Back in the Saddle

July 7, 2017

It was only a couple days ago I finally agreed to get back in the saddle. The pastoral appointment for a nearby church fell through (those things happen in spite of everyone’s best intentions), prompting the District Superintendent to give me a call that would hopefully give her a bit of breathing room as they make more permanent arrangements. My knee-jerk response was, “Not interested,” but the very morning of the call, I was reading the story of king David’s plans to build a temple for God. When he spoke to Gad, one of his advisors, the latter’s knee-jerk response was, “Do it, for the LORD is with you.” But that night, God spoke to Gad in a dream, telling him that David wasn’t the man for the job. That task would fall to his son.

I guess knee-jerk reactions are not the best test of God’s will. My response was the exact opposite of Gad’s, but the process was identical. So I called back, telling the DS that I would consider it. That was a week ago last Tuesday. When I mentioned the matter at our Thursday morning men’s prayer group, my friend Harry blurted out, “You want to learn Spanish; so there you go!” Thanks, Harry. 

The other day, I began mapping out a series of sermons dealing with hope and change, of which this congregation has little of the former and plenty of the latter. Writing sermons has always been a challenge for me. Finding that sweet spot where the Word of God intersects the situation of the people is not as easy as it may seem. It takes a double focus on our unchanging God and our ever-changing lives. And listening deeply to the biblical story can be quite a challenge in itself. Simple stories that we tend to skim through have much to say if we take time to ponder them and place ourselves inside them. But for me to do that usually means reading, re-reading, reading again, coupled with lots of prayer and thinking.

Like Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the LORD, I wrestle with the text, refusing to let go until I get the blessing. I don’t always come away wounded, but there are times. My first Sunday’s Scripture has been bouncing around in my head for over a week, and this afternoon when I was able to get alone with the text, it finally yielded and blessed me with something worth sharing with the Dunkirk congregation. Now I am excited! And once more grateful for the amazing privilege and awesome responsibility of handling the living Word of God.

Meeting For the Right Reasons

July 6, 2017

“What do you want to do?” It was my first bass lesson since last year. Kieran, the bass professor at Fredonia College didn’t want to waste my time covering irrelevant material. Having been so long since I’ve had any guidance, my answer was immediate. 

“Without regular instruction, it is easy to fall into bad habits; I want you to review the fundamentals to make sure I’m doing things right,” instantly popped out of my mouth. He understood, and took me back to the basics, like how to hold the instrument, left-hand fingering position, how to hold the right hand when playing pizzicato, using as he put it, “physics, rather than muscle,” and holding the bow correctly for arco work. I’ve been practicing and playing regularly since last summer when I last took lessons; it’s amazing how many bad habits I picked up in the interval.

I have my work cut out for me. Kieran watched carefully, diagnosed the problems, and corrected my form. I am eager to put into practice what we worked on this morning. 

Hebrews 10:25 tells us to “not forsake assembling yourselves together, as is the manner of some, but encourage one another…” Pastors love this verse; not always for the right reasons, but we love it. What church leader doesn’t want his or her people to be faithful in attendance? It’s more fun preaching to a full house than an empty one, and empty seats don’t pay the bills. But stroking the pastor’s ego and paying the bills is not an adequate reason for wanting Christians to meet for worship each week. The real reason we are encouraged to meet regularly is the same reason I needed to resume my bass lessons; we too easily develop bad habits that prevent us from playing life’s music the way it is meant to be played. It is in the regular, disciplined gathering that we observe one another, offer the support, encouragement, and correction that helps us to improve. Practice is required, but as John Maxwell says, “Practice doesn’t make perfect; it makes permanent.” It is the meeting together that makes the perfect permanent.

I’m grateful today for this morning’s bass lesson, not only for the help I received for my playing, but also for my living.

A Higher Purpose

July 5, 2017

“Jesus wants you healed!” Anyone who’s watched any of the popular televangelists has heard words to this effect. It’s hard to argue against such a statement, even if it’s not entirely accurate. Usually, when we hear these words, they are referring to the healing of the body, but wholeness in the biblical sense is a lot deeper and more comprehensive than that. 

