Present in the Present

Tonight I was reminded of one of the disciplines of faith...maybe not spelled out explicitly in one or two sentences in the Bible but certainly covered under the umbrella of "love your neighbor".  I was snuggling Derek and listening to music as he drifted off to sleep.  That's a nighttime ritual in our house, one he's always wanted daddy to do.  As we were cuddling my mind started racing ahead to the two blog posts I'm writing tonight.  My arms were around him but my thoughts were miles away, searching subjects and penning phrases.

As my tension level about the work I had yet to do started rising I stopped myself.  "Hey dummy!" said I, "You have your adorable four-year-old son in your arms.  How many years do you think this will go on?  You know any sixteen year olds who cuddle with their dads before night-night time?  Plus you haven't seen Derek much today.  Stop!  Be here!  Enjoy!"  And so I did.  I buried my nose in his little shoulder and cuddled.  He sighed and put his arm around me.  It was a good moment.

In the first session of our current Evangelism Workshop we talked about the Time/Task/Reward treadmill upon which most of us run daily.  We're faced by a massive number of tasks each day.  We consider a day "successful" if we've completed most of them with acceptable results.  The problem here?  Everything gets reduced to a task...nothing more.  We lose the human, relational element and with it all the love and beauty we're supposed to experience.  We live life one step removed, not diving into our day but hovering above it, ticking off each step as if it were an academic test.  Exhibit A:  Cuddling your precious boy while thinking, "As soon as this is done I need to do this other thing next!"  How important is that moment then?  How important is the boy in your arms?  What does it matter if you spend a generous 15 minutes cuddling but the final message is, "Done with you!  Now to the next task!"?

One of the most important steps to living in faith--as opposed to just preaching it or intending to do something about it--is paying attention to the moment you're in.  How can you see God working in your world if your eyes are never really on your world?

We make the mistake of looking elsewhere far too often.  Have you ever sat and listened to someone talk when the only thing you're thinking is, "Here's what I'm going to say next!"  Are you really listening?  Are you really together with that person or are they just a prop to give space between your utterances?  How many times has dinner in your house been that speed bump between getting home and getting to soccer practice?  "Come on!  We've got to get this done as quickly as possible because you have to be to the field by 5:30!"  How long has it been since you viewed your spouse as a real person instead of as a function?  How long has it been since you relaxed in the car instead of driving like the only purpose is your next destination?  (That one's near universal.  I see plenty of people exceeding the speed limit on Highway 95 when 10mph over only saves them 30 seconds total on their trip.)

Try to discipline yourself today to stay where you are and be with the person in front of you.  Time will still move.  You won't be with that person forever.  In fact you probably won't be with that person a second longer than you would have been otherwise.  But you'll enjoy being with that person more and maybe find extra meaning and purpose and beauty in what you're doing.  That's the problem with defining the world by tasks and jumping from one to the next.  It doesn't save you any time really, but it drains nearly all the life out of your day...or at least all the best parts of life.  If you find yourself drifting somewhere else, bring yourself back!  Maybe God is putting something important right in front of your eyes.  You never know unless you look!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

On Your Worst Days

Ugh.  Ever had one of those days?

You see, I knew it was going to happen.  Last night was all but sleepless for me.  I was working late and so I got to bed at an hour that I can claim with theological certainty was ungodly.  I decided to snuggle with Derek so as not to wake Careen coming to bed in the middle of the night.  Derek enjoys those cuddle nights.  But last night he was either hot or having nightmares or just going random.  I curled up next to him when all of a sudden...kick.  Kick...kick.  Kick-kick-kick-kick-kick-kick-kick!  I suspect he was trying to kick the blankets off and found my back a more reachable target.  Then just when I had gotten to sleep he flipped over, dangling an arm out in the process.  WHACK!  I got his forearm right across the bridge of my nose.  That was it.  Ungodly hour or no, I was sleeping in my own bed.

So I shuffled off to the bedroom and curled up.  It seemed like all of six minutes later when Ali started screaming.  I don't know what it was about.  Careen was already up at that point and she was handling whatever crisis was unfolding.  Ali is good-natured about 98% of the time...smiling, happy, curious, giggling.  She makes up for it in the other 2%.  Her amp, as they say, goes all the way up to 11.  And she was in rare form this morning, shortly after the hour of ungodly.  At least two and a half times I got woken up out of sound sleep by my 1-year-old daughter melting down over markers or Cheerios or something.

But then finally...Ali got better.  Sigh.  There wasn't much time left for sleep but at least I could get a littl...RING!  RING RING RING RING RING!  Ok, fine.  So this is the morning when everybody else is up at the crack of dawn and decides to call the church phone.  It's now cellular, you know.  I can be reached any time of day or night.  RING RING RING!  Four phone calls in 40 minutes from wonderful, well-meaning people who...you know...ACTUALLY SLEPT LAST NIGHT.

Well, by that time morning was truly upon us so I gave up and got up.  I had a full day.  Study, plan, write a little stuff about evangelism, visit, work out running on the treadmill at lunch, visit, plan more, stop by the grocery store, cook dinner.  "Hi Derek!  Yeah, I'm sorry I haven't seen you all day.  I promise I'll play with you after dinner."  Eat. Play, play, play.  Finally!  Kids in bed!  Now I only have three things left to do.  I need to write something for my Blazers blog, write something for this blog, and do my evening workout.  I think I'll cheat on the Blazers blog part...just ask a short question for people to respond to and let them do most of the talking.  I'm tired and I don't think I have the energy to...RING!

"Hello?"  It's my co-writer Ben from the Blazers blog.  "Hey, what's up, Ben?  Oh!  Oh, they did!  Well that's cool.  Thanks for letting me know.  Bye!"  Hey, guess what?  After more than a year without a top executive and the team being run by committee the Trail Blazers just hired a new General Manager.  It was a shocking move because they stole him away from another team unexpectedly.  It's easily the biggest news story of the summer so far and one of the top three of the season.

Sigh.

So...here comes an hour of researching this guy's background, detailing every move he made in the draft, in trade, or signing free agents with that other team.  Then there's writing about it.  1677 words.  My blog counts for me.  And none of this will wait.  The news is breaking NOW.

Then finally I'm done.  Only two things left to go, one of which you are reading now.

But this post isn't meant to be self-indulgent.  There's a point here.  Your faith is only worth what you show on your worst, hardest days.  All of us have days like this.  From the earliest early-morning when I wanted to stuff a sock in my daughter's mouth...to being polite to everyone calling on the phone...to fulfilling my duties well despite fatigue...to dealing with the unexpected and unavoidable, today has been a challenge.  I've had to consciously remind myself every step of the way to do it right.  I've kept myself in check, trying hard not to snap at people, get aggravated with my children, or just throw up my hands and give up.  I don't always succeed in this, but today I did pretty well.  But I only did well because I made a conscious effort to put my faith first, even on days like this.  Had I not put that safeguard in place and paid attention, boy...would this have be a day.  What happened to Pastor Dave?  He's usually so nice!

I'm reminded of two things:

1. It's always a battle to hold onto the tenets we hold sacred, especially when circumstances threaten to overwhelm them.  How easy it would be to glare at the grocery store checker today, make rude gestures at people driving beside me, curse the world under my breath.  But that would be letting circumstance win.  Faith is stronger, even when it doesn't feel like it.  I don't keep myself in check on days like this because I'm a great person.  I keep myself in check because I believe and I put my trust in that belief.  I will demonstrate to the people of this world that they are important, beautiful, and loved even when they call me at 6:55 a.m. on the church phone for a non-emergency.
2. I don't always succeed in holding faith highest.  I can't lie about that.  I, too, succumb.  For every day like this where I feel fairly proud of myself I have another where I get to the end of the day and go, "Oops!"  This is why we need God's forgiveness.  This also puts a check on thinking that we're "good people".  We are...kind of.  But there will be days.  How easy it is, when judging ourselves, to conveniently skip over days like this, to skip over our momentary-yet-frequent failures.  How easy it is to judge ourselves only by our best moments while simultaneously judging everyone else by their worst!  We all have good and bad days.  We all need forgiveness, strength, help.  Fortunately we get all three from God.  But we should remember days like this that we might better thank and credit him instead of relying so much on our own sanctity which, in most of our cases, is about six hours of lost sleep away from disappearing entirely.

