It's Easter evening. Surveys of preachers talk about the "post preaching" emotional dip. It's sort of like a "post partum depression" (on a small scale). You work and pray over the message...if things go well there is this moment when God shows up and faith spreads to some hearts that haven't been sure. Then, the service ends. The preachers feels a bit lost... wondering what to do with himself or herself.
Some pastors, according to the survey, just want to go off...be left alone. They go home and curl up with a book...take a nap...go for a walk. Others throw themselves into a frenzy of activity...out to lunch with friends...phone calls to visitors...the evening youth group gathering... doing a load of laundry. (Never been tempted to do that last thing...on a Sunday evening.)
It's Easter evening and I am not suffering from a post-preaching "dip." The services have been amazing...not because of our skill or brilliance but because God has this way of showing. Because the story of the Empty Tomb is true...and Jesus is loose.
The worship gatherings have been stunning...moments with the children. Energy and praise from our Praise Team. Music from our Chancel Choir and Handbell Choir and Orchestra that just took our breath away...eliciting a very unprofessional "Oh, my!" from the Lead Pastor at Trinity in the middle of worship. There was the moment when I handed newly baptized Aubrey Ann to a tough guy...expert in security systems...who wasn't sure what to do with a baby! And there was the little girl who, during the children's moment, said, "There were so many people here today that I didn't know where you were... but I looked down from the balcony and saw your bald head and knew where to go!"
So it has been good. All good. My Dad came over...Ella and her folks were here. Before Ella and her parents headed back to Columbus, Ohio she grabbed the index finger of my left hand and took me for a walk...over to see some daffodils...and then we circled the car before Mommy put her in the car seat. I've been watching The Masters and reading the New York Times.
All good. No dip. Just thanksgiving...tonight.
Luke 24 tells us that Simon Peter leaves the empty tomb not sure about what God is up to...but he is "wondering" if the empty tomb story is true. If Jesus is, in fact, alive.
Here is what I am hoping for: I am hoping that the news that Christ is Risen will stick with people. That it doesn't get tossed, after a few days, like the flowers in the centerpiece on the dining room table. That it doesn't set aside. I am hoping that this faith, this hope, Jesus brings sticks... and just keeps showing up in the lives of people. In rough moments and sweet moments. Big times and little times.
It's Easter evening. Tomorrow is Monday. And Jesus is on the road ahead of us...out there. I'm so glad...so very glad...and hopeful.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
The Silliness of the Greatest Ever.
It's a letter in the current issue of Sports Illustrated. Written by a fellow named Joseph Evans of Roselle Park, New Jersey. Joseph is talking about an article that appeared in the March 16th issue of SI on New Jersey Devils' goalie, Martin Brodeur.
Now, I don't follow pro hockey all that closely...although I fell in love with minor league hockey when we lived in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area for eight years. And I have heard about Brodeur. He is supposed to be something else.
What Joseph said, though, caught my attention. At the end of his letter he says this about Brodeur, "He's unquestionably the greatest goaltender ever to play in the NHL."
What is the deal with our need to proclaim people the "best ever" or "greatest of all time?" I have a hunch there were some hockey goalies in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's that were pretty amazing. I mean, to compete at the highest levels of sports -whether as an F1 driver, a golfer, a football player, a hockey goalie, a rider in the Tour de France- means you are an extraordinary athlete.
Maybe it is generational myopia. Every generation likes to stand on their little chronological hill, and announce that a pitcher or hitter or goalie or painter or actor or novelist is the greatest ever. Really?
This may come as a surprise to those who have announced that Tiger Woods is the best ever, but Jack Nicklaus was pretty amazing in his day. Lebron James is something else, but so was Oscar Robertson...and Gail Goodrich. There are some great big men in the NBA, but for my money Bill Russell was the best (or should I say one of the best?). U2 is stunning...but so were the Beatles...The Band...Booker T. & the MG's... The Four Tops. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are great quarterbacks, but Joe Montana and Kenny Stabler and Johnny Unitas and Sid Luckman were breath-taking in their day.
I wish we could just appreciate the amazing work of great athletes, writers, actors, directors...without feeling the need to pronounce someone "the greatest ever." It is a silly statement. A statement that reveals our own generation's need to be the axis around which all other generations pivot.
