SHIPS AND BOATS

Many years ago Tony Brown, host of a PBS public affairs show, responding in George to the question "If I Were President" (scary thought, isn't it?) about what his victory song would be, said this: "I would write a song called 'We Didn't All Come over on the Same Ship, But We're All in the Same Boat.'"

It is a rather good thought. My grandparents came over to this country on a ship. They landed at Ellis Island and then made their way to Eastern (my dad’s side) and Western (my Mom’s side) Pennsylvania. When they landed, they joined thousands of other immigrants, all of whom had come on ships, all seeking to make a new life in a new country. Those ships came from all over Europe.. What they all discovered, those who came before, with and after my grandparents, was that, as Brown would have it, they we're now all in the same boat.

They were and we are. My grandparents never became rich, if that was their goal, even their thoughts, when they boarded those ships. But they lived a good life, even though that life was filled with one struggle for survival after another. After all, they lived through the Great Depression. But they made it because they worked together. The Depression, the struggle to make it from one day to the next, was everyone's problem. They were all in the same boat. What they quickly learned is that even though life back in the “old country” was difficult, which is why they left in the first place, life in their new home would not be much, if any, easier.

One of the problems that I think we have in this country today is that we have not had to struggle together. The Wars – WWI and WWII – and the Depression were national struggles. We have not had such a national struggle since, nothing that brings us together, forces us to realize we need one another juts to survive. The result has been that we now struggle individually and somehow believe that that is the way it is supposed to be.

Now I am not advocating a collapse of the stock market and a worldwide depression to bring us closer together, nor would I advocate an us-vs-them war to do the same. There is enough misery and suffering in this world, even in our own country already. We already have whatever it is we need to bring us closer together, to realize that we are all in the same boat. We don’t need a depression or national catastrophe.

We've known it all along. That was and is Jesus's basic message. We are all brothers and sisters one to another, no matter where we were born, where we live, the color of our skin, our gender, even our beliefs or disbeliefs or unbeliefs. We are all children of one God and Father who is in all and over all and loves all and works through all. All, not some, not a select few, not just the rich, not just the poor: all.

The "ships" that brought us to the place we are now, in many ways, matter not. What matters is that we are all in the same boat. We sail or sink together – whether as a world, as a country, as a state, as a city, as a church, as a family. There is room on the boat for diversity, but not for division.

THE ANSWER

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a sign on an Assembly of God bulletin board. It was the title to the upcoming Sunday's Sermon. It read: "The Answer to Man's Problem." Given my honestly prejudicial view of AoG churches, I immediately assumed that "man" was the specifically chosen word. It was not generic, certainly not politically correct. The preacher meant man, of the male gender; otherwise he would have said "humanity's" problem.

Well, being a male, I already knew what our problem is: women. So I really would have liked to have been able to stop in that Sunday to hear what the man said, but I had to be occupied somewhere else.  I mean, if someone in one short, or even long, sermon can tell me how to solve the riddle of women, I would be eternally grateful.

Now to extricate myself from the mess I am in: the preacher probably meant "humanity," and simply was not into PC language. Besides, no one has ever solved the riddle. It started with Adam and has been going on ever since.

Humanity's, mankind's, men's, women's problem – the one I think the preacher was probably intending to address – also began at the beginning, with Adam and Eve, or whoever those first people were. The problem is the reason why I might have assumed that the preacher was speaking to only men. That is the problem of our self-centeredness. We're selfish. We came out of the womb selfish. Our first thoughts were of getting something to eat.

And it has not changed all that much since then. Our first thoughts, whether recognized or not, admitted or not, cognizant or not, are centered on Number One – and maybe even our second and third thoughts as well. Then, we begin to think of the other person. But our first thoughts center around how whatever we are thinking about is going to affect us.

We see someone in need, our child is crying, a job has to be done: how will this affect me, my time, my life, etc.? That is our first thought. The person in need, the job to be done: that is secondary to me. And it will always be because it is the self - I - who will have to respond. Humanity's problem is humanity itself. WE are our own worst enemy.

