WHY DID GOD DO IT?

One has to wonder why on earth God ever decided to come to earth, live on this earth. Look at it this way: God being God, if you have heaven, why mess around with hell? Put something pure into something that is contaminated and you know who wins. Pure becomes tainted with the impure. So why did God do it? Why did God become human?

My very untheological, but I think very human, reason for the Word of God to become flesh was to experience what you and I experience every day. God, being God, never feels pain, never suffers as you and I do. God is, in a real way, above it all. But you and I are in pain, sometimes great pain – physical, mental, spiritual – every day. And from a very human point of view – and remember, I am not talking about a theological point of view – from a very human point of view it certainly was good for God to know, to experience what you and I go through every day.

It is very difficult if not impossible to understand pain is you have never suffered real pain. I have no way of knowing what the pain of childbirth is like because I have never experienced and will never experience it. I know the pain of divorce. Those who have never experienced that pain have no idea, really, what it is all about. Experience is the best, perhaps only, teacher.

But Jesus knew pain and suffering. As an apprentice carpenter he probably gave his thumb a few whacks now and then. Then there was the cross, of course. But Jesus also knew the pain of rejection, the pain of loneliness, the pain of betrayal. He experienced the pettiness of Pilate, the greed of Herod the jealousies of the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus knows now what pain and suffering, what life on this earth, is all about, truly all about.

Now a good theologian will say that Jesus always knew, being God. Maybe so. But that doesn’t help me much when I am in pain, when I have suffered from my own or another’s sinfulness or stupidity. But from a very human point of view, when I cry out in prayer and in pain to Jesus, deep in my heart I know he knows what I am talking about. He went through it. The fact that on the cross he suffered more pain – physical, mental and spiritual – than I will ever have to endure, that truth also helps me in my daily bouts with selfishness and feeling sorry for myself.

Yes, Jesus gives me through the Holy Spirit, gives all of us the strength to endure whatever pain or suffering or grief that may come our way. He promises to be there with us through it all. Sometimes he simply lessens the pain. Sometimes he removes it. All the time he is there with us. And he understands because, he, too, when he, the Son of God became flesh and pitched his tent among us, he, too, experienced sinfulness and suffering and stupidity first hand.

Jesus didn’t have to do any of that, but I am glad and thankful that he did.

THE MESSAGE OF CHRISTMAS IS PERSONAL

The hope of every advertiser is that each and every one of us takes the message of the ad very, very personally. They spend very big bucks trying to get our personal attention so that we might respond to the pitch being made and, hopefully purchase the product that is being advertised. The bigger the venue, the more the ad costs the advertiser. The Super Bowl tops in costs because more people watch the Super Bowl than any other event on television.

Obviously enough people take advertisements so personally that, in the long run, they become cost-effective else manufacturers would have to come up with some other way to get our attention. The fact is that very few ads ever get our personal attention, get us to not only view and listen to the ad but also to go out and purchase whatever it is that is being pitched.

All of which brings me to Christmas and the message of Christmas and that that message is very, very personal and is to be taken very, very personally. The message of the angel of the Lord as recorded in Luke’s Gospel tells us that “to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (2:11) That is a generic message as the “to you” means “to all of us, to every human being.”

Yet that message is more than generic. It is personal. When I read that Gospel passage, it is meant to read, “To you, Bill Pugliese, is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” Jesus was born for me, for me. Unless I hear that message, unless I realize that it is a very, very personal message addressed to me personally, the words of the Gospel will be simply words; solemn and holy and inspiring words, but just words as in an advertisement.

For it is only when the personal message hits home, that the down times in our lives can become up times, that the sad times can turn into glad times. For to each one of us there are moments when we feel lost and alone, when there is a sense of hurt and loss and anger. It is in those times that that personal message can ring loud and clear; “For to me, to me, is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Jesus was born among us for us. He was born for me, FOR ME even though I was not there when he was born and not there to hear that message. Nevertheless, it is a very, very personal message of salvation, my salvation and yours. For each one of us, when we read that message, is asked to insert our own name into it. That is how very personal the message of Christmas is. It is not an advertisement. It is real.

It is because of Jesus’ birth among us for you and for me, for each and every one of us both individually and corporately, that we can and should and must celebrate Christmas with love, gratitude and thanksgiving. May we do so.

THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM

Centuries before Edward Hicks painted his famous depiction of the peaceable kingdom that now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the prophet Isaiah describe such: a place where wolf and lamb, deadly enemies, frolic together. Joining them are cow and bear and calf and lion and in the midst sits a little child who sticks his hand into a snake pit and does not get bit.

It’s an ideal picture of reality both in word and on canvas. Most of us would also say that it is unrealistic. It won’t happen. It can’t happen. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Lambs and wolves will always be mortal enemies. So will calves and lions, cows and bears, even snakes and people. What is even more unrealistic and unbelievable is that this little child who puts his hand into a snake pit will grow up to be our leader, says Isaiah.

Paul, in his writings, paints the same word picture. He tells us that in the future we will all live in harmony one with another, servants one to another. As with Isaiah Paul insists that this picture is one that will come into being, believe it or not.

So where did it all go wrong? This peaceable kingdom has never been, has never come close to becoming a reality and, if we look around our world today, seems even further away from becoming so than even in Isaiah’s or Paul’s times. Is it all a pipedream, pie in the sky, simply words of hope that are just that: words with no chance of ever becoming a reality in this life in this world?

The realist would answer, “Of course. Human beings are too selfish to do what has to be done, make the sacrifices necessary to bring about a world where we live in peace and harmony one with another.” Even we believers have a difficult time accepting the possibility of the kingdom ever coming to reality here on earth.

Perhaps the reason for this feeling for both believers and realists is that we all spend so much time wondering why things are the way there are and not spending enough time and energy doing what needs to be done to make the peaceable kingdom a reality. Jesus, the child in Isaiah’s prophecy, came among us to show us how to bring about this kingdom in the here and now. He did not come to bring it about himself.

Nor could he. Jesus showed us the way. It is up to us to follow that way, to show others the way by the way we live our lives, and hope they will show others the way by what they have learned from us. But, then, sadly, they have and so have we. We have all learned the wrong way, gone down the wrong paths and have ended up where we are right now: in anything but a peaceable world.

We know the right way, Jesus’ way. The peaceable kingdom can only become a reality if each of us lives the way Jesus taught us. It begins with you and me.

WE’RE ALL GETTING GYPPED

Three of our daughters have “Christmas” birthdays: Christy is on the 21^st, Jessica on the 22^nd and Autumn on Christmas Day itself. Over the years they have complained, mostly silently, that they have been getting gypped when it comes to receiving birthday presents because they believe they’d have received more had their birthdays been in July. We never thought so, but we were also not the ones who had our birthdays so near Christmas.

