This Burden

 One of the first people I told that I was going to retire (after the council president at my church) was a woman I meet with occasionally for prayer.  The first thing she said when I told her was that she was not surprised.  The second thing she said was, "You've borne this burden for a long time."

I admit, when she first said those words, I felt seen.  I have felt the burden here in this call.  It has more than one component.  There's the burden of preaching and teaching and living the truth, as well as any flawed saint-and-sinner can, by the grace of God, in this place.  There's the burden of listening and understanding, of walking with people through dark places, through the valley of the shadow of death.  There's the burden of knowing that people will come to you with questions for which they want answers, and the realization that sometimes there are not really answers but only the mystery and the love of God.

And there is the burden of walking with a congregation that is declining, and feeling the pressure to know what to do to "turn it around", to "bring in the young families," to be this magnetic presence that brings people into the church.  There is the burden of feeling like I have to know the right strategy, talk to the right person, read the right book, figure out the right steps.

Truthfully, we have been through a lot here in the last ten years.  Personal tragedies that broke the hearts of this small community.  COViD lockdowns.  Broken relationships.  Steep learning curves, and also (I admit) things we didn't really want to learn.  I suppose these are part of the burden.  A heavy load.

But as I thought about this sentence, I grieved.  I thought of all of the times I sat with someone at their home, or in the hospital, or in a nursing home, and held up a small piece of bread, and said, "The body of Christ, given for you."  I thought about the stories I heard around kitchen tables, and in coffee shops, the joy of hearing the story of how you fell in love, the sorrow of leaving home, what it was like to be a small child moving to a new town where there wasn't anything yet, and seeing it built up before you.  I have heard stories of failure and victory, I have experienced the heartbreak of unanswered prayer, and have witnessed small miracles.  I have seen lightbulbs go on in Bible studies, heard young people pray for one another, and seen parents gasp at the wisdom of their children.  I have eaten at homeless shelters, and been prayed for by people who sleep in church fellowship halls.  

How can it be a burden if I will miss it so much?  How can it be a burden if I will miss them so much, the child who didn't want to be baptized, the pre-schooler who asked why Jesus had to die, the man who thought I was a terrible pastor, the widower he said he joined the church because of me?  How can it be a burden to witness the woman in the back of the church singing "this little light of mine" like her life depended on it?  

Maybe burden isn't the right word.  

Maybe the right word is "weight."

I have felt the weight of ministry.

But in my best moments I know that it is really weight of glory.

It is the weight of the glory of the light of Christ, shining in the darkness, shining in our imperfect lives, lives joined in faith and sorrow.  Our lives are joined to his life, and our lives are also joined to one another's lives, whether we know it or not.

Often we don't know it.  Then it becomes a burden.

So, as I prepare to retire, I pray that my congregation will be able to see -- even briefly -- the glory -- the glory in one another, the glory in the stranger, the glory in their neighbor.  And I pray that we will be able to bear one another's burdens, which is the weight of glory.

The Gift

  I got a call on Monday night from the church administrator at a neighboring congregation.  I knew that their pastor was traveling for ministry so I had an idea why she might be calling me.  

She told me that someone connected with their congregation had had a stroke, and was entering hospice, and they wanted a pastor to come out the next day.  I said I could come.  

It's not so common any more for me to do a ministry visit with someone I don't know.  I've been at my congregation for a few years, so my ministry calls are usually for people that I have known for a long time.  They are people with whom I share some history.  My colleague and I often say we will cover for each other while we are gone, but frankly, it hasn't been that often that we have had to make good on our offer.  I spoke with a daughter in law, and prepared to go to the hospital and meet the man.  

Also, I had a brand-new communion set, that I had not used yet.  I packed it up in the morning, and was looking forward to using it for the first time.  It is cedar, and it smells so good when I open it.  The smell reminds me of the verse in the Old Testament, "let my prayers rise before You as incense."  The cedar smells like prayer to me.  And this one has a place for anointing oil  I have never had anointing oil in my communion set before.  

I will be retiring in just a couple of months.  So perhaps it seems like an odd time to buy a new communion set.  But I got an unexpected gift, and decided that this was the way I would use it.  I'm not sure what this says about me.  I will still have a couple of months to visit people and give communion, to sit with people and pray and read scripture and talk about our lives.  It is all communion.

And then there was Tuesday.  I got to the hospital at about noon.  I introduced myself to the man.  His son had not arrived at the hospital yet.  I introduced myself to him, and we tried to have a conversation, but his stroke made it difficult for either of us to understand the other.  I tried to tell him what church I was from.  I asked him about himself.  Once in awhile I understood something.  He did keep saying, "Open the door."  The door was open, but I opened it wider.

I did sing a couple of songs:  "Amazing Grace, "What a Friend in Jesus," "Jesus Loves Me."  It is one of the things I do when I don't know what to do.  

Then his son arrived.  I introduced myself, and asked what would be most helpful.  His dad was on a feeding tube but he could be anointed.  I could read scripture and pray.  His son said, "He is afraid.  Help him to know he doesn't have to be afraid."  I asked, "Is he afraid of leaving you, or is he afraid for himself?"  "For himself," he said.  "He knows we will be okay."

I remembered how my dad worried before he died.  He worried about his salvation.  Even though he had believed his whole life, now he was worried he was not good enough.  And how I asked my dad, "Do you trust Jesus?" and he said, "Yes."  And I told him, "Then you are okay."  And my dad said, "You mean it's that simple?"

So I said to the man who had had the stroke, "Do you believe that Jesus loves you?"  He nodded.  I said, "Don't be afraid."  And I stretched out my arms and said, "He is ready to welcome you, just like this."  And I read from Isaiah 43, and John 11, and prayed.  And then I opened up my brand new commuion set, and took out the vial of oil.  It smelled a little like balsam.  

And when I anointed him, the oil got all over my hands, like the oil running down Aaron's beard, and it was messy and smelly and wonderful.

All the way home I thought of how the man said, "Open the door", and I wondered what he meant.  The door was open.  And of course I don't know, but suddenly I thought of how Jesus said, "I am the door."  

May Jesus the door be open to him.

May Jesus the door be open to us, all the days of our lives.

It is this I am called to do -- to make the sign of the cross with oil, and remind people who are dying that they are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the cross of Christ forever.  

For two more months and forever -- I am called to remind people they are marked by the cross of Christ.  I am called to remind them of the door that is open, the grace that is wide, the oil running down the beard of Aaron.  The gift.

The Power of “Amen”

 It was Saturday afternoon.  I was ready for Sunday, and getting ready to go out of town with my husband on Sunday afternoon, for a quick anniversary trip.  Just overnight. 

I got a text from one of our new members.  If there is such a thing as a “desperate text”, that is what this was.  Her good friend, the man who used to attend church with her and her granddaughter, was dead.  Heartbroken was not a strong enough word for what she was feeling.  I called her.  She wanted to know if it was possible for us to have a funeral the next Friday, even though he had not joined the church.

I said yes.  It didn’t even seem like a hard decision.  She was hurting; how could we not do this for her?  He was her best friend, had been like a father to her granddaughter.  It was even more than that.

And, she said, he had taken his life.  When we met together to discuss music and scripture readings, the first thing she said to me was, “What is a scripture reading that lets people know that a person took his life but he is in heaven?”

