Taking a Cell Phone Sabbath

This summer, Sheryl, the kids and I went to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for some rest and relaxation.  Fortunately for me, our cell phones didn't have international coverage.  When the plane began to taxi down the Dallas runway, I turned off the cell phone and kept it on airplane mode for about ten days.

I didn't listen to voice mail.

I didn't read any text messages.

I didn't check my email.

I didn't even check into Facebook.

As the days rolled on, I felt myself unwinding.  I didn't even know I had been tense - at least not consciously.   But as I began to relax, I realized how much I needed to get away.

I love being a pastor.  I love going into the church everyday.  I love visiting with people.  I even love connecting with all of my friends, relatives and colleagues on Facebook.   But I discovered that I also needed to reboot.  Like a computer whose memory has slowed way down, I needed to shut down and start over.

We got to do some of the things that I love such as swim in the ocean.  The surf right outside our hotel was a little rough for snorkeling but the view of Land's End was spectacular.

Kyla (on the right) and I relax in the Sea of Cortez.
Just beyond the rocks is the Pacific Ocean.

One afternoon, I was floating on my back and just being. When your ears are under the water as you float, you can hear the sand moving under you.  To me, it seems as if there are lots of little sea creatures "clicking" beneath me. As I look at the sky above and hear the sounds of the ocean below, it reminds me of how really big our planet is.

To commune with the creation is to know the creator - at least in part.

It reminded me that I'm not indispensable.  Oh, I would be missed for a while but the world is a big place.  An incredibly large part of the universe functions just fine without me and the place I call my home will do the same.  While I intrinsically know this, overtly remembering it tends to take some of the pressure off.

Take a deep breath.

Let it out.

After getting back, I feel that I am functioning at a higher capacity.  God was here with me before I left.  God was with me on the trip and God is still here now that I'm back.  God didn't change but I did.

The call to help people - to make a difference - to offer living water - is still there.  But the anxiety that had built up has dissipated.

I'm reminded of the Gloria Patri:

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.

Amen.

Amen.

Living in Oklahoma

Picture by DVDSHUB on Flickr

Earlier this week, Oklahomans were once again forced into shelters as another F5 tornado brought
destruction upon our people.     I was with some of our church's middle schoolers when I first heard the news that Moore was being hit yet again.  The news got worse: an elementary school was leveled and they were trying to dig out the children from the rubble.

We paused what we were doing and circled up to pray for those families who lost lives, who lost homes and for the rescue workers trying to help in this time of crisis.  We eventually found out that 24 people died in the storm.  Ten of those were children and infants.

Two years ago, our community of Piedmont faced an F5 tornado and we also lost lives but were more fortunate that it took a less populated path.  "Fortunate" being a word for statistics really.  If you personally lost a loved one or a pet or a home, the use of this word becomes ridiculous.   

When we are hit with this kind of magnitude, it is hard not to take it personally.  Is someone out to get us?  Have we done something wrong?  Many people in the media begin to turn to these kinds of questions and you often hear a wide variety of answers.  As a professional theologian, more than a few of the answers leave me cringing.

Some of the cringe-worthy responses come from my fellow clergy.

Comments that Pat Robertson made in 2012 with regards to a tornado resurfaced and hopefully, no one gave his ideas too much credit.  He claimed that people shouldn't live in a place where tornadoes were likely to crop up.  This is a more scientific statement in that we do know that we live in a state where severe weather is more likely to happen.  I still remember my seminary friends asking me about the movie, Twister that came out when I was living in Georgia.

"Why would you want to live there?"

At the time I mentioned that there weren't any earthquakes and that is mostly still true. We don't have any hurricanes and we don't have a lot of landslides.  Being an Oklahoman gives one an attitude.  When you live through something like this, you become a survivor and we are stronger for it.  Paul mentioned this in Romans about suffering producing endurance which leads to character which gives us hope.  I believe this is true.

However, it is still a pretty insensitive thing to throw in someone's face when they have just lived through a nightmare.  Not very pastoral of Mr. Robertson to ask tornado victims why they live in a place that is known for the inclement weather.

