Of Rivers and Lakes

Here's an occupational hazard for pastors:  arguing with a preacher in your head while you are a guest in another congregation.

It happened to me last winter, while I was visiting family out of town and had the luxury to participate rather than lead worship for a change.  This should be a good thing, right?  It was a congregation of mostly young adults and young families.  The music was just a little edgy and well-done (although I may be just a tad biased; one of my own family is in the band).  I loved the play area for children in the back of the church, and the fact that after the first fifteen minutes of the service, there was a fellowship break with time for coffee before settling in for the sermon.

Then came the sermon, very long, and earnest, I remember, although, I will confess I don't remember much more about it any more.  I do remember, however, an illustration about the difference between rivers and lakes, and how, in God's way of thinking, it is much better for us (as individuals) to be like a river than it is to be like a lake.  Rivers are good; lakes are bad.  Why?  A river flows.  It is healthy; it has a source and a destination.  A lake just sits there.

Well.

In my mind I understood that this was a metaphor, and as a metaphor, I suppose it was just fine.  He was trying to say that we too need to know our source, and be flowing toward a destination, rather than just sitting there, keeping it all to ourselves.

And yet….

I kept thinking, he is being unfair to lakes.  Lakes don't just sit there.  If they are healthy, they also have an inlet and an outlet.  Just because they are (often) deep and you can't seem the bottom, and just because you can't see them flowing, doesn't mean that they are just sitting there.  Think about Lake Pepin, after all.  Lake Pepin is a lake inside a river.  The river flows into the lake and back out again.  Or, think about the chain of lakes in my own hometown.  There are four lakes that flow one from the other.  They are not stagnant, although it is true that they are not so healthy any more.  But that is not their fault.

I grew up loving lakes, although, like the young preacher, I didn't understand them.  I loved the lakes in my city, and up north, where we would go to camp, and swim, and fish, and play.  I didn't understand then where the water came from and where it went to.  I didn't know that there were consequences for the lakes that more and more homes and businesses came near.

This spring I picked up a book by a retired college professor and ecologist, Darby Nelson.  It is called For Love of Lakes.  The book is part memoir, part geology, as he writes lyrically of his boyhood love of lakes, and yet exposes how many of them have become degraded.  How can we say we love lakes, and let them fall to ruin?, he wonders.  Is it because we don't understand them?  In a lake, so much happens under the surface, where we cannot see.

Two paragraphs in his introduction struck me:

If I think of time as a river, I predispose myself to think linearly, to see events as unconnected, where a tree branch falling into the river at noon is swept away by current to remain eternally separated in time and space from the butterfly that falls in an hour later and thrashes about seeking floating refuge.

But if I think of time as a lake, I see ripples set in motion by one event touching an entire shore and then, when reflected back toward the middle, meeting ripples from other events, each changing the other in their passing.  I think of connectedness, of relationships, and interacting events that matter greatly to lakes.

I don't know why I was so obstinate in my mind about this young preacher's river and lake analogy, why I couldn't just go where he was trying to take me.  A lake is not a person, after all.  He was not engaged in some sort of "Lake Profiling", or "Lake Stereotyping".  I don't know if it was just that I am from a region famous for its lakes (although we have some awfully fine rivers too).  Was I, perhaps unconsciously, aligning myself with a different sort of spirituality, one more in tune with lakes than with rivers, more inter-connected and interacting?  Maybe I just worried that even a well-intentioned metaphor can contribute to misunderstanding, if it is not quite true.   Perhaps I just think that some things, like lakes and rivers, are not 'either/or', but 'both/and.'  Maybe I see a better, truer metaphor in the different kinds of waters.

Both lakes and rivers are good; they teach us different things.  A lake can teach us how much of life lies beneath the surface; like the Spirit, we do not always know where it comes from, and where it is going, at least from close up.  A river teaches us the movement, the dance that we can see, the journey.

I did not approach the pastor after the sermon to argue with his metaphor.  And even though I disagreed, I'll grant that he made me think:  there's something to be said for that.

Sunday Afternoon

Scout comes over to the bed where I am sitting, cross-legged, reading and typing, and hangs her snout over the edge and gazes up at me with her huge brown eyes. Her tail is thumping, and I say, "Do you want some LOVES?" and I scratch her head and her ears.

It is Sunday afternoon.

The Sunday services are ended.  Everyone has gone home.  I am home now too, sitting on the bed, writing on the computer, reading on line, and considering that this is my weekend, sort of.  

I was at the church before eight this morning to practice my sermon, do some copying for a possible Bible study, check in with the Children's Ministry Coordinator.  The woman who would be making coffee for fellowship was waiting in her car.  I let her in, too, for the front doors were still locked.

