Looking Back.

Genesis 19:26 tells us Lot's wife looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt. Many other places in the Bible, though, tell us we are to remember. To tell yesterday's stories to our children and grandchildren. Deuteronomy 4 is all about remembering who God is and how God has been with us, and telling those stories to the kids.

Tonight the rain is coming down outside and I am looking back. I didn't intend to look back. I came into the office tonight to sort through files. (One of the things I try to do is leave a sparkling clean set of files for whoever follows me.) So I have been sorting...tossing...keeping... writing notes on files that need to be re-labeled.

I keep finding things. A wonderful Advent hymn a friend found on the United Methodist web site years ago. I look at the hymn and the words are a gift.

There is a file on The Green Room. Some of you may remember that TUMC got creative as we tried to reach out to young adults, and Trinity opened up a coffee shop in downtown Elkhart. As a place where young adults -and people of all ages- could gather. The coffee was good, the food was just fine, and the music was cool...but we closed it after a few years.

Fifteen years ago Trinity had three Sunday morning worship services. All were wonderful and all were essentially the same. We weren't reaching a new generation. So one of the files I came across is all about the creation of a "Contemporary Worship Task Force." Our leaders were putting that together as early as January of 1997. There are song lists. Some of them would embarrass us now, I suppose. And I remember that week after week, long after the "Celebration!" service was begun (bet you had forgotten that name!), our staff got headaches as we worked through the "bugs" in our primitive sound/projection system. We wanted our worship to glorify God and we wanted it to be excellent in every way...and some weeks it was!

There are names, too. Names of people I married. Names of friends, of saints, like June and John and Helen, whose funeral services I was privileged to lead. People whose faith and love and sense of humor and generosity has marked me forever.

So tonight I am looking back. And I don't feel salty at all. I feel blessed...thankful...gifted.

The words to that Advent hymn by a Jesus follower named Kilgore? They are in part these: I am here in the stars, in the dark of the night. I am always within you, and I am the light. I am who I am, sings the God of my soul. In your waiting and home I am making you whole.

Sometimes stopping and looking back is a very, very good thing, you know?

Lessons Learned in the Wild.

I'm a subscriber to Netflix. It's an on-line service that delivers DVD's to your door.

For the last two weeks I've had Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" sitting beneath my tv, waiting to be seen. Sometimes I hesitate to watch "tough" movies, and this story about a troubled young college graduate who runs away from his difficult family, into the wilderness of Alaska, was supposed to be pretty "heavy."

Last night, though, I took a deep breath and put the DVD in and watched the film. It's a good film. Well-directed, well-written, and well-acted.

It's the story of a boy born into a family where the marriage of the parents is troubled. Christopher has everything, graduates from Emory, and then heads west. He gives what he has away, burns every piece of personal ID, and refuses to have any contact with his parents. The young man works with a harvesting crew in the midwest, goes down the Colorado River, ends up traveling up the West Coast with some middle-aged hippies, and ends up deep in the Alaskan wilderness. All by himself. Living in an abandoned bus.

All along the way, he runs away from people who offer him love. There is an older man, an Army veteran played by Hal Holbrooke, who offers to adopt Christopher. The young man keeps moving. Because his own family has had turmoil and conflict, the young man keeps moving.

Finally, as he dies alone in the wilderness, Christopher writes something like this on the page of a paperback: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

Running is a pretty common way of responding to disappointment, sadness and heartache. I see that all the time in people's lives, as a pastor. We don't usually end up living in an abandoned bus outside Fairbanks, but we run away. It's like if we can get far enough away from other human beings, we'll be well...free of the sadness.

But running rarely works as we had hoped it would.

The apostle Paul, in the New Testament, spends a lot of energy telling early followers of Jesus that we were created to be a part of a body. We were meant to share life with others. We were not meant to do life on our own.

That is the lesson he learns in the splendid isolation of the wilderness: Happiness was meant to be shared with others.

If you're running, I think it would be a good idea to stop. I wouldn't pretend to know what your next step should be, if you stop running, but I think you should stop running.

The Importance of the "G" Word (Goodbye)..

There are different pieces to the art of living well. There are different pieces to the mystery of being a pastor.


One of those is the art of saying "goodbye." When I talk with pastors and lay people I say I am really good at leaving. Saying "goodbye." We're not even close to saying that in this current chapter of life. It'll be a long while, I hunch, before I pack my boxes and leave Trinity. Move on.


But I'm good at leaving. Good at saying "goodbye." I never slip out a side door. I do my best to look people straight in the eyes, tell them I am leaving, tell them what they have meant to me, and tell them why it is time to go. I do my very best to bless the ones who have been walking with me during the current chapter. And I leave. I don't hover. I don't keep ducking back to check up on everyone. To see how my successor is doing. Like the nervous parent of a pre-schooler who isn't sure their child is going to be okay after being left at nursery school. I face people, I linger, I bless people, I say "goodbye," and I head out the door.


We do a pretty good job of welcoming people into the community of the church. We have new member classes. We have a formal ceremony in worship as people take the vows of membership. We hand people a certificate. Shake their hands.


Leaving? That is a different story. Too often people just slip out a side door. I spoke with a friend the other day. Said we had missed them in worship. He kindly explained we hadn't seen them because they were worshipping elsewhere. Okay.


I think people duck out the side door because they feel guilty about leaving a church. Not always. But often. They worry about how people will react. They may have seen other people loaded down with a "guilt trip" when they decided it was time to move on. So they slip out the side door.


Saying "goodbye" is important. When we don't have the chance to say "goodbye" I feel like we have all been cheated. Because we've shared some pretty important moments together.


A friend who serves an area church says, "Just tell me goodbye as you leave. Don't just disappear. I prayed with you through that job search eight years ago. When your daughter was arrested I went to court with you. We went on a mission trip to New Orleans together, and stood side by side rebuilding houses. So don't slip out of my life...our lives...without saying goodbye. It's okay. I'll still love you. We can be friends. If you need to leave then go ahead and leave. But say goodbye."


The summer after his senior year at Elkhart Central, our youngest song would play his favorite CD's after getting home from Creation Windows. One of the songs I heard coming from his room was Andrea Bocelli's "Time to Say Goodbye." It wasn't rock and roll. Seemed like an odd choice.

Tonight, as I wait for Michael to drive down from Chicago O'Hare for Christmas, I am wondering if he played that song as a way of saying goodbye. Sometimes the heart stuff is too much. Words can't hold everything we're saying or feeling. So he played the song. Day after day. Through that summer. Preparing us all for a chapter that was ending, and helping us prepare for the chapter ahead.

The Gospel of John is unique, among the four gospels, for the number of chapters used to describe the last few days Jesus spent with his friends in Jerusalem prior to his arrest. We're told about the last supper, the washing of the disciples' feet, and John reports -in great detail- the "high priestly prayer" Jesus offers on behalf of his friends. God shows us all sorts of truth in the account of those last few days, but one lesson is how much energy Jesus invested in saying goodbye. He didn't slip out a side door. He told his friends what was happening. He told them why it was happening. And he blessed them.

Part of living well is learning the importance of the "G" word.

Don't slip out the side door. Of church. Or of any other significant relationships in your life. Take the time to say goodbye. Heart work can be tough but we'll all survive. The people who love you just want a chance to bless you.

When it's "Time to Say Goodbye" do just that.