Tag: Hope

India – A Love Once Removed

Allie in India 1My youngest daughter just returned from a Mission of Peace trip in India. It has been suggested that the participants of this trip not give any public presentations about the journey for at least one month in order to allow them the time to internalize everything that they experienced. I think that is a great idea.

However, I didn’t go to India. I allowed my daughter to answer a call she felt in her life to go and experience the world in a way that is different than what she normally experiences here in Southern West Virginia. Continue reading “India – A Love Once Removed” →

Ask Almost Anything 2015

God, please send us the people that nobody wants and let us demonstrate your hospitality to all. Help us to see the people that live around our church so that our invitation will be with open hearts. Create a place of acceptance so that all feel welcome just as Christ welcomed us.

Amen. (1)

Well, we are up to it again at a Church in the Heart of Princeton. We are spending several weeks in worship doing a series called “Ask Almost Anything.” As the name implies, we are allowing people to anonymously email or drop off questions that I will then attempt to answer during our sermon time. (Some have referred to this as “Stump the Chump” but that name was already taken by a radio show.)

On this past Sunday I was able to address two questions. One was on observing the Sabbath and the second was on the theological idea of predestination. You can find my answers here.

We ended the time of AAA with a very thought provoking question that I promised to answer via this blog and in worship next Sunday. The question was: “Why does it seem that Christians can be some of the most judgmental people in the world?”

Wow!!!

Let me point out that the first thing that struck me with this question is that it asserts that Christians ARE judgmental. The person who asked this question has found themselves on one end or the other of the judgmental tendencies of our faith.

Now, if you asked me if it were “inevitable” that Christians be judgmental, I would have to answer with a resounding, “No!” If you asked me if I thought Christians can be judgmental, I would answer (somewhat judgmentally, I must add as a disclaimer) that “Yes. Yes, we certainly can fall into that category at times.”

The assumed position of the question writer – that Christian are at times judgmental – led me to pause before I gave a full answer and reflect this question back to our congregation. I asked them to think and pray about this and even ask themselves: “How can I be less judgmental this week?”

I’m glad I waited to answer this.

On Tuesday a new video came out from “Chuck Knows Church.” If you are not familiar with this series, I invite you to check out any of these videos – they are both informative and entertaining. The new video that came out on Tuesday, however, is the first part of a longer series being produced that takes a hard look at how a church might turn itself around from the brink of closure. I have been looking forward to this series but was absolutely astounded at how much the first episode, not to be confused with the introductory episode, fit the answer I really wanted to give about this question.

I invite you to watch the episode before you read any further.

 


Okay, if you took the time to watch the video, and again, I would highly suggest it, then you might now understand the prayer at the beginning of this post. It is the prayer that ends the episode and points out that hospitality is not something we “do at church” – it is a lifestyle we have received with Christ. That’s right…along with giving us eternal life and forgiveness, Jesus gave us hospitality. Jesus chose to welcome us and imparted upon us that same Spirit so that we can be people of hospitality as well.

So, about this “judgmental” question…

I guess the best answer to give is that Christians become judgmental when they refuse the gift of hospitality that has been given to them. When we reject or forget or otherwise lay aside the welcome Christ gave to us, then we will very quickly become judgmental. However, if we hold on to the gift, well, that would lead us down a different path altogether. We would be accepting of those who disagree with us. We would be welcoming to those who are different than us. We would see each person as someone Jesus’ wants to welcome into God’s Kingdom and the judgment can then be left up to someone much more qualified.

I hope this answer helps!

Oh…and if you have any questions, ask Chuck. Tell him your pastor sent you! 😉

Ground Pine and Hope

ground pineOnce a year my Mom would send my Dad and my brothers and I out in the woods in search of ground pine. It was almost always in November and through the years, Dad became so used to the different areas where it grew that it was less searching for ground pine as it was picking it up from the woods. This interesting little plant – or weed, some would say – was a needed ingredient in our annual Advent Wreath creation in the Sears home.

I remember several wreaths. There was one that was made out of an old piece of a stump. There was one created in Cub Scouts with acorns arranged as candle holders. There was one that was made of metal one year, but that one didn’t last. I don’t think any of us liked it.

It was the tradition in the home of my youth together on the Sunday evenings of Advent to light our candle for that week, read Scripture and pray together as a family. Most of the time, I must admit, I was just praying that we would be done in time for us to watch “The Wonderful World of Disney.” And yet, despite the lack of attention that I gave to the whole ritual, something about it stuck with me.

Maybe it was the fresh smell of the ground pine. (I don’t think I mentioned that we would pick enough of this stuff so that mom could keep some “wet” and change it out each week.) Perhaps it was the flicker of the flame on the candles. It might even have been the way that my two brothers and I would fight with one another over the right to light the candles or better yet to blow them out and let the hot wax “accidentally” drip into our hands as we did so.

