Tuesday, August 21, 2007
A Mother Watching
Watching our children grow up is beautiful and incredibly hard. Our older son has always marched according to his own drum. His own personality (ESTP by the Myers/Briggs Type Indicator), when mixed with ADHD & ODD, hasn't always helped him in making wise, thoughtful decisions. Anger has also been a difficult issue for him to deal with. I see hopeful signs, and wait with bated breath to see what will blossom. Our younger son, in playing his Pokemon game, talked this morning about the "bide" attack. If he waits through 2 turns doing nothing, then he can use the combined strength of whatever attacks were used against him during those 2 turns. It's an interesting spin on "bide," but it's also helpful to learn that sometimes it is better when we "bide" our time, waiting to see what will unfold rather than rushing in.
Nurturing towards purpose
Fall is coming! Actually, today almost feels as though it is in the late fall with the rain and cooler temperatures. I know that we will have more heat before we get through September, but it’s nice to know that the seasons do indeed change.
The first thing I notice is that my morning walk is getting darker and darker even though I’m not getting up and out any earlier. The second thing I notice is that our college students have been leaving to begin or return to their studies. Some of the anticipation is excitement, waiting to see what else new will happen. But part of the anticipation is dread, wondering what on earth else will happen now.
As with any gift, change is a two-edged sword. I see my boys growing up and I rejoice in their increasing abilities and independence, but I also think somewhat longingly of the days when they were young enough to want Mom to dry their tears and help them in difficult situations.
One of my purposes in life is to receive these precious gifts of life and help nurture them to become strong and develop their own sense of purpose and vocation in life. Not only is that my purpose with my boys, but it is also my purpose as a pastor.
Each person in C2UMC, in fact each person I encounter, is a precious gift. Part of my purpose is to help the community of faith nurture this gift so that each can develop or continue to develop their own sense of purpose and vocation.
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life and your journey in finding and developing your purpose and vocation as a part of Christ’s family here on earth.
The first thing I notice is that my morning walk is getting darker and darker even though I’m not getting up and out any earlier. The second thing I notice is that our college students have been leaving to begin or return to their studies. Some of the anticipation is excitement, waiting to see what else new will happen. But part of the anticipation is dread, wondering what on earth else will happen now.
As with any gift, change is a two-edged sword. I see my boys growing up and I rejoice in their increasing abilities and independence, but I also think somewhat longingly of the days when they were young enough to want Mom to dry their tears and help them in difficult situations.
One of my purposes in life is to receive these precious gifts of life and help nurture them to become strong and develop their own sense of purpose and vocation in life. Not only is that my purpose with my boys, but it is also my purpose as a pastor.
Each person in C2UMC, in fact each person I encounter, is a precious gift. Part of my purpose is to help the community of faith nurture this gift so that each can develop or continue to develop their own sense of purpose and vocation.
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your life and your journey in finding and developing your purpose and vocation as a part of Christ’s family here on earth.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Psalm 30--A Sermon
Grace and peace be with you this day!
Take a moment right now to remember a time when you found yourself drawn up out of the Pit, perhaps when you thought you were about to meet your end and yet you lived, or when you felt surrounded by foes then were vindicated, or when fear was replaced by joy…
Hold this memory in your heart this morning.
All summer long we have been looking at the Psalms, the songs and prayers of God’s people. We have found psalms that teach us about wisdom, psalms that help us cry out in lament, psalms that remind us of creation, psalms that lead us in praise. Our Psalm today is one of personal thanksgiving, a todah psalm.
It might have been written by David, but it just as easily could have been written by anyone who experienced healing, or redemption from the Pit.
For the Hebrew people, the Pit and Sheol are synonymous. Dennis Brachter reminds us that "in Hebrew thought, Sheol was the abode of the dead, the underworld where people went when they died. Israelites did not have a well-developed concept of an afterlife until after the Babylonian exile. Instead, they adopted metaphors for death from the cultures of surrounding people. Most of these cultures had a mythology that explained death in terms of a story about a journey that the person made underground after death. In these cultures, with the exception of Egypt, there was no concept of a "soul" that survived after death to live in another place. It was merely a way to conceptualize in story form the reality of death and burial.
The mythical stories told of an underworld ruled by gods whose task it was to find rest for the one who died. Of course, the Israelites did not accept the idea of domains of other gods. Yet, they did adopt the language and the metaphor of the underworld to speak of death. In reality, the idea of Sheol or the Pit, simply became a poetic metaphor for the grave and burial. To "go down to Sheol" was simply to die and be buried. The term "soul" that appears in some translations of verse 3 is the Hebrew word nephesh, which in this context simply means person or life.
