THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

Jack, a boyhood friend, and I were emailing back and forth to set a date to get together before the holidays set in. After we set the date and place, his and Kathy’s home, he talked to his brother Tom and mentioned that Arlena and I were coming over for dinner. Tom said that he had been listening to Sirius XM a few days before and heard a song by The Vogues that he remembers me using in a sermon forty-four years ago and remembered what it was about!

Jack went on in his email to ask me about a poem that has been haunting him almost as long, if not longer, Francis Thompson’s The Hound of Heaven. I said that I remember it well because it was the favorite poem of my high school English teacher. I also said that as famous as that poem is, I did not like it back then and I still don’t, mainly because I am not a fan of poetry.

After I sent my email, I found the poem online and read it again. I still don’t like it. It takes too much work to decipher, but I suppose that is what all good poems are to do: make us ponder the words, wrestle with their meaning, make them part of our being. I don’t want to work that hard: give it to me plain and simple…and make it rhyme.

Nevertheless, I worked my way through the poem and have to admit that while it was difficult to get through, it was and is worth it. The truth is, the imagery Thompson paints has remained with me since high school. In fact, it is so vivid that it is indeed very memorable and unforgettable no matter how difficult the poem.

The picture Thompson paints, at least for me, is about me, about my sometimes relationship with God. The truth and the reason why the poem is so famous is that the poem speaks to every one of us and our often relationship to God. We all, if I may be so bold to include every believer, spend an inordinate amount of time running away from God, running away from our responsibilities to live as God wants us to live, as we know we should be living, as we truly want to live.

The saving grace is that God, The Hound of Heaven, keeps chasing us down, never lets us get too far away. Eventually we stop running away and start back towards the Hound. Would that we remain that way. But we do not. All too often we turn tail and run away once again; and once again the Hound sets out after us, catches up to us and brings us back home.

The good news is that the chases are fewer and further between as we grow older and wiser, but they never end. That’s what sin is all about: our going after what we know and the Hound knows we want but do not need, after what is harmful to us and others but what seems so delicious and desirous.

And why would the Hound of Heaven give up on us, stop chasing after us? After all, the Hound loves us so much that he sent his son to give his life for us because of his love for us. What’s a little chase now and then?

PEACE ON EARTH

The message of the angels on that first Christmas morning was a message of peace, peace on earth, the whole earth and not simply that part of the earth where the Christ Child was born. The message was – and is – that Jesus was born among us to bring peace to a very divisive and divided world. Yet when we observe our own world, the world of 2012, not much has changed. And there is certainly not peace on earth, far from it.

What happened? Was Jesus a failure? Of course not! Those who failed and who continue to fail are those who profess the name “Christian”. We are the ones, we and our ancestors in the faith, we are the ones who have failed to bring peace on earth. Jesus did not come to bring peace in his own person but, in his own person, came to show us how to bring peace to this world.

Jesus’ “How to” manual was not all that difficult back then and it is not all that difficult today. It has not been updated nor is it out of date, nor was it ever. To bring peace to this world, to have peace on earth, all one need do is follow Jesus’ example, namely, to love everyone all the time. That does not mean that we ignore behavior that is not peaceful, that we do not name sin as sin. Jesus did not and neither should we.

What it does mean is that peace on earth only comes when each one of us lives our lives as Jesus lived his. The reason why there is not peace today is that we have not so lived our lives in such a manner, not since Jesus’ time and not today. The fact that we have not does not mean that living such a life is an impossibility. It simply means that we have not lived such a life.

If nothing else, that should give us pause, especially at this time of the year when the celebration of that angelic annunciation is upon us. While it is easy to look around us, around our world, and note the lack of real peace among nations and among people and bemoan the truth that we have failed to live up to Jesus’ teaching and example both individually and collectively, that is only for starters.

Part of the meaning and message of Christmas as well as that angelic salutation is for each of us to pause for a while and take some serious reflective time to examine our own peace-making responsibilities. Individually we cannot bring peace to this world but we can bring peace to our very small corner of the world. We can live in such a way that we are bearers of peace and not bearers of division.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, “Jesus once said. After observing the world in which we live, someone once added to Jesus’ words: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will never run out of work to do.” Unfortunately, sadly, the peace on earth the angels proclaimed and that Jesus modeled, that peace will never be a reality in this world given our sinfulness.

That fact, however, does not excuse us who call ourselves Christians from doing what we can to be peacemakers in any and every way we can. We have lots of work to do.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE ANGELS GONE?

This is not a rant. It is a reality and I am not certain if I wished it were not, or not. The reality is that Christmas has become both a holy day and a holiday, separate and not always equal. In fact, in all truth, no rant intended, the holiday seriously trumps the holy day. It is not even close. The holiday lasts, these days anyway, over a month. The holy day lasts hardly a day even if or when it is celebrated.

A further truth is that the vast majority of people who celebrate the holiday do not celebrate the holy day. For them the holy day, Christmas Day,  is all about the holiday and nothing more. What is more, they barely even realize or recognize the fact that the holiday was once dependent on the holy day and is the result of the holy day. And they do not care.

Even the merchants of the holiday have forgotten this fact. This became even clearer to me while Arlena and I did some holiday shopping. We have a custom of giving our daughters a holiday gift, an inexpensive gift as a reminder of both the holiday and the holy day. One of our daughters has been receiving an angel. Try as we might, nowhere in the store after store we entered looking for an angel gift did we find any angels. I wondered, “Where have all the angels gone?” There were lots of snow men, Santas in abundance, Christmas elves everywhere, but there were no angels let alone Baby Jesus’s.

A further truth is that many of those who realize, who fully understand that the holy day is the reason for the holiday, that, as is often said, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” themselves do not celebrate the holy day. Christmas has, even for them, become solely a holiday. Not only have all the angels gone away, so has the celebration of the birth of Jesus taken a holiday, if you will.

Now I fully understand and even give thanks for the fact that the spirit of the holy day is very much a part of the spirit of the holiday. That spirit can be found in most of those who line up hours ahead on Black Friday to grab the Door-buster Specials that are being offered to lure them into the stores to buy and buy and buy. We seem to be kinder and more courteous this holiday season even as we are often more frazzled than ever trying to get ready to celebrate the holiday. The spirit and meaning of the holy day are alive amid the holiday frenzy.

This is good, but is it enough? Should we not take some time, and it really is not that much time – an hour or so – to truly celebrate the holy day, the way it should be celebrated, with worship? This is not meant to be a guilt trip so much as it is a reminder that giving thanks to God for the many blessings that we have all received, undeserved blessing at that, thanks for being able to celebrate the holiday in the way we do, should be a no-brainer. Should be.

The holy day will be here soon. Will we be among those who give no thought of it and simply celebrate the holiday or will we be those who celebrate it with thanks, thanks for the both the holy day and the holiday?

SERMONS, SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP

Bishop McConnell began his Convention Sermon last month that he based on Jesus the Good Shepherd Gospel passage by proclaiming, “I am not the Good Shepherd.”  He repeated that statement at least twice and then had all of us in the congregation say it along with him. To be honest, that is all I remember about his sermon. That is no reflection either on the sermon or on our Bishop. Most of the time, come Wednesday morning, I can’t remember what I preached about the preceding Sunday.