I knew my task then.  We chose his favorite songs, and sang Amazing Grace.  I chose Psalm 130, and parts of Romans 8.  And I started to write, or tried to write, a sermon.  I felt the weight of saying the right thing, and not saying the wrong thing.  I didn’t know anyone else who would be there, but this heartbroken, grieving woman.  

I wrote and rewrote and rewrote again.  I think I was afraid of naming the reality because there have been times when people have not wanted the reality named.  The most important thing is to tell the truth.  But it seemed hard.  

So there we were, at 1:00 in the afternoon.  There were a respectable number of people there  on time, but they kept coming during the first part of the service, slipping in and taking a seat.  These were people that this man had worked with at two different jobs.  All of them thought it was important to be there for him, for his family, for each other.  

I remember that my parish member wasn’t sure about having remembrances.  She couldn’t think of anyone who would be able to speak.  I decided to do something a little risky, and invite people to share something they remembered.  Five people raised their hands and stood up and said gracious words about their friend.

Then it was time for me to speak.  By this time our little church was pretty full.  I began.  I shared a couple of memories.  I acknowledged this man’s struggle with depression, and how depression lies, and we were here to tell the truth.  And then I came to the hard part.  I said these words:

“And I am glad you have come here to the church as well, to T’s church, to the place she and K and her granddaughter worshipped.  Because, I am sad to say, there was a time when the church would not have had his funeral in the sanctuary.  There was a time when the church believed that people who took their lives were somehow beyond God’s mercy.  We preached judgment then, instead of grace.  And that makes what you are all dealing with even harder.  

“And so today I want to be very clear — that K was and is a child of God, and that God loves him, knew his pain, and received him as his own.”

It was then I heard it.

AMEN.  

A chorus of voices from the pews.  They said Amen and they kept saying Amen, whenever the grace and mercy of God was proclaimed, whenever words of eternal life invoked.  

AMEN

This is not a common practice in the denomination to which I belong.  But I felt the power of this one word.  The Amen of agreement, the Amen of encouragement, the Amen of radical mercy.

In that moment I felt that the words I was saying were not mine alone, and that the ministry I was offering was also not mine alone.  All of these people who came — they came to grieve, and to receive hope — but they also came as ministers and witnesses to the power of the gospel.

AMEN

After the worship service, the congregation shared food and stories, hugs and tears.  So many people said to us, “Thank you for letting us come here.  Thank you for your welcome.”  The gratitude overwhelmed us.  

But also — I heard so many stories, from this man’s co-workers, stories about all that they shared with one another at work.  These people who worked together were a family, bonded together both by the work they did, but also by dinners and stories and lives they shared.  

I have worked as a pastor for so long that I have forgotten the kind of bonding people can do at work, the ways in which our coworkers can become our family, and even — our church.  A community of support — and faith.

A community of “Amen.”

We can be that for one another.  When we are afraid to tell the whole, hard, and merciful truth.  When we need to name the pain, but also the love.  When we need the mercy of God to be shown in each other’s arms, and eyes, and voices.

Amen.

May we say it, and hear it, and be it, for one another.

  

Oil and Ashes

On Sunday evening, I got a phone call from a member of our congregation.  She wanted me to know about another member of the church who was dying.  She wanted to make sure I knew, and that I would go out to see her as soon as possible.

A little later I got a text from someone else with the same message.  It was already late, so I resolved to go over early the next morning.

That Sunday morning we had been on the mountaintop with Jesus.  It was a brief, shining encounter; we raised up brightly colored Alleluias and shouted and then put them away for Lent.  That morning we remembered the words, "This is my beloved son, with whom I am well-pleased."

Then, on Monday morning, I drove over to the assisted living center where this 101 year old woman lived.   I considered that she had faithfully attended worship almost every single Sunday, but not the day before.  One of her daughters-in-law was at the door of her apartment when I arrived.  She was sleeping peacefully.  I prayed and sang and spoke in her ear; I sang Beautiful Savior and What a Friend we Have in Jesus.  I told her how important she was; how much the children loved her. Her daughter-in-law told her that her husband was waiting for her, that everyone would be all right.

Then I got a small container of oil out of my purse.  It was something I had just received; a hand-me-down from a retired pastor.  I hadn't used it before.  I unscrewed the lid; there was not much balm left, but there was enough to put on my finger, and on her forehead, and to say the words, "You are sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked by the cross of Christ forever."

And I remember that after that, her daughter in law took the container from me for a moment and she smelled the fragrance of that small amount of balm.

It was two days before Ash Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning at 7:30 I was standing in the lobby of our congregation's pre-school.  Parents came in with babies and toddlers, and I was there to offer ashes and strange words to anyone who stopped.  "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."  And although not everyone stopped, some did, expressing thanks, some silently.  One man told me that he was raised Catholic, but hadn't been for awhile.  Several brought their children to be marked as well.

And even though I do this, I offer the words and the ashes, I have to wonder what it is that draws people to the ashes and the words, "Remember that you are dust"?  It seems like the last thing we would want to remember.

A little later, I held a chapel service for the children over in our sanctuary.  We heard the story of Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego in the fiery furnace, and how the fourth man was with them in the flames, so that they were not burned.  And afterwards, two of the teachers and several of the older children also wanted ashes on their foreheads, in the form of a cross.

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

After the chapel service, when I arrived at the church office, and I learned that my 101 year old member had died that morning.

"You are sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked by the cross of Christ forever."

Oil and ashes, we are marked.  We are born and we die.  We die, and we are born again.

At the end of the day I got a message from a young mother from my church.  She said they had really hoped to come to the noon service, but they didn't make it.

But before she went to bed, her daughter went to the fireplace, and found ashes and marked her parents with the ashes.  With the sign of the cross.

You are dust, you are marked with oil and ashes.  You are born and you die.  You die, and you are born again.

A Tale of Two Funerals

A week ago on Monday afternoon I was here for the memorial service of one of my parish members.  That's probably not an unusual thing for a pastor to say.  I've held a lot of funerals through the years.  But, until recently, i have not had many in this little congregation.

I remember meeting with the family the Thursday before.  She wanted to have two hours visitation starting at 12:00.  The service would be at 2:00 p.m.  They chose two hymns; I urged them to include one more.  They had two friends as eulogists as well.  The man's wife and children spoke so warmly of their husband and father, memories of family events and things that he had done in the communities where they lived, including (I remember) that he liked to read to the children at Head Start.  And I remember that she was concerned that our church would be large enough.  They had heard from many people who planned to attend.  We had extra chairs ready for the narthex and the balcony, just in case we would need them.

As it turned out, we did need them.  This little church of ours was packed that Monday afternoon.  I have never really seen anything like it before.  I have been to a few other large funerals, but it felt like people just kept coming, squeezing into every nook and cranny, singing "Beautiful Savior" at the top of our lungs.  I did not see this, but i was told that there was a line of cars stretching down the highway waiting to get into our small parking lot.

It is not very often that you get a glimpse of the impact that one life can have.  One ordinary life.  This man, though beloved, was not in any way famous.  He did not have an especially large family. He was active in his church and he was active in his community.  There was something humbling about trying to squeeze all of those people into our little building that day.    It felt like God was shouting at us to have faith -- that though we are small, God is mighty.  Just look around.  Look at all of the people.  Look at how God works in the world.

That is how I felt that day.

