Longing for Spring

Ah, nothing like getting up early on a Monday morning to get a little exercise in and then off to Jury Duty! Of course I had my cell phone with me and my father's pocket knife I always carry so I had to hike back home and put them away, then back to court to "hurry up and wait."

There was an upside to this however. I was able to read a good bit of a new book that is saying things I have felt for sometime about the Methodist Church and where it's future lies. It's entitled "Longing for Spring: A New Vision for Wesleyan Community" by Elaine A. Heath and Scott T. Kisker. It seems to be speaking to a new reformation of the church as a synthesis of monasticism and a rapprochement of Wesleyan thought and structure. Hugely exciting so far, very well done. Well, I could quibble a bit about a short section on Benedictine history, being a bit of a Benedictine, but nothing that would affect the premise of the book was in question.

It seems to me that we have got to start a discussion at the highest levels of the church about the post-modern church in a cyber age and stop spinning our wheels over institutional maintenance. The emergent church is here and is not going away, and we can either dig in our heels and resist this new reformation or we can open a dialogue that will lead to a new Methodism built more on smaller communities of believers and not on buildings and structures as we now know it. A more fluid church to replace a static one. One where Evangelism is not so much viewed as "getting them in to maintain the institution" as it is inclusion in a community of spiritual formation. We will not survive as we now are, plain and simple.

I finally was called to the jury pool from which twelve were to be selected to hear a drug case. The young woman, the defendant, had very much a "deer in the headlights" look. She kept looking at us, looking from face to face. Finally it struck me why I found her gaze so compelling...in it was a complete absence of hope, a cry only for help. I wondered what had brought her to this place in her journey? There was mention of children, but not of a husband or father. She had been found with a couple of prescription drugs that were not her own. What was she seeking in those small orange containers? What ghosts or demons was she trying to shut out? Or was it maybe just a world, a community, with neither time nor inclination to become involved with her dysfunctional existence? And isn't that exactly where the church should enter in? I know her sad face and sallow complexion will haunt me for quite a while.

And maybe that's one of the biggest arguments for a new church, one that cuts its ties with maintenance and opens itself to the winds of the spirit and to a Christ-community approach to ministry. A church where worship is what we do all the time and only occasionally as community. We are too tied to Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and organs and ornate structures and God is out in the streets caressing the young man or woman with AIDS, soothing the baby born crack addicted, and sharing ever new teaching stories with his followers. And what of the lady in the docket? God has time for her and loves her just as she is, can we not follow his lead? Redemption and salvation for her begin with a loving encounter with Christ as mediated through his followers. The church must be a functioning tool, not an idol.

Well, more later...by the way, the prosecutor consented to my presence on the jury, but the woman's attorney did not. I guess he noticed me staring in her direction. Come to think of it, I wonder what he, and she, saw in my face? I fear it may not have been my Savior. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was...may God make that so. Amen for now.

Trust...

An image came to me in Morning Prayer today. For sometime now I have been struggling to trust God completely and the image was of Christ in the Garden on the eve of his Crucifixion came to me in a blinding moment of realization. I saw in that moment how complete his trust was, how he as he prayed "Not my will..." abandoning his humanity in perfect trust of Our Lord. He knew what was to come, his flesh cried out for another way, but it was in perfect trust alone that he endured the next day and all that it brought. Perhaps by the time I come to the close of my life, I will have learned to trust the Father as He did. Amen.

Struggling for a Vision...

My wife Pat and I have been for a time now in a period in which we are struggling to discern where God is leading us for the rest of our lives. After thirty five years we find ourselves wondering how we should bring our full time ministry to a close over the next few years, and what lies beyond for us? Certainly, given the financial climate, not the retirement we had once envisioned; so if not that, what?

I ran across a prayer for discernment written by the deeply spiritual Trappist monk, Thomas Merton today and it spoke so powerfully to me, I thought it should be shared with other seekers and struggling ones...

Prayer for Discernment

O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,
And that fact that I think
I am following Your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe
That the desire to please You
Does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
In all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything
Apart from that desire to please You.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust You always
Though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
For You are ever with me,
And You will never leave me
To make my journey alone.

Source: Thomas Merton, Pax Christi, Benet Press, Erie, PA.

Helped me on my way today, hope it does the same for you dear reader...

Ever Heard a Squirrel Cuss?