In fact, the fact that I can remember anything the Bishop said makes it a memorable sermon. I dare say that all of us have heard what we would call great sermons over the years and, in truth, can’t remember any of them no matter how great, how moving, how inspiring, how anything the sermon or sermons might have been at the time. It’s the nature of the beast.

So, if no one ever truly remembers what we say in a sermon, why do we insist on preaching in the first place? Is it simply an ego thing, namely that we like to hear ourselves speak and believe that we actually move hearts and minds with our words? Perhaps. Yet the reality is that sermons are teaching tools both for the preacher and those preached to. Every once in a while something is said that resonates with a hearer or two and that is enough. If most sermons fall on mostly deaf ears, so be it. One person getting something out of a sermon is enough to make the sermon worth preaching.

It was worth all the Bishop’s work in preparing his sermon even if I am the only one who remembers what he said and if all I remember those words, “I am not the Good Shepherd.” I, for one, at that moment in time, needed to be reminded that I am not the Good Shepherd. Only Jesus is. And yet, I am a shepherd. How good I am at shepherding is another question, one that I cannot answer. Only the sheep I shepherd can answer that question. If I want to know that answer, I will have to ask.

On further reflection, which is what makes the Bishop’s sermon memorable for me, I am also reminded that not only am I a shepherd, I am also a sheep who is to be shepherded. In fact, we all are. We are, each and every one of us both shepherd and sheep. Our faith in The Good Shepherd reminds us that we are called to watch over those entrusted to our care just as there are those who are called to watch over us because we have been entrusted to their care. We are to shepherds and to be shepherded.

There are no exceptions even as we at times wish there were, wish that we were. There are times when we wish we did not have to look after those over whom we have been placed as a shepherd because the work and time demanded is too hard. On the other hand, there are times when we wish our shepherd would go away and leave us alone because we want to live the way we want to live and not the way our shepherd is reminding us that we should live.

Shepherds and sheep, we are both. Whether that was the point of the Bishop’s sermon or not, he at least made me think about it. That was enough.

PUNISH ME WITH A KISS

Most of us, truly all of us, every human being, are hardwired to do what is right and good and just. It is part of our DNA, children/creatures of our all-loving God that we are. The Old Testament, filled as it is with one law, one regulation after another commanding and demanding what to do and what not to do, nevertheless puts it very simply: when push comes to shove and we ask ourselves what we are to do, we already know the answer. We do not need any law. The answer is already written in our hearts; the words we are to say are already on our lips. We simply have to do and say what is there.

When we say or do otherwise, when we say or do that which we know in our hearts is wrong, when we commit a sin, we know it immediately. In fact, even before we act, we know we will be doing wrong. Sinful and selfish acts are never accidental. They are always intentional, knowingly intentional. No one has to tell us that we have gone against who we are, against who we were created to be. No laws are needed. We know in our hearts and heads even before we act.

Even more, after we have gone against the grain, if you will, after we have done what we knew ahead of time we should not, afterwards there is no running away from or denying the truth. Our conscience will not allow that to happen even as much as we wish it would. What happens next, often almost immediately, is that guilt sets in. We ask ourselves why we were so selfish to act that way, why we were so foolish to say what we should not have said. We feel terrible.

We cannot undo the harm that we have done. We cannot take back the deed or the words. Redress and apology may soften the hurt but won’t make it not to have happened. That only worsens the pain. What we long for, even if we are reluctant to admit it, is some form of punishment. Somehow we seem to believe that if we are punished for our sinfulness, for our selfish and hurtful words and actions, we can be relieved of the guilt and forgiven for our sins.

In fact, the greater the sin, the greater the punishment we seem to desire, not just for our own sins but for those of others. Our civil laws set standards of punishment according to the crime committed. Yet, even after we have paid for our crimes, the punishment did not undo the crime that was the cause for our punishment. The internal punishment that a guilty conscience imposes does not remove the sin.

The truth is that often the harshest punishment another can inflict on us and we can inflict on another seems like no punishment at all. Saint Therese of Lisieux, small-timer sinner that she was, used to pray to God to, as she said, “punish me with a kiss”. The harshest punishment a convicted and admitted criminal receives is to be forgiven by the victim or the victim’s family, to be, as it were, punished with a kiss.

To give or be given that kiss of forgiveness is often the most difficult action for us to bestow on another or for another to bestow on us. It is indeed and in deed a very hard way to learn a lesson but often the only way as well. Pucker up!

IT’S THE DOOR’S FAULT

Ever walk into a room with some purpose in mind, only to completely forget what that purpose was? Turns out, doors themselves are to blame for these strange memory lapses. Psychologists at the University of Notre Dame have discovered that passing through a doorway triggers what's known as an event boundary in the mind, separating one set of thoughts and memories from the next. Your brain files away the thoughts you had in the previous room and prepares a blank slate for the new locale. It's not aging, it's the door! Thank goodness for studies like this.

The above paragraph was sent to me by a close friend. We share the same birth year and the same proclivity to walk into a room and immediately forget why we were entering that room in the first place. When we do that often enough as we are now doing, our first thought is Alzheimer’s or the onset of some type of dementia. To allay my fears I often start going through the multiplication tables just to prove to myself that I am not losing it and that there has to be some other explanation for this sudden loss of memory. Now that I know that it is the door’s fault, I can rest a little easier.

But what about those times when I am in a conversation with my wife while driving down the road or sitting at the kitchen table and a thought comes to mind that I want to share; but by the time it is my turn to speak, I have forgotten just what it was that was so important for me to impart? The car door has been closed for a while and there is no door in the kitchen. Whom do I now blame in order to calm my fears of losing my mind as I am growing older?

Actually I have found an excuse for my forgetfulness: information overload. Because I am so intelligent, because I have read so many books and articles, because I have absorbed so many facts and figures over the years, the computer in my brain is slowing down because it has amassed so much knowledge. I am not a six-year-old whose brain is quite empty and who can learn a new song in five minutes. It takes me five days because my brain is so full. No wonder I forget so quickly sometimes.

Works for me, does that explanation. In fact any explanation for my sometimes forgetfulness works. But no explanation, no matter how farfetched, sets aside the truth that I am growing older and that the end of my life draws closer and closer with every passing breathe and every fading memory and forgotten thought. It’s not dementia that frightens us so much it is death, or certainly the awareness that I am closer to death every day.

Fortunately those forgetful moments, at least in the present, even though they arrive more and more, do not dominant my life. For that I am thankful even as it is embarrassing when I have to admit that I forgot what I wanted to say or why I walked into that room. Perhaps if those moments were more and more frequent, as they are for so many of my contemporaries, I might not be so flippant as I now am. Perhaps I would really be worried and would look for the truth rather than some made-up excuse even if I did not want to know the truth. As they say, ageing is not for the timid or the faint of heart.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

For as long as I have been alive, or at least for as long as I can remember, and that is a very long time, Route 28 North from New Kensington, where I grew up, to Pittsburgh has been under construction. It still is and, at the present time, massively so. For that matter, so has the Pennsylvania Turnpike. None of this is to complain, except, of course, when I am in a hurry and have to travel one of those roads and am delayed when I come upon one of those “Road Under Construction” signs.

