Wednesday, December 27, 2006

On the way

Today, on the way home from school, we got to wondering how we came up with some goofy hand sign we use. Joe finally said, "we all came up with it together," which I thought was a pretty good answer; there's a lot of power in doing things that way, in thinking of things that way. I mentioned that was kind of how the Holy Spirit worked in believers. John then said, "The Holy Spirit reaches into His pocket and pulls out his glue stick and keeps everyone together." Truly, the Fathers could do no better.

When the angel Gabriel announces that Elizabeth will give birth to a son, Zechariah can't believe it. Then the angel stops him from being able to speak until the child is born. But when Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her she will give birth to a son conceived by the Holy Spirit, she expresses doubt in the same way that Zechariah does, but she is not struck silent. I wonder why.

Greater love hath no man than that he take his children to Chuck E. Cheese for two and a half hours...

p/g

Monday, December 25, 2006

Christmas Morning

It's been said that it took the wise men, the kings, whatever they were, two years to get to Jesus, but all the shepherds had to do was cross the field! I guess the shepherds didn't have anything to lose; if they go and it's a bust, oh well, they had a diversion from the monotony and cold of watching flocks by night. If it's true, well, then nothing will ever be the same again.

The magi, on the other hand, have a lot to lose. But I'm not sure they knew that going in. Some of the early church Fathers say that the star in the sky marked the end of astrology. They didn't mean horoscopes, they meant something much more. Astrology was big stuff in the ancient world. It was about the only certainty pagans had about their gods-- the stars moved in predictable patterns, and if you were learned, possessed mysterious knowledge, you could predict eclipses or the flooding of the Nile. It was all-important knowledge. Something new in the sky-- a comet, or some strange alignment of planets meant something. Maybe good, maybe bad; better check it out. So the magi followed a sign they knew something about.

But they did not know that with the birth of the Christ Child certainty had come into the world. No more need to look at goat livers or chicken bones to determine the future, or the nature of the gods. The one and only god had come into the world, took on flesh, shown great love and mystery.

They knew they had to worship Him. But were they happy about it? What did they do with it? Your life changes when you accept the babe born in Bethlehem. The things the magi had-- wealth, status, power, knowledge-- mean very little in the wake of Christ's birth. That is, they mean very little if you depend on them for happiness or peace. The end of astrology means not only certainty about God and who He is; what He is like is availible in the person of Jesus; the end of astrology means that all the things we hold on to must go. They are increasingly revealed for the hollow and empty things they are. There's never enough money. The love runs out. You can't drink it away.

We have a lot to lose, don't we? I think of the drunk who came by the church. To exchange to the certainty of the love of Jesus for his bottle, he thinks it's too much. I once thought in broader strokes-- the intrusion into my life and rights of a God who can say what is holy and unholy was too much to take. So much of who I was and what I liked to do had to die.

We are blessed when we wake up before it is too late, when we realize that all our ways are leading to death, and that the birth of Christ is an invasion, a beginning of the end. All the forces of darkness, death, and corruption are going to be swept away. They couldn't, can't, see it coming. But we do, even though (as the Apostle Peter says), "we suffer grief for a little while."

I think there is a new birth today. I hold the Christ Child and pray that He will grow in me. I want my home to be a "Little Nazareth," where He can grow and speak to us.

p/g

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Hide and Seek

“I am frightened by the corrupted ways of this land—if only I could kill the killer”
--Alannis Morrissette, “All I Really Want”

“Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiprah and Puah, ‘When you help the Hebrew women in childbirth and observe them on the delivery stool, if it is a boy, kill him…. Now a man of the house of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket fro him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the banks of the Nile” (Exodus 1:15-16; 2:1-3).

“When they [the magi] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up’, he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape into Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him’” (Matthew 2:13).

The summer days in Germany were long. The sun did not start going down until around ten. So we kids stayed out as long as we could. Our favorite game was hide and seek. The way we played it was a lot more fun than I had played it in the States. But one day, something strange struck me, something that has come back on me a few times since the boys were born.

I realized that in some way, Hide and Seek is a vicious game of survival training. Can you hide from the hunter? Can you find the prey? Answers to those questions mean life or death in many parts of human history. I remember thinking about the Holocaust and the terrible stories of people trying to hide, but being given away by a crying child. Or a mother who had to smother her child to save the lives of many. Then I got back to playing.