However, if we think only those who are in the same boat as our daughters are getting gypped, think about the one whose birthday we celebrate on December 25: Jesus. If it is true that Jesus is the reason for the season, and it is, and if it is also true that we should be preparing to present Jesus with the proper present in celebration of his birth, then I think Jesus has a right to complain about being gypped.

Let’s face it and let’s be honest: when we decide to present someone we love with a birthday present, we think long and hard about just what gift we are going to give and even how much we want to spend on that gift. It is important for us to give what we deem to be a proper gift and so we take as much time as possible to make that happen – all of which is why Jesus is getting gypped.

What’s the proper gift to give to Jesus in celebration of his birthday? Why, ourselves, of course! That is the only gift we can give and the only gift we need to give and the only gift Jesus wants from us. If you are like me, and I hope you are not, more often than not my gift of myself tends to be like a gift I hurriedly grabbed on the way out of store and satisfied myself that it would suffice. It was not chosen or given with a whole lot of thought and, sadly, meaning.

That’s not to say that Jesus wants all of me rather than that he wants more of me than I am willing to give. Our gifts to our daughters never were and still are not toss-ins or throwaways. They always come from the heart, which is why it often takes us so long to decide what to give. The same is true for any gift that is given for any occasion: it has to come from the heart to truly be a gift. If it does not, that person is being gypped.

So how do we make sure that the gift of ourselves to Jesus on Christmas is truly a gift? In the same way our other true gifts are gifts: by taking the time to prepare ourselves for the celebration: taking time to think and pray and give thanks rather than coming to the celebration out of breath and exhausted. Sadly, so often that has been my personal modus operandi. This year, I hope, will be different.

When we gyp someone, we gyp ourselves as well. It is difficult to enter into the joy of the celebration if we don’t take the time to prepare for the celebration. But if we take the time to prepare our hearts and minds, we and the one we honor will be blessed. We know all that because we’ve all been there. Will we, will Jesus be gypped this Christmas?

REPENTANCE DOESN’T COME EASILY

If it is true, as I believe it is, that to forgive another is perhaps the most powerful action we can perform; and if believing that God not only forgives whatever sins we have committed but also forgets them, erases them from his memory – if that is, in fact, truly unbelievable even as it is true, then the only way to truly forgive another and accept God’s forgiveness and forgetfulness for our own sinfulness is to repent.

Why is this so? It is impossible to forgive someone who has hurt us if we cannot forgive ourselves. We hurt others and we are hurt by others. In order to come to terms with our own willingness to deliberately hurt someone we love and then ask to be forgiven – and vice versa – we have to stand back and examine why we did what we did, realize that we had no reason to be so selfish and then repent of our actions. If there is no repentance, there is no forgiveness, real forgiveness.

It is also impossible for us to accept God’s forgiveness and truly believe that God forgets as well if we do not repent of that for which we desire forgiveness. We can’t say we are sorry if we are not willing to admit that we should not have done in the first place that for which we are asking to be forgiven. Without repentance words of sorrow and regret are merely words that have no meaning in truth or fact.

Even more it is impossible for us to grow as a person without repentance. For repentance demands that we take seriously our deliberate failings and shortcomings and not only be willing to do something to correct them but actually do something. Repentance is not only a noun, it is also a verb, an action. We not only learn from our mistakes. We also and more importantly grow from our mistakes.

So what does all this mean? Forgiveness means that we come to our senses about our sinfulness and do something (repent) to change our ways. Forgetting the past means that we realize that we cannot undo what we have done, the sins we have committed, but can only repent of them, ask forgiveness and move on with our lives. Doing that and only doing that brings growth as a person. Otherwise we simply stagnate.

Repentance doesn’t come easily. Why? Because true repentance demands that we change the way we live and move and have our being. If we are unwilling to change, then we will keep doing the same things, commit the same sins, over and over again. Unless we are willing to learn from the past and not allow it to control our present, which is what forgetting is all about, we cannot move on and, thus, cannot grow.

No one can force us to forgive, forget, repent and change. It is up to us. But we know we can because of God’s love for us and our love for God and one another. That gives us the strength to forgive and forget. And with God’s grace, that is always offered and only needs to be accepted, change and growth are not only possible but will be a reality.

THE THREE MOST UNBELIEVABLE WORDS

If, as I maintain, the three most difficult words to utter and truly mean are “I forgive you”, then one of the ways to say those words is to remember that God always forgives us for what we have done. The lover always forgives the beloved as difficult as that is to do if the beloved is truly sorry for what has been said or done that needs forgiveness. God, who is the Ultimate Lover, if you will, always forgives us even when we do not ask for forgiveness, such is God’s ultimate and unconditional love for us.

God’s love, of course, does not give us carte blanche to do whatever we want simply because God will always forgive us in the same way that the lover does not give the beloved the same freedom. Love may mean that we never have to say we are sorry but it also means that we do not do anything that might require us to say we are such. It is our love for the other and God’s love for us that reminds us to never do anything that will require confession of things done or left undone.

The problem, of course, is that because we know how difficult it is to forgive another, we tend to assume that it is just as difficult for God to forgive us. And just as we innately want the one who has hurt us to somehow be hurt in return as a punishment for hurting us, so we have come to believe that God thinks and acts in the same way: God is going to make us pay for our sins somehow in some way either in this life or in the life to come. We don’t get off scot free.

Believe it or not, we do. Not only does God always forgive us, God even forgets. Back in the day when I was hearing confessions on a regular basis and granting forgiveness in the name of God and the church, even if I knew who the penitent was and the penitent knew I knew, once outside the confession box, whatever that penitent confessed was forgotten. If the penitent brought up the subject of the confession, s/he would have to tell me what the issue was as I had “forgotten” the confession. The sin had been forgiven and forgotten and it was time to move on.

What was left to the penitent was to have learned from the sin and move on and not wallow in it worried that God was going to make him pay for it sooner or later. The same is true for any one of us whether we make a formal confession to a priest or even to the one we have hurt. Sometimes, of course, making a confession to our beloved would be foolish. We did things in the past before our relationship began. We learned from those mistakes. We have grown. Time to move on.

The fact that as humans we cannot forget the past because it is stored in our brains forever does not mean we cannot live as if the past has been forgiven and forgotten. We can and we must. Yet the most important reason why we can is that we somehow have to come to believe, if we are not there already, that God also forgives and forgets. Our way of giving thanks for such love is to have learned from our sins and grown.