But even this picture is not quite as straightforward as it sounds. In our more scientific way of thinking, death is a biological function that can be marked at a certain point in time. Yet, in the Israelite thought world, death was a much more extensive concept than biology. Of course, they knew enough to know that when a person stopped breathing, they died. Yet, their conception of death and life extended much more broadly.
Life, far more than simply a biological function, encompassed well-being, happiness, vitality, all the activities that define human existence. Death, then, was any diminishment of that vitality. Sickness, for example, was a form of death, because it diminished the vitality of life, and in a very real sense, was a beginning of death. That was far closer to reality in the ancient world with little medical knowledge and fewer cures than it is in ours." (http://www.cresourcei.org/lectionary/)
Hannah found herself in the Pit. She was one of the two wives of Elkanah. Peninnah, the other wife, had sons and daughters, but Hannah, even though Elkanah loved her best, had none. In Hannah’s day, a woman’s worth was in the children that she bore. Peninnah never let an opportunity go by when she derided Hannah. In her barrenness, Hannah found herself in the Pit.
David, once a shepherd who slew a lion, once a young giant killer, now a king, but a king who took something that wasn’t his. David had taken Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, for his own and had Uriah positioned to be killed in battle. Now the son that Bathsheba bore him was dying. David was in the Pit.
There was a man who had been ill for 35 years. He kept trying to find healing in the pool of Bethsda when the waters were stirred up, but someone else always got to the water first. This man was in the Pit.
There was a woman of Nain who was a widow. Her only son died. Who was going to care for her? She had no one. This woman was in the Pit.
Sometimes we find ourselves in the Pit for no fault of our own. Life’s circumstances, it seems, have conspired against us. We become ill, enemies surround us, we lose all that is important to us. And yet, there are times we land ourselves in the Pit because of our own actions, like David.
Charles Colson seemed to have it all—special counsel to President Nixon, responsible for bringing special interest groups into the White House policy-making process. Known as Nixon’s hatchet man, Colson was willing to be ruthless in getting things done. But then came the Watergate burglary, and all the cover-up that followed, and Colson’s world came crashing down as he awaited arrest. Colson was in the Pit.
Most of us have been in the Pit at one time in our life or another. Perhaps it was illness, perhaps it was losing a job, perhaps it was the failure of a marriage, perhaps it was the loss of someone we love, perhaps it was because of what we ourselves had done.
The Pit is anything that takes us away from God, from life. And yet our God is one who refuses to bow to the power of the Pit. Our God is the One who is life and who, having created us, seeks to bring us to life.
God heard the cries of Hannah in the depths of her Pit, reached down to her and drew her up. Hannah conceived and bore Samuel who became a prophet for the Lord. After Samuel, Hannah had three more sons and two daughters.
God heard the anguish of David, king and grieving father, and sent to him the prophet Nathan who helped David to see his own sin. Even in the midst of death, God drew David up out of the Pit.
Jesus saw the man who had been ill for 35 years, lying by the Pool of Bethesda for a long time, hoping to touch the healing waters. Jesus reached out to this man in the Pit and drew him, saying, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” And at once he was made well, took up his mat and began to walk.
Jesus saw the funeral procession of the only son of a widow in Nain. He had compassion on her. He came forward, touched the bier, and said, “Young man, I say to you rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Jesus reached into the Pit and drew them up into life.
God saw the morass that Chuck Colson had created for himself, the Pit which he had dug. God sent him a friend and a book, Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. Even though arrested and in prison, the Pit had no hold on Colson because God had already drawn him up into life.
In the todah tradition, when we have experienced the Pit and been drawn up, we give thanks but giving testimony to what God has done.
Hear the psalmist’s testimony again, this time from The Message by Eugene Peterson:
1 I give you all the credit, God—
you got me out of that mess,
you didn't let my foes gloat.
2-3 God, my God, I yelled for help
and you put me together.
God, you pulled me out of the grave,
gave me another chance at life
when I was down-and-out.
4-5 All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God!
Thank him to his face!
He gets angry once in a while, but across
a lifetime there is only love.
The nights of crying your eyes out
give way to days of laughter.
6-7 When things were going great
I crowed, "I've got it made.
I'm God's favorite.
He made me king of the mountain."
Then you looked the other way
and I fell to pieces.
8-10 I called out to you, God;
I laid my case before you:
"Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead?
auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?
When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs
and stories of you won't sell.
