ANGELS EVERYWHERE

A story (not mine, but I wish): When an ice cream sundae cost much less, a boy entered a coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. "How much is an ice cream sundae?" he asked. "Fifty cents," replied the waitress.

The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied a number of coins in it. "How much is a dish of plain ice cream?" Some people were now waiting for a table, and the waitress was impatient. "Thirty-five cents," she said angrily. The little boy again counted his coins. "I'll have the plain ice cream." The waitress brought the ice cream and walked away. The boy finished, paid the cashier, and departed. When the waitress came back, she swallowed hard at what she saw. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies – her ti

A powerful story, that's why I wish I could claim it. But it is also a powerful reminder to me that it is so easy to judge another person, to make judgments about another person, simply because of first impressions; or even worse, because we are having a bad day.

Even worse than that is to have already pre-judged a person sight unseen. We do that, too, like the waitress. She worked for tips. Little boys don't tip well. And boys-being-boys, well, they are often more trouble than they are worth, especially if a big tipper is waiting for their booth.

The wonderful part of it all, even the humor of it all, especially because the joke is on us, the ones who pre-judge, is that the victim of our prejudice is not the victim. We are. And it is only when we realize this that we learn any lesson.

The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us that we often entertain angels unaware. We also often abuse them unaware. And when the table is turned, we are the ones who really feel the pain. The little boy was probably unaware of the waitress's impatience with him, upset because he was taking her time and thus losing her money.

But angels are like that. They somehow see through us, put up with us, so that we can see through our own impatience – or whatever it is that for the moment blinds us to the real person in front of us – and see.

Prejudice makes us blind. The only way we can regain our sight is to be healed, to have someone open our eyes. If the story is true, as I suspect it is, it was probably told by the waitress on herself. She was not proud of the way she treated the little boy, but she was thankful that he taught her an important lesson. She could not undo the past. But she could go into the future having learned a lesson taught by an angel who looked like anything but.

But, again, angels never do look like anything we would expect. That is why we encounter them unaware and why the lessons they teach are so profound, so moving and usually so life-changing.

IT USUALLY DOESN’T TAKE MUCH

 Author Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed into his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing. I just helped him cry."

That was probably all the old gentleman needed at that moment. No words of wisdom or consolation, no promises of "if you need me, just give a call," nothing deep or profound was needed right then:  just someone to cry with him, to feel with him, to be with him.

So often, I think, we think that it takes a lot to be a Christian, that the demands to love one another are overwhelming if not downright burdensome. And, to tell the truth, sometimes they are. But not always and not most of the time. Most of the time all that is asked of us, all that the other needs from us, wants from us, is just to be there. Just be there and keep our mouths closed, our hands idle and our hearts open.

There is an old church-camp song that comes to mind that begins "it only takes a spark to get a fire going," and goes on to remind, "that's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it." It only takes a spark. It only takes very little. That's how it is with God's love. That's how it is with love, always.

Our lives probably wouldn't be as complicated as we make them, our faith wouldn't be as difficult to live as we think it is, if we would only remember that it usually does not take much to be a person of faith. It doesn't take much to live out our faith.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the problems we tend to have with our faith are not theological, like trying to understand God. They are intellectual in that we make it difficult to understand what faith in God demands of us as a response. We'll never understand God. That is a given. But we can certainly understand what God asks of us -- and the response to that asking does not depend upon our understanding the mind of the One who asks.

But we often act that way, like children. Like children we want to ask why God wants us to respond, want to know the reason for doing what God asks us to do. As parents we get exasperated when our children ask why. We want them to do what we ask them to do simply because we asked and want them to trust that we would never ask them to do anything that was wrong. But they ask us anyway. And we ask God.

Yet, just as we would not ask our children to do anything they could not do, so it is with God. And, again, that which we ask of our children, so with what God asks of us: it usually doesn't take much. There is no need for deep theological or intellectual questioning. Like the little boy in the story, it is usually no more than sitting with the other and helping him to cry.