Roads under construction are part of life; but, then, too, so is life itself. Life is a process of construction, of building, repairing, fixing-up. Some would also say that life is also a process of destruction, especially as we grow older and the body wears out and no amount of transplanting and grafting and plastic surgery and Botoxing will stem the tide of  disease, decay and, eventually, death.

Not only is our physical life constantly under some form of construction (destruction, for those of us who feel the pains and limitations of aging), but so is every other part of our life. No one of us comes out of the womb a mature human being – not physically, not mentally, not emotionally, not spiritually. Every part of our life is in constant flux, is constantly changing, as long as we have life and breath in us.

Sometimes, just knowing this truth, or at least in grudgingly acknowledging it, we find some peace of mind. As children there were times when we were angry because we could not do what our older siblings or acquaintances could do simply because they were older and bigger and stronger. But we were assured by our parents that someday we could and would and that knowledge allayed some of our anger and frustration.

Life is always, at any and every age, a work in process, a time of construction even as part of that construction is constriction, the lessening of our abilities to do what we were once able to do but now, because of our age, preventing us from doing so. And while our limitations and debilities constantly remind us that we are not getting any younger, we still have life and an abundant one at that.

Yet, even when we have or had or will have life in abundance, even in those years when we can (or could) go and go and go and never seem to tire, when we questions about health never arise (or arouse), there is (or was) areas of growth, parts of our life still under construction. The older we get, the wiser we become even when our memory begins to fail us.

Even when the latest construction projects on Route 28 and the Turnpike are completed, both will still be under some form of construction forever. That’s the nature of anything material. Ever known a homeowner who was not repairing, upgrading something? The same is true for us human beings. We need to remember that truth whenever we reflect, for instance, on our spiritual lives. Most of us bemoan the truth that we are not as spiritual as we would like to be or know we can be. We have room for growth, for construction. Drive that road carefully, but drive.

THE SEASON OF GIVING

Somewhere in my library I have a copy of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. It was a wildly popular book among my generation, the one that grew up theologically and sociologically in the 1960s. Gibran was a Lebanese poet and writer who died at a relatively young age of 48 but is still the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu. Back in the day, his poetic piece on marriage was a staple at many a wedding at which I officiated, much to the chagrin of the older clergy with whom I served.

That said, something that Gibran once said resonates with me at this time of the year when almost all churches, ours included, are in the midst of their annual stewardship campaigns (read: getting pledges to fund next year’s hoped-for budget). I quote: “All that you have shall some day be given. Therefore, give now that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors.”

As we are often reminded, we can’t take it with us, the “it” being anything and everything. When we die, we leave everything materially and monetarily behind. We leave it to our heirs, whoever they may be. We take nothing with us as we are resurrected to a new and eternal life. We know that, of course, and we really do not need to be reminded of that truth.

We also do not want to be reminded of that truth because such reminders often come as guilt trips, or certainly seem like they are. Well, in truth, they are. We all have more than we need but never have more than we want. Our wants are insatiable even as we convince ourselves that they are not. It is the nature of the beast to always want more, to never believe enough is more than enough.

That truth is compounded by the culture in which we live. We are daily bombarded with advertisements that tell us that we need whatever is being offered for our purchase and consumption. We do not always succumb to such blandishments, but we do so often enough, especially when it comes time for yard sales or downsizing and we realize that we truly have more than enough.

Gibran’s admonition is timeless. It is add-on to what Scripture tells us about giving, that it is indeed more blessed to give than to receive. There is an indescribable joy and blessing in sharing our abundance with those people and institutions and charities that actually have needs that can only be met when those of us who are abundantly blessed personally share in giving from that abundance.

In this time of church stewardship campaigns and season of national Thanksgiving it would be well for us to pause and remind ourselves about just how blessed we are to live in this wonderful country and to be members of this loving congregation. In this season of giving thanks, one of the ways you and I can give thanks is to share some of our financial blessings with our church. Not only should we not leave it to our inheritors to do so in the future, we should not leave it to others among us in our church family to do so in the present.

BABIES

The Election is right around the corner. The country, even the world, is caught up in it.  If you are like me, Tuesday cannot come soon enough. The political ads have consumed us so much so that we don’t want to hear them anymore and, in fact, probably do not. The fact is that whether our candidate wins or loses, life will go on in this great country of ours, as it always has. There will not be riots in the streets by the losers nor will the winners think they have won the lottery. No matter who wins or who loses the wheels of our democratic government will keep on churning. There are still problems to be solved, issues to be resolved, work to be done.

Yes, at the moment we are caught up in the election, almost making it out to be more than it really is as important as it truly is. In a very real way, other events will be taking place this coming Tuesday that outweigh the election and even give all of us reason for hope no matter who wins and who loses. In fact those events take place every single day of the year every time a baby is born.

Marian Wright Edelman, who is president and founder of the Children's Defense Fund, puts it this way: “When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, He goes about it in a very singular way. He doesn't release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes. God simply has a tiny baby born, perhaps of a very humble home, perhaps of a very humble mother. And God puts the idea or purpose into the mother's heart. And she puts it in the baby's mind, and then-God waits.”

She continues, and to the point, “The great events of this world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts. The great events are babies, for each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity but is still expecting good-will to become incarnate in each human life.”

Perhaps because children are born every minute of every day we have become inured to just how important each child is in the grand scheme of things, especially in God’s grand scheme. During this election campaign, in fact, during every election for every office, the candidates tell us how bad things are and how they, if elected, will change things for the better. They are all Prophets of Hope. Yet as Edelman suggests, we do not need elections to remind us that hope never dies. That is the message each new born child brings into this world.

None of this is to minimalize the importance of the elections taking place this coming Tuesday and the responsibility each one of us has both as a citizen and as a Christian to vote. It is truly a moral obligation as much, if not more so, than a civil responsibility. But we also must not lose sight of the greater and concomitant responsibility we have to those babies born that day but every day.

Political rhetoric aside, babies are the real beacons and heralds of hope but we, you and I, not politicians, are the ones who must help them fulfill and bring to fruition the hopes and dreams instilled in them by God from birth.

A SIX-YEAR-OLD SEVENTY-YEAR-OLD

It is often said that as people grow older and their memories fade and they spend more time talking about and remembering the past that they are entering their second childhood. Perhaps the real truth is that it is better to remember a sanitized version of the past where the “good old days” were really good because the bad has been forgotten than it is to think that the rest of one’s life may be filled with severe limitations on one’s ability to do much of anything except exist.

And yet there is much to be said about a second childhood. When I reflect on my own life, something that I do not do often enough, I do wish there was more of the six-year-old in this seventy-year-old body and mind. No, I do not want to go back to those days nor do I want to have the body of someone much younger, say a twenty-year-old. I am as old as I am because I have been blessed with good health. And I am thankful, especially when I see some of my contemporaries needing bottles of pills to stay active and alive and whose bodily aches and pains prevent them from doing much of anything.