So listen! and be kind!
Help me out of this!"
11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament
into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
and decked me with wildflowers.
I'm about to burst with song;
I can't keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
I can't thank you enough.
God draws us up. Do we have a testimony of thanksgiving to offer before God’s people?
My testimony: barrenness and now two sons
Do you have a testimony to share?
Dance, then, wherever you may be.
I am the Lord of the dance, said he.
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you maybe
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he! (by Sidney Carter)
Take a moment right now to remember a time when you found yourself drawn up out of the Pit, perhaps when you thought you were about to meet your end and yet you lived, or when you felt surrounded by foes then were vindicated, or when fear was replaced by joy…
Hold this memory in your heart this morning.
All summer long we have been looking at the Psalms, the songs and prayers of God’s people. We have found psalms that teach us about wisdom, psalms that help us cry out in lament, psalms that remind us of creation, psalms that lead us in praise. Our Psalm today is one of personal thanksgiving, a todah psalm.
It might have been written by David, but it just as easily could have been written by anyone who experienced healing, or redemption from the Pit.
For the Hebrew people, the Pit and Sheol are synonymous. Dennis Brachter reminds us that "in Hebrew thought, Sheol was the abode of the dead, the underworld where people went when they died. Israelites did not have a well-developed concept of an afterlife until after the Babylonian exile. Instead, they adopted metaphors for death from the cultures of surrounding people. Most of these cultures had a mythology that explained death in terms of a story about a journey that the person made underground after death. In these cultures, with the exception of Egypt, there was no concept of a "soul" that survived after death to live in another place. It was merely a way to conceptualize in story form the reality of death and burial.
The mythical stories told of an underworld ruled by gods whose task it was to find rest for the one who died. Of course, the Israelites did not accept the idea of domains of other gods. Yet, they did adopt the language and the metaphor of the underworld to speak of death. In reality, the idea of Sheol or the Pit, simply became a poetic metaphor for the grave and burial. To "go down to Sheol" was simply to die and be buried. The term "soul" that appears in some translations of verse 3 is the Hebrew word nephesh, which in this context simply means person or life.
But even this picture is not quite as straightforward as it sounds. In our more scientific way of thinking, death is a biological function that can be marked at a certain point in time. Yet, in the Israelite thought world, death was a much more extensive concept than biology. Of course, they knew enough to know that when a person stopped breathing, they died. Yet, their conception of death and life extended much more broadly.
Life, far more than simply a biological function, encompassed well-being, happiness, vitality, all the activities that define human existence. Death, then, was any diminishment of that vitality. Sickness, for example, was a form of death, because it diminished the vitality of life, and in a very real sense, was a beginning of death. That was far closer to reality in the ancient world with little medical knowledge and fewer cures than it is in ours." (http://www.cresourcei.org/lectionary/)
Hannah found herself in the Pit. She was one of the two wives of Elkanah. Peninnah, the other wife, had sons and daughters, but Hannah, even though Elkanah loved her best, had none. In Hannah’s day, a woman’s worth was in the children that she bore. Peninnah never let an opportunity go by when she derided Hannah. In her barrenness, Hannah found herself in the Pit.
David, once a shepherd who slew a lion, once a young giant killer, now a king, but a king who took something that wasn’t his. David had taken Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, for his own and had Uriah positioned to be killed in battle. Now the son that Bathsheba bore him was dying. David was in the Pit.
There was a man who had been ill for 35 years. He kept trying to find healing in the pool of Bethsda when the waters were stirred up, but someone else always got to the water first. This man was in the Pit.
There was a woman of Nain who was a widow. Her only son died. Who was going to care for her? She had no one. This woman was in the Pit.
Sometimes we find ourselves in the Pit for no fault of our own. Life’s circumstances, it seems, have conspired against us. We become ill, enemies surround us, we lose all that is important to us. And yet, there are times we land ourselves in the Pit because of our own actions, like David.
Charles Colson seemed to have it all—special counsel to President Nixon, responsible for bringing special interest groups into the White House policy-making process. Known as Nixon’s hatchet man, Colson was willing to be ruthless in getting things done. But then came the Watergate burglary, and all the cover-up that followed, and Colson’s world came crashing down as he awaited arrest. Colson was in the Pit.
Most of us have been in the Pit at one time in our life or another. Perhaps it was illness, perhaps it was losing a job, perhaps it was the failure of a marriage, perhaps it was the loss of someone we love, perhaps it was because of what we ourselves had done.