IS IT I?

"One of you," Jesus said, "one of you will betray me. One of you, my best and closest friends, will betray me before this night is over." And with that statement the internal and external questioning began. To a man it was one and the same: "Is it I, Lord? Am I the one who is going to betray you?"

The Gospel writers don't tell if or how many of the Twelve quietly pulled Jesus away from the rest, whispered in his ear, and asked, "Is it I?" The writers wrote after the fact. They knew by then whom Jesus was talking about: Judas. It wasn't necessary for them to have each man ask the question, only the one who already knew the answer.

But aside from Judas, each one of them must have wondered if he was to be the one. Jesus, after all, knew them almost better than they knew themselves, maybe even better. Maybe he knew about some flaw in character that would lead a faithful follower to betray the leader he loved. Maybe. So, I think, each asked the question.

The reality, of course, is that the question was not a one-time question because the statement was not a one-time statement. Jesus could walk into any gathering of his followers to day -- any church, any clergy gathering, any Sunday School Class, any Bible study, any prayer group, and make the same statement: "Before this day is over, one of you is going to betray me." Like Peter and Andrew, like Judas and John, like all the Twelve, each one in each group would begin to ask, "Is it I, Lord? Am I the one you're talking about."

The answer would be one and the same to each and every one in each and every group or gathering: "Yes, you are the one. You all are." And we, like Peter who said he would never deny Jesus, would begin to protest that we would never, ever do such a thing.

But we do, and every day. Every day of our lives we betray Jesus. For every time we deliberately do that which we know we should not do, we betray Jesus. Every time we deliberately fail to do that which we know we should do, we betray Jesus. Every sin of omission and every sin of commission is a betrayal of Jesus by the one who professes his or her faith in Jesus.

Perhaps our only consolation is that our betrayal does not lead to Jesus's death on the cross. But that is not much of a consolation when we begin to realize that our sins of commission and omission hurt other people. Perhaps the pain and suffering we inflict on others is not as great as that which was inflicted on Jesus, but it still hurts. We still cause pain and sorrow to others because of our sins. There is no escape from that reality.

Not a pleasant thought but one we must think about on occasion if only to remind ourselves that every day we are faced with the choice of either living out our faith in Jesus, as difficult as that may be at times, or turning away and betraying Jesus, as easy as that might be at times. "Is it I, Lord?" we ask. "Yes, it is," Jesus replies. But with the grace of God and the support of one another, it does not have to be me/us.

CRIES FROM THE HEART

A friend of mine is a jazz enthusiast. A while back we were talking about the good old days. He told me that he and two buddies who also loved jazz, especially the blues would, on regular occasions, go to the local club and hear the best of the best -- both from the local bands and from those on tour.

He said that they had a certain criterion for judging who could really play the blues. It was how they played "Help Me Make It through the Night." It is a cry, from the heart, that goes right to and into the music. At least it should. He was saying that if you haven't experienced it, you really can't play it. You can make the sound, but it won't be coming from the depths of your soul, your heart. It may be music, but it won't be the blues.

There have been times in all our lives when our prayer, our plea, our cry, was simply, "God, help me make it through the night." The cry may have been the result of the death of a loved one, a sudden and tragic accident, an unexpected failure, a hurt inflicted by someone we loved most. The list is endless, but that pain escapes no one. The cry from the heart comes to and from all of us. It was Jesus' cry to God the Father in the Garden the night before He was crucified: "help me make it through the night."

And when everything in us cries "No more. I can't take any more. I can't take it any more," there is more: more nights, more pain, more tears. It takes courage, an act of the heart, not only to cry out to God for help, but to even want help, such is the severity of the pain. The pain eventually passes as the night turns into day, even though that "day" may be weeks or months, even years. The pain goes away even though the scars remain. Such is the way of life in this life.

