"I was sick and you visited me..."

Maybe we ought to revise the words of the Scripture to read: "I was sick but you are poor...or an immigrant...or don't have a job...or cannot vote...so I cannot help you." Is the American Bible only for the well-heeled and the screamers? I am holding my breath and hoping we pass this Health Care Bill. How many Presidents have struggled with this issue? Roosevelt...Truman...Nixon...Clinton...and now, courageously--President Obama. It took guts--real guts to take on this broken health care plan. The Conservative Republicans in the House and the Senate oppose this bill. They talk about "their plan"--but until the President placed this on the country's agenda--there was nary a word from them. And they oppose what now is the crying need of our time. And--the Liberal Democrats have decided that this weak bill should never pass because it is too tame and timid and does little or nothing to help the cause. They want a perfect bill--and this is totally unrealistic.

We have to begin somewhere. And this bill is the beginning of saying loud and clear that health care is a right and not an option. This morning I hear that Dennis Kuchinich will be voting for the passage of this bill. The best thing I have read lately on Health Care comes from Truthdig. Read today's article about Health Care: "Americans Who Can't Wait."

The poet-prophet Wendell Berry says it best in his new book, Leavings.

                               "I know that I have life
                                only insofar as I have love.

                                I have no love
                                Except it comes from Thee.


                                Help me, please, to carry
                                this candle against the wind."

Church

I came back home, dropped my Bible,

took off, my coat and tie.

“Well”, I said, “I’m home.”

“How many were there?” she asked.

“Twelve, I think counting me—maybe fourteen or fifteen.”

“Well that was a waste of time.”
“I’m not too sure about that.”

The building was 150 years old.

There were two in the choir—an old man and a woman.

The fill-in at the piano was young and good.

The music director that directed the choir of two

   must have been a hundred years old.

There was a woman there who told me

   they had been married 57 years

  and just yesterday had put him in

  a nursing home. He was slowly drifting away.

The rest were women, mostly over sixty.

Why did they come?

They came because they were lonesome.

Just to see a familiar face.

They came to listen to the music of the old

   songs even if almost nobody sang.

They came because they had been coming

   all their lives.

Habit and need.

Desperate and hungry.

Hoping to hear some angel sing.

Or maybe just to break the monotony

   of an old creaky house.

They came with their little white envelopes

   hoping that what they gave

   would keep the lights on

   or help the people in Haiti.

They came to pray the “Our Father…”

   and to sing the Doxology.

They wanted to hear a word they didn’t

   hear on the TV or in the Sunday paper.

When it was over, having touched the base

    they hugged,

   and made their way

   to their Buicks and Chevys and

   Lincoln Town Cars.

They drove home glad they had come and

   heard the music and caught at least

   part of what the preacher said.

“Was it worth your time?” she asked,

“Going all the way over there for that handful?”

“I think so,” I said, “I really think so.”

Finders Keepers

"He just kept going like a bullet-torn battle flag and nobody captured his colors and nobody silenced his drums."
   --James Thurber writing about his editor Ross of the New Yorker

Fred Craddock in his wonderful wise way asks often: Have you ever lost a word? Good question. Looking out at the terrain today—I think we have lost the word, courage. The old song says, “You gotta have heart.” And heart is the Latin root for courage. I don’t see much courage around me today. It’s the reverse of cowardice. Courage enables one to face dangers and difficulties and threats.

Sometimes listening to the news, reading the paper my heart sinks. Am I just hard of hearing or is there an absence of the word, courage today? In Alabama our Legislators cannot possibly let the people of Alabama struggle to update our 1901 Constitution. Lurking in the shadows, of course is the big money that keep them ticking. No, no—the moneyed people say. And so in some ways Alabama is stuck in 1901 where the poor were pitted against the rich and the blacks were pitted against the whites. They’ve lost the word courage in Montgomery, our state capitol. Does anybody wonder why we are close to the bottom of every poll on almost every issue?

Why can’t we deal with health care in Washington? Same reason. Somewhere along the way courage got lost in the shuffle. All those Senators and Congressmen mostly are scared to death. Scared of the voters. Scared of the lobbyists. Scared for their own skins. Scared come November they will be booted out. And so some 36-40 million people still have no health care. And the stories of all the people who lost their health care—seem to fall on deaf ears. We need some folk with guts in Washington that are looking out for more than their backsides. We will be crippled as a people if there are not leaders with courage. And unless we are careful we will be at the bottom of every poll with countries around the world.

