next stop . . .

Riding public transportation in a large city for someone who learned to drive in an old pickup truck on a farm in northwestern Kansas where there was not likely to be another living being within several miles is nothing if not an out-of-body experience.  The Metro in D.C. is in my top 5 for being both the most useful and the most peculiar experiences of my life.  In the mornings there are often high school students on the way to a public school within the same area of Wesley Theological where I am headed.  This morning a large group of teens got on the Metro and they were particularly, lets just say, rambunctious.  I have my ipod buds in my ears reading the newspaper as all good but disengaged Washingtonians  mostly do, and at the next stop, an older women in an electric wheelchair comes bumping into the car just avoiding the closing doors.  Suddenly the teens stopped bopping around and yelling and became completely silent.  The older women, yet very stately even in the wheelchair is grinning from ear to ear and speaking to one of the teens.  I surreptitiously, sort of, took one of my earbuds out to hear the conversation.  The woman is asking the teen in front of her if he’s the “leader of the pack.”  She asks if he’s the one the rest of the group follows, and if he is, is he a happy sort of fellow?  All his peers are staring at him intently, and he stands up, pushes the bill of his cap at a tilt and says, “why yes lady, I AM the leader, and yes I AM happy!”  To which she begins to chuckle, her eyes sparkling at receiving a response.  Then all the teens start laughing at her and each other and go back to what they were doing before the interruption.  I put the earbud back in my ear, glancing at the woman’s face and upon meeting her eyes, received a knowing wink.  How smart was she?  I suddenly realized that from her “seemingly” physically vulnerable position, she had made a way of safety for herself.  Engaging these young men and women had secured their seeing her as a human being, and it is quite difficult to want harm to come to a human being, especially one who has proactively engaged an unexpected but connecting moment of life.  She knew those kids were laughing at her as much as with her, but she also knew she was in control of the interaction.  Interestingly, two of them held the doors apart until she could get her wheelchair backed out of that Metro car at a following stop – not an easy task, and also not the stop where they were headed. 

I don’t know what the teens will remember if anything from this moment in time, but I believe I saw genius at work.  Perhaps I have defined disability incorrectly.  She was certainly more “able” in that situation than I felt myself to be in my studied disinterest and disengagement in hopes of being unseen or at least ignored.  Odd thing is, I doubt I see her again in my life, but I’m wondering if I might not have learned more from her about courage and humanity and just being smart in the face of adversity than from the hundreds of pages of theology and mission in the books in which I’ve been immersed.  Ah well, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore . . .

baptism . . . confirmation . . . and beyond~

In a full and wonderful Sabbath Day, I had opportunity to meet with parents for a training on baptism for their infants; connect with a group of folks considering membership, and moved into the final class time with our confirmation students – all after a weekend full of Communion Services!  Wow,  nothing like hitting all the sacraments and a plethora of the means of grace in one short weekend.  It’s really so humbling to see people at every age and stage finding their way of connecting faith with the realities of life.  Infants, (by the way, all boys and one little girl – she may have her hands full at confirmation age!) not yet aware of God’s grace for themselves, but yet surrounded by God’s prevenient grace.  A LARGE confirmation class full of vim and vigor and spirit and possibilities who are 2 years old and 40 years old wrapped up in the same changing bodies and minds who come to make a statement of faith and experience God’s justifying grace.  And then folks who walk through our doors, invited by friends and neighbors who are seeking to live their lives of faith in difficult circumstances and hanging on to the strength of God’s abiding presence surrounded and filled by God’s sanctifying grace.  It is the best of all possible worlds to be a United Methodist pastor in this place and time.  The blessings of God’s people of Grace are beyond any human measure.  And in the moment of the Eucharist – a meeting of the spiritual and the concrete in ways that call our lives out of self-centered fear and into the possibilities of other-centered ministries and God-centered faith! 