Healing has an impressive pedigree. In a time when people didn’t understand diseases and had little means of treating them, healing was much more than what often passes for divine healing today—a backache, toothache, recovery from surgery. So when Jesus came on the scene, healing the sick and casting out demons, people naturally flocked to him. But he was careful to link healing with the advent of God’s kingdom. In other words, it was more than getting bodies in working order. 

The same was true of Paul. He often was an agent of God’s healing, but on one occasion, he left one of his sick co-workers behind. He didn’t heal him. And his companion Epaphroditis almost died from his illness without Paul’s intervention. Apparently, healing is not always the highest priority for God, even if those who need it most might wish it were.

For the past few days, I’ve been limping around with a sore left foot and hip. It’s by no means in the same league as friends who have faced cancer, Crohn’s Disease, kidney failure. But it reminds me of the story of Jacob wrestling with God. It was a ferocious struggle lasting all night, and though God was obviously the stronger of the two, Jacob refused to give up until God, as the text says, “touched him on the hip.” I suspect it was more than a touch, as his hip was dislocated. When the sun arose, Jacob limped away from the encounter, given a princely new name by God himself. Here was one time when instead of healing the body, God was actually the source of Jacob’s bodily discomfort. I suspect that from that day on, every step Jacob took reminded him of that strange night that changed his life. 

Modern Americans seem to take it as a moral axiom that God wants us free from all pain and suffering. We analyze, medicate, and anesthetize in our quest for pain-free existence. But what if God wants to use pain to call our attention to an emotional, spiritual, moral, or social shortcoming? Jacob would never have become Israel had he not limped away from that all-night wrestling match. I know that I tend to sail through life oblivious to those sins and shortcomings that prevent me from becoming the man God intends me to be. Discomfort, whether it be physical, emotional, or relational, drives me to my knees and makes me realize how dependent I am upon the grace of Christ. I don’t like the pain in my foot and hip, but I am grateful for how it opens my eyes to the deeper issues of life.  

Feet and Freedom

July 4, 2017

Hobbling around like an old man is not how I envisioned spending the Fourth of July. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining. I may be hobbling, but I am still getting around. Just not as easily as I did a week ago. Two years ago, it was my right foot. “Plantar Fasciitis” was the diagnosis, commonly but inappropriately called a heel spur. There is no spur, and the problem isn’t the heel, but the tendons that spread across the bottom of the foot. For whatever reason, they get inflamed, and the pain is felt primarily in the heel.

Last time, I went to a podiatrist who prescribed arch supports in my shoes. When that didn’t work, he resorted to cortisone shots in my heel. Twice. Lots of fun, that was! Finally, I was able to arrange for physical therapy. Twice a week for six weeks, I showed up, limped my way through the waiting room and into the therapy room littered with tables, weights, machines, and therapists. I was instructed in a series of exercises which I did faithfully, after which one of the therapists would massage my foot before icing it.

Apparently my left foot felt left out (Get it?). It was missing out on all the fun, especially the tender massages by some very nice women. So, a few days ago, it started complaining. “Hey you up there; when do I get to see a little action?” I tried to ignore it. You know, as in, “ignore it, and it will go away.” It didn’t. 

Work still needs to be done, so after taking my son to look at some antique Harley Davidsons for sale, I climbed a ladder to remove an old telephone wire from the house, then another one to sweep the leaves and detritus from the garage roof. After yesterday’s work on my motorcycle and truck, my foot had had enough. By the time we headed to son Matt’s for dinner, it was throbbing. So I hobbled. 

Everyone today is talking about freedom. I haven’t checked social media, but I know it will be filled with posts urging me to ‘like’ or ‘share’ dozens of posts as a sign of my patriotism. I’m not sure how doing so makes me patriotic, but I understand the sentiment. Even though we live in an increasingly bureaucratic state that daily nibbles away at our freedom to live as we choose without interference, we value the concept of freedom. 

My foot reminds me with each painful step what freedom is all about. It’s not freedom to do anything we want; that can quickly become a moral and spiritual bondage to those who choose such a course of action. True freedom is the ability to do what we ought, in the way we ought. There were things I needed to do today, and I did them, but not easily, and not without pain. I didn’t have the freedom to do all the good I would have chosen. Our kids and grandkids went to the beach after dinner. They were going to swim, kayak, and watch the fireworks. Normally, I would have chosen to join them, but after a day’s worth of limping, just going home sounded pretty good to me. 