Inevitably, though, I thought back.  It was early December, the beginning of Advent.  I was preparing for a funeral that day too.  We had gotten word that an elderly member of our congregation had died on Thanksgiving Day.  Her daughter called and asked if we could have a small memorial service in our church.   Of course we could.  This woman had been a faithful member of our congregation for many years.  I remembered where she always sat, every single week.  I remember that she wore a sweater, even when it was hot.  I remember how her son started bringing her to church, when she became ill.  During the last several months, people asked after her when she was not able to come to church.

On that day in early December, there were not many people in the church.  A few family members, a few faithful members of my congregation, who had looked out for her.  My heart warmed to see them.  One woman who came expressed dismay at the small group of people gathered.  She was as shocked to see this small group of worshipers as we were shocked to see the great crowds last week.

I don't remember much about the funeral, except that her granddaughter gave a lovely solo.  I remembered a particular sermon I had given, when I asked members of the congregation to share their favorite Bible verses, and this quiet unassuming woman had raised her voice and quoted Isaiah 59:1, "The arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor is his ear too deaf to hear."  Her family shared stories of her love and faith and strength.

And it was no less true that day in December -- though we are small, God is mighty.  Look around.

This is how God works in the world.

Just Mercy

Last Friday my husband indulged me by going with me to the movie "Just Mercy", which had just opened up in our community.  It's not that he didn't want to see the movie, but that I had read Bryan Stevenson's book in 2015, shortly after moving to this community from Minnesota.  I remembered the strong emotions the book elicited, and its stories that put a human face on many death-row prisoners -- some of them guilty, some of them innocent.  I remembered its main story well, about Walter McMillan, framed for a murder he did not commit, and the irony that his story took place in Monroeville, where Harper Lee wrote "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Very near the beginning of the movie is this small vignette, which I remembered from the introduction to his book.  Bryan Stevenson is still a law student, and he is going to visit an inmate on death row for the first time.  He doesn't know the young man, and he doesn't have good news.  He is anxious about the contact on many levels.  He wonders if this inmate will be bitter and abusive to him.  But when he goes to the prison, that's not what he finds.  He finds a young man who is much like him, who had a similar church background, sang the same songs, lived in similar kinds of experiences.  He tells the young man that he will not be executed in the coming year, and he reacts as if it's the best news he ever heard.  Now, he says, he can invite his wife and children to visit him, because there's no danger that he will be inviting them on the day of his execution.

They ended up talking well over the one hour limit (which raised the ire of the prison guard).  As the angry guard pushed the prisoner back out of the room to his cell amid Stevenson's protests, the young man suddenly burst into song, "Higher Ground."  He sang with conviction in a deep baritone voice,

Lord lift me up and let me stand
By faith in Heaven's tableland
A higher plane, that I have found
Lord, plant my feet on Higher Ground.

Stevenson says that in that moment he experienced grace.  He did not expect to receive hope from this young man on death row.  He wondered how many people we meet, in how many circumstances, we do not really see.

The words Jesus speaks in this week's gospel are his first recorded words in John's gospel.  They are all provocative in their own way.  "What are you looking for?"  "Come and see."

But today I am thinking that it is the third time that is the most powerful.  Andrew brings his brother Simon to meet Jesus.  Jesus looks at Simon and sees him, and says.  'You are Simon, son of John."  But that's not all he says.  He continues, "From now on you will be called Cephas" (which means Peter).  Jesus sees Simon, and he sees a Rock.

Bryan Stevenson has spent his life working for justice for those many of us do not see.  He sees people battered by life experience, struggling against disability, some wrongfully imprisoned, some trying to rise above the worst they ever did.  But before he could help them, he had to see them.  It's not as easy to do as it is to talk about it.  But it is a moment of grace.  Both to see -- and to be seen.

How many people do we meet, in how many circumstances, that we do not really see?

Foreign Languages

On Friday, my day off, my husband and I drove south into Houston to attend the annual Christmas Bazaar at the Norwegian Seaman's church.  In some ways, going to this event seems a lot like going home:  my home state in Minnesota has a large Scandinavian-American community, and the decorations and the flavors and the sounds had a comforting familiarity.

And yet, it wasn't exactly the same.  This wasn't a church for people with a nostalgic, distant memory of their homeland, but for strangers and sojourners, people getting used to a new country.  Instead of feeling like the closed ethnic communities in my home state, there was an international flavor as we bumped into people from all over the country.  We talked to Minnesota Swedish Baptists and Wisconsin Lutherans and Norwegian immigrants planning a pilgrimage to the northern regions of the United States over the Christmas holiday.

While milling around a large crowd shopping for Scandinavian Christmas decorations, I happened to overhear some familiar sounds.  I recognized the sound of the Japanese language, although (sadly) I didn't understand any of the words.  I turned around and noticed four women perusing the Swedish linens and the Christmas trolls.

It has been over thirty years since I left Japan, after three and a half years as a missionary and teacher.  I recognized the sound of Japanese.  But I no longer understand the actual words.  Still, I wanted to make a connection.

'Are you from Japan?" I asked (in English).

"Kyoto," they told me.

"Ah," I answered.  "I lived in Japan a long time ago."  I emphasized word "long" so that they would not misunderstand that I was fluent in any way.

"Where did you live?" one of the women asked.  "Tokyo," I answered, ".... and Kumamoto."

"Ah," they answered.  (Kumamoto is not known as a haven for foreigners.)

We all nodded to one another in the Japanese way, and then we parted.  It was a small encounter.  I didn't find out why they were here, or for how long, or how they found this place.   It was almost as crowded in the church as in a crowded train in Tokyo; hardly room to turn around, much less to have a conversation.

A little later I was standing in line to buy some Christmas decorations.  Right in front of me was one of the four women from Kyoto.  She had some small decorations, and I said, by way of making conversation, "Those make good gifts."

"Not gifts," she answered.  Then there was a pause, and she said the word, "Souvenir."

I paused too, and I remembered something -- one word -- in a language I (mostly) no longer understood.  I remembered the word for souvenir in Japanese.  "Omiyage?" I said.

I remembered what it was like to be a tourist and a teacher and a missionary, and the "omiyage" that I brought home.  A Japanese ningyo, a handkerchief with flowers, a teacup, a pair of bamboo chopsticks.  I was buying memories, hoping that so many years later, I would remember something about living in that strange place.

And there is so much that I have forgotten.  I recognize the sounds, but I no longer understand most of the words.

But there is omiyage.  There are souvenirs, and somehow they still do the job:  they make real the memories that seem so far away.  Was my life transformed on that narrow island so long ago, when I taught students English and Jesus, and saw God in their faces?   Did I listen to church services in Japanese, and join the members afterwards for curried rice served by the pastors wife?

Sometimes it surprises me how spiritual we think we should be.  After all, we believe that God became flesh and blood, and that his disciples touched him and he touched them, and that they ate and drank together.    And when he left, I wonder if there were times when they forgot what the sound of his voice was like, or forgot the meaning of his words.

But there are still souvenirs -- things we taste and touch -- that suddenly bring the meaning back to us.  All we need is a word -- or a phase sometimes -- "Bread of Life" or "Good Shepherd" -- to remind us that we once spoke a foreign language, and hoped for a better country.

Seen and Unseen

Early this week a woman from my congregation stopped by and said she needed to talk to me.  She told me about a couple in her neighborhood that she visits.  They are somewhat shut in, so she has been checking on them and visiting with them to make sure they are okay.  Lately, the husband has been diagnosed with a terminal illness.  She asked him if he wanted a pastor to come and visit him.  As it turns out, he had an affiliation with our denomination earlier in his life, and when she asked him, he got tears in his eyes.  She wondered if I would be open to paying them a visit.