Jesus said the greatest among you must be the least. Servant of all. It's upside-down definition of greatness, but it is true.
Great runners run, great goalies block impossible shots, great writers put words together in ways that change our hearts and the way we see...the way we live. They take our breath away.
How about we agree to stop declaring this person or that "the greatest ever," and just give thanks for what is?
Now, I don't follow pro hockey all that closely...although I fell in love with minor league hockey when we lived in the Fort Wayne, Indiana area for eight years. And I have heard about Brodeur. He is supposed to be something else.
What Joseph said, though, caught my attention. At the end of his letter he says this about Brodeur, "He's unquestionably the greatest goaltender ever to play in the NHL."
What is the deal with our need to proclaim people the "best ever" or "greatest of all time?" I have a hunch there were some hockey goalies in the 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's that were pretty amazing. I mean, to compete at the highest levels of sports -whether as an F1 driver, a golfer, a football player, a hockey goalie, a rider in the Tour de France- means you are an extraordinary athlete.
Maybe it is generational myopia. Every generation likes to stand on their little chronological hill, and announce that a pitcher or hitter or goalie or painter or actor or novelist is the greatest ever. Really?
This may come as a surprise to those who have announced that Tiger Woods is the best ever, but Jack Nicklaus was pretty amazing in his day. Lebron James is something else, but so was Oscar Robertson...and Gail Goodrich. There are some great big men in the NBA, but for my money Bill Russell was the best (or should I say one of the best?). U2 is stunning...but so were the Beatles...The Band...Booker T. & the MG's... The Four Tops. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning are great quarterbacks, but Joe Montana and Kenny Stabler and Johnny Unitas and Sid Luckman were breath-taking in their day.
I wish we could just appreciate the amazing work of great athletes, writers, actors, directors...without feeling the need to pronounce someone "the greatest ever." It is a silly statement. A statement that reveals our own generation's need to be the axis around which all other generations pivot.
Jesus said the greatest among you must be the least. Servant of all. It's upside-down definition of greatness, but it is true.
Great runners run, great goalies block impossible shots, great writers put words together in ways that change our hearts and the way we see...the way we live. They take our breath away.
How about we agree to stop declaring this person or that "the greatest ever," and just give thanks for what is?
Friday, April 3, 2009
Muscle Cars.
Born in 1951, I have great memories of "muscle cars" of the 60's to the 70's. Detroit turned out these awesome machines. Simple vehicles, engines that moved that steel down the two-lane blacktop roads of the upper midwest in a hurry, and lines that made the hearts of most young menman beat a little faster.
There was that line of Pontiac models that were awesome. The GTO made us stop and look as it went rumbling by. Chrysler had the Roadrunner and the Charger and the Fury and the Barracuda...those and others were powered by Hemi engines. Chevy had the Chevelle Mailbu SS 396 and the earlier Chevy Nova and the Camaro. Ford had the Mustang. Pontiac made sure the basic lines, from model to model, were present. Designers at Chrysler talked about their "Pepsi bottle" styling. Narrow lines near the front of the car, and then things suddenly widening out over the rear wheels.
For some of us cars are a part of the storyline of our lives. I can tell you where I was when I saw my first Camaro. It was a Sunday morning, in Walkerton, and I had just walked out of church. Can't remember for the life of me what the preacher said that morning, but I remember walking around the Camaro. Comparing its lines to the look of already-released Ford Mustang.
Pretty girls made my heart beat a little faster, but my jaw dropped when I saw my first Ford Mustang 2+2 Fastback. It was a sort of pearl blue. With interior lighting, white bucket seats (or where they blue?), and a state-of-the-art 4 (or was it 8?) track tape player stereo system. The car was sitting in the gravel parking lot behind the old John Glenn High School. I stood there studying that car, which was owned by a kid from Argos, and I knew immediately what the Bible is talking about when it says "thou shalt not covet...your neighbor's Mustang."
My first kiss was in a car. I first heard Linda Ronstadt sing "Different Drum" over the car stereo.
Detroit has been in the news, lately, and it has been pretty painful to hear about...read about. Rolling Stone had a recent article that described Detroit as a city that needs rebirth...or it will continue to decline into an urban relic. GM and Chrysler have been in the news as the government tries to figure out what the next step should be...if either of these great companies is to survive. Ford seems to be doing okay...but they have come perilously close to financial ruin over the last several years.