It was a worship service packed with music.  The children sang; our contemporary worship ensemble sang.  We closed the service with "Down By the Riverside."  I greeted two young families that I don't see very often.  I stood in the doorway and greeted people as they left.  It is the preacher's job to do this.  Most people just shook my hand and said, "Good morning," without making any remarks, but toward the end of the line, one man thanked me for my sermon, and a woman said she thought it was a good one, as if she meant it.  They are small things, these few words, but they gave me hope that the words sent out over the air had some Spirit in them, some grace in them, and that the work I do, that seems so ephemeral, really does mean something.

Now it is Sunday afternoon, time to think, or not think, to let go of the past week, and get ready to do it all again. Now it is Sunday afternoon, and I am sitting cross-legged on the bed, every once in awhile taking the opportunity to scratch my needy dog on the top of her head.

There are dishes in the sink that need to be washed (no, Virginia, we do not have a dishwasher).  There are clothes that need to be put away.  There are books on the floor.  There are shoes everywhere.  In a little while, I will attend to those things.  But for now, the task is to let go of the last week, the sermon I preached, the people I visited, the prayers I said, the lessons I planned, the meetings I attended.  Let go.  Open my hands and let go of everything that has been in my heart of the past week.  

The dog has gone back to her bed.  She is curled up in a ball and doesn't need my loves, at least right now.  But I need her.  I go over to where she is, not sleeping, just curled up, with her tail all the way up to her nose.  I scratch her head and her ears, and say she is my girl.  

It is Sunday afternoon.  

And I lay down my burden, just for a little while, before I take it up again.

For now.

Seeing God in a Man I Didn't Know

Not long ago a friend posed a question on Social Media:  How do we discover God's presence in our families, in our neighborhoods, in our cities and in our world?   Although I don't remember if there was any definitive answer, there was a lively conversation, with several ideas presented about how and where to see God's presence, and some side conversations on whether it is more faithful to get busy serving in God's name, or get less busy and find time to listen to neighbors and strangers.

In the meantime, I got a phone call from a woman I had just met a few times.  Her mother had joined the church later in her life.  She had come to our small chapel service on Saturday evenings.  Then, when her health began to fail, a couple from our congregation used to visit her on Sunday afternoons and bring her communion.  Last fall, she died, and so I met her daughter to plan her mother's funeral.

Last week, the daughter called again.  Her husband had died after a struggle with cancer, and she wondered whether we could do his funeral.  She thought we had done such a nice service and luncheon for her mother that she would like to have the service at our church, with me officiating.  Unfortunately, our schedule did not permit us to host the service, but I agreed to officiate, and to meet them at church to plan the service and luncheon.

Sitting in the room that afternoon were his wife, his daughter, his younger brother, and one of his nieces.  When I sat down, and they started talking, one of the first things the niece said was that she and her husband had decided that the day her uncle died, they would honor him by trying to be kind to one another for the whole day.  They didn't quite make it, she said, smiling, but they got close.

The conversation continued.  Kindness was a hallmark of this man's life.  The children remembered that he and his wife always spoke to one another with respect and politeness.  They remembered that their home was a refuge for the family, and for neighborhood children, who were given love and nurturing and fun.  They remembered his love for creation and for creatures.  They had taken in, at various times, various animals both ordinary and exotic, concluding a raccoon that had lived with them for many years.  They remembered his love and his gentleness.

They also spoke about his early life.  It had not been easy.  There was chaos and dysfunction in the family, they said.  But he broke the cycle that he had experienced and created an environment of love.

Later on, his daughter sent me a long email which had originally been written to her dad.  She had been a small child when this man had married her mother, and he had adopted her.  She always felt privileged that he chose her to be his daughter, and he made her feel special.  At the end of the email, she wrote, "My whole life with you has been a gift."

And it dawned on me:  As they were speaking, I sensed God's presence, in them and in their love for one another, and in this man I never really knew.  I saw God, just a glimpse, a crack of light through a door in their lives, left ajar for me.

He never seemed to have much use for church, this man I didn't know.  I think he had been baptized, and had attended as a boy, at least sometimes.

Somehow this made me sad, I confess.  I somehow wished that he had a church, perhaps ours.  Yes, I would have been honored if he had attended our church.  But it is not so much because I thought that he needed us.

No, it made me sad because I think we need him.  We need him to help us to discover God's presence.  We are not so good at seeing.

That is what I think, right now.

Grieving with Hope

On Monday evening, I met with a family to prepare for a funeral.  We got together to discuss music and scripture readings, to share stories from the life of their mother and grandmother.

