she said, “For God’s sake, pay attention.”The correspondent never forgot those words and she had her eyes open to people and tragedy and triumph in this terrible days. I cannot get those words out my mind, “Pay attention.”

Remember that wonderful line in the play, Our Town when Emily who has died is given a chance to return home. She chose her 12th birthday. They can’t see her but she can see all that is going on. And finally she cries out, “I can’t take it anymore. It’s too painful. All that was going on while I was there and I didn’t even notice. Does anybody really ever see what is going on?” And the Stage Manager who is a character in the drama answers, “Yes, some do. Poets and a few others. Not many.” I’m paraphrasing the writer’s words but it seems to me that a good resolution for all of us would be to pay attention to what is going on around us.

I confess that many days I have just been sleepwalking through so many important things. So I want to open my eyes and see what is going on around me a little clearer. Sometimes it isn’t a pretty sight—take the Republican candidates that are beginning to spit and claw at each other. Look around you—the checker at the grocery store—your postman—the woman across the street trying desperately to move on after her husband’s sudden death this year. We had four movers working hard to move us out and then to move us in. I did something I hardly ever do. I asked them about their lives, their families, how long they had been in the moving business. When they finally got everything placed in our new home they lined up and hugged us. We should have been hugging them.

Pay attention folks. If we pay attention we might be able to help somebody down the road who needs a hand or maybe a hug. If we pay attention it might just save us from this self-centeredness that infects us all. If we pay attention I have a feeling that we will be warmer and kinder and somehow, for better or for worse, this New Year may be far richer than any of us really envisioned.

It's Christmas--And even the Poor and Minorities get a Present This Year

2011-12-25T07:40:00.000-08:00

The Obama administration left a huge Christmas present under the tree for 81,938 minority citizens in South Carolina. These citizens had already registered to vote but lacked a Photo-identification card. Thomas E. Perez the Chief of the Civil Rights Division was referring particularly to a driver's license issued by the state Department of Motor Vehicles which is the most common form of photo identification.

In the wake of immigration fears many states have enacted new laws that tighten the rules for voting. John Lewis, no stranger to discrimination has said that this law was "a deliberate and systematic attempt" to prevent millions of elderly, low-income and minority Americans from voting.

This pathetic law reminds me of the old poll tax in the South--you had to pay to vote. Of course it kept many poor that were black and white from the polling places. This law also reminds me of all the obstacles that many states used to block mostly black citizens from voting in the sixties and before. Demanding that they quote huge portions of the US Constitution, answering trick questions that almost no one could answer, threatened with loss of job and sometimes life if they did not go home and keep quiet.

This has been a wearying year for many of us as we have looked at the fear in the eyes of so many Hispanics. Perhaps this is the first step in righting a very great wrong. David Savage, in the LA Times has written a great article on this issue that you might want to read.

At Christmas we remember again that little couple hunkered down in a drafty barn feeling left out of so much in their world. And yet this holy day above all else reminds us of that wonderful Lukan passage that Jesus read when his first public statements in his home-town synagogue. It was a Prelude of all he would ever do. He carefully unrolled the Isaiah scroll that had been written to another group of disenfranchised--Jews who were returning home after years in exile.

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord." (Luke 4.18-19)

Christmas Eve--And Lost

2011-12-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas Eve in South Carolina and the weather is balmy outside. Wal Mart was crowded this morning as we desperately searched for a star on top of our tree. The other one died. All of us need a star to guide us all through this circuitous path.

We're been here a week now. Most of the boxes are unpacked...but underneath the surface it is chaos. If you come don't look too hard in the closets and please, please do not look under the beds. My wife looked at me this morning and whispered, "I feel lost." Moving from Birmingham after twenty years is none too easy. If I had time and would not bore you with a cadre of stories that would make your hair stand on end...that is if you have any. Buying a house in Foreclosure--new though it is--there were no phone jacks. And how can you talk on your new phone without a place to plug it in. Then we were told by ATT that the only Internet service available here was dial-up. Everybody on the street, by the way, has DSL. So--after multitudinous calls to somewhere over the rainbow, communicating with computer voices and answering questions that would be asked yet again and again and finally--talking to people I could not understand (Having a hearing problem does not help.) I was getting a little edgy. Constantly hitting dead end streets. Continually asked, over and over, "Now if I understand you--you want to move your phone from South Carolina to Birmingham, Alabama?" "No, no" I frantically yelled. It didn't help. Finally in desperation I went to the local ATT office and poured out my heart to a real person and got on the list for a Internet hook-up. The problem was that in issuing a new order they gave me a second phone number! Which I discovered days later. Now we had to try to straighten that out. I could go on and on but by this time you probably are asleep.

Back to the lost feeling. Reckon Mary and Joseph didn't feel more than a little lost that windy night in Bethlehem? Reckon they wondered what in the world they had done and what would it mean to be parents--not knowing much of anything about babies. They knew the Romans were after the Jews and that crazy Herod would have their heads if he could find them. Mary was much too young for parenthood and Joseph was not much better. And the tiny, tiny baby must have felt troubled too, hurled out into a world that seemed strange and insecure.

We all are a little lost this Christmas. Constant rants at our President and ugly remarks at his wife. Will it ever end? The Republican candidates trying to one-upmanship each other and not doing a very good job of it. Well-heeled politicians squabbling over money for the unemployed and the poor. Down this beautiful new street where I live the houses on both sides of me beautiful homes are in foreclosure. As you enter the subdivision our new neighbors have moved out bankrupt and broken. I watched the faces at Wal Mart this morning. There was weariness and touchiness in many faces. But children ran up and down the aisles touching wonderful treasures and breathless in anticipation. They saved the day as they did once a time years ago.

Lost. We've all been there before and we lived through it. Maybe this new tiny infant who looks so much like our little children when they first came realyh is the answser. Maybe the late Paul Scherer, my favorite preacher was right when he said , "On that night of nights God came down the stairs of heaven with a child in his arms." I am counting on that promise that child-turned man kept saying like a mantra: "I will be with you...let not your heart be troubled...be not afraid...I will be with you."

And after Christmas day is over and we have settled back into abnormal--let us remember that we do not go alone. There is embedded in this life of all of us a God-power that moves us one all on. The old song goes: "Once I was lost but now I'm found..."may there be a finding in your life that flows out of this good and holy season.

Christmas--Remembering Time

2011-12-23T07:34:00.000-08:00

High up on our Christmas tree, near the top, if you look closely you may see it. If you don’t squint your eyes and look carefully you’ll probably miss it entirely. I’m talking about the star. It may be the tiniest ornament on the tree. The little star is probably an inch and a half in diameter. The star was made in the church kitchen by a little girl and her Sunday school teacher forty years ago in Southside Virginia.
Every year, without fail she breezes into the house with her own two daughters. After lugging in suitcases, pillows and presents she asks the same question year after year. “Where’s the star?” Christmas would not be Christmas without that star. I used to think it was a foolish request hanging on to that old homemade star. But I have changed my mind.

We all need some ties to back there. We need some stack pole of remembering that sends us back, back toward yesterday and the past and our roots. What’s your star? Probably not a paste ornament. What is it that calls you back to what used to be with a tug and a pull that is almost magic? I have a buddy who keeps high on a shelf an old threadbare teddy bear. His Daddy bought it for him at the fair one time. They stood there looking at the wonderful stuffed animals and he pointed and his Daddy shook his head. The little boy burst into tears and snubbed and snubbed. Finally, the Father pointed to the bear, took out his billfold and handed the clerk the money. He has been dead, my friend said for forty years, yet that teddy bear is one of his most precious possessions. I have another friend that kept in his office pinned to his bookcase a pouch of chewing tobacco. He grew up in this little tiny cotton mill village and smoke breaks were few and far between. And so he took up Red Man. The man has written a score of books. He has taught hundreds of students. And he keeps that pouch of chewing tobacco as a reminder of how far he has come and how grateful he is. Several years ago I stopped by to see the old black lady that we would now call a Nanny. She kept my brother and me for years and loved us severely. Finding her tiny apartment, she told me she wanted to show me something. She opened a dresser drawer and pulled out something wrapped in tissue paper. She unfolded the paper and held up this slip. “Miz Ruth give me this slip. She always gave me the nicest presents.” She had never worn it but she kept that gift my long-dead mother had given her. She remembered.

Christmas is a time for stirring memories. Silver Bells. Silent Night. Santa Claus is coming to town. I’m dreaming of a white Christmas. O Come All Ye Faithful. But much, much more. The faces loom up before us. Name and those long dead and fun-filled times from our own crowded pasts. Christmas is a remembering time. Some hang the symbols of our memories on some Christmas tree. Some pack it away in tissue just because. Some place it carefully in a jewelry box and open it up from time to time and just smile. “Where’s the star?” Good question. Unpack it gently. Hang it high in your own way. And remember. Remember. Remember.

Moving Is Still Not for Sissies

2011-12-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

Strange Christmas. The lights are going on up and down our street. My neighbor has a huge Christmas wreath shining over his garage. Across the street the little girls are jumping up and down as they decorate the outside of their house with lights.

Finally tomorrow we will sit down in a lawyer's office and sign a multitude of papers, hand the new owner the keys and the garage door opener. We've left her a huge folder that explains who, what, where, when, why. And we are frantically trying to squeeze our Christmas wreaths into boxes, make sure our old artificial Christmas tree is ready to move.

Even in our desperation we had a moving sale yesterday and nobody bought our big pieces--but they walked away with our trinkets and little things that hardly matter. A rake, a leaf blower, a shrubbery cutter, some stakes for tomatoes, plastic bottles of sprays and garden supplies. They took away a lamp, some candlesticks and even a pair of crutches.

What they couldn't see or get are the memories this house we have lived in for thirteen years still hold in our hearts. The day the washing machine flooded the floor as guests from out of town were walking in the door. The upstairs attic that we turned into three wonderful rooms. That large upstairs corner, overlooking the garden where I have worked and prayed and thought. The dining room that we filled with food and laughter with family and friends. All the work we did on this house. The painting, the purchases--TV's and refrigerators--yes--more than one when the first died on us much too soon. The new stove and the garbage disposal and the dishwasher. A new roof and heating system. The day we stripped the wallpaper off the guest bathroom and re-did the whole thing for my wife's birthday. The day we left the faucet running in our bathroom and how it flooded everything and what a mess it was cleaning out and throwing away and mopping up. The wrinkle in the garage door when I slowly backed the car out and the door was still down. The two windows that would not close all the way and the time I spent running all over town looking for the tiny pieces to shut them tight.

But there are other memories. The camellias and gardenias that bloomed. The daffodils that always came up much too soon and promised us that spring really was on the way. The hydrangeas and the hostas we sprayed continually so that the five deer that occasionally wander into the yard would not completely devour. The daisies, white and wild yellow that spread all over the whole back yard. I will remember the kousa dogwood that blooms late and the phlox that come back bigger and heartier year after year.

But it's the people whose faces I will remember most. The kids across the street watching them run and laugh and play.The neighbor across the street who always came to my rescue when I need anything: a nail, nuts and bolts, a strong back to help me move something. Another neighbor that gave me pointers about the plumbing I could never understand and was always there to get the paper when we were gone and save up the mail and make sure the house was safe. My Hispanic friends who live down the street and have helped in more ways that I can remember. Their little boy looking up at me and saying "Senor," because he heard me address his father that way.

After the movers come Tuesday and all our peculiar treasures will disappear down the street. And I will walk, for a last time through every room. Remembering, just remembering. Two days later we will open the door to another house in another place--empty for the time being. But knowing full well this new place will hold new memories, reestablish old relationships, bring new friends and give us a chance, even in old age to start again.

And so we will unpack the Christmas wreaths and dig out the old artificial seven foot tree and begin to put things in place. It will never be like it was. But it will be another chapter filled with new memories and another chance to begin yet again.

Advent Two--A Word for Hard Times

2011-12-02T06:57:00.000-08:00

"What keeps me ging is that I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world's finale something so great will come to pass that it's going to suffice for all our hearts, for the comforting of all our sorrows, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity. And I want to be there when suddenly everyone understands what it has been for."

--Dostoevsky

Months ago when my cousin took his life, following the sad path of first his father and then his brother—so many of us were in shock. He left me a note. He wanted me to have his funeral. He wanted it to be in church I had served in Birmingham. And so fifty or sixty of us gathered to weep on a sunny October afternoon. One of my cousin’s nieces told me her family wanted a particular song played at the funeral service. Having had some terrible experiences with music at funerals I was dubious. But not this song. They had chosen Stephen Foster’s beautiful and plaintive: “Hard Times, Come Again No More.” The words go like this:

“Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears,
While we all sup sorrow with the poor;
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears;
Oh, hard times come again no more.”

And then the chorus:

"‘Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,
Hard times, hard times, come again no more.
Many days you have lingered around my cabin door,
Oh, hard times comes again no more.”

The words were written in 1854. It was a difficult time for the country. Though President Lincoln would not be elected until 1861—the war clouds that would bring on the Civil War were already forming. It was a restless time for the whole nation. And this was the setting of Stephen Foster’s song.

That song could have been a background for Isaiah 40. 1-11. God’s beloved were in Exile—at least the best and the brightest. Back home their temple had been ransacked and destroyed. Many of their old parents had been left behind. Many others had died in the wilderness somewhere between Israel and Babylon. God’s people were afraid. And one of their own, Isaiah began to speak. It was word of comfort. It was a promise that hard times would one day end. In the middle of that cursed desert, a wilderness—God would come. Valleys would be raised up, hills and mountains would be made low, the rough places—some called it rough ground—would be smoothed out. Isaiah was saying there will come a better day: hard times would come no more.

Our age is beset with negativism. The climate of our country is hostile. We are afraid of immigrants, of terrorists, of the economy. We are afraid of our pensions and health and a multitude of things. Some wonder if our best days are behind us. Ask that great horde without jobs and they will speak plainly.

And so we light two candles. Some call this foolishness and wishful thinking. But just as Foster’s song was written in a hard age, and Isaiah’s words emerged from a rocky soil—we dare to open the old book and listen closely. Even today—especially today. Could those old words do for us what they have done for so many others through the hard years of their lives?

Obama Bashing--Is This Healthy?

2011-11-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

For some time I have been distressed at the rage some people have directed toward President Obama. At a luncheon recently my wife reported that it was one of the ugliest encounters she had witnessed in a long time. A woman, well-heeled and angry would not quit talking about how President Obama was terrible. She even called him a bastard. She had her litany of complaints: not a real American, a Socialist at best, sorry leader, the wrong color and ruining a perfectly good country. I don't hear this level of anger a lot but I do hear many folk talk of how they despise President and can't wait until 2012 to get back to normal--well maybe I should say: abnormal. Liberals and Conservatives are jumping on the President for a multitude of reasons. Some right and many wrong.

Frank Rich's article in a recent issue of New York Magazine draws a parallel between the climate when JFK was assassinated and today's temperature. He writes that the mood of hatred just before Kennedy was killed as at an all-time high. (Just to set the record sorta straight--didn't President Lincoln and other Presidents, also face enormous hatred and disrespect?) Liberals and conservatives had a litany of complaints against President Kennedy. Rich writes: "...the vitriol that was aimed at Kennedy in life seems as immediate as today. It's as startling as that 'You lie!' piercing the solemnity of a presidential address like a gunshot--or the actual gunshots fired at the White House last week by another wretched waif. In the end, that political backdrop is what our 44th and 35th presidents may have most in common. The tragedy of the Kennedy cult is that even as it fades, the hothouse brand of American malice that stalked its hero stalks our country still." Rich does not concentrate on the assassination of President Kennedy--he talks mostly about the climate surrounding the President then and now.

Under another "Wish I Had Said that..." Nicholas Kristof in Sunday's New York Times has a great article on "The President as Pinata." He points out many of Obama's mistakes and missteps but he underlines the point that our President has accomplished incredible things in a very chaotic and difficult time. I keep remembering how we came together for a while after September 11th. Does it take a horrendous crisis for people in this country to come to their senses? Lord knows we have crises in abundance. It's Advent for Christians--maybe our prayer ought to lift up this broken nation and the man who is trying to lead us.

Advent--A Chance to Find our Way Again

2011-11-26T20:39:00.000-08:00

Here we are again. Dusting off the Advent wreath, collecting new candles, hoping we don’t forget the matches. Carefully examining the wicks of all five of the candles. Maybe it was last year or the year before—but into the darkened church a family walked down the aisle on Christmas Eve with a lighted candle. The daughter carried a flickering taper. At the altar, she gave the candle to her father, then it was the Mother’s turn and the son and the daughter was to light the last two candles. Except—the Christ candle in the very middle wouldn’t light. She tried everything. Nothing worked. It was a very long moment. Finally she thrust the candle lighter at her father and stalked off in a huff. No wonder we check the wicks to make sure they will burn.

But all this is window-dressing. And to the Advent wreath with all it symbolism we could add the glorious music, the splendid decorations and even the preacher’s sermons. The main point is to get us ready and perhaps all this staging really might help. But what truly matters are the old words we keep coming back to year after year. “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people...” The dayspring from on high shall visit us...””Let your face shine upon us...” Or “Behold a virgin shall conceive...” They never really grow old these words we have heard every Christmas season. Hopefully they will pry open our hearts until we really are awe-struck all over again with the wonder of it all. Madeleine L’Engle called it the glorious impossible.

I don’t know a time in my life when we need an Advent more. It is a troublesome time. People are hurting everywhere. Many folk do not have enough money to make it through the month. 100,00 of our men and women will come limping home from the war before the year ends. Dear God, I hope they can look around and see something that make all their efforts seem worthwhile.

Listen closely to the Advent texts this year. The I Corinthians passage (1.3-9) “He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (vs.8) Paul wrote to a troubled fussy people. Sound familiar? They seemed to have lost the way. And Paul called them back with a promise. You will be kept. He used this word nine times in this letter.

Months ago I wrote the word, KEEP and stuck the post-it next to my computer. There is so much that makes many of us wonder if the sky really is falling. Economics, meanness, greed and so much that we cannot control. It really is out of our hands. But maybe we ought to hang on to this little word, keep. Could be a life raft to keep us afloat during this very stormy time? Paul thought so.

And so we come to church. We light our candles. We hear the music and then listen to the old words. My prayer for me and mine and all of us is that in the middle of all this madness we will discover that golden word: keep. May he keep us all strong to the end. Maybe this Advent really can help us find the way.

Immigration Will Just Not Go Away

2011-11-22T19:05:00.000-08:00

During the Second World War artist Norman Rockwell took President Roosevelt's challaenge of Four Freedoms and did a painting of each one. Freedom from Fear is one of those freedoms. I wish that every Hispanic child in this country could feel the safety of these children and their parents that we see here.

As I left my health club this afternoon I saw a Hispanic mother and three small children walking to their car. I stopped the car, rolled down the window and said, “I want you to know that I am very angry about this immigration bill. I went to the meeting downtown yesterday and just wanted to say that I am glad you are here.” Great big tears formed at the corner of her eyes. She smiled got into her car and drove away. I moved toward home thinking about that woman and her family and the meeting I attended the day before in downtown Birmingham.

Eleven Congressmen from across the country came to Birmingham to listen to the stories that immigrants had to tell. I decided to take the long trip downtown and wondered who would show up. I was not disappointed. The room at City Hall was packed. As I walked in I saw an ancient Hispanic woman being helped up the steps by a family member. There were quite a few young people. There were a great many African Americans present. Hispanics also crowded into the room. There were a good number of white folk there, too. It was an American audience—all ages, all colors, some well heeled and some poor.

The visiting Congressmen sat in a semi-circle at the front. I was afraid maybe our out-of-state guests might talk to long. Not so. They were conscious that we were all there to hear stories from members of the Hispanic community. U.S. Representative Terri Sewell, a Birmingham Democrat was there along with the Mayor and Sheriff of the county. Mayor Bell said that our immigration bill smacked of Apartheid and Jim Crowism. Sheriff Hale talked about the difficulty of trying to enforce these new laws and reminded us that his staff is seriously understaffed and not equipped to enforce this anti-immigration bill. One speaker said, “We are a nation of laws but more a nation of people.” Another person reminded us that we are a nation of immigrants and most of us came from somewhere else. We were told that there are 11 million illegal immigrants in our country and that our immigration policy is seriously broken. All these comments set the stage for us to listen to those people who were called “the witnesses.”

Those who spoke talked of the burden of Alabama’s anti-immigration law--the harshest in the nation .So we spent the rest of the hour listening to those whose lives had been crippled and burdened by HR56--Alabama's anti-immigration law. As I listened to the stories of the witnesses I wished that those who had written that terrible document had been present in that room. Teachers spoke of student withdrawals and parents afraid to send their children to school. A high school student told of how she continually text her parents while she was at school. She was afraid they might be incarcerated before she got home. Another spoke of how water and lights have been turned off because they did not have the proper documentation. One person reported that they had Hispanic friends who, after working long hours, were told they had no right to be paid because they were illegal.” Another person told us of all the rumors that are floating around the Hispanic community. These people are being shut out of basic services. They cannot get a driver’s license or a car tag without proper documentation. One woman spoke in Spanish through a translator. One lady told us that her home was destroyed during the tornado and when she bought a mobile home she could not get a license because of her status. One woman who taught Sunday school said that the Sunday after HB56 was passed not a single member of her class showed up. The theme that ran through the whole afternoon was fear. Fear of deportation. Fear of the break up of families where some are sent to Mexico and some are allowed to stay. Many families stay inside their houses afraid that they might be arrested. They just do not feel safe.