So...Psalm 121, verses 3-4 remind us that "He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep."  He may not, but I'm going to!  And gladly so.

Well, just as soon as that evening workout is done.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Ten Random Pieces of Advice

I'm not much for advice-giving, at least in the abstract.  First of all, most people aren't looking for it.  It's much better to listen and commiserate than to tell people how they should be living their lives.  Second, advice isn't a blanket endeavor.  I can sit with one person and help them discern a wise way forward in their particular situation, no problem.  But to pronounce judgment on the lives of hundreds of unrelated folks with divergent lives?  That's presumptuous.  I prefer to give people the basic tools to explore God and life--usually some combination of shaking them out of the ordinary and helping them see the potential for the extraordinary--and let them have at it.

Nevertheless, people do ask from time to time.  So today I'm stringing together ten random pieces of advice that I believe are near-universal.  The "near" is for all those people they may not fit.  This isn't the Final Word, just as close as I can get to some practical guidelines in this mystery called "life".

1.  When in doubt, go with the most loving, merciful, and grace-filled option.

2.  Put aside all those moments when you want to think you chose God through your smarts or passion or will.  You're not above him, that you should brag about choosing.  Rather focus on the fact that he chose you to be his beloved child.  Also consider the possibility that he might be choosing people around you.  Treat them accordingly.

3.  People who fear death overmuch also end up fearing life, living to protect what they think they have instead of growing what God gave them.  "Death" here doesn't have to mean just the end of our lives.  It can be translated "loss" or "pain" or "failure".  The surest sign you're too afraid:  fearing change.

4.  The best translation of "faith" is not "belief", but "trust".

5.  The only way to find strength for yourself is to give it to others.  Peace also works along these lines.  Happiness too, oddly enough.

6.  Spoiling your wife is never wasted effort.

7.  Yelling at your kids almost always is.

8.  Nothing is more futile and draining than complaining.  If something annoys you, try to find a good side to celebrate.  If you can't manage that, let it go.  Life is too short.  If you can't celebrate it or let it go, then work in a forthright and honest manner to change it or reach a compromise.  Even if your desired change doesn't come by the end of that process you should find at least one way the annoying thing makes sense to somebody...a reason it exists.  Right there you've found your thing to celebrate.  Complaining isn't productive, it's just lazy and dismissive.

9.  Gossiping takes two parties:  a speaker and a listener.  Don't participate in either end.

10.  If you can love everyone's children as much as you love your own you will be as close as you can get in this life to the Kingdom of Heaven.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Interesting People

A brief but cheery thought for your Wednesday.  A couple days ago blog guru Patrick Adams and I got together with one of his friends and played music in the church basement, kind of spur-of-the-moment.  Then Patrick and his friend installed the new thermostat in the St. John's fellowship hall.  (Yay!  Controlled heat!)  As I was pondering this I remembered how lucky we are to have such interesting people surrounding us in God's family.  I mean, you can just call up somebody and say, "Hey, want to play some music today?" and in just a little while there you are!  We have people helping each other crochet or paint rocks.  We have gardeners.  We have game players.  We have people who watch movies, write poetry, sample wines, craft beers, cook, draw, run, play sports, or just sit around and discuss things.  Just about any time you can find somebody to do these things with, and many more!  People just show up with Irish food or penny whistles or playing cards or whatever the theme of the day is.  That's amazing!  It's a beautiful, surprising, and quite open and welcoming way of doing church...of being God's people.  And it's available to any of us just by saying, "Hey, let's do something!"

If you haven't given thanks for our church family recently, make sure you do!  Notice what's going on here and celebrate it!

Also if you'd like to hear how to make our church, and your personal life, more reflective of this kind of love--more chocked full of these kind of uplifting moments and activities--make sure you come to our Evangelism Workshop after worship this Sunday.  You'll find out what we're sharing, why it matters, and how your life can overflow with it too...to the benefit of everyone you meet.

See you there!  And all these other places too!  Anybody up for a good game of Balderdash?

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Holy Rest

Two inviolable rules govern the discipline of online writing:

1.  You are only as good as your last post.

2.  You must post every single day without fail, saving perhaps weekends when people are busy with family instead of wasting time at work surfing the internet.

If you're not prepared to live by these two rules you might as well give up writing online.  You're done before you start.

Astute readers will notice that I broke Inviolable Rule #2 here yesterday.  I didn't post.  Why?  I was tired.  It was one of those days full of Pastor This and Pastor That plus Careen and the kids got home from Boise after a five-day trip plus I had extra work to do on the Blazers blog which kept me going until all hours of the night.  By the time I got ready to write here I was pretty much exhausted.  I'm not sure what kind of post I would have come up with, but it probably wouldn't have been very good.

Times like this require one to remember another rule, not of online writing but of life:  rest is a holy endeavor.  As we've said before when talking about the Sabbath, rest is your way of admitting that the world can get along without you for a little while.  If you can't come to terms with that not only are you the center of your universe, you believe you control everything and everyone around you.  Last time I checked, both of those claims belong to God and God alone.  In that way rest is a safety check against idolatry.

The rules of keeping people engaged in a blog and my personal work ethic said I should have posted something yesterday.  My body, mind, and spirit said I probably shouldn't.  In this case the correct theological approach was listening to my body, mind, and spirit.  Fear says, "If you miss a post people will never come back!"  Arrogance says, "You have to do this in order to seem (and be) good."  God says, "You know, you can stop for a second to recharge.  I can take care of things for a minute or two probably.  I mean, I've only been doing this since...I don't know...the beginning of time."

The more passion you have for your work, the more closely you pursue your true calling, the more clearly you see the benefits of your labor for yourself and for others, the more likely you are to fall into the trap of no-rest idolatry.  How long has it been since you've given yourself permission to let go for a little bit?  How long has it been since you've proven to yourself and the world that life doesn't hinge on you?

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

What It's All About

Here's a quick but important reminder that is becoming more and more prominent as we work together and plan our way into the future.  I've found myself saying this in multiple venues in conversation with individuals and groups.

Church is about the relationship between God and his people.  Whenever you say or do anything in relation to your church faith consider that first, last, and always.

It's awfully easy to reduce church to a building or lot, rituals and traditions, a list of tasks to be done, a code of morality, or a series of judgments to get right.  Those things all play a part in church life, but they're just a part...subservient to the claim above.  The relationship between God and people--and through him the relationship between people and their neighbors--is the first concern of a faithful church.  If you get that wrong, none of the rest matters.

Jesus himself showed this through his life.  He never had a building to call his own.  He actually told people to leave their homes to follow him.  He prophesied that their grand temple would be torn down, not one stone left upon another.  Jesus chastised the empowered religious people of his age, warning them that their rituals and riches meant nothing because they used them to cement their own power instead of demonstrating God's love.  Dying on the cross wasn't a just act.  Had justice and rightness prevailed Jesus would have been the only guy living in that scenario.  He would have jumped down off the cross to smite everyone around him who had condemned, abandoned, or mocked him (which was everybody there).  Instead he forsook right judgment in favor of mercy and grace.

That's our pattern for "doing church".  It starts with that same mercy and grace as its highest values and patterns everything else accordingly.  Things don't have to get done perfectly.  Relationships have to be lived out lovingly, with charity and forgiveness.  That's walking in the Spirit.  Every other attempt at perfection is just idolatry in pretty clothes.