I don't know what the answer is, but I believe our country needs a healthy auto industry. Where state of the art vehicles are built in our factories by our people. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for great companies like Nissan and Toyota and Honda and Mercedes and Hyndai. I know what some economists say about America moving beyond a manufacturing-based economy, but I still am convinced we need good people, working hard, making a good wage, building cars (and refrigerators and furnaces and air conditioners and orthopedic equipment and steel and aircraft) in America.
Detroit has made some terrible decisions over the years. As the ads from GM, Ford and Chrysler kept encouraging folks to buy trucks and SUV's these last few years, and as foreign manufacturers offered more and more in the way of well-designed, well-built sedans, I shook my head in dismay. Some executives have been overpaid for their ineffective leadership, and some folks on the line haven't been willing to adapt quickly enough.
And yet I some segments of our country sort of enjoy kicking Detroit. People sneer about people being paid $70,000 a year to tighten bolts, but I hear the truth is otherwise. For example, much of the cost of an American car goes to health care costs -while the health care costs for employees in Japan are covered by the government. The actual pay for a line worker at GM is, I read, just slightly below the compensation paid a similar worker at Toyota.
My paternal grandparents worked for GM in Anderson, Indiana. The UAW and GM helped that part of our family join the American middle class. Working people could own their own homes, take vacations, send their kids to college, and retire in dignity: not a bad goal for a nation that aspires to greatness and justice and opportunity, I'd say.
I don't understand all of this. I know I worry about a country without GM or without Chrysler. I worry about communities without those kinds of jobs. I worry about families dealing with the loss of jobs, and I worry about -pray for- cities like Flint, Detroit, Kokomo, Anderson, Toledo, and others. And I feel a twinge of guilt about the fact that my wife and I drive a Nissan product, a Mazda product, and use an old Dodge van as a "winter beater." Next time I buy a car I am going to look long and hard at some of those great new products beng turned out by Chrysler, GM and Ford.
I love cars. I've always loved cars. They still make my heart beat a little faster. There is a kind of magic that happens when you sit in the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition, turn the key to the right and feel the engine come alive. And, like favorite songs from long ago, the beauty of cars like the Chevelle SS-396 and the Mustang and the Pontiac GTO and the top-of-the-line Olds Cutlass haunt my dreams.
There was that line of Pontiac models that were awesome. The GTO made us stop and look as it went rumbling by. Chrysler had the Roadrunner and the Charger and the Fury and the Barracuda...those and others were powered by Hemi engines. Chevy had the Chevelle Mailbu SS 396 and the earlier Chevy Nova and the Camaro. Ford had the Mustang. Pontiac made sure the basic lines, from model to model, were present. Designers at Chrysler talked about their "Pepsi bottle" styling. Narrow lines near the front of the car, and then things suddenly widening out over the rear wheels.
For some of us cars are a part of the storyline of our lives. I can tell you where I was when I saw my first Camaro. It was a Sunday morning, in Walkerton, and I had just walked out of church. Can't remember for the life of me what the preacher said that morning, but I remember walking around the Camaro. Comparing its lines to the look of already-released Ford Mustang.
Pretty girls made my heart beat a little faster, but my jaw dropped when I saw my first Ford Mustang 2+2 Fastback. It was a sort of pearl blue. With interior lighting, white bucket seats (or where they blue?), and a state-of-the-art 4 (or was it 8?) track tape player stereo system. The car was sitting in the gravel parking lot behind the old John Glenn High School. I stood there studying that car, which was owned by a kid from Argos, and I knew immediately what the Bible is talking about when it says "thou shalt not covet...your neighbor's Mustang."
My first kiss was in a car. I first heard Linda Ronstadt sing "Different Drum" over the car stereo.
Detroit has been in the news, lately, and it has been pretty painful to hear about...read about. Rolling Stone had a recent article that described Detroit as a city that needs rebirth...or it will continue to decline into an urban relic. GM and Chrysler have been in the news as the government tries to figure out what the next step should be...if either of these great companies is to survive. Ford seems to be doing okay...but they have come perilously close to financial ruin over the last several years.