As I left the room I looked up at the words that were etched over the door. They read: “The people are the city.” There were no adjectives before the word, people. All the way home I kept hearing the ugly words illegal and deportation. It reminded me of another country and another terrible time. Do we really want this kind of an America? Everyone here should feel safe and never be afraid of who they are.

Everywhere I go these days I smile at the Hispanics. I want them to know that a great number of us in this state are glad they are here. I want them to know how much we, too, despise HR56 because it is antithetical to who we are and what we stand for. Maybe we need to do some witnessing of our own. Telling everyone we see that our task is to keep faith with that tiny wondrous word embedded in the heart of the Declaration of Independence. All. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men (sic) are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” So our task in this hard age is to continue to live up to the dream that set this nation on its good course. Maybe it is always two steps forward and one step backwards—but let us not give up the fight.

(You might want to read Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson's splendid article, Immigrants: Strangers In Our Midst. It is thought provoking. )

Thanksgiving Really is About Gravy

2011-11-21T11:01:00.000-08:00

"No other word will do, For that's what it was. Gravy.

Gravy, these past ten years.

Alive, sober, working, loving and

being loved by a good woman. Eleven years

ago he was told he had six months to live

at the rate he was going. And he was going

nowhere but down. So he changed his ways

somehow. He quit drinking! And the rest?

After that it was all gravy, every minute

of it, up to and including when he was told about,

well, some things that were breaking down and

building up inside his head. 'Don't weep for me,'

he said to his friends. 'I'm a lucky man.

I've had ten years longer than I or anyone

expected. Pure gravy. And don't forget it.'"

--Raymond Carver's last poem

Moving is bittersweet. You find yourself excited by new possibilities. But wrenching yourself away from friends and a place where you have lived for over 20 years is not easy. Today I am cleaning out my office. As I look around me I am surrounded by photographs that bring back so many memories. There are photographs of my children at various stages of their lives—and beside them I have added my two grandchildren. I have before me a picture of my ninety-nine year old surrogate mother who left us three years ago. She loved us fiercely.

There are mementos from trips: a gargoyle from Paris, a tiny rock from a pebble beach in England. A photograph of a concrete Jesus with his hands outstretched from St. Andrews. Close by is my appointment book, telephone, faxes machine and computer. These keep me connected with a larger world. On every wall are books that have opened up windows and doors to something larger and better than I ever imagined. I find a dusty Christmas card, unsigned with a huge Santa Claus. The sender could not read or write and just signed an X—and that memory of that friendship keeps me warm. High up on my shelf is an anniversary card from our 50th wedding anniversary with words of love I do not deserve. There is a small picture of my mother’s last Christmas, smiling and surrounded by presents. Underneath the glass on my desk is our last dog’s picture, beloved Cleo. She still makes me smile. These tiny reminders have kept me going year after year.

With eyes wide open I thank God for so much that has streamed into my life. Those that stretched me in school, those that stood by me when nobody else seemed to care. Those that, by the very gift of their lives, made me feel cleaner and more decent. And of course there are the tributaries: magazines, newspapers, and cartoons that helped enormously.

When we open our eyes and look around us most of us find that the blessings have just poured in from all directions. The healthiest people I know keep their eyes wide open not just Thanksgiving Day but keep seeing the wonders around them throughout the year.

Toward the close of his career, it was reported that Mark Twain had been paid a dollar a word for a magazine article. Some cynic sent him a dollar in an envelope with a note: “Dear Mr. Twain I understand you get a dollar for every word you write. I am enclosing a dollar. How about sending me a word.” The old writer took a single sheet of paper and scrawled "Thanks" in large letters and sent it to the man.

Is there a better word for a hard time? This Christmas many of our troops will be hobbling home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Many have been wounded or broken—but all find their lives altered immeasurably. But pain isn’t confined to the war over there. Down the street the Hispanic couple fear for their children and friends in Alabama. Around the corner someone is having an estate sale and moving into a nursing home. A friend in South Carolina lies in intensive care this Thanksgiving missing his wife who was killed days ago in their accident. The Lovette’s moving saga doesn’t seem so monstrous when we put our troubles down beside so many hurting others.

It is easy to be overwhelmed. Months ago I had a funeral for a cousin who just could not take it any longer and I ache when I remember his face. The only way any of us can make it through these difficult days is to open our eyes. If we look long enough thanks may just emerge even from the soil of a very hard time.

Despite the hardship I still think the old Psalm is right. Surely goodness and mercy really do follow us all the days of our lives. Looking any direction. If you stare long enough you may find yourself surprised by joy. For with eyes wide open if we fondle the wonders of our lives much like a rosary— we will be grateful.

Immigration Will Just Not Go Away

2011-11-14T15:24:00.000-08:00

When the State passed this strongest anti-immigration bill in the country the officials thought they were doing the state a favor. What the legislature and Governor did not factor in is the hard truth that when you make ripples in the stream they go on and on. There is no fence around this state. We are connected and we really part of the United States though a few hearty souls still try to re-fight the Civil war.

If you are interested I hope you will read Joey Kennedy's article which appeared in the Birmingham Business Journal. Not only are farmers up in arms over this bill--but the business community is beginning to wring its hands. Seems that Compass Bank had just about decided to move their corporate headquarters to our city. But they are owned by the Spanish Megabank BBVA group. They were to build an $80 million tower for their US headquarters.But they changed their mind. All this is past tense--our strong anti-immigration bill tipped the scales.

This issue is far from over. Recently President Obama spoke of how un-American this law really is. Maybe we have come far enough down the road that we can see not only the financial reverberations but the human side of this issue. Hispanics are scared. Scared. Nobody in the United States of America should live in fear. Maybe the old prophet's dream, even after all these years may come true when it comes to immigration. "Everyone will sit under his (or her) own vine and under his (or her) own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken." (Micah 4.4) We just have to keep working until the dream becomes a reality for everyone.

Moving--Chapter Four

2011-11-10T14:11:00.000-08:00

Well, the Lovette's moving saga continues. We have a good offer on our house in Birmingham. If all goes well (and anybody who knows anything about real estate today knows that just about everything is tentative) we should close on Dec. 8th. So if you are a praying person please pray a selfish prayer for the Lovette family. Or alternative suggestions: burn candles...dig a hole and put a St. Joseph figure upside down in the Lovette’s yard (a friend swears this will sell a house) or you might dig out your old rosary. Other suggestions: turn flips or perhaps do a rain dance somewhere on your property where no one can see you. Anyway—we hope that this ordeal of moving will soon be over.

We are still packing. Boxes are everywhere! I feel like we live in a warehouse. But yesterday I found two huge bins in an obscure corner of the attic. Opening the cover I discovered much of my correspondence and letters I have received in my work through the years. My first thought was: “Why would I save all these letters and notes and cards?” So slowly I opened the first box of letters and I found a treasure.

These letters tell the story of much of my ministerial life. I found the letter from Tom Corts, Chair of the Search Committee in Georgetown Kentucky telling me the Faith Baptist Church would pay me $6,000 if I came. (I did.) I found a multitude of letters from churches all over where I had been recommended or lusted after. Some sent polite Dear John letters saying: “No.” Some places where I had written my own Dear John letters and said “No” to some church. I saved everything birthday cards, letters of acceptance and resignation, newspaper clippings showing the Lovette family the week we were called to a church. I showed that picture to my wife and asked, “Why would anybody call a Pastor and his family that looked like this?”

But the biggest surprise of them all was the letters and cards and thank-you notes from people across the years. They told of baptisms and funerals and dinners and a huge collection of sympathy cards when my Mother died. This is not a brag article. Any Pastor who thinks very long will resonate with what I am writing. I unearthed names and faces I had not thought about for years and years. And they took me back, way back to other times and other places. And for all the fretting I have done through the years because of that tiny cadre of mean opponents and that handful of ugly unsigned letters—these were not only in the minority—few and far between. The gratitude and thanks that poured over me as I read this multitude of notes and letters was overwhelming. People really did care. Ministry mattered terribly. Sermons sometimes, when you least expected them, really did touch someone. All those hospital trips and funerals and weddings and communion services were remembered.

Looking back I can now say this great cloud of witnesses in every church I ever had kept me going. They graced me and they loved me and my family. And whatever errors I made and stupidities I fell into—these (thank God) were mostly overlooked. Most of the folk sitting out there week after week forgave me for a multitude of foibles.

So here I sit with a lump in my throat--surrounded by thanksgiving and gratitude from these dust-covered boxes. These have made me remember names and faces and times long gone. So thanksgiving has come early for me this year. I am grateful for so many, many people along the way.

My good friend Tom Corts prayed at the last service I served as Pastor. His words were very moving: “We offer thanks for those who cannot remember his name...but remember yours (Lord) because of him.” At the end of this long diatribe as I wade through these correspondence files, I want to thank God for so many whose names I can no longer remember but I remember your name Lord, because of them. They kept me going—and still do.

“Now thank we all our God,

With hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done,

In whom the world rejoices—

Who from our mother’s arms

Hath blessed us on our way—

With countless gifts of love,

And still is ours today.”

Alabama's Immigration Law Makes me Ashamed

2011-11-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

One of the worst things we have done in this State in a long time is passing this Anti-Immigration law. My friend Joey Kennedy of The Birmingham News has a great blog piece today on 10 Reasons Why Alabama's Immigration Bill is Wrong. Weeks ago we stopped at a Fast Food Restaurant in Atlanta. The Night Manager was Hispanic. He came by our table to make sure everything was all right and I started talking to him. I told him how sad I was over the Immigration laws that Georgia and Alabama had passed. That casual remark opened the door. He told me how scared many of his friends were. Some had already left the State. One very sick friend, he said, would not go the Doctor or hospital because she was afraid of being deported. He told me that the officials say this law has nothing to do with racial profiling but he told me he had been stopped six times in the last few months by policemen simply because he was Hispanic, therefore he was suspect. We finally had to leave the Restaurant but I was glad that man behind the counter knew that all of us do not feel the same way as some in this country.

Carson McCullers said once that it is a sad commentary on the human race that everybody needs somebody to look down on. We dishonor our Constitution and our flag with this very racist policy.

Moving is Not for Sissies--Chapter Three

2011-11-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve told you that moving is not for sissies. I had no idea how right that is. For a month now we have been getting everything ready for the woman who was to buy the house. We had an appraisal...and an inspection. Then we started making the minor repairs but there were several. One of our octagonal windows was frosty on the inside of the thermo pane and had to be replaced at considerable expense.

As the buyer moved closer to the closing we were told to get ready to move within three days after closing. So—we went to Clemson and found a house...went through the ordeal of getting a loan approval. The people there were great and helpful in every way. We took a load of stuff when we went and put it into a friend’s house. Next—we came back to Birmingham and interviewed movers and settled on one that could move a seven-foot grand piano. There really is an elephant in our living room! So we packed and packed and then we got the call that the woman’s loan was not approved. So—we were in shock and, surrounded by boxes we wondered how could you show a house that looked like a warehouse.

The buyer-to-be applied for another loan and we were assured it would go through. But we were cautious. Well, there was yet another inspection. The lender told me that everything was on go and continue to pack. We did. Our daughter and boyfriend came over and took a multitude of stuff to their house in Atlanta. The Goodwill folk almost became good friends. We gave a lot of stuff away. Books went everywhere—several hundred. So our date was set for closing in Clemson and here. The lender called and said everything is settled. This was two Fridays ago. We were to close last Monday and guess what—the woman did not show. We sat there in the lawyer’s office surrounded by papers for closing and she backed out.

For two days we were absolutely numb. We had to recancel utilities, paper, one of the hardest things has been the mail. I still am not sure we have that settled. The phone and internet quit working even though I had called At&T and told them to cancel my cancellation. We have talked to a zillion machines and punched hundreds of buttons and speaking with a real live person has almost been an impossibility.

We sold our washer and dryer because the woman said she would bring her own. The new house is in a natural sitting and we said goodbye to our lawn mower. We've have cancelled our contract in Clemson—we can’t buy until we sell.

So here we are with about three pots and pans. I can’t even find the Tabasco sauce. I preached a goodbye sermon Sunday in my church...and I am still here. Friends have given us “the last breakfast”...the “last lunch”...and ‘the last supper.” But we are surrounded by a multitude of friends that care and encourage us. The man who bought the washer and dryer came back with his own washer and dryer and installed it and took no money. We have moved boxes and assorted items (what’s left) and are trying to get prospective buyers to envision what this house that looks like a warehouse might look like with their furniture in it.

This has been hard on my wife and me. Yet—after two days of grief and mourning we picked ourselves up and are hitting it again. Washing windows, vacuuming the floor, rearranging what we can in the garage and trying to find much-needed items that are packed and boxed up in the garage.

Progress report will follow. I missed All Saints Day on Tuesday. But looking back we have been surrounded by saints who love us and cheer us on and do whatever they can to make this hard situation manageable. The real saints are not found in windows. They live next door and they bring back washers and dryers and they send over bread and soup and comfort food. We are grateful for all those, we call them saints because they are there when you need them.

Progress report will follow. Please keep singing or at least humming “Look for a Silver Lining” surely out there somewhere there is one to find.

A Sermon on Inclusion--Where Do the Mermaids Stand?

2011-10-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

(On this last Sunday before we leave Birmingham my Pastor, Steve Jones asked me to preach at Southside Church where we are members. Here is what I had to say in this last sermon. This is a summary of what I deeply believe.)

Robert Fulghum, is one of the great storytellers of our time. He tells a very funny story about one evening when he volunteered in a weak moment to watch the children at church while the parents went on what they called “Parents Night Out.” He said eighty children showed up. He didn’t know what he was going to do. So he decided to break them up into teams so they wouldn’t kill him or each other. And he said, “OK, you're either a Giant or a Wizard or a Dwarf.” After he said that, he felt a tug at his pants leg and he looked down and there was a little girl standing looking up at him. “Where do the Mermaids stand?” He said, ”There are no such things as Mermaids.” “Oh yes there are,” she said. “I are one. Now where do the Mermaids stand?” Well, he said he didn’t know what to do or say. Then he said, “The mermaids stand right here next to the King of the Sea!” And he grabbed her hand and they stood back and reviewed the troops as the Dwarfs and the Giants and the Wizards came slowly by. Fulghum said he learned something from that experience. The little girl had taught him something he had never known before. That mermaids really do exist. After all, he said, he had personally held one by the hand.

I think Jesus would have loved that story because it is in the spirit of what he said at the very beginning of his ministry in Luke 4. His baptism was over. He had wrestled in the wilderness with the evil one. The temptations were behind him—temporarily. Then he returned to his hometown, Nazareth. Luke says, “As was his custom” he went on a Saturday morning to the synagogue with the people he had known all his life. During that service they asked him to read. Luke says that he opened up the papyrus scroll and turned to a passage which would become an overture for everything he would ever do. Opening that scroll, his finger ran down the papyrus until he found his place. It was that exile passage from Isaiah 61.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those that are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

What is he saying here? I think what he is really saying is that he is giving Mermaids a place to stand. For you see, since its beginnings the temptations of faith has been to categorize, pigeonhole, or put people into little boxes. There are Wizards, There are Dwarfs, and there are Giants. The saved and the lost. And we really don’t know what to do when some Mermaid comes along and says, “Where do the Mermaids stand?”

Charles Talbert who is a graduate of Samford and a very fine New Testament scholar has said that what Luke does here is to define the scope of Jesus’ ministry. For the conflict which runs throughout the Gospel and spills over into Acts and in every part of the church’s life begins in Luke 4. That struggle is: Will this be a tiny, hometown outfit or a worldwide movement? Will it be for some or will it be for all? Will the Gospel be a Nazareth thing for only the respectable people like Giants and Wizards and Dwarfs—or will it encompass everyone—even the Mermaids of the world?

This was his audience: the poor, the destitute of the world, the brokenhearted, which meant the shattered and the disintegrated. The captives who were prisoners. The blind that could not see. Even those who rant on the Paul Finebaum show. The bruised who were the oppressed. And the downtrodden and the victims and those crushed by the tyrannies of a world gone wrong. And this magnificent overture we find in Isaiah 61 and Luke 4 would play out a splendid theme. For all the marginalized people of the world—the great horde who do not fit into the categories or the pigeonholes or the boxes, he comes for these too.

You know them. That woman at the well with so many men in her past she could not even remember their names. And Zaccheus, that insider turned outsider because he was a cheat and a liar and had made all of his money in payday loans. And the lepers? The unclean ones that nobody was supposed to touch because you might catch something. And remember what he did? The children always giggling and squirming and coloring outside the lines and how he opened up his arms and took them in, and nobody had ever done that before. If that was not enough, think of the women he reached out to and lifted up to a higher level that had never been done in society before.

Once upon a time we Baptists were really off on the edge of things. We couldn’t even get in the back door of the country club. We had not come to town and been baptized into respectability but we were mostly on those side streets, across the tracks where the illegal immigrants lived. But we had faith. And we sang with gusto. We turned from hard, hard weeks at work to the meeting where we were met and graced and loved and affirmed and felt important. And for some it was the only place in their lives where they felt like they were somebody. The Mermaids, swimming against the tide of an established church. Their preachers were put in jail in Holland and in England and in this country. Some were killed. They were the first civil libertarians because they believed in liberty and justice for all—not just for their own kind—why even the Mormons. And when the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States came into being, they helped to stitch somehow into the fabric of those document that wonderful, wonderful phrase: “all are created equal.” All. And they continued to write, “Congress should make no laws pertaining to the establishment of religion.” That’s a long way from school tax vouchers for the important people and tax breaks for people who have plenty. So the question really is this: Where do the mermaids stand?

The great theologian Karl Barth wrote his first book of sermons called, Deliverance to the Captives. These sermons by this brilliant man had been preached in Basel, Switzerland to prisoners behind bars. What did he tell them? Eyes could now see, some for the first time. Liberty to victims in a world gone wrong. They would somehow find that the chains that bound them down would be broken all would be free. He preached an acceptance for Dwarfs and Wizards and Giants and even Mermaids—but maybe not in that order. “Whosoever will may come!” Not just the special and the privileged and the beautiful and the saved and the heterosexuals. Everybody. And if it isn’t for every body—it isn’t for anybody. After two thousand years the words are still revolutionary. They leap across the barriers like geography and culture and race and class. “Across the crowded ways,” the song goes, “We hear his voice still.”

But he wasn’t done. Is he ever done? He wasn’t done. For he told them two stories that got him into trouble; The first story was about Elijah. Three and a half years there had been a famine in the land. People starved and babies and old people died and the wind blew across a parched land where nothing could grow anymore. No rain. God’s prophet came to a widow in Zerephath—Sidon. Now where was that? Well, he breezed passed the Giants and Wizards and the Dwarfs and kept on going until he came to a place where he looked on the door and the sign read: “Mermaid’s House.” Elijah knocked on the door. And it made Jesus’ congregation in Nazareth restless because they couldn’t believe God’s prophet passed over all the good people and went down the road to a woman whose family had been on food stamps for three generations. And probably did not have her papers. Who would have believed it? How dare he? That was his first story.

But he wasn’t finished. He told a second story to his congregation about Elisha who was Elijah’s successor. He told about a place Syria—which should have given them a clue of where he was going. In Syria there was this leper colony. A place where nobody would go because you might catch something. It was an awful place. Outside the gates of the city. And there was a man named Namaan—a non-Jew. Not one of God’s chosen. He was healed. This foreigner was healed. And it was just too much for the people of Nazareth. “And when they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath and rose up to put him out of the city”—talking about Jesus—“and they led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong; but passing through their midst he went away.”

Fred Craddock, A very fine preacher has said the people in that synagogue room were furious because Jesus had used their own story to make them feel uncomfortable. Why isn’t Holy Scripture supposed to make you feel warm and squishy and happy? Like Joel Osteen. Craddock says it is not the Scriptures we don’t know that give us trouble—but the Scriptures we know and have just tip-toed over and domesticated until they mean nothing. Consequently people come up to preachers and ask, “Preacher tell us what Ezekiel means?" Or "Let’s study Revelation and find out who is the mark of the beast. Could it be Obama?" Or maybe they ask what Danny Ford asked me one day when he was Coach at Clemson, “Preacher did that whale really swallow Jonah?” Why do we get off the track? We might as well be talking about Chinese calligraphy. None of those questions will get us in trouble.

But what about the texts we all know. Abraham. A light to all the nations—how did they forget that? Or Jonah, ignore the whale for a moment and ponder its meaning which is that the Lord God of Israel reaches his arms out and takes everybody in. Or what about Micah: “Let justice roll down like waters. Kindness, Walk humbly. Everybody. For when the text arrives in our mailbox with our name on the envelope we open it up and we are stretched and we see dreams and visions that are sometimes scary. But it’s our letter. Robert McAfee Brown called it unexpected news—news we do not expect.You see, it is always revolutionary. It is always the heart of the matter. And Jesus said all God’s children can find a place. He makes room in his house for every person. It is a love that transcends everybody and everything.

When I was a little boy growing up in Columbus, Georgia the strangest would happen in our little Baptist church two or three times a year. After we had sung the Doxology which we sang every Sunday year after year—after the prayer—down the aisle and all the way to the front Doug would shuffle in his overalls and his cap on and plop down on the front bench right in front of the preacher. Doug was the village character. Middle aged about 45 or 50 years old. He was the shoeshine man and didn’t smell too good and was downright scary looking. When we would see him on the street, we'd whisper, "There's Doug--let's get on the other side of the street." He was the central figure in a thousand children’s nightmares. But there he sat front and center at church with his shoeshine box on that front row. Of course all the parents would look straight ahead and punch their kids and whisper: “Don’t look!” The preacher would get just a little edgy because every once in a while during the sermon, Doug would let out a gasp: "Agggg...” four or five times. Nobody ever knew what to do. But he would just slouch there comfortably on that front row with his hat pulled down . About the time of the last song Doug would beat it to the door and would be up at his corner shining shoes before the postlude ended. I’ve often wondered why he came and why he was there. What brought him to church? And why did he come in his old work clothes and sit on the front row where no well-meaning Baptist would ever sit? I think he came—much like that little girl in Fulghum’s story. Deep in his heart, underneath all the pain in his broken life--I think he was looking for a place for a Mermaid to stand.