And what is the answer to our selfishness, our self-centeredness, our innate inclination to always put ourselves first? There is none. That inclination will never go away. Even Jesus was not immune. When in the Garden, getting ready for his crucifixion and death, his first thoughts were on himself: letting "the cup" pass him by. But his second thought was God the Father's will for him. Then he did what he had to do.

And so it is with us. Our first thoughts will always center on ourselves. But the more we become like Our Lord, the more our second – second, not third or fourth – thoughts will be on the other person, on what God would have us do in this situation, and, hopefully, on what we would truly have us do. That will never be easy. Jesus sweat blood. So might we. But with God's grace we can do it.

CONSUMERS AND CONTRIBUTORS

Someone once said that there are two kinds of people. There are the consumers and there are the contributors. In reality, of course, there are certainly more than two kinds of people: there are all kinds and all conditions. It is always easy to boil down differences into either-or, black-white, this-that. It makes distinctions that much easier to deal with.

As far as being either a consumer or a contributor, I would think it fair to say that there are relatively few people who are either one or the other. It is no doubt impossible to be either one or the other. But it is easy to be more one than the other. Babies are consumers and parents are contributors in the parent-child relationship. Students are consumers and teachers are contributors in that relationship.

But in many areas of our life the distinction is not so neat and clean. It is blurred, often overlapping. It is when it is not blurred, when it is quite clear who is the consumer and not the contributor – or vice versa – that problems arise. When it comes to one person carrying more of the load, or perhaps all of the load, then real divisions occur in a relationship – not "can" occur, but "do" occur. It is inevitable.

The greatest conflicts between my siblings and me, the greatest conflicts took place when one believed the other was not pulling his/her fair share. I know I used to run to my mother because I thought my brother was not doing his share of the house cleaning on Saturday morning. I was doing his. The fights, and the yelling, became nasty.    

It is the same in any relationship, in any community of people: family, work, school, church. Conflict occur because one believes another is taking advantage of the situation. But since we are all consumers of the end product in one way or the other, it is only right that we also be contributors in order to make that end product as good as it can be. In any relationship there is usually more than enough work to go around.

Given our human selfishness, if you are like me, we all like to be more on the consumer end, on the being-served end rather than being the one doing the serving. But if you are also like me, what we have all discovered, given an either-or choice, it is better to be the contributor than the consumer. There is more joy and pleasure, more reward, personal and otherwise, in serving than in being served.

Objectively it would not seem that way. It would seem that the real joy comes from consuming, from receiving, from using rather than from providing, giving and serving. As a consumer we come to want more, want better, want, want, want. As a provider, as a contributor of our time or talent or treasure, we also come to want – want to do more, to do better simply because of the joy we have found in giving.

That is not to say it is easier to be a contributor than a consumer. It is to say that given and either-or choice, as Christians our choice will fall on the side of the servant, the giver, the provider. The first time we have to make that choice, we might resist with all our might. What we discover, however, is that the decision becomes easier each time.

PRESUMPTION

There’s a wonderful passage in Marilynne Robinson’s delightful, thought-provoking, often deeply-theology novel Lila that resonates with me and makes me do some serious self-reflection when I read and re-read it. The Rev. John Ames, an elderly but very wise and humble country parson is speaking with Lila about hell. She’s not sure what she believes about it, even if it exists; and if it does, is she or the ones she loves destined for it. She tends to dwell on the subject a bit too much.

He says to her: “Theologically hell doesn’t help me live the way I should. I believe this is true for most people. And thinking that other people might go to hell just feels evil to me, like a very grave sin. So I don’t want to encourage anyone else to think that way. Even if you don’t assume that you can know in individual cases, it’s still a problem to think about people in general as if they might go to hell. You can’t see the world the way you ought to if you let yourself do that. Any judgment of the kind is a great presumption. And presumption is a very great sin. I believe this is sound theology in its way.”

It is also very wise. It is so easy to allow ourselves to get caught up in the trap of knowing the

mind of God, certainly determining who’s in and who’s out as far as hell is concerned. Surely, we presume, the terrorists who killed all those innocent people in Paris are burning in hell, are they not? Surely, we presume they presume that it was their religious duty to kill those who in any way made satirical fun of their Prophet and anyone who stood in their way. Those people should burn in hell and now are, they presume. They did Allah’s work for Allah.