I know, I know, I have a dark streak in my personality, one that is at once fearful of violence and convinced that part of my task is to resist it and help others do the same. I suppose there was something of a call in my childhood thoughts about hide and seek.

Sometimes when I see John or Joe running across the field to the creek, I am tormented again by those childhood thoughts. How slow children are, how weak. And then, as a man, I now know that if people are weak, they are taken advantage of. It’s even legal to do so, because they are weak and can’t stand up for themselves. An instructive moment: I mentioned to a colleague that “activists” in the church community have missed the main justice issue in America: abortion. The reply was that if I asked the people in the community if abortion was the main issue, they wouldn’t agree. I replied “That’s because the people for whom it is an issue are dead.” The dead do not get to speak, and a fetus can only raise a hand in a startle-reflex. Why are we so scared of children? Moses and Jesus would have a hard time being born in our own day. There is nothing new under the sun, and the more things change, the more they say the same.

A few nights ago, we were playing hide and seek downstairs. Normally this is such a good game, and I don’t really think about my darker thoughts. I mean, one of us hides and the other two snuggle on the couch while we count. (When boys get older, they don’t snuggle with dad as much, so you have to sneak it in where you can). Thursday night Joe lamented that he doesn’t know how to hide very well. Dark clouds rise. Then, he was hiding in a good place, but two of his toes were sticking out. That was it. We went on playing, but I was twisting inside. Do I give him a crash course in hiding? There’s nothing sadder than desperation.

Of course it’s ridiculous, but then again it is not. Does anyone deny the existence of evil, its particular fondness for the weakest and most vulnerable? We sometimes think it is a limited thing, something that happens to the unfortunate few. We can feel bad when we hear about it, but it won’t touch us. Finally, evil exists in a million forms, and perhaps the most pernicious are not the physical manifestations, but rather the devilry of domination and control in relationships.

I met a man a few days ago who came to the church looking for some clothes. He was a drunk, and said, “I’ll be honest, I shit all over myself. I can’t go around stinking like this.” It was pretty bad, for sure. I mentioned that there was a deeper filth all over him that he had to let go of, too.

“I’d rather die,” he said.

“You’re going to,” I said. And then he told me that his dad gave him whiskey to shut him up when he was a baby and small child. He could not hide from that hunter.

p/g

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Christmas Songs

Last night we had a Christmas Singing Service. I guess there were 80 or so of us together, and we had polled the congregation to find our favorite Christmas hymns. Then we just sang, and were blessed. The Itoula family sang, Princia Itoula did a solo and so did Noella Mapigano, Magdalena Rodriguez, and Nancy Agrinsoni. Denis Diaz led us in Feliz Navidad. All told, we sang in English, Spanish, French, Swahili and Lingala. I hope everyone got to see that we were all together, a very diverse group of people, but all together as children of God.

Afterwards, we had dessert. It was so good to see everyone together. I sat at a table with some kids—Rosy, Joyce and Jose Itoula, Alex, Savanna, and Lainie. Kids are quick to be friends. But the adults, well, we still sometimes separate because it’s easier. That’s ok. I like nothing better than walking around to tables, introducing people, and causing trouble, then leaving.

It always comes back to guts. Will we be one family? Will we make a choice to not simply tolerate, but to embrace? I’ve been in too many places where people “value” diversity. Funny, but the people who talk most about diversity rarely model it, because they are content on the surface to see lots of difference, but don’t really want to accept that different people may actually have something to say! More importantly, diversity doesn’t happen if you can retreat somewhere to a homogenous place. It means actually living together.

I know this is an uphill battle. In fact, I suspect that I may lose. We may lose. That is, we will have misunderstandings. We will grow weary of trying when it is easier not to. We will not “submit one to another, out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21). Only our love for Jesus and the Holy Spirit will sustain this work.

I learned an important lesson in Winchester: if you do the right thing, the money and the people show up. It’s hard to trust that, but I have not been disappointed yet. Our ministry is to all people, but especially to the poorest of the poor among us. So we are marginal, and it is always going to be a struggle to survive, to find people willing to be here not just in worship, but also in terms of community life. And then, the very people who are our constituents do not have the kind of money it takes to run a mission. But we are also a church. First and foremost a place of preaching. So we are a weird thing, but a good thing, and I hope people can see that, and join us. If you want a glimpse of heaven, come visit us sometime!

p/g

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Christmas Greetings

What a year! So many changes-- we thought we would be done with leukemia in the fall of 2005, then just before Christmas we got the bad news Melissa would need further treatment, meaning bone marrow transplant. Decisions about where-- Vanderbilt or UL? We think we made the right choice, and anyway, Melissa is disease-free since August! It’s been a long recovery from the rigors of the transplant, but she gains strength everyday. We have a long way to go. We continue to ask for your constant prayers, as the cancer could come back. But everyone is upbeat, and no matter what, we keep living!

