God's Changing Call

What God asks us to do is not set in stone for a lifetime.  In other words, the urgency for a particular act of service may not be the same tomorrow. For some of my retired clergy friends, it is hard to accept the possibility that God could release them from the call placed on their lives at the beginning of ministry and lead them into a different era of service.  It does not mean that the call to serve Christ which we all embrace at our baptism is ever lifted, but simply to say that His expectations of what that means for us may change through the course of the years.    

I never thought I would be content with a life empty of preaching, but have discovered an awareness of usefulness through writing and what I would have at one time described as pastoral acts.  I have numerous friends who at an earlier age traveled all over the world as mission team members, but have found that the urgency of that calling has been lifted for other things.  Recently, I visited with a friend who spent the better part of his life directing choirs only to experience God's leading toward becoming one who plans worship services for his church instead of maintaining a music ministry.   

The thing of which we should not be afraid is change.  What we have done in faithful obedience to God's call on our life may be part of His preparation for the next season.  Both Isaiah and Jeremiah started ministry as priests, but ending up wearing the mantle of a prophet.  David was anointed to be a king, but is best known for a body of spiritual literature which still stirs our souls.  What God wants us to be about today may change as tomorrow comes.  We need not fear.  We simply need to do what we have done since the beginning which is to go with Him in faith.

A Post Helene Prayer

Back during the dark days of covid,  families learned to be families again.  Maybe it is more correct to say that families were forced to become families again as parents spent more time with children, board games and puzzles were found in the dusty dark corners of closets, and people sat down at tables to eat meals that were cooked at home instead of coming into the home by way of a bag.  We all said in those days that we hoped such would last beyond covid, but, of course, we knew deep inside that we would once again become fast food junkies and cell phone addicts.    

There is no doubt that the recent storm will be one of those events not forgotten.  Despite all the destruction of the landscape and the more primitive life power outages cause, it has been refreshing to see the human spirit at it best again.  People are helping people.  Neighbors are learning to be neighbors again.  Helping each other and sharing resources and sweat.  The new world expressed by "We are in this together" has brought us into a kinder and more giving community.  Even with the chaos still to be given order, folks are speaking words of gratitude for what has once again proven to be the most important things of life.  Faith, family, and friends.   

I do not think God sent the storm that has ravaged our towns and countryside to give us this reminder, but in some ways it has been a reminder that has resonated in many of our spirits.  We do not have to live divided by the things which we allow to create an "us and them" world.  We do not have to live in such a hurry that we cannot tend to the needs of the present.  Neither do we have to live alone and isolated.  Finally, we do not have to keep living as if tomorrow is guaranteed.  Let us pray that the days after Helene will be days of living differently and days of being grateful to God for the precious gift of life. 

Going to Church

Back in the day of growing up, our primary Sunday event was called "going to church."  It was not something which was discussed weekly in our home.  When Sunday morning came, we all knew where we were going.  We not only went to church which was really another way of speaking of 11:00 AM worship, but Sunday School was included in the package as well.  While I am remembering those days, I must also confess that we were not allowed to watch "The Ed Sullivan Show" or "Bonanza" as did so many of my friends because Sunday evening worship took place at the same time.  Of course, before Sunday evening worship came what was called "MYF" which was my denominations definition of youth ministry.     

No doubt four hours seems like a lot of time to give to church attendance by today's church goers, but it did have its benefits.  Being somewhat hardheaded, a weekly exposure to what the church offered was helpful in many ways.  I learned a lot by osmosis which is to say, being there was better than being elsewhere.  Hundreds of hymns shaped the songbook I carry in my memory.  Learning to kneel at the altar as we often did on Sunday nights kept me grounded.  It took me almost to the end of my teenage years, but I finally came to understand that life with Jesus was the most important thing.   

There were surely those times I rebelled against the parental plan such as the weekend I came home from college and told my mother on Sunday morning that I would not be going that Sunday.  I remember that Sunday.  I do not think I have ever gotten dressed for church so quickly.  Going to church was seen back then as a chore.  I figured I could get along with less, but less was not an option.  The discipline ingrained in me was one I later embraced.  It not only helped set the course of my life, but it has been a foundation for living through these decades which have been filled with sunshine and storms.

Unwanted Memberships

There are fellowships none of us want to have memberships.  I encountered one this evening at a local hospital as a woman stood in the middle of a sliding glass door to keep it from shutting.  If it had shut another woman who was trying to get her car unloaded for her overnight stay with her husband would have been locked out and had to find a not so convenient entrance through the emergency room. The woman standing in the doorway made sure it did not happen.  Once all the stuff was inside the door, the two women introduced themselves. Both had husbands on the oncology floor of the hospital and both walked to the nearby elevator like old friends.   