The church, of course, isn’t much better. Maybe the church never has stuck her neck out too far. We have pulled up the rear with about every social issue that has come down the pike. Who talks about health care in the church? Who stands up for gay people and all the injustices that still reign down on their heads? Who speaks for illegal immigrants—who pay taxes and have no benefits? Not many stand against the flat-earth folk who are more concerned with smearing Al Gore than deal with climate change and global warming.

But once in a while somebody steps up to the mike and we hear a word we haven’t heard in a long, long time. Courage. And it always makes an incredible difference. That’s why I keep close Daumier’s wonderful drawing of Don Quixote riding his horse, followed by his side-kick tilting windmill after windmill. Remember The Man from La Mancha that set to music his story?
         "To dream the impossible dream,
          To fight the unbeatable foe,
          To bear with unbearable sorrow,
          To run where the brave dare not go…”

Deep in my heart, like our embattled President, I do believe we just might find the word once again.

I Remember Frances

A friend called this morning to tell me that Frances had died. Months ago she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and mercifully she did not live too long after that. I was her Pastor for eight years and she was an utter delight.

Never married, worked for as a Secretary for years and years. It was one of the only jobs a woman could get back then. When her First Baptist Church refused to allow a black lady and her daughter to join the church in 1970 she was one of many who marched out and formed an integrated congregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Back then this news was so spectacular that Life Magazine featured a story on the new church. Frances was part of that beginning and stayed until her death.

This little woman with dyed hair and pin curls would come by my door on Sundays. She always hugged me and from time to time as shook my hand she would tell a story. One Sunday, on the way out, she said, “Preacher when you talked about driving this morning, it reminded me of when I started driving. I was 25 years old and had never driven. So I took lessons. And that first day I got into the car with the teacher he said, ‘Crank her up’.” Puzzled she turned the key and the engine started. “Let’s go,” he said. And they started down the street with Frances behind the wheel. When they came to a stop sign Frances asked him what she was supposed to do. Her instructor said, “Ah, hell—run the son of a bitch.” And she did.

When I found out about her tumor I called her up and we talked for a while. She said she wasn’t scared. She said she hoped she wouldn’t suffer too much. She said she was ready to go. I asked her, “Frances, do you remember your driving story?” She was quiet for just a minute and said, “Oh, you remember that old story?” I told her that it was one of my favorite stories and I told it over and over. “Well,” she said, “it was true.” That was my last conversation with her.

I am told she died peacefully in her sleep Friday morning around 6:00. In every church there are those wonderful rare people you never forget. They make ministry fun and worth the effort. She was always there. She always supported her preacher whoever he/she was. She did her part and I think that Church kept her going.

I thank God that I knew her and that our paths criss-crossed for eight years. And as I remember I lift up that wonderful old prayer from the Roman Mass: “Into paradise may the angels lead her; at her coming may the martyrs take her up into eternal rest, and may the chorus of angels lead her to that holy city, and the place of perpetual light.”

The Problem with Living Sacrifices

You could always count it at least four or five times a year. We Baptists give an Invitation to join the church after the sermon. On most Sundays we have as many takers as, say the Episcopalians. Often as the Invitation was extended, down the aisle Mabel would come. She would always hug me, wipe away the tears and whisper that she wanted to rededicate her life. She had messed up and wanted to start all over again. Choir members would roll their eyes, some in the audience would whisper to one another. Bouffant hairdo, gravelly voice from too many cigarettes and booze, she seemed to live from crisis to crisis. Either her marriage or her job or the kids were giving her trouble. Again and again she would march down to the front and members would think, “Well, there she goes again.”

That happened a long time ago and yet I wonder where Mabel is and how she is doing. I wonder if she is still striding down that aisle again and again and asking forgiveness and wanting to start over again. Maybe that’s what Lent is all about. Like Mabel all we poor little sheep have lost our way and need some beginning again. Mabel kept hoping that maybe, just maybe she might begin to get it right. Her job, her kids, her marriage—her broken life.

Elizabeth Elliot said one time that the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar. Lent pulls me back to the painful mirror of realism. I read the old words like: “Rend your hearts and not your garments…” “Have mercy upon me O God…” “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves…” And I remember that this particular sacrifice—me—has crawled off the altar more often than I like to admit.