THE THREE MOST POWERFUL WORDS

When we think of power, we tend to think in terms of the ability to control something or someone. We are a powerful nation because we have more weapons than the rest of the world combined. A person has power over me if he has a loaded gun pointed at my head. The boss has power over subordinates, the teacher over students, the law over disorder.

Power is exerted in a multitude of ways and sometimes it is simply the threat of using one’s power that power is exerted. We slow down at the sight of a police car even if we are not exceeding the speed limit. Power or the threat of using power is good in that it tends to keep order when chaos could easily result or keeps us focused on the task at hand when we would rather be doing something else rather than what we should be doing at the present time.

While all that is true, even the physically weakest person (or nation, perhaps) in the world can be very, very powerful because of the ability to utter three little words: I forgive you. Think about it: how easy is it for any one of us to forgive someone who has deliberately hurt us? Forgive, really forgive; not just utter the words but to actually mean what we say? Anyone who says that he or she has no problem in forgiving is simply not telling the truth. Not at all.

It is easier to love than it is to forgive. In fact, the need to forgive someone we love makes forgiveness all the more difficult because to love someone means that we will never do anything that would require both our asking for forgiveness and for the one we have hurt to forgive us. But it happens. Loving relationships often dissolve because the lover deliberately hurts the beloved and forgiveness is either not asked or not given, or worse, both.

Why? Because forgiveness is not easy, not at all. It is intrinsically meant to be difficult because of how precious and important loving relationships are. The lack of love for the other makes it easier for us to hurt the other. But the demands of a true and loving relationship remind us that we never want to put ourselves in a position where we have to ask the one we love to forgive us. Never. And if we do something to damage that love and are discovered because we have nor owned up to our failure, it makes the giving of forgiveness all the more difficult.

We know all that because we have all been there. All of us have hurt the ones we love and know how difficult it was to ask for forgiveness. We also have been the one who has been hurt and know how even more difficult it is to forgive, especially forgive the ones we love the most and who love us the most. It takes a very powerful person to say “I forgive you” and mean it. It is not through will power that we utter those words but only through the power of the grace of God that is always offered. However, it is up to us to accept that grace and, as difficult as it still will be, to say, “I forgive you.”

THE ONCE AND FUTURE WORLD, WE HOPE

With retirement comes downsizing, thankfully. Over the years, if you are like me, we tend to gather more than we needed back then and even more than we need at the present moment in our lives. Retirement brings a slower pace to life – or so I am told, as I have not found it to be so to this point in time – and thus allows one to sort through what one has accumulated and to dispose of the non-essentials.

In doing so, in going though old sermons, I found a clipping I had taken from a Sunday comic section probably twenty years ago. What is interesting, to me at least, and sadly so, is that both sides were relevant back then still are today. The one strip was a Doonesbury panel in which a television interviewer is questioning a citizen about the latest election for governor. Thus:

“Excuse me, sir. Are you a man in the street?” “Why, yes, yes, I am!” was the reply. (Then) “We’re doing a follow-up on last month’s elections. How did you feel about the candidates for governor?” “The candidates for governor? I didn’t feel anything at first…I just didn’t know very much about either man. But then I started watching their commercials. It turns out one of the guys was a tax cheat who abused his wife and favored giving crack to furloughed sex offenders.” “And the other?” “He was a corrupt alcoholic who favored murdering babies and burning the flag.” “So who’d you vote for?” “The wife-beater. I thought he had better denials.”

Has anything changed? And we are in for more of the same for almost the next year. As I said: sadly so. And yet, change is possible: to wit, the other side of the comic page. This one from Johnny Hart in B.C. His peg-legged character is sitting under a tree and penning a poem: “Often times I wonder what the world is all about/ It can’t be just a place for coming in and going out/ It surely can’t be just a place for terrorists and crooks…and dirty, rotten scoundrels that sell pornographic books/ It wasn’t made for wallowing in sickness, death and sin,/ or people who give drugs to kids, or beat-up on their kin./ Our world was once a perfect place, a gift of love, not war/ and we still have the power, through grace, to make it like before!”

Absolutely! We still have the power, through the grace of God and our willingness to do what needs to be done, to change the world. These two, old comics remind that nothing has changed because we who have it in our power to make changes have done little or nothing to do so. It has almost gotten a bit worse, perhaps a whole lot worse.

So how do we change this world “to make it like before”? One step at a time and beginning with ourselves, that’s how. Advent approaches, a time for new beginnings, a time to make changes for the betterment of our own lives and, in the process, to make the lives of those around us better as well. Not easy to do; but with God’s grace we can do our part so that twenty years from now “better denials” will be a relic of the past.

NAÏVE INNOCENCE

A couple of weeks ago while on a return trip from visiting Arlena’s Mom, we were listening to public radio and a rerun of The Moth Report, a program I had never even knew existed. At any rate, the segment was a talk by Ishmael Beah who came to this country as a teenager after having lost his entire family in the civil war is Sierra Leone and after having been conscripted into being a child soldier in that war.

It was a fascinating account of those first years in this country, in New York City specifically, and about the group of young friends he made while living there. He told about going with them to a big estate in upstate New York and playing a game of paint ball with them. Paint ball is a war game where paint balls are used instead of bullets.

Because he had been a real soldier, he won the game. They never asked him back to play the game again. It was only later on that he felt he could tell them why he was such an expert in war and war games. But at that moment after the “battle”, he could not reveal himself to them. He allowed them to live in what he called their “naïve innocence”.

Those words set me back. Whether we believe it or not, whether we understand it or not, we all live in a world of naïve innocence – our own little world. If we’ve never been to war, real war, we cannot understand what war is like. If we have never had cancer or lost a child or lost a job – the list is endless – we are naively innocent of the realty of each one of these.

Oh, we think we understand, but we do not. We cannot until we have been there, walked that road, felt that pain. What is worse is that we make statements as if we do understand when all we are doing is making fools of ourselves. What we should do is be thankful that we have not had to walk that painful road and pray for those who are walking it at that moment.

Allow me to be a little political: at this moment in time when local elections are upon us and the presidential campaign is in full swing, we are bombarded with advertisements and interviews where the candidates tell us in so many words that they feel our pain. No, they don’t. They’re too rich. I remember years ago when the first President Bush told on himself about going to a grocery store after he was out of office and was shocked by the price of a loaf of bread. Naïve innocence.

I’m picking on politicians because they are so up front in there attestations that they know what we are going through as if they are going through it themselves. But I am also looking into a mirror because I know I am often guilty of doing the same: thinking I understand when I really do not when I should be thankful for my own naïve innocence. The sad part in all of this is that painful issues are only addressed politically and personally when naïve innocence is replaced by reality itself.