That being said, it is so easy as we grow older to take life for granted. One day follows the next and not much changes. We have seen and experienced so much that we tend to take most things in life for granted, both the good and the bad. “There is nothing new under the sun” seems to be our mantra and we’re sticking with it. Nothing seems to shock or surprise us anymore. And the older we get, shock and surprise becomes less and less.

That is why, the older we get, the more we need to be childlike. For me it not only would be good but it would also be wonderful to be a six-year-old seventy-year-old. Imagine what it would be like to be excited once again by all the simple things in life that one was experiencing for the first time: a rainbow, a birthday present, a drive to get an ice cream cone, winning a game of cards – all those things we take for granted and find so routine as we grow older.

None of this is to say that the life of us elders is dull and boring even if there are limitations on how much of this life we can enjoy because we are not six years old. It is to say that, no matter what our age, we need not lose that joy of life that six-year-olds see as what life is supposed to be all about anyway. Yes, they will be disabused of all of this as they grow older and take on more responsibilities and as their bodies and minds age and betray them.

So what? So what is wrong in finding the little pleasures in life and making them out to be more than they really are?  What is wrong with waking up every day looking for the small surprises that will come our way, the little joys, the life-giving and not life-sapping events that make us look ahead to tomorrow for the next bit of wonder and awe, wonder and awe that have become routine but which should not?

There is that inner child in each and every one of us. Perhaps that is why Jesus routinely, I think, sat down and made his disciples sit down with little children. He reminded them and reminds us that we can learn much from children and from the child inside us.

CELEBRATING 25 YEARS

Anniversaries can be joyous occasions for celebration, especially the big ones: 25, 50, 75, 100 or more. Any anniversary over 100 is probably an occasion for celebrating in grand style every year rather than on the ones we tend to note every quarter of a century. Celebrating the first twenty-five years of ministry for a church should be, at least in these days and maybe forever, a real cause for celebration.

Why? The majority of new congregations don’t make it to twenty-five years. The reasons for that are as numerous as the reasons why each was begun in the first place. Many new parishes were begun, sadly, because of internal disputes among the congregants: since we can’t have it our way, we will start our own church. They did but most did not survive because the conception was begun on a sour note not on a happy and joyous one.

 

That was not the case for us. The truth is that no one, even the powers to be in the Diocese, gave St. Brendan’s much of a chance to succeed. They were so doubtful that they allowed another Episcopal church to be started not three miles away. And what a start it had! It grew to be advertised as “one of the fastest growing Episcopal churches in the country.” Not too long after that, they took their church and went independent. So much for “fastest growing Episcopal church”!

St. Brendan’s, on the other hand, was given little chance to succeed? Why? Because the founders were radicals, radical women! The wise men of the Diocese believed it was politically correct even back then to at least humor these women, allow Christ Church to financially sponsor them (no Diocesan monies need be expended) and let them fail on their own. Guess who is celebrating 25 years of ministry in The Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Pittsburgh in spite of all the drama and turmoil in this Diocese?

Guess who is pointed out as an example of a growing church where stagnation and even decline in church membership and attendance is rampant in every denomination in every part of the country? No, we are not where we would like to be as a parish. We have to grow more simply because there is so much more ministry that needs to be done and so many people who need to be ministered to, served by us.

We know that. We know the obstacles that are before us. We know that it will not be easy and will demand sacrifice and commitment. But that is what brought us to today when we celebrate and give thanks to God for twenty-five years of ministry in this part of God’s Kingdom on earth. We know that growth means change and change is always difficult, but grow and change we must and we will.

But for today, for this time in the life of St. Brendan’s, this is now the time to pause and remember, to give thanks and celebrate. As we move into the next twenty-five years, we need to remember the dedication and determination, the sacrifice and the sense of calling that our founders had, some still with us, thank God, that brought us to this reason to pause to give thanks and celebrate the past and to look forward to the days to come. The celebration of fifty years of ministry will be here before we know it!

HOLDING OUT THE OLIVE BRANCH

(An upfront disclaimer: I am a very proud grandfather. Nevertheless:) a few weeks ago Arlena and I traveled to Elkins, WV, to help celebrate granddaughter Kayleigh’s ninth birthday. As we did last year, we held her party in one of the local parks underneath a picnic shelter. There was pizza to eat and cake to share and games to play, even a piñata to break loaded with candy. The kids and grandparents had a great time.

As the children were arriving for the party, Jessica, our daughter and Kayleigh’s Mom, was talking to us and pointed out a young girl who was walking to the shelter. “See that girl over there?” she asked. “For the past few weeks she has been bullying Kayleigh at school and been very mean to her. When I asked Kayleigh whom she wanted to come to her party, she said she wanted to invite this girl. When I asked her why, she said, “Because I want to hold out an olive branch to her.” As a proud grandfather, I could not have been prouder.

Jessica said that the two have been getting along well since the invitation. That is good and I hope the friendship lasts. If it is up to Kayleigh, I know it will. But, of course, friendship is not just one-sided. Only time will tell if Kayleigh’s olive branch is held onto by the other girl and they remain friends.

For me personally, this is not just a nice story and a fond remembrance that I will always treasure about my granddaughter. There is also a lesson in it for me. I have to wonder, were I in Kayleigh’s place, would I have invited someone who had been bullying me? Would I have held out an olive branch to make peace when I was not the one who was breaking the peace in the first place?

I know I should, but would I? It’s the Christian, loving thing to do; but would I be that Christian, that loving? I wonder. I would like to believe that Kayleigh’s response to someone else’s hurtful behavior would be my response. I would hope that I would be so kind. But I am not so certain that I would. As kind and as loving as I think I am (and that is for others to decide whether this is true or not), I am not sure I could forgive someone who is hurting me without that person asking for forgiveness, which is what holding out an olive branch implies.

As Christians we are to seek peace, work for reconciliation, be forgivers. Sometimes, as Kayleigh’s actions remind, we have to take the first steps even if the other person is still hell bent on continuing the hurt. Sometimes, if and when we do, we may be rebuffed and the hurt made even more painful. We never know and we will never know if we do not extend that olive branch.

That is never easy to do. I am sure that it was not easy for Kayleigh to approach her classmate and invite her to the party because she did not know ahead of time what the other girl’s response would be. But Kayleigh not only wanted the bullying to cease, she also wanted to be friends. And she knew that neither would happen unless and until she took the first step. She did and I am so very proud of her – and humbled as well.

TALENT

Martin Ritt was one of the great, but also according to many critics unsung, movie directors of all time. Ritt knew talent when he saw it and he knew how to use that talent to make great movies. He worked with stars like Laurence Harvey, Paul Newman, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson. He won acclaim for movies like The Great White Hope (earning Oscar nominations for James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander), Sounder, and Norma Rae (Oscar for Sally Field as Best Actress).

Ritt knew talent. What perhaps set him apart was his view of talent. He once observed, “I don’t have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is genetic. It’s what you do with it that counts.” And isn’t that the truth? Talent is indeed genetic. Every one of us who has ever dreamed of doing something we cannot understands that truth. We desire what we do not have but wish we did.