I hope our church tends to the relationship between God and people, between people and people, well.  Keep that highest priority in mind the next time you think about, talk about, plan or do anything in a church setting.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Something New

Tonight I am up late learning a new video editing software suite for my online work.  The whole process reminds me what a wonderful pain in the tuckus change is.

When it's done, this new tool is going to save me tons of time and stress over the old way I was doing things.  But even though the old way was arduous, I had gotten used to suffering in that particular way, you know?  I knew exactly the ways the system would be slow, exactly the hiccups and exactly where they'd occur.  It got to the point where I could time other work in between the annoying stalls I'd encounter.  I knew where the system would break down and I learned to take advantage of it!

This new way won't have the disadvantages of the old, a development for which I'm grateful!  But right now as I'm slogging through instruction manuals and trying to find where to drag this and which button to push for that and why my computer is telling me I can't do this other thing...UGH!  Right now it's taking me at least as long to accomplish my task in this new, "streamlined" way as it would have if I had just used the old system.  That's not because the new way is slow, just that I haven't learned it yet.

At this moment I'm experiencing considerable temptation to go back and do it the old way, the way I'm familiar with.  I say this even knowing that the old way is inferior.  The only thing keeping me from putting down the new booklet and retreating is the knowledge that if I do it, the process will never...get...better.  A couple weeks from now I'll be a wiz-bang student of this new system and then my work will fly by.  But if I give it up, that'll never happen.

Isn't this true of most every change, though?  Plenty of times in church we do things because "we've always done them that way".  We forget to examine who our methods, processes, and systems are serving.  We put up with plenty of detours and inefficiencies because it seems like more of a pain to change them than to just make the mistakes we're all familiar with.

But the same lesson applies here too.  The only way forward is to endure the pain of change, to face that fear and soldier onward.  It'll be hard the first couple times you do anything differently.  But walking through difficulties and resolving them without giving up are the only ways of making life better.  Getting comfortable with shortcomings that should be resolved--whether in business, your personal life, or the life of faith--is a road to nowhere.  It looks straight and it's easy to walk, but you're going to be walking that same path 90 years from now not having learned or changed a thing.  In the short term it looks like comfort.  In the long run it's a slow, boring death.

So here I go, back to my instruction booklet and a heavy dose of sighs and groans.  I can do it, I should do it, so I will do it. Wish me luck as I figure it all out.  I promise I'll empathize with you as you walk through the changes you need to make as you move forward in life!  Then we'll do the same for each other as we experience our church changing and growing together.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

The Biggest Difference

A very nice person not associated with our church, familiar with us only through these posts, wrote in and asked me to summarize the biggest difference I see between the way we do church and "church as usual".  He intimated that he's familiar with the church scene and it wasn't satisfying to him, but he was intrigued by some of the things we'd been talking about and doing.  So here you go.

I'd say the biggest single difference between our ministry and the (stereo-)typical church experience is the direction of our focus.  If we're not doing something that changes or informs your daily life, makes your everyday experience more Spirit-filled and closer to God, then we've failed in our mission.  That's why we go to great length to keep church activities special, but not isolated.  They represent the best of what we can give, naturally, but we also try to make them connect to ordinary life.  We don't sit people down and make them go into another world, or even another mode of thinking, in order to experience our teaching of God.  With the kids we teach through everyday activities like games and movies.  Even with adults in more formalized studies we try and bring the words of scripture back around to our daily lives and tasks.  We invite "ordinary" people to ask "ordinary" questions and state their "ordinary" opinions and by gum, we find God is plenty active in the ordinary! Our job isn't to bring God to you.  We assume he's already there.  Our job is to help you see him in all the moments of your life.

Many churches give lip service to this kind of thing, but in the end most spend the bulk of their time and energy trying to get you farther inside the church, more focused on the institution, investing in church for church's sake.  You can see it in the hoops you have to jump in order to belong or participate.  You can feel it in the emphasis on attendance and giving as litmus tests for the success of the church...or failing that having a grand building and breathtaking decorations.  We talk about all of those things too, to be sure, but they're in service to the people and the community, not trying to get people and the community in service to us!  We don't try to get the outside into church in order to make the church bigger.  We try to get the inside out of church in order to spread God's goodness farther.

This change in direction makes all the difference.  I believe it's the same distinction that separated Jesus from the religious leaders of his time.  One wandered hither and yon, gracing people with healing and the news about God's goodness, bringing the Kingdom alive before them.  The others stayed in their temple-castle, protecting what they had and encouraging everyone to come and bow, calling them great and securing their place in the community.  The first is the ultimate self-giving, the second ultimately self-serving.  We prefer the former to the latter.

Hope that answers the question!

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

The Lives of Others

I got a chance to watch an interesting movie last night.  It was called "The Lives of Others". It's a German film with English subtitles.  It dealt with a member of the East German Secret Police during the Cold War.  Our officer was assigned to 'round the clock surveillance on a playwright who seemed loyal to the Communist Party but aroused suspicious.  Through the use of "bugs" the police could hear every word he said in his East Berlin apartment.  Since high-ranking party officials were out to get him for various reasons, his future didn't look bright.

The theme of the story was how listening to true art and true goodness through those wiretaps changed the life of the secret police enforcer.  The movie was quite well-written and well-acted.  I enjoyed it.

The part that struck me for our purposes is how different the plot and pace of the film turned out to be from the usual Hollywood stuff we see.  This was a film about spying, oppression by the state, using your talent to stand up for what's right, and defending your friends.  The first part of the movie probably wasn't much different than it would have been had it been produced in America.  But with all of those heroics leaking through the characters, the Berlin Wall providing a tangible and near-unbreakable barrier between the East Germans and freedom, and a secret police force involved, had this story been filmed in the U.S. it would have climaxed with a thrilling escape, gunfire, tunneling under the Wall while bad guys dogged your heels.  American film producers would have felt the story needed more punch at the end, more overt tension, more reasons to spend a special effects budget.

"The Lives of Others" contained none of that.  Its ending was both good and tense, but the story stayed solidly framed on the characters and the relationships between them, not on some huge manufactured thrill-moment.

Isn't life like that though?  Seldom do our greatest joys come in whiz-bang events.  They happen through the patient unrolling of threads between us as we're knit together.  We spend far too much time looking for happiness or excitement in events and circumstances.  We tend to underrate the happiness and excitement that comes through discovering each other.

Our youth ministry follows this pattern.  If you came to a single event you'd probably think it was nice, but not out of the ordinary.  But over time a hundred ordinary moments weave us together into something extraordinary.  I sometimes tell the kids, "It's not what you do that makes life fun, but who you do it with."  Waxing the kitchen floor with people you enjoy is a great afternoon.  Going to Disneyland with people you hate is a pain.

We can also learn a lesson about worship here.  Some people base their opinion of church on what kind of services that church conducts on a Sunday morning.  If they like the music and the liturgy it's a good church.  If not it's lousy.  Heaven forbid anyone should change anything once it's set!

Any kind of worship can be better or worse, really.  The style of worship doesn't matter as much as the people participating in it.  People with less faith and less room in their heart for their neighbors must insist upon one kind of worship--the kind they like--or their church experience is ruined.  People with more faith and room in their heart for their neighbors can find goodness in just about any kind of liturgy or song.  The latter group knows that it's not about the notes on the page, it's about the people that they're together with and the God in whose name they gather.

Like our German film-making friends did here, we need to spend more time concentrating on people and relationships and maybe a little less time basing our lives, our judgment, and our contentment on events or circumstances.  The beauty in people is more subtle but also much more profound and enduring once discovered.

I'm not sure I would have remembered this movie had they gone for the typical ending.  They kept me focused on the people instead of the action and now it'll stick with me much longer.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

The Value of Being Open to Possibilities

I often argue that we're not nearly intentional enough about the lives we live.  We spent an inordinate amount of time, energy, and stress on details that don't end up making much of a difference to us or the world.  We leave many of life's deepest questions un-examined or at best taken for granted.  We don't draw strong connections between our answers to those profound questions and the details of our daily lives.  We respond to things that we perceive need doing rather than asking what things are best to do.  Living our lives more intentionally--connecting those dots and then letting the overall picture inform our daily actions--would go a long way towards relieving our burdens and those of the world around us.