The Pit is anything that takes us away from God, from life. And yet our God is one who refuses to bow to the power of the Pit. Our God is the One who is life and who, having created us, seeks to bring us to life.
God heard the cries of Hannah in the depths of her Pit, reached down to her and drew her up. Hannah conceived and bore Samuel who became a prophet for the Lord. After Samuel, Hannah had three more sons and two daughters.
God heard the anguish of David, king and grieving father, and sent to him the prophet Nathan who helped David to see his own sin. Even in the midst of death, God drew David up out of the Pit.
Jesus saw the man who had been ill for 35 years, lying by the Pool of Bethesda for a long time, hoping to touch the healing waters. Jesus reached out to this man in the Pit and drew him, saying, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” And at once he was made well, took up his mat and began to walk.
Jesus saw the funeral procession of the only son of a widow in Nain. He had compassion on her. He came forward, touched the bier, and said, “Young man, I say to you rise!” The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Jesus reached into the Pit and drew them up into life.
God saw the morass that Chuck Colson had created for himself, the Pit which he had dug. God sent him a friend and a book, Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. Even though arrested and in prison, the Pit had no hold on Colson because God had already drawn him up into life.
In the todah tradition, when we have experienced the Pit and been drawn up, we give thanks but giving testimony to what God has done.
Hear the psalmist’s testimony again, this time from The Message by Eugene Peterson:
1 I give you all the credit, God—
you got me out of that mess,
you didn't let my foes gloat.
2-3 God, my God, I yelled for help
and you put me together.
God, you pulled me out of the grave,
gave me another chance at life
when I was down-and-out.
4-5 All you saints! Sing your hearts out to God!
Thank him to his face!
He gets angry once in a while, but across
a lifetime there is only love.
The nights of crying your eyes out
give way to days of laughter.
6-7 When things were going great
I crowed, "I've got it made.
I'm God's favorite.
He made me king of the mountain."
Then you looked the other way
and I fell to pieces.
8-10 I called out to you, God;
I laid my case before you:
"Can you sell me for a profit when I'm dead?
auction me off at a cemetery yard sale?
When I'm 'dust to dust' my songs
and stories of you won't sell.
So listen! and be kind!
Help me out of this!"
11-12 You did it: you changed wild lament
into whirling dance;
You ripped off my black mourning band
and decked me with wildflowers.
I'm about to burst with song;
I can't keep quiet about you.
God, my God,
I can't thank you enough.
God draws us up. Do we have a testimony of thanksgiving to offer before God’s people?
My testimony: barrenness and now two sons
Do you have a testimony to share?
Dance, then, wherever you may be.
I am the Lord of the dance, said he.
And I’ll lead you all, wherever you maybe
And I’ll lead you all in the dance, said he! (by Sidney Carter)
Thursday, August 9, 2007
The Years Go By
Today would have been my in-laws 71st wedding anniversary. I came into the family 29 years ago (I was a mere child when I married). Two years earlier, they had had a big 40th anniversary celebration since no one expected Lucille to live until their 50th because her diabetes was so brittle. Thanks be to God for medical advances and for her tenacity. Lucille died the day before their 68th anniversary, three years ago yesterday.
Finding the Pulse
When I work out at Curves, every 7-1/2 minutes, we're supposed to stop and take our pulse. Sometimes I can find it, sometimes not. Even when I find it, I often have trouble counting it with the beat of the music going on or the rhythmic sound of someone still working out.
Coming back to church after being gone for only 14 days, I feel like I'm trying to find the pulse beat. Of course, in the summertime, the pulse can be a bit erratic anyway with folks in & out. It's as though my heart is singing: "Summertime, and the livin' is easy..." But my head starts running ahead with all the details for getting the fall activities underway. I look at the difference on the church's online calendar. Each Sunday in August has two events: the worship services. Beginning with the second Sunday in September, each Sunday has 6-8 events, and that's before we get everything planned out.
It's good that there's an ebb and flow in the rhythm of church life. Even Jesus followed a rhythm of engagement and disengagement, of activity and of contemplation. I guess that my longing is to find a steady heart beat where the ebb and flow are not quite so drastic, and that can only truly happen by allowing my heart to find its rhythm within the heartbeat of God. It just seems that so many things get in the way of truly finding or living in that beat.
Coming back to church after being gone for only 14 days, I feel like I'm trying to find the pulse beat. Of course, in the summertime, the pulse can be a bit erratic anyway with folks in & out. It's as though my heart is singing: "Summertime, and the livin' is easy..." But my head starts running ahead with all the details for getting the fall activities underway. I look at the difference on the church's online calendar. Each Sunday in August has two events: the worship services. Beginning with the second Sunday in September, each Sunday has 6-8 events, and that's before we get everything planned out.