Not too longer before that, a man from my congregation mentioned that his family had taken a single mom and her son under their wing.  They have gotten to know each other.  The mom has to leave early in the morning for work, before her son has to get up to catch the bus for school.  So sometimes this man will go and knock on their door in the morning to make sure her son is up and ready for school.

Recently our congregation completed a modest capital drive.  For part of our capital drive, we finished a modest face-lift of our sanctuary.  Now that we're done, we're asking, what's the next step? We are talking about the necessity to reach out in our community in new ways -- to know our neighbors, and think of ways that we can meet the felt needs in our community.  We are not a large congregation, but we know that we need to be a part of our neighborhood, know our neighbors, and care about them in real and concrete ways.

In the middle of thinking about what our "church" could do, I thought about these two small encounters that I knew about -- the woman who visits her shut-in neighbors, the family who has befriended a teen-age boy and his mom.  How many other unseen encounters are there in my congregation, just like these?

It's easy to focus on the things we can see.  In fact, it pretty much all we can do.  I can see the people who come to make supper for the homeless families who stay at our church a few times a year.  I can tell you all of the names of those who help serve communion or help with the children's church or make breakfast one Sunday a month.  I am grateful for the quilters who gather on Fridays, the altar guild who prepare the altar on Saturdays, the Bible study leaders who meet in homes.

But it suddenly occurred to me that so much may be going on that I cannot see, and that because I don't see it, I don't honor it, and make sure people know how important it is, and that this is a part of their calling to love their neighbor.

I keep reading things about how the church is too inwardly-focussed, too much worrying about maintaining their property and membership and comfort, and not enough focussed on their neighbors.    But maybe part of the problem is that this is what we can see -- but there is so much going on that we can't see and don't notice.

The same person who tells me she doesn't know what it means to be outwardly focussed -- just got home from going to the funeral of a neighbor's son.  She didn't know that what she was doing was ministry.

I noticed recently that a woman had not been to church for awhile.  In fact, it occurred to me that I had only seen her in church when she had a role in worship.  I will admit that my first thoughts were that she only thought it was important to come when she had to do something, but instead I decided to email her and ask how she was doing.

I found out that she had been through so many stresses in the past few months, illnesses and deaths in her family, people she was supporting with presence and prayer.  I had no idea.  So much of her life was unseen to me.

This is the church.  Seen and unseen.  But so much unseen.  Except by God.  The One who has planted us deep deep down in the world, from which we do spring up.

Bilingual

The other day a woman I am acquainted with startled me by saying that she has experienced people telling her to "go back where she came from."  I knew that she was born in the United States, so I could not imagine the scenario where someone would say something like that to her.

"When does this happen?" I asked.

"When I am talking to my 92 year old father," she said.

So people assume that, because she is speaking in another language, a language that they perhaps do not understand, that she is somehow less-than.  That she does not belong.

Things like this happen.  A woman from my congregation took her daughter to get her driver's license.  She has an hispanic last name, and the woman at the office asked if she or her daughter had a green card.  She is from CHICAGO.  But for some reason or another, because of the arrangement of certain letters in her name, it is assumed that she is less-than.  That she does not belong.

Like my new acquaintance, the one who speaks to her father in Spanish, and to me in English.  The fact is (and perhaps this is what really makes people uncomfortable) she is not less-than.  She is more-than.  She is bilingual.

I remember going to Disneyland when I was sixteen.  It was a long time ago, and we went on a tour with a number of other first-time visitors to Disneyland.  The tour guide was telling us all about the history of Disneyland, and then, she turned to some other guests sitting next to us, and she started talking to them in French.  I was fascinated.  I couldn't imagine being able to just switch languages like that.  I couldn't imagine being bilingual.

This is the immigrant experience.  It was the experience of my grandparents, on both sides.  My grandma Judy came from Sweden as a young woman, worked as a domestic in Connecticut, and kept her foot in both countries for awhile, traveling back and forth from Sweden to American until she met my grandfather.  She tried to teach us Swedish words.  I only remember a few of them now.

What is it that makes us want to believe that someone else does not belong?  That they are somehow "less-than"?  To know more than one language, more than one culture, more than one reality, is rich and necessary in our world.

I think that to be a follower of Jesus is, in a way, to be an immigrant.  When we take the values of the Kingdom of God seriously, we will realize that there is another language in the world.  It is the language of the Kingdom of God, and sometimes it doesn't make sense.  The kingdom of God speaks of valuing those who seem to be less-than:  the widow, and the orphan and the stranger.  The kingdom of God tells us to pay attention to the small and the vulnerable rather than the powerful and the successful.  The kingdom of God speaks of love that asks nothing in return.

And there are people who might hear that kind of language and say, "Go back to where you came from."

The woman I know who was told, "Go back to where you came from" -- she said that her family is from Patagonia.  She showed me pictures.  It's a beautiful place, where she's from. But she is called to be here now.  She promised to teach me a little Spanish.

The Kingdom of God is a beautiful place.  And more and more I hope to learn the language of that place too.   Every once in awhile I hear a new phrase:  "a bruised reed he will not break and a dimly burning wick he will not quench" -- so different than the language of the other world I live in, where the poor are crushed and turned away.

Someday this world will fall away, and all that will be left is the language of the love of God, and we will see the beauty in those we thought were less-than, and we will be astonished.  In the meantime, we are called to teach each other a few words of the New Language, to be bilingual.

Casting our Nets on the Right Side of the Boat

I was innocently reading aloud the Gospel story the other day, when I noticed something I had never noticed before.

I've been a pastor for a long time, and occasionally I suffer from the occupational hazard of thinking that I know the scripture passages from which I preach.  Sometimes I even think I know them by heart.

But there I was on Wednesday, reading John 21, that addendum to the Gospel of John, that beach story of fishing and breakfast and restoration.  I was reading it to a group at an assisted living center, and I noticed something.  The disciples had fished all night and caught nothing.  (haven't we all had experiences like this?)  And then -- Jesus appeared to them on the beach, but they didn't know it was Jesus.

And Jesus told them (we all know it's Jesus, but the disciples don't) to cast their nets on the right side of the boat, and they will catch something.

And of course, they do it.

And they catch so many fish they can barely handle them all.

So far, so good.

But on Wednesday, I noticed for the first time:  the disciples do what Jesus tells them to do, without knowing that it is Jesus.  They obey him, they take his advice, even though they think they are talking to a complete stranger.

Why do they do it?  Why do they cast their nets on the other side?

They are the fishermen, after all.  They know what they are doing (even though their expertise did not yield anything this time).  The person on the beach has wisdom (because he's Jesus) but they don't know that yet.

And yet... they do what he says.

I am reminded of the time I went to preach at the City and County Jail.  My text was from Matthew 4:  the call of the disciples.  I thought it was odd that the disciples dropped everything immediately and followed Jesus.  But the inmates were not so surprised.  It was Jesus calling their names, after all.  If Jesus calls you, you have to do it.  You can trust Jesus, even if you can't trust anyone else.  Of course they followed immediately.

But this time -- the disciples don't know who is telling them to lower their nets on the other side, the right side of the boat.  They do it anyway.

For some reason.