Unfortunately living intentionally often gets confused with being in control of our lives.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We don't have to manage every circumstance of our life to live it faithfully or well.  In fact some of the most delightful things are those we never plan for.  Just as bad as leaving the purpose for your life un-examined is figuring you already know that purpose and the direction it will take you and not being willing to alter course when the unexpected arrives.

You're going to think this is weird, but the strongest lessons I've had in this vein have come from my cats.

We never had pets growing up.  Dad thought they were too much trouble for folks who lived in the city.  But when I was 11 my mom finally talked him into adopting a mostly-Siamese kitten from my sister's farm.  I had waited for something like this my whole life.  That cat taught me everything:  how to love, how to be patient and gentle, how to communicate with someone even though we didn't share the same language.  He chose me to sleep with at night.  That made me feel prized beyond measure.  He would later do the same thing with my mom after my parents were divorced.  He was her lifeline when she was alone.  One of the saddest days of my life was the day we had to put him to sleep.

When I went off to college and seminary I had no time or room for cats, of course.  But I swore the first thing I was going to do when I got settled permanently was get a cat.  And I did!  Like our first cat, my sweet little Princess Buttercup kept me company when there was nobody else in the house.  I remember my first Christmas in Iowa.  It was just me and her...depressing as heck.  But as it turned out she liked to open presents!  I sat on the floor and brought out the gifts my family had mailed me and she ripped the paper off, loving every second.  We were a good team.

It's funny, but had I insisted on my original plan I never would have had her.  I had originally gone to the local animal shelter to pick out a kitten.  They didn't have any at the moment, only grown up cats.  I wanted to start from scratch.  I was disappointed, but I figured I'd come back in a few weeks.  In the meantime I reached through the cages and scratched a few cat heads to hold me over.  I had just petted this one cat when I turned to my friend and started talking.  All of a sudden...whoop!  Out of the cage came a cat's paw, curling gently around my hand and pulling it back to pet her head again.  I had overlooked her at first, but now that she had hold of my hand and was nuzzling it, I looked twice.  She wasn't a kitten...but...  She went home with me that day and she's been great ever since.  I would have missed out on so much love if I hadn't changed my mind because of her fuzzy little paw.

Our second cat, Pocket, walked in the house during a bad thunderstorm when she was a baby kitten.  She hasn't left yet.  She's mostly grumpy and just rooms with us.  She does not come into this tale.

But our third cat...Tubby, he does!  I was driving around town one day, still in Iowa, when I got this weird feeling I should stop by the shelter again.  I don't know how to describe it exactly, just an unspoken voice tickled me somewhere inside and I said to myself, "I should stop by the shelter.  It would be fun."  We were not looking for another cat.  But I walked in there and right in the top cage was a little butterscotch ball of fur, not much bigger than my hand.  His tail had been cut off halfway down.  The shelter people thought it was probably an accident somewhere.  There was a big sign on his cage door that said, "NOT FOR ADOPTION".  I thought, "Good!  This will be a safe cat to touch then."  So I asked if I could see him and they got him out.  I held him like a baby and he stretched out his paw, reaching up across my chest as if to say, "I choose YOU!"  My heart melted.  I asked why he wasn't adoptable and they said he would be in a couple days.  He had just been neutered and needed time to recover.  I asked if they could call someone and get the process done faster.  They told me to pick him up the next day, which I did.  He's the sweetest, most snuggly cat I've ever known and he's Careen's favorite.  Again, had I not let that little voice change me I would have missed out on so much love!

And that was it...all done.  Three cats is plenty.  Until one day we were reading Derek one of his favorite books, "Cookie's Week".  It's about a black and white tuxedo cat who gets into all kinds of comical mischief.  I turned to Careen and said, "That's about the ONLY kind of cat I'd consider getting because we don't have a black one."  We laughed.  We did not need another cat.  We did not want another cat.

A few days later I was sleeping in when Careen and Derek came home from a walk.  Outside my window I heard this, "Mew!"  Instantly it woke me up from my half-sleep.  Something in my heart went, "Tug!"  Then something in my brain said, "No!  No, no, no, no, NO!  I imagined that.  There's nothing out there."  Then I heard the "Mew!" again.  Derek came running into my room and said, "Daddy!  A kitten followed me all around!"  Careen walked in and I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.  She verified the story.  This little cat had run in between Derek's legs just as they started their walk and had not left even though they had covered probably 20 blocks this way and that.  Now it was outside the door.  "And you better come take a look at it," she said.

I walked outside and sure enough...tuxedo black and white.  The little kitten (a few weeks old at that point) meowed and rubbed between my legs, then jumped right up on my shoulder from the ground and started nibbling and licking my ear.  She still does that to this day.  Naturally we named her "Cookie" and she's just as delightfully mischievous as her literary counterpart.  She's brought life and playfulness back to our brood of cats, being the youngest and totally unconcerned with anything but having fun and getting petted.  Don't tell the others, but she may be the best cat I've ever owned.

Only once did I plan to get a cat, and even then I didn't get the cat I planned on at all.  But by letting go and rolling with the circumstances when God or the universe or my heart were all conspiring to tell me something, I've found my life quadruply blessed.

I've learned that you do have to live your life intentionally with love and forgiveness, joy and grace at the forefront of your actions.  But once you're committed to that, you just have to let go and see what happens.  More often than not you'll be surprised in ways more pleasant than you could ever plan for yourself.  I know three other sets of hands in this household and four more sets of furry paws that would be raised in agreement if they were reading this right now.

What wonderful things are in store for you today?  Have fun finding out.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Funeral Sermons

This morning at 10:30 we gather at St. John's to commemorate Clarence Gilge, who passed away last Friday morning.  Clarence was a good friend of our family, both our church family and my own.  Derek always loved to go see "Grandpa Clarence" and Clarence always laughed as he tickled Derek or listened to one of his stories.  Clarence tended to make sunshine out of rain wherever he went.  It'll be an honor to preside at his funeral service.

This seems a good time to talk about a question that faces every pastor and every grieving family at the time of the funeral:  how much do you talk about the person and how much do you focus on God, heaven, and the eternal?  Families often have concerns about how their loved ones will be remembered.  Pastors always try to walk between those two paths, not falling prey to the weaknesses of taking just one or the other.

I think we've all seen that line walked poorly.  You don't have to listen very long before you hear someone talk about a funeral sermon that seemed impersonal or distant because the deceased was barely mentioned, as if the pastor was taking the opportunity to preach at the congregation without connecting to or comforting them in their time of loss...loss which is bound up in the memories of a particular person, which should be honored.  On the other hand we've all seen funerals that talk about nothing but the person, as if the whole purpose was to outdo each other with stories about how well we knew somebody and how wonderful they are and how big our grief will be at missing them.  There's an old saying, somewhat cynical in delivery:  "Everybody's a saint after they die."  Canonizing a person in the funeral sermon divorces us from reality as much as ignoring them does.  It denies that people are people, that the miracle of life (and death and resurrection) comes precisely in the moment when we realize they happen to imperfect, ordinary folks like all of us are.  Who could ever live up to all the things that are said at these services?  You'd crumble under the burden of trying.

Personally I've found the best way out of this conundrum is to ask a simple question then use the sermon to answer it:  What has God shown us through this person and their life?  It takes a fair amount of faith to even venture this.  You have to assume God was active in their life, for starters.  You have to assume he was working something good through them.  Your job, then, is to play detective and find it, then share it.  In a way it's a little like the Children's Sermon that we do each Sunday.  You know something is in there.  Do you have the faith to connect it to God, the eyes to see how that works, and the words to share it?  When someone dies we get to open the box and look at the collection of things they've left us to talk about, finding all the places where they and God intersected.

