Saturday, March 9, 2024

What Are We Teaching the Children?


 I grew up on a dead end street on the South Shore of Long Island, perfect for playing ball in the summer and sledding in the winter. It seemed to be an inevitable badge of childhood that all of us would eventually sport a scar on one or both knees from tripping on the curbs that were marked as 1st and 3rd bases. The block had many young families, so I grew up with enough friends to make two teams of whatever we chose to play. We were fiercely competitive, but the make-up of the teams were never the same, as players were interchangeable, one team to the other.

We certainly had our fights, but they never lasted long if we wanted to continue to play our games. We needed one another, so whatever grievances we held against each other were quickly forgotten so we could resume our play.

Why, as we grow older, do we lose this capacity to forgive and forget? Why do we harbor resentments for so long? When did we stop seeing that we are all, ultimately, on the same team?

This hit home for me as I watched the State of the Union address. When did we devolve from having civility in the chambers to cat-calls and taunting? When did Thanksgiving dinners begin to need referees or rules about what we can and can’t talk about? When did we grow so polarized that we have forgotten we are on the same team?

I can’t help but wonder about what we are modeling to our children. Do our actions model respect when we interrupt a speaker? Are we teaching tolerance of difference when we dismiss and dehumanize those we disagree with? Are we helping our children grow into adults that will lean into hard conversations with humility and curiosity?

Jesus reserved some of his harshest words to for those who mistreat children:

 “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.

“But if you give them a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck. Doom to the world for giving these God-believing children a hard time! Hard times are inevitable, but you don’t have to make it worse—and it’s doomsday to you if you do.” (Matthew 18: 3-7, The Message)

This week, consider what your words and actions are teaching the children around you. And then, take time to consider what the children in your life might be trying to teach you about God and a life of faith.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Ring Out!

 This weekend I am in Orlando at Exploration 2024, a gathering for young adults to explore how God may be calling them into a vocation in the church. I love helping people explore their call—I believe each one of us was created to contribute something unique to the whole of our life together. Our task (and it can take our entire lives) is to figure out what it is and live it.

It’s kind of like playing in a bell choir.

Unlike a vocal choir, where often all the vocal sections (bass, tenor, alto, soprano) sing the same phrase with counterpoint notes, a bell choir member has but 2-4 notes (well, we altos also often have only 2-4 notes, but at least we sing them throughout the song!). Which means that as the song with bells is performed, a bell ringer must be prepared to come in at the right time with the right bell. I have seen some bell ringers ring just one bell through an entire piece, but the song would not be complete if they did not play their part at the right time. If they played the wrong bell, or came in early or late, or even refrained from playing, the musical piece would be changed.

While in other musical groups, people play individual instruments, all the bells together make the musical instrument. We all are the instrument together.  If someone misses their cue, or misses a performance, the instrument will not be able to perform due to missing notes.

Each of us carries a note we must play if the Song of Life is to be complete. To not be aware we are carrying the note, to not play the note at all, or to play it wrong results in the Song of Life devolving from being a Divine Love Song to a cacophony of dissonant and disconnected notes.

Scripture put it this way:

“Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (I Corinthians 12: 4-7)

You are needed in this world. If you don’t bring your whole self, with your unique gift, to our life together, the vibrations that reverberate in our souls is diminished. The beauty of life fades. The sweet goodness of life is lessened.

Live so aware of yourself and others that you will know the right cue—of when and how to let your life ring out in joy and delight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHgpuWPg1OE

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

I Will Go, Lord, Where you Lead Me

 This is an anxious season for pastors. I confess from February to the beginning of June, whenever my phone rang I would break out in a cold sweat, and if I noticed it was my DS, I definitely sent it to voicemail. “Why?” you might ask. Because it is appointment season!

We who have said yes to answering a call to ordained ministry in The United Methodist Church agreed to become itinerant preachers, going where God and the Bishop feel our gifts best match the needs of the church. We are not solo practitioners but are a part of a connection of both clergy and churches. This web of connection seeks to multiply effective ministry by deploying clergy across the conference so we can, together, provide a strong and vital witness of God’s love.

This is the season where I, along with the district superintendents, pastors, and Staff Parish Relations Committees, do discerning work. Each pastor has to ask themselves: Am I being fruitful and faithful in my current ministry? Am I growing spiritually? Am I deepening my leadership skills? Do I have the skills this church needs? If I don’t, am I willing/able to learn them?