Something stuck about Advent because this is the time of the year when I become my most hopeful.

I look at the headlines of a burning city in Missouri. I realize that I will never see the world, never understand power, never truly grasp what justice means to someone of a different race than my own. I watch our nation grapple with figuring out how to handle such things and I hear so many voices crying out “doom”. But not me. I remember the evergreen of Advent and know that somewhere in the presence of Jesus there is hope.

I look at the area I live in – Southern West Virginia – and I listen to so many people talk about how we are losing everything because Coal is no long King. I wish I could buy into that message and join the war against the war against coal. But I don’t. This time of year, I see the evergreen and I can’t help but think that there is a greater King than Coal. Sure, he was born in a stable. He was one of the poor. But maybe why that is why we should hold him as our King even more. He truly is one of us.

I look at mainline churches and notice the struggle that so many are having. Some are fighting within about beliefs and doctrines. Others are the ever present worship war. Some are watching their average attendance plummet because members do not commit themselves to attending as often. Some of them, like the church I serve, are watching budget shortfalls eat away at the hope people have for continuing to do the ministry we already have and the flame of any new idea for ministry and mission.

But folks…to me…this season of Advent is the greatest season of Hope that I know.

I believe we will find some way to balance justice and power in a world that has for so long ignored the voices of minorities.

I believe the King will show us a new way to power our economy in Southern West Virginia.

And I believe that church’s will find peace, they will grow committed disciples, and they will even find people who can give the money needed to grow ministry into the next year.

It’s Advent folks…and I am full of hope.

Perhaps it time to go ground pine hunting!!

Suspenders

suspendersSometime in my early teen years, I just had to have a pair of rainbow colored suspenders. I begged my parents for this article of clothing until someone finally broke down and got them.

Did I need them because I didn’t like to wear belts? No. Did I need them to keep my pants up? Not really…I usually wore a belt anyway. Why did I need them, then?

Because Mork from Ork wore them.

For those who are not old enough to remember or for the select few who didn’t watch television in the late seventies, Mork and Mindy was a television show about an alien from the planet Ork who somehow ended up living in the suburbs of Denver. And unless Mork had on clothing from his native planet, he almost always wore rainbow colored suspenders. And just in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Mork was played by Robin Williams, an actor who recently lost a battle with depression and ended his life. (As a side note, I try to avoid using the word suicide. I don’t like it for many reasons but you can read more about that on my blog if you really want to do so.)

Robin Williams was one of my earliest role models and heroes. He made people laugh and I found that making people laugh was not only fun to do, it gave an otherwise short and awkward teenager a way to be noticed amongst his peers and even by some adults. For several years I had the very unrealistic dream of becoming a stand-up comic.

That dream led me to do both community and school theater. That dream gave me the drive to actually be employed professionally as an actor – ONCE. That dream of standing in front of people, telling stories and jokes and hearing them respond with laughter is one that kept me going through much of my high school years. Even after I retired the suspenders (but didn’t throw them away, mind you) and had quit idolizing Robin Williams for some other comic I can’t even remember now, I still held on to the dream of making a livelihood out of comedy.

But a lot of life happened between that early dream and where I am today. I consider myself fortunate, very fortunate indeed that at some point in time I realized that there was a different plan for my life. Although I cannot paint a picture of the long road I took to get there in this article, I can at least say with a great deal of certainty that I ended up where I was supposed to be headed all along – in pastoral ministry.

In some ways, I still get to live part of that early dream – I stand up in front up people on a regular basis and I get to tell stories. However, they often are not funny ones and even when they are funny I hope that they point to something else. I hope they point to the God who loves us all enough to send his Son to die for us.

I get a little sad each and every time I hear of someone losing a battle with depression that ends in death. As far as I am concerned, the disease rids people of their ability to make good and rational choices. Instead, they just want the hopelessness to end and can really only see one way out of that hopelessness – to be present with God.

We worship an incredible and awesome Savior. Jesus was, is and always will be part of the Trinity known as God. When Jesus walked among us, he was fully human and fully divine. His death would not have been a sacrifice on his part if he did not have the power to prevent it. Yet even with the power to prevent his own life from being taken, Jesus chose to give it up. Why? So that we could have life that is ever-lasting – both now and after our own deaths.

Sometimes, I am afraid, we concentrate so much on the gift of “life after death” that is a promise of the sacrifice of Jesus that we forget about ever-lasting life that is available to us now. Please don’t jump to conclusions here…I am not talking about people with mental illness forgetting that promise, I am talking about perfectly normal and mentally healthy people forgetting it.

That, to me, is why it is so tragic when someone loses their life to a battle with mental illness. There are so many of us around who have life to spare, who drink from wells that never run dry, who walk on paths made smooth by the grace of God, who have hope beyond measure that we should be able to at least talk about mental illness in such a way that it would offer life and hope to others around us.