While it may be true that some who suffer, or who have care giving thrust upon them, become bitter, experience has taught me that those who suffer are more likely to embrace other sufferers with family like warmth and care.  I have seen it over and over again as people go through tragedy, sickness, grief, and even horrific storm damage.  There are those moments when the barriers we hold up get broken down and we suddenly become like brothers and sisters.   

In some reading this evening, God was described as "the most passionate presence in the universe."  I have seen that passionate presence through the caring acts of the sufferers.  Some relive their pain to share with others who have experienced loss.  Some who have nothing but a few bags they carry with them reach inside one of those bags to share a morsel of leftover food.  Some who sit in chemo treatment rooms give encouragement to the newbies.  And, some keep doors from shutting so that for a moment life is made a little easier for the one who has no rest.

Still No Answers

It is hard to figure what to write on this day when death and devastation and overwhelming despair are present among so many who were in the path of the storm which raged through darkened countryside.  It is a day which will be remembered and talked about as long as folks gather and remember.  Praying that the storm would find a different path only meant that we were praying that others would suffer instead of us.  Praying that Jesus would step into the moment with a word which would calm the fury of the storm was a challenge for even the most faithful as everyone watched its relentless journey toward the waiting shore.  We knew no liturgical words to save us.  We only knew to ready ourselves and then to sit and wait. 

Of course, the greater question which we are often afraid to ask is,"Why the storm?  Why does God allow such to come?  Why did He not put a stop to it while it churned over deep waters where no one could be harmed?  Where was He during the dark horror endured by so many?"  I wish I had the answers to my questions.  At least, I wish I had answers that would give explanation to what has been endured.  I wish I had answers that would make all the personal pain more bearable, but I do not.  I never have.  As much as I have wanted to give some good answers to folks who were the sufferers and not just academic seekers, I have always come up empty.    

On this aftermath of a day not to be forgotten, I am still empty.  I do know it is not the first time I have sought an answer I cannot find.  The first time I ran into the question was sometime in my seventh year when my father's life ended suddenly in an airplane collision.  Over the years, I have asked it a thousand times at the juncture of tragedy personally experienced, or experienced by someone whose care was entrusted to me.  What I do not know has not kept me from continuing to live inside what I do know which is the certainty of God's eternal care.  The Word of the Lord was spoken through the prophet Isaiah and, thus, we hear God saying, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways...so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9).  I do not have the answers to my questions, but I do have a God who, even in the moments I cannot understand, still is in control.

In the Storm

Across a wide swath of land stretching from the south to the north, from the shores to the mountains, from the small rural towns to the skyscraper cities, people are watching the coming of a storm.  Like so many things which come to us, storms with such potential for destruction and harm are hard to understand.  The creation is such a beautiful setting for us to live with its breathtaking beauty and spirit renewing moments.  It is a strange thing that we can find ourselves kneeling in awe one day and looking for a hiding place the next.      

The creation is in some ways a microcosm of life.  Within what we know as the Sermon on the Mount we hear Jesus saying,"...He (your Father in Heaven) makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and send rains on the righteous and the unrighteous." (Matthew 5:45)  Numerous are the examples of injustice, years of exile, persecution, storms and shipwrecks inside the pages of the holy story.  The creation can be beautiful and frightening, orderly and chaotic, life giving and deadly.   Nothing about is predictable.  Nothing about it is within our control.  There is a season for weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing.    

In these hours of waiting on the storm, I am reminded of the ones which have ravaged not the landscape around me, but the core of my soul.  I am remembering the ones which have driven me to my knees in despair.  I am remembering that the sun rose on the day after the greatest darkness and that blessings came again when it seemed that all had been withdrawn.  As the old song of my youth taught me, "I don't know about tomorrow...but I know who holds the future and I know who holds my hand."

Ode to a Tree

I watch them often

  to see their faithfulness,

    to hear their assurances,

      to know their presence,

        to sense their changing,

always in awe and amazement.

 

Far above me they rise, 

   stretching and reaching,

     waiting and watching, 

        to tell the many stories

          of all of us below

who have lived and labored.

  

Who they are is but a tree, 

   and who I am is but a man,

     here not as long as they,

       the new part of creation,

         and they always the old

with God's lessons in their limbs.

 

Teach me, Lord of the trees,

    to see the invisible before me,

      to hear You in passing wind, 

       to join their uplifted branches

         with hands raised in praise,

to rejoice that You made each and all.