Isn’t that what Jesus meant when he said, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me. He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captive, recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Prayer after the Sermon: Lord, it’s a bigger gospel than any of us imagined. It’s a bigger church than we intended to join. Stretch our hearts until we can take in all the children of the world, till some how in our love and missions and evangelism and caring, the kingdoms of this world really do “become the kingdoms of the Christ.” Help us as we do it. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Tom Corts--A Memory

2011-10-28T04:53:00.000-07:00

"When the last check is written,
the lone remaining bill is paid,
every IOU is cancelled,
payment on accounts is stayed;
When the parting farewell is uttered,
the ending stanza sung,
benediction's ended,
tolling bells have rung:
I still will be debtor
throughout eternity;
Not all the gold in banks
fulfills my debt of thanks."
--Thomas E. Corts

(Tom Corts, retired President of Samford University left us
in February 2009. His brother Paul Corts has collected essays in a beautiful book honoring his brother called, Thinking Christianly. I wrote a chapter in this book of my personal feelings toward this good man. At a Colloquium held at Samford University, October 27, 2011--I made these remarks as part of the program.)

I cannot speak about Tom Corts’ academic experience as it relates to the church. And I cannot speak about the qualities that he may have possessed in character or skills to be an effective leader in higher education. But I can speak of my own experience with Tom Corts as it relates to church and as it relates to something of the depth of his personal life.

We are all many-sided persons and no one dimension can really capture the essence of the man we come to remember. He was more than an academic and he was great in this role wherever he went. But he was also husband, son, father, brother, friend, colleague and churchman just to name a few of his many sides.

So I cannot speak from an academic perspective but I can speak as one who he was once his Pastor and always a friend. Our paths intersected first in Georgetown Kentucky where he was Chair of the Search Committee of the Faith Baptist Church. I never will forget that first visit to the Corts’ house on Pocahontas Trail. Rachel was in an infant seat—Jennifer was playing on the floor and bored with the family’s new visitor. Chris was not yet born.

Tom Corts was a Churchman. He was always there when he was not preaching or representing Georgetown College. He believed in Church and he believed in Pastors which is one of the reasons for that gorgeous dome and Beeson Divinity School.

I followed his journey from Georgetown to Wingate and then to Samford. We kept up loosely during those years. He preached the Installation Sermon at three churches I served. He asked me to have the Invocation when he became President of Samford. And we celebrated birthdays and other special events. So I saw him up close and he was, as I entitled my chapter in this book, Great Tom. He really was great. He was there on my last Sunday at Covenant when I retired and gave this beautiful moving prayer which I have included in my chapter. And when he retired I returned the favor and gave the Prayer at his retirement party. And when he left us that sad day in February 4, 2009 I was asked to say some words at his funeral. I still miss him.

So I spoke and speak about the human side of Tom Corts. I have a multitude of stories I could tell about this good man. When we were in Georgetown at the Faith Baptist Church—we needed desperately to build an addition to our building. Most of the congregation were poorly paid academicians—and we did not think we could do this. But there was a layperson in that congregation. Never been to college—meat and potatoes man. Had been in the service and worked for a Construction business. We dealt with a lot of issues in that church in the late sixties and early seventies. We had a lot of kids and they talked about war and burning drafting cards and protesting the Viet Nam war. Some of our more vocal professors pontificated on this subject and this veteran’s blood pressure surely must have gone up many times. But this layman in our church with perfectly trimmed short hair kept coming to church every Sunday. And so Tom, Chair of the Building Committee—why are you not surprised--saw something special in this man who had never been to college. He saw that this man could use his gifts like no one else in the church could. Tom asked him to help draw up plans for this new addition and then asked him if he would supervise the project. Some of our Professors raised their eyebrows—what training did he have? Some whispered what were his credentials? Well, Hallie Hymer pulled off the project and saved the church a lot of money. And Tom insisted that when we dedicated the building that we put up a plaque in appreciation for Hallie Hymer for the work he did on this addition, which would not have happened, without his work and commitment. Some of those in academics raised their eyebrows again—but the Plaque is there to this day. Why do I tell this story? Because his was a larger circle than just the college. He looked around and saw some qualities in folk they didn’t even know they had. Hallie Hymer grew and grew as a person because of that experience. How many times through the years did he do that? Ask Eric Motley or Theolophilus Akande from Nigeria to Georgetown. Ask the late Laverne Farmer. Ask Joe Lewis. And how many more in this room. Our lives are immeasurably different because great Tom helped to stretch us.

He kept these little books where he wrote down quotations and scripture verses that meant a great deal to him. One of those quotes is most appropriate for this occasion. He took these words from Dostoevsky’s, The Brothers Karamazov.

“And even if we are occupied with important things, even if we attain honor or fall into misfortune, still let us remember how good it was once here when we were all together united by a good and kind feeling which made us, better perhaps than we are.”

(A copy of this book of essays, Thinking Christianly can be ordered from Samford University, 800 Lakeshore Drive, Birmingham, AL 35229.)

Moving Is Not for Sissies--Second Chapter

2011-10-23T13:29:00.000-07:00

About a week ago I wrote this piece saying it would be my last for a while. We were to move to South Carolina this past week. But nooooooooooooo. A couple of days before our last Monday closing on our house here—we got a call saying the buyer’s loan did not go through. Huh? For two days my wife and I both staggered around in deep depression. But you can’t let that black dog called deepression bite you. It could be venomous. Anyway—even after we had taken a load of peculiar treasures to South Carolina, deposited much, too much in our daughter’s house and all our great stuff was packed up—why I couldn’t even find the Tabasco sauce. We began to dig out of our self-pity hole. We had a list. We had now to contact all the people we had called to undo all our cancellations—which was as lot. Let’s see we re-called:

The gas company
The Alabama power
Waste Management
The recycle outfit
Water works
Netflix
New York Times
Local Paper
AT&T which has our internet and phone service
Several magazine subscription folk
The Real estate agent in Clemson who had scheduled our closing there for last week
Asked for a twenty-day extension on our new house
Called our movers and suspended the move indefinitely
Called the local Cable company
Called the Cable Company in South Carolina

Finally—everything got re-cancelled except AT&T. Beware! Three days ago I had no Internet service and no landline. So—I began that long circuitous journey of trying desperately to get my phone and Internet service re-connected (temporarily.) They finally did it. Well, the buyer’s new mortgage company tells me the loan will go through about a week from tomorrow and that we have nothing to fear. It’s been a hard day’s night to put it mildly.

While I was still groveling in self-pity a good friend gave me these words from Gordon Cosby that he had used once in a sermon. Wise words from a wise man.

“If you feel you can’t tolerate the mess, the only advice I can give you is this: choose what for you is a better mess. If you can find it. But wherever you do, you go to the next mess. You may take a couple of years to find out how messy it is, but you will find it to be a mess. God has tolerated many messes for many eons.”

If we you a praying person—or merely superstitious—pray for us next Monday—or I should say the buyer-to-be of our house. If not pray—burn a candle (maybe at both ends simultaneously.) Dust off your rosary, say some strange mantra—demand of whatever god(s) you believe in to please, please let the Lovette’s house sell.

When I called our mover—I asked her, “Has this ever happened before? Someone cancelled at the last minute?” She said, “Not much until the last few months and now it is happening all the time.” Real estate folk tell me the mortgage companies are turning down a lot of people who are financially qualified. Hmmm. Maybe if this closing does not work out and we have a little more time—maybe I will take up a placard and head for Wall Street. Anybody out there want to join me?

(Would you please stand at this time, join hands with with your friends and neighbors and sing maybe quietly: "Look for the Silver Lining!")

Moving is Not for Sissies

2011-10-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

"How hard it is to escape from places!

However carefully one goes, they hold you--you

leave bits of yourself fluttering on the fences,

little rags and shreds of your very life."
--Katherine Mansfield

No—no tornado has hit the Lovette household. We are moving. Or, shall we say—trying to move. We’ve given away zillions of books—nobody wants to buy them. And then there’s the furniture—we’re moving into a smaller house, which means we have to get rid of a lot of stuff. So we have been scurrying around wondering what to do with the Armoire, the Hide abed and the particleboard small entertainment center upstairs. Lord only knows what these things must weigh. here is so much stuff in our attic we haven't touched for years. Like that dusty brass bed we have never used in 13 years. We’ve given away suits—not enough—and ties and shoes and pants and tops and jackets and that seems only a start. How did we collect all this stuff?

The real hard part is saying goodbye to a place and a multitude of people that I have grown to love in these 20 Birmingham years. Friday I went back to my old church to prepare for a Saturday funeral. No one was there. The sanctuary was very quiet. And as I stood there looking around at that wonderful sanctuary that we built together a wave of emotion just washed over me. I love that place and those people. I thought of all the ups and downs that we had—mostly ups. The challenge of building that sanctuary was a real miracle—we had no money—and we were all scared. But we stretched and sacrificed and we all grew a little stronger as we worked together. I already miss this place that I plowed ought years of my life into. The faces, the memories just swept over me. As one of my African-American members used to say after a particularly good service: “Didn’t we have a good time.” That's how I feel about what happened there.

Carlyle Marney used to say that God doesn’t come to church every Sunday. After all God is God. But Dr. Marney continued by saying you better be there because some Sunday when you least expect God he is going to walk down that aisle and stop at your pew and if that happens you will never be the same again. God surprised us all in more Sundays than I can remember.

I shall miss that tall columned church where my wife and I have been a member for the last few years. We celebrated the hundredth anniversary of our sanctuary last Sunday and I have loved the inclusively, the woman with her very proper hats, the old homeless man that sits near the back, that handful that have been there forever, following their parents and grandparents. We all love that cluster of little ones that run down the aisle for children’s time reminds me of a midget United Nations. All colors—several nationalities. The children love their church. I shall miss that special place and its splendid music and vast ministries.

How do you say goodbye to a place where you have spent twenty years? I keep going back to that stained glass black Jesus at 16^th Street church reminding me of that awful day when four little girls were killed and Jesus, and so many of us still weep. The KKK never realized their dastardly act would be the hinge-turning moment for the Civil rights movement..

How do you say goodbye to a place? The Birmingham News has been so generous in allowing me to write my ramblings on Sundays. Dear Ron Casey opened that door for me some 20 years ago. I shall miss those editorials and courageous columns that have angered some in Alabama but helped make our city a better place.

I shall miss the Y where I have worked out my demons week after week. Swimming, weights, running some I have a cadre of friends there—and I shall miss their faces and our bantering.

Probably the hardest thing to leave will be my friends. Some of these relationships stretch back for fifty years. A few that have always been there through all the ups and downs. We always say we will keep in touch and call and email—but there is a heavy grief there in knowing that it will never be quite like it was. We will all move on.

Up and down the street where we live we have people we have grown to love. We borrowed sugar and sometimes eggs. We compared notes about gardening. We called each other some times and said, ”Help.” We laughed and it felt good to know they were there across the street and around the corner. When we were gone several weeks ago one of these neighbors cut my grass and nobody would own up to it. I tip my hat to that anonymous grace.

I love my house and I love my garden. In some ways I am glad October has come and the wild, yellow black-eyed susans have died away. Leaving them blooming would have been hard.

Buechner in one of his sermons said he sat on a porch with friends high in the mountains. And a friend asked him, “Why would you ever leave this place?” Maybe you are asking that of me. Why? Every time we drive back to South Carolina it feels like we are going home. We spent 13 years there—and that church was a Camelot for me. Of course it will be different—very different. But our children grew up there and we have friends all up and down Interstate 75. And we're much closer to our daughter and grandchildren. And so, we decided in our old age to give it a try. Buechner answered his friend that asked the “why would you ever leave this place” question by saying: “I guess we all move from place to place to still discover what it means to be a human being." And I think he is right—we all still have some growing to do.

This will be my last blog piece for several days. I’ll be writing soon under a Carolina moon. Tiger Country. The Upper State. I will report from time to time on what comes through my head and what my beating heart is trying to still learn. Never forget that to be human is the unending challenge all the way to the finish line.

Hard Times Come Again No More

2011-10-08T14:29:00.000-07:00

This song was played at the end of Ray Kelley's funeral service. I thought I would share it with you. It is by Stephen Foster and is moving. Enjoy.

I Remember Ray

2011-10-08T14:01:00.000-07:00

"At the feet o' Jesus
Sorrow like a sea.
Lordy, let yo' mercy
Come driftin' down on me.

At the feet o' Jesus
At yo' feet I stand.
O, ma little Jesus,
Please reach out yo' hand."
-
-Langston Hughes, Feet o' Jesus

(My cousin and good friend took his life last week. He left me a note asking me to say some words at his funeral. The service was held at The Baptist Church of the Covenant in Birmingham where I had once served.
These are the words that came straight from my heart.)

Ray and I talked a lot. And he told me about his temptations with suicide. And I would always say: “Ray would you promise to call me if its get real bad and you are thinking seriously about doing this? And if you don’t I am going to say terrible things about you at your funeral. I lied. I could not possibly say anything bad about Ray Kelley.

There is a Spanish philosopher named Unamuno who said that the chief purpose of a temple is a place where people come to grieve together. We make proper use of this temple this afternoon because we all bring our griefs here and hopefully draw strength from one another and from God, too.

“Surely,” Isaiah said, “he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

So, you see we are all alike. We are all wounded in one way or the other. And we all carry some sorrow or deep disappointment with us wherever we go. We learned this week that Steve Jobs died of pancreatic cancer in his fifties. He made such a contribution to our age. But you know I look at suicide as something like cancer—sometimes life presses down on some of us and it just gets to be too much.

Someone has said we shouldn’t judge someone by their death but by their life. You might find it strange for me to say that this day. For Ray was deeply, deeply troubled and many of us in this room tried very hard to help. And some of us feel guilty that we didn’t do more or say more—but I don’t think Ray would want us to do that—and I particularly don’t think that God would have us do that. For some reason Ray didn’t know deep inside how much we loved him because if he had been able to receive these very great gifts we might not be here today. But I talked to several of you about Ray. I have read I don’t know how many Facebook comments by a great number of people that have expressed in all kinds of ways how they loved Ray deeply. Here are some of the things that some of you have said:

“One of my favorite memories of Ray. We were visiting while my Dad was on leave, and I was maybe five. Ray took me to the barn and climbed into the rafters to get a pigeon egg for me. I remember being so thrilled! Ray always made time for me whenever we got a chance to visit, and exchanged letters with me on a regular basis. He always made me feel important. He was kind and caring and loving, and a beautiful person, and I will miss him greatly.”

“So long my friend, until we meet again...”

“You brought so much joy to other people’s lives. We shared so many fun times together at Auburn and beyond. I will cherish these memories and always think of you and smile.”

“Ray...from the first day I met you at an Auburn homecoming when Ed introduced us I have been one of your biggest fans. Remembering our special day at the Georgia Aquarium when we blasphemously ate at the Fish Market after our tour! Be at peace my Best Man.”

“Oh, my precious friend, I could hardly watch Dancing with the Stars tonight without your texted comments. I think you would have had a LOT to say about the outcome! I miss you!”

“ I am missing you so my precious Ray Ray!”

“My Gone With the Wind” friend. Will miss you.”

“To all our sweet memories. Peace be with you. I love you Ray Ray.”

“To a guy whose wit surpassed any other that I have met. You are truly missed and my heart is broken. Never to be forgotten, rest in peace my friend.”

So we judge him by his life and not his death. And you might find this strange because he was so troubled and had such a hard time. Judge him by his life? Yes.

He left his job at Am South bank to move back home to take care of his mother. She was beginning to experience some of the early stages of dementia and perhaps Alzheimer’s. How many sons would do that—interrupt their lives, their careers to take care of someone as Ray did. He was wonderful to Annie Jean and kept her at home until the last days when he could not care for her anymore. But anyone who has had experiences with Alzheimer’s knows what an enormously difficult work this is. Someone has called it The 36 Hour Day. If you want to judge Ray Kelley never forget the attentiveness and the love he gave dear Annie Jean.

As I thought about Ray leaving us much too soon—I remember that wonderful story that Jesus told of the Prodigal Son. The boy left home and did terrible things. He lost all he had. And when it got so bad he didn’t even have anything to eat he began to fantasize. I wonder if my Father would take me back maybe as a hired hand. Little did he know his old father—burned a candle in the window every single night—and day after day he would look down that long dusty road and hope, just hope his boy would one day come home. And the miracle happened. Was it only a mirage? Or a dream? Finally as that speck of a person moved closer the Father knew that walk and the shape of that head. And the old man ran out and ran down the road to meet his son. “My son, my son...” Tears streamed down the old man’s face. Look at the picture as Rembrandt has painted it. One sandal is missing; the other has holes in it. The boy’s robe is tattered and he’s lost a lot of his hair. His face was lined for the too-muchness of it all. And the boy looks like he is weeping and the father wraps his arms around him and looks at him with wonder and joy. No hired hand, that boy. He was taken back to the house where he was given a robe and new sandals and a ring for his hand. And they threw this magnificent party.

What does that have to do with this occasion? Everything. Ray is in the Father’s arms. It is a joyous reunion. And all the pain and heartbreak is gone. And looking around there he sees his Mama and Daddy and his brother and friend after friend. Ray Kelley is in the hands of the Father. The boy has come home.

Dostoevsky, the Russian writer wrote once, “What keeps me going is that I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that in the world’s finale something so great will come to pass that it’s going to suffice for all our hearts, for the comforting of all our sorrows, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity. And I want to be there when suddenly everyone understands what it has all been for.”

So Ray I lied when I said I would say terrible things about you if you did this. No—I cannot do that. I will remember the joy he gave us and the way he looked out after his mother. And even in our grief let us all remember that those strong arms hold him and us all in God’s great love and his care and his keeping.

I close with the Roman Catholic Prayer for the Dead: I used them at Annie Jean’s funeral and today I give them to my cousin and my friend: “Into paradise may the angels lead him; at his coming may the martyrs take him up into eternal rest, and may the chorus of angels lead him to that holy city, and the place of perpetual light.”

And to those gathered and for those that come not come I pray: “Now may the peace that passes all understanding and the love that will not let us go rest and abide with us today and forever. Amen.”

Anti-Immigration in Alabama--Ten Steps Backward

2011-10-03T07:24:00.000-07:00

I took this picture in Philadelphia over a year ago. As I have looked at the photo many times I have wondered about this woman. Where did she come from? How long has she been in the States? Does she have a family? Does she have enough money to make ends meet? Does she miss home? Does she sometimes feel strange standing in a grocery store line trying to understand the money and the checkers?

Did she wish she had never come here? I hope not. I hope she found some of her dreams coming true. I hope she wakes up with a little smile on her face. I hope she feel safe in America.

A lot of us in Alabama were holding our breath hoping that U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn would throw out this state's far-reaching immigration law recently. We were greatly disappointed. Months ago the State Legislature adopted the most stringent anti-immigration laws in the country. Some called this new law: “a great victory for the state of Alabama.” Judge Blackburn ruled that most of the law would stand as written. Here are some of the key provisions which now go into effect.

· Police can detain suspects to verify citizenship status.

· Public schools must check the citizenship status of enrolling students.

· Contracts knowingly entered into with an illegal immigrant are nullified.

· Every employer in the state will enroll in E-Verify to check citizenship status of all employees.

· Illegal immigrants face felony charges for applying for license plates, business of driver’s licenses.

Once again Alabama has written discriminatory policies into our law books. Many Hispanics have already left Alabama. Contractors and farmers are up in arms because many of the good workers that they counted on have just left this state. We took our lead from Georgia and Arizona’s anti-immigration laws—but Alabama goes much further than these other states.

I watched little Hispanic children holding hands at the Y in a special program we provide for pre-schoolers. These were beautiful children, well dressed and having a good time. And as I saw them walk by I wondered what kind of a future they will have in this state. How will they feel when they are singled out in schools? How do they feel as their parents have been forced to uproot them from the only homes they have known because they are not wanted in this state?

Most of us came over on a boat from somewhere else. Have we forgotten that our own forebears were once standing where these folk stand? One of the many dark days in our history when we incarcerated Japanese during the War years because of fear. It is one of the darkest spots on President Roosevelt’s tenure as President. Visiting Ellis Island some time ago I read the story of those who came here with dreams for a better life. This plaque below shows how many felt in this country at that time.

Want to read a heartbreaking story of how it feels to be “undocumented?” Last Sunday’s Birmingham News carried a lead op ed piece written by Alfonso del Carmen who shows us what it feels like to live in the United States and feel rejected and unsafe. She writes that “since the approval of this law, a racist climate has arisen...treating us as if we were criminals.” I don’t think we have heard the last of this sorry law. Many groups still work for peace and justice for all. I have written more than once about what Elie Wiesel said about this situation. “There are no such thing as any human being called illegal. No one is illegal. That word was used early on by those who opened up the gas chambers in Germany.

We’ve worked hard in this state to overcome the word, Bombingham, the pictures of fire hoses and dogs attacking protesters. We’ve come a long way in this state in many ways. But this discriminatory anti-immigration law reminds us that we still have a long way to go.