EVERY DAY IS FRIDAY

The other day I was having a conversation with my sister when we got around to talking about how fast time goes these days especially as we get older. She reminded me that our Mom, as she was growing older (and was almost 97 when she died) used to say that “Every day is Friday” because, for her, it seemed that she just put out the garbage yesterday. I can relate even if every day is not Friday. But it comes close!

Our conversation to that point was centered around my relating about my doing some supply work in two parishes back in West Virginia, one of which I had served forty years ago. The Senior Warden of Olde St. John’s had contacted me about doing some supply work as their priest had just retired and they needed someone to celebrate the Eucharist until the Bishop could help them find a permanent replacement.

When Lori, the Senior Warden, called me, she introduced herself and told me that she was 12 when saw each other last and she was now 48 with grown children. When I went to celebrate, the lay reader was a young man, now in his late thirties, whom I had baptized and was now married with two little ones of his own. My acolyte at Christ Church that Sunday was the son of an acolyte who was an acolyte for me back then.

To say that times flies and that it seems to fly faster as we grow older is obvious but it is also the truth. And we cannot slow it down. Our youngest and her husband are going to Hawaii for a belated honeymoon and Arlena and I will have the privilege to baby sit Carter who is 13 months old. A friend of Arlena’s promised to pray for the kids while they were in Hawaii. Arlena told her to pray for us instead. We’ll need it just to keep up with the little guy.

The honeymoon will give them lasting memories as will our time with Carter as have been mine while reconnecting with old-now-much-older former parishioners. As much as the kids have wanted to hurry time the last three or four months, they could not. As much as my peers and I want to slow down those seemingly-endless-it’s-Friday agains, we cannot, nor should we want to.

What we can do and what we are doing is reveling in the memories, giving thanks for them and even having some degree of pride. My old parishioners think I hung the moon and it was wonderful being told that they still remember me and still miss me. That is humbling and rewarding for which I can only give thanks to God that I must have said and done something right even though I know I messed up one many occasions.

What was even more rewarding was seeing Matthew and his family in church and him reading the lessons and having another Matthew carry the processional cross down the aisle as I followed. The Fridays will come even faster as I age but the memories will give joy and pleasure to the days even as they fly by.

THE MINISTRY OF PRESENCE

There are times in our lives when we are at a loss for words. Even more, when words do come forth from our lips, they always seem trite, inadequate, even, at least to us, foolish. But we open our mouths because we think we have to say something. Why we think that way and why we go against common sense and just keep quiet is something we brood about later. We wonder why we – or somebody – didn’t give us a good swift kick in the rear and say “just shut up.”

Just shut up and do all we can do. And all we can do when words, any words, will be inadequate is simply be there, be present. The truth is that is all the person we are trying to comfort or help with our words really needs. Words only make the situation worse, again, because they will never make it better. Our words can’t take away the grief, the pain, the suffering the one we want to comfort is going through. They are only a reminder, once again, that the suffering and pain are real.

We understand. For when we have been the one others have tried to comfort and console with their words, what we wanted and needed at that moment in our lives was for someone to simply be there with us. They could not take away our pain, could not heal the disease or raise the departed loved one. They could only do what they could do and what we wanted them to do and that was be there, hold our hand and say nothing.

It is a ministry of presence. It sounds simple. Just be there, say nothing, hold hands. We know it is not. In fact, if the truth were told, we do not want to engage in that ministry because to do so is to enter into the pain of the one we are trying to comfort and we really, honestly, do not want to do that. Not at all. No one does.

But we must. We are not meant to go it alone in this life. We need others to be with us in good times and in bad, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health. Sickness, sorrow and sadness are never, ever pleasant; but they are realities of life that escape no one. We cannot avoid them and we cannot run from them as much as we try. They catch up to us sooner or later, all of us, no exception. And when they do, what we want and need is for others to be present with us to walk with us. No words are needed; just our presence.

The ministry of presence is truly a ministry. We must never forget or underestimate the value and importance of being present to another in that person’s time of need. Many times in our lives that ministry takes place in absence. It takes place when all we can do is pray for the one we love or when the one we love prays for us. Those words of prayer are words of support, asking God to be with the one in pain because we cannot be there for the other or the other cannot be there for us.

The ministry of presence is a vocation to which each of us is called. When the call is made to be present, God will give us whatever grace and strength we need to fulfill it.

BE DOERS OF THE WORD

The church building in which I was raised was built from the salvaged parts of the old Mellon Mansion and the old Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Pittsburgh. It is a magnificent structure: red Michigan sandstone, marble walls and floors and communion rails, silver doors – the list is long. High on the left wall is a marble edifice that looks like a pulpit. It was even used as such on one or two occasion in my youth. Above the pulpit inscribed on the wall were the words from the Epistle of James: “Be doers of the word and not hearers only”

Simple advice both to preacher and parishioner alike, but for different reasons. As one sitting in the pew and listening to the word proclaimed from on high, really on high when proclaimed from that pulpit, and especially proclaimed in a powerful and moving sermon, the response by the parishioner expected from the preacher was/is “So what are you going to do about it?”

It’s not enough for the hearer to say after church, “Great sermon, Father,” and then go blithely on one’s way with no further personal response. The words preached and heard, no matter how profound and meaningful, will have no meaning if they are not put into action by the hearer. We must be a doer of the word we have heard, otherwise the word has no real meaning.

On the other hand, as far as the preacher is concerned, my being one, my responsibility is to preach a sermon that is meaningful to the people sitting in the pew looking up to me. The fact that they are looking up is a constant reminder that they are giving me the responsibility to speak words to them that will help them go forth from the service to live out in their lives the message and lesson that I have gleaned from the readings.

But there is more to preaching than that. I have always believed that the first person my sermon should address is the one I see in the mirror every morning. I am no different, no better and hopefully no worse, than the people I preach to from that pulpit. It is not enough for me to give them good advice, if you will, or even give myself good advice. I, like they, must live out that advice, be a doer of those words, in my daily life.

Good sermons and good advice are a start. Living out the words preached and heard must follow. The failure of the church as a whole and we preachers and hearers individually to live out the words we have preached and heard is the reason why the world is in the mess that it is in today. We have failed to take the Good News, the Gospel, we hear to heart and then to practice that good news in our daily lives. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the Good News still speaks to us today. Every day we have the opportunity to be a doer of the word by living out the word so that others hear it by our loving deeds and respond by doing the same and making the world better.