Linda has been researching plantar fasciitis, and learned that it is caused by small tears in the plantar that if not adequately rested, can worsen and cause permanent damage. Nice. I guess I’ll need to take things a bit easier for awhile so it can heal. Anyway, this Fourth of July, I am grateful for the freedoms we have, and to be reminded by a sore foot that there are many ways freedom can be lost, but only one way for it to be maintained: by paying attention to the little injuries that over time add up, limiting our capacity to live fully and serve well.

Living on the Edge

July 3, 2017

The creek in our backyard was rushing after the rain the other day. Usually, it’s an ordinary, run-of-the-mill creek, flowing steadily, if not always swiftly, shallow enough for even little kids to splash and play in it. Most of the time, we can wade to the other side without the water coming more than halfway up our boots. But after a rain, it’s another story. It rages so that to try to cross would be foolishly dangerous. Our dog Emma tried it the day before yesterday, and found herself being swept downstream as she crossed. She didn’t like it one bit. 

I was watching the flow as Emma struggled to cross. Midstream, the water moved swiftly around the bend and downstream. At the far bank however, a rock jutted out just far enough to create an eddy where the water swirled, flowing back on itself in a seemingly endless cycle. It got me to thinking. A water bug living in the eddy would see life very differently than one caught in the main flow. It’s the same stream, but the experience of it would be dramatically different, depending on where that bug found itself. Midstream would be a wild and exciting journey to new places; the eddy nothing but an endless cycle of the same monotonous sweep, almost breaking out to midstream, but always being caught in the backdraft that swiftly erased any progress made. 

I realize that water bugs aren’t concerned with whether or not they are in an eddy or in the mainstream. A bug is only a bug. But we humans have brains, if we care to use them. We have the capacity to look around us and learn. As I watched, I thought of the difference between living at the edge and living in the mainstream.

She lived on the edge. Literally. Her house spanned the space between the inner and outer wall of the city. Perhaps she lived on the edge of the city because for her, life itself was spent on the margins of society. You see, she was a prostitute, not exactly a Fortune 500 business. She was caught in a moral and societal eddy, at times hoping for something better, but always dragged back by the current that swept others to their dreams. But living on the edge at times gave her an edge. Her line of work made her privy to the gossip and information that could come in handy if things took a turn for the worse. 

On this particular evening, two strangers slunk warily into her establishment and sat in the shadows in a corner. She knew what that meant; two men a long way from home. But in the course of the evening, she learned who they were and what they wanted. And it was more than what she usually had to offer. Sometimes it takes living on the margins to see clearly. She saw what others were seeing, but she was the only one who really saw. She told the spies that the entire countryside was trembling in fear, having heard the rumors repeated for an entire generation. The armies of the mightiest superpower on earth were humbled by the people who were now at their very doors. Everyone from the high and mighty to the lowest of the low knew what was coming, but only this prostitute actually saw. And seeing, she threw her lot in with these two men, gambling her very life in hope against hope that this time, she might be able to break out of that eddy on the edge of the stream. 

It paid off. This prostitute who lived on the margins, who had to settle for counterfeit love, finally broke free into the most mainstream of them all. Rahab the prostitute, spared when Jericho fell, eventually married one of the conquerors and had a baby. That baby’s name was Boaz, the very same Boaz who married Ruth, who became the great-grandmother of David, the king, who was the ancestor of Jesus Christ, Savior of the world.

I wonder about those living on the edges. Where I live, they are all around me, to the mainstream, nameless people who can’t seem to get any breaks. But it is here, at the margins, on the edges, where God is at work. It only remains for us to open our eyes to see, and to make ourselves available to God. Maybe tomorrow I can be a spy for Jesus, giving someone on the edge the opportunity to break free and become the Christ-bearer they were created to be. I am praying for it to be so, and thanking God that tonight, he has helped me see the edges by looking at our creek.

Where Are You?