We are serving at The Rock La Roca United Methodist Church, and if you have followed this blog, you know what a freaked out place it is! We are very blessed to be in such a ministry. I can’t put my finger on it, I couldn’t have planned it, could not have conceived it, but when I am in it, I know it is what I have been looking for in a group of believers.

John is 6 years old and lost his first tooth a few weeks ago. He is in Kindergarten at Cornerstone Christian Academy. Joseph is 4 and also goes to Cornerstone for preschool. I cannot say enough what blessings they are in our lives. I turned thirty-seven and am a diligent student at the School of Hard Knocks.

This is now the 13th Christmas since I accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. I love Advent and Christmas, maybe it was the years in Germany? There was so much happening this time of year there. The Feast of St. Martin (Nov 11) kicks it off. Then Dec.5 we put our shoes out for St. Nikolaus. We ravaged our Advent calendars. We opened gifts Christmas Eve. All was calm and bright.

I meditate a lot on the baby Jesus, the mystery of the Incarnation. I think of Mary and Joseph raising Him. I wonder about what it means that the Word could not walk or speak. I remember how much I look forward to each new place the boys go in their development, the things they say, can say, can understand. And then I wonder about the first time Jesus spoke. What did He say? When He learned to speak, did we learn to listen? When He speaks, He says, “come and see.” “Follow Me.” “Give up everything.”

All of you are in our prayers. We wish you a Merry Christmas, with all the fullness of the meaning of the season!

p/g

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Otherworldly

I told david and Noella (two of our Congolese people) that the church in America is weak. They nodded and said they had noticed as much. Noella asked, "How many of your people can fast three days?" What can you say? As a United Methodist pastor, I took a vow that says among other things that I will "teach fasting and abstinence by precept and example." I know that I have preached on it a lot, try to keep to fasting on Wednesdays, but on one even humors me about fasting. It's too serious, I suppose.

David then asked, "Do you have a Baptism School?" Apparently where he went to church in Congo, they had a long-term class to get people ready for baptism. And when you passed, they took you before the congregation, but if someone said you were still living in sin, oh well, start over. We think, "Oh my! How harsh and judgmental." St Cyril did not think so. Neither did St. Ambrose. Or Augustine. Or more recntly, John Wesley. My church in Winchester kicked a guy out in the 1870s because he sold a bum mule to someone. Now that's discipleship. I could at least say to David, we are working on in-depth discipleship program.

A month or so ago, I asked them what their names mean. The oldest boy is Malippo, and it means "reward." The youngest boy is Benjamin. The family's last name is Mapigano, which means "war." Noella said they changed Benjamin's last name to... "Espoir," or "Hope."

David related that when the genocide in Rwanda happened, and people spilled across the borders, his mother took care of people as best could. David fussed at her a little bit because it was taking away from the family's meager provisions. She told him, "One day we may need someone to take care of us." He couldn't argue with her on that. "And now," he said, "here we are." Praise God.

We laughed a little bit about some things. It's cold to them here. They have never seen natural ice. But David said some people he knows were resettled to Norway.

p/g

Saturday, December 09, 2006

No Need for Name-Calling...

In the last two weeks three different people have referred to The Rock La Roca as part of “the emerging church.” I know they meant well, but I took it hard. The only think I know about the so-called emerging church movement is from Brian McLaren, and I don’t care much for his stuff. I think it’s an attempt to soak off the vibe of some sentimental notion of the pre-medieval church. There’s a loose definition that says there are new kinds of churches “emerging” that aren’t “traditional” in the way we have tended to think about church. Fine. But the end result for me has to be that we don’t do or say anything new.

p/g

Monday, December 04, 2006

Dancing Days Are Here Again

All I can do is keep falling back on Psalm 126—“When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion, we were like men who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy.”

My thoughts on this Psalm are always closely related to Psalm 121, especially “He will not let your foot slip, He who watches over you will not slumber.” The only way you can understand that is living with it for a long time. If you want it as an instantaneous promise that nothing bad will ever happen, then I guess you’re right—it’s foolish and wishful thinking.