Well, I finally heard something that I never would have imagined ever hearing…ever heard a squirrel cuss? It happened like this, bright an early Tuesday morning, I mean early…like 6:30, I’m up by then but I didn’t think much of anybody else was…, I saw a set of truck tail lights going up the driveway behind the house. John Bailey, chairman of our Trustees, had called me the night before to tell me he was sending a crew over to trim the immense old Hackberry tree next to the parsonage, but I thought this was pushing it a little, I mean it was pitch black dark.
Anyway, the taillights I had seen belonged to a truck pulling a wood chipper and behind it was another truck with a “bucket” to lift a fellow up to the height necessary to trim the limbs. By sunup they had each positioned ready to go, had discussed the job front, back, and sideways; and dispatched cups of coffee from McDonalds.
First to go as the sun crested Taylor’s Ridge were the low hanging branches that dragged against the side of the house and along the roof. Next were those that over hung the house and could be a danger in icy weather. Then a few dead ones for good measure and in two hours or so they packed up their stuff and went on down the road. Said they had three more jobs that day. Took all those chipped up limbs with them. Oh well, I’m only half way through the pile of chippings from the next door neighbor’s pine trees.
Now, back to my friend the squirrel. It’s Wednesday morning and I’m sitting on the bench at the back of the yard and suddenly there is a commotion in the pecan tree. I don’t know what offense was given or taken, but two grey squirrels evidently had had a falling out and one took off lickity-split down the tree and across the parsonage roof with the other in hot pursuit. About half way length wise across the roof the lead squirrel turned his head around while he kept running. Couldn’t tell if he was taunting his opponent or just gauging how far he was ahead, but he fit the edge of the roof and with perfect form arched into a jump for that limb he had jumped to all his life…only it wasn’t there anymore. So he sailed through the air, amazing really, he almost made it to the tree trunk! But he missed and landed with a loud “plop” in the dirt at the foot of the tree. He lay there a moment, dazed and confused, and then he jumped to his paws and let out with the awful-est stream of squirrel speech you ever heard. I’ll believe to my dying day he was calling down fire and brimstone on all of us that moved his branch. A good laugh early usually means a good day.
Oh yeah…the moral? Watch where you leap, your limb may not be there anymore!

An Old Message gets New Clothes

Well, I guess you could say I had an epiphany in my car this past week. You see, God spoke to me through the radio, well almost anyway. Now before you start calling the men with the butterfly nets to carry me away, let me say a bit more.

I had a trip to make, involved several hours of driving time...and I began to think about how to make the time seem shorter, quicker. We're really into that today. Making things faster, quicker, you know? Now at the exact time I started to think about this, I was wandering through a used book and CD store. Indeed, I was right in front of the used books-on-CD case, and there my epiphany began. You see, my eye fell on a book I had heard about, but never seriously considered buying. "Blue Like Jazz" was the title, I think it was the subtitle that grabbed me, "Non Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality." So a few dollars later and that baby was mine!

Don Miller was the author, and boy are he and I ever on the same wavelength spiritually! The problem today with the church is not spirituality, we have that in abundance, the problem is the church has become so much of an end in itself. As a good friend of mine would say, "We have forgotten the bridegroom and married the wedding march." We are all about numbers and self preservation, and what we are against, and who we don't like, and do we serve communion from the right or the left (so to speak)...and we have lost sight of the underlying cause of it all. As Paul says, "We have forgotten our first love."

I remember when I first became a minister all those years ago. We would have our yearly business meeting at a large metropolitan church. That should show you how long ago this was, we could all fit into the sanctuary. We all looked like we were "cut from the same cloth." Dark suit, conservative tie, shined black shoes...well, you get the picture. Anyway, standing outside that first year, all of a sudden there is a roar growing closer and closer, louder and louder, almost a growl really, and then a Harley pulls up over the curb and parks next to the sanctuary. A guy with long hair swings his leg over the parked bike and the first thing I noticed was his boots...then his jeans...then the t-shirt...and then the leather fringed jacket.

"Who in the world is that?", I asked one of the older ministers. "Oh, don't know that I ever bothered to remember his name. He is on staff at First Church here in town and has something called 'Midnight Ministries.'" Now I can't remember his name either, but I sure do remember "Midnight Ministries."

See, this fellow had an idea. He got to thinking about people who couldn't come to regular church. Those folks that worked most of the night, bar tenders, dancers, prostitutes, winos who couldn't get into a church even if they wanted to. I found out that numbers didn't matter too much, that the offering was never going to make the newspapers, but what was happening...was church. Church like it always was meant to be, church where broken people found their healing, where they could come and touch Jesus and he could touch them back. church where it didn't matter who your were or how looked down upon your business might be. Just pure, sweet, un-adulterated church.

See, nobody looked down on anyone, or moved to another pew when they sat down, or refused to shake their hand. Down there, they were all sinners, kinda hard to look down on anyone when that is pretty clear from the beginning. Nobody got hurt from being left out or over looked, they were all pretty much the same.

Don was coming at the same thing, only from his own history. He is a Christian, and he goes to a church, but his church is not about religion as much as it is about relationship. Jesus wants to be in a relationship with all of us, and not just the "plastic perfect" in church. He wants to be in relationship with gay people, and Hispanic people, and all those sinners out there, and all the sinners in here too! Remember the words, "For God so loved the world..." no qualifiers, no "except fors." None of that stuff, he just loved his brothers and sisters and we are all his brothers and sisters. "...that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." The gate is wide open! All may enter...not just the good but the bad and the ugly too.