July 2, 2017

Elijah was in a tight spot. He had challenged the corrupt religious and political powers that held Israel in a vice-like grip, and had won. In a toe-to-toe challenge, he bested 450 prophets of Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility. In a semi-arid land like Israel, where crop failure could mean famine and death, the fertility of the land was critical, and seeking divine favor was no small matter. Today, we might properly call Baal the god of prosperity, who is worshipped with equal devotion by both secular and religious people.

Elijah won the immediate challenge, but hadn’t reckoned with the fury of a woman scorned. Jezebel was more than a match for the bravest of opponents, and when Elijah learned of her threats on his life, he knew better than to stick around to see if she was serious. He ran. Fast and far. Once out of immediate danger, he stopped just long enough to rest and eat before heading into the desert to Horeb, the Mosaic mountain of God. It was there that everything changed.

Elijah had been questioning God, asking why he, a faithful servant, was being so mistreated. Although Jezebel was the reason for his exile, he was blaming God for not taking better care of him. “I’m the only faithful one left, and look at what you have allowed to happen to me,” was his complaint. This isn’t merely Elijah’s story; it’s ours, too. I have heard, “Where are you, God?” countless times in countless forms over the course of my life; people demanding that God answer their troubles to their selfish satisfaction.

What if in those times when we ask, “Where are you, God?” He is asking us the same question?  “Where are you, Jim? Where are you hiding? Where is your heart? Where are your real loyalties? Where is your faith? Where are you?” I suspect that if instead of asking God where he is when trouble comes, we actually listened, we would hear God questioning us. Our answer to his question might go a long way towards helping us become the persons we were meant to be. The next time, when trouble comes your way, instead of asking, “Where are you, God,” try listening to his question to you: “Where are YOU?” 

I am thankful tonight for this morning’s worship team devotional that put my mental gears in motion, and for the Scriptures that continue to give insight into life, revealing not only who and where God is, but who and where I am.

Perseverance

July 1, 2017

Today’s exercise in frustration revolves around my motorcycle. It’s due for inspection, but the rear brakes have been marginal lately. Marginal as in pretty much non-functional. I’ve been eager to get at this job ever since I bought a handy-dandy brake gauge that measures the diameter of the drum, then transfers the info to the shoes. The factory travel setting for the shoes is .17 inches. Using a feeler gauge and this tool, adjusting the travel in the shoes is a cinch! Or so they said. One of the commercials for a certain automobile has a young man with a perpetual smile on his face, driving his newborn baby repeatedly around the block and through the neighborhood. The tag line is that “you’ll look for a reason to drive it.” Really? I’ve never seen anyone with a fussy baby in back grinning like a fool. As with elections, Reality is always somewhat different than the campaign. 

After boiling the shoes to remove any grease that might have soaked into the babbet, and adjusting the brake shoes to the recommended tolerances, I tried putting the wheel back on the bike. No dice. I re-measured and tried again. There was no way the drum was going to fit over the shoes. Finally, I tossed the gauge aside and used trial and error, backing off the adjusters a little at a time, till the wheel slipped peacefully over the drum. It only took about twelve times putting the wheel on, taking it off, adjusting the cam, putting it on, taking it off, adjusting the cam.

I haven’t yet road tested it. The sidecar brakes need to be matched to the drive wheel so when I hit the brakes, the bike doesn’t careen to the left. In traffic, that would not be a good idea. As I worked and sweat (I forgot to mention how humid it was; the sweat was pouring off my brow onto my glasses, making it so I had to wipe them down every couple minutes so I could see what I was doing), I thought of the Bible word “perseverance.” It’s not how well we start, but how we finish, that counts. St. Paul said, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” (1 Corinthians 9:27). He wanted to finish well, and did so, for near the end of his life, he wrote to Timothy, saying, “I have fought a good fight, have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” Too often, we quit before reaching the goal, never experiencing the satisfaction of having finished what we started, simply because the task is difficult. 

People often think of retirement as a time to take it easy. I’m taking things a bit more slowly than before, but taking it easy seems to me to be an abdication of the reason God put me here on earth. Doors are opening for ministry, and I’m ready to walk through them. It may take some trial and error, but one thing I know: I won’t quit. I’m thankful tonight for today’s practice in perseverance. I suspect it will come in handy in the days, weeks, and months to come.