I am not offering any grand solution here. Now am I asking you to find some way to be in ministry with those who are mentally ill.

I am asking that we all take a moment and thank God for the life and hope that we have because of Jesus. And maybe in that thankfulness, we will be just a bit more cognizant of those around us who are struggling and we can show them a new way to hope…a different way to be close to God. One sacrificed his own life so that we could all have life abundant! In being thankful, we are in the position to help those who can’t be thankful because of mental illness.

I can’t say that this will work every time, but I won’t stop hoping that it does.

Nanu…Nanu.

An End to Suicide

The game of life is hard to play
I’m gonna loose it anyway
The loosing card I’ll sometime lay
so this is all I have to say:

That suicide is painless
It brings on many changes
and I can take or leave it if I please.

“Theme to M.A.S.H. (Suicide is Painless)” by Robert Altman

     The television show M.A.S.H. was one of my favorite shows to watch from childhood into my young adult years. I still like to catch a re-run every now and then, truth be told.

     I did not learn or even know of words to the theme song for this show till my late teens and at the time I first heard them I didn’t think much about them. The lyrics were haunting, but I wasn’t one to get caught up in overly deep thought in those days. However, many things have happened since the mid 80’s to make me really question the whole idea of whether someone could “take or leave it if I please.”

     (Granted, the theme song is for a movie and tv show that deal with war – an arena that I have zero experience in. Yet I still wonder if the rules of life and death change that much in the face of war. I learned recently that the civilian rate of “taking one’s life” plummeted during WWI and WWII quite possibly because  many people saw things that helped them  that place a high value on living and dying. I don’t know for sure.)

     I do know that a close friend from high school lost her mother through this so-called “choice.” I saw the the profound difference it made in her life, especially in those moments when people huddled together to hush their talk about the method and means of her mother’s death.

     As a pastor, I have sat beside too many grieving family members who were trying to understand how someone could choose to end their life at their own hand. “Why?”  – which is always a big question – doesn’t even come close in those holy moments.

     As a son, I also watched what happened to a household as the cloud of depression settled into a home. It was dark, heavy and totally uncontrollable. No amount of joking, hilarity or humor could lift it. No success on the part of any child could get it to budge. It was as present as the bed I lay down on each night and prayed, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” And I must admit that there was more than one night I changed the end of the prayer to say, “If any should die before I wake, I pray the Lord their soul to take.”

     Although no one in my immediate family has succumbed to the final throes of this hideous disease of depression – it has been close.

     And now, this morning, after I’ve read of the “suicide” of Robin Williams – another television favorite – and have read countless tributes, prayers and poems about the brevity of life and the difference we make in living it, I have one small request.

     Can we please, please stop using that damned word “suicide?” Can we please bring an end to its use to describe the end of life for those who suffer from a sometimes fatal illness known as depression? God has given us incredible imagination and I truly believe that with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can do better than to stigmatize the death of someone who was ill.

Hope     The word itself – suicide – seems to bring with it that idea that people have a choice about what happens to them in that moment of their death. I can say, after seeing so many people struggle with the very real disease that depression is, I no longer believe that they can “take or leave it” if they please. There is something more going on that we don’t understand, but we certainly don’t have to stigmatize with a word that brings hushed whispers about “how” and “what method.” People who have hope can surely do better than this.

     We would not say that a parachutist who died during a jump died of stupidity for failing to properly check their equipment. We might think – but in most cases would not say – that someone drank themselves to death or smoked themselves shut in a coffin because of cirrhosis or cancer. If we do, we need to check another filter! Death is sometimes an accident. Death is sometimes the “final card played in the game of life.” Death is often the result of some disease of body or yes, we can even say it – disease of the mind!

     I am tired of the word and I do everything I can to avoid it.

     It makes someone seem weak.

     It makes someone seem less than intelligent.

     It makes someone seem faithless.

     It makes someone appear to be healthy enough to make informed decisions.

     Those who are without hope, one of the main symptoms of depression, are not weak, dumb,  or really capable of making clear choices. They are often very faith filled people. They are fighting the battle of their lives. They are wrestling with death.

     Sometimes they win.

     Sometimes the bastard of depression wins.

     But all the time, those of us who know hope in this world, need to be vigilant to the battles being fought by those that we know and love. We need to fight against this disease as well.

     And can we please, please consider ending the use of that stigmatic word?

     It does nothing for the memory of a fellow human being who got struck down with a disease none of us would want.

If you really want to enter into the battle, can I point you to a great organization? They work on preventing this outcome of this disease and they are great at the battle. Check them out at afsp.org or watch for a local Out of the Darkness “walk” in your community. (Yes, I know they use THE word in their organizational title, but they do great work and I count us a fortunate to have them.)

Peace!