In most cases this isn't too hard.  Often I've known the person and seen the witness their life has been, even if they didn't know they were being a witness.  Families always have stories, many of which I may not have heard.  Some experienced God through fishing, others farming, others school, others in loving relationships.  If you listen you can hear the threads God wove through their lives.  The sermon, then, simply points them out and says, "Look at how amazing this is!"

Everybody meets God in their own way.  Everybody shows God in their own way.  If you can find how a person has done so, even in the smallest and most subtle fashion, then you can be sure God was present, that the relationship with the Almighty was alive, and that God has not abandoned the person in the hour of death.  In fact it's almost eerie how closely the ways God supports us and works through us in life reflect his ultimate act of resurrection into heaven, the final miracle for us all.  As we suggested in the Easter sermon, the small resurrections we experience in this life all point to the Big One at the end.  Once you've seen and recognized those small moments for what they were it's an easy and natural leap to seeing and believing in that final act of grace and redemption.

Pray for Clarence's family today.  Pray also that his service will be fitting and go well.  Pray also in thanksgiving for God talking to us and working through our lives so intimately so that we might know who he is and be able to tell his story in all the moments of our lives and even beyond.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

The Significance of Space

Yesterday we talked about the power influence of music in setting the mood for worship and opening our hearts.  Today I want to look at another important influence on ministry:  physical space.  Most people don't realize it, but the space you're in affects the quality of experience that you'll have, conveying messages that work for or against the desired result.

Let's start with an obvious space:  our sanctuary.  Some of the most powerful things we've done to define the seasons of Advent and Lent this year involved nothing more than a change in physical space.  Recall the lights during Advent, the baptismal font being moved to the center of the aisle, the nativity scene progressing forward with each Sunday, artwork appearing on the wall.  You'll not forget communion in the round anytime soon either, I'll wager.  The same service done in a slightly different physical way gave a whole new spirit to the proceedings.  So, too, with Lent.  No doubt you've noticed the purple curtains draping the windows and the cross at the center of the aisle.  In both seasons the pulpit has been stored elsewhere, opening up the altar space, affording a clear connection between congregation, pastor, and the altar symbols.

But space considerations go far beyond decoration.  Size of room and physical proximity matter as well.  For example, a couple weeks ago we had around 68 people in Sunday morning worship...not our largest crowd but that's still a bunch of people.  What did 68 people feel like in St. John's?  Empty.  You look across the pews and people are scattered.  About 1/3 of the congregation can't be seen because their heads are too short to peek above the pews and/or they're in the cry room.  We had great music that day and a pretty good sermon.  It all felt flat, not because of the quality of the material but because everybody out there was feeling like they were alone, separated from everybody else, in an empty building. Take those same 68 people and put them in the Valley church and what do you have?  A throng!  The space is smaller, people are closer, and 68 feels like 100.  Do the same service out there and "flat" becomes "enthusiastic" and "uplifting".  If, on the other hand, you take 100 people--about what you'd need to feel full at St. John's--and stick them in the Valley you start hearing "uncomfortable" and "too crowded".  The people haven't changed.  The space affects the energy and tone that much!

We get the same thing every time I teach confirmation after worship.  Because the Fellowship Hall is being used for fellowship we have to begin in one of the back rooms.  They're small, cramped, dark.  The first 15 minutes of every class I have to spend amping up energy.  If I don't come out on fire in that room I've lost them.  They're just going to stare blankly and doodle, like the weight of the world is leaning on their shoulders...no energy at all.  After everybody else leaves we take a break and then re-assemble in the Fellowship Hall.  It's bright, it's open, and all of a sudden people are cheery and enthusiastic again.  If I'm going to have a deep discussion I need to save it for the second half of class so we can do it in the light with willing participants instead of pulling teeth in the dark with a bunch of kids huddled around a table pinned in by walls.

On the other hand that same Fellowship Hall is ill-suited for small-group meetings like our recently-completed Marriage Care group.  In a group about intimate discussion and baring souls you need to feel some level of security, comfort.  That space is too big for those purposes.  You have to move tables to even get chairs in an open circle, a necessity for discussion.  Now you've got 6-8 people in a weird circle of chairs at the corner of a big room with a mass of empty space around, multiple entrances to the room, anyone able to walk in...in fact mandated to walk in if they want to access the building.  You have to really, really build trust in order to work up conversation...not because the people aren't willing but because the physical space gives no assurance.

The same thing happens in Women's Bible Study every Wednesday.  We need, at minimum, two full tables of ladies to even begin to occupy that space.  Anything less and it feels like we're a drop of humanity in a gulf of emptiness.  If you come in on a Wednesday where two or three tables of ladies are present you'll find them carrying much of the discussion during Bible Study.  If you come in when there are less than two tables' worth you'll find me having to talk constantly to fill the space and keep the energy up.  Same ladies, same Bible, different sense of space.  The latter makes all the difference.

Next time you enter one of our church rooms in either building, everything from the sanctuaries on down to the restrooms, ask what message the physical space is sending you.  Notice what qualities your space gives to the proceedings and what qualities it lacks or takes away.  Next time you see a meeting or worship or other gathering going really well or poorly--you feel an abundance of energy and Spirit or lack it--take a quick look around and ask whether the physical space is working with your gathering or against it.  You'd be surprised how much difference it makes.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Anger

This question comes via e-mail:

Pastor Dave,
I know we're suppose to be good and loving to people but sometimes I get angry and I can't help it.  Some people do things that make loving them near impossible.  I don't know what to do about that anger.

It's a great question.  The first step in addressing it is realizing that anger isn't bad!  The Bible tells us that we have frustrated and angered God plenty of times.  Entire books of scripture are devoted to that theme.  As long as there's sin in the world, anger must exist.  Otherwise we'd just be addressing all the world's injustices with, "Oh...that's nice!"  God does not call us to respond that way.

The keys here are identifying the cause of anger and asking on whose behalf you are angry...what purpose it serves.  My general rule is this:  If it's a personal issue between you and me, I won't hold onto my anger.  If I'm the only one being hurt here, I'm bigger and stronger than anything someone else can do to me.  If it's just you and me, I'll forgive you and let the anger go.  We'll both feel better that way.  But if the behavior that's making me angry is hurting someone else, I will not let it go as easily.  At that point I'm not standing up for my feelings or rights, but someone else's.  I don't know if anger is completely justified in those situations, but at least it's going to good use:  protecting someone else.

I've had people say terrible things to me in the course of ministry, make accusations that couldn't be farther from the truth, try to find my weak points and batter at them until I give in to what they want.  I've been called names.  I've been threatened.  I've let all of that pass.  Most of it has happened behind closed doors.  Who was really hut besides me, and I'll forgive that.

I've also heard people make statements publicly...statements that amount to, "I don't care about any of you"...statements supposedly made in the name of God, assuredly made in his house to his children.  I've seen people try to back up those statements with actions, mostly unfair, certainly hurtful.  That's made me angry, and rightfully so.  I continue to be angry with some people to this day, and again I think that's justified.  But I'm not angry because of what they did to me, but what they did to God's children in his name.

We should be angry about things that unfairly hurt other people.  We should be angry when people practice the tyranny of, "I want what I want and who cares about you" in all its forms:  economic, racial, societal, religious, and interpersonal.  When that happens, it's time to step in and claim that justice is an extension of love and that nobody has a right to claim supremacy at the expense of another...at least not if they're going to factor God into the equation.  It's OK to express anger at wrongdoing and to take the actions necessary to address that wrongdoing.

The answer to your question, then, becomes another question.  On whose behalf are you angry?  Is there a greater cause or reason behind the feeling of anger or is it mostly personal?  You always have a right to the latter, but it's also something you'll have to overcome eventually.  With the former, though, overcoming it may be the wrong thing to do.  Maybe it needs to be explored and acted upon.