(You might be interested in the story in today's Birmingham News about 80 people who picketed the church where Scott Beason worships last Sunday. He is the legislator that sponsored the contrroversial immigration law. He was also caught saying black folk were aborigines when he thought the sound was off recently.)

In Praise of Books

2011-09-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

Months ago my wife and I made a decision to move from Alabama to South Carolina. (Can a man be born again when he is say, 75?) We put our house up for sale...and weeks later it looks like it might just be sold very soon. So—we are going through the painful process of cleaning out and deciding what to keep and what to dispose of.

The biggest challenge I face are my books. When I retired I had to clear out a lot of books and bring the rest home from my office. Our house is filled with books cases and books.

But standing before my books shelves I found grief washing over me. I look at the shelves and shelves of books that have changed the course of my life. I think Kafka was right when he said that a book should serve as an axe for the frozen sea within us. Many of these dust-covered friends have opened windows, stretched my horizons or just provided countless hours of sheer joy in reading.

I still have a Hardy boy book or two from my early years. There is the old Lincoln Library that gave me so much information back there. I cannot part with it. I found one of my first Bibles and my mother’s handwriting inscription that she left. I picked up a Psychology book that I read my first year in college that opened a door of understanding myself that continues to this day. I found my Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot that my friend introduced me one evening. “Remember the faith that took men at the call of a wandering preacher...Ours is an age of moderate virtue and moderate vice...” After all these year I can still feel the excitement I first felt when I heard those lines. As Martin Luther King marched in Montgomery I read Cry the Beloved Country and learned about an injustice I had been blind to all my young life. As a young preacher I read Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship and began to reckon on how this really was a hard and unending journey. I have a multitude of books of sermons by Fosdick and Speakman and Scherer and Luccock and Buttrick who stretched my understanding of what a sermon ought to be. While still in my first little church a friend from Yale sent me The Magnificent Defeat by someone called Frederick Buechner. Little did I know this new friend, Buechner would teach me much about writing and sermons and the wonders of life itself. I have about every book he ever wrote. There are Commentaries and Bible Dictionaries that helped me in sermons. And Reynolds Price, John Updike, Wallace Stegner, Wendell Berry Mary Oliver, Raymond Carver and that almost unknown Alden Nowlan, poet from Nova Scotia—all of these and more have stretched me and made me laugh and cry and just be glad that I am alive.

I don’t want to bore you. And I don’t write these lines to let you know “how smart I am.” I simply want to write a tribute to all these old friends I must box up and give away. Of course I will keep many until that day when my children will riffle through the volumes and never know how much some of these books changed my life. C.S. Lewis once said: “We read to know we are not alone.” And I think I have found this to be true. Not only have the books provided an axe to hack away at so much I did not know—but I have also discovered how many others have walked this same way that I now walk. I am surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

Some of my history books and biographies have helped me know that this is not the first time this nation has gone crazy. Nor is this the first time when doomsayers have taken our feverish pulse and wondered if the nation would survive. Sometimes I tremble at where we are and then I will remember something that happened to John Adams and Benjamin Franklin and U.S. Grant and dear Lincoln and the two Roosevelt’s. Books often have given me perspective to see the sky is not falling after all.

And so though I must box up many of these books—one cannot keep everything—even as I say goodbye I know that some of the wisdom from these books will be with me all the way to the finish line. Of course I will pack up many of these old friends and put them on the moving van and take them to our new house. I will not be able to get rid of as many as I probably should. But one day soon I shall dust off what is left and put them on the new shelves in my new home and stand back and smile.

Gay Pride Sunday--Remembering the Day AIDS Came to Church

2011-09-20T07:45:00.000-07:00

"Why do I want to tell it

It was the afternoon of November

15th last fall and I was waiting

for it whatever it would be like

it was afternoon & raining but it:

was late afternoon so dark outside my

apartment and I was special in that

I saw everything through a heightened

tear, things seemed dewy, shiny

and so I knew there was a cave

it was more of less nearby as in my

apartment it was blue inside it

dark blue like an azure twilight and the

gods lived in the cave they who

care for you take care of at death and

they cared for Ted and were there for me

too and in life even now"

--Paul Monette, "Poem"

(Sunday was Gay Pride Day across the nation. Interesting that finally, after all these years, we have the courage to bury "Don't Ask...Don't Tell" and treat all our troops the same. Justice is slow and it is a long time coming--always. Ask our black brothers and sisters. I wrote this piece last year on Gay Pride Sunday. I repeat it because it says a good word for a church that reached up and claimed it's heritage of justice for all. So, on this day I remember all the brave soldiers that have gone before and all those in that tiny congregation that were faithful to their commitment.)

On this Gay Pride Day memories swirl. As a minister I have said goodbye to a great many gay men through the years. My own education began as the AIDS epidemic was raging. One of my church members, a Pastoral Counselor called me one day. “ I have been talking to a woman whose son has AIDS. He lives in California and is moving to Birmingham because he is so sick. His mother feels that her church wouldn’t accept him. She is looking for a church that would treat him just like everyone else. Do you think our church could do that?” I remember whispering: “I would hope so.” I asked my Counselor-friend to have the mother to call me and we would talk. She called, told me their story and wanted to know if they would be welcomed in our congregation. I told her I thought they would.

So she came and joined. Weeks later her son, Kevin moved into her house so she could take care of him. He visited church one Sunday and it was very clear that he was sick. I wondered how people would respond. Well, they rose to the occasion. They welcomed him as they had his mother. A Sunday school class took him in and he became a part of their class.

He lived less than a year. Slowly he began to slip away. The church surrounded this family. We prayed for them, took food, sat with Kevin so his mother could take a break. When he was so very sick his Sunday school class visited around his bedside on a Sunday morning. They brought communion with them—little tiny wafers and a vial of wine. Kevin had eaten very little those last days. But he asked for Communion and the class gathered around his bed and they took the Lord’s Supper. It was the last food he ever had by mouth. A day or two later he slipped away.

At his funeral our church was there in full force. Little blue-haired ladies surrounded the mother and wiped away their tears. There were a lot of gay folk that attended that service. They whispered to one another: “Is this a Baptist church? It couldn’t be.” Weeks later some of those same people appeared on a Sunday morning. They kept coming back. And one by one they joined our congregation.

This was a sea change for our little church. Some began to mutter, “Is this going to become a gay church?” One family walked into my office, stuck their fingers in my face and said, “What are you going to do about these homos?” I told them I was going to treat everyone the same and we would turn no one away. Our church pulled out of another Baptist church years before because that church refused to receive black people into their membership. So I told this irate family, “If we don’t keep these doors open for everyone—we will be dead in five years. A church of open doors is who we are.” We lost a few members at this hard time—yet the church kept welcoming all that came.

One of our Choir members told about the promise he had made to his dying mother. He told her he would sing, “Amazing Grace” at her funeral. When she died the woman’s pastor told this son because he was gay he could not sing at that funeral in that church. So they moved the service from the church to a funeral home and the young man kept his promise to his mother. I heard heart-breaking story after heart-breaking story.

Our church formed Care teams and took meals on wheels to people with AIDS. We welcome a little black baby with AIDS into our nursery. Slowly the church began to see that our gay members were just like everyone else. Several congregants served on boards that dealt with gay concerns.

That was in the mid-nineties and if you were to visit that church today you would find a great many gay folk in a multitude of leadership positions. It did not become a gay church. It was just a Church—a church with enough courage to open it’s arms to everyone. People there do not now think in terms of who is straight and who is gay. They are simply people who are struggling to find their way and help each other.

And so, on this day I remember Kevin and his mother Carole. They forced us to deal with an issue that was extremely volatile at that time. They left indelible fingerprints on that congregation. And so today as people march across this country for gay rights—I remember Kevin and the battle he waged and how he helped us open our doors a little wider.

We still have a long way to go. Much of the church still cannot face this issue of homosexuality. Yet step-by-step we are getting there. One day I hope I see a time when everyone who steps into a church and sits down will feel safe and welcomed. Kevin helped teach me and our church this lesson. And so on Gay Pride Sunday I remember.

National Parks--Maybe They Can Help Save our Souls

2011-09-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

"Still what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled--

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the inperfections are nothing--

that the light is everything--that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do."

--Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems

I haven't written in two weeks because my wife and I have been out west visiting relatives. We were about as far west as you could go--Oregon. One of the great things that we did while there was spend a lot of time in some of our great national parks. This country is rich in natural resources. We spent an afternoon at Crater Lake which is one of our national treasures. Crater Lake came out of a vocalnic explosion. The crater measures six miles around--and is a wonderful lake. All the people in our company grew quiet as we looked at this lake. No one said a word.

Another thing we did was visit Smith Rock which is this magnificent rock formation where rock climbers (if they are good) go wild. We walked through national forests, we stumbled on to waterfalls that were breathtaking. There is something healing about being this close to nature.

Strange, while we were out there I read Nicholas Kristof''s splendid column called: "We're Rich in Nature" in the New York Times. Kristof hails from Oregon and he had just spent his vacation back-packing with his family in some of the wonderful natural parks in his home state. His article talks about the Republican proposal H.R. 1581 whch proposes opening up 50 million (yes 50 million) acres of federal land for logging and grazing. They call it responsible multiple uses. You might want to read Kristof's great article for yourself. It's scary to think this bill might become law.

I looked up the bill and they call it: Wilderness and Roadless Area Release Act of 2011. A summary of this bill reads:

"Releases public lands administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BML) pursuant to the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 that have not been designated as wilderness and identified by BML as not suitable for designation as wilderness from further study for wilderness designation.

Makes such lands no longer subject to the Act's requirement pertaining to the management of wilderness study areas in a manner that does not impair suitability for preservation as wilderness."

If we give away our precious natural resources there is no getting them back. What kind of a world would it be with only concrete, high rises, condos and mountains raped and left bare when stripped of trees. You might want to read this bill for yourself. Looking out over that great lake called Crater...watching water stream down waterfalls and staring up at Smith Rock alters one's perspective. It's like Danny Glover said in the movie "Grand Canyon" (which I recommend to everybody). "Every once in a while you need to go to some place like Grand Canyon and sit there and look and look. It sorta puts things back in perspective. " In the film, Glover left there to go back to his hard life in the ghetto. We all need a time when we can turn off the TV, quit thinking about what Rick and Michelle and even what the President said yesterday. Let's keep our natural resources for that is what they are--resources which we can all draw on that heal and help our souls. Maybe if we all wandered off to some green quiet place and sit and look up and wonder it might not change the world but I have a sneaking feeling it just might change us.

Mary Oliver says it best for me:

"When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I woud almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out, 'Stay awhile.'

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, 'It's simple,' they say,

'and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.'"

--Mary Oliver, from Thirst

September Eleventh--Remember When We Were One?

2011-09-06T07:23:00.000-07:00

Immediately after 9/11 many people sat down and wrote out their feelings. This moving poem captures for me our sentiments on the days following the September 11^th attack. It was written by Cheryl Sawyer.

“As the soot and dirt and ash rained down,

We became one color.

As we carried each other down the stairs of the burning building

We became one class.

As we lit candles of waiting and hope

We became one generation.

As the firefighters and police officers fought their way into the inferno

We became one gender.

As we fell to our knees in prayer and strength,

We became one faith.

As we whispered or shouted words of encouragement,

We spoke one language.

As we gave our blood in lines a mile long,

We became one body.

As we mourned together the great loss

We became one family.

As we cried tears of grief and loss

We became one soul.

As we retell with pride the sacrifice of heroes

We become one people.

We are

One color

One class

One generation

One gender

One faith

One language

One body

One family

One soul

One people

We are The Power of One.

We are united.

We are America.

I love this poem. I remember reading it somewhere right after 9/11 happened and loved the sentiment. We were in Oregon visiting relatives when the planes hit. We couldn't get home for several days because all flights had been cancelled. I missed preaching the Sunday after 9/11--but got home in the middle of the next week. On Sunday I gave my reflections of what had happened to us and what I thought it meant theologically.

After the sermon one of our Ushers said, "There is a young man back here that wants to talk to you." I saw him and invited him into my office. He was a University student from Iraq. He was a Muslim. He told me how ashamed he was because of those that destroyed the towers were Muslim. And then he said, "Does your God hate Muslims?" That was the question he came asking. I assured him that God loved everyone...and that God loved him and I hope because this had happened that he would not have a hard time in our country. I still feel that way after all these years.

Sorrowfully, our one-ness of that day did not last long. We went back to our favorite trenches, with our favorite weapons and began to fight once more. We fought a war for the wrong reasons...there were no weapons of mass destruction. Suddam Hussein, monster though he was, had nothing to do with this attack. He and Osama ben Laden hated each other. We broke our own rules with torture and rendition. We created a Department of Homeland Security that seems to cover everything. We kept spending and spending money on these wars until it has nearly bankrupted us. It takes a million dollars a year to keep one of our soldiers in this war that seems to have no end. 7,000 coalition forces have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since this war started. Estimates are that over 200,000 locals have met their death in this war. These figures do not include the broken and wounded who will never be as they were.We elected our first black President and yet he has been more vilified that any President we ever had. Death threats on the office of the Presidency has escalated since he has come to office.

We have become a fearful and anxious people. And fearful and anxious people launched the Third Reich. Our politicians cannot get together enough to deal with this economic or jobs crisis. Many would rather the country go down the drain than re-elect a black President for a second term. Our list of hatreds seems to grow. Gays, liberals, intellectuals, mainstream Christians that do not understand fundamentalism. We are scared to death of the Muslim citizens in this country--and our resolutions and laws directed toward Hispanics shatters the intent and meaning of the Constitution.

We've have been through bad periods before. We will somehow get through this slough of despond. We have always been a resilient people. But anxious, fearing people do strange things. As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches--it is a good time to ponder that one-ness we had once upon a time when the ground still smoked and the rubble was everywhere and there was weeping in the streets by people of all colors and all races.

Let us all do our parts to lower the temperature--and find some way to become the dream of our forebears: a United States.

I read a prayer-poem the other day that might be wonderful medicine for us all.

"May the pain of every living being

Be completely cleared away.

May I be the doctor and the medicine

And may I be the nurse

For all the sick beings in the world

Until everyone is healed...

May the frightened cease to be afraid

And those bound be freed..."

--Prayer by Geshe Acharya Thusten Loden

And God bless America--all America--All--ALL.

Manna--A Lesson from the Wilderness- 16th Sunday after Pentecost

2011-09-05T14:29:00.000-07:00

"When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, 'What is it?'
For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, 'It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.'"
--Exodus 16. 15

The towering mountain peak in the Old Testament is the Exodus story. That journey that led them from slavery to freedom. That winding precipitous road from Egypt to Red Sea through desert after desert to finally the Promised Land. The Japanese theologian Koyama talks about the "three mile and hour God." Three miles an hour is the walking speed which would finally take them to their destination. Did Yahweh, their God just walk off and leave them traveling that slow, slow pace? Three miles an hour. No. God was with them every reluctant step of the way. That wilderness was a place of danger. God had told them it was a place of promise. But mostly they saw the danger and they forgot the promise.

Early in their wanderings they murmured and complained because they had little water and no food. Has God brought us here to starve in this wilderness? God heard their cries and sent them manna from heaven. Manna? they said. What is it? And Moses said: "It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat." Little, day after day the manna would come and finally they made it to the Promised Land.

For years scholars have thought that manna was a secretion from the tamarisk tree. But after further investigation, many now feel that it was produced by two tiny insects--one scale insect that can be found in the mountainous regions and another that can be found in the valleys. And the chemical analysis of those excretions reveals that they contain three basic sugars with pectin which contains a great deal of nutrition.

And in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus we have a most interesting story that clusters around this word, manna. They were told to go out every morning and gather up enough manna for the day. Day by day the manna would come. And so fresh every morning they found the sustenance they needed for that particular day. They were warned not to take more than they needed.

But some more enterprising Hebrews began to wonder. Why get up so early? Why do all this week day after day? Why don't we go out in the morning and just gather up enough of the manna for weeks on in and we have a lot more time to sleep or do whatever we wish. And so Exodus says they took their sacks and went out and hoarded up the manna. But a strange thing occurred--when they opened their sacks the next day--they discovered that the manna they had collected had turned moldy and had worms in it. It stunk to high heaven. And they learned a powerful lesson that day. There are some things that cannot be saved up, pickled or frozen for another day. Manna must be collected fresh every morning.

Embedded in this primitive story is one of the great lessons of faith. We have to keep coming back and reaching out our hands because the needs of our lives are daily. It doesn't matter how young you are. It does not matter how old we are. There are so many things that you have to give attention to day after day. It's as basic as sitting down at a table three times a day. We never say: Well, we'll just eat on Sunday--eat a lot--and we won't have to worry about it the rest of the week. It doesn't work that way.

There is nothing new here. But these are lessons we need to be reminded of. The first lesson is this: we are dependent on God and we are dependent on one another.We are not any different from those on that first long journey. In the wilderness they learned some scary, scary things. They learned that you could die out there. Sand, heat, oppressive heat, water scarce--scorpions and disease and enemies always over the next hill it seemed. And so, out of necessity, they began to rely on God and they began to rely on one another--even some they did not like. But they needed one another.

Every Sunday we pray the same words. The Lord's Prayer. It really is the Disciple's Prayer. It is a prayer for us, not God. Once I was counseling a couple about to get married. And we were talking about church. The man was big and strong and used huge earth-moving equipment every day and worked with a very rough crew. He said: "You know what I like most about Church? The Lord's Prayer that we pray every Sunday." Why, I said. "Because there is so much in it that I need to tell God over and over again. It always sends shivers up my spine when we pray it together. It's my favorite part of church."

And you know, there are something that we need to say again and again. It's like Bach's Two-Part Inventions that people play on the piano. You never do finish. You have to keep practicing over and over again. You don't ever graduate. You've got to keep doing it over and over--again and again.

Jesus said: "Pray like this: Give us this day our daily bread." It is the recognition that we live all of our lives by the hand of God. Give us what we need for whatever it is that we must do. Give us our daily ration, somebody calls it. Enough to make it through operations and kids leaving home and life changes and family disruptions and disappointment and moving and all the difficulties the journey brings.

We really are a dependent people. When my youngest granddaughter was about four, would come up half-dressed and I say, "Let me help you." And she would exclaim: "I can do it myself!" and marched off in a huff. Two minutes later she would be back saying: "Granddaddy, could you help me with this?" You don't say: "I offered to help you a while ago." I do not say: "I helped you yesterday." No. My Granddaddy heart would just melt and I would say: "Sit in my lap and we'll tie those shoes or put that band aid on or buckle her seatbelt."

AA knows about how dependent we all are. They sit around this little table. They've all been to hell and back and there is no pretense. Their faces are lined. Some of them are beet-red. The sorrows and hurts of the years are written in their faces and on their hearts. And they have learned the hard way that it's by giving and receiving that it really does happen.

A friend of mine who is a recovering alcoholic called the other night when he heard I was retiring. He said: “I was in a mess back there years ago”. And I said: “Yes”. And he said: “Do you remember establishing the first AA chapter in our church and how furious some people were because they thought we would mess up their church? You really had to take a lot of heat”. I had forgotten all that. “Well”, he said, “it's still going. I'm still there every Monday night. We have fifty people every week. I couldn't have made it without them.” We really are a dependent people.

How have we missed it so long in church? How have we missed it so much in prayer? "Give us this day our daily bread." It comes every morning. Manna. It's all around us--the blessings and treasures of God. We are not self-sufficient. We can't pick and choose the people we are going to love and those that God sends our way. God gives these. That's what you call church.

That's why I love the hymn: "The Servant Song."

"We are travelers on a journey, Fellow pilgrims on the road;

We are here to help each other Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you In the nighttime of your fear;

I will hold my hand out to you, Speak the peace you long to hear."

Every single day we hold out our hands and whisper: Give, Lord, give. One of our favorite places in England is the gorgeous cathedral at Chichester. It is not the largest but I still remember it 15 years later. In the vestibule I picked up a prayer that was written by Sir Richard Chichester. We have all heard it.

"Dear Lord, three things I pray--

Too see thee more clearly--

To love thee more dearly--

To follow thee more nearly--day by day."

It's a lesson from the wilderness. The manna comes--and just keeps on coming. Day by day. And we reach out and take what he gives--sometimes it comes through other people. Sometimes it comes in ways so quiet that if we don't listen very carefully we will miss it.

I don't know what hard thing you may have brought with you here. We all carry burdens on our backs. But this I know. Every morning, without fail, the people of God were commanded to go out and to receive those things that God had in store for them. And whatever they found would be sustenance enough for whatever they faced. God said when his people were in great need. I will send you manna. And they said, “Manna? What is it?” And God said: “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.” Thanks be to God.

September Eleven--I Remember

2011-09-05T08:36:00.000-07:00

(This is a poem written by a little girl who lost her Father on 9-11.)
"In my garden, I will plant some of Daddy's things

The hat he wears for his favorite baseball team.
His special notes he wrote to me.
His favorite songs he likes to sing.
His special collect cars he bought last spring.

His favorite tie that has grease stains.
His favorite fishing pole, even though he has never   caught anything.

And I'm going to plant some of my tears, these come from
me.
Every night before I go to sleep, I will go out to my     special garden
and pray over Daddy's things."
         --Natasha Flowers, 2002

(The following words were written on the Sunday after September Eleventh. We were in Oregon visiting relatives. There was a knock at our bedroom door. "New York is on fire! Come look!" And so we got out of bed and stood in shock with the rest of the country. I preached this sermon the next Sunday to my Interim congregation in Huntsville, Alabama.)