As bishop and cabinet, we look at every church and every pastor. We look not only at individual churches but clusters of churches as well so that entire regions can have the kinds of pastors needed for support. Data is reviewed, church statements read, and prayers are lifted. Spouse’s and children’s needs are considered, as is community support if a pastor is single.

Itineracy is a proud part of our history, one of the reasons why Methodism spread across this country so effectively. Unmarried circuit riders traveled a circuit of several churches over the course of 5-6 weeks, preaching and teaching and equipping laity for the work of ministry. It wasn’t an easy life back then…prior to 1847, more than half of circuit riders died before they were 30! And it isn’t an easy one now.

 Every time your pastor sings “I will go, Lord, where you lead me,” they are reaffirming their commitment to the itineracy. They are saying they are giving their full selves to serve not in the place they want for themselves, but in the place communal discernment believes is best for the whole as each pastor’s appointment impacts every other pastor’s appointment.


I invite you to be in prayer for the pastors in your life, for the churches throughout our conference, for the district superintendents, and for me as we all, together, seek to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, which always leads us to places we hadn’t expected to go, to be in relationship with people who are new to us, to do things we never thought we would.

Thursday, February 1, 2024

Called to a Life of Love

I love the story of Jesus' first calls to the disciples. His cousin John the Baptist has been imprisoned for critiquing Herod’s behavior. In this charged political climate, Jesus begins his ministry, recruiting those who are willing to let go of all they are doing to follow him. Nets were dropped, tools put down, schedules abandoned as Jesus’ call took hold of the disciples’ lives, and they could do no other but follow him.

In hindsight, the easy part was the initial call—“Come, follow me.” The disciples left the familiar and ran to Jesus, hungry for direction and meaning. But we get to see the whole story: when the demands of faith seemed too great, the risks of faith too frightening, the disciples shrank in fear.

In fact, being a disciple of Jesus was (and is!) a pretty high-risk venture. It meant leaving oneself open to a great deal of loss: the loss of friends and family, the loss of home and possessions, the loss of job and status. And by the world’s standards, the gains weren’t very pretty. Since Jesus, from his very birth, was considered a political subversive, the disciples risked a great deal to follow him. And when Jesus was arrested and crucified and the going got real tough, the disciples scattered in fear.

God wouldn’t leave them alone but kept beckoning to them. They discovered that their commitment was greater than their fear, so that they were able to live out their call of preaching, teaching, and healing in Jesus’ name.

Living out God’s claim on our life is a scary venture. It calls us into a future that is unknown. It puts us in relationships with people we might not otherwise choose to be in relationship with. It opens us to experiences that we would rather avoid.

Too often we try to put guard rails on faith. We try to stifle where the Spirit calls us. We pull ourselves back from the very places God would have us go. This is not only to our own detriment but also to the world, which God has called us to engage with hearts on fire for compassion, for healing, for justice.

During our Civil Rights Pilgrimage in Montgomery, I read one person’s words that challenged me: “We committed ourselves so completely to the vision of civil rights that the risk of dying was secondary.” I confess reading that while standing in the epicenter of the civil rights movement, learning about how costly the civil rights movement was to those who participated in it, felt like a punch to the gut. How committed am I to my faith, to this life of Love that Jesus calls me to? Am I willing to live it so completely that the risk of death is a secondary thought?


The Love Jesus calls us to live is a demanding Love. This Love isn’t content with the status quo. It demands that structures and systems get shaken up so that people can not merely survive but thrive. It insists on recognizing all persons as possessing the image of God. It always moves us to the margins of any group, any community, to build the center of community (and ministry!) there.

“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Many of us belted this song out with gusto when we were young. Is the fire of that faith still burning? Where is Love leading you and your church today as you follow Jesus?

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Warming Places

 Across our nation, a bomb cyclone of cold weather has descended, dropping temps into dangerous levels. I am especially mindful of those who are unhoused in these dangerous weather days. I am grateful for our churches who have opened their doors to those without shelter or heat!