A perscription from a pastor for the coming days:  Wash Your Hands a LOT!  Get enough sleep!  Eat healthy foods!  AND DO NOT BE AFRAID!   Move out into the world to touch God’s people with the promise and hope of a resurrected Christ!  These are great days to be in ministry, and urgent times to be messengers of God’s good news!  grace and peace for the journey . . .

life after easter

Caught in the “in-between-ness” of finite reality with the promise of eternity, how do we live the Easter story in a way that is relevant and life-giving? Having never preached Easter from the gospel of Mark in 21 years of ministry, it seems I found new life in his open-ended pause after verse 8 – it seems that if life around us is to be affected by the life of Jesus, we are the ones who make the mystery of the resurrection real by living like Jesus now. Not unlike the women in Mark’s gospel experiencing the empty tomb, much of what is here for us to do in Jesus’ name is, in fact, amazing and terrifying – and yet, what is there in life worth doing that doesn’t have some of those qualities involved? So we move forward, the excitment at a different level of daily living into the work of bringing about the realm of God in the here and now. And what of Jesus and the empty tomb? Perhaps as Mark is want leave us – space – space to become, to witness to, and to receive and give a little joy and some peace to those around us on a daily basis A bit ordinary, but maybe that which is most miraculous is sometimes simply living like Jesus in the most ordinary of days.

Staff Speaks Nov. 10

“Jesus has apparently spent the day teaching by the Sea of Galilee with the usual crowd gathered to hear him, but then evening comes and a kind of lull descends and with it the question of what were they going to do next.  Start for home maybe?  Find a place to lie down and get some rest, sign off for the day, because God knows the day has been long and hard and nobody can keep going forever? But that is not what Jesus says though there can’t have been any of them readier to call it a day than he was, the Star of the show.  He is standing at the water’s edge with his tired fishermen friends, and what he says to them is, ‘Let us go across to the other side.’  His answer to the question of what to do next, what to do with the rest of their lives is simply stated.  What he says to them is Go.  Go when you’re in your seventies at your fiftieth reunion?  Go when for better or worse your work is mostly done and your life is mostly behind you?  Go when you’re young with your life mostly ahead of you?  Go when you’re not sure why or where or how?  Yes, precisely that, Jesus says.  Go for God’s sake, and for your own sake too, and for the world’s sake. And to us too he says it, climb into your little hollowed out hull of a boat, and go.”         -Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark

It is the gospel of Jesus Christ that calls us, invites us, urges us, and challenges us as we serve the one whose good news is filled with grace and promise in every time and place.  Sometimes the gospel call comes when we are prepared, when we know it’s time, and when we’ve had a chance to put things in order to make ready.  Other times the gospel call comes, as Buechner states above, at the end of the day just when we finally feel like life is stable and it makes sense to leave things well enough alone and rest for awhile.  In those moments, the shock of change challenges us to find ways to say farewell with compassion and grace.

November 22^nd and 23^rd will be Revs. Shelly, Dustin, and Shaylin Petz final weekend of worship with us at Grace.  In each service we will give thanks as a congregation and consecrate their continued call and ministry in God’s church.  Following each service we will host a reception in their honor to both celebrate their journey in ministry with us and pray God’s blessings for their future.

What I’m more certain of with each passing day, is that God’s call on our lives, while often unexpected, is one of great blessing and wonder.  The call doesn’t stop whether we are 5 or 105.  When we have the courage to go at the call of Christ, the promise goes with us of life and light to be offered to persons in all kinds of ways and all kinds of places.

I personally give thanks for Dustin and Shelly’s work and spirit to bring us the next step of God’s vision in this place.  And I admire and respect in great humility, their willingness to go and serve as they have been called.  Let’s have a big, old, party in their honor and bring God our hearts of thanksgiving as they prepare to go and serve!

 

This is my first post

This is my first post to this blog.  I am anxious to begin this journey, but hope you will be gracious to me as I live into this new adventure.  More to come soon!