I don't know what the answer is, but I believe our country needs a healthy auto industry. Where state of the art vehicles are built in our factories by our people. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for great companies like Nissan and Toyota and Honda and Mercedes and Hyndai. I know what some economists say about America moving beyond a manufacturing-based economy, but I still am convinced we need good people, working hard, making a good wage, building cars (and refrigerators and furnaces and air conditioners and orthopedic equipment and steel and aircraft) in America.
Detroit has made some terrible decisions over the years. As the ads from GM, Ford and Chrysler kept encouraging folks to buy trucks and SUV's these last few years, and as foreign manufacturers offered more and more in the way of well-designed, well-built sedans, I shook my head in dismay. Some executives have been overpaid for their ineffective leadership, and some folks on the line haven't been willing to adapt quickly enough.
And yet I some segments of our country sort of enjoy kicking Detroit. People sneer about people being paid $70,000 a year to tighten bolts, but I hear the truth is otherwise. For example, much of the cost of an American car goes to health care costs -while the health care costs for employees in Japan are covered by the government. The actual pay for a line worker at GM is, I read, just slightly below the compensation paid a similar worker at Toyota.
My paternal grandparents worked for GM in Anderson, Indiana. The UAW and GM helped that part of our family join the American middle class. Working people could own their own homes, take vacations, send their kids to college, and retire in dignity: not a bad goal for a nation that aspires to greatness and justice and opportunity, I'd say.
I don't understand all of this. I know I worry about a country without GM or without Chrysler. I worry about communities without those kinds of jobs. I worry about families dealing with the loss of jobs, and I worry about -pray for- cities like Flint, Detroit, Kokomo, Anderson, Toledo, and others. And I feel a twinge of guilt about the fact that my wife and I drive a Nissan product, a Mazda product, and use an old Dodge van as a "winter beater." Next time I buy a car I am going to look long and hard at some of those great new products beng turned out by Chrysler, GM and Ford.
I love cars. I've always loved cars. They still make my heart beat a little faster. There is a kind of magic that happens when you sit in the driver's seat, put the key in the ignition, turn the key to the right and feel the engine come alive. And, like favorite songs from long ago, the beauty of cars like the Chevelle SS-396 and the Mustang and the Pontiac GTO and the top-of-the-line Olds Cutlass haunt my dreams.
The Greatest Threat.
A few weeks ago a reporter from MSNBC asked me, "What is the biggest threat ahead of your community...your people?"
"Despair," I said.
We'll get through the short-term crisis of this economic downturn, I said. In our city of 55,000 people the actual unemployment rate is probably above 20%. Our folks have been through economic recessions before, and they are pretty resilient. They are creative and they'll come back.
Human beings have a pretty amazing capacity to come through a short-term crisis. The soldiers under fire in a Baghdad neighborhood react with amazing resourcefulness. The family with a very sick young child pulls together and gets through the crisis.
When thngs can get really tough, though, is after the crisis passes or first hits. it's the long haul that can wear a military unit down...or a family...or a marriage...or a community.
"We'll get through the first stages of the crisis okay," I said, "but I worry about people surrendering to despair when the challenges linger for months. When that great job doesn't come back...or when some changes we thought were going to be temporary look like they might become temporary."
Yesterday I got a phone call from a buddy: after months of searching he had just received a job offer. The application process, the interviews and all, had gone on for weeks. The job was his! I could hear the relief in his voice. Today I found out another friend didn't get the job they had been hoping for, interviewing for, and I know this must feel like a very, very tough Friday. A member of the family told me, after hearing the news, that God is good...God is faithful...and there is another job out there.
We are focused on helping one another through the crisis. I find myself wondering about the long term.
I keep thinking about the empty tomb of Easter. I keep thinking about the two men traveling to the town of Emmaus, after they had heard Jesus had been nailed to a cross and buried in the ground. "But we had hoped..." they said to a stranger (who turned out to the risen Christ).
Despair is like a dog that prowls the neighborhood. Always ready to dig its teeth into us. But we are going through this together. And we have a God whose resurrection power shows up in all sorts of ways.
"Despair," I said.