As is well-known by now, my greatest desire as a youngster was to play first base for the Pittsburgh Pirates. As is also known, I got cut from my Little League team because I was that bad. I had no talent to play baseball. In my head I was certain that I was good.   I also believed that if I just worked hard enough, practiced long enough, had that great desire to succeed, my dreams would come true. My Little League manager and subsequent failures in playing baseball taught me, begrudgingly, the truth.

Of course, some of my pals growing up were very talented baseball players and I envied them. None of them ever made it to the Major Leagues or even the Minors. But they did use their abilities, their talents, to take them as far as they could go playing baseball and then they moved on in life. Some of them, I suspect, like me, thought they had more talent than they did and, like me, had to learn the hard way: they got cut from the team.

We all have our special talents. They are genetic. They are God-given. It is useless to ask why we have the talents we do. We simply have them from birth through our genes. It is also useless to ask why we don’t have the talents we wish we had but simply do not. That is also the result of our genes and thus beyond our control. What is important and what, in the final analysis is the only thing that really matters, as Ritt observed, is what we do with those talents.

We know that, of course. We know people who don’t fulfill their potential, who don’t use their talents to the best of their abilities. Some of those people are you and I. As talented and gifted as we are, we still know that any talent has to be fostered. The greatest ball players, actors, teachers – you name it – became great not because they were the most talented but because they used whatever talents they had to the very best of their abilities.

Again, the talents that we have, each one of us, are indeed genetic but, most importantly for us as Christians, God-given. While we may wonder why we have the gifts we do and wonder why we don’t have the gifts we might like to have, in the end, what matters to God, what matters to others and what should matter to us as well, as Ritt has said, what really counts, is we do with  those talents and gifts.

VESSELS OF CLAY

Back in the dark Ages when I was in seminary (1957-1969: high school, college and theology), every day from 12:00 noon to12:15 there was a time set aside for what was called “Spiritual Reading”. If our Spiritual Director did not have a meditation for us to ponder before lunch, one of the students read from a spiritual book that was to give us some food for thought.

The only book I can remember anything about from all those years was one that was read when I was in high school. It was written by a priest, Leo Trese, and was called Vessels of Clay. The point of the book was that even though priests were, by their vocation, to be role models for the people they were called to serve and even though this was a tremendous responsibility, anyone aspiring to become a priest needed to be reminded that he (always and only he back then and still now in the RC Church) was still a very fallible and fragile person – a vessel of clay.

Over the years I have come to realize just how true that is. Clay vessels are easily cracked and even broken into pieces. They are not like bronze vases that can be slightly dinged and then re-polished or hammered back into their original shapes. They are not almost unbreakable and even everlasting like those made of metal. All earthen vessels, all vessels of clay must be handled with care and sometime even with kid gloves.

Trese was trying to remind his readers, and especially us young seminarians, that as great a vocation as everyone said we were called to fulfill in being a priest was, that was no guarantee that fulfilling it would be easy and that simply because we were priests we would be automatically holy people and inspiring leaders to the various flocks we were called to lead and serve.

Over the years I have learned from experience that it has not been easy and that I have not always, if ever, been that holy and inspiring person. Every one of us, every priest and every lay person, we are all, each and every one of us, a vessel of clay. The older we get, the more nicks and cracks. Some of us, perhaps many of us, have been broken and then pieced back together almost as good as new, but not quite.

The fact that I am just like everyone else has given me some consolation even as I recognize my many failures and shortcomings. It should give all of us consolation. No one of us is perfect. We are all fragile human beings. We have all made our share of mistakes and committed our fair share of sins, maybe even more than our fair share. But with the help of others, with our own self-will and determination and with the grace of God, we have been pieced back together.

Trese’s book has been a constant reminder over the years, if only in the back of my mind, that it does not take much for the vessel to be cracked and even broken into pieces if I am not careful. But that is true for all of us no matter who we are, what our vocation or how old or young. The truth is that “Handle with Care” should be stamped on all our foreheads and into all our brains.

MINISTRY

A while back during the announcement time one of our members, Ted Popovich, reported on traveling to Selma, Alabama, with a group of people who re-enacted part of the march led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. many years ago. Ted said something to the effect that while this march was led by other ministers and he was not a minister, he felt privileged to be able to take part.

In my off-the-cuff thanks to Ted for telling us about this adventure, I corrected him by telling him that he was indeed a minister in no less a way than those who had been officially ordained by their various denominations. Afterwards Ted thanked me for saying that even as he still felt humbled both by what I said and by his ability to take part in the march.

The truth is that we are all ministers, whether we are ordained or not. Ministry comes from our baptism and the promises made for us when we were baptized and which we renew at every baptism. And, yet, our ministry is even more fundamental. It arises from our basic humanness. Ministry, very simply, is the participation of we human beings in the work of God in this world – no more and no less.

What that means is that we, all of us both individually and collectively, are the vehicles of God in this world. We are God’s hands and hearts. Yes, there are times when God, in some miraculous way, intervenes and does what needs to be done, but not always and not as a rule. That is our job, our ministry. When we think about that, it can seem like a rather frightening responsibility.

It is but it does not have to be such. To be God’s ministers in this world we, first of all, have to know our God. That means we have to be in relationship with God. That demands a good prayer-life. It means that we have to be in contact with our God in no less a way than we are in contact with one another. No, we cannot see God as we see others; but we can still see our God with the eyes of our faith. That is not always easy but it is certainly easier when we keep in touch with God through thought and prayer.

When we think about our participation in God’s work in this world, as frightening and overwhelming as that may seem at times, we need to step back and remember the past and those who were God’s ministers and how they shaped and even changed the world for the better – Dr. King and those who marched and even gave their lives to right the injustices that racial prejudice allowed and fostered. God always works though God’s children to get God’s work in this world accomplished.

Each of us has a place in this world and in accomplishing God’s work in this world, a very unique place. We have to find that place, that ministry, a place and a ministry which no one else can fulfill. For most of us, perhaps for all of us, that ministry may seem mundane and trivial, but it is not. There are very few Martin Luther Kings and a whole lot of marchers-along. But without those marchers there would be no movement and God’s work would not be done.

DEMOCRACY

The political season is now full speed ahead now that the nominating conventions have concluded. It does seem, however, that the season began months ago if not four years ago. Be that as it may, I, for one, am not looking forward to the next eight weeks or so, for what we will see and hear is what we have been seeing and hearing for a very long time now: negatively piled upon negativity. To me, that is very, very sad.

For anyone who values democracy, the political atmosphere is toxic and not worthy of this great nation of ours. Parker J. Palmer addresses this situation in his latest book, Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit. Politics, contrary to prevailing practice, is not dirty. In fact, it is quite the opposite, or at least it is supposed to be.

Here’s what Parker has to say: “Politics is the ancient and honorable human endeavor of creating a community in which the weak as well as the strong can flourish, love and power can collaborate, and justice and mercy can have their day.” Sounds like something Jesus would say were Jesus asked to comment on what politics is supposed to be about because that is certainly what Christianity is all about.