Few situations are clearly one or the other.  Usually they're a mix.  That's why it's up to each of us to examine our anger, hold on to the parts that are righteous, and ask forgiveness for--and help in getting over--the parts that are petty.  Having had a fair amount of experience with this, pastors are often good people to see as you sort through these issues.  My door is always open.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Comforting in God's Name

Our little Ali has been sick for the last couple days.  Well, honestly we've all been passing around some illness or other since January.  It's not been a fun time in the Deckard household lately, especially for the kids with runny noses, coughs, and aches.  But just when we had finally gotten everybody healthy and thought we were in the clear...BOOM!  Ali came down with a fever that left her burning to the touch, listless, and miserable for about 23 hours of the day.  She can't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time without waking up crying.  She spent all day today in her mother's arms, except when she was in her daddy's.  Her exhausted eyes told the whole story.  She was hot, hurting, and totally out of energy.

Most everybody who's been a parent has had to deal with these days.  What do you do with a 1-year old who is that sick?  There's nothing much you can do.  You can't explain it to her.  You can't force her to do this thing or that.  All you can do is look at her with compassion, hold her, rock her a little bit, and let her know that you're there and you love her.  You just keep doing that all day long until the fever goes away.

As we were engaged in this process it occurred to me that this lesson was applicable to more than sick kids.  People we care about get in all kinds of trouble:  physical illness, emotional distress, relationship difficulties, struggles at work or with their kids, crises of faith...you name it.  We want to help.  If we share a bond of faith as well as friendship the urge to help becomes stronger.  Suddenly we feel the pressure of speaking God's words along with our own.

Oddly enough, the times we're most keenly aware of the need for God in the conversation are the times we're most likely to go astray.  We associate God with wisdom, with knowing the right thing to say, with fixing the problem.  When someone shares their difficulty with us our mind starts spinning.  "What should I say?  Where are the perfect words?  Should I quote scripture?  What would fix this?"  Instead of being present with the person talking to us we turn inward and panic, retreating into the fear of inadequacy.  Far too often we end up either silent or blurting out some truism that even we know doesn't make sense.

We'd be better off thinking of what God would do in these situations rather than trying to think what God would say.  God's response when we suffer isn't that much different than a parent's response to their sick child.  There's no explaining.  You can't reason it away.  You can't fix it.  All you do is hold them, rock them, let them know you're there and will continue to be there as long as anything bothers them.

Reassurance is 100% better than answers in these situations.  We don't have the right answer, really.  Most of the time there isn't one.  But we always have comfort and company to give.

Jesus preached often in his ministry.  But most of the time when confronted with a person in distress he didn't talk, he healed.  Only after the healing was accomplished did an explanation come.  We might not have the instant healing power Jesus did, but our acts of comfort and compassion provide stability for our friends and neighbors as they walk their journey of healing, just as holding onto Ali gives her strength while she fights her fever.

Next time someone comes to you in distress, resist the temptation to solve their problem or speak instant wisdom, even Biblical wisdom.  Act in Biblical fashion instead.  Offer a listening ear, lots of company, reassurance that you care.  Those healing actions will get you and your friends farther than anything you could say.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

A Simple Gift

Someone gave me a simple and wonderful gift this week I'd like to share with you.

Last Sunday was a busy one for me.  Bible Study started my day, then worship.  After worship came music rehearsal.  I got to come home to change and then it was games with the boys until three o'clock.  At three some of the girls came and we set up the movie equipment and cooked dinner in the church kitchen to serve to the high school group at 4:00.  From 4:00 to 7:00 we watched and discussed the movie, then it was time to clean up.  We tidied up the fellowship hall, put away all the plates and such, wrapped up the extra food, then everybody went home.  Well, everybody except me.  I stood staring at a stovetop with food spots on it (not food still, just some grease spots) and a soaking refrigerator drip tray that needed washing out.

By that time it was after 7:00.  I had already missed my daughter's bedtime.  I had not seen my son all day except for a good morning kiss.  He was sick so we didn't even get to share the peace in church.  I looked at the stove and the tray and thought, "20 minutes".  I knew I should clean them.  I knew if I didn't I was likely to hear about it.  Even though I had just spent all day at church, more than half of it with the youth, had put in hour after hour helping them do this stuff, I knew I would hear about the 20 minutes I didn't spend scrubbing off the top of the stove or washing out the drip tray.  I'd lay 70-30 odds that both of them would be called "filthy" along with the whole kitchen, even though it was mostly clean.  You know how that goes.

Some will say, "Why didn't you just get the kids to help you?"  But they did!  Some came early to cook.  The whole group stayed after to rearrange the fellowship hall, put away the movie equipment, clean up the obvious things in the kitchen. Not a one left.  They asked what they could do to help and then they did all that stuff happily.  But they have lives too...families and homework and other things they had given up to spend 3-4 hours with us at church.  I didn't feel right asking one of them to stay even longer doing these last two chores...really one-person jobs anyway.

So I stood there, the last one in the building, and looked at that stove with some spots on it, that drip tray soaking in the sink.  I looked at the cupboard with the cleaner.  And I made a decision.  I went home.  I went home to see my son.  I went home because I was tired after more than a full day at church.  I went home because I had already put in plenty of work and I thought it would be OK to put this last bit off for a day or two.  I went home because I felt that even though cleaning the last bit would be right (and save the whole day of work I'd put in and the wonderful youth events from being summarized as, "You left the kitchen dirty!") going home really felt more right and more important at that moment.

Mondays are always busy for me so I didn't get back to finish up.  Tuesday I got a call and had to be away.  That's the day I had planned to clean.  I knew I'd have time to do it Wednesday morning after Women's Bible Study.  I was running a risk though.  People would see the spots and the pan in the sink.  But that's what I could do.

Bible Study went fine.  After we finished I went into the kitchen to begin my work, glad at least for the company of ladies to chat with as I scrubbed and they washed out coffee cups.  I went over and looked at the stove and guess what?  It was clean.  I turned to the drip tray in the far sink and it was clean too.  Nobody had said a word to me.  Nobody had complained.  Nobody had come up to me after multiple hours of work I'd put in serving the church and its kids (and missing my own family) saying the equivalent of, "You didn't do enough!"  They just helped out.

Now, I don't know what was going on inside the cleaning person's head as they scrubbed the stovetop.  They may have been grousing and cursing me to high heaven.  But if they did, they didn't say it so I'm going to pretend it was every bit as gracious of an act as it seems.  The wonderful result for me was getting a gift...not just the gift of not having to do 20 minutes of work but the gift of feeling like someone helped out, that someone cared.  Somehow the burden of putting in 8 hours and 20 minutes of work was incredibly easy when I just had to put in the 8 hours and somebody else picked up the 20 minutes.  They didn't have to.  But they did.  It made me feel loved and cared for having those helping hands.

I don't know whose they were, but thank you.  Thank you for your incredible gift.  Thank you for easing my mind about 20 minutes spent with Derek on Sunday night instead of 20 minutes trying to avoid complaints about stovetops and drip trays.  I appreciate your quiet helpfulness.  My family appreciates it.  The youth appreciate it.  The work you put in wasn't a little, it was a LOT.  It meant a lot to me.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Bible Study Reflections: Sometimes It's How You Explain It

Our reflection this week comes from our High School movie group who kicked off their new season by watching Smoke Signals, a story about two young Native American men from the Coeur d'Alene reservation.  Each has experienced hardship.  Thomas Builds-the-Fire lost his parents in a house fire when he was an infant. His friend Victor Joseph lost his father in a different way.  When Victor was yet a young boy his father Arnold left the family and moved to Phoenix, ending a relationship which was warm and intense but also full of drinking and abuse.  The movie chronicles the journey of the two friends to Phoenix to pick up Arnold Joseph's ashes after Victor gets the news that he has died.

