Chaplain Mel Baars
29 January 29, 2012
Psalm 111
With My Whole Heart
I feel like I should begin with a confession. And, no, those of you who know that I often wait to write my sermon until the last minute, Saturday night or sometimes even Sunday morning, this is not a confession about my tendencies toward procrastination. I will save that confession for another Sunday. This confession is about my recent need for an attitude adjustment. Many Sundays my sermons are more for me to hear than for those who sit in the pews. Today, this is definitely the case. Earlier in the week, realizing that it was a matter of days before I would have to say goodbye to a group of friends who I have grown to love over these months, I felt my dread at saying goodbye starting to drain my glass which was previously half full. I talk a great talk about celebrating life’s gifts, even when we might wish for more, but this week it has been especially hard. In the military, change is really all we can count on, but no one said I had to like it.
In preparation for this week’s sermon, I read our psalm for today. Somewhere down the green mile as I raced to make it on time to my unit’s morning sync meeting, it hit me. I had been focusing so intently on this upcoming loss, that I had not remembered my gratitude for friendship, in the first place. Practicing gratitude is similar to practicing other spiritual disciplines, like praying or fasting. It is something we have to choose on purpose. Practicing gratitude is a way of living which transforms us little by little, each day. Learning how to live gratefully isn’t something that happens by itself. In fact, it is very hard to do, especially in the midst of stress and uncertainty, when disappointment knocks at our doors, threatening everything and life doesn’t pan out the way that we hoped. We don’t do these practices, praying or fasting or giving thanks, because we hope to change God. We practice spiritual disciplines because we hope, in committing ourselves to them, that we might grow in our capacity for faith and love more than we thought we ever could.
I think this is why the psalm spoke to me. Its first line was a bit of a wake up call. “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.” I don’t know, maybe it is a little troubling that my first thought was suspicion. But, really? This seems a little too good to be true. Can anyone live up to this kind of gratitude? Whole hearted praise, no matter what? I am willing to bet the psalmist didn’t always feel this way. I am sure that he had some challenging moments when praise and thanks were about the furthest thing from his mind. I know this because this has been true for me and true for each of us. There are days when giving thanks is next to impossible. That is just how it is. Nonetheless, the psalmist begins his prayer in this way. This must indicate something important.
But what does it really mean to give thanks to the Lord with our whole hearts? Does it have to do with the way that we love people or how much of ourselves we are willing to give away? Does it have to do with how many times we offer our prayer or praise or sing songs of worship or even come to church? What if the circumstances which close in upon our lives don’t seem to warrant thanks or praise at all? What if we are angry with God or have been hurt by one another? What if, in our grief, closing off our hearts is the only way to survive?
Notice the psalmist’s verb. He doesn’t say I give thanks, present tense, to the Lord with my whole heart, instead he says I will give thanks. The psalmist projects a future time, what he is striving for. And, he has faith that somewhere, somehow, in the midst of his doubt and struggle to believe Good News, God will step in and make up the difference. This is a psalm of praise to a God who has been unwavering in love and kindness, BUT it is spoken by a person who desperately needs to remember that this is all true.
Great are God’s works in the world, even when what we can see is hunger or sickness, the aftermath of war and violence. God’s work is full of honor and majesty, even when what we hear on the news is injustice and failed leadership. The Lord is gracious and merciful, even when we feel far from grace and mercy, when we have lost our way and don’t have the faintest clue how to be found again. God is faithful and just, even when people behave oppositely, when relationships fall apart, when those who are supposed to love and care for one another can’t even manage civility. God’s righteousness endures forever, even when the innocent suffer and the weak are crushed. The psalmist prays, not because he hopes to change God. He knows God is not the issue. Instead he prays because he hopes, in remembering and even celebrating God’s steadfast promises, his heart might be opened again, able and willing to give thanks without reservation.
We hear a lot of mixed messages about what it means to follow God, to be a Christian, to be a disciple. In the church, of all places, we are too often encouraged to feign faith even when we are confused. We are made to feel shame if we have questions or differences of opinions. But God welcomes, even embraces, our doubts and fears and even our lack of belief at times. God doesn’t ask us for cheap optimism or even hopefulness in every season of our lives. God listens to our complaints and our lament. God hears our cries and doesn’t turn away from us. In our pain and grief, God is right there with us, balling up a fist to a world that doles out more suffering than delight. But despite this, perhaps even in spite of all the logical reasons that we might close off our hearts and shield ourselves from uncertainty and pain, what God does ask of us is that we live our lives with our whole hearts-- wholly, not holy. There is a big difference.
This is what our faithfulness looks like. Responding to God with our whole heart. And, also, almost as important, responding to our neighbor in the same way. Not just a piece, not just a portion which is convenient or left over after all the other important things we are doing. The entire gospel revolves around this. We can’t really love anyone with half a heart nor can we serve them well. We can’t really reach out to those who are in need or who are struggling, we can’t minister to others or share any Good News when what we offer is with only a small piece. If you think about it, nothing done half-heartedly is ever really done at all.
And, this is where our practices of gratitude come into play. Because we all can attest, especially here in this place, that it’s hard to maintain any perspective at all. Tunnel vision, frustration, and the sheer drudgery of our mission easily contribute to loosing perspective. And, it happens so stealthily that half the time we don’t even notice. Whether it is the grind of the day in and day out, or doing the same old stuff, over and over again ad nauseam, it is easy to slip into a deployment coma where going through the motions is about all that we can muster. And we all know that this doesn’t just happen in Afghanistan, but it can happen anywhere, anytime, when we stop paying attention.
Choosing to live with our whole heart is momentum in the other direction. It is how we can stay engaged and tuned in and ready to respond to God whenever or wherever God appears. Living with our whole hearts, this is faithfulness. It is not about talking the loudest or the longest about Jesus or keeping tabs on our church attendance or even our charitable giving. Faithfulness has little to do with what we say or profess if we don’t practice it in our lives. Faithfulness is first and foremost a matter of the heart, of the whole heart. And, only God really knows.
So what does it look like to live with our whole heart? I know I have witnessed it here again and again over these months. I have seen it, watching my roommate stay up late, reading books on optometry, trying to understand the whole picture so that every patient she helps may have a chance at maintaining sight. I have heard it, listening to my interrogators explain their approaches with detainees which rely heavily on establishing trust and relationship, even with those who make it very difficult to offer compassion. I have heard stories of caring giving, of reaching out with love to detainees, even when patience has run thin and all any of us really want to do is go home and forget the nonsense. Living with our whole hearts is not about being perfect. It’s about being generous. It’s about resisting apathy and complacency. It’s about still caring when caring seems to make not much difference in the big picture because it still may make a difference to one. Because, even one matters.
The psalmist doesn’t say he is giving thanks with his whole heart now or even that he can do this alone, on his own steam. He says he will give thanks to the Lord with his whole heart. This is a statement of faith. We don’t know where the road may lead us or even what perils may wait for us around life’s bends. No one said that practicing gratitude would be easy or that living with our whole hearts wouldn’t hurt, at least sometimes. But where we may fall short, God’s grace will carry us. On the days when we may not be able to respond fully, God will make up the difference. Practicing gratitude transforms our hearts, little by little, so that one day, when all is said and done, we may know and find rest in God’s unconditional embrace. As the Psalmist reminds himself and us, God’s faithfulness endures forever and ever. That is a promise. Amen.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Friendship Rings
A few years ago, while culling the masses of costume jewelry I have accumulated over the years, I came across a small, silver ring which I, along with my two closest friends at the time, designed and had crafted by a local jeweler. It was slightly tarnished and could have used a good cleaning. Seeing it after the years and placing it on my finger where it once sat brought me right back to the ninth grade and the giddy excitement we felt over our unique and one-of-a-kind friendship rings. My mother had made me pay for it with my own money. No doubt, she was dubious that our friendship would last forever, much less survive the highs and lows of high school and adolescence. As much as I hated to tap into my life savings, this ring was worth it. Friendship was the most important thing in my life. If I was going to spend my hard earned babysitting money, it might as well be on something that mattered.
I can’t remember when I stopped wearing the ring. Perhaps it was after one of the girls moved away to boarding school and drifted away from us or when the other friend moved to a higher social echelon than me during our high school years. I may have even taken the ring to college, but at some point just forgot to put it on. Because the friendship which conceived the ring no longer played a principal role in my life, I no longer needed to wear it. Other rings took its place. Other friendships crept into my heart. Putting the ring aside was not a malicious decision. Instead, it was a natural response to a new chapter in my life.
Finding the ring buried deeply, somewhere between other keepsakes, caused me to reflect on my history of friendship, starting with the two who wore this friendship ring and who also, at least at one point, held on to the same hopes and dreams as me. A little over a year ago, I officiated the wedding of one of these friends. Though I had moved away from home almost ten years before and did not talk frequently to friends from grade school, she had found a way to stay connected to many of our childhood companions. Being a part of her wedding was a homecoming in every sense. From elementary school teachers to high school mates, it seemed that she had reached out and gathered threads from all of our life seasons. I marveled at how she had nurtured relationships over great distances and somehow managed to bring us all together. Those few hours were a reminder that time and distance may scatter us away from one another, but the ties that bind us don’t ever totally fade away.