The cabinet and I have been in Cody, Wyoming this week, preparing ourselves for the appointment season. Yesterday, as the temperature never rose above – 20F and had a wind chill factor of -50F, I noticed something as we broke for the day. The caretaker of the retreat center came to our meeting space and turned on the gas fireplace. I watched as the cabinet members all began to gravitate to the fireplace. Hands reached out towards the warmth. Conversation was both playful and meaningful as we stood around the fireplace.

In the midst of cold weather, we are a species drawn to warmth.


I have been thinking about this as a metaphor for our churches. This world can be so very cold—community is hard to come by; judgment and intolerance is often encountered; we feel isolated and alienated. Our spirits become brittle and break in the face of a chilly and unwelcoming world.

How is your church an oasis of warmth in the midst of a frigid world? Are people drawn to the warmth your congregation exudes? Will they find a place where they can allow their souls to defrost and be reformed in Love?

I am praying your church can offer a generous hospitality, so those whom the world has frozen out can be embraced with open arms that comfort and thaw even the most frozen hearts.

Monday, January 8, 2024

We Shall Overcome

 This past weekend, I am in Montgomery with members of our conference, participating in a Civil Rights Pilgrimage. It has been a sobering trip as we learn more deeply of the systemic terrorism and torture of African Americans, so deeply embedded in our nation’s psyche.  We were frequently brought to tears as we moved through museums and monuments that showed not only the violence of racism in the past but the way it continues in our present.

Lest we think that the legacy of racism is only a “southern thing”, we learned that lynchings occurred in each of the four states of our conference. Plus, monuments to the confederacy are found in three of our states, the most recent one erected in Denver in 2003 (https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/wm5QAN_Colorado_Confederate_Veterans_Memorial_Riverside_Cemetery_Denver_CO) (additionally, we have a legacy of violence against Native Americans and immigrants and in addition Japanese Internment camps that were found across our conference).


One of the exhibits at Legacy Museum had slave pens which you could peer into. As you looked in, a holographic figure of an enslaved person appeared and spoke. It was very fleeting, and I found myself rooted to the spot, hoping to have them reappear so I could learn more of their story.

Are we willing to listen with open hearts to the stories of those whose lives have been impacted by racism, not only in the past but in our communities today?

I am struck at how Christianity was twisted to support slavery. What a defilement of a faith grounded in God’s love for all humankind, whose image shines from the face of every person.

Yet, Christianity also undergirded the civil rights movement. Clergy and laity together linked arms with others and put their very bodies on the line to push back on the forces of evil and oppression. The course of a nation was changed because followers of Jesus refused to allow injustice to have the upper hand.

The struggle continues today. Are you willing to listen and learn of life experiences that aren’t like your own, that are difficult, even painful to hear? Can you do so and not interrupt, not try to make excuses or try to discount the reality and truth of another’s reality?

We each are connected to one another as the Body of Christ. When one suffers, we all suffer. It is only when we listen and learn that we can work to ensure the dignity and humanity of all of God’s children. In this way, we build up Beloved Community and leave a better world for those who will come after us.

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

The Work of Christmas...

 


We are smack dab in the middle of the 12 days of Christmas, yet for many, Christmas is already over: the tree is shedding and the decorations are begging to be placed back in their boxes for another year. Christmas 2023 is quickly becoming one more holiday memory.

It is at this time I like to sit with the words of Christian mystic Howard Thurman:

“When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flock, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among others, To make music in the heart.”

“The work of Christmas begins…”

I have been meditating on that statement all week. What is the “work of Christmas”? Are we willing to do it?

From Mary’s response to the angel Gabriel to Herod’s decree to murder all boys under the age of two because he found his power threatened by the baby Jesus, the birth of Jesus challenges those in power and upsets the status quo through God’s revolution of Love. The God who made us becomes one of us, to show us a better way to live, to challenge systems that keep us from living out our full God-given humanity, to ensure that oppression ends and justice reigns.

The work of Christmas begins…

As you begin to pack away Christmas decorations, how will Christmas remain in your heart? How will God’s love for humanity be visible in your actions? How will you live out your baptismal vow and “accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves”?

Our faith does not allow us to hold a naïve view of the world. As we consider the possibilities of the New Year, we know that we will continue to be faced with violence, political division, a world on fire, inequalities, and hatred. How does Jesus’ birth provide us with hope, instill in us holy boldness, and compel us to take on the task of ushering in God’s Beloved Community?

The work of Christmas begins…let’s do this!