Fred Craddock tells the story about a little town in Oklahoma called Kingfisher. They have a weekly paper there by the same name: The Kingfisher, Every Friday the paper came out. There was on old Kiawah Indian woman named Molly Shepherd that wrote a weekly column for the paper. She would write about the observations of the things in her town. Simply things—customs, events—people she had talked to in the grocery store. On the Friday following the assassination of President Kennedy Molly wrote a brief article. This is what she wrote:

Molly has no article today…Molly has no words today…Molly has nothing to say today…All week long Molly walks around in the house and says, “Ooooohh...Ooooohh.” (Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, Chalice Press: St. Louis, MO, 2001, pp. 90-91)

Sometimes the only thing that captures the unspeakables is something like: Ooooohh…Ooooohh.” I was sorry that I could not be with you Sunday. We were on the West Coast and couldn’t get a plane out. But I wanted to be here and be with you. Not that I had anything particularly to say—I just wanted to be among friends and pray with you and sing with you. It is good to be back.

We finally got a plane out on Tuesday morning and arrived back in Birmingham late that night. But what would you say if you stood here this morning? I feel like the physician who worked in the rubble of Manhattan last week. Some reporter asked him to describe his feelings. And he simply said: “Words fail.” Oh, do they ever, ever fail. Sometimes all we can say with Molly, “Ooooohhh.” It’s just too big to describe. Too many have died. Six weeks ago Gayle and I were at the World’s Trade Center. We know it well. And it is so hard to believe that this has really happened.

Interestingly enough I was reading Victor Klemperer’s, I Will Bear Witness when this terrible tragedy happened. This book is a two-volume diary written by a Jewish survivor of the holocaust. It tells, day after tedious day, of how he and his wife lived with indignity, constant house searches, arrests, seeing neighbors and friends driven off in cattle cars never to return. Watching his whole world go up in smoke. He lost his home and his job and they had to filch for good and places to stay. The book is a record of living with terror and fear and despair day after day—year after year.

The book put things in perspective. It is possible to live through terrible times—to have awful things happen to us. Bad things often happen to the best of people. Holy Scriptures help us. Slavery, bondage, wilderness wanderings, attacks from inside and outside. War and famine and pestilence and drought and death. And through it all, out of the depths, they wrote, “The Lord is my Shepherd…” “In you, O Lord I take refuge…” “May God be gracious to us and bless us and let us face shine upon us…””The river of God is full of water…” “His steadfast love endures forever.” So what we learn from the great voices in hard times is that we can go on and we will not be alone.

I have been thinking of what really matters. And what is that? Not bricks and mortar or stock markets or inconveniences. Not at all. What matters are relationships. When people on those planes knew they were in grave danger they called their loved ones and friends and said Goodbye. I love you. You don’t know how much you mean to me.

I don’t know why we get our priorities so tangled. Look at all those who lifted up pictures last week. Have you seen him or her or them? Husbands, wives, children—friends—colleagues. Every one was important and special to someone. Let’s make this a teachable moment for us all. Life is a precious gift and most of us handle it as if it will last forever. I read a poem lately about a man who spoke at a funeral of a friend. He told of the year she was born and the year she died and how in-between these on her tombstone there was always this dash. 1935-2001. And he said what mattered was not the birth nor the death day—but the dash. The dash. What happened in those in-between times? And maybe if we can just learned the importance of the dash—our dash—maybe life will be different for us all.

I hope we won’t make the mistakes we’ve made before. Remember after Pearl Harbor how we rounded up all the Japanese and put them in camps. It is one of the darkest pictures in our history. And we have read of the incidents where Mosques are pillaged and Arab-Americans are insulted and spat on in the streets. These people are no guiltier than we are. I saw a cartoon from one of our papers this week. It showed a collection of Americans: African-Americans, Women, Men, Oriental-Americans, Arab-Americans, Gay-Americans, blue-collar Americans, and Professional Americans. There was a line drawn—and then another picture of the same people. But the labels were changed. The date over the picture of 9-11-01 and under every picture was on word: American. The labels did not matter.

And I would also say we are after the people who did this. We must be careful of the innocents. All this talk of bombing Afghanistan may not be as wise as we think. It is already a bombed-out country. I am told the Taliban do not represent the people there. There are 500,000 disabled orphans in that country. There is little food and little civilization. We are not after these people. We are after whomever that group was that did these terrible things.

We can’t help but ask where was God during this terrible time? He was where he was when the children of Israel were in bondage. When they wandered in a terrible wilderness. When they finally got to the land they had to build with their own hands. And God was there when the land was torn to pieces and Jerusalem lay in rubble and the best and brightest were dragged off into exile 400 miles. And God was there when, years later they came back to bombed-out shells of houses and lands. And started over. And God was there when Christ died on the Cross and he has been there during every war and in every injustice and in all the tears and in all the pain. God is here. God does not will everything. But the wisest among us have found in the hard places of their lives they are not alone. And so they get up and begin again—not by themselves—but with the incredible help of a loving God.

Is there any word from the Lord this sad, sad day? Oh yes—he hears every “Ooooohhhh” that we utter. For we have reminded that we do have a high priest who really does sympathizes with our weaknesses, who in every respect has been tempted as we, though without sin. And so, one and all, we go boldly to this throne called grace with boldness, knowing full well that we will receive mercy and find grace in this time of our need. God takes the “Ooooohhhs” of our lives and hears them every one.

Dr. King's Dream for Us All

2011-08-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

"Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountain top...and He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the Promised Land."
--(The last words from the last address Dr. King gave in Memphis on the night before his death.)

This Sunday Washington will be crowded with millions who come to dedicate the national monument to Martin Luther King. Of all the monuments along the Tidal Basin this will be the only monument honoring a private citizen. This honor is a long time coming.

I was a student at an all-white college in Alabama when Stride Toward Freedom came out. This book told the agonizing struggle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the man at the center of it all. From those tiny beginnings of a lone black woman on a segregated bus we have come a long way and it would never happened without Martin Luther King.

I only met him once. He spoke at my Seminary and as he spoke I was moved by his words and his vision. He pointed toward the far horizon and told that mostly white preacher-audience we had some serious work to do as minister of the gospel. After his address I went forward and shook his hand and told him how much I had been touched by those words of Amos: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

At the center of his life was this incredible faith that God really was in this thing called history. He reached back to Moses and the Exodus from Egypt and the prophets and the nonviolent words of Jesus. Taylor Branch tells in one of his books on the civil rights struggle about the incredible courage that Dr. King exhibited time after time in moments of terrible anger. A reporter asked him one day if he was not afraid of all the hatred and venom he found everywhere he went. He said, “Of course I’ve been afraid many times.” And then he told the story of those early beginning days of the bus boycott in Montgomery. His house was bombed but he and his family miraculously escaped unharmed. He said, “When I get afraid I remember the words of an old gospel song that came to me that night when our house was bombed. It was the song, “No, Never Alone.” And he said when I have grown afraid the words of that song have come back to me again and again.” These are the words he remembered:

“I’ve seen the lightning flashing, I’ve heard the thunder roll,
I’ve felt sin’s breakers dashing, which almost conquered my soul.
I’ve heard the voice of my Savior, bidding me still to fight on.
He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone!”

No never alone, no never alone,
He promised never to leave me,
He’ll claim me for His own;’
No, never alone, no never alone.
He promised never to leave me,
Never to leave me alone.”

He died much to soon at the hands of an assassin. And we wonder what would have happened to history had he been able to live and work longer. But in a time when racism still runs wild in this country toward our first black President and toward all those un-white Hispanics that many despise—it is time to ponder Dr. King’s words and his dream for us all.

As I wrote this piece I remembered some words from Frederick Buechner who was at the March on Washington. They are fitting to read on this weekend.

“A few summers ago I went on that famous March on Washington, and the clearest memory that I have of it is standing near the Lincoln Memorial hearing the song “We Shall Overcome” sung by the quarter of a million or so people who were there. And while I listened, my eye fell on one very old Negro man, with a face like shoe leather and a sleazy suit and an expression more befuddled than anything else; and I wondered to myself if, quite apart from the whole civil-rights question, that poor old bird could ever conceivably overcome anything. He was there to become a human being. Well, and so were the rest of us. And so are we all, no less befuddled than he when you come right down to it. Poor old bird, poor young birds, every one of us. And deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome some day, as he will, by God’s grace, by helping the seed of the kingdom grow in ourselves and in each other until finally in all of us it becomes a tree where the birds of the air can come and make their nests in our branches. That is all that matters really.” (from Frederick Buechner’s, The Magnificent Defeat, New York: The Seabury Press, pp. 122-123

(You may want to read Cornell West's article in the NYTimes in response to the Dedication. Article entitled, "Dr. King Weeps From His Grave." Though I do not agree with Cornell West about his views of the President--he raises some good points. We have much work to do.)

Labor Day, Retirement and Unemployment

2011-08-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

"And what do you do?" he asked. Hmm. I wondered what I should say. I am seventy-five years old. What am I supposed to be doing?

Well, I worked in the yard. For hours and hours in the hot sun. I clipped some bushes in the front of my house. I watered a yard that is beginning to look like the Sahara. I read much of the paper. I dipped into a few pages of a novel. I tried to wade through my magazines that are piling up. I feel like I am fighting a losing battle. I talked to a friend and some family members far away. I, unfortunately, plowed through my email. I tinkered with my blog. We took a friend to lunch. I worried about my friends and family members who live in the path of the hurricane. I worked out at the Y for an hour and a half. I snoozed in a chair for about fifteen minutes.

The folk that asked this question about what am I doing are smart people. But, like most of us, they confuse being with doing. I’ve done the same thing much of my life. I’m sure I’ve walked up to people who were retired and said, “Uh, what are you doing now?” There are days when I feel funny without a business card. Shoot, I don’t even have a business! Does this make me less than a person? I hope not. We really are more than the sum total of what we do.

Take that checker in the grocery store. Is she only a checker? Nah. There are layers and layers of her life. Like most of us she is like an iceberg. You don't see most of what she is. She’s got a family. She’s worried about her boy. She found a lump in her breast and is terrified. She goes to church when she can and most Sundays the singing touches something deep down. Her varicose veins are giving her trouble as she stands behind that counter eight hours a day. Yet she smiles and asks what kind of a day you are having and makes you feel better as you wheel your cart out to the car.

He works as an Air Conditioner repairman. He told me he worked all night last night. He didn’t complain—he just stated the fact. He was the second man to work on our unit this week but this man got it fixed. He never saw the inside of a college, he doesn’t read much. He watches TV and can tell you all the stats of Alabama and Auburn. He’s got a wife that doesn’t work outside the home. He says it with pride. He has two grown kids he worries a lot about. His Mama died last year of lung cancer. Smoked too many cigarettes too many years. He told me, “You know so many people don’t think I’m important. When I come to fix their air conditioner they tell me to come in the back door. They stare at me like I’m a nobody. Yet I fixed their air conditioner when it didn’t work.”

Labor Day was declared a national holiday in 1894. It was first called a “workingmen’s holiday.” It was to celebrate all “that vital force of labor" without which we could never have made this country great. With 25 million of us either without jobs or working without benefits—this holiday and our labor force is threatened. Somehow those who supposedly govern us must help get us out of this grotesque situation. I wonder how our politicians really sleep at night knowing that out there just beyond their gated houses there are families suffering simply because they cannot find a job.

Maybe we ought to celebrate Martin Luther's King's dedication with another March on Washington. We need to remind those whom we have elected that there is more to their jobs than keeping the well-heeled happy so they have enough money in their coffers to keep their own benefits coming. And so on this approaching Labor Day I think of that Grocery store checker and that good man who must walk through too many back doors to keep us cool. I think of all those others who would work if some door opened and someone invited them in, not only to fill out an application but to help them do what they would give anything to do once more. Labor Day is more than saying Rah-Rah to the working force—it should be a commitment from all of us to change this lop-sided way we have of doing our business.

What do you do? They asked. Well, maybe not much. But if enough of us raised our voices and really cared about those not as lucky as we have been maybe, just maybe, we could change this sad picture.

If you did not read Nicholas Kristof's splendid article in the Sunday New York Times on unemployment--I recommend.

Rick Perry and Evolution

2011-08-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

Altternet's Web site featured a great article today dealing with Rick Perry's disbelief in evolution. Richard Dawkins, Oxford Evolutionary Biologist (Retired) is irate at Governor and would-be President Rick Perry's anti-science stance. This scientist is furious at Perry's refusal to look at the facts dealing with evolution. Perry claims to be a Christian. Dawkins is an atheist and humanist and is especially known for his book, The God Delusion. Mr. Perry doesn't get the point that sometimes you are a poor witness for the faith when you refuse to deal with the theory of evolution. Most scientist agree that evolution is a hard fact. When we leave our brains at home when we go to church we always get into trouble. I remember reading that when LBJ (also of Texas fame) was interviewed for his first teaching job the Principal asked him his views on evolution.

Johnson is said to have replied, "I can teach it either way." Mr. Perry says that both theories: creationism and evolution are taught side by side in Texas schools. Does this equal time business bother you? You don't give equal weight to every issue. Or shouldn't.

Lloyd Douglas had a friend who was a violin teacher who was not very successful. But the old man had a good deal of wisdom. Douglas called on him one day and said, "Well, what's the good news today?" The old music teacher went over to a tuning fork suspended by a cord and struck it with a mallet. "There is the good news for today," he said. "That, my friend, is 'A'. It was 'A' all day yesterday. It will be 'A' all day tomorrow, next week, and for a thousand years. The soprano upstairs warbles off-key, the tenor next door flats his high ones, and the piano across the hall is out of tune. Noise all around me, noise; but that, my friend is 'A"."

There are some things that you just can't have both ways. When Christians get a handle on this--those on the outside looking in, might just come on in just long enough to see you really can have a brain and be a Christian at the same time.

The President's Vacation--Just Thinking

2011-08-19T20:49:00.000-07:00

Are you surprised that a lot of people are howling about President Obama taking a vacation? The big howl is: Should Mr. Obama ditch his beach plans and focus on the economy. In a way it does seem in these dog days of sweltering heat and so many without jobs and the economy going crazy—that the President would be lounging at pricey Martha’s Vineyard. If he had stayed home many of the complainers would probably have said, “Why doesn’t he just take off and be with his family—are the Obama’s having trouble?” Or “He could go to some place like Panama City, Florida or maybe Branson, Missouri like reg’lar folks.” Or “Why do these uppity blacks have to rub it in?” Whatever this President does—some folk just will not be pleased. Setting the record straight someone has calculated how many days off the Presidents took at this time in their administration. The results are interesting.

Mr. Obama—61 vacation days
George Bush – 180 vacation days
Ronald Reagan – 112 vacation days
Bill Clinton – 28 days

I remember the tut-tut’s when every other President spent any time away from his desk. Isn’t it a mite unfair to think that anybody can work constantly without a break? A friend of mine, Ed Bratcher says that ministers in trouble work 25% longer with half the results.

Dr. Wayne Oates struck a chord years ago in his book, Confessions of a Workaholic. He stated that it was foolish and poor stewardship not to take time off from your job. The workaholic does not do his or her best work—not to speak of their inattentiveness to their families.

In every church I ever served someone would always say: “Our last Pastor didn’t take vacations—he worked 7 days a week—365 days a year. What’s with this day’s off business? I followed one guy whose claim to fame was that he spent one whole summer painting the church! Somehow I had trouble finding that in my job description. It took me a long time to learn that we all need pauses and breaks in our lives. Why even the Ten Commandments remind us that we all need a Sabbath. I was told by one of my Seminary Professors, “It would be a good thing to take your books with you on vacation and plan your preaching for the next year.” Huh? That is no vacation. Study leave maybe or Sabbatical—but not vacation.

I have jogged for years. It was the time in the day when I could forget everything and just run my frustrations off. Early on I would work out problems and plan sermons and figure out how to deal with that handful that always try to keep their Pastor humble. But I learned if I put my mind in neutral the subconscious would do the work for me. I also learned that some of my best thoughts came after a time off. Sometimes on a study leave or vacation I came back with new ideas and ready to tackle the challenges once more.

I think the pundits are wrong that say the President should stay at his job and take no vacation. Why knows, even in a pricey place like Martha’s Vineyard there may be times when the President can put his job and his commitments back in perspective. Who knows, maybe in his pauses and silence from his many demands job he might just dream some new dreams and come up with some ideas for this very troubled land?

I do hope Mr. Obama can get some rest. I do hope he plays a little golf, read something not related to work and spend some time with Michelle and the kids. And I pay that when he returns to his job that he will be ready to once again tackle the seemingly impossible problems his job and our country demands.

Sermon for 10th Sunday after Pentecost--Finding the Church

2011-08-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite stories was told by Carlyle Marney one of the great preachers of the 20th century. He served a church in Austin, Texas and after many years he was called to the Myers Park Church In Charlotte, N.C. After he moved, people would come up to him and ask him how he liked living in Charlotte and how he liked his new church. And he would say, “Well, I like it just fine, but I’m having just a little trouble.” They’d perk up their ears, “Trouble?” “Yes, I having trouble finding the church. It’s just really hard to find. You know, I just keep looking and looking. I know it’s here somewhere, but I’m having a little trouble finding the church. I know it’s here somewhere—but I haven’t found it yet.”

So one of the things I have done as Interim Pastor is trying to find the church. One of the great passages of scripture is in Matthew 16. It is one of the hinge-turning moments in the ministry of Jesus. It’s the watershed that makes all the difference in the story. Scholars call it the Confession at Caesarea Philippi.

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” And they began to give the appropriate answers, right out of the book: “John the Baptists, Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets. But Jesus zeroes in and says, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon, who always had an answer said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Then, interestingly, in Matthew 16.21 we read how serious this is: “From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”

What we have here is one of the most controversial passages in the whole of the New Testament. A great many books have been written on these verses. Churches have debated their meaning. Upon what rock do we build a church? Whole denominations have started on the interpretation of what the foundation of the church really is. Is the Church built on Simon Peter, the first pope? What is the foundation of the church? What is this rock? Is it on Jesus? The testimony of Simon? Or do we build the church on anybody and everybody that bows a knee and says deep in their hearts: “We do believe Jesus is Lord.” If I had to pick and choose I think I would pick the last theory: Jesus built his church on the testimony of all those who respond to him and love him and follow him.

After I retired and before I started working as Interim, my wife and I began to visit churches—looking for a new church home. I could tell you some horror stories of what we found. Terrible music. No mystery in many of the churches. Lousy preaching. Some as cold as a refrigerator. Why, you would have thought we were invisible. One woman turned around to Gayle (my wife) during the Passing of the Peace, asked her name and welcomed her. After the service she said to Gayle: “Margie we are glad to have you here…won’t you stay for Sunday School, Margie.” I have been calling her Margie ever since. But let me tell you what I was looking for in a church. Three words, really. Rooted in the heart of the New Testament. Without these three words there is no church.

Kerygma

The first thing I’m looking for when I come to church is the word, kerygma. Mark was the one who wrote the first Gospel, and his book would blaze a trail for all those that would follow. He began his remarkable work by saying, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” “The beginning of the good news…” This is what gospel means. It was a proclamation. It was a good, good news of great joy. It was good tidings that the angels sang about that first Christmas. Without this good news there would have been no church.

So scholars have researched this word, kerygma and they came across several points that were made in all those early Christian sermons. This was the dawn of the Messianic age. The prophecies of the Messiah were now being filled in Jesus. Always there was a brief account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection—the Easter story—was at the heart of that message. The coming of the Holy Spirit, of course, was there. They were reminded that Jesus would one day come again. Then they always ended their message saying everybody could repent regardless of what they had done and everybody could find forgiveness; everybody could be changed inside and out.

Old cripples lying by muddy pools for years, and little children who had little to live for, and prostitutes that all the good people hated, and tax collectors that were despised by their own kind and even the “beggars in velvet” discovered that they could find a place and they could find a power in their own empty lives. It was an inclusive message that took all in and changed all who came.

So the first word I look for is kerygma—good news. And this is one of the essences of church. In every church I have ever served, there have been people there who are having a hard, hard time with church. For, you see, all their lives they have heard bad news, not good news. They have had something crammed down their throats and somehow they still have indigestion from it. They were forced to sit on those hard benches for years and years. And they got scared of hell and the devil and punishment and feeling that God would never, ever accept them. They heard only half the message. They understood, like most us, the guilt. Most of them never heard the grace.

But Simon preached what Mark knew, that kerygma is a good news. “Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall come to all peoples.” The church lost one of its finest writers when Elizabeth O’Connor died. In one of her books she said: “Go ye into all the world has two meanings, It is a missionary word—to do evangelism. The church is to take the good news to those who do not know. But Ms. O’Connor said that this go ye is also an inner word. That “Go ye” means that this gospel word is to penetrate every part of our beings also. For she says there are places that yet have to be addressed in our lives by this good, good news. That deep down within every one of us there are parts that need to be converted still. There are lost territories in all our many selves. So this good news says we can face the old sins and old habits of self-destructiveness that have haunted us all our lives.

Now I don’t know what your broken places or lost territories are. Those parts of you that have never heard the gospel. It might be unresolved grief or guilt or not being able to let something go and forgive someone. It could be sex or an obsession with money or things or bitterness or rage or guilt or the black dog, depression. Everybody in this room has some lost territory—most of us more than one. But we need to remember this morning that the good tidings and the good news is for all of us. That’s the first word I’m looking for in church—kerygma—good news.