In a way, my mother was right about the ring. She had a longer perspective than me who was in the height of teenage drama. It was silly and childish to think that the three of us would be best friends forever. We aren’t. In fact, years have passed when we haven’t spoken at all. But, the older I get, the more I have learned that life seems to find a means to wrap itself back around in ways we don’t expect. A “facebook” message out of the blue or an appearance in a dream may prompt me to think of one or the other of these two friends, or even both. Sometimes it is with longing for a relationship that is no more, but other times it is with a feeling of gratitude. Ring or not, I can’t seem to purge our friendship from my heart. The love I felt at one time was too real to be erased for good. It lives on inside of me and on occasion, presents itself in a glimmer, helping me remember that even when forever ends up looking differently than I expected, nonetheless, all has not been lost. Something still remains.
I have had so many friendship necklaces, bracelets, t-shirts, shorts, and other assortment of objects, over the years, that I have lost count. They have all been attempts to make love between friends more certain and lasting than a mere invisible promise of the heart. Even now, in Afghanistan, I have been joking with a new friend about “friendship rings.” I happened to choose a ring at our local bazaar which is very similar to hers. I have taken quite a leap in quality from my days of 3 for $10.99 at Claire’s or even my specially designed ring, but I can’t help but admit that the sentiment is the same. I think I may even like the ring even more because of hers. I know, though she will be going home soon, every time I see it, I will pause and think of her and what our friendship represented to me in this season of my life. Even in our adult years, we cling to that which helps us remember, though friends come and go from our physical presence, something of them remains a part of us always, no matter how much time has passed or how far we have traveled.
The annals of our hearts are as expansive as we allow. There is always enough room. In moments of grace, we are recaptured by our memory and taken back to another place and time, into the presence of a love which we once knew well but thought we had lost. Forever is true even when it’s not what we thought it would be.
I can’t remember when I stopped wearing the ring. Perhaps it was after one of the girls moved away to boarding school and drifted away from us or when the other friend moved to a higher social echelon than me during our high school years. I may have even taken the ring to college, but at some point just forgot to put it on. Because the friendship which conceived the ring no longer played a principal role in my life, I no longer needed to wear it. Other rings took its place. Other friendships crept into my heart. Putting the ring aside was not a malicious decision. Instead, it was a natural response to a new chapter in my life.
Finding the ring buried deeply, somewhere between other keepsakes, caused me to reflect on my history of friendship, starting with the two who wore this friendship ring and who also, at least at one point, held on to the same hopes and dreams as me. A little over a year ago, I officiated the wedding of one of these friends. Though I had moved away from home almost ten years before and did not talk frequently to friends from grade school, she had found a way to stay connected to many of our childhood companions. Being a part of her wedding was a homecoming in every sense. From elementary school teachers to high school mates, it seemed that she had reached out and gathered threads from all of our life seasons. I marveled at how she had nurtured relationships over great distances and somehow managed to bring us all together. Those few hours were a reminder that time and distance may scatter us away from one another, but the ties that bind us don’t ever totally fade away.
In a way, my mother was right about the ring. She had a longer perspective than me who was in the height of teenage drama. It was silly and childish to think that the three of us would be best friends forever. We aren’t. In fact, years have passed when we haven’t spoken at all. But, the older I get, the more I have learned that life seems to find a means to wrap itself back around in ways we don’t expect. A “facebook” message out of the blue or an appearance in a dream may prompt me to think of one or the other of these two friends, or even both. Sometimes it is with longing for a relationship that is no more, but other times it is with a feeling of gratitude. Ring or not, I can’t seem to purge our friendship from my heart. The love I felt at one time was too real to be erased for good. It lives on inside of me and on occasion, presents itself in a glimmer, helping me remember that even when forever ends up looking differently than I expected, nonetheless, all has not been lost. Something still remains.
I have had so many friendship necklaces, bracelets, t-shirts, shorts, and other assortment of objects, over the years, that I have lost count. They have all been attempts to make love between friends more certain and lasting than a mere invisible promise of the heart. Even now, in Afghanistan, I have been joking with a new friend about “friendship rings.” I happened to choose a ring at our local bazaar which is very similar to hers. I have taken quite a leap in quality from my days of 3 for $10.99 at Claire’s or even my specially designed ring, but I can’t help but admit that the sentiment is the same. I think I may even like the ring even more because of hers. I know, though she will be going home soon, every time I see it, I will pause and think of her and what our friendship represented to me in this season of my life. Even in our adult years, we cling to that which helps us remember, though friends come and go from our physical presence, something of them remains a part of us always, no matter how much time has passed or how far we have traveled.
The annals of our hearts are as expansive as we allow. There is always enough room. In moments of grace, we are recaptured by our memory and taken back to another place and time, into the presence of a love which we once knew well but thought we had lost. Forever is true even when it’s not what we thought it would be.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Following and Fishing - Sunday Sermon, January 22, 2012
Chaplain Mel Baars
22 January 2012
Mark 1:14-20
Following and Fishing
If you think about it, we are all followers of something. As children, we follow our parents, trying to figure out how to negotiate a new and big world. As teenagers, we follow the popular crowd, hoping to somehow get labeled “cool,” or at least avoid the opposite designation. As members of a society, we follow trends and customs. We follow traditions passed down through family or dear friends. We follow patterns of work and play and sports and fashion. We pick and choose who or what to follow, depending on what we care most about, what is important to us at the time. No matter how independent we think we are, we are all still followers.
Reading our passage this week, I have remembered many of the other times that I heard this story, both as a child and as an adult. The whole idea of being a “Jesus follower” never really struck me then. I was more interested in the idea that these disciples went from being fishers of fish to fishers of people. I never thought much about Jesus’ whole phrase. I just thought about the image. What does it mean to fish for people and actually catch them? You have to admit, it’s a bizarre idea. Growing up on the water, I had a lot of experience with fishing. While I would never admit it to my grandfather who most often took the grandkids out to fish, I always thought fishing was rather boring. A whole lot of sitting and waiting. And for what, a fish that we were not even going to eat?!! We always had to throw them back. So, really, what was the point? If any of you are fishermen, I apologize for my sacrilege. Fishing for people, however, sounded a lot more interesting.
Before we can really address the whole fishing for people bit, it might help us to pay attention to the order of words that Jesus says to his soon to be disciples. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Literally the Greek says, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers for people.” The order is important. Follow me. This simple command comes first. “Follow me,” Jesus says, and this is key to the rest of the story. These two words are what matter most. Follow me, not your father or mother or sister or brother, not the trends, or what seems cool or hip, not what your friends are doing or saying or what feels good or comfortable or easy, but simply, follow me.
But, what does it mean to follow Jesus. It seems, depending on what church background you come from or what your personal agenda is, if you love the environment or have committed yourself to peace and nonviolence, if you focus on saving the random passerby from the fiery pits of hell or care more about feeding the poor and needy, following Jesus can look like a whole variety of things. People are constantly making Jesus into whatever fits best for them. Some are most comfortable with Jesus as a strapping warrior, ready to march into battle. Some prefer an image of Jesus, surrounded by children, gently blessing them. Others cling to the Jesus of cross, of suffering and agony, courageously withstanding the sins of the world and making up for all of our inadequacies. It’s hard to really know what following Jesus means when no one can really agree on who Jesus is. The face of a detainee, an Afghan child without shoes, a homeless woman, a drug addict, an I-banker, a pastor, an elderly person, a newborn child. Which is it? Or, is there an option, somehow, for all of the above? Can Jesus be in each of these and more??
One thing is for sure, if following Jesus is going to take us away from following everything else, if he is going to have us follow him wherever he is, in housing units of potential terrorists or into the grime of poverty and suffering, he better be compelling. If the story sheds any light unto his charisma, then he must have had something going for him. If sons, with nets in the water, would jump out of the boat, not only abandoning plans for the day, but also leaving their own father, just to follow, there must have been something which inspired them.
Most of us who have been around the military, even for a short amount of time, know what it is like to be inspired into following, even if it is begrudgingly. When I was a cadet, our Ranger Challenge coach was unlike any coach I had ever known, in all of my years as an athlete. It would take a very special person to inspire college students to wake up, voluntarily, at 0530 every week day to train for a competition that wasn’t mandatory. I had NO intention of joining the team, but after one session with him, I didn’t have a choice but to join and follow. I will never forget one of our hardest workouts, half mile hill sprints. Six of them. And, because we didn’t run them collectively sub-twenty minutes, we spent an extra half hour running stadium steps with push ups and sit ups between sets. It was gruesome. But in a strange way, it felt really good and not just because we Army people are a little bit masochistic. I remember it as such a positive experience because he was there with us the whole way. We didn’t do anything that he didn’t do first. He may have been disappointed in us for our poor performance that morning, but our “punishment,” if you want to call it that, was not experienced by us alone. He lead us the whole time and in a way, because of the kind of leader he was, following him was easy to do.