We are a diverse people in this country. That is what makes us so great and that is also what often causes problems and certainly why there are differences of opinion when it comes to politics. Diversity, according to Palmer, can be detrimental or beneficial but it is up to us as a people to which it will be. What we need, of course, is what has been lost in today’s political atmosphere: a change of heart so that we become civil one to another.

Being civil to another with whom we disagree does not mean simply watching our tongues. It comes, reminds Palmer, from valuing our differences. The reason our country had become the greatest nation on earth, even with all our failings and shortcomings, is that we are made up of all sorts and conditions of people and because we have learned from one another.

Even more, given that no two of us thinks exactly alike simply because we are all unique individuals who bring are personal histories to each situation, we will have differences of opinion on all sorts of issues. That’s normal. That’s human. That’s to be expected and even demanded if a democracy is to flourish. What a dull world we would live in if we all thought and acted alike.

Partisanship is not a problem. The political parties arose and exist because of partisan politics. There is nothing wrong with that. It is good. It is a good as well. We grow as a nation and as a person because we can learn from others who think differently than we do. They have something to teach us just as we have something to teach them. The problem that we have today is that instead of valuing our differences we demonize those who think differently, just listen to the political ads. That is sad.

Even more sadly is that nothing will change until we have a change of heart.

TEN THOUGHTS FOR TODAY

One of the blessings of the internet is that friends send you stuff that they find interesting and that you might also. I found the following ten thoughts for today sent to me, by whom I do not remember, that I think deserve to be shared – with my reflection in italics.

1. Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel” that directs the right path throughout. Prayer should be part of our daily life/routine even when it becomes routine. That’s the point!
 
2. Why is a car’s windshield is so large and the rear view mirror is so small? Because our past is not as important as our future. So, look ahead and move on.  We cannot undo the past. We can only learn from it by moving on. We can’t if we live in the past.
 
3. Friendship is like a book: it takes few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write. We need to cultivate friendships because., in this life, we need one another. We cannot go it alone no matter how much we sometimes think we should.
 
4. All things in life are temporary.  If all is going well, enjoy it; that will not last forever. If all seems to be going wrong, don't be overcome with worry, that can't last long either. Nothing in this life lasts forever even when, in bad times, we think those times will never end. They will. The only thing that lasts forever is our life with God in eternity, and nothing will beat that!

5. Old friends are gold! New friends are diamond! If you get a diamond, don't forget the gold! Because to hold a diamond, you always need a base of gold! We build upon old friendships because old friends will always be there for us, and vice versa.
 
6. Often when we lose hope and think this is the end, God smiles from above and says, "Relax, it's just a bend, not the end! There is always resurrection and new life. Always! Somehow in some way God helps us bring resurrection no matter how hopeless we think the situation is.
 
7. When God solves our problems, we have faith in God’s abilities; when God doesn't solve our problems God has faith in our abilities. God will not do for us what God expects us to do for ourselves; nor should God nor should we.
 
8. A blind person asked St. Anthony: "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied: "Yes, losing your vision!"  Without a vision, the prophet said, the people perish. So do we as individuals.
 
9. When we pray for others, God listens to us and blesses them, and sometimes, when we are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for us. We are in this together.

10.  Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles; it takes away today's peace. How often have we been obsessed, worrying about things that never happened?

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?

The scene: Arlena and I are in a local restaurant eating our dinner and talking about the day’s events. A young couple (“young” as in we are old enough to be their parents) and their teenage son arrive and sit at the table just across from us. The waitress brings them their utensils and menus. They know what they want and quickly order. As soon as the waitress leaves to place their order, they, all three, take out their cell phones and starts playing with them.

Isn’t there something wrong with this picture or is it just my age? I remember when we had teenagers at home – yes, it was before cell phones became popular let alone, it seems, an absolute necessity for anyone over the age of ten (our ten-year-old grandson has his own phone: drives me nuts!). Even back in those dark ages it was difficult to get the girls together for family meal. It was even more difficult to get them to have a conversation with us since they believed we had absolutely no clue what real life was all about. For them it was a waste of their very precious time to deign to speak with us.

However, when those rare opportunities came for us to sit around the family dinner table and have an actual conversation, we took it. They were a captive audience whether they liked it or not. Granted, much of the conversation consisted in one- or two-word grunts rather than and serious discussions, but at least we did not squander those opportunities that came our way to talk to our daughters.

Thus, when those cell phones came out at that table across from us, any opportunity for mom and dad to talk with their teenage son went down the tubes. When dinner arrived, silence continued to prevail. It was none of my business, of course, and I should not judge even though I am; but teenagers are teenagers, and any opportunity to converse with them, even if the conversation is not very deep, should be taken.

In fact, any opportunity for face-to-face conversation should be taken: among parents and children and between the parents themselves. And while I will admit that cell phones have their place and the rest of modern technology is wonderful, we, as a people, not just we as parents, have lost something that no amount of technological expertise can replace. That is the need for us to have honest conversations with one another, real conversations, not text messages or emails. The human response – inflection, gestures and the like – cannot be replaced or replicated by technology.

We cannot get to know one another over the internet no matter how much of ourselves we reveal. The real self only comes out in real-life contact and conversation with one another. It may seem safer to hide behind technology, but what is safer is not always what is best. It is only when we let our hair down, as we used to say, and let the real self come out that we learn about the other and, in truth, we learn about ourselves.

We cannot go back to the “good old days” nor should we want to. Yet when the opportunity comes to have an honest, face-to-face conversation, with another, we should take it.

SLOW ON THE UPTAKE

My mother-in-law, who is 90, is slowing down. But, then, who isn’t? There is one area, however, when she has not lost a step: her quick wit. A couple of examples: Arlena tries to call her almost every night just to check in. A while back, when she missed calling for three days and when her Mom answered the phone, she said, “Hi, Mom. Remember me, your only daughter?” Her immediate reply was, “Just vaguely.”

Last weekend we were visiting with her and doing some errands with her. We had to stop at Lowe’s. When I asked, just as a reminder, where it was, Arlena said, “Across the street from Sam’s.” When we disagreed about what “across the street” meant, Arlena asked her Mom who was correct. “I’m voting for the driver,” she said. “I don’t want to have to walk home.”

As is evident, my mother-in-law is quick on the uptake, as they say. Unfortunately that gene was not passed on to her daughter. The joke around the family is that you can tell Arlena a joke today and she’ll get it tomorrow. She is slow on the uptake. Not always, of course, but often enough to note the difference between mother and daughter.

But, then, who isn’t, at times, slow on the uptake. We don’t always see clearly or understand fully the first time around. Sometimes it takes us two or three missteps to learn the lesson, a second or third look to see what we were supposed to see the first time around but were just a little slow on the uptake. More often than not we do get the point when the point is made, but not always.

That is especially true when it comes to our faith. We can read the Bible, attend Christian education classes of any and all sorts, read and hear what is being taught and still find it difficult to understand the point. Sometimes it is only on the third or fourth or maybe hundredth reading that we finally understand what Jesus is saying in this or that parable. Sometimes it is only when we have stubbed our toe once too often that we get the message.