And I can't think of any reason why they do what Jesus suggests, except for this:  they have been fishing all night, and have caught nothing.  What do they have to lose?  They have come to the end of their own expertise and are willing to try something, something that might even seem foolish.

When I think of us modern-day disciples, I think that the problem is that we rarely feel that we are in this position.  Instead, we usually believe that we have a lot to lose -- too much to lose to risk casting our nets anywhere than where we have always put them down before.

I know that is often what keeps me stuck:  worrying so much that anything I do, any change I make, will mean loss to me, will mean loss to my congregation.  I don't realize that, in truth, my nets are really empty.

How do we get to the place where we have nothing to lose?  In truth, I do not know, but I know that somewhere, the resurrected Christ stands on the shore, inviting us to put our lives in his hands, inviting us to a strange and unexpected abundance.

The Child Who Held My Hand

It was Holy Week last week.  Our new pre-school director had a great idea, something we hadn't done in exactly this way before.  She wanted to have a short chapel session every day, and every day tell a little more of the story of Jesus.

So on Monday we had palms and marched around the chapel and told about how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey and how people spread their cloaks on the ground and shouted 'Hosanna!" And on Tuesday we told about how Jesus washed his disciples feet and how he shared supper with them.  On Wednesday we had flowers and Jesus prayed in the garden, and we prayed too, and the soldiers came.  And on Thursday -- on Thursday there was a cross and a tomb, and a centurion told us how he felt about Jesus and the cross.

At the end of the chapel on Thursday, I told all of the children to gather with their teachers so that they could go back to their classes.  And as always, I went to the door of the chapel and greeted all of them as they lined up with all of their classmates and prepared to go back to their classrooms.  And somewhere, in the middle, one little boy grabbed my hand and just held on.

I could have made him let go, but somehow I didn't.

Because he held my hand, I ended up walking with him out of the chapel and onto the sidewalk.

Because he held my hand, I kept walking with him.

A couple of times he rubbed the back of my hand on his cheek.  And then he just kept holding on.  So I kept walking with him.  We went through the front doors of the school, and he kept leading me until I ended up in his room.

I keep thinking about the journey through Holy Week, and the little boy who held my hand.

Usually I just say goodbye to the students at the door of the chapel.  I don't go any further with them.

But on Thursday, I walked the whole way, just because he held my hand.

This is how it is with us, and with the story of Jesus as well.  We can leave it there at the door, and wave goodbye, and go about our week.

Or we can walk with the story all week.  Jesus can become real to us, and his story our story, and we can walk and walk until we find ourselves in a place we never thought we would be.

Mindfulness

Last Sunday afternoon I was in a meeting after church with a few other church leaders.  Our facilitator went around the room and asked us to introduce ourselves.  One of the questions she asked us to answer was "Tell us about something interesting that happened during the last week."

This should not be a hard question.  Right?

But when my turn came at the table, I drew a blank.  What was something interesting that happened during the past week?  I couldn't think of anything.

I wanted to excuse myself and go into my office and stare at my calendar for a few minutes.  Because interesting things happen to me all the time.  I have conversations and go to the hospital, and kneel down to talk to small children.  I was sure if she could give me a minute I could think of something.

I felt like somehow, I had not been present during the past week.  Had I let a whole week go by without paying attention?  I had to do better.

I remembered going to the bookstore a couple of days before.  This is a big outing for us.  It's a sort of a mental health break during the week.  I usually spend a little time checking out the current magazines.  I notice that there are a lot of magazines these days with names like "Breathe" and "The Mindfulness Journal" and "10 Minutes to Mindful Living."

I am not sure what Mindfulness is, except that it is supposed to be good for you.  I suspect that it is the exact opposite of letting a whole week go by without noticing when something interesting is happening to you.  I suspect that it has something to do with paying attention.  Maybe if you pay attention, there are more interesting things going on than we think.

There are the mockingbirds building their nests, there are people holding hands and praying in hospital rooms, there are tiny flowers pushing their way up in front of the sanctuary.  There are small children who wave at me when they are leaving pre-school in the afternoon.  There are people who will dare to tell you a story from their life, if you are wise enough to listen.  There are poets whispering words into your ears, and the azaleas are preaching.

I am not going to say that suddenly this week everything was better, that I started paying attention suddenly.  Life is still a blur sometimes.  But I am hoping to snatch a moment, here and there, like the little boy who was so excited that he got to go to chapel on Wednesday.  Like mist on the windshield, or the touch of anointing oil, when someone asks for prayer.

A Letter To Scout, the Dog

We had to put down our 13 1/2 year old golden retriever mix, Scout, yesterday.  I wanted to tell her what she meant to me.  So I wrote this:

Dear Scout,

I met you because of my work.  You were just a tiny puppy.  I was a pastor, visiting a shut in.  You were at Redeemer Residence Nursing Home in South Minneapolis, because a nurse had brought your mom (a golden retriever) and all eight of you puppies to work with her.  You were all in a crate together, and you attracted a LOT of attention.

The shut in and I visited that day, and each of us held a puppy in our hands.  I don't know if you were one of those puppies.  But later on, someone called and said that one of the puppies was available.  Would I like one?  You were 'almost' free.  You had no pedigree.  Golden, Husky, and "something else", was what they said.

Well, I would like one.  I wanted one desperately.  But I had never had a dog before.  I knew you would be a lot of work.  Previously I had been a cat person.  My family had a dog once, so I knew just a little bit about dogs.  Like, dogs are a lot of work.  And, you have to house train them.

I knew you would be a lot of work, but I wanted you.  I wanted something to love.  Truthfully, this was partly because I always wanted children, and I knew I would not have children of my own.  I do have two stepsons that I love with all my heart (and Scout, I know that you did too) but I wanted a baby.  A dog baby.  And yes, I knew you were a puppy and not a human, but I knew also that you would need a lot of care, and I wanted to give you a lot of care.

So we brought you home.  You were just short of 7 weeks old.  We had studied and asked questions but truthfully, we had no idea.  I apologize for that.  You never really liked the crate.  For some dogs it is a comfort, but it never was for you.

I took you home and the first couple of weeks were very hard, taking you out in the middle of the night (both of us surprised when a raccoon jumped out of the garbage can).  There was sleep deprivation and running back and forth from church, and then taking time off so I could stay home to train you.  And then you started getting sick in the middle of the night, and we couldn't find the right food for you, and you started getting possessive of strange things -- growling over a paper towel (for example) or a sock you found on the ground, and scaring us.  I realized that I was in over my head in dog training, and I took you to the Animal Humane Society for testing and advice.  You had been sick the night before and were skinny and I brought a can of bland food for the test.  They did some tests and said you were a "confident puppy".  But then they put a little food in the food bowl and had you start eating and when they put the plastic hand in to take away the food you went ballistic!  They told me you were "aggressive" and that you would need special training but that there were no guarantees that the training would work.  You were about 10 weeks old then.  I took you home and cried all the way.

But we took you to a behavioral veterinarian and we took you to a special trainer who specialized in aggression.  I took you to the dog park almost every day when you were a puppy, to try to deal with some of that excess energy.  We took you to classes in dog obedience.  You never got very good at coming when called, but you really got good at "drop it" and "leave it."  You sat like a pro, but "stay" was hard.  You were not a perfect dog, but you were a good dog.  I know this because of you.