When I reflect on the leaders who I have been most inclined to follow in my life, one characteristic seems to stand out. In their own way, each of these individuals, whether teachers or coaches or parent figures or mentors or even friends, made their love known. They cared deeply and this made all the difference. When the following is tough, when following becomes difficult, painful, even, one is likely to stay the course if they know, deep down, that the one that they follow really loves them.
Jesus tells us that when we follow him, he will make us into fishers of people. You will not have much success fishing for people unless you love them first. This is why we have to pay attention to Jesus’ phrase. When we follow Jesus, we learn how to fish. But really, what we learn, is how to love. Jesus molds us, his disciples, into people who know how to love others well. When we love well, when we follow in Jesus’ steps, reaching out to others like Jesus did, embracing others, those who are different or even those who are difficult to care about, we becoming fishers of people. But, love has to come first. Perhaps this is why love of God and neighbor is what Jesus says is the greatest commandment. We can’t tell people about the Good News until we love them. Love first and the rest will fall into place.
What does it look like to follow Jesus? It looks like a father, who sells half his worth and gives it to his son. His son, young, immature, and decidedly sinful, squanders it all away and ends up eating out of an animal trough, dumpster diving alongside of pigs. When that same son comes home, head down, tail between his legs, hoping to catch crumbs from the family’s table, his father embraces him. More than that, he throws him a party. What does he say, “What was once lost, has now been found!” It wasn’t fair or just, but then again, love is neither of those.
What does it look like to follow Jesus? It looks like a woman who takes in children who have lost their parents and raises them as her own. When one of them, a twelve year old, sells her tv, or steals money from her purse while she sleeps, but then after months of living on the street and being passed around from one man to the next, this same child comes home again, this mother embraces her. What was once lost, has now been found. It didn’t feel good, in fact, it hurt a whole lot, but no one said that love didn’t come with a price.
It seems fitting, particularly this week when we honor and celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, that we would learn a lesson from him about what it means to follow Jesus. In one of his sermons Christmas of 1967, he mentioned that he was happy that Jesus had not said, “Like your enemies,” because there were some people that he found pretty difficult to like. He said, “I can’t like anybody who would bomb my home. I can’t like anybody who would exploit me. I can’t like anybody who would trample over me with injustices. I can’t like them. I can’t like anybody who threatens to kill me day in and day out.”[1] But, he could love them he later said. He couldn’t like them, but he could love them.
Because love is very different from like. Love is more than a warm, happy feeling. Love is more than a desire or a preference. Love is a choice, a decision that we make and then hold on to for dear life. Love pierces the heart. Love brings us to our knees on some days with grief, despair or pain. Love doesn’t come cheaply. Love requires everything we have, and sometimes even more than that. Love will even cost your life, one way or the other. When we hear Christ beckon to us, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men,” and we drop our nets and open ourselves to God’s molding and shaping and stretching, we will never be the same. But, this is how we share the Good News. This is how we witness to the truth. This is how we learn to be fishers of people. By following Jesus, we are made into people who know how to love. We don’t teach ourselves, but as we follow, we are transformed by our teacher, the one who loved us first and best. The one who loves us until the very end, whether we have followed well or strayed and fallen along the way.
If you want to be fishers of people, if you want to be a part of sowing seeds of God’s kingdom here and now, the way is clear. “Follow me,” Jesus says, “And I will teach you how to love.” You won’t catch anything unless you do this. Love comes first. That’s just the way it is. Amen
[1] Susan B. W. Johnson. “Love’s Double Victory.” Christian Century, 15 Jan 97
22 January 2012
Mark 1:14-20
Following and Fishing
If you think about it, we are all followers of something. As children, we follow our parents, trying to figure out how to negotiate a new and big world. As teenagers, we follow the popular crowd, hoping to somehow get labeled “cool,” or at least avoid the opposite designation. As members of a society, we follow trends and customs. We follow traditions passed down through family or dear friends. We follow patterns of work and play and sports and fashion. We pick and choose who or what to follow, depending on what we care most about, what is important to us at the time. No matter how independent we think we are, we are all still followers.
Reading our passage this week, I have remembered many of the other times that I heard this story, both as a child and as an adult. The whole idea of being a “Jesus follower” never really struck me then. I was more interested in the idea that these disciples went from being fishers of fish to fishers of people. I never thought much about Jesus’ whole phrase. I just thought about the image. What does it mean to fish for people and actually catch them? You have to admit, it’s a bizarre idea. Growing up on the water, I had a lot of experience with fishing. While I would never admit it to my grandfather who most often took the grandkids out to fish, I always thought fishing was rather boring. A whole lot of sitting and waiting. And for what, a fish that we were not even going to eat?!! We always had to throw them back. So, really, what was the point? If any of you are fishermen, I apologize for my sacrilege. Fishing for people, however, sounded a lot more interesting.
Before we can really address the whole fishing for people bit, it might help us to pay attention to the order of words that Jesus says to his soon to be disciples. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” Literally the Greek says, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers for people.” The order is important. Follow me. This simple command comes first. “Follow me,” Jesus says, and this is key to the rest of the story. These two words are what matter most. Follow me, not your father or mother or sister or brother, not the trends, or what seems cool or hip, not what your friends are doing or saying or what feels good or comfortable or easy, but simply, follow me.
But, what does it mean to follow Jesus. It seems, depending on what church background you come from or what your personal agenda is, if you love the environment or have committed yourself to peace and nonviolence, if you focus on saving the random passerby from the fiery pits of hell or care more about feeding the poor and needy, following Jesus can look like a whole variety of things. People are constantly making Jesus into whatever fits best for them. Some are most comfortable with Jesus as a strapping warrior, ready to march into battle. Some prefer an image of Jesus, surrounded by children, gently blessing them. Others cling to the Jesus of cross, of suffering and agony, courageously withstanding the sins of the world and making up for all of our inadequacies. It’s hard to really know what following Jesus means when no one can really agree on who Jesus is. The face of a detainee, an Afghan child without shoes, a homeless woman, a drug addict, an I-banker, a pastor, an elderly person, a newborn child. Which is it? Or, is there an option, somehow, for all of the above? Can Jesus be in each of these and more??
One thing is for sure, if following Jesus is going to take us away from following everything else, if he is going to have us follow him wherever he is, in housing units of potential terrorists or into the grime of poverty and suffering, he better be compelling. If the story sheds any light unto his charisma, then he must have had something going for him. If sons, with nets in the water, would jump out of the boat, not only abandoning plans for the day, but also leaving their own father, just to follow, there must have been something which inspired them.
Most of us who have been around the military, even for a short amount of time, know what it is like to be inspired into following, even if it is begrudgingly. When I was a cadet, our Ranger Challenge coach was unlike any coach I had ever known, in all of my years as an athlete. It would take a very special person to inspire college students to wake up, voluntarily, at 0530 every week day to train for a competition that wasn’t mandatory. I had NO intention of joining the team, but after one session with him, I didn’t have a choice but to join and follow. I will never forget one of our hardest workouts, half mile hill sprints. Six of them. And, because we didn’t run them collectively sub-twenty minutes, we spent an extra half hour running stadium steps with push ups and sit ups between sets. It was gruesome. But in a strange way, it felt really good and not just because we Army people are a little bit masochistic. I remember it as such a positive experience because he was there with us the whole way. We didn’t do anything that he didn’t do first. He may have been disappointed in us for our poor performance that morning, but our “punishment,” if you want to call it that, was not experienced by us alone. He lead us the whole time and in a way, because of the kind of leader he was, following him was easy to do.
When I reflect on the leaders who I have been most inclined to follow in my life, one characteristic seems to stand out. In their own way, each of these individuals, whether teachers or coaches or parent figures or mentors or even friends, made their love known. They cared deeply and this made all the difference. When the following is tough, when following becomes difficult, painful, even, one is likely to stay the course if they know, deep down, that the one that they follow really loves them.
Jesus tells us that when we follow him, he will make us into fishers of people. You will not have much success fishing for people unless you love them first. This is why we have to pay attention to Jesus’ phrase. When we follow Jesus, we learn how to fish. But really, what we learn, is how to love. Jesus molds us, his disciples, into people who know how to love others well. When we love well, when we follow in Jesus’ steps, reaching out to others like Jesus did, embracing others, those who are different or even those who are difficult to care about, we becoming fishers of people. But, love has to come first. Perhaps this is why love of God and neighbor is what Jesus says is the greatest commandment. We can’t tell people about the Good News until we love them. Love first and the rest will fall into place.
What does it look like to follow Jesus? It looks like a father, who sells half his worth and gives it to his son. His son, young, immature, and decidedly sinful, squanders it all away and ends up eating out of an animal trough, dumpster diving alongside of pigs. When that same son comes home, head down, tail between his legs, hoping to catch crumbs from the family’s table, his father embraces him. More than that, he throws him a party. What does he say, “What was once lost, has now been found!” It wasn’t fair or just, but then again, love is neither of those.