No one of us comes to the faith all at once just as we do not fall in love all at once. Faith takes time to take root. We have to grow into it just as we have to grow into being an adult from being an infant. All along the journey we learn, sometimes the first time around but, more often than not, from our mistakes and misadventures, sometimes very painful mistakes and misadventures.

Faith, like life – and faith is certainly a part of what it means to be alive – is a growing process. When we step back and examine that process so far, we, all of us, no exceptions, can admit that there have been times when we have been “spot on”, as the English say and there have been times when we have been slow on the uptake, sometimes painfully slow, in more ways than one.

The saving grace is both God’s saving grace and that learning from our mistakes and/or slowness to get the point is often the best way to learn and to grow.

ON NOT PASSING THE BUCK

One of the responsibilities of every preacher is to be prophetic. That may sound quite imposing and arrogant, but it is not. It can also be a little frightening. A prophet is not, as we often assume, someone who predicts the future. That is impossible to do. No one, not even the greatest of minds, knows what the future will hold. One may have a pretty good idea, but no one knows for sure, not even, I dare say, God. For if God knew the future, then free will is out the door and we are all robots already programed to do what God has intended us to do from conception. That would mean that there is no such reality as sin and that none of us is responsible for our actions. It would all be God’s fault. It isn’t. It’s ours and we need to own up to that truth.

What a prophet does is speak for God, speaks the truth. A prophet points out what should be obvious but which we, in our selfishness, often deny. When the Old Testament prophets reminded the people that there were not living the lives God wanted them to live – and they knew they were not, and if they continued to live that way and did not repent – which so often they did not, then bad things would happen to them because of their sinfulness – and it did.

Prophets were usually not welcomed as guests because no one likes to hear what is needed to be heard. Whenever a prophet does his/her job, s/he is usually asking for trouble, which is why we preachers are often reluctant prophets. We like to be liked. Most of the Old Testament prophets tried to find some way out, some excuse, for not doing their jobs. Who wouldn’t? When they did speak for God, they often wound up on the wrong side of the stick. I know several colleagues who had to move on because the congregation didn’t like their prophetic sermons. They were too close to home.

And yet, while a prophet has an obligation to speak God’s word and not mince words even though the message will be denied, railed against or even cause the prophet some harm, even bodily harm, nevertheless the word must be spoken. Yet, even when a prophetic word is spoken, that does not let the prophet off the hook. A prophet can’t pass the buck and say to himself, “I did my job. Now it’s up to them to do what needs to be done, to do what God wants done.” A prophet must also be part of the solution. S/he can’t stand above or beyond the fray.

The truth is that we are all prophets. Not only must our words but our very lives speak God’s word. We can’t tell our children that they must always be truthful when we don’t speak the truth ourselves. We can’t tell others what to do and not do it ourselves. The fact is, we really do not need prophets or prophetic preaching. The truth, God’s truth, is already written in our hearts. It is part of our DNA, children of God that we all are.

Whenever we demand of others what we do not demand of ourselves, whenever we act in ways that we know are contrary to the way God would have us live and which we should want ourselves to live, we’re passing the buck of responsibility to others even though we know in our head and in our hearts that the buck stops with us. The sooner we all act on that truth the better we and our world will be, but until then.

PSALM 23

A friend of mine sent me a reflection on Psalm 23, the King James Version ( the one, it seems, that is most popular even though its language is somewhat dated). In the reflection, each line in the psalm has a one-word explanation, if you will, of what that line really means for us who pray the psalm and believe and mean what we are saying when we do use it in personal prayer: thus, the words of the psalm, their one-word meaning and, for what it’s worth, my reflection on that word.

The Lord is my shepherd: that’s relationship. (Without a relationship with God life would be meaningless and empty.)  I shall not want: that’s supply. (God gives us all that we need.)

He maketh me lie die in green pastures: that’s rest. (is vital to a whole and healthy life. We must take those times of rest to rest.)  He leadeth me beside still waters: that’s refreshement. (While we rest, we are refreshed.)

He restoreth my soul; that’s healing. (We are all wounded, wounded by our own sin and by the sins of others. We are all healed because God always forgives.)

He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness: that’s guidance. (Whenever we get lost, and we all do at times, if we are open to God’s leading, we will find our way.) For his name’s sake: that’s purpose. (Why we do what we do: we do it for you, Lord.)

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death:  that’s testing. (Testing is part of life, part of being human. We are all tempted: no exemptions.)  I will fear no evil:  that’s protection. (God is stronger than any evil. Never forget that.)  For thou art with me:  that’s faithfulness. (God never, ever abandons us. Never.)

Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me: that’s discipline. (We learn through discipline, from the pain our mistakes, deliberate and otherwise, cause. That is good.)

Thou preparest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies: that’s hope. (When, at times, all may seem lost, we know it is not. We will find our way. God will see to it.)

Thou annointest my head with oil: that’s consecration. (We are God’s children.)

My cup runneth over:  that’s abundance. (We always have more than enough.)

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:  that’s blessing. (We are never alone. We never walk alone. God is always with us.)

And I will dwell in the house of the Lord: that’s security. (Our house is the Lord’s house. The Lord’s house is our house, our home.)

Forever: that’s eternity. (No more need be said.)

A PATIENT BELIEVER

If someone were to ask me, I think I would have to say that I am, by nature, a patient person. Yes, I do get impatient with those I believe are trying to test me by delaying what I know they could and should be doing at the moment. And I have little patience for those who are simply too lazy to do what needs to be done. If I think about it longer, I suspect I can come up with other reasons why I sometimes become impatient.

The fact is that there are some things we cannot hurry; and if we try to hurry what we should not, we will end up with a mess. If the recipe tells us to bake the cake for forty minutes, it means forty minutes. Taking it out of the oven in thrifty-five minutes because we are in a hurry will only leave us with a partially baked cake. If we try to serve that cake and if the diners say anything, it will not be complimentary.

And, of course, as the song says, we can’t hurry love. Love takes time to develop. Yes, we may think that we have fallen in love at first sight; but what we have really done is fall in like at first sight. We like what we see and perhaps hope that our like for the other will be returned and that both likes will turn into love. But that turning-into will take time. It always does as, perhaps, we have learned from painful experience.

Just as we must be patient in finding someone to love, so must we be patient when it comes to our faith. One of my spiritual mentors, Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, says that we must be patient believers. Isn’t it true that we so often want God to answer our prayers immediately because we do believe God can do anything; and because God can do anything, God should do in now? And when God delays in answering our prayers, we become impatient with God.

And yet, we innately know that to be a person of faith we must have patience. How often have we said to another or another said to us when things were not going well for us, “Have faith!”? What was being said was, “Be patient. Be patient with God. This will be resolved in time but not immediately, resolved in God’s own good time. Be a patient believer.”

If God were to respond to our demands as quickly as we respond to those demands that our baptismal faith puts on us, we may be in for a long wait at times. It is a reminder, though, that God probably does lose patience with us. That is not to say that God delays responding to our requests simply to get even. God does not.