When we talked about Scripture readings, they were certain about Psalm 23.  It was their mother's favorite psalm.  We should all read it together.  As for a Gospel reading, they would leave that up to me.  And the Holy Spirit.

Her son had brought along his own Bible. He opened it, and turned to 1st Thessalonians, chapter 4, verses 13 and 14.   He said that I didn't have to use it it in my sermon, but he had found great comfort in these verses, which he read to me.  "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died,  so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died."  These are verse that I have read often, and have often considered when preparing a funeral sermon.  Resurrection hope does not mean that we don't grieve.  We still grieve when we lose someone we love.


For some reason I have been thinking about these verses for the past couple of days.  Even though they are meant to apply specifically to those who have died, we grieve other losses too, and it occurred to me that perhaps the verses apply then as now.


Take Elections, for example.  I overheard a conversation on Facebook between some acquaintances, when the election didn't go their way in their particular area of the country.  Everyone was grieving, in a way, almost despairing about what it would be like to continue living here for the next two years.  A couple of people were suggesting other, better regions of the country where they could move.  It made me wonder if those of us who are passionate about politics and the relationship of our politics and our faith can grieve with hope, and what that would look like.  What would it look like to look into the heart of a political loss -- when a candidate you respect and admire does not win her case, when an issue you believe is crucial for creating justice and abundance goes down in flames -- and grieve with hope?  


I am also thinking about churches, and about the Church.  We are in decline, as everyone says.  We are post-Christian, so many people say.  The church is dying.  I don't doubt that this is true.  In my own community two churches have closed in the past two years.  My colleague went to a seminar last week and brought back this statistic:  75% of the churches in my denomination are in decline.  I don't know about you, but along with the rest of my work, I am also grieving.  I am not always sure what I am grieving, whether it is a loss of sense of community, or a loss of shared meaning, or simply the losses of the people I used to see at worship every week, who now come much less frequently, if at all. 


What would it mean to grieve with hope?


First I think it is to not be afraid to acknowledge our losses.  The church is dying.  The dreams I had for my community seem farther away instead of closer.  My father was 84 years old, but I still miss him.  I grieve.  


But to have hope means to hold fast to dreams, and not just hold fast to them, but to work for them.  To have hope means to keep on teaching children to read, and sharing bread, and standing up for those who have no voice.  To have hope means to return to worship again and again, standing up and singing and praying and serving and listening for the voice of God, raising you from the dead.


What does it mean to grieve with hope?

What I Did Today

I voted.  I wrote a funeral sermon.

All right, I did a few more things.  I took my computer to the computer doctor, and luckily, they were able to fix it quickly.  I wrote a funeral bulletin, and an annual report which had something to do with the church as a community, and I met with another family about a funeral, which will take place on Friday.

But in my mind, it comes down to this:  I voted.  I wrote a funeral sermon.

I don't know much (or anything) about the politics of the person at whose funeral I will preach tomorrow.  I know that she liked Ronald Reagan, because he said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"  She was a German immigrant, had lived through World War Ii, and was sponsored to come to the United States by a Lutheran Church in Minneapolis.

What I know is that she taught her children to pray.  What I know is that she liked to sing, to swim, to bike, to garden.  What is know is that she is inscribed on the palms of God's hands.

While I was writing this evening, I had one ear on the election results.  We were trying to find out about a friend who was a candidate for state office in another state.  We heard that there was a barrage of negative ads in the final days of the campaign, accusing our friend of being self-serving.  (He had served long ago in another state legislature.)  We know our friend to be a person of integrity, the opposite of self-serving.  You might not agree with his politics, but he is NOT self-serving.  That is politics, I suppose.

Earlier today, I voted.  I voted because I do think it is important.  I want to create more equitable communities, healthier communities.  And, I'll confess, as much as I want my candidates to win, I am just as jazzed by the fact that my state consistently has the highest voter turnout in the nation.  I'm proud to see high school students working as election judges.  Still, I vote because I have hope:  hope that my community can become a better place, where justice and kindness will flourish.  When my candidate loses, my hopes are wounded.

Today, I voted.  But tonight I wrote a funeral sermon, and another kind of hope.  I wrote about the hope for the eternal city, where love has the last word, where death is no more.  I wrote about the hope for the crystal river, where the saints will gather, where we will meet again, singing.

Ordinary Miracles

This was the last part of my sermon this morning….

Here it is:  All Saints Sunday, and one of the things I love about this day is that it is all about ordinary miracles. 