What does it look like to follow Jesus? It looks like a woman who takes in children who have lost their parents and raises them as her own. When one of them, a twelve year old, sells her tv, or steals money from her purse while she sleeps, but then after months of living on the street and being passed around from one man to the next, this same child comes home again, this mother embraces her. What was once lost, has now been found. It didn’t feel good, in fact, it hurt a whole lot, but no one said that love didn’t come with a price.
It seems fitting, particularly this week when we honor and celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, that we would learn a lesson from him about what it means to follow Jesus. In one of his sermons Christmas of 1967, he mentioned that he was happy that Jesus had not said, “Like your enemies,” because there were some people that he found pretty difficult to like. He said, “I can’t like anybody who would bomb my home. I can’t like anybody who would exploit me. I can’t like anybody who would trample over me with injustices. I can’t like them. I can’t like anybody who threatens to kill me day in and day out.”[1] But, he could love them he later said. He couldn’t like them, but he could love them.
Because love is very different from like. Love is more than a warm, happy feeling. Love is more than a desire or a preference. Love is a choice, a decision that we make and then hold on to for dear life. Love pierces the heart. Love brings us to our knees on some days with grief, despair or pain. Love doesn’t come cheaply. Love requires everything we have, and sometimes even more than that. Love will even cost your life, one way or the other. When we hear Christ beckon to us, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men,” and we drop our nets and open ourselves to God’s molding and shaping and stretching, we will never be the same. But, this is how we share the Good News. This is how we witness to the truth. This is how we learn to be fishers of people. By following Jesus, we are made into people who know how to love. We don’t teach ourselves, but as we follow, we are transformed by our teacher, the one who loved us first and best. The one who loves us until the very end, whether we have followed well or strayed and fallen along the way.
If you want to be fishers of people, if you want to be a part of sowing seeds of God’s kingdom here and now, the way is clear. “Follow me,” Jesus says, “And I will teach you how to love.” You won’t catch anything unless you do this. Love comes first. That’s just the way it is. Amen
[1] Susan B. W. Johnson. “Love’s Double Victory.” Christian Century, 15 Jan 97
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Coming and Going
These next few weeks will mark a great transition of soldiers on our camp. As turnover abounds and new personnel arrive and others prepare to go home, those of us who are somewhere stuck in the middle experience both the excitement of new possibility and the sadness which accompanies departing friends. In the military, change is just about the only thing that we count on. Learning to live with the coming and going is just part of military existence.
Over the past few years, I feel I have gotten less emotional about leaving. It’s hard to do, especially when a place has become a real home and the people who are connected to it have become real family. But there is something about leaving which propels you forward into the future, even if it is with a taste of bittersweet in one's mouth. When called to leave for ventures yet unknown, the sense of excitement is hard to deny. The sheer demands of leaving force those who go, literally, to take those physical steps forward. This means it is impossible to hold on to much of what is left behind, at least in a physical sense.
In these weeks I have realized something of what it means to stay behind. So far, I have hardly been the one left over in a place, negotiating the same space minus the presence of one who is dear. Now I realize why every time I have left a home, I have done so carrying with me goodbye gifts and keepsakes. In the absence of the person, small reminders of them make the adjustment more bearable. I realize, however, this is more for the person who is left behind than for the one who has left in the first place.
I spent the last couple of days staying up way past my bedtime, knitting a hat for a friend whose deployment ended a few weeks earlier than expected. I only had about three days to finish the project, and while I could have mailed it home to her, I couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving without something from me which might remind her of how much I love her. I realized, as I knitted furiously into the night, that my offering was much more about my own need to give something than it was for her to have something else to carry with her throughout the days and days of travel which she would be sure to endure leaving Afghanistan. When she mentioned that I didn’t have to do this, I told her the truth. It was more for me than for her. It helped me to say goodbye, let go, if I knew I had sent her on her way not only with my words of care and blessing but also with something to hold in her two hands. A real, tangible symbol of friendship during a season of our lives, a friendship which months and even years later I will still be cherishing in some way.
Being left is a whole new experience. Over the next few weeks, more friends will depart, and I will continue to experience a sense of loss. That’s ok. It just means that people matter. When you love people well, it’s impossible not to want to hold onto them. That is just a part of life. Sometimes it hurts.
I also know that this revolving door of people will yield ample possibility for new friendship, new memories, and new reason to celebrate the surprising gifts we find when we least expect them. What feels like empty space will be filled out in due time, but not in a way that erases what, or in this case who, was once there. Instead, when we love, the space just gets more expansive so that new people can be included. When we are open, there is always enough room for the old and the new. Love is gracious that way.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Sunday Sermon - January 15, 2012
Chaplain Mel Baars
January 15, 2012
Camp Sabalu-Harrison
John 1:43-51
I am sure many of you have seen this optical illusion before. The first time I saw it, I couldn’t, for the life of me, see the young and beautiful woman. All I could see what the old woman and her big nose. As soon as the picture flashed on the screen, I fixated on her and nothing that I did helped me see the picture any differently. After a while, people started giving me tips. “Look at the nose of the old woman… that’s really the young woman’s jaw line, “ or “The old lady’s mouth is really the necklace of the young woman.” I still couldn’t see it. By the end, there were about five guys, standing around, trying to help me refocus beyond my inital response the picture. I can’t remember how long it took me to see from the other perspective once my mind had set itself on the image of an old woman instead of a young one.
Things are rarely what they appear to be at first glance, or at least they are far more complex than any surface reading we might make. More often than not, we tend to rely on our assumptions, about a person, about a situation, about something coming in the future, therefore neglecting to leave a space for the person, the situation, the coming future to actually unfold. We think we know all that we really need to know about whatever it is, and so we move forward, reacting and responding, based on our assuming regardless of whether or not we have gotten it right. If my life is any indication, this is not the best way to conduct business. People are hurt and relationships are damaged, often unnecessarily. When we react based on pure assumption, we often miss the boat entirely. If we fixate on what we want something or someone to be instead of making space for them to be simply who they are, we are dooming them and us for failure. Inevitably, too, we are deeply disappointed, perhaps even angry that they didn’t turn out to be who we thought they were. It is a vicious cycle and all because we jumped too soon and set our hearts about our feelings and our opinion before even giving it a fair chance.
In a way, our scripture lessons for this week both address this idea of assumption based decision making. In our Old Testament passage we have little Samuel, an inexperienced boy, to whom God calls. When Samuel hears his name called, he says, “Here I am,” running to find his mentor Eli, who he believes has called him. Eli has no idea what Samuel is going on about and tells him to take a chill pill, lie back down and go to sleep. As soon as Samuel lays down, the voice calls again, “Samuel,” So Samuel runs back to Eli. “Here I am,” he says, out of breath because of this up and down and running around. Once again, Eli tells Samuel he has not called him and that he should go back and lie down. I am sure at this point Samuel is very confused. He keeps hearing a voice call his name, but when he goes to the person that he assumes has called out, he is wrong.
As the passage says, “Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” There was really no option in his frame of reference for this voice to belong to God. He didn’t know God on this level. Instead, he knew Eli and it was only Eli who was there with him in the Temple. He just assumed that Eli would be the one calling out. It happens again a third time. God calls out and Samuel runs to Eli saying, “I’m here. I’m here.” Samuel can’t seem to move beyond his fixation that it is Eli who is calling him instead of being open to something else, someone more. His assumptions almost cause him to miss God altogether, and in mistaking God’s call, miss an opportunity to serve God.
Our gospel story is even more obvious when it comes to the problem of making assumptions. Jesus is in the process of calling the disciples. Jesus has gotten to Philip and convinced him to follow and now Philip has set out to be a recruiter. When Philip shares with Nathanael about “the one” whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth, Nathanael quips, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was an unremarkable town, so how could anything significant come from there. It was an unexpected site for the origins of the savior of the world, to say the least. Clearly Nathanael has made his decision about the Jesus and his potential for greatness before even laying eyes on him. To believe that this Jesus as Messiah was anything more than rumor gone amuck might have been a mistake. But, in the story, something very surprising takes place. Nathanael goes from assuming the worst to recognizing the best of what a human life could be—God with us, inncarnate, in the flesh.
The curious thing about Nathanael’s 180 degree turn is that it doesn’t seem to be promted by anything particular. It is hard to say what is it that changes his mind. Jesus doesn’t do anything of note. All he does is address Nathanael honestly, voicing the potential of his heart in such a way that Nathanael can’t resist. Jesus says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deciet.” Wait a minute, Nathanael is thinking and he responds, “But when is it that you got to know me?” How would this stranger have any idea what is in his heart, what kind of character that he is made of? Jesus’ explaination... “I saw you under the fig tree.” Ok, this is really bizarre. What is significant about the fig tree. How could this illuminate some special characteristic located deep within Nathanael? Well, of course, we know the answer is that it couldn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered it Nathanael was standing under a fig tree or an apple tree or next to a cactus or in the middle of the Camp Sabalu-Harrison DFAC. But, I think the psalmist puts it well, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.”