As John Ames says, presumption is indeed a very great sin because it assumes that we know the mind of God. And when we act as if we do know God’s mind and God’s will, we can and, as the incident in Paris blatantly exemplifies, do commit horrific crimes against our fellow human beings. And even if we do nothing in response to the actions of others other than presuming their guilt, we have already separated ourselves from the other. Once we have pushed the other away, if only mentally, the damage has been done.

To presume is to judge and we know what Jesus says about judging others. That does not mean that we do not condemn both those who perpetrated that atrocity in Paris and what they did. There is no justification for those actions. God/Allah for whom they believed they were acting weeps. God’s children killing God’s children is not God’s idea nor is it something God ever condones and supports. Never has, never will be.

Yes, we can read Scripture and read where God orders God’s people/children to kill and maim other people who are also God’s people/children. I don’t believe God ever made such an order. The people did it and then justified their actions by saying and presuming that they were only following God’s orders, much like the murderers in Paris. We human beings has acted far too long presuming we know the mind of God and then justifying our actions by presuming we know what God would have us do. I presume John Ames would ask: “Where has it gotten us?”

THE LOST SHEEP IN COSTCO

Years ago while serving in Spokane, I was walking through Costco doing some shopping. I was dressed in my clericals. Placing myself in the proximate occasion of sin, as the moral theologians call it, I walked down the aisle with all the candy and making my way to the gourmet jellybeans. Coming up the aisle were a mother and daughter eying the same jellybeans. They arrived first, picked up a jar and looked at them. They saw me approach. "Those are really good," I said, and walked on down the aisle. I resisted temptation!

I turned left and came up the next aisle and met mother and daughter coming down the aisle. They stopped, looked at me all dressed up and asked, "Do you work here?" I smiled, said, "No," and walked on. The demographers say that less than 30% of the people in the Northwest are "churched." I must have met two of that 70+% who are not. As I moved on, I thought to myself that they must have thought that I was a modeling a new outfit, a new kind of turtleneck shirt that Costco had on display.

     
In all honesty, though, I was taken aback. That was the first time in my life that I had ever met anyone who didn't recognize a clerical collar and also realize who was wearing it. That doesn't mean, of course, that anyone who wears a collar is a cleric. My brother-in-law, Dennis, has one of my old clerical shirts he has worn to Halloween parties. No one there mistakes him for a priest. When he wore it to accompany a friend of his son's to take his driver's test who had failed it three times, the State policeman invited "Father" to go along for the test drive. The kid failed it miserably. But the policeman passed him because the "Good Father" was along for the ride. When I wore mine to take one of my daughters for her test, she still failed. I wonder what that says?
        
Both of these incidents occurred here in the East. Is the West that different, a place where there are those who have never seen a clerical collar? Of course not! But it was also an eye-opener to me. It was a reminder that I do not have to look very far to find someone who has never heard about Jesus Christ. I can look down the aisles of any Costco anywhere even here in church-going Western Pennsylvania and will find such a person.           
 
When Jesus left, he left the church in our hands. He said to go out and make disciples of all nations, of everybody, wherever we find them. That would include the aisles of Costco. But it is not enough to simply find ‘the lost sheep.’ Anyone can do that, there are so many of them around. That’s the easy part. What is important is what we do after we have found that person, and that is, don’t do as I did: smile and walk away.
          
Perhaps Costco was not a good place to evangelize. But I could have at least told them who I was and not simply said that I was not an employee of the place. That would have been a very good first step. Years before I was in a Wal-Mart dressed in jeans and shirt and ran into a lady. She introduced herself and asked me if I belonged to a church. When I told her I did but was from out of town, she invited me to her church the next time I was in town. If I had learned from her back then, perhaps I would have acted differently in that Costco. Unfortunately I did not. I certainly hope that I have learned by now.

REACTING AND RESPONDING

In an interview prior to the Steelers playoff game with the Ravens Steelers coach Mike Tomlin reflected on tough times during the football season. Left unsaid was that every team goes through them. No team goes unscathed. It is how teams deal with adversity that makes the difference between winning and losing. “Just recognizing that adversity is a part of football and sometimes the adversity is created by us…doesn’t matter. It’s part of football and you’ve got to respond to it, not react to it.”

