The Adjustment Bureau.

The Christian world in North America is soaked through with Calvinism. That is the belief that God is sovereign, that God is all powerful, that God has a plan for every moment of every day of every person's life, and that God directly causes everything that happens.

We survive a car accident when two others are killed? God spared us for a reason, our Calvinist brothers and sisters would say. A couple gets pregnant, a politician loses an election, a baseball player swings the bat and makes good contact with the ball: it is all God's doing. God has a plan.

United Methodists look at God and life in a different way. We believe God is at work in history. We believe God is working to bend history in the direction of healing, justice, peace, and life. We believe God has made it very clear -the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount- what kind of life works best. But we also believe God trusts creation -and life- to us. God gives us something we call "freewill." Our choices count. We are not puppets on a string.

The Bible is full of moments when God places a choice before people. Adam and Eve are told not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But God gives them the freedom to obey...or disobey!

Abram and Sarai are asked by God to leave home and head hundreds of miles to the west.

Esau is asked to forgive the brother who stole his birthright.

Hagar, when a part of her wants to die because of the shameful way she has been treated by Sarah and Abraham, chooses to listen to an angel and live.

Joshua says to the people of Israel, "Choose this day whom you will serve."

Jesus says to would-be disciples, "Follow me and I will teach you how to catch people in God's net of amazing grace." Those men and women who hear his voice can either stay where they are, living their old lives, or they can follow Jesus into a new life. The choice is their's.

All through the Bible we see God respecting the freedom God has given God's people. God gives us options, God allows us to choose, God challenges us to use our best judgment and to pray, but God never forces us to be obedient or to trust or to give.

The reason this all comes to mind is because of Matt Damon's new film, "The Adjustment Bureau." It is Hollywood's attempt to frame the whole question about how free we really are. Handling freedom, working through the choices that define who we are and who we will be, is not an easy thing the film says.

Our choices count. The Bible makes that clear. Be careful...freedom is a powerful gift that can bring joy and healing or it can -if handled badly- bring misery and heartbreak.

God loves you. God chooses to restrain God's power so that your choices will matter. Don't live thoughtlessly, don't think you can do life on auto-pilot, and assume God's "plan" is to clean up every mess you or I make.

You are so loved that God not only gave you his only Son, but you are so loved that God gave you the gift of choice...of freewill.

God Is on the Other Side of the River.

We read the Bible stories so many times, perhaps, that we lose our ability to see how very real they all are. We know how the story ends, we know God shows up, and so that makes it very tough for us to see how scary it was for Abram and Sarai to pick up and head west towards Canaan. We know God is out there in Sinai, among the rocks and the dry ground and the wild wilderness, so it almost impossible for us to understand the fear in the gut of the Hebrews when Moses and Aaron led them away from the security of Egyptian slavery towards the unknown.

Where was Moses leading them? How was this going to end? They didn't really know and yet they packed their things -quickly!- and headed off. In the direction of two barriers that seemed impassable: the sea and the desert.

We've slipped into March. I am in a new place. The last time I "blogged" we were living north of highway 30. In Elkhart. Now we are south of that by a fair distance. Instead of looking out my study windows to see the St. Joseph River in Elkhart, which had become home in all sorts of deep ways, I look out my study window in Bloomington. To see a small hill on the other side of a creek. I wonder what the trees will look like, on that hill, when the leaves come in this spring.

The Christian way is a life that moves through death and discovers -when we live with God and for Jesus- resurrection on the other side. I have told close friends that my decision to be obedient to the whispers of God in the call to Bloomington meant that I have carried "the cross" of saying goodbye to people I love very, very much. The pain of that leaving was almost more than I could bear. (It was also true when we left New Haven back in 1996 for Elkhart: I thougth I was going to die. A close friend, my associate pastor there, said he thought I would never survive another move.)

Here is the discovery I have made: God is on the other side of the river. When the Hebrews, in Joshua 3, go across the Jordan River they discover God is at work on the other side of the river. There is life on the other side of the wandering time, the leaving chapter, even if it is in a place that isn't familiar as the place you have left.

Whatever river you are facing I want to tell you something I know, something I have experienced: God is on the other side of the river. God is over there in that new chapter with all of its questions and uncertainty.

I find myself being thankful. I find myself lighting up when I see the faces and hear the voices of those in Bloomington who are already becoming living treasure to me.

God is on the other side of the river. I want you to know that.

New Chapters.

I tend to see life, organizations, and relationships as books. With different chapters. The pages are always being turned. Things never stay the same.

As you might expect, I have a fair number of friends who are pastors. Being a pastor or priest or rabbi or imam is an interesting way to spend your life for God. You get a chance to shepherd souls, see God at work, and hang out with people who love you better than you deserve to be loved.

Then, of course, there are heartbreaking parts of it. When people get ugly in the church, it isn't a pretty picture. Bumping into meanness in a place where you expect to find grace is a shock.