An encounter with God changes everything for Nathanael just like it changes everything for us. The thing about Jesus is that he sees us, each one of us, exactly how we are. I feel a little silly mentioning one of Superman’s special powers, but it is like Jesus has something of x-ray vision of the heart. When he examines us, nothing can be hidden, not even our deepest, darkest secrets or hurts which we have so carefully buried. Jesus sees it all, our desires, our hopes, our doubts and our fears and our limitations, the ways that we love which remain unseen as well as the ways we harbor our hate. Even our potential is percieved.
The amazing thing that we learn from these stories is that when God calls us, whether we are young like Samuel, not even able to understand God’s voice, or more seasoned like Nathanael and quick to question Good News and voice our suspicion about God, when God calls us, God invites us to see and grow beyond our assumptions. God makes a space where we have not been able to do so. God invites us to maximize our potential, all the while shepherding us back into the fold when we have strayed. God invites us to be more than we are, to do more than we thought we could ever do, to serve beyond our reach and to love even those who have brought us pain or harm. But, this is not on our own accord, through our own efforts alone, but with God as our partner along the way. God invites us and then promises to be with us as our continual source of strength. Not just for a moment, here and there, but instead, in every moment, today, tomorrow, forever.
When God calls us to come and follow, when God extends an invitation of grace, this is just the beginning of our journey of faith. Recognizing that it is God’s voice who is calling and not some other voice, and then responding to this call, to the truth of what God is offering marks the beginning of a lifelong relationship. It is a journey of discipleship where we are constantly learning and growing into the potential that we have been created to be. The more we learn about who Jesus is and what he has come to do in the world, the more we are able to understand what it means to truly follow him, what it means to live as he lived and love as he loved.
This is why we gather, even when we are few, because on this journey, we learn faithfulness from one another, as we read these holy texts, as we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, as we sit with one another in laughter or in tears. We practice our discipleship both when we answer the call and then when we remain willing to continue on this path, even when it gets hard, even when we can no longer hear God’s voice at all. We might assume, based on some of our relationships with others, maybe relationships with family members or friends that have gone terribly wrong, that in difficulty or silence, God has left us. But that is the difference with God and us. We may be wayward. We may have a propensity to run to the next shinny thing or give up once we assume that all has been lost. We may easily lose our way, but not God. God’s steadfastness is unlike anything we have ever known or even imagined possible. So that even those of us who assume the worst, might come to know the fullness of life in him. This is the Good News.
The voice of God is calling. May we hear. May we follow. Amen
January 15, 2012
Camp Sabalu-Harrison
John 1:43-51
I am sure many of you have seen this optical illusion before. The first time I saw it, I couldn’t, for the life of me, see the young and beautiful woman. All I could see what the old woman and her big nose. As soon as the picture flashed on the screen, I fixated on her and nothing that I did helped me see the picture any differently. After a while, people started giving me tips. “Look at the nose of the old woman… that’s really the young woman’s jaw line, “ or “The old lady’s mouth is really the necklace of the young woman.” I still couldn’t see it. By the end, there were about five guys, standing around, trying to help me refocus beyond my inital response the picture. I can’t remember how long it took me to see from the other perspective once my mind had set itself on the image of an old woman instead of a young one.
Things are rarely what they appear to be at first glance, or at least they are far more complex than any surface reading we might make. More often than not, we tend to rely on our assumptions, about a person, about a situation, about something coming in the future, therefore neglecting to leave a space for the person, the situation, the coming future to actually unfold. We think we know all that we really need to know about whatever it is, and so we move forward, reacting and responding, based on our assuming regardless of whether or not we have gotten it right. If my life is any indication, this is not the best way to conduct business. People are hurt and relationships are damaged, often unnecessarily. When we react based on pure assumption, we often miss the boat entirely. If we fixate on what we want something or someone to be instead of making space for them to be simply who they are, we are dooming them and us for failure. Inevitably, too, we are deeply disappointed, perhaps even angry that they didn’t turn out to be who we thought they were. It is a vicious cycle and all because we jumped too soon and set our hearts about our feelings and our opinion before even giving it a fair chance.
In a way, our scripture lessons for this week both address this idea of assumption based decision making. In our Old Testament passage we have little Samuel, an inexperienced boy, to whom God calls. When Samuel hears his name called, he says, “Here I am,” running to find his mentor Eli, who he believes has called him. Eli has no idea what Samuel is going on about and tells him to take a chill pill, lie back down and go to sleep. As soon as Samuel lays down, the voice calls again, “Samuel,” So Samuel runs back to Eli. “Here I am,” he says, out of breath because of this up and down and running around. Once again, Eli tells Samuel he has not called him and that he should go back and lie down. I am sure at this point Samuel is very confused. He keeps hearing a voice call his name, but when he goes to the person that he assumes has called out, he is wrong.
As the passage says, “Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.” There was really no option in his frame of reference for this voice to belong to God. He didn’t know God on this level. Instead, he knew Eli and it was only Eli who was there with him in the Temple. He just assumed that Eli would be the one calling out. It happens again a third time. God calls out and Samuel runs to Eli saying, “I’m here. I’m here.” Samuel can’t seem to move beyond his fixation that it is Eli who is calling him instead of being open to something else, someone more. His assumptions almost cause him to miss God altogether, and in mistaking God’s call, miss an opportunity to serve God.
Our gospel story is even more obvious when it comes to the problem of making assumptions. Jesus is in the process of calling the disciples. Jesus has gotten to Philip and convinced him to follow and now Philip has set out to be a recruiter. When Philip shares with Nathanael about “the one” whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth, Nathanael quips, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth was an unremarkable town, so how could anything significant come from there. It was an unexpected site for the origins of the savior of the world, to say the least. Clearly Nathanael has made his decision about the Jesus and his potential for greatness before even laying eyes on him. To believe that this Jesus as Messiah was anything more than rumor gone amuck might have been a mistake. But, in the story, something very surprising takes place. Nathanael goes from assuming the worst to recognizing the best of what a human life could be—God with us, inncarnate, in the flesh.
The curious thing about Nathanael’s 180 degree turn is that it doesn’t seem to be promted by anything particular. It is hard to say what is it that changes his mind. Jesus doesn’t do anything of note. All he does is address Nathanael honestly, voicing the potential of his heart in such a way that Nathanael can’t resist. Jesus says, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deciet.” Wait a minute, Nathanael is thinking and he responds, “But when is it that you got to know me?” How would this stranger have any idea what is in his heart, what kind of character that he is made of? Jesus’ explaination... “I saw you under the fig tree.” Ok, this is really bizarre. What is significant about the fig tree. How could this illuminate some special characteristic located deep within Nathanael? Well, of course, we know the answer is that it couldn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered it Nathanael was standing under a fig tree or an apple tree or next to a cactus or in the middle of the Camp Sabalu-Harrison DFAC. But, I think the psalmist puts it well, “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.”
An encounter with God changes everything for Nathanael just like it changes everything for us. The thing about Jesus is that he sees us, each one of us, exactly how we are. I feel a little silly mentioning one of Superman’s special powers, but it is like Jesus has something of x-ray vision of the heart. When he examines us, nothing can be hidden, not even our deepest, darkest secrets or hurts which we have so carefully buried. Jesus sees it all, our desires, our hopes, our doubts and our fears and our limitations, the ways that we love which remain unseen as well as the ways we harbor our hate. Even our potential is percieved.
The amazing thing that we learn from these stories is that when God calls us, whether we are young like Samuel, not even able to understand God’s voice, or more seasoned like Nathanael and quick to question Good News and voice our suspicion about God, when God calls us, God invites us to see and grow beyond our assumptions. God makes a space where we have not been able to do so. God invites us to maximize our potential, all the while shepherding us back into the fold when we have strayed. God invites us to be more than we are, to do more than we thought we could ever do, to serve beyond our reach and to love even those who have brought us pain or harm. But, this is not on our own accord, through our own efforts alone, but with God as our partner along the way. God invites us and then promises to be with us as our continual source of strength. Not just for a moment, here and there, but instead, in every moment, today, tomorrow, forever.
When God calls us to come and follow, when God extends an invitation of grace, this is just the beginning of our journey of faith. Recognizing that it is God’s voice who is calling and not some other voice, and then responding to this call, to the truth of what God is offering marks the beginning of a lifelong relationship. It is a journey of discipleship where we are constantly learning and growing into the potential that we have been created to be. The more we learn about who Jesus is and what he has come to do in the world, the more we are able to understand what it means to truly follow him, what it means to live as he lived and love as he loved.
This is why we gather, even when we are few, because on this journey, we learn faithfulness from one another, as we read these holy texts, as we eat of this bread and drink of this cup, as we sit with one another in laughter or in tears. We practice our discipleship both when we answer the call and then when we remain willing to continue on this path, even when it gets hard, even when we can no longer hear God’s voice at all. We might assume, based on some of our relationships with others, maybe relationships with family members or friends that have gone terribly wrong, that in difficulty or silence, God has left us. But that is the difference with God and us. We may be wayward. We may have a propensity to run to the next shinny thing or give up once we assume that all has been lost. We may easily lose our way, but not God. God’s steadfastness is unlike anything we have ever known or even imagined possible. So that even those of us who assume the worst, might come to know the fullness of life in him. This is the Good News.