            All Saints Day is not a day to remember and celebrate famous people who have done great things, but it is a day to remember and give thanks for the ordinary miracles – the ordinary saints – in our lives.   Some of them we will name here in a little while.  Some of them we will name in the silence of our hearts.  Some of them are well known to our whole congregation.  Some of them are only known to a few of us.  They are ordinary people, but they were washed in the waters of baptism, and the light shines of Christ shines in them.  Their names are Don and Jan, Jean and Jim, Grace and Herlanda, Ivar and Emil and Otto and Marian and Gisela.  Some of them sang in the choir, and some of them worked in the kitchen, and some of them fought in wars, and some of them took meals on wheels to shut ins.  Some of them were healers, and some of them were teachers, some of and some of them – like the little girl who told Naaman about the prophet Elisha – some of them have names known only to a few people, or only to God.  Some were important, like Naaman – but all of them are saints because this ordinary miracle happened to them – they were washed in the waters of baptism, they were cleansed from sin, they were named children of God, and the light of Jesus shines in them.  Today we remember them.  Ordinary saints.  Beloved by God. 

            Today I am thinking of so many saints, so many ordinary, holy people.   To be holy is to be set apart for a particular purpose.  I am thinking about saints and what I learned from them.  I am thinking about Harriet, who made it her simple practice to name ten blessings every day.  Ten blessings.  And who taught me to see blessings in unexpected places.  And people.  I am thinking about Jim, who considered going into the ministry.  He became a teacher.  And he DID go into the ministry.  He was set aside for this purpose.   I am thinking about Pearl, who reminded us that Jesus is in this place with us, even when we are fighting and arguing with each other.  I am thinking of Gil, who taught me that to be passionate about the gospel and to be passionate about social justice were the same thing, part of the same discipleship, sharing the love of God with the world.  And I am thinking about Jean  and Jan, who were healers by vocation, and who knew the difference between being healed and being cured,

who knew that even though they were not cured, they were healed, because the hope of Jesus living in them never died. 

            I am thinking of so many ordinary miracles.  Including you. 

            Each one of you.

            Someday we will all worship around the throne of the lamb in the place where there is no more death, and no more pain, where the lamb will be the light.

             In the meantime, each of us here is a miracle. 

            By some miracle, Jesus lives in us and Jesus shines through us. 

            Right here and now.  Alleluia.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN

The Story of the Quilt

I met my mother for lunch on Wednesday.  It was the anniversary of my father's death, but that wasn't why we were having lunch together.  It just turned out that way.

While we were eating, my mother unfolded an 8 1/2 by 11 piece of paper and gave it to me.  She said there was something she never told me about the quilt that she had made and given to me a couple of years ago.

My mother has always been good at sewing.  She made most of our clothes, and even a spring jacket for my sister and me.  She made a pants outfit for me once, and matched the plaids so well that people commented on it.  But it is only recently that she had gotten interested in quilting.  It was my grandmother, my mother's mother, that was the quilter.  She was famous for her beautiful hand-stitched quilts.  Everyone tells me that she had an eye for putting together colors.  I have one of her quilts, but I don't remember ever seeing her put one together.  By the time I was born, it hurt her hands and her eyes too much to do the close work necessary.

Recently, though, my mother has begun quilting.  And two years ago she gave me this beautiful lap quilt.  I thought the colors were amazing.  It holds a place of honor in our living room.

But it turns out that I did not know everything about it.

On the piece of paper that my mother gave me, she told me that this quilt was a collaboration, in a way. After my grandmother died, my aunt discovered some pieces that my grandmother had cut out, and a pattern for a quilt square.  She took half of the pieces, and gave my mother the other half.  But neither of them knew what to do with them.  They had a pattern, but were not sure how to put it together.

One day, one of my mother's friends took a look at the pieces and the pattern, and she could figure it out.  Then my mother could begin to make the squares that would form the quilt.

It took a long time; in the process she decided to divide the pieces and make two quilts instead of one; my sister just received the other one.  Until Wednesday, though, I never knew that my grandmother had a hand in the quilt I received from my mother.

I see it differently now.  It is not just a quilt.  It is a story.  It was always a story, but until Wednesday I did not know the language that the quilt was speaking, even though I loved it.

My mother's quilt makes me think of the church these days, what has been passed down to us, what we value, what we know.  I know many of the older people in my congregation value and love liturgy.  They have been singing and praying in a particular way for many years, as it has been passed down to them.  They have learned some new rhythms along the way, it's true, but they still sing and pray the basic pattern, and they find it beautiful, and comforting, even, at times (although a seminarian friend recently scoffed at the idea of comforting religion).

And yet I wonder if we still remember the stories behind the rhythms and the words of liturgy, the ones that change it from a beautiful object into a story about us, about our mothers and our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers.  I wonder if we still remember the stories that speak about love that pursues us through the ages, that pieces us together, that made us by hand.  I wonder if we still remember the stories of why we sing and say and pray the things we do, and if we are even curious.