Diakonia

The second thing is that when you find the church you will always find this second word, diakonia. Simon made the great confession and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He learned it’s meaning later in that Upper Room when Jesus knelt with a basin and towel and began to wash their feet. And Simon protested, “Get up Lord. Get up. That’s servant’s business. You will never ever wash my feet.” But that night Jesus just took Simon’s sandals off and with a basin of water and towel taught him about the essence of the gospel. The word, Diakonate (Deacon) comes from this serving word.

Diakonia is where the word deacon comes from. Servant in another meaning. The word shepherd flows out from this word. For, you see, church is the place where you wash somebody else’s feet. And church is the place where you have your feet washed as well. And, like Simon, we don’t like that.

Several years ago a book called, The Search for Excellence, became a best seller. Do you remember what it was about? It told the stories of some of the most successful corporations in America and how they got that way. We need to read that book again today. Somewhere this word, service got lost. Greed has corrupted business after business. Service is not some CEO who makes 400 times more than his or her workers. Sometimes I wonder if one of the reasons that companies are having such a difficult time is that they have forgotten they are supposed to be in business to serve their customers.

There is no real church without this word, diakonia. We really are foot-washing people. We really do touch the wounds and heal the broken spots and we really do hug and lift one another up and bring casseroles and pray and pray and pray. And so, if I find the church there will always be a little group of foot washers with an apron and a basin and towel. Jesus said, “You save your life by losing it.” And I put that down beside, “I’m leaving because I am not being fed…” or “I’m leaving because my needs are not being met.” But Jesus said, “You save your life when you lose your life…” When you find the word, diakonia you will always find the church.

Koinonia

But there is another word: koinonia. Fellowship. Why has the church sung, “Blest Be the Tie that binds our hearts in Christian love” since it found its way into an English hymnbook in 1782? Why do we keep singing it decade after decade? Because without fellowship there is no church.

I love the way someone expressed it:

We meet awkwardly at first…eyeing each other…then we begin to talk about the weather…safe subjects…then family sizes: How many brothers and sisters do you have. Are you the eldest? We talk about what we have in common. As we spend more time we begin to learn how each of us has come to where we are. We are amazed at our capacity to understand one another’s pasts…fascinated by each other’s stories…human stories…of crying and growing and laughing and sighing. A strange thing happens. It is no longer us and them…but we the way God meant it to be.

So we find the church when we find this word, koinonia, fellowship. It is a place that lets us be who we are and cares for us and gives us room and helps us grow. Sometimes, like in a family, we will be told we are off the beam when we are. Sometimes we get off track and the lines get tangled—but we have to untangle those lines because without this intangible thing called fellowship—love for one another—we don’t have church. We don’t have church at all. It keeps on enlarging the circle. Taking in. And forgiving one another—which may be the hardest part. And slowly, sometimes very slowly putting all the hurt behind you and moving on.

I heard this wonderful story about an older woman whose husband had died and she lived a long way off from her only daughter. The daughter was worried about her mother. Her house was getting old and needed a lot of repair. Her neighborhood was changing and not as safe as it used to be. So the daughter kept talking to her mother about moving to the town where she lived. The woman just shook her head. But one day she decided to move. And she did. When Sunday came she put on her finery and went to the church down the street. She called her daughter that afternoon and said, “Guess what I did this morning? I joined the church.” The daughter said, “You did what? Don’t you think it is too early? You don’t know those people. Mama, you should have waited.” And you know what her mother said? “Land sakes, honey when you join the church you never have to be lonesome again.” Do you think she found the church? I think she found the church.

The book, The Help Brings Back Memories

2011-08-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

"You just can't get good help these days."
complaint from a white dowager

The book, The Help has made quite a splash in the literary world. Even though the book was published in 2009 it is still first on the list of The New York Times Combined Print and E-Book Best Sellers. Obviously the book has struck a chord with many people or Hollywood would have never turned the book into a movie. Though I have not seen the film, Kathryn Stockett tells a fine story about black domestic servants working in white Southern households in the 1960’s. Though the author is white she wrote the book out of her own growing up in Mississippi in those turbulent sixties.

The Help is about the maids that worked for the white folk. Anybody who has lived particularly in the South would understand much of what the author tells. I was horrified by most of what I had forgotten about that time. In the book most of the maids had to use a special bathroom usually constructed behind the white folk’s house. They ate off one particular plate. They could not eat at the kitchen table and certainly not the dining room. Most of them had to come through the back door of the houses where they worked. If they were driven home by their employers they had to sit in the back seat. As maids they were to appear as invisible as possible. The suffering these women endured is spelled out in chapter after chapter. What is not told is the sexual harassment that many of these maids faced from their male employers. The presence of so many light colored children ought to give us pause. Many of these children were the result of rape and threats. To work they had to keep silent. There are so many layers to that time that was not that long ago.

The Help reminded me of my own growing up in a little cotton mill village in Columbus, Georgia. Though we have little of the world’s goods we had a maid, sometimes full-time and often part time. But our maid, Nancy came into our lives when my brother and I were little boys. Our Mother worked in the mill and Nancy kept us safe and clean. Through the years she slowly weaved her way into our lives. Sometimes even on her day off, she would appear on Saturday and announce: “This house needs a cleaning.” And so she would tear it apart and the dust would fly and by day’s end the house was clean. Even after I left home for college, Nancy kept up with me. She kept my brother’s children when they were little. She was there when I came home from college making sure the macaroni and cheese and banana pudding and the biscuits were in their place. When we brought our children home she proudly held and loved them. Years later when my mother died she sat in the family section at the funeral. After all she was a very real part of our family. As the years passed I would always call her on her birthday in late December and we would reminisce. “Roger we had us some good times, didn’t we?” “Oh Nancy, we did have some good times.”

She had eight children of her own. She would talk about each one and how proud she was of their accomplishments. I often wondered how in the world she lived with the paltry salary we paid her out of my mother’s own paltry salary. Her children stayed in Hurtsboro (AL) with family while Nancy moved to Georgia to get a job and send money back home. It must have been hard to be unable to see her own children except on holidays and weekends.

Several years ago her daughter called me late one evening. “Mama passed away last night, peaceful and without pain.” She told me the funeral would be in Hurtsboro in the little Methodist church she loved. They asked me to say a few words at her funeral service. I unfolded my notes and told those gathered that even though Nancy had only finished the third grade, she was one of the best teachers I ever had.

I told them she taught me about patience. I can remember sitting at our kitchen table many times pouring out my disappointments. She would turn and say sharply, “Roger, just you wait. Just you wait. Chile—you got to be patient.”

She taught me a lot about faith. She would say from time to time, “You got to believe. How can anybody get through this world without believing.” She never talked a lot about faith—she just lived it.

I learned about the dignity of every human being from Nancy. I did not have to remind those black folk at the funeral about how hard it was in the nineteen forties. There was a hard line drawn between white folk and black folk. I told them that I did not know many black people back then. That was one of the awful things about segregation. I told them that I knew Nancy. I trusted her. I loved her. I knew she was as important as anybody else. I told those gathered that I learned a little later how wrong the world was to black folk. I told that group gathered in that little church that when I started preaching I talked a lot about the dignity of everybody. I learned that lesson from Nancy.

Nancy taught me about loyalty and commitment. Even though we could pay her so very little, she was committed to our family. She defended us fiercely. She was there at every juncture of our lives. Births, weddings, funerals—Nancy was there. This is her picture at the beginning of this piece. She proudly held my first born in her arms.

Nancy taught me about gratitude. Born in 1909 I told her grievers that I could not imagine how hard her life must have been. Even though her life was hard she never stayed depressed very long. She was grateful. She was grateful for her children and her family. She was grateful that she had survived when so many others had not.

She had stood by my mother’s casket years before her own death. I remember clearly what she said over that casket, “Miz Ruth, you worked hard in your life. Hard. And you raised two good boys. Now it’s time for you to rest. Miz Ruth, you just rest.” And I told the mourners at her own funeral that I had come all the way from Birmingham to give her words back to her. “Nancy, you have worked hard, very hard all your life. You raised eight wonderful children. Now it’s time for you rest. Nancy, dear Nancy, you just rest.”

We buried her across the street from her church. And as I read The Help it all came back. And I wondered how many thousands and thousands of black folk whose names were never in the headlines have made an incredible difference in the lives of the white folk they worked for. So I thank the writer, Kathryn Stockett for telling the story that so many of us in the South really know by heart.

(You might be interested in reading "Who I am because mother was a maid" appeared in The Birmingham News, August 8, 2011 Viewpoints section. It is moving and worth reading. )

Debt Crisis--How do We Respond?

2011-08-07T09:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes cliches are more than cliches. Take the old nostrum: "United we stand...divided we fall." Maybe we are in the mess we are in as a nation because we have been so busy fighting each other that we have failed to address our common problems. All children have to go to school, the able-bodied need jobs that pay enough to live on, immigrants want a slice of the American dream, old folks want to make sure they have enough to make it to the finish line. Those facing foreclosure want some help. Somebody needs to fill up the pot holes and attend to our rickety bridges. Even Wall Street and those making over $250,000 are beginning to realize that maybe just giving them their tax break might not be enough for the country. Tom Friedman, wise columnist for the New York Times wrote a piece today that triggered this article. He entitles his words: "Win Together or Lose Together." He asks a basic question that concerns us all: Can we pull together to generate a national renewal? Some folks are saying our best days are over as a country. I don't believe that for a minute. But I do believe that united we really do stand and divided we really do fall. Right now we are tottering. There is something more at stake here than who wins and who loses in 2012. I used to tell couples that came to me for counseling, "When you fight--winning is not the name of the game. You might be smart enough to win the argument--but you will lose in the long run. Winning is not the bottom line--it's the relationship that is healthy for both of you thaty matters. And if you don't have that everybody loses.

Reminds of the story I once heard Andrew Young tell. Remember he was a Civil Rights leader in the 60's and went on to become Secretary General of the United Nations. He said that once there was an old farmer that decided to make some extra money by getting into the cock fighting business. He bought two roosters, trained them patiently. On the day of the cock fight he put the two roosters in a cage in the back of his pick up and drove to the fight. When he got there he opened up the cage and there was nothing but feathers and blood. He said, "Shoot--they didn't realize they were on the same side." Reckon embedded in that story there is a lesson for us all?

Sermon for 8th Sunday after Pentecost--Three O'Clock in the Morning

2011-08-03T09:35:00.000-07:00

"Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm does bind the restless wave,
Who bids the mighty ocean deep
It's own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea."

--Hymn, Eternal Father Strong to Save
William Whiting, 1825-1878

There is no greater story than the history of how the Gospels came to be. After Jesus’ death those that had lived with him and seen his work were elevated to an important status. These were the eyewitness to the glory of God first-hand. But as the years passed and the eyewitnesses were dying off one by one. The church grew afraid. These wonderful stories and parables and miracles and all the teachings of Jesus would be lost unless they were written down. So somewhere between 75 and 80AD Mark sat down and wrote the first gospel. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”(1.1) This was followed by Matthew and Luke somewhere between 80 and 90 AD. John’s gospel would be the last written around 95 to 120 AD. The central point of these four accounts was to answer one question: Who is he? Who is this Jesus anyway?

The backdrop of Matthew 14. 22-33 is interesting. Three gospels leave us with this account. They knew something about hard, hard times. Severe persecution broke out in AD 44. Peter, the leader of the church was imprisoned and barely escaped death. James was, one of the circle of Jesus’ three companions, was beheaded. Peter was crucified during Nero’s reign. Jesus’ brother James, one of the church leaders was put to death. In 64 AD Nero instigated a huge fire in Rome and blame the Christians which started another round of persecution. Jerusalem, their city of cities of totally destroyed in AD 70. This was the world in which the early church found itself. And so, under cover of darkness, they would close the curtains in someone’s house and quietly worship together on Sundays. And someone would say: “Elder, tell us the story again about that night on the sea…”It was a story that spoke to their hearts and lives and conditions. They knew about stormy weather. They had lost leaders and family members and friends because of their faith. Others had simply renounced their faith—one had to live after all. And when Caesar passed an edict that he was God and that all must burn a pinch of incense on the altar and say: “Caesar is Lord” many Christians followed suit to save their lives. But this little cluster remained faithful. Caesar is not Lord they said. Jesus is Lord. Jesus only.

And so the Elder would once again tell the story that everyone there knew almost by heart. Jesus had just fed the 5,000 and for a second time he tried to find a quiet place to rest and to pay. And he sent his disciples by boat across the lake which was five miles wide. This was the first time in Matthew’s gospel that he would leave the disciples alone.

The Leading Elder kept talking. "It was night. Sometimes", he said, "the dark, swirling waters look scary." And they murmured yes. He said " they rowed that little boat or tried to. Matthew said that the wind was against them." Somebody in the crowd chuckled and said: “Seems like the wind is always against us, too.” The Elder said, "Have you ever tried to row a boat with a strong wind blowing hard in your face"? "Yes", they said. "Have we ever". And then the wind got stronger and the waves choppier and those strong fisherman were terrified. Utterly terrified. They knew what storms could do. They had all lost brothers or friends or fathers on the water. It took every ounce of strength they had just to keep the boat from tipping over.

The Elder kept talking. “It was sometime in the fourth watch of the night which was between three and six in the morning. There in the dark with the waves crashing into the boat they knew any minute they could sink. Helpless and afraid—they did not know what to do. And looking across the lake they saw a figure." " It was a ghost," someone said. And you could now hear a murmur in that little house church. A chuckle really. They already knew how the story ended. “But it wasn’t a ghost at all. As he got closer one of them said: ‘It’s Jesus—guys. It’s not a ghost. It’s Jesus.’ And there on the water with the wind blowing so hard they could hardly hear what he said, Jesus spoke to them: ‘Take heart,’ he said, ‘Be not afraid’.”

But the Elder leading the service was not finished. “Simon”, he said, “so glad to see you. Peter asked the Lord if he could come to him. And Jesus nodded. And Simon Peter began to walk on the water, too. But he looked down, taking his eyes off Jesus and he sank. He was drowning. Jesus reached out his hand and pulled Peter up. They both walked back to the boat and crawled in. And the strangest thing happened,” the Elder told them. Matthew recorded it later. “The wind ceased and the waters became calm and the Disciples in awe and wonder said: ‘Truly you are the son of God’.” Do you see why the early church loved that story and left it in the gospels? On a dark and stormy night when they thought all was lost—at three o’clock in the morning Jesus got into the boat with the disciples and the wind and the waves just ceased. Peace—it was so peaceful. That’s what the Elder said.

Somewhere I have heard that Scott Fitzgerald once said, “In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning.” I think the Disciples would understand those words. There they were alone in the middle of a storm, in a tiny, tiny boat and they were so vulnerable.

Ever had a three o’clock in the morning experience or nightmare? Something scary, something beyond your control, something that could just sweep you away. You know what I’m talking about. You’ve rowed your boat like those fisherman until your arms have ached and the wind was against you and you were exhausted. All your resources were depleted and a depression just descended on you like a fog. Or maybe it was not a depression as much as it was fear. Three times in this story the fear is mentioned. 1) Terrified in vs. 26; 2) When they thought they saw a ghost they cried out in fear—vs. 26; 3) And in verse 27 Jesus tells them: “Be not afraid.”

If we had time this morning and we had the courage I would ask you to stand and name your fear. What’s your three o’clock in the morning? Money. Worried about the Stock Market, the Dow. Banks closing. All these thousands and thousands of home foreclosures. Wondering you’ll have enough to take you all the way to the finish line? Maybe it’s health. Cancer—which we all dread. Maybe Alzheimer’s. I just had a friend that spent $2500 on a test to see if she was in the beginning stages. She didn’t have it at all. Maybe just afraid of winding up in some Nursing Home…or just getting old. Maybe you don’t worry about yourself but you worry about the kids. Grown-up children more than little ones. I heard someone say the other day: “You think they are trouble when they’re little. Just wait until they are grown—you’ll see.” Maybe you worry about some child’s divorce and living on a shoestring as a single parent with your grandchildren shuffled back and forth and back and forth. One Christmas we helped our daughter and her two girls put up the Christmas tree. And as we put the ornaments on the tree our little seven-year-old said: “Oh Mama, I wished you and Daddy wasn’t divorced.” Maybe it’s being young and seeing life stretch out there and not wanting to come back all broken or in a box from Iraq or Afghanistan. What is your three o’clock in the morning? Iraq or Iran or terrorism. OR just watching the 6:30 news and looking out a world where values are so twisted. We could go on and on. But everybody—everybody has some three o’clock in the morning.

Those little house churches in the first century told this story over and over of the stormy sea and Jesus walking on the water. It was about a dark and stormy night when they learned they were not alone. Somebody sent me a quote the other day. A Carmelite Nun, Jessica Powers, wrote it in a poem. And this is what she wrote: “I came upon earth’s most amazing knowledge: Someone is hidden in this dark with me.”

And if I understand the gospel at all it says that at three o’clock some dark night we need to remember this story. The waves were choppy. And sometimes in rowing against the wind it was just too much. And it looked like the boat would sink. And at 3:00 o’clock in the morning Jesus comes. And what did he say. What he says over and over in the Scriptures: “Be not afraid.” Someone is in this dark with us.

You may not know the name Horatio Spafford. He was a successful Chicago lawyer and a close friend of D.L. Moody the great Evangelist. In 1873 because his wife was suffering from exhaustion, her Doctor suggested a vacation. So Spafford arranged for his wife, himself and his four daughters to travel to Europe for a month. At the last minute he had in stay in Chicago and he would follow them in a few days. So they boarded the S.S. Ville du Havre in November of 1873. On November 22 the ship hit an English ship, the Lochearn and sank within twelve minutes. All four of the Spafford daughters were lost at sea. Only the Mother survived. And when she landed in Cardiff, Wales on December 1 she cabled her husband the sad news: “I am the only one left.” He left immediately to meet his wife with a heavy heart. And his ship approached that awful place where his family’s ship had gone down and taken his daughters, he sat down that night. I wonder if it was three o’clock? He sat down and wrote the words we have all come to know. They have been sung at funerals and other sacred occasions since that time. I think they have stood the test of time because they speak to our hearts:

“When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.”

So you see it is understandable that the early church, in a hard time would tell this story for comfort and strength again and again. We tell it now because it is our story too. Whatever three o’clock in the morning comes the waves may come high and the water may be cold and the night may be very dark—but Jesus comes and he says to us what he said to them: “Take heart, it is I, be not afraid.” It’s three o’clock in the morning and someone is in this dark with us. Thanks Be to God!

More Thoughts on the Debt Ceiling-- The Poor, Poor Rich

2011-08-02T13:04:00.000-07:00

Some wise person said not long ago, "If you came to America for the first time and looked around you would think that rich people have no money." That's the elephant in the living room. This bill that finally passed takes away nothing from the well-heeled. If I understand what was voted on--what it does do is slash benefits to those most in need. Nary a word about extending payments to the unemployed. What are we thinking? We are in a royal mess. Read Bishop Spong's succinct words on this whole issue. Seems like to me he is on to something.

Do we now turn our attention to the hurting needs of this country? Will we wind down these wars? Or will we simply keep on playing Junior High School in Washington. I hope the pundits are wrong...several of those columnists I respect have some pretty hard words to say about what we have just done. Some of my friends are furious at President Obama for what they call "caving in." I vacillate on this issue. In conceding so much I think he has hurt the country and the people most in need. On the other hand--maybe he knew that to default and not raise the ceiling would create havoc. Lord knows we don't need any more of that.

On my better days I remember something of our history. Democracy has always been messy. Those who speak of the founding fathers misty-eyed forget they went at it tooth and claw. Thomas Jefferson represented states rights and Alexander Hamilton was certain we had to have a strong government in Washington or this whole experiment in democracy would fall apart. Those two strands of less and less government--relying on the states to do almost everything for us is still with us. The other strand deeply believes believes we desperately need a strong government because there are some things that smaller groups cannot do. It has most interesting in Alabama to see how we turned toward Washington during this recent tornado. There have been plenty of howls months later from the anti-government crowd that say the federal government has let them down.

We can't have it both ways. Either we keep nodding toward the rich who are pulling most of the strings in this country--or we keep moving toward "the least of these" that will fall through the cracks without our help.
You might appreciate Joe Nocera's column in today's New York Times entitled, "The Tea Party's War on America."

Wounded Ministers--A Place To Go

2011-08-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

It was a long week. It started last Monday afternoon and ended Friday afternoon. I met with a group of ministers that were hurting terribly. Some of them had been terminated by their church. Others felt like the axe might fall on them at any time. One person had been in his church for over 15 years and was told to leave the grounds immediately and not come back. What was it—drugs, sex or other destructive behavior? No, not usually. Almost every story sounded the same. Some group in the church—usually a gang on three—would blindside the Pastor at a special meeting. They said things like: “Your ministry is not effective.” “We don’t like your preaching.” “You failed to meet our needs.” Usually the church had no idea this was happening. The self-appointed threes said, “We’ll give you three or sometimes six months if you just resign and quietly leave”.

Most in the group were shell-shocked. Those having the hardest time were the wives of those dismissed. One couple had moved across the country—bought a house and been there less than a year—and the Senior Pastor said they just were not working out. Almost all of those gathered in our little circle had children. Their lives were torn up by the roots—they had to leave friends and schools and churches they loved. They did not understand what was happening.

Now none of us are naive enough to think that all these pastors and staff people are perfect. Far from it. Almost all of them could look back and see mistakes they had made. Some very serious. To help we had a silent time every day. We told our stories to one another. We had a Consultant that talked about resumes and how to start over. We had a Pastor to discuss leadership and the potholes of ministry. We talked about the importance of a strong support system. There was a therapist that met with us all week long and was available for group and personal counseling.