He went on: “Reactionary is kind of without thought…Responding is with thought. I always talk about responding because I believe in it.”

Most of us do, I suspect, or at least we should. If we want to make the proper response to any situation that demands one, we want to make the correct one. To do that requires thought, sometimes a whole lot of thought. Some situations, of course, require more thought than others and thus it behooves us to give each situation the proper amount of time to think about what to do next.

Yet there are times in our lives – and even on a football field – when we do not have time to think about what a proper and thoughtful response should be. We have to act, react, and do so quickly. We have no other choice. We have to do something and we have to do it now. There is no time to think: just do.

Part of football and part of life is learning how to react and react quickly. That requires practice both in football and in life. During the practice times that lead up to the game, the coaches go over situations that may arise. They think about what the opponent can do and might do and they devise plays that will respond. And then they practice those plays, those responses, so that when the time comes during the game that those situations arise, the players can react correctly.

Sometimes, of course, those best laid plans simply do not work even if everyone acts as each was taught. They don’t because the other team has spent time thinking about how the opponent will react to their plays and then they devise something that will defeat the other team’s plans. Football is not just about physical skills or even one team being better than the other. It is about being prepared to make the correct response.

Again, the same is true in all of life, not just in the games we play. We, too, as human beings, especially as Christians, want to respond to every situation as our faith would have us. But we don’t always have the time to think about what to do. We have to react and hope and pray that our action is correct. Sometimes it isn’t. When it isn’t, as in a football game, we need to regroup, think about what we did wrong, learn from it, and trust we will respond better the next time.

Too many situations in life demand an immediate reaction. As in football so in life, learning from our mistakes, even unintended ones, make for the best teacher/responder/reactor.

ALL DIFFERENT, ALL THE SAME

Our daughters are scattered, much to our chagrin. But that is life in this world today. We find our home where we find work. For the past few years we have tried to gather our daughters and their families at our home the second weekend in December to celebrate a family Christmas. We have yet to succeed in gathering all five at one time, again, such is life and work in this world today. We are grateful for what we can do.

What we were also grateful this Christmas that all our daughters were able to be in their church for Christmas. When we spoke with them about their experiences, they were all different and yet they were all the same. Two daughters worshipped in a little, white-clapboard building in a small college town where the “family-type” church gathers each Sunday.

Another daughter worshipped with a growing congregation in a modern church building: the rear of the church consisted of plate glass windows that looked out on the nearby lake. The congregation followed the service by looking up at two wide-screens attached to the wall upon which the Book of Common Prayer was projected as well as the hymns to be sung. The music was led by a synthesizer, guitars and other instruments.

Another daughter worshiped at the early, well-attended Christmas Eve Service at her multi-lingual, multi-racial parish. The congregation’s annual Christmas Pageant began the evening, the highlight of which was Joseph dropping Baby Jesus while he was trying to hand the infant to Mary. No harm done, fortunately, as grandson Carter was not baby Jesus who, thankfully, was just a doll baby. The next day Daughter #1 (as she always signs herself) and her sons worshipped at that same church along with seven other people including the priest.

On Christmas Eve I celebrated the Eucharist in the cathedral-like church in the blue-collar community I serve as Priest-in-Charge. We had triple our normal Sunday numbers which made the large building look at least rather full. Joining us was a hired brass ensemble and several volunteer choir members from the local Lutheran church to help make the service very festive.

Five services: all different and all the same. Every Christmas service is different. No two are alike. And yet each service is the same. That is true not only on Christmas but every Sunday.

It is also true about us human beings. My wife has been delving into our ancestry. What she has learned is, of course, that we are all different. No two human beings are exactly alike. And yet, we are all the same. Geneticists tell us that we are 99% alike as human beings. The differences, while important and what distinguish one from another, are, in the end, minimal. Unfortunately and sadly, over the course of history we human beings have spent an inordinate amount of time emphasizing our differences and wreaking all sorts of mayhem and havoc in the process.

My hope and prayer for 2015 is that we, the world over, recognize that while we are all different, in the end, we are all the same. That is the only way to bring peace to this world.