It's good that there's an ebb and flow in the rhythm of church life. Even Jesus followed a rhythm of engagement and disengagement, of activity and of contemplation. I guess that my longing is to find a steady heart beat where the ebb and flow are not quite so drastic, and that can only truly happen by allowing my heart to find its rhythm within the heartbeat of God. It just seems that so many things get in the way of truly finding or living in that beat.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Heat Wave
Wow! Are we ever having a heat wave! It was 78 degrees at 5:30 this morning when I went out for my 4-mile walk. I normally don't sweat easily, but today I was wet by the time I got back home. I'm really glad that it wasn't this hot and humid last Wednesday when my brother-in-law led us up Avalanche, an old ski hill in Boyne City, MI. After a bit of steep slope, we had to climb 428 steps to get close to the top and then continue up the last part of the slope without steps. It was actually a bit cool when we started that hike. Not today!
Thank God for ministries like Safe Havens at First Christian here in Falls Church, where the homeless can come in out of the heat (or cold) for a few hours, and have home-cooked food.
Thank God for ministries like Safe Havens at First Christian here in Falls Church, where the homeless can come in out of the heat (or cold) for a few hours, and have home-cooked food.
Back at Home
My father used to say that the perfect vacation length was three weeks. The first week he couldn't really relax from the job. The second week, he was able to relax. At the end of the third week, he was chomping at the bit to get back to work. Of course, that was also during the days before cell phones when he couldn't be reached easily with troubles at work.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Churches on the Road
Last week, I went with our son to the church that my father-in-law had served for 9 years, while my husband was in the 2nd through 9th grades. Over the last 29 years, I have attended it from time to time while in IN. There is a new pastor this year, another woman following the last pastor who was also a woman. The current pastor is still in seminary evidently. She did an okay job. Her sermon was adequate. She used an illustration from the movie Seabiscuit about how God does not throw us away when we are wounded. It was a good one. I later made clips from the dvd of it that my sister-in-law has.
Today, my son and I went to the church that my other brother-in-law attends in South Bend. He's still up in MI where we stayed with him this week. This is a new pastor as well, however, he has more experience, having just served as a DS. His illustrations were also good. In addressing the parable where the rich man planned to build bigger barns to hold his wealth, but was to meet his end that night, he gave examples of persons who are wealthy and who have used their wealth to give to others, as well as those who have used their wealth just for themselves, building bigger and bigger barns.
It is hard as a pastor not to critique worship services and sermons. I was aware that in some ways I was "grading" each of these services, but I also tried to simply be present as we worshiped our God who gave everything so that we may live in grace.
Today, my son and I went to the church that my other brother-in-law attends in South Bend. He's still up in MI where we stayed with him this week. This is a new pastor as well, however, he has more experience, having just served as a DS. His illustrations were also good. In addressing the parable where the rich man planned to build bigger barns to hold his wealth, but was to meet his end that night, he gave examples of persons who are wealthy and who have used their wealth to give to others, as well as those who have used their wealth just for themselves, building bigger and bigger barns.
It is hard as a pastor not to critique worship services and sermons. I was aware that in some ways I was "grading" each of these services, but I also tried to simply be present as we worshiped our God who gave everything so that we may live in grace.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Fifteen Years
Today, still on the road, I remember my father who died 15 years ago this afternoon. He had ALS, a terrible disease. He was a man who was always in control, and yet had lost all control of his body. His mind was still sharp up until the moment he died. I have always believed that he probably knew which breath was his last. I was with him up until 15 minutes before he died. I knew that he wanted to go, so my prayers had changed from physical healing or even stopping the progression of the disease. That day as I left my childhood home, I prayed with no words, just an image of God's hand gently holding my father and taking his last breath--the holy breath that God breathed into us in creation--and returning it to God.
Thanks be to God for my father who was and is my champion, who never really understood me, but always loved me. Just as my husband tossed a found golf ball (one of daddy's favorite pasttimes) into the small grove where we scattered daddy's ashes with these words, so I offer them up today and always: "Here's to you, Mick."
Thanks be to God for my father who was and is my champion, who never really understood me, but always loved me. Just as my husband tossed a found golf ball (one of daddy's favorite pasttimes) into the small grove where we scattered daddy's ashes with these words, so I offer them up today and always: "Here's to you, Mick."
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