We'll get through the short-term crisis of this economic downturn, I said. In our city of 55,000 people the actual unemployment rate is probably above 20%. Our folks have been through economic recessions before, and they are pretty resilient. They are creative and they'll come back.
Human beings have a pretty amazing capacity to come through a short-term crisis. The soldiers under fire in a Baghdad neighborhood react with amazing resourcefulness. The family with a very sick young child pulls together and gets through the crisis.
When thngs can get really tough, though, is after the crisis passes or first hits. it's the long haul that can wear a military unit down...or a family...or a marriage...or a community.
"We'll get through the first stages of the crisis okay," I said, "but I worry about people surrendering to despair when the challenges linger for months. When that great job doesn't come back...or when some changes we thought were going to be temporary look like they might become temporary."
Yesterday I got a phone call from a buddy: after months of searching he had just received a job offer. The application process, the interviews and all, had gone on for weeks. The job was his! I could hear the relief in his voice. Today I found out another friend didn't get the job they had been hoping for, interviewing for, and I know this must feel like a very, very tough Friday. A member of the family told me, after hearing the news, that God is good...God is faithful...and there is another job out there.
We are focused on helping one another through the crisis. I find myself wondering about the long term.
I keep thinking about the empty tomb of Easter. I keep thinking about the two men traveling to the town of Emmaus, after they had heard Jesus had been nailed to a cross and buried in the ground. "But we had hoped..." they said to a stranger (who turned out to the risen Christ).
Despair is like a dog that prowls the neighborhood. Always ready to dig its teeth into us. But we are going through this together. And we have a God whose resurrection power shows up in all sorts of ways.
You Can Do Your Best and Still Get It Wrong.
One of the first illusions to die, in middle age, is the youthful assumption that if you are bright enough, faithful enough, and wise enough - you'll avoid messing up.
We saw the previous generation doing their best, and we could see their blind spots. They made such foolish mistakes! They seemed so blind to injustice! We were going to do better. We would never send young men off to die in a military mistake. We would get this whole issue of racial injustice squared away in short order. Children in America -and the world- would never go to bed hungry at night when we got our chance to lead. The church, when we got the chance to lead, would be more creative...more faithful...and not so captive to traditional, middle class values. We would be more reckless, more radical for Jesus than those polite, white-glove-wearing, ushers decorated in suit-and-tie-and-white-shirt midwestern ushers of the 50's and early 60's.
There has been some progress made, but we still can get things so wrong.
Our church is in the middle of a major attempt to be radical for Jesus, and be more effective by doing fewer things better. People across the country talk about the church becoming "simple." This new emphasis is a good thing, I think. At Trinity we try so many things that sometimes we forget to focus on helping people grow in Christ.
A few months ago our staff talked about the request of an individual who wanted to lead an AA group in our church building. The man has no connection to the church, we didn't want to just provide a room to a disconnected group, and we wanted to do some sort of recovery ministry
- but we wanted to have that group connected to the church. So that people could, as they recovered, have the opportunity to follow Jesus. Not that they would be forced into being a United Methodists, or Christians, but that the group would be linked to the ministries of the larger church.
A friend heard about that decision and she -along with her husband- was furious. Puzzled. Hurt. Because they both have a heart of compassion, and understand that if the church isn't helping the least and the lost then it probably ought to take down the cross about the building.
We finally talked about all of this a week ago. She told me it was good we had waited to talk. "I would have been too angry if we had met earlier," she said, "and you would have been defensive. So this is good...I don't agree with the decision. But I feel heard."
I told her we may well have been wrong. I told her we tried to make the right decision for the right reasons -not to be high-handed or indifferent, but just wanted to make sure recovery ministries were connected to discipleship. We support hunger ministries, we have volunteers tutoring in the schools, we are working with folks out of work -we do a lot of good for God at Trinity but we may have blown this call. Missed this opportunity to do ministry.
We may have been wrong. I hate that. I hate that we make mistakes. As individuals and as a church and as followers of Jesus around the world. (And then, again, maybe it was the right call. If we said "yes" to every opportunity to do something good, in our large church, we would wreck ourselves.)
Wrong turns, missed opportunities, go with the territory, I fear. Make enough decisions, hang around and lead long enough, and you are going to make all kinds of mistakes. And I hate that. I would like to be able to bat 1,000 or hit every foul shot or sink every putt.