Many pastors finally go on to do other things not because they have been exhausted by the big challenges of kingdom building (fighting for justice, making peace, teaching God's truth to a new generation, mission trips to tough places, watching people you love get knocked down by cancer, etc.), but because of the "paper cuts" we get along the way. The Easter Sunday someone growls at you because the altar flowers weren't properly centered. The Bible expert who keeps chipping at you because you don't preach in the style he enjoys best. The donor who demands her gift back because the leaders of the church didn't choose the carpet color she wanted. Little stuff. Worn down by little stuff, some pastors say, "That's it. I'm going to go sell insurance or teach or mow yards or drive a truck."

I've got some friends who have been run out of their churches by a small group of cranky Christians. My buddies were tempted to hang in there...try to work through things. But the cranky folks wouldn't let go of the fight. They didn't want things to get better...they wanted their preacher gone so they could get an improved model with higher horsepower and better mileage.

Jesus, in the 9th chapter of Luke, sends his disciples out to do God's work and he says, "When someone welcomes you, stay there. If someone shuts the door in your face, wants nothing to do with you or my Good News, then move on. Shake the dust from your feet."

It's a wonderful thing for Jesus to say. It gives us permission to move on when people insist on saying "no." I tell my friends, "Life is too short to stay where people don't want you. There is another place...go!" What a blessing to know that God loves us enough that the Lord doesn't want us to stay around and get beat up by cranky people! New chapters...

Recently a friend, who runs a small restaurant, told me she is giving up. The economic slowdown is taking her business down. It's not just that, though. She has found that the retail food business -like dairy farming or pastoring a small church- means you don't have much of a life away from your work. She's exhausted. My friend told me she is closing her business, and I told her what a great job she has done. How it has been a good place...a welcoming place. Folks in that neck of South Bend are going to miss it. "I hope you feel good about what you have done," I said. "You've blessed us all. Given us a place. And God has another chapter ahead for you..." She began to cry. I hugged her. New chapters...

My sisters and I have been talking in ways we haven't talked in years. Some of it is easy. Some of it is really hard. Between the words there is healing. Movement where some things have been frozen for a long time. There are moments when it is exhilirating. Fun. And there are moments in our changing relationships that are scary...exhausting. (Healing, by the way, isn't a painless phenomenon.) New chapters...

I know Ecclesiastes 1:09 tells us there is nothing new under the sun. Got it. Every generation likes to think they are breaking new ground, but the truth is the human condition is sort of what it has always been. Ecclesiastes says what it does, and yet Psalm 96:1 says to "sing to the Lord a new song" and Jeremiah 31:31 exclaims "I will make a new covenant with them." In Revelation 21:05, Christ declares, "Behold, I make all things new."

New chapters. Some chapters -that may feel like a curse, a blessing, or a mixture of the two- come to a close. There are tears. There is pain. There is healing. There is gladness. Then, God has something else for us...

We are always stepping into a new chapter with God. I like that.

Rivers of Joy and Creeks of Sadness.

Overwhelming joy. Joy that, like some river which refuses to be contained, insists on spilling over and covering everything in sight.

That's sort of what life was like around our church this past weekend: overwhelming joy.

Things got started on Thursday afternoon and evening. We're adjacent to a public elementary school. Our congregation cares about those kids and their families. We do things like sponsoring the school's back-to-school cook out. We grill and serve the food...help direct foot traffic.

The students were having their Christmas/ holiday program in our church gymnasium/multi-purpose room Thursday night. We offer the school our facility. There's no cost. It is a great place for the program...the school doesn't have anything like it. In the afternoon the teachers walked them over to the gym...with its lighted Christmas tree and lights running the length of the stage. It was cool! Then, Thursday night nearly 1,000 students, parents and relatives filled our Trinity Life Center. Oh, man...

The flood of joy continued Saturday morning as we hosted "evaluation day" for our Upward Basketball program. It was a snowy, cold morning. Cars pulled up from 8:30 to 2:30, parents and their children came into the TLC, and you should have seen their faces! The kids could hear basketballs bouncing off the hardwood floor, and their faces lit up. Scores of volunteers from the church -men and women- were working with the kids. Last year we had about 140 children in the league...so far we have 287 signed up! In our first year of Upward Cheerleading we have more than 55 girls already registered. There was joy...and tons of sweaty little kids...everywhere you looked.

There was worship Saturday night and Sunday morning. All the services are places where the living Christ shows up, but Saturday night something special was going on. People were worshipping...the room was warm... the lights were beautiful. It was just right...

The river of joy continued into Sunday night as the children of Trinity put on their Christmas pageant in the TLC. They were awesome...parents and grandparents were nearly coming out of their chairs with pride and delight as the children sang their songs...delivered their lines.

It was almost too much! Sort of the way, when the family would get together, my Grandpa Owen would keep delivering more food to the table... long after you had eaten more than enough. So much joy...it left me beaming and almost exhausted.