But we never go it alone. No, we never have to go it alone. Sometimes we do. Our cries, however, never go unheard. God does hear, always hears. And God, always, somehow in some way, gives us the grace to go on even amidst the pain and darkness. Nor do we go it alone in our pain. No, we never have to go it alone. That is what our church family is for and what it is all about. We are to be there for one another, not just in the good times when all is well. More importantly, we are to be there for the other when it seems to the other that all seems lost and too painful to bear.

I write this not as some sort of personal, present self-confession. I write this not as a downer, if you will, nor as a reality check. It is written simply as a reminder that no pain of ours goes unfelt and no cry of ours goes unheard by God.

It is also a reminder that, as Christians, we are to reach out to others in pain and to listen to others as my friend and his buddies listened to those men back then playing the blues. Because if we listen well, we'll not only hear the pain, we will feel it. And we will be able to hear that pain, feel that pain, because we've all been there at one time or another in our own lives, several times, probably. We've all cried out from the heart. We've all made it through the night by the grace of God and through the love and support of friends who also have played and sung the blues.        

 

SEEING WITH NEW EYES

I've lost the source, I apologize, but a wise person once remarked that "the real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes." So true.

I like new things: new cars, new homes, new watches, new pens, new computers. I'll stick with the what I have, however, when it comes to my wife. New does not always mean better. The older we get the more we are likely to say, "They don't make them like they used to," meaning they were better back then. But, then, they sometimes make them better than they used to as well. It all depends. But so often in searching for the new (and better) all we have to do is open our eyes and look at the old. So often I read the same passage of Scripture over and over again. I've read it so much I can recite it from memory. I think I understand it completely. Then suddenly I read it with new eyes and come away with a new and better understanding of that old passage.

As a church community we like things the way they are. And yet we know deep in our hearts that never changing will cause stagnation and eventually death. So the temptation is to keep changing, be ever new, look for the latest trends in church growth, the latest gimmicks to attract new people and/or new money: find "new lands." But before we do that, maybe what we need to do is look at who we already are, what we already have; but look at it from a different perspective, look at ourselves with new eyes. When we do that, we just might discover that there is already among us what we need to grow, to be, to become the church and the community we are called to be.

That is not to say that change is not necessary. But, again, change often comes from looking at the same thing from a different point of view. We don't move what we want to change. We move ourselves so that we can see with new and/or different eyes, from a differing point of view. We can do the same when it comes to ourselves. We think we know who we are. We think we know our gifts and our limitations, our abilities and our shortcomings. And we probably do, for the most part. But perhaps we have been looking in the same mirror for so long that we've simply grown accustomed to the face. Maybe we need to look into the mirror from a different angle.

The same is true whenever a congregation stops to take an inventory about where it is. During this time of looking back on the past and reflecting and planning on the year to come, the temptation is to let well enough alone, especially if we think everything is well enough. Just don't mess with a good thing. But to not look with new eyes means that we may very well fail to discover what we need to see to help us grow. Again, that is true for us as a parish as well as for us as individuals.

We tend to take so much for granted, you and I. We believe that change is either not possible or too frightening. We want to grow, to be better, but we are reluctant, often, to do what needs to be done. And what needs to be done is usually not some major change but simply a change in position so that we can see ourselves and our parish with new eyes. When we do that, when we allow ourselves to dare to look again at the familiar, the safe, with new eyes, we just may be surprised at what we discover.

THREE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ONE OR TWO

There are three great feasts in the life of the church. Each depends on the other two to be relevant in our lives as Christians. In our daily lives, however, one takes precedence over the other two. What is interesting is that this one is the one which we celebrate the least as individual believers, if we, in fact, personally celebrate it at all. As unbelievable as that may seem, I think it is true.

The three feasts? Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. In order of how we celebrate these feasts, Christmas wins hands down. We spend weeks getting ready for Christmas and the celebration can linger well into the next year, till Epiphany. Every home in my neighborhood was decorated from early December and the decorations did not come down until mid-January. Part of that reason, perhaps, sadly, the main part is that Christmas is more holiday than holy day. The real reason for the day and the season is the celebration of the birth of Jesus; but all too often, the Baby Jesus gests buried under the Christmas wrappings.