Though the two friends take the same journey and share much in common they couldn't be more different in the way they explain and approach life.  Victor is direct, pragmatic, honest.  He remembers his father as the one who abandoned him.  He counsels his friend Thomas to be cautious of other people, lest they take advantage of him.  Thomas, on the other hand, views the world with wonder shared through his frequent (and often ridiculous) stories.  He sees Victor's father in a different light...regaling his friend about the time Arnold took him to Denny's to get the most glorious breakfast in the world:  two eggs, two links of sausage, two strips of bacon, and two pancakes.  Somehow when Thomas tells it the Grand Slam breakfast becomes a transcendent miracle.

Naturally Victor is annoyed by Thomas' grandiose stories.  He constantly asks his friend to stop talking.  He calls him a fool, a liar, out of touch with the real world.  But a funny thing happens when the two get to Phoenix.  Victor can't manage to take his dad's ashes.  He doesn't have the strength or any solid footing to do so.  Thomas has to hold them for him.  Naturally Thomas continues to tell stories about how amazing Victor's dad was.  Victor just can't reconcile the things he's holding onto with Thomas' perceptions.  So he stands apart from his friend and his dad's remains both.  The whole purpose of the trip was to reclaim his father and put him to rest and he cannot do it.

Oddly enough, Thomas' stories show Victor the way.  When the two of them question a lady in Phoenix who knew Victor's dad in his later days she asks whether they want to hear the truth, or lies.  Thomas, the storyteller, says that he wants to hear both at once.  In other words, sometimes the literal facts of a situation doesn't reveal its true meaning.  You need a new, interpretive story to get at the whole truth.  So she tells them the story of Arnold Joseph.  She tells them some terrible secrets that Arnold revealed to her.  She also tells them that his one, overwhelming desire was to love his son Victor, that as long as he was gone he never considered Phoenix home.  Home was always where his son was.  He never intended to stay away.  No matter what had driven him forth--and the ghosts of his past were substantial--his eyes were always back upon his family.

Hearing this, Victor had a choice.  Did he believe in the father he knew...the abandoner, the one who had let him down?  Or did he believe in the father of this woman's story...a flawed but ultimately loving man caught up in things he couldn't control and wishing only to love his son?  Both explanations of Arnold were accurate.  Which one was more true?

Victor's decision, ultimately to forgive his father and to tell his story in a positive light, allowed him the strength to carry Arnold's ashes and memory himself and also to let go of the resentful, suspicious child he had once been and own the beauty of his new existence.

It's a good movie.  It's also a good message, much along the lines of the devotion on the Eighth Commandment we did a couple weeks ago.  Never forget that how you explain the things of your life affects their ultimate truth and power.  If you look for bad in people or situations you will find it.  Nothing is perfect in this life.  If you explain things kindly, looking through eyes of faith and trust, you will find a kinder and more faithful truth even in the most difficult of circumstances.  Telling a story of an event or person binds the things contained within that explanation to your heart.  If you explain with resentment, fear, jealousy, suspicion, and anger those things will be bound to you.  Maybe there's good reason for that kind of story.  Maybe that is part of the truth of the event.  But be cautious how much or how firmly you rely on those feelings in your interpretation of life.  If, on the other hand, you explain with charity, grace, love, forgiveness, and the best possible construction you will also find those things overflowing your heart.

Even though each event in our lives gives us opportunity for both, we're going to have to choose one or the other of those paths as our strongest truth.  Ultimately you're either going to find your stories bringing good into the world or pain.

Never forget that Jesus died precisely so God could see his children through eyes of forgiveness, charity, and love.  Any halfway serious reading of the Bible will show you that human beings mess up everything they put their mind to, no matter how noble their impulses.  The Bible also tells us that even though God knows this, he ultimately chooses to see us as his own, beloved children.  His purpose is to save us by superseding our imperfect story with an amazing tale of his own...salvation.  We are saved precisely so we can look at a Grand Slam breakfast and be thankful, look at an all-too-human neighbor and be loving, look at the mistakes of our fathers and the ashes of death that consumed them and still be strong and hopeful, look at the oppression of this world and still be free.

What kind of story are you going to tell today?  No doubt it will be laced with sad and happy moments, pain and joy together.  Those words will provide opportunities for both suspicion and trust.  Which one of those is more central to you and your life of faith?  I hope it's the trust.  And I hope all of our stories and words together reflect that.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Monday Morning Sermon: Gilligan or Jesus?

The text for the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany was Mark 1: 40-45.

40 A man with leprosy came to [Jesus] and begged him on his knees, “If you are willing, you can make me clean.”

 41 Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

 43 Jesus sent him away at once with a strong warning: 44 “See that you don’t tell this to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” 45 Instead he went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.

Click through to hear a different take on this familiar story!

Languages of Love

One of the things we're talking about in our Thursday Night Marriage Care Group is how we communicate love to each other...a particularly important topic when the "other" in question is your spouse and you get to (notice I said "GET to") spend the rest of your life with them.  As I type this we haven't had our explicit discussion about it.  That happens in a few hours from now.  But frankly I wouldn't be sharing individual couples' descriptions of their love language anyway, nor would it do you much good if I did.  It's different for every pair.  Even when our languages overlap the distinctions inherent in our particular relationships make them unique to us.  Me giving flowers to my spouse is quite different than me giving flowers to someone else's spouse!

Though the expression of our language of love is peculiar to each couple, the process by which we discover and speak each other's languages is universal.  We're not born knowing a language of love.  We learn it first from our parents, usually...through the touches and gestures they use when fulfilling our needs and their parental duties.  As we grow these become ritualized:  a particular way of baking cookies or celebrating Christmas or discussing important events which we equate with comfort and goodness and home.

Great fun ensues when we move out of our homes and embark on our lives and their attendant relationships, including and especially marriage.  Into marriage you carry with you a bundle of assumptions about love and how to communicate it, learned from your earlier days and relationships.  You quickly find out that your spouse carries their own bundle and that the two bundles aren't the same!  Many married couples who just committed themselves to a life of eternal bliss find themselves arguing with each other with surprising vehemence about the importance of creamy peanut butter versus crunchy not long after the ink has dried on their certificate.  How in the world could anyone like Extra-Crunchy Jif when any fool knows that Creamy Skippy really means home and love and safety?  What ever possessed me to marry such a stubborn, ignorant, Crunchy guy?

Just as much fun are the subtle moments wherein each partner feels something lacking.  She doesn't make meatloaf quite like mom did.  He doesn't remember to thank her for the meal like her dad did with her mom.  He hasn't brought flowers in six months.  She doesn't appreciate how hard he works.  Would it kill him to remember the garbage without being told?  Would it kill her to change out of those sweats every once in a while?

The problem with these scenarios lies not in the differences between two people, nor in the divisions between them.  Those are going to happen with any two people in a sustained relationship.  How many differences did you have with your siblings or parents, for instance?  And all of you had the benefit of growing up in the same household and family culture!  Small wonder you have differences with someone from outside that culture.

No, the problem comes when each party forgets that their language of love is just that...a language.  It's relational, a means of communication, a way to unite people and give them common purpose.  When we have these struggles in our relationships it's usually because both sides are viewing their outlook as absolute.  This isn't a way of showing love, this is the way of showing love. ( Or this is love itself, or there is no love without this and why can't that blockhead understand that like a reasonable, normal human being???)  Where language unites, absolutes divide.  But it doesn't take much stepping back to realize that there's nothing absolute about peanut butter or a flower-bringing schedule or division of household chores.

If we're able to step back--a skill which most married people soon acquire if they're to be successful in their marriage--we realize that there's no universal rule saying that one person's way is right and another's wrong in these matters.  We also realize, though, that if we want to have a happy and fulfilled spouse it would behoove us to learn a little bit about their assumptions about love, the way they desire to be loved, and to begin to speak their language every now and again instead of just insisting on our own.