The other thing he said was that those in the path of the tornado should have prayed harder.  This becomes a double-dose of blaming the victims.  It could lead people to say:

"Why should we help them?  They shouldn't have been living there in the first place - they knew the risks!  And even if they did choose to live there, they should have had more faith!"

This is the moral equivalent of a pastor telling a family that they should have prayed harder for healing for the loss of their loved one to cancer.

Nothing like piling on with the guilt when you are grieving, right?

Picture by U.S. Dept. of Defense on Flickr

And still we grieve and wonder.  The questions I hear the most for Moore are, "Why the school?"

Why did the tornado have to destroy an elementary school?  And if we were praying for safety, why wouldn't God alter the path - change the laws of physics - suspend reality as we know it for just a moment?

Why are some spared while others die?

In all my reading, thinking and praying, I've not ever developed a sufficient answer for this question.

In spite of our lack of understanding, the Christian response should be clear: God grieves with us.  

God is the one motivating us to move to help in times of need.  And in Oklahoma, lots of people listen to God. We have an amazing community of people that do the right thing when they see people in trouble.

Why would you live in Oklahoma?

Because the people there very often do have eyes to see and ears to hear.  They have arms and hands that will hold onto you when you are in need.

That doesn't make me cringe at all.
  

Coping with Tragedy

For me personally, dealing with an event that is far away like the terror bombing in Boston always seems so surreal.  I was living in Georgia when the Oklahoma City bombing happened in 1995.  I still remember watching CNN and seeing the smoke rolling out of the large hole in the Murrah building.  It was real and yet not real at the same time.  I was so distant in geography - feeling that I couldn't do anything to help.  This inability to make a positive impact may be what made it seem somewhat unreal.  One coping mechanism most human beings use is to distance ourselves emotionally rather than face the grief.

As a person of action, when the tornado hit Piedmont two years ago, I stayed very busy and active in trying to help people put their lives back together.  What helped me to cope with the chaos was to help others cope with the chaos.  The helpless feeling when looking on our brothers and sisters in Boston is difficult.

With the mass shootings such as Columbine or Virginia Tech or Aurora, Colorado or Newtown, Connecticut, we mourn with the victims and grieve with their families.  The perpetrators of the violence are known almost immediately and we are soon given a portrait of them by the media.  We discover their mental illnesses and can put a label (madness) on why it happened.

In the hours following Oklahoma City or 9/11 however, we didn't know immediately the cause for such destruction.  Until we find out who did it, we fear that more attacks may occur.

Was this a Ted Kaczynski-type?  Or was it another Osama bin Laden?

I preached on injustice on Sunday as we looked at the plight of Joseph from Genesis 39 going from slavery to jail even though he didn't do anything wrong.  I'm sure that there were many times when Joseph asked God, "Why me, Lord?"  but the Bible doesn't reflect any soul-searching on his part.

What's clear is that God remains with Joseph in his plight.  It seems clear to me that Joseph's unjust slavery and imprisonment was not caused by God to somehow teach Joseph a lesson.  This doesn't mean that with God's help, Joseph didn't learn anything or didn't come out stronger because of it.

Whenever families go through tragedies such as this, sometimes they look for their own answers because it is

Martin Richard, 8, died in the bombing at the
Boston Marathon.  I look at my own 9 year old
son and my heart aches for his family.

so deeply personal for them. They do ask God, "Why me, Lord?"

It is not uncommon for parents to wonder if they are somehow being punished for their sins when faced with the loss of their children.  This is because we want to have some control over our lives. When children face terminal illness, parents will often seek to bargain with God for healing.  My response to the tornado was to get out and help which is compassionate and faithful but also a way to re-exert control over the chaos.  Similarly, a theological questioning may be a quest for answers - a quest to have some control over the chaos.

We used this prayer on Sunday.  It is written by Katye Fox, a 2000 Masters of Divinity graduate of the Candler School of Theology (my alma mater) and is based on Mark 4:35-41.  I pray that it would be helpful for those in Boston and anyone struggling with the chaos right now.