I remember a dream I had one night. There was a long line of people stretching off into the distance before a large gate. And a scruffy looking man in an eastern robe was waking down the line and pulling out one after another and saying something to them. Couldn't quite hear, needed to move in closer...and when I did? That scruffy little man was grabbing one after another by their shoulder and pulling them out of line saying, "This is one of mine...this is one of mine...this is one of mine..." And there were all types there in his collection of his own. Yes some preachers and folks in fine clothes, and well, you know, church going types...but there were the others too. Some we would call "white trash," some that slept under bridges most of their lives, some that sold themselves for enough to get by, some that just looked like life had kicked them for a field goal that never quite made it through the uprights. Didn't matter a bit to Jesus, just whether they knew him or not.

The bad news for the church is so many of us are following false prophets who pander to our cultural passion for celebrity, or our consumerist society, or our prejudices, our old hatreds, our desire to stratify society, to be one of the "have's" and not the "have not's." They tell us that God is all about Republicans and hates Democrats and liberals, and we buy that because somebody with an "Rev"in front of his name said it. Truth is brothers and sisters is that Jesus never was about politics, he was about his father's business. God pretty much is neither Democrat or Republican, he is just, well, God.

The bad news for the church and the cause of Christ is this. What we are not paying attention to is what is happening in the church is turning off legions of young adults and others. We are irrelevant to their lives, we posture and preen and spout off our righteous indignation, but they see through us...they know the emperor has no clothes. And a generation is being lost. They see us hurt people, use people, and ask "Why?" and get no answers.

What is needed is a radical redefinition of what "church" really means. A re-approximation to the gospel is called for. To the gospel...the New Testament...so many ministers today have returned to an old testament theology, preferring an angry God and a spiritual Israel that is his elect...an "us" and "them" mentality. And as the preachers are quick to say, we and the Republican party are "us." We're the God fearing ones. Preaches well...gets people aroused...up in arms...money comes in...the minister becomes a celebrity begging for only four point six million in a special offering so he can get a Gulf Stream Four and stop having to fly commercial. Saw that one night on TV, televangelist almost in tears about how God had promised him that jet...and all I could see was the sandals of the Master. It's not about us, my brothers and sisters, it's all about Him.

Church is a hospital for sinners, a place to be healed, reconciled, and redeemed and then empowered to go spread the love that saved you! The church is not four walls, some pews, and an organ...the church is the servant people of God in ministry to a hurting and broken world in his name. It is feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, going to the prisoners, lifting up the fallen, bearing the loads of the over burdened...and all the while singing the songs of the Kingdom and longing for its arrival. The church is "red and yellow black and white they are precious in his sight." The church is a hand holding out a cup of cool water to a thirsty and starving society. The church is Jesus, incarnate in the world.

The church is also God's people seeking him in silence and prayer. It is dying to ourselves each morning so we can live for him. The church is giving up the symbols of worldly success and seeking an inward way to the Lord of Salvation. The church is also corporate prayer, and worship, and lifting each others needs to the Father's throne. The church is singing the songs of Zion and hearing the word of God and thinking about how that can make my life different right now, today, in this moment. I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together. There is a new day coming about which some of us old men are dreaming dreams and our young men are prophesying...a day when church again means something, stands for something, and has a great deal to offer to men and women whether they believe or not. A Church with hands and feet and heart. A church with arms wide spread, like the Master's were on Calvary. A church the Master will be happy to call his own. God bless you and thanks for stopping by.

When the Storm Breaks...

A wonderful quote I ran into today. I think God might have had a hand in sending it my way:

"When the storm breaks, each man acts in accordance with his own nature. Some are numb with terror, some flee, some hide, and some spread their wings like eagles and soar on the wind..." --from Elizabeth,the Golden Age

Risking...

I've just been thinking about how often I have missed one of God's blessings because I have been afraid to take the risk involved in launching out into the deep, leaning way far off the merry-go-round horse, to snag that gold ring. Seems to me that for a while now I have lived in a comfortable misery. By that I mean, life has been at a low ebb, sort of like a sailing ship stuck in the doldrums, but it was familiar, like an old worn out bathrobe, or a pair of slippers with almost no bottom left. But to set sail, to hoist up the jib and catch the wind of the spirit, is to enter the new and leave the familiar. Sounds like it ought to be exciting, but right now it feels a good deal more like fear. Fear that something will change irreversibly, fear that the new may be more painful than the old, fear that God will somehow abandon us to the trade winds of the world and let us sail off toward an unknown horizon. To stay is to slowly die amidst decay and misery, to go is to risk great pain, and there is no third choice. A conundrum if there ever was one!

And so we sit and ponder, and at last hope that someone else will make the choice for us. It's about responsibility, and accountability, isn't it? If someone else were to decide, why then it is their fault if the plan goes awry. How unfair that is to them, how un-Benedictine, and yet it offers a certain hope that is really no hope at all.

So here we sit, hoisted on our own petard, and await the outcome. God go with us. I found these words this morning in the office of Prime from the Monastic Diurnal: "When the foundations go to pieces, what can the just accomplish? The Lord still dwelleth in His holy temple, still is His throne set up in heaven...For God is just and loveth justice, His face is turned upon the righteous." Ah, my sweet Lord, how much your words mean to me right now!