WHY IT IS NEVER ENOUGH

There are times when we’ve all had enough: enough of the politics, enough of the killings, enough of Donald, enough of whatever it is that is currently almost driving us up the wall. We’ve had more than we need and more than we can take. Those of us who are old enough to remember when politics was civil, mostly; when hunters were the only ones who had guns, mostly; and when the newsmakers, well, let’s leave it at that – we long for the good old days. We’ve had enough!

Unfortunately those days are passed and in the past. But there is much in our personal lives when we think we’re completely satisfied with our lives. “I couldn’t be any happier than I am right now,” we say with a smile on our face and contentment in our heart. But that’s really not true. Happiness is relative. We can always be happier even as happy as we are at that moment.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” we exult as we revel in the moment. Well, of course it does no matter how wonderful and exciting and fulfilling the moment is. It can always get better and it often does. That does not diminish or negate this moment in time. It is only to say that life can get better than it now is, that we can be happier than we are in the here and now.

What it also says is that in this life we never have enough. I don’t mean that in a greedy, selfish way. The truth is that most of us have more than enough worldly goods at least as far as most of the rest of the world is concerned. What I do mean is that anything that gives us pleasure and happiness always falls short. It is never enough because it can never be enough.

In this life we are given just a glimpse of what real happiness, true pleasure really is. That’s the way God intended it to be. That is why the happiness and joy and pleasure we find in this life, as good and as great as it is, can never be enough. Something in us desires more, whether we are even aware of this desire or not.

In fact, thankfully, sometimes we do become aware of the failings of the pleasures of this life. That piece of chocolate cake that looked so mouth-watering did not turn out to be as good as we thought it would be. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t delicious. It does mean that it could have been better – as with everything and everyone in this life.

St. Augustine’s observation that our hearts are restless until they rest in God only proves the point. We believe that God created us to seek happiness and pleasure in this life but in the pursuit of such discover that what we find is never enough. We want more. We need more and believe that that more will come, not in this life but only in the life to come when we are with God forever.

We will never have enough joy, happiness, pleasure in this life but we are thankful for what we have. But we also know that something more, something better, something eternal awaits us. Knowing that is enough.

CONFLICTING ADVICE

My SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) after church on Sunday afternoons is to work the two crossword puzzles in the Post-Gazette. I start with the easier one and then finish with the one from The New York Times. The latter is not always fun to do especially when the theme is difficult to decipher and when the answers to the theme demand that you decipher how to fill in the blanks: backward to forward, upside down, etc. At least it keeps my mind from stagnating.

A few weeks ago the theme was “Conflicting Advice” and was both relatively easy to solve and fun as well. To wit: the clue was “He who hesitates is lost, but…” (and the answer was) “Look before you leap.” Thus: “You can’t judge a book by its cover, but…” “Clothes make the man.” “Birds of a feather flock together, but…” “Opposites attract.” “Great minds think alike, but…” “Fools seldom differ.” “Slow and steady wins the race, but…” “Time waits for no man.” “Knowledge is power, but…” “Ignorance is bliss.”

Conflicting advice, even in a crossword puzzle and even good advice on both sides of the equation. If we delay too long, we may lose a golden opportunity. But if we don’t examine that opportunity before we accept it, we may be in for a heap of trouble. Judging a person by outward appearance only is foolish because it is the inner person that is the real person. But, then, a slob may simply be a slop yet Brooks Brother’s clothes may truly define the man.

It is true that those with the same likes tend to find compatible space but that space may be dull and boring because they are all alike. On the other hand, great relationships are often the result of fundamental differences. Those differences keep the relationship alive and vibrant as long as the differences are acknowledged, agreed upon and tolerated. Brilliant people do tend to find one another but so do fools.

Taking one’s time usually insures success but taking too much time may mean that someone else beats us to the goal. Having the right answer does make one powerful over those who do not know or understand what to do. But sometimes allowing the one with the knowledge to make the decision is indeed blissful.

In this life in this world we give and are given all kinds of advice. Sometimes, as the puzzle reminds, the advice we are given can be very conflicting and we are left scratching our heads wondering what we are supposed to do, whom we are supposed to believe. When we are the ones giving the advice, we want to make sure that the person we are advising understands that there may be two sides to the issue at hand.

In the end, we give it our best knowing that because we are not infallible, we may make the wrong decision. Time will only tell. If we chose the correct advice and it worked out well, good. If we chose wrongly, so be it. At least we will have learned from it.

CORN, QUILTS AND THE BUTTER COW

For whatever reason, my ministry has taken Arlena me to many parts of this great country. Most of my colleagues stay in the same diocese throughout their ministries and remain in a parish for many years. My tenures have been as short as five years and as long as a little over seven-and-a-half. We have lived in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Washington State and Iowa.

Living where we did, we were able to see so much of this great land almost right outside our door. What I always found fascinating is that many of our neighbors never saw what we saw. Oh, they knew that the sights we went to see where there and that they would get there someday. Only they never did. Thousands of residents in Parkersburg, WV, have never been to historic Blennerhassett Island where it is reputed that Aaron Burr began plotting on the overthrow of the government.

An equal number in Warren, PA, have never been to Lake Erie or Niagara Falls. Even more in Spokane, WA, have never been to the top of Mt. Spokane which they can see looking out their front doors. One wonders how many people in Cedar Rapids have never been to the iconic Iowa State Fair. Well, we were one of that number until this year when we simply had to get there.

Why? Because my wife had to see The Butter Cow! Since 1911 they have been sculpting a life-size 600 pound cow made out of butter measuring about 5-1/2 feet high and eight feet long. We saw it and it was impressive. We also saw Iowa as Iowa: barns full of hens, cows, sheep, rabbits, horses and pigs; rows and rows of vegetables; corn stalks 20 feet tall; ate a pork chop on a stick and ice cream made from heavy cream from Iowa cows; hundreds of quilts and listened to young entertainers entertaining. It was a blast.

But the highlight, and the only way my mother-in-law would let us into her house, was Iowa corn. We had to bring her a dozen. Iowa corn is the absolute best corn in the world. She even shared one with us, something she did not do years ago when we brought her some on a visit home from Iowa.

The point of all this? Every part of this country is special even if there are times when we may wonder what that specialness is – as Arlena and I did driving through Texas on our way to Austin. But it is there. We just have to look for it. But the reason why any place is special to the people who live there is that it is home, even if they never get more than thirty miles from their front door.

As Dorothy said, “There is no place like home.” We often take that truth for granted when what we need to do is pause and simply be grateful. There may be better places to live, better sights to see, better food to eat. But home is where the heart is. That’s what is important in the end, isn’t it?