O Christ, Calmer of the Seas,

    You call us across to the other side.

    You call us to come and go with you

               even as the storms around us swell.

Cry out to the winds, “Be still.”

Cry out to us, “Peace.”

Do this, O Lord,

               so that we can safely arrive on others shores.

               so that we may find within you and within ourselves

                             reminders of the faith we so deeply need.

In your name, O Creator of the water and the wind. 

               Amen.

Good Influences

When I was in college, I had one large reservation about becoming a pastor in a church: I didn't think that I wanted to write a paper each week and give a speech on it which was primarily how I saw the task of the sermon. 

The church had done much to shape and nurture me.  At the tender age of 14, our children's minister Virginia Gray asked me to be a leader for 6th grade camp.  Even after getting into trouble at my own senior high camp (a story for another blog post), she called me and asked if I thought I was ready for this responsibility.  I humbly said that I was and she took a chance on me.  It worked out well and I worked that camp each summer for years.

I remained active in the church even through college.  I served as a resident custodian at the Wesley Foundation which was our campus ministry in Stillwater.  Whenever our campus minister, John Rusco, had seminary recruiters show up, he always made sure that I was around to visit with them.  John had a passion for thinking through the faith.  This style resonated with me and had me thinking that maybe some form of ministry would be in my future.

I remember praying about this and asking God if I was really called to be a pastor.  I still didn't like the idea of weekly sermons but I thought to make a compromise.  I enjoyed my summer church internships helping with youth programs and so if a job presented itself, I would work as a youth minister to see if this was really where God was calling me to be.

Shortly after I had come to this decision, the phone rang and it was Lynn Tegeler on the other end.  She told me that New Haven United Methodist Church in Tulsa asked her to apply for their full time youth minister position opening up.  She told them that she already had a job and didn't feel called to work with youth full time but that she knew someone who would be good for the job.  Lynn and I had worked together in the summer for Boston Avenue UMC and in spite of this, she still gave them my name.  

Now I'm not a huge providence guy, but I clearly remember the surreal feeling and asking God, "There's really not much of a choice here, is there?"

I interviewed and was given the job where I got to know Ken Tobler (the senior pastor) and Linda Harker (the children's minister) on that staff. They taught me about working with others on a church staff and while the overwhelming majority of the congregation was great, I did learn that not everyone leads with grace all the time!

Chris Porter took this picture of me sharing my growth and
maturity with Christina Mallory at church camp. Sadly, this
was only a few years ago - it may be that I was
helping her remember her baptism.  

It was a wonderful time for me for growth and maturity.  I felt my call to ministry solidifying.

And yet, I still had this hesitation for preaching...

Fortunately, my frugality came in to help me out. My friend, Van Hawxby was also a youth minister in Arkansas and he was working at a church in Little Rock.  They had money set aside to bring someone in each year to lead a youth retreat.  He told me that his church would pay me $400 to come do this event.  It seemed like a no-brainer to me.  But there was a catch.  You had to preach at the Sunday morning worship service.  It was a pretty big congregation and they also broadcast over local radio.  

I decided that God must be behind this.

I did my best to write a credible sermon.  I practiced it until I had it memorized and had this nervous excitement that Sunday morning.  I preached and found that this was right.  It was what God had been calling me to do all along.  

This was around twenty years ago.  I still have an excitement for preaching and continue to live out my calling as an ordained pastor in the church.  God's calling comes to us both internally and externally.  It was internal in how I was shaped and nurtured in the faith - how my prayers, thoughts and feelings with God moved me to consider this as an option.  It was external in that people in the church interacted with me and pushed me in this direction.  They saw something in me that corresponded to what was going on inside.

If you are wondering about God's call upon your life, I would invite you to be open (maybe even open to checking out this cool link or event). Don't allow hesitations or fears to shut God down.  In the long run, I don't think it will work anyway!