The voice of God is calling. May we hear. May we follow. Amen
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
A Matter of Perspective
A few days ago, an Associated Press article came out about detainee abuse and torture at the Detention Facility of Parwan, or as it is called for short, the DFIP. Reading the article, which both the BBC and Fox News featured, was a fascinating experience. Being at the DFIP each day and working with US personnel whose jobs are to guard, care for, and in some cases, interrogate, detainees, these articles seemed wildly off base. So much so that it is almost not worth addressing the accusations. It is almost as if they had been written about another place altogether. But, of course, this news is worth addressing. How else will the public know another aspect of this story if we dismiss the articles as false, not even bothering to talk about them.
I will be the first to admit that I came into this post with some healthy skepticism. I wasn’t sure what I would find in an Army battalion whose sole purpose is interrogating detainees under US custody during a time of war. After all, my undergrad thesis research focused on Abu Ghraib. I knew some of the worst of what could happen when poor leadership and ethical meltdown collided at a detention facility during one of the the hottest seasons of the war in Iraq. We have all seen the pictures and balked at how such human degradation could ever transpire under the US flag. Certainly never on any of our watches. But it did, and since we all know that history repeats itself, it still could.
Word on the street is that every so often, the “torture” story gets rolled back through the news cycle. It’s just par for the course in detainee operation, at least that is what I have heard in these days. But since this is all still pretty new to me, I find that dismissive stance not good enough. Getting to know many of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who give months and even years of their lives to this mission, it seems rather disrespectful of their hard work to not point out the level of concern and care that is infused into work here every day.
Between the medical professionals that I have gotten to know, who provide the whole gamut of care from dentistry to physical therapy, to my own interrogators who spend hours and days, working with detainees, establishing trust and even relationship in some cases, the idea that US personnel are mistreating detainees is almost a joke. The oversight alone makes it next to impossible for even one misstep to take place within our walls. From the medical checks to the visits from the ICRC and other humanitarian organizations, I don’t know where abuse could even happen. We are under a world microscope and as far as I can see, bending over backward to not only comply but be generous in our operations. Food, clothing, shelter, and medical care are basic rights in this place, and even those who have not behaved are never denied these basics.
Disagree with the war, that’s fine by me. Protest the way that we capture and detainee individuals, if that is your opinion on the subject. But, to recycle a bad news story that is almost antithetical to the truth of what is happening is a huge disservice to the American public. They deserve better, and so do the people who are working here at the DFIP.
Scrutiny is absolutely needed in this kind of operation. The more the better, as far as I am concerned. Yet, the only way that we might move forward with any hope for a better future, is to do so with open eyes. Transparency is our saving grace. The positive progress that has been made in these years since one of our worse moments in detention history should be highlighted when appropriate. This isn’t about becoming complacent over some kind of deluded perfection that we think we have achieved. If we are honest, we know that getting it all right all the time isn’t possible. This mission is human and prone to slips and even falls. But, let’s keep our focus on what matters. By infusing dignity where we can and building up those who have been brought down low for whatever reason, we may make a difference that counts in the long run. And, only time will tell.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Home By Another Way
Reverend Mel Baars
January 8, 2012
Epiphany
Home By Another Way
Like most kids who grew up in a church going family, a part in the annual Christmas pageant was hard to avoid. It didn’t help at all that my grandmother, stalwart Methodist and avid church go-er, also happened to be a drama teacher and the pageant organizer. My role as head angel was secure throughout all the years of my childhood. The pageant would unfold as most pageants do. Mary and Joseph would knock on the innkeeper’s door and after being told there was no room in the inn, would settle into the makeshift stable where paper mache sheep, goats and cattle would be “lowing.”
At some point, I would sing Away in a Manger and then, shortly thereafter, the wise men would appear bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, foam boxes spray painted to look shiny and regal. The wise men, typically clad in bathrobes and converted bed sheets, were often the “wise men” of the congregation. Baring death or serious illness, their parts were also set in stone. Since nativity plays are not able to honor “real time,” the wise men always arrived about five minutes after the Jesus’ birth rather than a few years. We don’t really know when they arrived or how long it took for them to find Jesus. All we know is that these wise men embarked on a long, uncertain journey, following a star all the way.
Nativity plays can’t really capture the journey of the magi. In a way, watching the journey wouldn’t be THAT interesting, at least for a large portion of the time. I am sure there were some adventurous moments, traversing the sand dunes, balancing on a camel hours at a time, and all the while, being guided by a star. It is not really the details of the journey, though, that matter so much as it is the way that the journey must have changed the travelers. Most of us, whenever setting off on a journey, don’t really conceive of what it will mean to us, how it will change the course of our future. I wonder if the Wise Men had any idea what they were getting themselves into or how this journey would change them forever. Would they have still gone, if they had known the whole picture, if they had known about King Herod’s deception and fear? Would they have followed the star knowing that an encounter with Jesus would mean that nothing would ever be the same?
We don’t have much factual knowledge about these magi. Some scholars have claimed that they were magicians who practiced divination which was regarded as dangerous, to say the least. Others have argued that they were a part of a priestly class serving the rulers of Persia therefore wielding significant power and influence. Still others figure that they were astrologers who looked toward the heavens for signs, providing advice and insight.
We can’t begin to know, really, what it is that they saw and subsequently followed all those many miles. Perhaps what they saw was a supernova or major celestial explosion. Although, it could be that what they saw wasn’t that remarkable to the average onlooker. Maybe these wise men just happened to have their eyes tuned in to the world that was unfolding around them. While Biblical scholars and scribes serving King Herod should have been watching and remembering the words of the prophets about a ruler coming out of Bethlehem in Judah, they were not paying attention. Instead, it was these magi who not only had eyes to see, but also had enough faith to embark on a journey to find the truth.
I can imagine, in the fervor and excitement of such a discovery, a star rising, signaling this new birth, that deciding to go on the journey was the easy part, particularly with “group think” mentality. If everyone thinks it’s a good idea, then the more negative consequences are not always brought to light. It is less scary to do something brave with a friend, versus on one’s own. Yet, I can imagine, a few weeks into their traveling, their faith in this star and this prophecy must have started to wane. What if they had gotten it wrong? What if this wasn’t what God really meant when God spoke through the prophets? What if they were too late and their journey was for nothing? As they traveled over weeks and months and maybe years, not knowing where they were going or what they were going to find when they got there, I am sure that their faith in the star must have faltered. After all, they were human, however wise, and surely, on some of the more cold, dark, and lonely nights, they must have thought about turning back toward home, back toward what they knew was certain.
Yet, in a way, they must have know that once embarked upon this journey of faith, there was no going back. Faithfulness on this journey did not manifest itself in what they knew for sure. Having doubts or wondering if they would ever make it did not mean they were lost. Instead faithfulness meant taking the next step. Not giving up. Following the star when everyone and everything else around them advised otherwise. Their faithfulness was rooted in how they pressed on, not derailed by exhaustion or distraction along the way, but simply staying the course, following the star no matter where it led them.
When I think about journeying, it’s hard not to consider the journey that we are all on here in Afghanistan. Instead of a star to propel us onto the plane, across the miles and away from the comfort of what we know well, we had orders and a commander or First Sergeant telling us what to do and when to do it. Nonetheless, coming here has required leaps of faith. Whether we work as a part of the guard force, practice some form of detainee medicine, or engage in other aspects of the mission, on many days, staying faithful to our calling has meant, simply, putting one foot in front of the other, not giving up or letting frustration get to us, remembering that we, too, are guided by the light of a star. Even when life seems dark. Even, when we feel alone and disconnected from God.
This journey of faith is not without doubt or fear. It is not without our questions or confusion. It is not even without our protest or sadness in times of suffering or loss. I think that we sometimes confuse our confidence with the quality of our faith. But real faith is not captured in a moment. It is not only understood when life is in order and the sun is shining bright enough to show us our way. Faith can also be real when belief has become strained. Faith is also present when we have lost our way because the darkness has not let up. Faith is real even when we are tired and spent and barely stumbling along. Faith exists when we simply continue the journey.
This is why the journey is so important, because it shapes us and makes us into something we never dreamed we could become. In the roads that we travel, in the life that we live and the people that we cling to while traversing our paths, we are in the process of growing and changing, transforming into something new so that when we finally get to the end, when the star that we have been following has stopped over the place where the Christ child waits and it is time to pay our tribute, we will be the kind of people who are ready to offer the gift that matters most.
As one author has put it, “Each choice creates the road that will take you to the place where at last you will kneel to offer the gift most needed-- the gift that only you can give-- before turning to go home by another way.”[1]
And, that’s the thing. On this journey of faith which brings us to the heart of God, we can’t go back the way we came from. We are not able to retrace the same steps or use the same route, but we go home by another way. There is no going back, but only forward. Once we have encountered Christ in the place where we meet him face to face, we are no longer the same. When we met Jesus in the flesh, perhaps in friend or even in a stranger, perhaps in the face of one who is different or one who challenges all that we know to be real or true, but when we have come to find him wherever he is, we realize that we have been changed.