TAKING MY OWN ADVICE

We preachers often, okay, sometimes, have a difficult time taking our own advice. In other words, we do not always practice what we preach. Now I am not thinking about our taking the high moral ground in the pulpit and then, in our personal lives, taking the road that leads otherwise. We all do that at times as we are all sinners. Ordination does not exempt one from succumbing to the temptations of the flesh as we preachers are all humbly aware.

What I am referring to is our sometimes inability or lack of resolve or whatever we may want to call it when we do not follow our own good advice that we hand out from the pulpit or newsletter or simply conversation. For instance, I have over my forty-six years of ministry always encouraged those over whom I had pastoral responsibility to make and take the time to get away from it all.

In other words, take a vacation. A real vacation, not one where we take our work with us. Not one where we have to keep constant ties on what is going on back home. That may be getting away but it is not taking a vacation – vacating, as the word means, from what is daily filling our lives. And the reason why I could and still can preach the necessity of getting away from it all on occasion is that Jesus did it as a regular part of his life and ministry. If you don’t believe me, read the Gospels.

My ultimate dream vacation is two weeks on the beach somewhere. That is still on my bucket list although my brother Fran is beginning to put that reality on the front burner as he and his wife just came back from a one-week on-the-beach-with-nothing-to-do-but-relax vacation. And they needed it much more than I ever have, Jesus did, going somewhere to get away from the maddening crowd who were always chipping at his heels no matter how tired he was.

In lieu of the two-week- beach getaway, Arlena spent eleven days and thirty-four hundred miles driving to Austin to visit daughter Autumn and see her new home. The we headed to Des Moines for the Iowa State Fair and then to Nanny’s (Arlena’s Mom) to make sure her refrigerator was full and her meds were in order, and then home. No one in his or her right mind would call that a relaxing vacation. But it was.

My cell phone was mostly off. We listened to no news or read no newspapers. I did have to check what the Pirates did each day, but the Pirates are part of my DNA, so what can I say? And, yes, I know, Arlena and I are very blessed to be able to take such a trip when so many, many people are not. We are very thankful.

Vacation time is over: the kids are back in school. Even so (putting on my preacher’s hat), even if we never get away, never get to a beach, we can still take quiet time on a regular basis to refresh, reflect, and be still. We must. Our health depends on it.

PROGRESSIVE CONVERGENCE

Because of my personal spiritual journey, throughout my active ministry I have been involved in the ecumenical movement. Back in the day – the late Sixties, Seventies and the early part of the Eighties – ecumenism was at least on the back burner of most denominations and, for some, on the front burner if only heated by the pilot light.

One of the leaders in the movement was the late Roman Catholic Cardinal Avery Dulles. He believed that Jesus’ prayer “that we all may be one” would someday become a reality. He knew it would take much time, certainly, for this unity to become realized given that Christianity has been divided for over a thousand years when the Eastern Church broke away from the Western Church. The Reformation only made the break and the division wider and more difficult to mend.

Nevertheless, Dulles believed in, taught and preached what he called a progressive convergence. He believed that if the churches kept working at ecumenism, stressing what we hold in common more than what divides us, if they were sincere in the belief that this is what Jesus wants of us, in God’s good time, progressively we would converge into one church. If only.

It did not happen. It has not happened. And we are probably further away from unity than we were when the ecumenical movement really took off in the late Sixties. We are not converging as much as we are diverging. Added to that, less and less people are attending church let alone joining one. Yes, the so-called mega churches are springing up all around the country. Unfortunately, the central figure in the majority of these churches is the charismatic pastor and not Jesus. This is not sour grapes as it is the simple truth.

I suspect Dulles is not rolling over in his grave so much as he must be grieving because it is the church’s fault that we are more divided than we have ever been. What is worse, in my humble opinion, is that our society, the world over, reflects this continuing division. The church is supposed to be the institution that models what God wants us to be: one in heart and mind and spirit. If we cannot as spiritual leaders get our act together, is it any wonder that our political leaders are so at odds one with another?

None of this sounds in any way optimistic and it is not. Our leaders in Church and State have failed us. But maybe we have failed them as well. We’ve certainly failed God. Real change, and becoming one is one of those real changes, comes not from the top down but from the bottom up. Unless and until those of us who are followers speak up and speak out, our leaders will continue to look out for Number One. And that is not one as in unity but one as in oneself.

Convergence is a possibility and a Gospel demand. Do we believe in the possibility and what will we do to make it a reality?

ESCAPING TO EMMAUS

If the truth were told, there have been, and perhaps still are, times in the life of each one of us when we just want to run away from it all – “all” being job, family, responsibilities. We’ve had it up to here with life as it is and need a break. We want to escape and, perhaps, leave no forwarding address. Dream on.

Yet the further truth is is that there are times when we really do need to get away from it all, escape the present, if only to get a breather, even for a short period of time. For it is only in being able to get away that we can make some sense out of the present because at present the present makes little or no sense. It is overwhelming.

Such was the situation with those two disciples of Jesus after he was crucified. They had staked their lives on his being the Messiah, a political one, of course. But even if his messiahship was of a different kind than they had hoped, it now did not matter. He was dead. Yes, there were reports that some women had been to his tomb and reported back to their colleagues that they saw angels who told them that he had been raised from the dead. But you know how emotional women can be!

What these two men needed at this moment in their lives was to get away from it all. And that is what they did. They decided to escape to Emmaus, a place where there were several hot springs. A few dips in these springs just might help clear their heads and help them decide what was next for their lives. They could not do that in Jerusalem. It was too chaotic. So off they went to Emmaus.

As the story goes, they never made it to Emmaus. They only got a little way down the road until they met up with Jesus whom they did not recognize but who tried to explain to them exactly what happened back there in Jerusalem. My suspicion is that they still did not get it. But they got enough of what he was trying to tell them that a trip to Emmaus now seemed like a waste of time. They needed to get back to Jerusalem. And they did.

Would that you and I, when we find ourselves in a situation where we are overwhelmed with life, Jesus would run into us as he did for those two disciples and help us make some sense out of everything. Yet, even if that would happen, we would still need to get to our own Emmaus, sit for a while in the warm waters and try to get a handle on what we have just heard.

It is so easy for us to allow daily events to control our lives. No, we cannot escape our responsibilities, overwhelming that they sometimes are. But unless we make and take the time to escape to a quiet place to relax, to think, to pray, our life will only become even more burdensome. Jesus always made the time to escape from the crowds because he knew he could not fulfill his ministry if he was exhausted by daily life. Neither can we. We need to find our own Emmaus to which we can escape.

IT NEVER WAS/IS/WILL BE THE SAME

There are events in the lives of each and every one of us when everything changes, when nothing will be the same again. Some of these life-changing events are wonderful: graduation from college, marriage, a move to a new part of the country – the list is endless. On the other hand, some of these life-changing events are not so wonderful. In fact, they can be frightening: a cancer diagnosis, the loss of a job, the breakup of a marriage. Again: an endless list.