Hear My Faith

Fellow clergy, Jeremy Smith is promoting a synchblog for the upcoming Exploration 2013 event for the United Methodist's General Board on Higher Education and Ministry.  I will be participating and sharing my own answers to the question, "Who called you on the journey of ministry?"

As I begin to think about how I answer this for my upcoming blog, I reconnected with the song, "Seal My Fate" by Belly (it happened to be playing on internet radio).




Tanya Donnelly's lyrics are just vague enough to lend a great variety to the interpretation. As I'm thinking about call to ministry, the passage from Isaiah's own call to ministry came to me.

Isaiah's Lips Anointed
with Fire by
Benjamin West

As Donnelly sings:

  Unholy and dirty words I gathered to me,
 Thinking the point was keep what's mine for me,
 While he's laughing.
 Hear my faith.
 Seal my fate. 

it reminds me of Isaiah's own declaration that he's a man of unclean lips.  In his vision, the angels purify him with fire and he responds, "Here I am, Send Me."

Donnelly also expresses the uncertainty of the spiritual experience:

   And if you think you've finally found the perfect light,
 I hope it's true. 

and

  I'd like to see it happen. I hope it's true
 'cause I can feel it.
 I hope it's true.

The call of God pulls us in sometimes risky directions that turn our previous plans upside down.  At the end of the day, we hope in faith that it is true.  The song expresses to me a sense that it's almost too good to be true - there is a hesitancy there.

This may be a universal sensation when we encounter grace.

Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013

Today's Reading: Luke 24:1-53

Reading the entire chapter I think is more satisfying for Easter than just hearing the first twelve verses which is the traditional lectionary reading for Luke.

The later verses are prescribed for Easter evening but most pastors (& laity) are worn out from all the Holy Week services to have a Sunday evening worship service.

But as we read them here, we complete the picture of Easter.  From the empty tomb, to the encounter on the road to Emmaus in the breaking of the bread, to the appearance to the eleven remaining disciples, to the ascension, we see the whole story as Luke paints it.

The Three Marys at the Tomb Resurrection Morning
by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1910

Each of these stories speaks to us as people of faith. There are time when our experience of Jesus is more like the empty tomb - we are able to observe where the risen Christ has been.  We see evidence of his presence and we wonder with awe at what has happened.

There are other times when we have the experience of the living God within the sacrament of Holy Communion or at worship and we see Christ in the breaking of the bread.

There are other times when we experience the call of Christ on our lives to go out and be a witness: to share truth in love with our neighbors.

However you experience the risen Christ, I pray that your faith will be strengthened.  As we've read through these devotions over these past forty days, we've seen a portrait of our Lord that is unique to Luke.  May the living Christ grow stronger in you that you might more often shine God's light into the hearts and lives of those who are hurting, lost and lonely.  As you do this and witness lives transformed, you too may be overwhelmed with joy!

Day 40 of Lent, Saturday, March 30, 2013

Today's Reading: Luke 23:26-56

Luke gives a rich tapestry of the passion scene in today's reading.  The women who are present throughout Luke's gospel continue with Jesus until the very end.  They follow him as he carries the cross and are present at the cross when he dies.

Roman Centurion from Passion of the Christ.  Although
excessive in violence for my tastes, the film offers
excellent visuals in sets and costumes.

We also have a variety of people shown such as Simon of Cyrene, who carried the cross beam for Jesus as well as the two criminals executed with Jesus.

We have the Roman centurion who seems to come to deeper conviction about Jesus.  And we have Joseph of Arimathea, a member of the council who was in the minority  among his peers when it came to the identity of Jesus.

I wonder if the early church in Luke's day (writing about 50-60 years after Jesus' earthly ministry) would have had a richer lore about these people than we have today.  They were people of faith who were important to the story - each attesting in their own way to who Jesus was for them.

As we consider the story of Jesus in our own lives, we must also look to the variety of people of faith that we encounter.  Some believing much as we do while others have a different understanding of God.  Some may be more faithful than we are while others may scorn our beliefs.

At the end of the day, we are reminded of the words of Jesus only found in Luke, "Forgive them Father for they don't know what they're doing."

This is the end.  And yet...