Then there is Easter. Christmas would have no real meaning were it not for Easter. Without the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection, Jesus’ death would only be like millions of other deaths: an innocent man killed out of jealousy or anger, like what happens every day on our city streets, like Cain and Able way back when. So we should celebrate Easter. And we do. It takes three days, max, to prepare for the holiday and even less for the holy day. And it’s all over come Monday morning.

Christmas celebrates God becoming one of us to remind us, once again, what God expects of us and what we should expect of ourselves: to love God above all else and to love everyone else as we love ourselves. Jesus was killed because of that message, but God raised Jesus, I believe, to tell us that there is always resurrection to new life after a death, however and whatever the death. So we need to celebrate that truth by celebrating Jesus’ resurrection on Easter.

Then there is Pentecost, God’s sending us the Holy Spirit, without which the celebration of Christmas and Easter would have no meaning. We may be Easter People, as some preachers like to remind us; but we are Easter People only in and through Pentecost, in and through the life of the Holy Spirit living and breathing all though us, giving whatever grace and strength we need to love others when it seems impossible to do; to find resurrection and new life when some kind of death has come our way: loss of health, loss of job, loss of relationship, etc.

And yet, as important as Pentecost is in the life of the church and especially in our individual lives as Christians, we seem to fail to give it its proper due. Then, too, maybe that’s as it should be. It is as if we simply take for granted God’s working in and through us and are thankful, as we should be.

IT LOOKS GOOD ON PAPER

No one of us likes to admit that we are wrong. What we like even less is to admit that we have sinned, that we have deliberately hurt another. And all sin is deliberate and intentional, never accidental. But when called on the carpet, we look for an excuse. And the standard excuse is that it is always someone else's fault.

Perhaps what is even worse than our unwillingness to admit to our sinfulness is that we also believe that we do not have to do any penance for our sins. All we have to do is own up to them and we are off the hook. We want to have our cake and eat it, enjoy it, as well. We want to blame someone else for our sins or be forgiven without penalty or both, preferably both. Sin looks good on paper, as they say, but sin is not a paper product but a person product and is real.

There is only one problem: we are not in charge of forgiveness. No matter how hard we try, we cannot forgive ourselves. It doesn't work that way. The only person who can forgive us is the person we have hurt. And we can only be forgiven by first admitting that we have hurt another and then asking that person to forgive us. There is no such thing as self-forgiveness.

So often, I think, when we think about forgiveness, we think about hard it is for us to forgive someone who has hurt us. Often it is very difficult to do so, especially when the hurt is deep and cutting. But how often do we put the shoe on the other foot? How often do we think about how difficult it is for the person we have deliberately hurt to forgive us? Lest we forget, forgiveness is a two-way street.

The reason why we have such a difficult time asking the person we hurt to forgive us is that in doing so we come face to face with shame. That is why shame is such a perilous gift. It looks good on paper, in spiritual books and essays, to say, "Forgive and ask for forgiveness." We've all tried it and we've all found it difficult and shameful -- difficult to forgive others and shameful to ask forgiveness. That is where the grace of God and the support of the community comes in. It takes grace to grant forgiveness and to overcome shame. It also takes grace to admit that what we desire from another -- forgiveness -- we must also grant to the other.

Once we have the courage to look into that mirror and restrain ourselves from smashing it so that we do not ever again have to look on the face of a sinner, then we can begin to reshape our lives. It is a slow process, but a grace-filled one. It is also a community process because we cannot do it alone. If we have the courage to both forgive and ask forgiveness, so will others.

It will never, ever, be easy for them or for us. Jesus died on the cross so that our sins would be forgiven. Yet God's forgiveness is only half the process. The other half is in our hands and in our hearts. Forgiveness will never be easy, nor should it be. Shame will always be with us, as it should be. We grow as a person and as a church only to the extent that we are willing to forgive and willing to admit our guilt and ask for forgiveness.