It is easy for those of us who believe at times to become impatient with our God. That is simply human nature. There are other times, perhaps more times than we would like to admit, that the demands we place on God are really demands that we should place on ourselves. When we begin to become impatient with God because God is not responding to our prayers/demands, perhaps what we should do is question ourselves if what we are asking of God is not something we should be taking care of on our own, God giving us the grace and strength to accomplish whatever it is we deem needs to be done. Faith demands patience: us with God and, I suspect, God with us, patient believers that we are.

HABIT OR HOBBY?

Bishop N. T. Wright, former Bishop of York, makes the statement near the conclusion of his book After You Believe that church going used to be a habit of the many but is now a hobby of the few. After reading the statistics of church going in the United Kingdom where about 5% attend church on any given Sunday, I can agree with his observation and certainly understand his concern being a “professional religious” myself.

Church going, however, has never been the habit of the majority in this country, at least for the last fifty or more years, certainly in the 43+ years of my ministry. And while we in this country attend church more than those who live in Europe, attendance is far from what it used to be even on the traditional two high holy days, Christmas and Easter. We simply do not attend worship services as much as we used to. 

Diana Butler Bass, a sociologist of religion, entitles her latest book Christianity after Religion: The End of the Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. In a way it is a follow-up to Wright’s observation about what has happened to the practice of our Christian faith, one aspect of it being that most Christians attended church on a regular basis certainly out of habit, most, hopefully, because doing so was very meaningful for their very lives.

Now there are those who would applaud the fact that church going is no longer a habit because they would argue that church going should come from the head and the heart. That would be true. However, we all have habits, good and bad. The good habits, like our daily regimens, are very helpful in keeping us healthful and sane. The bad habits, which we need to eliminate, do the very opposite, which is why we need to rid ourselves of them. As we have all learned, getting rid of bad habits is often more difficult that learning good ones.

Be that as it may, back to Wright’s observation, I suspect he was and is a little piqued because what is very important him to him both as a bishop and as a Christian he finds so unimportant to the people he is called to serve. I get that way sometime when attendance is down especially when the weather is good or bad or for whatever reason church goers go somewhere else on Sunday morning, if the only place they go is to the breakfast table.

What Bass has learned from her sociological observations is that the situation is not as bad as Wright thinks it to be. Yes, church attendance is down and people do not come as regularly as they once did. Where once, certainly when I was a youngster, Sunday morning meant going to church whether you felt like it or not. It was an obligation become habit. Whether I got something out of the worship was not the issue. What was was that I was there, period.

Church going on a regular basis needs to be a habit, a habit of the heart certainly. Where else can we go to find a community of love and support, an opportunity to think about and pray for those we care about and who care about us and an opportunity to collectively and individually give thanks to God for blessing received, both deserved and undeserved?

STRESS

There’s a story, a parable really, about a woman giving a presentation on stress management. She raised a glass a glass of water, and instead of asking the “half full or half empty” question, she asked how heavy the glass of water was. Responses varied between 8 oz. to 20 oz.

“The absolute weight doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is how long I hold the glass. If I hold it for a minute, it is no problem. If I hold it for an hour, I will have an ache in my right arm. “If I hold it all day, you’ll probably have to call an ambulance. In each case the weight is the same, but the longer I hold it the heavier it becomes. That’s the way it is with stress.”

We are all stressed in one way or another from birth to death. Stress is part and parcel of life. The only time when we will no longer be stressed is when we are no longer alive. In the meantime each day we have to deal with our share of stress of some kind, sometimes many kinds. How we deal with those stresses in our lives determines how healthy or how ill we are.

The worst way to deal with stress is to go it alone. The stresses in our lives are burdens we must bear. And the best way to bear any burden is to find someone to help carry and share the load. Doing so will not remove the load. It will simply make the load, the stress, easier to bear. Often the best way to share the load is to find someone to talk to. Keeping the stress bottled up inside only makes it worse.

Over the years my wife and I have had to deal with the stresses that came with our work and even more deal with the stresses that came with raising five daughters especially when they were teenagers. Our solution was and is to walk and talk: one to three miles walks for normal stresses to five mile walks usually brought on by the teenagers. We could not and did not resolve work issues or even teenage issues, but talking about them helped each of us share our stressful burdens.

The same is true when we put some of those stresses in the hands of God. Believing, knowing that God cares and will give us whatever strength we need to deal with those life stressors is important. God will not remove them but will help us carry them. That is what prayer is all about. To deal with stress we need both the grace and strength of God and the help and support of another, of others, often many others.

While we need to share those stresses, those burdens, we also need to lay them aside for a while. That is what vacations are for. That is what hobbies and outdoor activities and other forms of recreation are for. Recreation: re-creation. They help us recreate our body, our mind, our spirit so that we can deal with the stresses a little bit better. The better we deal with them the healthier we are.

The opposite is just as true. If we do nothing about the stressors in our lives, we will lose our health. How we deal with stress is vital to our physical, spiritual and mental health.

WE ARE A PEOPLE OF...

It’s been a while since I took part in a conference led by Father Bud Holland from West-by-God-Virginia, as they say in those parts, and a seminary classmate of Bishop Price. Bud is a wonderful conference leader (I’ve been to two) who tries to put the conference he is leading into its proper perspective. He begins by helping the participants understand who they are as a people and as persons.

Bud says that, first of all, we are a people of the context. In other words, all life, all ministry, everything we do takes place in a specific context, that context being where we live and move and have our being, as one of the Sunday Collects puts it. Our context is not where someone else lives and moves and is but where we happen to be at this moment in time. It is only when we both are aware of and understand the context in which we live that we can even begin to understand who we are as a person.

Once we understand that we are a people of our own specific context and know and understand what that context is, the next reality of which we must become aware is that we are also a people of the gathering. In other words, we are also part of a community, in fact, many communities. We are not meant to go it alone in this world, in the context in which we live. We are always part of some sort of gathering even when we choose to be alone. As God says in Genesis, “it is not good for human beings to be alone.” And so we are not.

For us as Christians one of those communities in which we gather is our faith community, our church. We come together to worship, to fellowship, to learn, all in love and support of one another. We come together to be fed, fed both by the Eucharist and by one another in the very many ways we do in deed feed one another. Without that spiritual and supportive nourishment we would not be able to live out our faith and thus fulfill our baptismal promises and responsibilities to seek and serve the Jesus we meet in every person, as an example.

In other words, or our specific “church words”, we are, in Bud’s words, a people of the table. That is a wonderful analogy in that is only when we can come together around a table to share a meal – the Eucharist, pot luck or even a banquet – or only a cup of tea that we can become and grow as a community of any kind, let alone a spiritual community of faith.

Finally, we must remember that the wider community in which we gather is part of our context, for the church always exists in and is part of the wider community. In other words, as Bud reminds, we are a people of the dismissal. We gather as a community of faith around the table, strengthened by the Eucharist and one another, and are dismissed back into the wider context from which we have come to “go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”

We are a people of the context, the gathering, the table and the dismissal: all four. Understanding and living that truth is what we are called to do every day.