What we do with these life-changing events, how we respond, is what is important. And respond we must. We have no other choice. We can rejoice with the good and lament with the bad, but we respond. And we respond by moving on with our lives. Our lives are now changed forever. They will never be the same again.

The euphoria from joyful events eventually dies down. As they say, the honeymoon does not last forever. On the other hand, the sadness that comes from painful changes and the pain itself does not mean that our life is over. We live on, changed to be sure, but we live on. We can wallow in our misery and pain, but we still must move on. Our lives will never be the same again.

But they never were. Life-changing events are rare, few and far-between. Thank God for that or else it would be difficult to even survive.  Psychologists tell us that one life-changing event at a time is difficult enough. It causes us great anxiety to our psyche let alone what it does to our body itself. Two such events can be overwhelming.

Our lives change every day. No two days are alike. They may be very similar but they are never identical. We will never repeat yesterday and we will never repeat today and tomorrow will be different than any day we have lived to date. Sometimes we forget that truth. We are a changed person each day. Granted, we may not be able to perceive the change, but we are changed.

Over the long run the imperceptible daily changes can morph into a significant change in who we are and how we live. Crash diets may work but they do not last. We are not suddenly a different person the day after our marriage as the day before. Life changes take time, often more time than we would wish that they would take. But when give ourselves the time to change, to adapt to the new day, the new life, the new way; when we do that, we grow.

“It will never be the same again,” we may lament. But it never was. We cannot freeze frame the joyful moment and live it forever nor can we excise the bad moment as if it never happened. We simply move on to the next moment and the next and the next dealing with what now is as best we can with the help of God’s grace and the love and support of one another.

JUST DON'T SAY "JUST"

My favorite Preacher, The Rev. Will B. Dunn, is sitting with a parishioner, discussing the foibles of life. The young man says to Will, "They make it sound so easy. ’Just say "No",' 'Just Do It!'" Will responds, "Never trust a culture whose commandments start with the word 'just.'"

Arlena had a professor in graduate school who forbade his students to use the word "just." Try writing a paper sometime, especially a paper in philosophy, as was her situation, without using the word "just." It just isn't easy! Try praying sometime -- or at least listen to the TV preachers who do our praying for us: "I just want to thank you, Lord. I just want to give you all the praise and glory. I just...." and on and on, every phrase modified by that word. We build up our lists of "just" phrases until we have a whole litany of things we just want to do.

Well, if we just want to do it, just want to say it, then let's just do it and say it and get on with it. But it is more than that, is it not?  Life is never as simple nor as easy as we make it.  Any commandment that begins with the word "just" is like any commandment that does not. Commandments are easy to make and not easy to follow. "Don't kill" is as easy to assert as "Just don't kill" – and just as difficult to keep.

Yes, we would all like life to be easy, simplified. We would like to be told that the solution to our problems can be found in one simple phrase, action, responsibility. But even if we could make it all that simple, it would not be. It never was meant to be. God never intended it to be, not in this life, anyway. Life is a struggle, a struggle to do that which we know we should do and not do that which we know we should not. But to do this or not do that is not just a matter of "just doing it" or "just not doing it." There are so many variables and so many temptations. It takes work.

If we want an example of how we are to live out our daily lives, maybe we need to remember how Jesus began his ministry. He went off to the desert to prepare himself. He fasted and he prayed. He disciplined himself. And then when he was at his most vulnerable – hungry, tired and weak – he was tempted to sell out. All he had to do was "Just say 'no.”  And he did.

But it did not come easy and it was not easy, not even for him. And throughout his ministry he was always seeking time away to prepare himself for the next time he was placed in a situation that demanded an immediate "yes" or "no" or some other response. And he was ready, prepared, because he knew ahead of time that one never just does anything.

If you and I are to even become partially successful at living out the demands of our faith, we have to work at it. Those demands may be simplified into "Just do" or "Just don't do" phrases. But they are so much more. We may never take the "just" out of our life. But what we need to add is the spiritual and physical discipline that proceeds it so that we can (just) do it.

THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL

When I was growing up and going to Sunday School, my classmates and I were warned about the world, the flesh and the devil. Young as we were, we wondered what was so bad about the world – remember, this was long before instant news of any shape or form. Besides, we didn’t listen to the news any way, Cold War or not. Further, we had no idea why we needed to be warned about the flesh because we knew even less about the flesh than we did about the world.

But we knew about the devil. Oh, did we know about the devil. In fact we knew so much about know bad the devil could be that we capitalized the name: Devil. Not that any one of us had ever experienced the devil that is. Thus, when The Exorcist came out in the early 1970’s and I was ordained, I had several parishioners, young adults, scared out of their wits about the devil/Devil.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Even when I was studying moral theology in seminary, we were warned again about the world, the flesh and the devil not only trying to control our lives but the lives of the people we were going to serve upon ordination. By then I had a better understanding about these evil tempters in my life even if I were no longer afraid of them.

What I came to understand and realize was that the world was neither bad nor good. It was and is what it what it was then and is now: where we live and move and have our being, as one of the prayers of the Church puts it. Yes, there is evil out there in the world tempting us to succumb to it. We could avoid that evil by not going out into the world. One way to do that would be to join a monastery and hole up for the rest of our life.

That was and is not me and that is not most of us. In fact the greatest danger to my moral undoing is not the world nor the devil. It is I myself. I am my own worst enemy: me, in my own flesh and bones. The world, as bad and as tempting as it is, does not make me do what I know I should not do. I do it. And trying to blame my failings on the world, or worse, on the devil is both a cop out and wrong.

That does not mean that we should not be wary of the enticements of the world. That would be foolish, and in the end, our downfall – as I have discovered, as I suspect every one of us has discovered. We are not as strong as we think we are; and when we deliberately place ourselves in places where we could succumb to foolish, harmful and sinful actions, sooner or later we will give in. No one of us is that strong. No one.

Actually, both the world and the flesh (us) are innately good. They are God’s creation. It is what we individually and collectively do that makes what is good into something that becomes not so good, into something sinful and bad. And it is our fault and never the world’s or the devil’s. That is sometimes a difficult lesson both to learn and to accept.

YOLO

Even though I have a smart phone, I am not all that smart when it comes to using it. I can easily take pictures but can never seem to remember how to email them. I can use the keypad to text messages, but my thumbs always seem to press two letters at the same time and almost always the wrong one. I know there are a few shortcuts to use when typing such as “u” for “you” and “r” for “are”, but that’s my limit. That’s it.

