January 2021

 

We live in contentious times, with people divided on so many things. I know that everyone doesn’t see things the way I do. You may be surprised to hear this, but I don’t always agree with you.

Maybe you’re not surprised at all, given that we can disagree even with those whom we are closest. Honestly, many of you have probably realized I frequently disagree with myself! I’m in good company. Paul writes “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

You’ve heard me speak on the importance of humility, that even if we think we are right, we should be no more than 99% sure; there should always be at least 1% of us wondering if the other might be right.

Our different opinions and perspectives are real, but they are never complete. At best we see through a glass darkly. So what if instead of emphasizing our incomplete understanding, we focused our view on the only One who is capable of making us whole: Jesus, who unites us not because of our understanding, but his faithfulness.

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes, “Paul was devoted to a Person, not to a cause. He was absolutely Jesus Christ’s. He saw nothing else, and he lived for nothing else.”

As your pastor, I swear to God and all the hosts of heaven, that my care for will not be dimmed, regardless of how we see things. You are more than your ideas to me, whether or not I agree with them. And I hope you see me that way as well.

Lent is often turned into taking things on (such as spiritual disciplines) or laying things down (like favorite foods). This Lent, with all of the stresses of COVID-19, I invite you to lay down taking on too much. Life is stressful enough.

But where you can, instead of making agreement or disagreement your focus, which we know only in part, “Behold the Lamb of God” in each person.

Take on the practice of finding Christ within the other, and him crucified.

Wishing you a blessed Lent

January 2021 The Lights of this City on a Hill have been Dimmed

 

The Lights of this City on a Hill have been Dimmed

Given the conditions of newspaper publishing, I began working on this column the week of the Capitol riots, so that it could be published the week of President Joe Biden’s inauguration. Watching the riots at the time, my mind was a furious blank. But over time, some memories assembled.

In 2010, I joined my daughter on a mission trip to Kenya, to support the Tumaini Children’s Ministry in Nyeri. Our trip was to conclude with a tour of Nairobi, Kenya’s capitol, before flying home.

Instead, we spent our time locked inside a gated church complex. After all, no one could have anticipated that on that day Kenyans would be voting on their new Constitution, their third in less than sixty years. Given their past history, neither our hosts nor the country honestly knew if violence would break out in the streets, especially those of the capitol.

The television was on late into the night, watching the results come in. Though people had been quick to give us copies of the proposed Constitution, we did not know the issues at hand or the fairness of the document. We just knew the country was on knife’s edge, waiting. But despite the fears, there was no rioting or protest.

Fast-forward five years. Our Kenyan hosts came to visit us. When we took them to Philadelphia, we thought we understood their excitement. They were going to this big and famous American city. But we had no idea.

Going to Independence Hall was akin to Muslims going to Mecca, or Roman Catholics going to the Vatican. Our Kenyan friends knew early American history as well as – maybe better than – most citizens. They posed proudly with statues of George Washington and other Founding Fathers, the Liberty Bell, standing for photos where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed. These weren’t tourists, taking in the sites; this was The American Experience.

And seen anew through their eyes, I felt a swell of national pride and patriotism. The United States and its ideals were a source of hope, a light on a hill for all to see. Around the world, Kenyans and so many others aspired to this hope, a sign of what their country could be.

And now that light has been dimmed.

While too many American citizens have been denied their full constitutional rights, others, like myself, are fish who have always swum in democracy. We don’t just take our freedoms for granted; they are so much a part of our reality we don’t even think about them.

Until a day like January 6, 2021 happens. When we see violence and riot in our halls of government. When we see just how easily those elected to represent us, those called to serve and protect us, can be harmed in service to their country. Not by some foreign adversary, but by people claiming those same freedoms. And the world is watching.

Joni Mitchell sang, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” Or perhaps like I was in Philadelphia, we do know what we have. We just never imagined we could lose it.

That isn’t to say we no longer have the democracy we’ve known for nearly 250 years, or that the country can’t somehow emerge from our divisions better than ever. Faith tells us that with God, all things are possible. But January’s riots left a mark that may prove indelible. A wound not as long as the Civil War, but no less deep.

It is said that to sing once is to pray twice. In what might have been our national anthem, may we join Katherine Bates in this prayer so appropriate at this time: “America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.” May it be so.

 

September 2020 COVID-19 as a Spiritual Discipline

 

A lifetime ago, in February, many of us entered Lent prepared to give up something, like chocolate, or to take on something, perhaps a prayer practice, out of desire to grow closer to God. And then March happened, COVID-19 happened. I can’t even remember what my Lenten discipline was anymore, let alone whether I stuck with it until Easter. But what about today’s discipline?

Every week, I share my deepest desires for you, including that you will “Find God in everyone and in every thing.” What would it mean for us to find God even in COVID-19? Including the people who are frustrating us by wearing or not wearing a mask. Including the disruptions and disappointments? More than weeks of Lent, can we live these months as a spiritual discipline?

I only recently came to this place of understanding, and I admit, I’m only beginning to grasp the potential. But whether I recognized it or not, coronavirus has changed my relationship with God. It has helped me in some ways to draw closer to God, even as it has revealed places where I need and want further growth.

For example, I’ve had a spiritual practice for nearly thirty years that I’ve learned to  ̶  had to  ̶  change. Since 1993 it has been: Monday  ̶  read the next Sunday’s scripture lessons. Thursday  ̶  first sermon draft. Sunday  ̶  preach. Rinse and repeat, for nearly half of my life. Until March.

It isn’t simply that I’ve learned to re-adjust my calendar to make sure recordings and bulletins are available on time. It means I’ve had to let go of the comfort of that routine. To rely on God to have a sermon ready by Wednesday. To trust God that I’ll know that sermon enough after a few hours and not a few days. To surrender that it is not my well-formed words but God’s Holy Spirit who will share God’s truth. As some people can tell you, I didn’t come to these realizations easily or willingly.

A big part of it is that I have no choice. Five weeks into Lent, I can get chocolate if I want or put a devotional away. But COVID-19 is the spiritual cauldron that we can’t escape even if we want to.

On one hand that is oppressive. Believe me, I understand. On the other hand, however, that I can’t escape when I want means I have to sit with this. I have to. I have no choice.

Moment by moment we are changed, like water dripping on hard stone and over millennium shaping rock. But like it or not, coronavirus is an unrelenting wave, pounding that same hard rock into sand. We may not like ocean waves or their powers of erosion. They may scare us. But we can’t stop them.

Such is the spiritual discipline set before us. We can resist. We can protest. But we will still be changed. Can we find God in all things? Even this thing? May it be so.