So this Lenten season I remember Mabel and I remember my own life. We aren’t that far apart really. Just poor little sheep who can’t seem as much as we try to stay on that altar. But I keep opening the book and bowing my head and hoping that God will, as the book says, “bring his work to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Maybe Yogi Berra was right: “it ain’t over ‘till it’s over.” I am betting my life that it may just be true.

The Subject is Lenten Roses

It's Academy Awards time. People are wondering who will win the Oscars and what picture will be picked as the best. Sometimes, I think the election of the winners nominated by the members of the Academy reflect the time in which we live.

This Lenten season I am remembering something that happened at the Academy at the end of the sixties. Patricia Neal was nominated as Best Actress that particular year. Many have said that her performance in The Subject Was Roses was one of the great moments in Broadway theatre.

Most people have forgotten her personal story. In 1960 she was wheeling her infant son across Madison Avenue in New York when a car hit the baby carriage, smashed it into the back of a bus. The baby was seriously injured and lived but spent months in the hospital and had several operations. Two years later Patricia’s oldest daughter, Olivia got the measles and died suddenly. In 1965 Patricia had three massive brain hemorrhages, five heart attacks. Her speech and vision were impaired and her mind was blunted. It looked like the end. But Patricia Neal fought back. And it was after all these terrible traumas that nearly destroyed her life that she returned to the Broadway stage. Later came the movie. And on Oscar night that year she walked up the steps, onto the stage and was honored as that year’s Best Actress. Those gathered gave her a standing ovation.

After that night one reporter asked her the secret of her survival. After thinking a long time she said it was not courage or anything she was born with. If she had a secret, she said, a large copper plaque over her mantle might hold the key to her endurance. She pointed to the words:
                                             
                                               Fear knocked at the door.
                                               Faith answered.
                                               No one was there.

I remembered this story as looked out my window days ago. I saw some flowers blooming back in the woods. The colors just stood out. And I went to look closer. I should have known it: my Lenten roses were blooming. They, along with quince and crocuses are the first signs of spring.

I cannot find out much about the origin of the Lenten rose except the plants have a long history. They are a native of much of Europe. The greatest concentration of the plant can be found in the Balkans. Even in China and parts of Turkey and Syria you can see the Lenten rose.

Why the name? I am not sure except during this holy season when we ponder our lives and our finitude—the Lenten rose reminds me that hope is sure to come. These tiny flowers are a promise that though we are beset by wars and earthquakes and people we love are suffering terribly—this stubborn flower blooms in mid-winter. Maybe Patricia Neal can teach us a lesson for our own lives and our time. Fear does not have the last word. I remember that promise as I look at my Lenten roses.

When God Comes to Church

I love the story Carlyle Marney, the great Baptist preacher used to tell. Tongue-in-cheek he would say that God does not come to church every Sunday. After all if God really is God, the Almighty can do whatever it is the God wants to do. Perhaps God some Sundays simply stays home and reads The New York Times. So why should we come to church? Attendance is waning everywhere and many former churchgoers have opted out. I’ve heard some folk say: Nah, I don’t to church anymore—I home church. But back to the question: why should we go to church. Marney said that we need to put on our clothes Sunday after Sunday and find our places in some pew. Why? Because, the great preacher said, we never know when God will decide to come to church. And if some Sunday when we least expect Yahweh-God, he may just saunter down the aisle and stop at your pew. And if this happens your life will never be the same again.

Our age is starved for some mystery, for some holy, holy—for some moment when we lift our eyes away from the computer and the incessant news and the troubles of our lives and our friends—and see, as Isaiah discovered, God high and lifted up and with a train that filled the temple. Arthur Gordon calls this a touch of wonder.

For John Wesley praying before the altar at London’s Aldersgate Church his heart was “strangely warmed” and his life was changed immeasurably. Frederick Buechner writes that one Sunday at the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City as George Buttrick was preaching the “great wall” of China fell down and life was forever different. Anne Lamotte tells in Traveling Mercies how slowly she was drawn into a little tiny church in Marin County and she was never the same again.

When God really does come to church lightning strikes and we are turned inside out. So maybe on Sunday morning we ought to put on our clothes and leave the house and walk into the door of some church. Who knows what might just happen?