This is the beauty of the language metaphor.  It requires all the things that make a relationship strong:  setting aside yourself and your claims to being absolutely right, taking time to getting to know another person, taking time to understand their background and culture, showing them that you hear them, communicating your appreciation of them by speaking in the ways they find most familiar and dear whether or not those ways are instinctively your own.  What an amazing process!  And what an amazing moment when he realizes that taking out the garbage without being reminded isn't just a chore, it's a way of making her feel happy and secure that he cares...a way of saying, "I love you."  What an amazing moment when she realizes that taking out the garbage isn't just an absolute "way things should be" but him doing something that isn't in his instinctive nature just to make her feel loved.  All of a sudden the trash changes from a Big Fight to a huge affirmation, from something that divides two people to something that brings them together.

This lesson doesn't just apply to married people either.  If our focus in the coming year is going to be evangelism we first have to admit that evangelism takes time, patience, listening, understanding cultures and backgrounds--especially religious--other than our own.  It requires the same kind of love, effort, and sometimes sacrifice that a good marriage requires.  We have to stop thinking of our way of doing church, practicing religion, and defining God as absolutes.  We have to understand that all of these things are part of a bigger relationship--first with God, then with each other--and that this relationship has room for more people than just us and those who think like us.  This is a big step for most of us, especially when we've learned/been taught that Creamy Peanut Butter is the only Holy Peanut Butter.  We might have to get used to a little Crunchy now and then for the sake of our neighbors for whom that is holy and good.

Pray this week, first for the married couples among us and those contemplating or searching for marriage, but also for all of us in all relationships wherein the language of love needs to be spoken and heard more than it is.  Pray that we might be willing to not only communicate our own language and needs, but to hear the language and needs of our friends and neighbors especially as those relate to God and faith.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Focuses This Year

Having had our Annual Meeting a couple Sundays ago and in anticipation of our first Church Council meeting of the new year, I want to recap the gist of my Annual Meeting report which covered our focuses for 2012.

We've made huge strides as a church in the last couple of years.  Anybody who doubts that should come and chat, because I can mention several dozen ways in which the Spirit is alive at the Genesee Lutheran Parish in ways I haven't seen before in this or any other church.  What we're doing is both revolutionary and freeing.  The amazement on people's faces as they experience it tells the story.  We're on to something wonderful here.

In order to do that we've had to unlearn several things about being a church...ways of doing things that seemed "normal" but led our focus away from God's intent instead of towards it.  The ways we define ministry, measure success, interact with each other and the world are all changing.  We've not completed this process yet, if indeed we ever will.  We still have plenty of work to do.  But we're far enough along now, solid enough in our practices and goals, and different enough in our intent that we're ready to take two critical steps.

1.  We need to think about how to sustain this process beyond just this week's ministries.  We need to make sure we don't backslide into old habits or simply replace one less-than-ideal system with a new one through complacency.  We also need to figure out how to bring this new Spirit into full flower, which means taking risks and dreaming dreams we wouldn't have dared to before.

2.  We need to share this Spirit with our friends and neighbors, both locally and throughout the greater church.  People who have never seen God in a way they could accept will need to see and hear what we do.  People who have tried to seek God through "normal" ways of doing church and couldn't find satisfaction will also need to experience what we're experiencing right now.  We're doing things that make people slap their heads and say, "Why in the world did we never think of this before?"  Nobody is going to get a chance to ask that question or experience the difference unless we figure out how to share it.

The first item on the list requires discussion of good stewardship.  The second item requires discussion of evangelism.  These need to be our main focus in the coming year.  That's in addition to exploring and continuing to grow in God's Spirit together, of course.  We just need to have the courage to look farther and dream bigger than we have so far as we've been turtled up, trying to figure this out.

In order to pursue these focuses we're going to have to repeat the familiar process of unlearning.  Most of the language I've heard surrounding stewardship in our congregation has revolved around, "Give more money so we can pay the bills."  That's exactly backwards from the Spirit that's guiding us and the goal we're getting people to look towards.  But many people will shy away from this conversation because they expect to hear exactly that.  Before we can take even the first step towards good stewardship we need to repent that this was ever our message, cloaked in fear and selfish demanding as it was, assure each other that those are not our motives, and find a new, good language to use when talking about sharing our time, talents, and resources.  We have to get over the fear of stewardship talk the same way we've gotten over dozens of other fears in the past two years and come out of it for the better.

And speaking of fear, no conversation makes people more nervous than discussing evangelism.  Again the message has been rooted in fear and self-concern.  "You need to go out and get new people for us so that we can have more members, feel good about ourselves, and keep the church open!"  It's so hard to undo decades of that message being repeated.  But somehow we have to unlearn this, get over our fear that this is what our faith amounts to or that our church is going to manipulate us into manipulating others, and adopt a Spirit-filled way of sharing God with our community and world.  To not do this would be its own form of selfishness, either making "good for us" our entire definition of goodness or making "as long as it's not too much trouble" our criterion for serving the Lord who sustains us and has given us these gifts.

This process of unlearning and then moving forward together is going to take plenty of trust followed by plenty of dedication.  We're all going to have to decide if this church and God's Spirit are worth it or whether we just want to be satisfied with everybody else's norm, succumbing to the gravity of doing it the same old ways, hearing the same old messages, wearing out the same old faith.  A door has been opened here.  A brilliant light shines through it.  This is the year we decide whether we walk through that doorway or retreat, only to see it close and our vision return to dull gray.  That decision will depend heavily on how well we engage these two issues.

I look forward to this conversation with all of you in the coming months.  I pray that we can walk together in faith to the bright tomorrow that awaits us.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)

Casting Out Demons

The last couple weeks we've seen texts indicating that casting out demons was an integral part of Jesus' early ministry.  We've talked about other aspects of these texts in the sermons but I don't want to let them pass by entirely without acknowledging this aspect of Jesus' healing.

Because some of the demons actually spoke to Jesus before departing we can be sure that the supernatural played a part in these miracles.  In order to dismiss the concept of possession entirely we'd have to ignore significant portions of Jesus' story.  But even if wrapping your head around that is a little much, consider that being supernatural, or even demons, isn't the ultimate point of evil's presence in these texts.  The problem with demons was not just that they were supernatural, but that they were beyond the control of human beings and they caused harm.  That is why Jesus opposed them and took power over them.

Now consider that many of the things casually attributed to demonic possession back in Jesus' time--things that were healed not in extended stories but in sentences like, "And he cast out demons from all who were possessed"--could actually mimic conditions we accept today as illnesses.  Depression, schizophrenia, addictions...people knew little or nothing of these conditions back then.  They, too, would likely have been termed "demonic possession".

The point here is not to start an argument about what does or doesn't constitute demonic influence back in the day or now.  I see even less point in trying to figure out what belongs in the realm of the supernatural and what belongs to science.  The truth is, we'll never know.  We can debate our opinions all day without ever coming up with a helpful answer.

Rather the overarching point is the best one:  this is not about sickness, but about healing.  Jesus has compassion on all of those who are dealing with forces beyond their control, supernatural, scientifically-explained, or otherwise.  Jesus does not abandon, nor does he turn away.  Jesus reaches out, touches, understands, and does everything in his power to show that we are meant for goodness, not oppression or suffering.

As followers of Christ, we too are called to reach out to people dealing with such forces in their lives.  Too often we detour around issues like mental illness, abuse, or addiction when we should be showing compassion, lending a hand, doing our part to participate in the identification and healing process.  Like the people of Jesus' time we're tempted to identify people by their suffering ("She's this" or "He's the guy who's that") as if there were no person beyond that label.  Alternatively we simply pass by in silence, not acknowledging anything at all.  Both practices short-change God's children and the ministry we're called to.

Take some time today to pray for people dealing with issues and conditions beyond their control.  If you know someone who needs help, help them find it.  Give to organizations that assist people who are suffering.  If you can offer peace, a hug, or a word of support personally, do so.  We cannot turn away, for Jesus didn't.

All our thoughts and prayers for those fighting the battles that we seldom see.

--Pastor Dave (pastordave@geneseelutheranparish.org)