Samford University in Birmingham picked up the tab for room and board and place to meet. Other colleges have done the same. We cannot do so without their generosity. Those that came to sit in that little circle of caring and grief and pain and understanding came to us at no cost. The week was free because we knew they couldn’t afford much if anything.

Leadership Magazine, a journal for church leaders surveyed 593 ministers. This is what they found.

22.8% had been fired or forced to resign
34% said their predecessor had been forced out

62% of the forced-out pastors said the church that terminated them had done

the same thing before to at least one other minister

43% of the forced-out pastors said a faction in the church pushed them out,

71% of those indicated the faction numbered 10 or less

20% of the forced-out pastors said the reason for the real reason for

their leaving was made known to the entire congregation.

The group last week came from several denominations. They spanned the spectrum from young marrieds with little children to people in their late fifties. It was interesting to see the theological divide in that room. Age or theological differences did not matter. By weeks end did not matter. For in that circle we found community and love and acceptance. We discovered church as it was meant to be. Sometimes a Minister can go all his or her ministerial life and never find such grace.

Reuel Howe told the story of a church in Philadelphia which at one time had a succession of great preachers. They found themselves with a young man, who after a year had not measured up to the quality that the congregation expected. When a committee consulted with him, and he learned of their evaluation, he offered to resign. The committee refused to accept his resignation and told him that it was up to them to help him become the preacher they believed he could be. Years later when the history of that church was written one of the high water marks were the years this man had served the church. (Reuel L. Howe, Partners in Preaching, The Seabury Press: New York, 1967, p.87)

As my car pulled away Friday afternoon from that retreat I remembered that story. And I thought of those hurting faces in that weeklong circle. Remarkably, most of those ministers said they were ready to find another parish. How many vocations out there have such commitment? And my hope is that like weary Moses long ago on his hard journey, they will find some group to hold up their hands in their time of need.

(If you are interested in finding out more about Ministry to Ministers you might check our web site: www.mtmfoundation.org. Since its inception in 1994 this organization has helped more than a thousand ministers and spouses. MTM has sponsored over 100 weeklong retreats at no cost to the participants. People have been helped from 33 denominations. If you know someone in need, contact this good group.)

Debt Ceiling - We need Light not Heat

2011-07-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

Where is that preacher in California when we really need him? The one who kept telling us when Jesus would come back. Maybe it will happen and we won't have to worry about what just might happen Tuesday. If that doesn't work maybe we could get the Preacher in Florida that burned the Koran to burn the budget or the debt ceiling or just about anything to get us out of this mess. Or maybe we could get that tiny church in Kansas that keeps on harassing gays to suspend their campaign long enough to wave signs that would say something like: Hey, Politicians how about thinking about the people...and not your upcoming election. It would be a shame if we tanked just because a bunch of selfish, self-serving politicos couldn't handle the people's business in a healthy way.

Are you scared about Tuesday? I am. I hope when all this settles down we are a better nation. (I am dubious.) I wrote weeks ago about this wonderful information site that is fair "and balanced" --I ain't kiddin'--and gives some light where there is far too much heat and posturing. Check out FactCheck's latest piece which sorta clarifies for me what this " bid-ness" is all about. FactCheck comes out of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

And if you are any kind of a praying person how about stopping and whispering: "God bless America"--we really need it. You might even add the President's name and maybe John Boehner--but I am not at all sure I would add Mitch McConnell.

Remember the Fallen

2011-07-19T09:09:00.000-07:00

The war in the Middle East continues and continues. Our men and women still come home in flag-draped boxes. The latest figures we have of our troops killed (June 5, 2011) In Iraq and Afghanistan are 6,026. As our longest war rages on we must not forget those who have died and those that are serving for us while we go on with our lives. Elizabeth Warren pointed out last night on a television program the numbers of foreclosures of families who serve in this war. While they serve their country—banks are taking their homes. This is madness. Meanwhile our politicians play silly posturing games in Washington. The Washington Post has a web site of the faces of the fallen. You may want to read this moving web site.

You also might want to read Sebastian Junger’s splendid editorial piece in last Sunday’s New York Times. He asks “Why Would Anyone Miss War?” Junger is no wild-eyed liberal. He spent five months with a platoon of our troops with US 2nd Battalion in the Koregal Valley of Afghanistan. Though he is a writer, he was allowed to live as a soldier for this time. He tells that story in his book, War. He also filmed much of that five-month time showing footage of war in a film, “Restropo.” He writes about the real horrors of war—not only our casualties—but the casualties we have inflicted on innocents simply because this is the way war is. I keep remembering the English soldier, Siegfried Sassoon and his splendid poem that was written about peace during the First World War.

“Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was fill’d with such delight
As prison’d birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away. . .O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will
never be done.”

Let us remember the fallen.

Preaching and Lazarus

2011-07-19T07:43:00.000-07:00

"Unbind him and let him go..."

If you enter the chapel at New College at Oxford, England the first thing you will see in the narthex is this life-sized statue. The figure is bound from head to foot. Jacob Epstein, an American sculptor created this masterpiece. It is called "Lazarus." When I first saw this stone figure I was struck by its power. The head of the carving faces toward the high altar and the face is marked with fear and confusion and perhaps wonder. Jesus has called Lazarus forth. He linger there bound and uncertain.

I took photograph after photograph of the stone Lazarus standing there in the church. I was so moved by the piece because I saw myself standing there bound up by many things. Since that time I have come to think that Lazarus represents all of us.

I keep the picture of Lazarus in the front of my Bible. As I stand on Sundays to preach some days the picture just slips out. Why do I keep it there? The photograph is a reminder that all of us are tied down by a multitude of things. And the Jesus of the Gospels calls us to break free and find new life. I look out on Sundays on a multitude of bound-up folks. Some come angry, some afraid, some smiling, some bored or sleep or just wishing they were somewhere else. And what I hope is that some good word will address them wherever they are.

Our sermons are filled with musts and oughts and shoulds. There are not many of those phrases, if any, used by the Lord Jesus. He did say, "Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden..." He came for all the Lazarus' out there.

Wouldn't it be something if we could hear the loving command of Jesus and let go of all those things that cripple and bind us down. I guess that's why I keep this photograph in my Bible.

(When I first started this blog I wrote this piece January 7, 2009. I don't usually reprint anything that I have written here. But as I preached last Sunday I saw the picture once more and as I looked out at the congregation, I wondered what they brought when they came. And so I print the photograph and column once more. I guess it is a prayer that what I say and others say behind the pulpit will help somebody out there who needs a graceful unbinding.)

Truth About Debt Ceiling, Taxes, etc, etc, etc

2011-07-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

"'When I use a word', Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, 'it means just what I want it to mean.'

'The question is', said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is', said Humpty Dumpty, which is to be master--that's all.'"
          -- Lewis Carroll

For months I have been puzzled by the strange time in which we live. Maybe it's always been this way we just did not have 24 hours news to blare it out constantly. I find it so hard to believe that there are people who will not believe the facts even though they are handed to them.

We have a multitude of people that still believe that President Obama was not born in the United States. Somebody calls them: birthers. Every piece of documentation we have states simply he was born in Hawaii--not Kenya or the moon or whatever. Some of these same people are just sure that our President is a closet Muslim. There is absolutely no evidence for this charge--he has been a practicing Christian for many years.

We have a group of people who represent us in Washington that proclaim that this raising the debt ceiling is no big deal. That we really don't have to act on this matter by August 2nd. Every economist of note has said constantly that this is a most serious matter. Experts say that the consequences of not raising the debt ceiling will be terrible to our already faltering economy. No wonder even the Republican leadership is very frightened.

The mantra of the Republicans is: "We don't have a spending problem, we have an income problem." FactCheck.Org knocks the half-truths of this matter in the head with concrete facts. I' ve written before of my trust of this group that fact checks all sides--Democrat and Republican. This particular article states clearly the fallacy of the spending/income problem. You can get an email from this fine group every week if you wish and I have found it most helpful.

This is the first (and longest) war where we never raised taxes. 20% goes toward defense. In the eyes of most politicians defense is a sacred cow which cannot be touched. Nicholas D. Kristof, in Sunday's New York Times has written a brilliant piece in which he points out that we believe that supporting schools in Afghanistan is the cheapest and most effective way to build a country. Consequently we have poured enormous amounts of money into schools there. He points out that at the same time our public school system in our own country is being grossly neglected. Read his words for yourself.

Maybe we ought to challenge the lies and half-truths that float around on the lips of politicians and regular citizens as if they were the truth. Maybe we ought to risk kindly speaking truthful words when we hear conversations about national matters that are simply not true.

Many of these people who do not believe the facts even after they have been shown--I believe love this country. I would not question their patriotism. But I would say if we build a society on half-truths and lies--we are in for some very dark days.

"The first casualty in any war is truth."
        --Hiram Johnson,
             speech, 1917

Summer Garden Gives Me a Break

2011-07-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

It’s not often that I get really personal on this blog. I usually deal with issues of the head or the heart. Lord knows we have had enough head stuff lately: Washington...Caylee Anthony, etc...Wondering if our economy is going to completely tank...and then there’s Michelle and Sarah and all those other wannabees. Maybe it is time to take a brief vacation from all the out there—and just think about the heart for a change. What brings me great pleasure? I’ve been working on my flower garden now for over ten years. When I moved here there was nothing in my back yard but weeds. So slowly, with the ideas from a friend I began to dig and plant and try. It was hard work. Most of the soil was pure clay and rocks. So I had to amend the soil. I never rotor tilled it like I should have. But I just dig holes, used pretty good soil and planted my plants.

Every year I cannot wait for spring-summer to come. Every spring morning I would wander out into my back yard and look for the tiny shoots that brought the promise of flowers. And to these I had added ferns and hostas and some ground covers. For a while I was fighting a losing battle with the deer. There were some days when I saw at least five in my yard. Deer love certain hostas—not all usually the variegated. They also love roses, phlox and pansies and even monkey grass. I have lost a great many hostas through the years thanks to the deer population of my county. Last year, besides the deer, something decided to uproot all my new plantings—especially hostas and some flowers, Stargazer lilies and hydrangeas. Following the advice of those that were supposed to know I tried everything to keep the deer away. 1) Fluorescent orange strips, which were supposed to be hung everywhere and scare the deer off. It did not work. But it did look like Halloween in my back yard. My wife kept worrying about the neighbors. 2) I next tried human hair. I heard this would drive them off. So I asked the Beauty Shop to save hair for me. Yuk. Well, I distributed it in great profusion—and guess what, it didn’t work. 3) Someone else said that urine would do the trick. Well, I want go into details about this effort except to say the gallon milk containers sure did come in handy. Nope—it did not work. 4) Someone else told me that Irish Spring soap would drive them away. Well I took string, bought a whole bunch of bars of soap and dangled them from the string on trees. My wife kept muttering again about the neighbors. After about two weeks of soap everywhere—I got rid of the soap. 5) My son sent me some stuff that you could mix up and spray the flowers and bushes. It worked, sorta. The stuff was so thick it kept getting my sprayer clogged up. It smelled awful—my wife kept wondering what the neighbors would think of the stench. Well it worked sorta. The deer disappeared for a season...but I finally gave up on this treatment. Just too much work for too little results.

Besides the deer there has been a veritable zoo in my yard. Rabbits, chipmunks. A fox came buzzing by one evening. Another evening I saw an old armadillo waddling by. About four times a year Mr. Turtle shows up but doesn’t stay very long. One of these creatures liked to dig holes in my grass and dig up my new plantings of flowers and hostas. The culprits were looking for grub worms, I was told. I was also told by some folk at the garden shop that there was little I could do about this.

Well, after about eleven years of trying something paid off. Perhaps my prayers, perhaps not. But this season my garden has been spectacular. Every morning, like the Lord God did in Eden, I walk around and just look and wonder and enjoy.

It’s worth the effort and the work. I never have learned what to do about the critters that come breezing through. But for some strange reason they, and the Japanese beetles have given me a break this year. Come fall I will be a little depressed as the flowers fade. But I’ll probably be at the Garden shop looking at the daffodils, the seeds that need to be planted early and thinking about next year.

I don’t know what this piece has to do with anything except everybody ought to have something that brings you joy and wonder and make you feel, even in retirement you have done something special. As for my wife she seems to be fairly pleased—the Homeowners Association has not written us up or hounded us out of the neighborhood.

Sermon for 5th Sunday after Pentecost: Jacob's Ladder

2011-07-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered how God works in our world? Doe he get up on Monday morning and put on a suit and kiss his wife goodbye, drink one last sip of coffee and get in his car, turn on the radio and go to work? Or maybe she sits there in a long, flowing robe pushing buttons marked “rain,” “sunshine,” cloudy,” “tornado,” “summer,” “winter,” “spring.” Or maybe God just sort of works the knobs like a video game and plays the combinations and sees what happens. Hmmm? “Wonder what that will look like”, he says. But somebody here is ready to say, “No! That’s not the way it happens. God started the thing and has let it go and if off somewhere hibernating while the world runs is merry course.” But if none of these theories are true--how does God work in the world? That’s our question for today.

In 1985 our family spent a summer in England seeing many things. Toward the end of that trip one of the members of the church where I was working volunteered to take us by car up to Bath. It was a wonderful city. And the centerpiece of the city was the Abbey Church—which somebody has called the finest example of English cathedral architecture that there is. But as we started to leave that building, standing outside the church, somebody said, “Did you see them? Did you notice the ladders?” “Where?” I said. And pointing up he said, “Outside the entrance of the church. And looking up on both sides of the doors to the church were these magnificent stone ladders. They were called Jacob’s Ladders. On one side the angels were climbing the ladder upward. On the other side the angels were slowly making their way down the ladder. Some of them were hanging on for dear life and some were gently coming down. Walter Scott said that when he was five years old one of his earliest memories was seeing those angels outside the church and when he looked up they scared him almost to death.

And so our sermon today is about ladders and angels. Angels ascending and descending because, you see, they tell us a great deal about how God works in our world today. In our Genesis scripture Jacob was in a terrible state. He had made life miserable for his brother Esau. They were as different as two brothers could be. Jacob had lied and cheated and stolen the blessing that was rightfully his brother’s. And when his brother—naive, trusting man, loving his little brother—when he discovered the trickery of Jacob he couldn’t believe it. He kept saying, “Jacob wouldn’t do that.” And when it finally sank in what he had done—stolen his blessing which was a big deal—his anger knew no bounds. “I guess I’m just going to have kill him." Trust betrayed is a terrible thing. And when Jacob heard Esau was enraged he got scared and ran away. He ran and ran and did not look back.

And so this is background for the scene we find in Genesis 28. Here was a man on the run. It’s an all-too-human-story. It’s a story of how God works in a world filled with sin and failure and sometimes deceit and treachery.

God Comes to an Unlikely Place

What do we learn here? Well, we first learn that God comes to Jacob in an unlikely place. The place really had no name. Some though called it Luz. Isn’t that a wonderful name? Luz. How would you like to have come from Luz? It was a no-name kind of a place. The kind of a place that has an ugly sound or one that we don’t talk about very often. We know about those kinds of places, don’t we? Sometimes we call it loneliness. Sometimes we call it fear or anxiety. Often we call it numbness and other times we call it sickness. This place could be called cancer or heart attack or doubt or anger or even the death of someone we love. Where Jacob found himself was an awful place.

And Jacob, the fugitive—cheater and liar—found himself in a place where all the landmarks were gone. Nothing was familiar. Genesis says it was night. And he was afraid--it should be translated scared out of his wits--because he was. The interesting thing about this story is that it says that God come to this unlikely place.

Don’t you sometimes feel a little bit like Jacob? Life may not have turned out as you wished. There may be some things in your life that you just can’t fix—and you hate it. Maybe it’s the middle years of marriage and there’s more blah than anything else. Maybe you have lost somebody that mattered. And you sit here this morning hanging on but the landmarks are mostly gone. And some nights you wake up afraid. And I would say remember Jacob’s Ladder. Out there in the darkness where the wind blew and sand was in his mouth and it was cold and the animals howled just over the hill. And this story says that God came to this unlikely place.

What happened? The Scriptures say that God spoke to Jacob in a dream there in the darkness. Later Jacob would tell others: “There was this ladder and these angels ascending and descending”. His friends would listen and you could see them holding their lips together so they wouldn’t laugh. A ladder? Angels? Up and down from heaven to earth? This poor man must have lost his mind!

There is a Connection

What does it mean? It means there is a connection between up there and down here—between heaven and earth. That’s what it means. Between the man who was afraid and who had cheated and lied and done terrible things to his brother. God came all the way down. Jacob was in a deep sleep and suddenly he realized he was not alone. He was not left to his own pitiful resources. Heaven touched earth. His earth. And he was not cut off, even after all he had done. Paul Scherer one of my favorite preachers used to say, ”On that night of nights (Christmas) God came down the stairs of heaven with a child in his arms.”

But that’s New Testament. Here we find a connection. In the very place where we are. Angels came to Jacob that night. One of the words for angels is messengers. And we have our messengers, too, don’t we? You know them. They came 150 miles to stand by that grave sad day your Mother died. Somebody brought a casserole when you needed to know somebody cared. Maybe it was a note or a phone call. I had a friend going thorough a terrible time and it lasted for quite a spell. And two or three times a week I would send him those crazy off-the-wall Far Side cartoons. Several years later when I was going through my own difficult time there came a letter in the mail--and he had sent me back every Far Side cartoon I had given him. Angels come in all sorts of ways. And suddenly we realize that we are not cut off after all. But we are connected. That nothing really does separate us from the love of God. Not even our meanness and deceptions. For you see, there is this ladder. It comes all the way down to where we are, even in the place where you are today. So we are not left to our own resources, that God. God comes. And this is one of the ways God works in our world.

God Spoke

But there’s more. You see God spoke that night. Not in a booming voice of stereophonic sound accompanied by the Hallelujah Chorus. No. God speaks but he sound like Billy Graham or old distinguished Walter Cronkite or I hope not like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. No. God spoke differently. He came in a dream. Jacob remembered most of what he had heard the next day. God said the strangest thing. “Lo, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised to you.”

Later Jacob would tell the story. And he would say, “You know, it was weird. God said I would not be abandoned. He said, ‘I will be there.’ He said he loved me and he cared for me. Me—the loser and the louse. He said, “You do not have to be afraid.”’ He said something I think I will always remember. He said, ‘I will keep you. Keep!’ “Stand by me’—that’s what the word keep means. “I will protect you like a shepherd fiercely protects his sheep. I will watch out after you.”

Out of the silence and the night or the loneliness or the fear or even the nightmares—we are to listen closely to what God has to say. Listen this morning to your life. Listen not to the outer sounds but to the inner sounds. For you see, God speaks to us just as surely as he spoke to Jacob. Underneath the confusion, there is that promise, “Behold, I will be with you. I will keep you. I will be in it All.” Whether it’s a lousy job or a hospital room or a nursing home—“I will be with you. I will keep you.” Remember the ladder. And remember the words God speaks.

Jacob Makes a Response

But there’s more. Remember what happened? Well, Jacob never did become an angel. There never was a halo around his head. But he made a response. Before the story ends he will make his way home. Twenty years had passed since he had fled from his brother. Twenty years since he had seen the face of the one he had betrayed—his brother, Esau. The meeting of those two is one of the most beautiful passages in the whole Bible. Jacob came over the hill. “I saw his face and I saw the fullness of his face in his life.” He looked at what all the years had done to his brother, Esau. Most of his teeth had come out. His thinning hair was gray. The lines that he himself—Jacob—had helped create were written in the creases of that face. But Esau came with no weapons. He stood there with his arms wide open. And with a voice of many-colored emotion he say, “Jacob...oh Jacob...how much I have missed you!”And old burly Esau wrapped his arms around his brother. And Jacob said, “To see your face is to see the face of God.” And this is as good a definition of reconciliation as I know.

It never would have happened except for the ladder and angels and seeds planted deeply in Jacob’s heart. After that dream, Jacob was turned inside out. The scripture say hat he marked the spot that had no name. He called it, “Bethel.” Beth-El—which means “the house of God.” It means this is the place where God comes. Hebrew history says it became the second most important place of worship to the Hebrews next to Jerusalem. The place of no-name or a place some called Luz had become to place where God dwells. If this is true then let me say to you that live on a street with potholes and disappointments—remember this story. He comes all the way down to where we are right now. The streets where we live.

Jacob made a vow. He said, “I will love you. I will serve you. I will follow you all my days. I will even give you a tenth of all I have.” And isn’t this a proper response for us all? To make a vow. Or to renew some vow we made long ago. Our promise is as personal as the gospel is personal. It could be, like Jacob, to mend a broken relationship. It could mean knowing that despite all the hardships of our lives God really is with us. It could mean that it is time for us to do something for someone else.

I hope that you will remember that at the middle of it all there is this ladder—Jacob’s Ladder. It means that God really does come to unlikely places—as unlikely as where you might find yourself today. He comes all the way down. This time...this place.And God speaks. And this is the way God works in the world.

(Both photographs are of the Abbey at Bath. The unique carving can be found on the West Front of the Abbey. Angels are ascending and descending on each side of the Main window.)

Illegal Immigrants--Second Stanza

2011-07-07T11:50:00.000-07:00

When it comes to the immigration reaction by all these state laws I wonder if the cure is worse than the disease. Georgia farmers are more than a little worried about their immigration law. Agriculture is the state's biggest industry and they employ 13% of that state's workforce. Migrant workers are leaving the state in droves. The Vidalia onion crop is grown in South Georgia and must be harvested by hand. Workers such as Edilberto, who came north from Mexico to work in the fields has been picking onions and other crops in South Georgia for 16 years. This year he will move on to North Carolina.