Because of you, I took walks.  I have never been good at regular exercise.  I'm one of those people who likes reading and writing and thinking way too much.  I tried to walk, because I like walking, but until you came along I was never very consistent.  But I took you for walks every single day.  Even when it was dark and cold.  Sometimes, of course, they were shorter walks, but I took walks, and sometimes long walks in the summer.  Because of you I was not afraid to take walks in the dark, because you were with me.  Because of you I took walks because you needed the exercise too.

Because of you, I learned a new language:  dog.  When we went to the behavioral veterinarian, she said, "Scout doesn't know English.  Think of her as if she was a German exchange student."  So I studied, and tried to learn dog.  I learned how to read your bows and your growls and the way you turned your head to the side.  I learned to notice when your tail was up or your tail was down.  and I learned to stand straight and speak low when I wanted you to take me seriously.  I read the book Culture Clash and The Other End of the Leash, and learned to respect your species, and not try to make you into a human.  I still remember the day I learned what it meant when you dropped one of your toys by the kitchen table while we were eating:  you wanted to trade!  (sorry:  you did not get table scraps.)

Because of you, I learned to be less materialistic.  Because sometimes you destroyed things that I loved.  Like (for example) books.  Or a nice pair of shoes.  But I knew you didn't do it on purpose, like some people would.  You just didn't understand the value that humans put on "things".  So I learned to let go of things -- some things -- that I really loved -- because they are just things -- they are not creatures with hearts that beat, and are alive.  (I also learned -- at least most of the time -- to put things where you could not get them).

Because of you, I learned what the word "good" really means.  Because you were a good girl.  You were always a good girl.  Even when you chewed up books, and even when you unwrapped packages, and even when you ate the raisin cookies (and I had to take you to the vet).  Despite all of those things, you were always a good girl.  Even when you growled and snapped as a puppy, and made us afraid, it was because you were trying to tell us something.   You bit me once, and then I knew I had to get really serious about understanding you, and making you understand me, too.  And finally we learned, and you lived for 13 1/2 years, and you were a good girl.   Because you know what, "Good girl, Scout" really means?

It means, "I love you."  No matter what.

Ministry of Presence

So last week we had homeless families staying in our church overnight every night.  People come and prepare the dinners every evening.  Some prepare breakfasts.  Some help them with their evening activities.  I was asked to stay overnight with the families one evening.

It's not a hard job.  It does not require any particular skill set, just being willing to sleep on an air mattress.  It's always possible that there will be a middle-of-the-night emergency, but it hasn't happened yet.

So what I do is come over and meet the families, and talk with them, and, at some point, go to sleep on an air mattress in a room nearby.  That's it.

This was a particularly easy week.  There were just two moms and two babies.  One of the babies was teething, and this required a little extra rocking and singing, which is something that I can do, although I claim no special skill at rocking and singing.  I do know this one Swedish song that my grandfather sang to me when I was a little girl.

Then on Saturday morning, I got up and went home.

When I got home, my husband told me "There's more bad news."  It does seem like there has been a lot of bad news lately, but this morning there had been an attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh.  Tree of Life.  We watched in horror, as the news unfolded.

Later on I went to visit a shut in couple from our congregation.  She had just broken her ankle.  Their daughter was staying with them over the weekend, helping them out.  We all sat down for conversation and communion.  I found out their daughter was active in a small Baptist church with a large children's ministry.  She worked with third graders; some of them came from "tough backgrounds".  I could tell that she loved working with the children and giving them a firm foundation.  They decided that despite their size, they could somehow make an impact on the children in their community.

We had all been watching the news, too, about the synagogue.  We talked about how it was the older people who were there that morning.  How many of our churches are filled with older people?

The daughter asked me about something she had heard on the news.  "They said it was Shabbat," she said.  "What is Shabbat?"

It is the Sabbath, I answered.  It was their Saturday morning worship service.

We read the gospel, prayed together, shared Holy Communion.

All this week, I've been thinking about that widow, the one who gave her last two copper coins.  Like they would do any good, compared with the enormity of the world's tragedy.  Why did she give them?  Other than as a sermon illustration, what good would they do?

And yet it was her whole life.  So small.

You sleep overnight with the homeless families, or you make them a meal.  You visit shut-ins, and you give them just a little piece of bread, an a sip of wine.  You make someone a meal, or you just sit there while someone cries, because, what else can you do? You go to worship, like you always do.  You go for God, and you go for the other people who will be there.  You are present, and you are giving your whole life.

All God asks is for us to be present to Him, which means to be present to one another.  Be there.  Be the widow with her two copper coins.  Or, at least SEE the widow with her two copper coins.

All God asks is our whole life.  No special skills are needed.

Things that Should not Be

It was just a little over a month ago that I was in my hometown for my brother's wedding.  My brother asked me to officiate, and I felt honored to be there.  It wasn't a big wedding, but it was such a joyous occasion, to be able to share in the love of my brother and his new wife, and see so many of my cousins come out to be a part of the celebration.  We all grew up together, but we don't get together very often now.

Then, just two days after the wedding, on Monday morning, I was back home in Texas, and I saw a Facebook update from another of my cousins.  He was grieving.  He was telling us about the death of his sister.

My cousin Karen had been fighting cancer for several years.  She had setbacks and she had victories. I have kept up with her life mostly on Facebook these days, but when were children they lived just a few blocks from us for a little while.  She was a few years younger than I was back then, and very shy.  I remember she loved kittens.  She grew into a beautiful and talented young woman.  She grew up and had babies.  She played the harp.  She was also someone who pursued God and faith intensely.    And she had cancer.

For so many reasons, her death didn't seem real to me.  Maybe it was simply because we had lived apart for many years.  We had had only virtual conversations.  Maybe it was the idea that when we were celebrating my brother's wedding, she was dying.  Maybe it was just the memory that she was my younger cousin, the little girl with blue eyes who loved kittens.  How could it be?  She should still be alive.

That's what I believe, that there are things that should not be.

It was just about a week later that I got a message from a colleague.

A young pastor that I knew had just had a serious heart attack.  He wanted me to know, and he wanted me to join those who were praying day and night.

I had known this young woman since she was a seminary intern at my congregation.  Bright and articulate, full of passion and clarity about her call:  that's how I remember her.  She played the violin.  She taught us lectio divina.  She worked closely with the youth and the youth director.  After she graduated, she spent a couple of years in the Pacific Northwest, and then returned to our area to be a valued colleague at a neighboring congregation.  She was a fierce voice for justice, for inclusion.

She was the pastor of a vibrant congregation; she had a husband and three young children.

We prayed passionately.  It was just the sort of occasion made for miracles.  And that was what we prayed for.  We prayed for her heart to be strong.  We prayed for a full recovery.

We did not get what we wanted.

It's true.  We don't know the wisdom of God.  But I will also say:  these were not selfish prayers.  Our friend was a gift to us -- but she was also a gift to the world, someone who was doing healing work here.

There are some things that should not be.  The world is not yet what it should be, what it will be.

If you do not believe me, these are the words of the prophet Isaiah, longing for a different world,

"For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind....
no more shall there be in it
an infant that lives but a few days,
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime;
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed."

Brothers and sisters,
do not be afraid to grieve.
We long for a new world.
It is meet and right so to do.

There are some things that should not be.

The Holy Spirit on Sunday Morning

I'll be honest:  I was sort of worried about worship this Sunday.  I have been dealing with some neck and back pain of mysterious origin for the last month or so.  There are times when it doesn't bother me much, but there are times when I feel like the pain is draining all of the energy from me.  I put on a lidocaine patch and took pain medication and prayed for help from the Holy Spirit.