"Thanks for hanging with me...with us," I said. "Please keep praying with us...for us. That we'll do the right thing for God."
The whole conversation made me thing about an old Walter Wangerin story. Walter was a young pastor of an inner-city congregation down in Evansville more than 30 years ago. A prostitute was using the church's outside water source, after dark, to fill her own pails. Her water had been turned off so she used the church's water. Walter was outraged by this thievery and so he had the church turned off the outside water. A member of the church caught him. Shook her fingers at her pastor and told him he ought to be ashamed. Said that maybe the most important ministry the church had to that woman was letting her fill her buckets with the water the church had paid for. Jesus would have never turned that woman away, or turned that water off, the woman said.
Sometimes we get it wrong. And I am so thankful for all those lovers of Jesus who keep loving us, praying for us, and not giving up on us...or the church.
We saw the previous generation doing their best, and we could see their blind spots. They made such foolish mistakes! They seemed so blind to injustice! We were going to do better. We would never send young men off to die in a military mistake. We would get this whole issue of racial injustice squared away in short order. Children in America -and the world- would never go to bed hungry at night when we got our chance to lead. The church, when we got the chance to lead, would be more creative...more faithful...and not so captive to traditional, middle class values. We would be more reckless, more radical for Jesus than those polite, white-glove-wearing, ushers decorated in suit-and-tie-and-white-shirt midwestern ushers of the 50's and early 60's.
There has been some progress made, but we still can get things so wrong.
Our church is in the middle of a major attempt to be radical for Jesus, and be more effective by doing fewer things better. People across the country talk about the church becoming "simple." This new emphasis is a good thing, I think. At Trinity we try so many things that sometimes we forget to focus on helping people grow in Christ.
A few months ago our staff talked about the request of an individual who wanted to lead an AA group in our church building. The man has no connection to the church, we didn't want to just provide a room to a disconnected group, and we wanted to do some sort of recovery ministry
- but we wanted to have that group connected to the church. So that people could, as they recovered, have the opportunity to follow Jesus. Not that they would be forced into being a United Methodists, or Christians, but that the group would be linked to the ministries of the larger church.
A friend heard about that decision and she -along with her husband- was furious. Puzzled. Hurt. Because they both have a heart of compassion, and understand that if the church isn't helping the least and the lost then it probably ought to take down the cross about the building.
We finally talked about all of this a week ago. She told me it was good we had waited to talk. "I would have been too angry if we had met earlier," she said, "and you would have been defensive. So this is good...I don't agree with the decision. But I feel heard."
I told her we may well have been wrong. I told her we tried to make the right decision for the right reasons -not to be high-handed or indifferent, but just wanted to make sure recovery ministries were connected to discipleship. We support hunger ministries, we have volunteers tutoring in the schools, we are working with folks out of work -we do a lot of good for God at Trinity but we may have blown this call. Missed this opportunity to do ministry.
We may have been wrong. I hate that. I hate that we make mistakes. As individuals and as a church and as followers of Jesus around the world. (And then, again, maybe it was the right call. If we said "yes" to every opportunity to do something good, in our large church, we would wreck ourselves.)
Wrong turns, missed opportunities, go with the territory, I fear. Make enough decisions, hang around and lead long enough, and you are going to make all kinds of mistakes. And I hate that. I would like to be able to bat 1,000 or hit every foul shot or sink every putt.
"Thanks for hanging with me...with us," I said. "Please keep praying with us...for us. That we'll do the right thing for God."
The whole conversation made me thing about an old Walter Wangerin story. Walter was a young pastor of an inner-city congregation down in Evansville more than 30 years ago. A prostitute was using the church's outside water source, after dark, to fill her own pails. Her water had been turned off so she used the church's water. Walter was outraged by this thievery and so he had the church turned off the outside water. A member of the church caught him. Shook her fingers at her pastor and told him he ought to be ashamed. Said that maybe the most important ministry the church had to that woman was letting her fill her buckets with the water the church had paid for. Jesus would have never turned that woman away, or turned that water off, the woman said.
Sometimes we get it wrong. And I am so thankful for all those lovers of Jesus who keep loving us, praying for us, and not giving up on us...or the church.
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