Our encounter with Christ changes our path forever, making it impossible to be who we once were, to follow in the ways that we once tread. We are no longer comfortable in a world that is not centered in Jesus and his gospel. We are no longer able to stand by and watch injustice doled out to the poor. We are not able to turn a blind’s eye to those who are in need. Even when we don’t choose to act, to stand up for the weak or troubled, we still churn with unease because we know what Jesus would do. We know what Jesus is calling us to do again and again. And, no matter what, once we have knelt by his manger, we can never forget it. We can never go back. The journey has shaped us, and the encounter has transformed us. We live life differently because of the new life that lives inside of us. This is the life of Christ. A new heart to love as God loves, this is what we find when we follow the star.
So, come on this journey of the magi. Your life will never be the same. Amen
[1] Jan Richardson, “For those who have far to travel.” An Epiphany Blessing
January 8, 2012
Epiphany
Home By Another Way
Like most kids who grew up in a church going family, a part in the annual Christmas pageant was hard to avoid. It didn’t help at all that my grandmother, stalwart Methodist and avid church go-er, also happened to be a drama teacher and the pageant organizer. My role as head angel was secure throughout all the years of my childhood. The pageant would unfold as most pageants do. Mary and Joseph would knock on the innkeeper’s door and after being told there was no room in the inn, would settle into the makeshift stable where paper mache sheep, goats and cattle would be “lowing.”
At some point, I would sing Away in a Manger and then, shortly thereafter, the wise men would appear bearing their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, foam boxes spray painted to look shiny and regal. The wise men, typically clad in bathrobes and converted bed sheets, were often the “wise men” of the congregation. Baring death or serious illness, their parts were also set in stone. Since nativity plays are not able to honor “real time,” the wise men always arrived about five minutes after the Jesus’ birth rather than a few years. We don’t really know when they arrived or how long it took for them to find Jesus. All we know is that these wise men embarked on a long, uncertain journey, following a star all the way.
Nativity plays can’t really capture the journey of the magi. In a way, watching the journey wouldn’t be THAT interesting, at least for a large portion of the time. I am sure there were some adventurous moments, traversing the sand dunes, balancing on a camel hours at a time, and all the while, being guided by a star. It is not really the details of the journey, though, that matter so much as it is the way that the journey must have changed the travelers. Most of us, whenever setting off on a journey, don’t really conceive of what it will mean to us, how it will change the course of our future. I wonder if the Wise Men had any idea what they were getting themselves into or how this journey would change them forever. Would they have still gone, if they had known the whole picture, if they had known about King Herod’s deception and fear? Would they have followed the star knowing that an encounter with Jesus would mean that nothing would ever be the same?
We don’t have much factual knowledge about these magi. Some scholars have claimed that they were magicians who practiced divination which was regarded as dangerous, to say the least. Others have argued that they were a part of a priestly class serving the rulers of Persia therefore wielding significant power and influence. Still others figure that they were astrologers who looked toward the heavens for signs, providing advice and insight.
We can’t begin to know, really, what it is that they saw and subsequently followed all those many miles. Perhaps what they saw was a supernova or major celestial explosion. Although, it could be that what they saw wasn’t that remarkable to the average onlooker. Maybe these wise men just happened to have their eyes tuned in to the world that was unfolding around them. While Biblical scholars and scribes serving King Herod should have been watching and remembering the words of the prophets about a ruler coming out of Bethlehem in Judah, they were not paying attention. Instead, it was these magi who not only had eyes to see, but also had enough faith to embark on a journey to find the truth.
I can imagine, in the fervor and excitement of such a discovery, a star rising, signaling this new birth, that deciding to go on the journey was the easy part, particularly with “group think” mentality. If everyone thinks it’s a good idea, then the more negative consequences are not always brought to light. It is less scary to do something brave with a friend, versus on one’s own. Yet, I can imagine, a few weeks into their traveling, their faith in this star and this prophecy must have started to wane. What if they had gotten it wrong? What if this wasn’t what God really meant when God spoke through the prophets? What if they were too late and their journey was for nothing? As they traveled over weeks and months and maybe years, not knowing where they were going or what they were going to find when they got there, I am sure that their faith in the star must have faltered. After all, they were human, however wise, and surely, on some of the more cold, dark, and lonely nights, they must have thought about turning back toward home, back toward what they knew was certain.
Yet, in a way, they must have know that once embarked upon this journey of faith, there was no going back. Faithfulness on this journey did not manifest itself in what they knew for sure. Having doubts or wondering if they would ever make it did not mean they were lost. Instead faithfulness meant taking the next step. Not giving up. Following the star when everyone and everything else around them advised otherwise. Their faithfulness was rooted in how they pressed on, not derailed by exhaustion or distraction along the way, but simply staying the course, following the star no matter where it led them.
When I think about journeying, it’s hard not to consider the journey that we are all on here in Afghanistan. Instead of a star to propel us onto the plane, across the miles and away from the comfort of what we know well, we had orders and a commander or First Sergeant telling us what to do and when to do it. Nonetheless, coming here has required leaps of faith. Whether we work as a part of the guard force, practice some form of detainee medicine, or engage in other aspects of the mission, on many days, staying faithful to our calling has meant, simply, putting one foot in front of the other, not giving up or letting frustration get to us, remembering that we, too, are guided by the light of a star. Even when life seems dark. Even, when we feel alone and disconnected from God.
This journey of faith is not without doubt or fear. It is not without our questions or confusion. It is not even without our protest or sadness in times of suffering or loss. I think that we sometimes confuse our confidence with the quality of our faith. But real faith is not captured in a moment. It is not only understood when life is in order and the sun is shining bright enough to show us our way. Faith can also be real when belief has become strained. Faith is also present when we have lost our way because the darkness has not let up. Faith is real even when we are tired and spent and barely stumbling along. Faith exists when we simply continue the journey.
This is why the journey is so important, because it shapes us and makes us into something we never dreamed we could become. In the roads that we travel, in the life that we live and the people that we cling to while traversing our paths, we are in the process of growing and changing, transforming into something new so that when we finally get to the end, when the star that we have been following has stopped over the place where the Christ child waits and it is time to pay our tribute, we will be the kind of people who are ready to offer the gift that matters most.
As one author has put it, “Each choice creates the road that will take you to the place where at last you will kneel to offer the gift most needed-- the gift that only you can give-- before turning to go home by another way.”[1]
And, that’s the thing. On this journey of faith which brings us to the heart of God, we can’t go back the way we came from. We are not able to retrace the same steps or use the same route, but we go home by another way. There is no going back, but only forward. Once we have encountered Christ in the place where we meet him face to face, we are no longer the same. When we met Jesus in the flesh, perhaps in friend or even in a stranger, perhaps in the face of one who is different or one who challenges all that we know to be real or true, but when we have come to find him wherever he is, we realize that we have been changed.
Our encounter with Christ changes our path forever, making it impossible to be who we once were, to follow in the ways that we once tread. We are no longer comfortable in a world that is not centered in Jesus and his gospel. We are no longer able to stand by and watch injustice doled out to the poor. We are not able to turn a blind’s eye to those who are in need. Even when we don’t choose to act, to stand up for the weak or troubled, we still churn with unease because we know what Jesus would do. We know what Jesus is calling us to do again and again. And, no matter what, once we have knelt by his manger, we can never forget it. We can never go back. The journey has shaped us, and the encounter has transformed us. We live life differently because of the new life that lives inside of us. This is the life of Christ. A new heart to love as God loves, this is what we find when we follow the star.
So, come on this journey of the magi. Your life will never be the same. Amen
[1] Jan Richardson, “For those who have far to travel.” An Epiphany Blessing
Thursday, January 5, 2012
SNOW DAY!!
The weather we have been expecting now for weeks has finally arrived. After much anticipation and no precipitation whatsoever, Bagram woke up to a blanket of white snow. I was heading out the door, ready to do an early workout, when my roommate yelped with what I think was a mixture of joy and dread. Snow makes even Bagram look pretty, at least for a while. The first time you snow after a long wait through the other seasons, it is hard not to be excited. Fluffy, clean, pure... but that lasts about as long as it takes the trucks to rumble by and mix in the dirt and filth which is right below the white surface.
Growing up in Florida, I can only remember one real snow day. It was March of my fourth grade year, right around my birthday, and I was spending the night with my best friend. Her father woke us up as dawn was breaking and we drove off away from the bay where they lived to find some real snow. It was more exciting than waiting for Santa's arrival. As we drove a little north and more snow accumulated on the soft lawns, I couldn't contain myself. I begged our driver, my friend's father, to pull over on the side of the road so that we could build a snow man. I was too afraid that the snow would melt so quickly that I would not have the chance to do something I had only ever watched on t.v. Somewhere in my boxes of childhood memories I still have that picture of the two of us and our 18 inch snow man. Later in the day, we found even more snow and were able to make a snow man taller than out 10 year old selves. In a way though, that first, baby snow man, was the best.