Thus, when Arlena and I attended grandson Zach’s high school graduation and listened to the class president speak about YOLO, I had no idea what she was talking about until she explained. I seemed to be the odd man out. Everyone else, including my wife, knew YOLO stood for “you only live once”. After getting over my personal embarrassment for being out of the loop, I listened to a wonderful address. Here’s hoping Zach and his classmates take to heart what she had to say and make sure they live this life, the only life they are given, to the best of their ability. There is no do-over to life.

To be sure we can all look backs on our lives and regret the mistakes we have made and wish we had done otherwise. But they are water over the dam. We can and should also recognize the more-often-than-not good choices we have made. Sadly, of course, a bad decision years ago can have a profound affect on the rest of our lives. A foolish act can leave us permanently disabled. That does not mean our life is over. It simply means that our life is altered and we have to adapt to a life that is different than what it might have been had we acted differently.

Such is life. Lamenting our mistakes might be cathartic and probably is, but we must move on: YOLO, as they say. “What now?” we ask. “Where do we go from here?” Those are questions that have no time limit, no age limit. It would be wonderful if we so learned from our juvenile or early-adult mistakes that we would never, ever do something foolish again. But, again, such is life. We don’t always, if ever, do so. We just tend to make less of them. For that we can be thankful.

The truth is that even our mistakes, our foolish actions, our sins, can be beneficial. We learn from them. We move on. And when we look back on our lives, even as we regret those mistakes, those foolish and harmful acts, those sins, they have brought us to where we are today. And if we like where we are today, then we can even be somewhat thankful for them. Without them we would be in a different place.

That does not mean, of course, that we deliberately do what is foolish and/or sinful. That is utterly foolish. It does means that we become more and more aware of who we are, the gifts and talents we possess and the ones we do not. It means for me as frustrated as I sometimes get when it comes to using technology that is above my grade level, that I not get angry at my limitations but recognize that they are the result of my age and my generation and smile. I don’t want a do-over. Once is enough and sufficient, thank you.

REFLECTION ON RETIREMENT

It’s been a little over a month since I retired for the third time, not officially, however. The Bishop still has to send a letter thanking me (I presume) for being Priest-in-Charge of St. Paul’s and appointing Father Bert as my successor. Unofficially, Bert has been in charge and I have simply supplied on one or two occasions and offered any advice for which he may have asked.

What I officially did was cease writing reflections and blogs. That was my own choice. I simply wanted to see what retirement is supposed to be like. Then, again, the wife of one of my colleagues who received my reflections wrote to me thanking me and then added, “Enjoy your free time.” Note: she did not say, “Enjoy your retirement.” She knew better. Her husband retired three times and, since she wrote those words, he has taken another part-time position.

Retirement, I am coming to learn, means simply using your time in another way and not just sitting back and doing nothing or even doing less. Arlena and I are both retired but our days are filled so much so that we wonder how we could have worked – meaning gotten paid – and still found time to do what we are now doing. The big difference is that there is no pressure on us to do what we are doing or not do what we do not feel like doing at that moment in time.

Retirement allows me, allows anyone who is retired, to take the time to look back on our lives and ask some simple questions. Mitch Albom in his wonderful little book The Time Keeper has Father Time asking, “You marked the minutes….But did you use them wisely? To be still? To Cherish? To be grateful? To lift and to be lifted?”

Serious questions, are they not? But they are questions we need ask ourselves no matter where we are in life and not just in retirement. Each of us has only so much time to live on this earth and none of us knows how much time that is. Thus, the questions Father Time asks are not just end-of-life questions but during-life questions as well. Actually, they are more important while we still have life than when we are on our deathbeds.

Am I using my time right here and now wisely? Am I making the best use of it, not simply meaning that I have to fill every minute with activity? Am I taking time to be still, to be still and, as the Psalmist asks, “to know God”? Taking time to just be still, to relax?

To cherish what I so often take for granted: health, life, family, friends? Am I taking time to cherish the life that has been given be, to be grateful for the blessing that I have been given but in no way really deserve?  To lift others who are overwhelmed by life just as I have been, at times, overwhelmed and been lifted by those who love me?

For me one of the true blessings of retirement is that I have been given the gift to actually retire even if it might simply mean “free time” before the next time God, through the Bishop or someone else, calls on me to use the gifts with which I have been blessed and which and where God deems them to be needed. In the meantime, it’s time to reflect on how wisely, or not, I am using my time. And you?

ILLUSORY RELIGION AND REAL RELIGION

Most of us would probably concede that we are at least a little religious. We would not go so far as to say that we are deeply religious because we fear that in saying so we might have to prove the truth to our statement – and we know what that means! But being a little religious, having faith, however deep or weak, that we can manage. Even those who claim to be “spiritual but not religious”, would, I think, admit, if pressed, that they are at least a little religious

But what does it mean to be religious? What does it mean, at least as a minimum requirement, to have faith in God? The answer probably depends upon who is being asked the question. Does faith in God mean that we have no fear? Does it mean that God will take care of everything, answer all our prayers? Does it mean that God will do God's part only if we do our part?

John MacMurray writes: "The maxim of illusory religion runs: 'Fear not; trust in God and he will see that none of the things you fear will happen to you'; that of real religion, on the contrary, is 'Fear not; the things that you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of."

On the surface MacMurray's definition of illusory religion looks and sounds good. All we have to do is have enough faith in God and God will take care of us, protect us from all harm. And if harm and hurt do come our way, the reason for that must be that we do not have enough faith, that there is something missing on our part, that we aren't religious enough. It’s our fault and not God’s.

On the other hand, he says, real religion means that even if we do have enough faith in God, faith that God will protect us from all harm, nevertheless harm and bad can still happen to us. And probably will. God will protect us but God will not keep us in a cocoon. Life goes on no matter how strong or how weak our faith. And in this life bad things happen to everyone no matter how religious we are.

What real religion does is remind us that life is, if you will, a two-way street. God gives us all the gifts and talents and abilities to live our lives as best we can. And God promises that he will be there with us through thick and thin, in good times and in bad – as he was for his Son. If anyone deserved to be protected from his worst fears – death on the cross –Jesus certainly did. Even so, Jesus's worst nightmare came through, the pain was excruciating, but God was there with him all through it. And in the end there was resurrection.

That, I think – resurrection – is what MacMurray is getting at. Illusory region doesn't need resurrection because there is never any death, never any pain. Real religion knows that we just do not get through this life without pain and suffering, no matter how great our faith. It also knows that God is true and God will make life-after-suffering better than before, somehow in some way. Bad things will happen to us, but we need not be afraid of them, not if we let God be God.