But if you trust 3000 years of peoples’ faith and your own experience with God over the long haul you see that it means precisely what Paul said. None of us are getting out of here alive, sin and evil are real. But, “nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, a few days before the scan when we were tired of waiting, wondering, trying to prepare for the worst, Melissa said simply that if it’s bad news and a downhill slide, she’s ok because she’s going home. Not an easy conversation. But imagine if you did not have the going home part, just bad news and a downhill slide.

But for now, we are delivered. I’m not sure what to say in prayer. Maybe the more you have to say, the less important things are? When it’s vital, life and death, maybe there is only silence in the face of God’s awesomeness.

p/g

Multi-Cultural

An instructive moment at Wal-Mart: I was there with David Mapigano, the father of the Congolese family we are sponsoring. We were laughing and joking about how much we're alike-- 2 boys, 2 years apart, wives much taller than both of us... Then I saw Julio, one of our parishioners. We waved him over and tried to have conversation, altho my Spanish is grim. I understand half of what is said to me but can't say much back. David and Julio tried to talk a little, and that was awesome-- recognizing that they were both immigrants and had something in common, and knowing that they were both Christians. I was standing there thinking, "I can't believe that I am the pastor of such a freaked out church!" I don't think I have a had a moment more thankful for my calling, and for the opportunity that we have at The Rock La Roca.

And then at the evening service, a black man said to me at communion-- "merci pour la message ce soir." Well, it's a Spanish-speaking service and here's this guy speaking French. I talked to him and his wife after the service, Luc and Joannie. They are from Haiti and heard that there was a church that had preaching in French. Joannie said, "God wants everyone to be together, that's why this is happening."

Can we do it? Are we tough enough? Are we bold as love? Multi-cultural churches generally fail. It's too easy for people to choose to go to a place where it's one language, one type of people. But I do not think the La Rocans are like that. I used to think people come here because they choose to. Now I am wondering if part of it is alos being chosen, being called, and then submitting to work through how God's spirit is pushing through us.

p/g

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Camped Out at The Rock

Well, today we did something we had talked about for a while: we camped at the Rock. Joseph had the idea; we would take sleeping bags and sleep on the floor. So we brought them in and napped a bit today. Joe is still asleep. But John came over to me with a book. It is a book I like quite a bit, one I heartily recommend: Six Centuries of Great Poetry. He says, “Read me a poem from this book.”

“How do you know these are poems?” I asked.

“Because Steffi read us some today.” Steffi is Stephanie McKinney, long-time family friend, long-suffering babysitter of the boys on Sunday mornings during the early-service. So, good job Steffi! John happened to open it to… Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” I love that poem, and it had a poignant sense when Melissa got sick, especially when she lost her hair. “If we had but world enough and time…” Indeed.

Now there is a fierce sense to the poem, the fierceness that I knew was brewing in me, and would emerge from this journey with Melissa: that there is not world enough and time, and worse than that, meaningless things crowd out what time and world you do have!

The thing I have not resolved is how to be relentless and graceful at the same time. How to pursue the things that matter and trash the things that don’t. In ministry—how not to get bogged down in details, or doing anything that keeps you from the real point: saving souls, making disciples. Anything else is pointless. And if you have to spend time justifying how a task that is not evangelism and discipling supports the work of evangelism and discipling, you have already lost.

And then in the personal life: what builds a relationship? How to break out of the mindlessness that is so easy? How do I reject what is urgent to do what is not just important, but right. Or simple.

In ministry, a thing’s urgency is almost always in inverse proportion to its evangelistic or discipleship potential. Usually, it grabs us unawares, and we subconsciously realize: my faith is about me, and my exercise in ministry is still about me, but here someone is reaching out and I have to do something now… hurry hurry hurry.

In personal life you wake up one day to find you have not wrestled with the boys since you don’t know when and you plan this or that and then something gets in the way and it doesn’t happen and you hurry hurry hurry to a miserably good time. There is a reason God created the Sabbath. Stop everything.

We read some poems by John Donne—when (if) you studied him in school, how much was made of his faith? Very little I bet. And yet he was nothing if not a Christian. Then we read some John Milton. Some John Keats. “So many named John!” John said. “John Mansfield?” he asked. “One day, maybe so,” I responded.

p/g