I put on the green stole that a member of my congregation made for me.  I have been wearing it for several weeks, but until this week, I had forgotten to mention anything to the members of the church. Today I boasted in the gift.

During the first song, some of the children came forward and played rhythm instruments, while the congregation sang "Lord, Reign In Me."  After that, a little girl stood in the center aisle and gave the Call to Worship while her grandmother recorded the moment.

For the children's message, I asked the children if they ever had to learn to do something that was hard.  Most of them didn't think that anything was hard for them (well, one little girl learned the meaning of a word that I couldn't even pronounce.)  I asked her what the word meant.  I'm not sure, but I think she said it meant 'thinking about thinking.'  Anyway, they were all scandalized that some of the disciples GAVE UP on following Jesus, because his teaching was too difficult.

"You should never give up," they said.

Then my sermon, and my aching back.  Somehow I thought there should be one more paragraph, but somehow the paragraph did not appear.

Then there was singing, and piano and the drum, and the xylorimba, and then we shared Holy Communion.

And then it happened.

Just as I was getting ready for the benediction, a woman from the congregation raised her hand, and said, "I need to say something. I have a prayer request."  She told us that she had just received a text message from one of her children, and that one of her grandchildren was being taken to the hospital, and that they were afraid.  And they would like us to pray.

So we did.  Before the benediction, we prayed together.  I invited people to come forward and surround her, and a few people came forward to lay hands on her.

And then I noticed something else:  so many of the children were coming forward too.  They came up to be a part of the prayer.  They came up to be ministers of the gospel.

It was a holy moment, and I was in awe.  Why did I worry about worship?  The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness.  With sighs too deep for words.  With the hands and feet and voices of children.  We are the body of Christ.  We are children of God.  We pray for one another.

Still I wonder:  why did the children come?  What made them able to hear the call?  Was it because it was a child who needed prayer?  Was it because they have been encouraged to participate in other ways?  Was it the Holy Spirit, and they could hear better than we do?  As one person said to me later, "We are raising them better than ourselves."

All I know is this:  the children came.  The Holy Spirit showed up.  This is church.

Ten Blessings

Over the past few years, I have tried to take time to name ten blessings of the day.  I think that the idea is that I am supposed to do this every single day.  Sometimes I am pretty consistent; other times I have forgotten, often for days at a time.  However, I think that it's a simple, and potentially powerful thing:  just to take time to name ten blessings ever day.

I learned this practice from a member of my last parish.  Harriet was a retired airline executive who had traveled all over the world.  She was also the daughter of a minister who had grown up in a small town in Minnesota.  When I met her, she lived within a few blocks of the church, in a small house decorated with Norwegian Rosemaling.

Harriet once gave a moving Adult Forum on her travels, and how she found a place to worship no matter where she was in the world.  Her Forum was called "The communion of Saints."

I say that I learned this practice from Harriet, but it was not until near the end of her life that I learned it.  Fiercely independent, she found herself in a nursing home.  When I was planning to visit her with communion, her executor told me that Harriet had this faith practice.  Every day she named ten blessings.

"Make sure you remind her to do this when you go to visit her," she said.

So I did.  I got out my communion, and I went to visit Harriet at the nursing home where she didn't want to be.  We talked, we shared communion, and I asked her what her ten blessings would be that day.

When you are living in a nursing home, it's not so easy to find the blessings.  She had to think about it for a bit, and be creative, and resort to the simplest things, like being alive.  I remember that one of her blessings that day was a box of chocolate.

Ten blessings.  Every day.  I have never read about it in any book.  It's so simple.  Anyone can do it.  If you can count to ten, you can name ten blessings.

The Jesuits have a practice called "seeing God in all things."  Somehow I think this practice relates to that one.  There are times and places where it is easy to see God.  But in all things? How do you do that?  Start by naming ten blessings, wherever you find them.

A woman who lived close to my church lost her home to a fire.  We took up a collection to help her.  When I called her on the phone (I didn't know her personally), she said that the fire was, "the worst blessing."  I was taken aback.  She said the blessing was in the outpouring of care from her neighbors.  She saw God in all things, although I am not sure how she managed it.

When I think of Harriet's life, I think of the ways she was blessed.  She was a pastor's daughter from a small town, and she ended up traveling around the world.  But she never married, and I suspect sometimes she was lonely.  She had blessings and she had burdens.

And every day she named ten blessings.  Maybe some days they were so small they didn't seem like blessings.  Maybe other days she could have named twenty.

But at her funeral I claimed the promise of the saints:  the promise that they have received more blessings than they can count, more than the stars they cannot see.  We can't hold that promise in our hand, but we can name ten blessings.

Every single day.

Stranger in a Strange Land

Long ago, I was a missionary.  I lived for a time in a country where only a small minority of the people were Christian, where I could not assume that most people understand the shorthand expressions that I used to talk about my faith.  If I thought about the water and the new life that came from it, I couldn't assume that people would make the connection with baptism.  The words "justification" and "redemption" did not roll off the tongue; Bible stories like The Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan didn't make people nod in recognition.

I was a missionary in Japan.  To say the word "missionary" makes me cringe, a little.  I wonder what most people think of when they hear the word.  Do they think about missionaries who brought not only the Christian faith but also colonial ways and intolerant views?  Do they think of people who were actually more interested in claiming the country for their own purposes than they were about teaching about the love of Jesus?  Do they think about all of the stereotypes of superiority, lack of curiosity, and meanness?

Here's what it meant to me to be a missionary:

It meant being curious.  When I arrived in Japan I knew almost no words of Japanese.  I had tried to take an evening class in the spring before I left.  But I could not get any Japanese words of grammar to stick in my head.  It was too strange to me, a language I could not get my brain around.  I remember walking around a lack with a friend who had grown up in Japan.  She patiently tried to teach me sentences.  Every word fell back out of my head.  So when I arrived in Japan, I had everything to learn.  I needed to learn to take the trains and the subways, to take off my shoes when I went inside, to eat with chopsticks and to bow at the right time.  I needed to learn some Japanese.  I needed to find things at the grocery store.
I needed to be curious and to listen.

It meant being humble.  There was so much to learn, and there were so many opportunities to make mistakes.  Not just mistakes in speaking Japanese, but mistakes in understanding, mistakes in living.  To live in another culture is to be learning all the time.

It meant being an outsider.  In Japan, I always stuck out.  I never fit in.  No matter how much I tried, I would always be, in some sense, a stranger.  I could learn to wear the kimono and I could learn to speak Japanese well, but in so many ways, I would never fit in.  There is something lonely about that.  And it was tempting, at those times, to retreat into the missionary community, where understanding came somewhat easier, and where I felt I belonged.  But to do that would have been unfaithful.

It meant thinking outside the box.  I found that the missionaries I knew, whether pastors or lay missionaries, were some of the most creative people I knew.  They were interested in how theology and their own culture and the culture of the place they lived intersected.  They wondered about where the boundaries were:  what were the things that needed to stay constant and where did message of the gospel need to be creatively re-imagined so that the people could hear it?  What does "I am the bread of life" mean to people for whom bread is not a staple? What does the word "God" mean in a language where god is called "kami" -- and there are thousands of them?