Around camp, quite a few snow men have appeared. Of course, in this crowd, some of them are not "clean" enough for a PG audience. And, with a dearth of corn silk pipes and button noses or even carrots or coal to suffice as facial features, some of these soldiers have gotten extremely creative. One of my favorite snow sculptures of today was a before and after demonstration of what happens when a snow man smokes. The first snow man was white and intact, looking fairly healthy, while the second had melted and turned a little black around the edges. He has cigarette buds in his "mouth." It was particularly funny since this little pitch for quitting smoking was constructed right next to the "smoke pit" where soldiers go to take their smokes breaks. I doubt it caused anyone to quit, at least today.
Seeing the snow has made me miss home and a real snow day. Last winter, my first real winter where it snowed more often than once and on a few occasions meant that school and work were cancelled, snow days were the best. It was the one time when it was completely ok to stay home and wear pjs all day, drinking coffee and eating coffee cake (notice the coffee-ish theme). I shoveled my first driveway and sidewalk, too. It didn't feel like work though because it wasn't. Our snow days meant only the work that you either HAD to do and hopefully that didn't take too long or the work you wanted to do because you enjoyed it. It was also a time to visit with family and just spend time hanging out and catching up on all the things that hadn't happened because of the general busy-ness of life. Sometime this meant watching last week's episode of GLEE or even cleaning my room, but still because it was a snow day, it was fun. Snow days were less about the snow and more about the company.
Every time walk outside and see the 3 or so inches of snow, I think about how this would be a perfect day to cease and desist, to wear pjs all day and watch movies. And then I remember, I have no real excuse to stay home. With a little more care, I can easily get myself to work. It is barely a three minute walk away. And, the mission goes on too. There are soldiers out there patrolling villages, overcoming snow and ice in order to do the things that need to be done. Its also hard not to think about the children we have met at the Egyptian Hospital, with holes in their shoes and less than weather proofed outerwear. While we are in the middle of planning another service and outreach project there, it is hard not to wish that we had made it once more before this first snow. I hope though, that those who were given knitted hats, scarves, mittens, sweaters, and blankets, found themselves slightly warmer this morning, than they would have been otherwise.
And so, we go on, snow and all. Just another day in Afghanistan....
Monday, January 2, 2012
Just a little baby…
“Dear Lord Baby Jesus, in your golden fleecy diaper. Eight pounds and six ounces, not even able to utter a word, but still omnipotent...”
Perhaps you have seen the “Grace” scene from the infamous Will Ferrell movie, Talladega Nights. It is one of my all time favorite scenes. Ferrell, as Ricky Bobby, race car driver extraordinaire, announces that he is going to say grace over dinner. As he prays to infant Jesus, his father-in-law screams, “He was a man! He has a beard!” But Ricky responds simply, “I like the baby version the best.” In many ways, it is a sacrilegious scene even though I can’t help but laugh whenever I watch it. In its own way, though, it also holds surprising truth. Jesus, the Messiah, the one who came to save the whole world, was, at first, a baby. He was tiny, diaper wearing, gurgling and crying, and basically helpless, like every other infant ever born. Considering the children I have held and watched over, it’s hard to imagine God in that extremely vulnerable position.
I wonder what exactly it is that Simeon saw in this child, holding him in his arms that day in the Temple. He was, as Ricky Bobby so eloquently points out, only a baby, vulnerable and speechless. How is it that he could also be omnipotent? How could he be the salvation of the whole world? How could he be God?
At the end of the prayer service I participated in while I was in college, my small choir would sing these words of the Simeon, his spontaneous response when he encountered Jesus and held him in his arms.
Lord God, you now have set your servant free. To go in peace as promised in your word. Mine eyes have seen the savior Christ our Lord, prepared by you for all the world to see. To shine on nations trapped in darkest night, the glory of your people and their light.
When the notes had drifted off into silence, there was always a pregnant moment of wonder. Singing those words, drinking in their promise, we lingered before we blew out our candles and departed the sanctuary, heading back to our respective realities. We lingered because in those moments it was as if we could see as Simeon saw, a promise of salvation come true, come true before our very eyes. We heard that people came to worship from miles and miles away, sometimes driving over an hour, just to hear that benediction, just to be wrapped in the glow of Simeon’s prayer. For years, I did not examine its meaning or exegete its words, instead, I got lost in the music, in the candlelight, in the feeling we shared through our collective prayer. Now, reading the words these years later, I find myself lost in a different way, in awe that somehow God would set us all free, restore and renew that which has been broken, and all through a gesture of fragile love-- a little baby.
What does it mean to see something, something simple, something you have seen every day before and see it as new, see it as a part of God’s working in the world? I mean how many times in his life had Simeon seen a baby before his encounter with Jesus. He had been around for some time, so he must have seen quite a few babies in his day. But, he had been promised that he would, in his lifetime, see the Lord’s Messiah and had been led to the Temple. Still though, he went to the temple with great regularity, so how could he have known on that day, he would meet the salvation of the whole world, packaged unremarkably as a small child?
Simeon is not the first person in these initial chapters in Luke to demonstrate great faithfulness by responding to God in the flesh. A few weeks ago we heard Mary’s song, her faithful response to God’s work in the world. We also encountered Elizabeth and Zechariah’s faithfulness when they welcomed their son John into their lives though they assumed they were too old to bear a child. We can’t forget the shepherds, who, after a host of angels appeared in the dark of night with news of good tidings and great joy, went to find Emmanuel, following the star all the way to a lowly stable. Talk about faithfulness. I can imagine their doubt as they grew nearer to the place only to discover that they were heading for a run-down, hole of a barn.
But, as has been pointed out by author Lauren Winner in her recent blog post, at least these others had angels to point the way to the Christ child. Simeon wasn’t so fortunate. Instead, he held a promise in his heart. He would one day see God face-to-face. He allowed himself to be led by the spirit, having faith that eventually this prophecy would come true. And, so, when Mary and Joseph, without fanfare or fuss, showed up in the Temple as all new Jewish parents would have, Simeon responded. He had been waiting for this moment all along. Though he didn’t know when or what exactly he was looking for, he was ready. He lived ready.
I wonder what it means to live ready, what it might be like to see like Simeon saw. Because mostly I know that I am a little clueless and a lot blind. I miss many of the opportunities that come my way to embrace God in the flesh. I get so side tracked by my work and my responsibilities and my goals and my escapes that I seem to miss most holy encounters altogether. I know I should be ready, but in the midst of the chaos of life which is unfolding all around me, I am often distracted. But as much as my tunnel vision overtakes me, there are other times, times when I am reminded that God appears in the strangest moments, out of nowhere, calling to us in ways we can’t ignore. Maybe it’s not through a visiting angel or a burning bush, but the Holy Spirit does have a way of getting our attention.
Once while I was working in South Africa, I was taxi-ing some of the children from our orphan program home from a Christmas party. In Africa, nothing ever went according to plan or any kind of a schedule so, of course, I was extremely late, racing back to the community where these kids lived in shacks with foster parents and random relatives. I was also really annoyed. It wasn’t these kids fault, but I was on the brink of being late to my evening church commitment. As I drove, and watched the clock tick forward, ever steadily, I thought about all the things that I wasn’t going to have time to do: go for a run, take a shower, get cleaned up after a day of camp activities with children.
As my mind begun to spin out of control, the rearview mirror caught my eye, and I saw the kids had all fallen asleep on top of one another. It was a picture of serenity, little boys, reposed and tangled softly together, in a perfect embrace of support. It was a breathtaking moment and suddenly I realized that what I was doing right then and there was the most important way I could serve God. These children, all HIV positive, all learning to negotiate the world without a mother and father, all, nonetheless, filled with energy and joy and life, were God’s very own, and I had the privilege of shepherding them for a while. I was so bent on my next appointment that I almost missed a glimpse of God, face-to-face.
Glimpses of God, moments of clarity when we are able to see God moving in the world despite the pain and sadness, the darkness and the suffering that is constantly threatening to undo us-- glimpses of God are really all we have to hold on to. Like Simeon who would not live long enough to know the impact of Jesus’ ministry yet proclaimed an audacious promise of salvation for the world, we also live and pray and hope by this same promise, a promise we may not see come true in our lives here. But, when we come to this table and eat of this bread and drink of this cup, we affirm that this promise resides inside of us. It is real, and it sustains. Whether we doubt or believe with confidence, whether we come often or hardly at all, whether we have given much or nothing at all, when we come and join in this meal, we acknowledge that this promise of God’s salvation which we hold on to is somehow enough.
Hear Simeon's words once more...
Lord God, you now have set your servant free. To go in peace as promised in your word. Mine eyes have seen the savior Christ our Lord, prepared by you for all the world to see. To shine on nations trapped in darkest night, the glory of your people and their light.
Make us ready, O Lord, just like Simeon. Make us hungry for your glory. Help us to see you in all the places where you are, even here in this place, even here among this people. Make us ready, O Lord, to embrace you, to proclaim your salvation so that all the word can see, to share your light in this darkness. Make us ready. Amen.
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