The Director of Georgia's Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association harvest most of their crops in May and June. This year they say they had half or two-thirds of the workers they had last year. The migrant workers follow the harvest north from Florida. Many are skipping Georgia. The Director estimates that the state's $1.1billion fruit-and-vegetable industry could suffer a $300million loss. Wonder what this means for Alabama?(The Economist, June 18, 2011, p. 37)

I started to print out David Gespass's splendid Letter to the Editor in The Birmingham News, July 6, 2011. He points out the injustice of the new Alabama law which goes into effect in September. It's great. Read for yourself.

More About the Dominique Strauss-Kohn case: Wish I"d Said That

2011-07-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

There is a thought-provoking article in today's New York Times by Mike McGovern. The title was intriguing. "Before You Judge Stand in Her Shoes." Since charges of rape and sexual assault have been dropped against Dominique Strauss-Kohn the spotlight has been turned on the woman that made the charges. She has been villified in every way. McGovern writes a story about where she came from: Guinea--one of the poorest countries in the world. 70% of the people there make less than $1.25 a day. The violence and poverty cause a great many of their citizens to escape as they can. He asks the question: When one of the most powerful men in the world has some kind of sexual liason with a poor maid in a hotel room where she works--is this not a classic case of the abuse of power? Read it for yourself.

July 4th--Let's Write a New Verse to an Old Song

2011-07-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" Franklin replied, "A republic, if you can keep it."

On this July 4th—I remember something that Jim Wallis of Sojourners wrote in his book, The Soul of Politics. He talked about the origin of the hymn of the Civil Rights movement, “We Shall Overcome.” He said it was originally an old hymn sung in churches. Then the labor movement took the song over. And then it became the theme for the civil rights movement. And we know the song because it’s been sung around the world.

The lyrics came out of the famous Highlander Center in the hills of Tennessee. There many labor organizers and civil rights workers got their training. One story about the lyrics was that one weekend a group of black young people had gathered on retreat at Highlander. They were just finishing up their week in the chapel singing when outside in the dark they looked out the windows and saw that the place was surrounded by members of the White Citizens’ Council. They had flaming torches and guns and sticks. They told the young people to come outside. They refused. The young blacks bolted the door and stayed inside and somebody turned off the lights. They sat there in the darkness. Outside there was beating on the door and screaming and cursing. The angry mob yelled for them to come outside.

Quietly somebody began to sing new words to a tune that they knew. They sang:

               “We are not afraid, we are not afraid,
                 We are not afraid today.
                 O deep in my heart, I do believe
                 That we shall overcome some day.”

There in the darkness someone else began to sing and then another until the whole room was filled with “We are not afraid.” Outside, finally in frustration all those who had gathered with sticks, stones and torches turned and left because they did not know what to do. The angry voices had been silenced with a song. That night they wrote a new verse to an old song and it has been sung around the world.

Isn’t that our job as we celebrate another Fourth of July? It’s to take the old song and bring it up to date. To take this Constitution we’ve been hearing so much about...and take the Bill of Rights, which we haven’t talked about quite as much. Perhaps we should include the Pledge of Allegiance with those ringing words of the Pledge of Allegiance: “With liberty and justice for all.” Maybe we need to bring all these words we hold dear up to date.

Fear runs through this country like these bonfires we’ve been reading about. People everywhere are besieged by many things. Fear is underneath the ranting of the Tea Party. Underneath their rage they do feel that our federal budget it out of control. Those especially of Hispanic origin are fearful to day. The Muslims in this country are no better. The ugly immigration laws that state after state has passed have not helped the immigration problem. Many of those that serve us in Washington or Montgomery are afraid—else why would they not come together to tackle our serious problems. Millions are without work. These two wars—or is it three—rage on and on. Down the street, around the corner—travel a mile until you come to a not-so-nice neighborhood. People there are trying to make do on very little. They have no health care. They have lost so much.

We’re all in the same boat. It’s like we are all in this little house together. It doesn’t matter our color or origin. And we are afraid. Maybe, just maybe we need to write a new verse to an old song. Whatever it is—underneath it all I wish it could sing:

                                 “We are not afraid, we are not afraid;
                                  We are not afraid today.
                                  Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe
                                  That we shall overcome some day.”

Wasn’t it the fearless that first made this country great?

Just the Facts, Ma'm

2011-06-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

Someone said that the greatest casualty in a time of war is the truth. It isn't only when we're calling out the artillery. Looks like every Presidential campaign politicians play fast and loose with the facts. This is nothing new. What is new is that we have this wonderful organization called FactCheck which holds all those in public life accountable for the statements they make. I' ve been receiving an email from this organization for quite a while. They take on everybody; Democrats, Republicans and Libertarians.

FactCheck.org stated purpose is to try to correct misstatements, exaggerations and sometimes downright lies by politicians and other public figures. This is a project that comes from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center. I get an email weekly about the misstating of facts from all sides. They try to set the record straight. Not an easy order in our time. This last email has listed some of the half-truths that Michelle Bachmann has been saying of late. FactCheck point by point takes her statements in context and then presents the facts of the matter. This is no right/wing or left/wing bashing organization. I've read as many of their articles about the not-quite-true-statements by those in office regardless of political stripe. This is refreshing in a time when people think the Republicans are right...or the Democrats are always right.

The Southern writer Flannery O'Connor once said: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you off." Seems to me we desperately need some odd people at every level today if we are to be a healthier society. I recommend FactCheck to anyone who wants to cut through some of the bramble we face everyday.

Gay Pride Sunday--A Meditation: I Remember Kevin

2011-06-26T16:26:00.000-07:00

So she came and joined. Weeks later her son, Kevin moved into her house so she could take care of him. He visited church one Sunday and it was very clear that he was sick. I wondered how people would respond. Well, they rose to the occasion. They welcomed him as they had his mother. A Sunday school class took him in and he became a part of their class.

He lived less than a year. Slowly he began to slip away. The church surrounded this family. We prayed for them, took food, sat with Kevin so his mother could take a break. When he was so very sick his Sunday school class visited around his bedside on a Sunday morning. They brought communion with them—little tiny wafers and a vial of wine. Kevin had eaten very little those last days. But he asked for Communion and the class gathered around his bed and they took the Lord’s Supper. It was the last food he ever had by mouth. A day or two later he slipped away.

At his funeral our church was there in full force. Little blue-haired ladies surrounded the mother and wiped away their tears. There were a lot of gay folk that attended that service. They whispered to one another: “Is this a Baptist church? It couldn’t be.” Weeks later some of those same people appeared on a Sunday morning. They kept coming back. And one by one they joined our congregation.

This was a sea change for our little church. Some began to mutter, “Is this going to become a gay church?” One family walked into my office, stuck their fingers in my face and said, “What are you going to do about these homos?” I told them I was going to treat everyone the same and we would turn no one away. Our church pulled out of another Baptist church years before because that church refused to receive black people into their membership. So I told this irate family, “If we don’t keep these doors open for everyone—we will be dead in five years. A church of open doors is who we are.” We lost a few members at this hard time—yet the church kept welcoming all that came.

One of our Choir members told about the promise he had made to his dying mother. He told her he would sing, “Amazing Grace” at her funeral. When she died the woman’s pastor told this son because he was gay he could not sing at that funeral in that church. So they moved the service from the church to a funeral home and the young man kept his promise to his mother. I have heard heart-breaking story after heart-breaking story again and again.

Our church formed Care teams and took meals on wheels to people with AIDS. We welcome a little black baby with AIDS into our nursery. Slowly the church began to see that our gay members were just like everyone else. Several congregants served on boards that dealt with gay concerns. That was in the mid-eighties and if you were to visit that church today you would find a great many gay folk in a multitude of leadership positions. It did not become a gay church. It was just a Church—a church with enough courage to open it’s arms to everyone. People there do not now think in terms of who is straight and who is gay. They are simply people who are struggling to find their way and help each other.

And so, on this day I remember Kevin and his mother Carole. They forced us to deal with an issue that was extremely volatile at that time. They left indelible fingerprints on that congregation. And so today as people march across this country for gay rights—I remember Kevin and the battle he waged and how he helped us open our doors a little wider.

We still have a long way to go. Much of the church still cannot face this issue of homosexuality. Yet step-by-step we are getting there. One day I hope I see a time when everyone who steps into a church and sits down will feel safe and welcomed. Kevin helped teach me and our church this lesson. And so on Gay Pride Sunday I remember.

Father's Day--2011

2011-06-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

I once stood before a glass display case in an Art Museum in Memphis. Some artist called her work: “Belongings.” And scattered behind the glass case were her father’s tiny mementoes. After his death this daughter opened his old leather billfold. She took all the items nestled in the pockets of that billfold. In this artistic rendering she had arranged all those bits and pieces he had left behind. Standing there I found myself strangely moved. There was a stub of a ticket from a baseball game. A dog-eared Social Security card. A yellowing sepia picture of a young woman probably his wife in the early days of their courtship. There was another picture of a little snaggled-tooth little girl smiling. Could this have been the artist? There was his driver’s license though the date had expired years before. She had spread out a few coins: two pennies, a nickel, a quarter and a two-dollar bill. There was a mill pass that unlocked the door to a job he must have had for years and years. One lone key was in that display—perhaps to his house.

Why did this artist display her father’s last mementoes for all to see? I think maybe she was trying to discover something about the man she called Father or Papa or Daddy. Perhaps she wanted those who saw this display to remember that this man, her father had lived and worked and dreamed. Perhaps this was her way of paying tribute to her father and dealing with her loss.

So on this Father’s Day it isn’t really about cologne or shirts or golf balls. This day is not just a time for families to gather. This day is a rare moment of spreading out our good and bad memories of the man we called Father. Perhaps it is a day of touching an old grief—or letting go of something hard at the center of our hearts. Maybe it is a day for honoring the man, for better or worse, who gave us life.

At the ball games on TV nobody ever holds up a “Hi Dad” sign. Some fan always waves to the TV camera: “Hi Mom!” But scattered across our lives are tiny bits and pieces, dreams and memories of the man we call father. And this is a day for remembering.

Wondering about Immigration--Sunset in Alabama?

2011-06-15T07:14:00.000-07:00

"When I get to be a composer

I'm gonna write me some music about

Daybreak in Alabama

And I'm gonna put the purtiest songs in it

Raising out of the ground like a swamp mist

And falling out of heaven like soft dew.

I'm gonna put some tall trees in it

And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I'm gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands...
in it..."
--Langston Hughes, 'Daybreak in Alabama"

Not far down the street from where I live is a Hispanic family that moved in several years ago. If you were to drive by their house you would see one of the most attractive houses and lawns in the neighborhood. There is a Japanese maple in the front yard. There are daisies and other flowers blooming. The father and mother both work hard. Both have their own businesses. They are a close-knit family. Celebrating a birthday of one of their children weeks ago they had constructed this huge blow-up party vehicle in the front yard. Children laughing and playing filled the yard. This family goes to Church every weekend and is a credit to the community. They are full citizens of our state...yet they are afraid. Not because they are illegal—which they are not. But because of the recent Alabama Immigration law which the Governor signed recently. The ugly bill is called H.B. 56.

If I were a betting man I would say that if this bill goes into law the father or mother will be stopped by the police and asked for their papers some time in the following months. Their children’s teachers will wonder next year about the status of Hispanic children. Someone in a grocery store line will give them a hard stare. Their family members visiting Alabama will be frightened of this state and its policies. No one will stop me and ask for my papers unless I run some stop sign or have an accident. I am white. A policeman will not even think of stopping me unless I break the law. I am the right color.

The Southern Poverty Law Center along with the ACLU has already filed a lawsuit stating this new bill is cruel and discriminatory. The citizens of this state would be appalled by this legislation. It would turn Alabama school officials into immigration agents. Teachers will have to verify the immigration status of students and report them to the state. This bill allows police to arrest and detain a person when there is “reasonable suspicion” the person is in the country illegally. Landlords will be forced to verify the immigration status of their tenants. All citizens will be prohibited from transporting any undocumented immigrant. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that this piece of legislation is of special concern to mixed status families. Children could be arrested for simply transporting their undocumented parents.

I waded through all 40 pages of this bill yesterday. Chills went up my spine as I read, over and over, the word alien and illegal. It reminded me of those early days in Germany when the Jews were beginning to be discriminated against. We know the rest of that painful story.

The civil rights of Hispanics will be shattered if this law goes into effect. Cecilia Wang of the American Civil Liberties Union says: “It blocks the schoolhouse doors to children. It will result in people being turned away when they try to rent a home. It will place burdens on people of color at the voting booth.” She states that by signing this law Governor Bentley has codified official discrimination in the state of Alabama. Our state follows Arizona, Georgia and Utah which all have discriminatory bills directed toward Hispanics. Surely these bills will be struck down by the courts.

America is to be a land of the free and the brave. The great dream of our forefathers went further than they ever envisioned. American was to be a place where all could feel safe. This bill attacks these dreams and basic human rights of a whole segment of our population.

Langston Hughes once wrote a poem called, “Daybreak in Alabama.” Were he writing today perhaps he would entitle the poem: “Sunset in Alabama.” We cannot allow my Hispanic neghbors down the street or any other persons in this state to be discriminated against by official sanction.

(You might want to read the Birmingham News' story of Methodist Will Willimon's response to Alabama's immigration law. Calls it "Meanest in US" Worth reading. )

Pentecost--Something Happened Here...

2011-06-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

A little boy on vacation stood at the Grand Canyon just looking. He looked for a long time. Finally he said, "Something happened here”."This is the spirit of Pentecost. Jesus told his followers to go and stay in an Upper Room He told them that something was going to happen. And they went, reluctantly as always and half-heartedly they stayed. Scared. Frightened. Grieving. Not exactly sure what to do or why. Wondering if, in leaving it all behind to follow him, they had made some monstrous mistake.

And then Pentecost came. And frightened disciples were frightened no more. They left that room to form a church that has lasted for two thousand years. Even the gates of hell itself could not dismantle it--and God knows they have tried and try still. Old betraying Simon would stand and preach with such a power that three thousand would be saved. Like the little boy--we stand on Pentecost Sunday--the birthday of the church--and look out over the vistas and the history and the wonder of it all. And we say: "Something happened here."

As I read the story from Acts 2 week five words bubble out of the text. If we come to terms with these five words we will know something about this very special day.

Wind

Ezekiel had written about that valley of dry bones. They knew about sun-bleached bones and desert. It was just out there over the ridge. They lived on the edge of that desert. And the wind would sweep across the desert. And sweep, too, across the sun-bleached bones. The strangest thing happened. Hip bones got connected again to thigh bones. Life came out of death. Ezekiel told Israel that's what is going to happen to you. You thought it was over when the Exile came and gobbled you up. And left nothing but ruins. But God isn't through with you. You see, this wind comes and blows across the deadness and life comes back.

And so at Pentecost he wind stirred in the lives of lifeless disciples. And the Church began that day in the hearts of the most unlikely of people. And they went out of that room to do incredible things--those ordinary men and women--because the wind blew--the spirit of God blew across their efforts.And we come back today to remember it isn't tricks or gimmicks or sermons or programs, really. It isn't diet or exercise or cosmetology. It's that other thing at the heart of it all. The breath of God. Energizing us all.

Tongues

What happened here? It is not as scary as it seems. Tongues of fire came and rested on each one of them. In the sixth verse each heard in his or her own language. What happened on the Day of Pentecost. Communication happened in that tiny Upper Room.

Will Willimon says that the first gift that the spirit brought was the gift of speech. They all heard in their own language. Funny, in Genesis 11 we have this strange story about those that built this Tower. The Tower of Babel they called it. All the way to heaven, the advertisements said. Why when it is over we will be able to climb all the way up to the pearly gates. But God said No to their overconfidence. He confused their languages. Everybody spoke something different. He tore down the tower and barriers and confusion reigned everywhere. We know about Babel. Different nationalities. Different opinions. Different sections of the country. Liberals and Conservatives. Black and White. Women and Men. Gays and Straight. Illegals and real citizens. North and South. Afghanistan and the United States. Jews and Christians. Tea Party and Planned Parenthood. We know about Babel. It is everywhere even in the church--especially in the church. There is more Babel now than any anytime I have lived.

But at Pentecost nobody was excluded and made to feel stupid. They all heard in their own language. The Spirit came to all. "Parthinians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the part of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs."(Acts 2. 9-11a)

Pentecost brings us back to this incredible idea: God is on everybody's side. Not just the middle-class or the Christians or even the politically correct. Pentecost spans the globe. It never is just an American Church--though we are not left out either.

This second word is tongues. Language. This words means it doesn't matter who you are or what you've done. There's a place at the table. There is a name card there. It has your name on it. Come on in. Take your place. Just sit down. He speaks your language. It is the language of your heart.

Prophecy

Prophecy is fulfilled. Old Joel talked about destruction and punishment coming to God's people. And Simon took those words, knowing what had happened in his own life--taken back and loved and cared for. And he saw something else in Joel's words. Maybe something Joel, the old prophet had never seen. Simon started interpreting this old prophecy. And he talked about new life. Pentecost was prophecy fulfilled. And that meant new life was to come where there had only been deadness. And old betraying Simon--turned inside out was the bringer of good tidings. The unlikely happened. Peter openly proclaims life where only death had been. Prophecy is fulfilled in our hearing, that's what this third word means. It means that the Bible is not just a story--but it becomes our story.

Several years ago sitting in my makeshift study at home, I was without a job and a church. I had resigned and I was wounded and I was afraid. The Baptist Seminary had asked me to preach at a Conference and I sat there trying to figure out what to say. And sitting there, beating up on myself, wondering how in the world I ever got myself into that mess , I found my name called. In that story where they fished all night and caught nothing--after Easter. I heard my name called. The voice whispered, "This is your story." "My story?" I muttered. "This is the Holy Bible. How can it be my story." And sitting there, working on a sermon for a houseful of ministers, I heard my name called. I learned more about that fishing expedition in the dark than I ever intended. I learning something about myself--and it wasn't all good. I learned something about limits. That none of us can do it all. I learned something about judgment--to suspend judgment until I know more than I usually know. I learned that the outward props like success and size and growth are not as important as I assumed. But I learned more, there in that room as my name was called by the text. I learned something about failure. It is part of the journey. And I learned something about the demonic--some things I did not want to know. And I learned something about faith--even after fishing all night and catching nothing--God was there. And I was standing. And life would go on and things would be good again. Prophecy is fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. We find out that our names are called and this Bible business may just be true after all.

Vision

Luke goes to great pains to say that this outpouring is anything but interior. Listen to the loud talk, buzzing confusion, public debate. Things just got out of hand. It was downright embarrassing. What was going on? New life. They reimaged the future. Pentecost says--don't forget about the visions and the dreams. Signs and wonders. When you have served as Pastor for forty years it will make a believer out of you. In every church I have ever served there have been crises in people’s lives and in every congregation. Sometimes I would sit in the counseling room and think: “There is no way they can make it. Their lives are too complicated—there are too many hard things.” But that was the short view of things. I had not learned then to look at the long view. Every battle we face really is not Armageddon. We don’t have to wring our hands and lose sleep night after night. Why? Pentecost says there are signs and wonders that God himself gives. I have left business meetings or committee meetings just shaking my head. But that was the short view. This is God’s church and he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion. I’ve seen it in church and business meetings and in my own life. I have seen some utterly devastated divorcee wonder how in the world life could go on. But we Christians are given this other word. Sometimes it is a dream. Sometimes it is a vision. Always if we listen it is a word of new life. Something is stirring that is whole and healthy and keeps us going.

Gladness

Funny how the Bible is. I have never seen this verse before. It's part of the prophecy. What is going to happen because you serve him and love him. It's found in the 28th verse of Act 2. "You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence."

Let your finger slip on down to the 42nd verse of that same chapter. They were together, reading the Bible, praying, enjoying being together. And then skip on down to 46-47. And here we read they spent time together, "they broke bread, ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people." Do you see this other word. How could I have left it out? It's mentioned three times in one chapter. Healthy relationships. Fun. Laughter. Not taking themselves so seriously. Underneath it all they were the company of the glad. You could see it in their faces and hear it in their worship. It changed the way they looked at everything. And when they met, week after week, they would end the service in the same way, breaking the bread and passing a common cup. Do you know what they called that simply act? Eucharist. Thanksgiving. Thanks be to God. They were grateful and in their gratitude they rejoiced.

I wrote Ray Bradbury some years ago requesting permission to use something he had written. And when he wrote back he sent me a whole collection of his poems. And one of them I have never been able to forget. It's on gladness.

Joy is the grace we say to God
For His gifts given.
It is the leavening of time,
It splits our bones with lightning,
Fills our marrow
With a harrowing of light
And seeds our blood with sun,
And thus we
Put out the night
And then
Put out the night.

Tears make an end of things;
So weep, yes, weep.
But joy says, after that, not done...
No, not by any means. Not done!
Take breath and shout it out!
That laugh, that cry which says: Begin again,
So all's reborn, begun!
Now hear this, Eden's child,
Remember in thy green Earth heaven,
All beauty-shod:
Joy is the grace we say to God.

Something happened here. Let's the Pentecost words speak for themselves. Ponder their meaning. Wind...tongues...prophecy...visions and dreams...and joy and gladness. No wonder the church has been remembering Pentecost all these years. The old bones really do come back together again and life is a possibility once more.