And then there is the other side of life. I did something to my right hand late last summer while skiing at Hamilton Lake. The thing has gotten worse through the fall. Tingling and numbness...becoming more pronounced. So my family physician sent me to a hand specialist. During the morning's appointment (the hand will be as good as new after some minor surgery in January) the nurse asked for my medical history...my family history. I sat there answering her questions and suddenly I felt like weeping. Somehow that conversation tapped into an underground creek of sadness. Usually, I do pretty well getting along without the people I have loved who have gone to God's house. But sometimes I miss them... I really miss them. I studied the ceiling tiles, took a deep breath, and looked away from the nurse.

I regard it all as a gift from God. The rivers of joy and the creeks of sadness: I regard it all as a gift from God.

Tracing the Source of Tears.

People come into our lives. People leave our lives.

I learned this at an early age. As missionaries our family moved around a lot. I went through first grade in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Second and third grade were in Brussels, Belguim. Fourth and fifth grade were in a public school off 16th street/Emerson on the east side of Indianapolis. I remember, the Friday afternoon before Easter break, saying goodbye to my classmates. Walking my "girl friend" to the corner. We had all been handed a bag of popcorn by our teacher as a "spring break" treat. I handed my bag of popcorn to the girl. She walked straight at the light and I turned right. So I finished 5th grade in Nome, Alaska. And that is where I stayed until the summer before my sophomore year in high school. Then, it was south to the Midwest...to Walkerton, Indiana. The last three years of high school were there.

People come and people go.

There have been other losses. My Dad died on the mission field, in Africa. Before I was four year's old. My brother, Eric, was killed in a car accident on his 5th birthday when I was off at 1st grade. More drama and loss than you'd expect to find in a life so young, right?

So Wednesday evening of this past week I am meeting with lay leaders. They ask me how I am doing...how the church is doing. I tell them. I also tell them I am going -in just a few minutes- to be presenting a Bible to a young boy named Taylor. Other children will get their Bibles on Sunday morning later in October, but I'll be walking over into the church gym in a few minutes and handing Taylor his Bible.

A friend asks, "Are you giving him his Bible tonight because he is moving away with his Dad?"

Suddenly, I can't speak. My eyes fill with tears. I nod. Taylor is a great young young man. He refers to me as "Sermon Mark." Just a few weeks ago he led our 9:15 congregation in the Lord's Prayer. The tears are a puzzle... I wipe them away and go present the Bible. It is a good moment. I tell Taylor God is good and God is going to give him a whole group of new friends. "I know it!" he says in a matter-of-fact way.

I walk out the door. Express to a friend my puzzlement over my tears. She says, "Well, you've had a lot of people walk out of your life. Those losses build up and you don't want to see someone else you love leave."

In worship today I tell the story of Taylor...the Bible...my tears. After our last service of the morning the sanctuary is nearly empty. Children are playing in the worship area. Adults are chatting. Tech people are shutting down the computers and sound system.

A friend named Chris comes up to me. We hug and watch his young grandson crawl around the communion rail. "I think I know what your tears were about," he says. I wait. "You were crying for yourself. You remembered the young boy who moved so much...all the times you had to adjust...and you know the tough work ahead of Taylor."

"Never occurred to me," I think to myself. Really...never thought of that. We stand there quietly. "The truth is," he adds, "many of the tears we cry we cry for ourselves." I don't know quite to say...but it sure feels like Jesus has tip-toed up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "I think I know what those tears were about."

In Psalm 34 the psalmist says (:18, TNIV), "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Funny how God shows up, sometimes, when the sanctuary has emptied out. And you are nearly alone...but not quite. A friend is standing there...beside you.

What's Overhead?

Sometimes life feels like one of those crab boats bouncing around in the Bering Sea. People say that being a commercial fisherman is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.

Crabbing in the Bering Sea has nothing on just doing ordinary life. Navigating your way from Sunday through Saturday. A friend of mine, who used to work the second shift for a large city police force, said that by the end of the week he would begin to think that the whole world had lost its mind. "And," he would add, "I could tell I was about to lose my own mind because of the craziness out there!"

Like one of those boats bouncing around on the sea, life rolls us. We are in danger of losing our footing, or we just go over...grabbing at doors and bunks and people standing nearby to stop our slide.

There are odd little habits we pick up along the way, aren't there? One of the things I do is check the sky first thing in the morning. I do the same thing at night.

The alarm goes off, I crawl out of bed, and head out the front door. I pick up two local newspapers that are delivered to the house, and then I stop. I stand three feet from the front door and look straight up.

I do that for two reasons. The first reason is to see if the sky is clear or if we are in for a cloudy day here in northern Indiana. The second reason is to locate a star that I have come to count on. I don't know the name of the star. I don't know the constellation in which it finds itself. I just know the star is right above my head...straight up. When I've found my star I step back in the house and move on into the day.

There is something about knowing the star is where it needs to be. It tells me that no matter how crazy life can get, I'm still here...and I'm not lost. Not to God. The star above my head reminds me of the God who doesn't lose sight of me. The God who always is.

What was it God said to Moses when Moses demanded to know the name of God? "I AM...I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE." Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6), tells us not to be anxious - God has his eye on us. God cares for us.

In the early morning dark I step outside the front door, pick up my newspapers, and locate my star. It's just something I need to do.