It meant being transformed.  I know that I went to Japan thinking that I would transform lives.  I went bearing that hope.  But there were very few baptisms when I was there.  Instead, I came to believe that the Holy Spirit was planting seeds, and who knew what would happen?  Instead, the Holy Spirit was transforming me.  I was different kind of Christian when I left Japan than when I had arrived.

I remember one Sunday afternoon after returning home, that I sobbed with some kind of pain.  I'm not even sure all of what it was.  But I think that while I lived in Japan, I had a sense that I knew what my life was for.  I knew that every single thing I did had a purpose, even though I didn't know how God was using it.

I remember being sure, so sure, when I returned to the United States, that everyone was supposed to be a missionary, right where they were.

But I'll tell you what:  I wasn't sure exactly how anyone, including me, was supposed to do it.  People weren't going to come up to me on the street and ask me "what are you doing here?", like they did in Japan.  It was so obvious that I was a stranger.  Now, it was not.

Now, my congregation is reading a book about the church, and culture, right here in the United States.  The author makes no bones about the fact that we are called to be missionaries.   Fewer and fewer people know the language and the symbols and the images of faith.  People speak a different language.  That is not a bad thing.  But it means that the church needs to be curious, and bilingual, humble and creative.  It means that the church needs to be transformed.

That might be the hardest thing of all.

Generosity

I have been told by at least one person that I don't preach on Generosity enough.  I think that this person means, in particular, that I don't preach about financial generosity enough, about how to use financial resources for the glory of God.  It is possible that he is correct, for all of the predictable reasons:  1) urging people to give feels a lot like nagging when I imagine it, 2) I don't want people to think I need them to give so that I can get paid, and 3) I love preaching grace.  I confess that when I look at a scripture passage, for some reason, my mind does not go to financial generosity first -- even though I have studied and know that Jesus spoke about our money, and our relationship with it, far more than he spoke about other things that we may be more concerned about.

So I have been thinking about how to be more intentional in that regard, and I marked one Sunday of my sermon series, "Children in the Bible," to specifically address generosity.  It's the story about the little boy and his loaves and fishes.  This story is about generosity, isn't it?  The little boy didn't have money, but he did have a lunch, and that's almost the same thing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to preparing this sermon on generosity.  Children began to be separated from their parents at our southern border.  That did not seem to me in any way about the story of the loaves and fishes and the boy's generosity, until early this week, when I read a story about a woman from Guatemala who has just been re-united with her seven year old daughter after they were separated for two months.  The woman had advice for people who might be coming to the United States seeking asylum:

"If you are coming here to seek asylum, choose another country.  The laws here are harsh.  And the people don't have hearts."

The woman and her infant son had come here just before the zero tolerance policy took effect.  After they left her husband started receiving more death threats from the gangs, so he decided to take his daughter and flee.  They were separated at the border and her husband will be deported back to Guatemala.

Suddenly, when I looked at the story of the feeding of the five thousand, I saw something different than I had before.  I saw the people who are coming over our border, fleeing violence or hunger.  I heard the voices of the disciples, saying, "Send them away," because they were certain that there was not enough to go around.  And I thought of generosity, although a different kind of generosity.

It's not a generosity of material things:  money or food or possessions.   It's a generosity of heart, of what we are willing to believe about people, people we don't know.  Are most of them criminals, with just a few possible "good people"?  Or are most of them looking for the things we all look for:  freedom from fear and want, freedom of expression and worship?  I know that immigration is a complicated issue, and I absolutely know that not everyone who wants to come here will be able to come here, and I know that our borders aren't and can't be completely open.   But there absolutely is a legitimate humanitarian crisis going on in Honduras and El Salvador and Guatemala.  What are we going to believe about the people who are coming here?  Can we be both strong and compassionate?

I have seen things on the internet that accuse people who are coming here of "demanding citizenship."  I know this is not true.  Asking for asylum is not the same as demanding citizenship.  Citizenship is a long process that immigrants can only enter after several years.  It takes a long time to study, to learn the history of the United States.   I want to be generous with those who write these things, and believe that they have been misinformed, and if only they knew -- their hearts would be open.

Lately,  when I read the story of the feeding of the 5,000, I think that it's about a God who doesn't want to send anyone away, a God who is generous.  That's what Jesus wanted to show his disciples.  He wanted to show them a God who is big enough, and who has love enough to feed all who come to him, to save all who come to him, to welcome all who come to him.

House Blessing

I presided at my first ever house blessing last weekend, after church.  A member of my congregation contacted me and asked if I would come out sometime in June and bless her home, and all of the rooms.  She said that a former pastor had done it for her once, many years ago.  This time she wanted her house blessed because it had been damaged in the hurricane last August.  They had spent the past nine months repairing and painting and decorating:  just she and her son, and a few of his friends.  It wasn't quite done, but she felt that it was time to celebrate their hard work.  It was time to celebrate her home.

I did not grow up hearing about a custom called "House Blessings".  We didn't study it in seminary either.  But somewhere in the past few years, something must have made me curious, because I have a distinct memory of googling "house blessings", and of asking a friend of mine who is Episcopalian to send me a copy of a house blessing from his Occasional Services Book.  I kept that for a long time.  Perhaps I just wanted to be ready, just in case someone asked me.

So when this woman called me, I was eager to come.  And I discovered that my denomination's new Occasional Services Book now had an order for the Blessing of a Dwelling.  I asked my church member if I needed to bring anything.  "No," she said, "but bring a few people from the church.  I want to celebrate with them."  I told he that the service called for the lighting of a candle.  She said that she would purchase one.

She also told me that she would serve us a special meal at the close of the blessing.

I checked my Occasional Services Book, and guess what?  The order of worship says that "a meal may be shared."

I had never been to this woman's house before.  So, on the day of the blessing, I turned on my trusty GPS and we set out.  It was not far, but the house was off the beaten path.  We turned on a couple of gravel roads.  I was afraid I might be lost, but I was not.

The house was modest and beautiful, each room painted in bright colors.  Everything said "celebration" to me.   There were friends from the church, and a friend of her teenage daughter.  We discussed briefly which rooms she wanted me to bless.  At the right time, I stood in the middle of the living area, and we lit the candle and began.  We took the candle from room to room, reading scripture and praying in each area:  the entrance, the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, the place where pets were kept.  There was even a special scripture and prayer for a teenager's room.  I asked her daughter which Scripture verse she wanted me to use (there were two choices).  She chose this one:

"It is in vain to raise so early and go to bed so late.  You, Lord, give sleep to your beloved."  (Psalm 127:2)

Near the end, there was a suggestion for everyone to remember the promise given to them in baptism, to serve everywhere in Christ's name.  And the rubrics said, "Water may be sprinkled on the people in thanksgiving for the gift of baptism."  I wasn't sure what to do, but it seemed like a good idea.

Her teenage daughter said "Wait a minute," and came out with a water bottle.   I sprayed everyone's hands with the water bottle, and we laughed.

Then we prayed the Lord's prayer, and we sat down to the feast prepared for us.

It was my first house blessing.

And I was blessed.

I think how at the end of the service at church I give the benediction:  the blessing.  Why should it stop there?  Why shouldn't it extend into homes and neighborhoods, among friends and neighbors, along gravel roads and at meals, and where people are weeping and where people are rejoicing?  Why shouldn't it extend even farther out, beyond the boundaries to the outcasts and the hungry and the lonely and the desperate?

We have forgotten our mission.  It is blessing.