Hyper-partisanship is starting to wear on me. I’m tired of walking up to people that used to make my heart sing when I saw them and wondering if they are happy to see me or are they thinking, “There’s Jim with the crazy theology and ill-informed political views.”

It seems like there is always something to fuss about. This week the argument buffet offered everything from the silly (hamburgers at the Whitehouse and razor blade commercials) to the serious (government shut down and racism). It doesn’t matter what it is. We’re like Pavlov’s dog. Someone reports something and we all throw on our team jerseys and get busy trying to prove that the other team is completely wrong. Every week it’s deja vu all over again. The one thing every media outlet agrees on is that we are living in an us/them world.

Two things:
1) I find it hard, very hard, not to get caught up in it.
2) It is not even remotely close to God’s hope for us.

I became even more certain about that second one as I recently pondered some very familiar lines.

First of all, it jumped out at me one morning that The Lord’s Prayer sure says our, we, and us a lot. That’s three “ours”, five “us’”, one “we”, not to mention a petition for God’s will to be done on earth, as opposed to God’s will being done in a particular country, state, or group of people, and just to bang home the point, the first “our” is the lead-off batter. Not a single “I” or “me”.

Secondly, I was recently reading something by Cynthia Bourgeault and she pointed out that the great commandment, “love your neighbor as yourself,” doesn’t say “love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Note the difference. If it was “as you love yourself” we would first seek to love ourselves, then we would seek to love our neighbor, a separate person, in the same way we love ourselves. You’ve probably heard things along those lines. But, loving as yourself means you see your neighbor as an extension of you. In other words we/our/us is one. We not only share the same planet and the same time, we are as connected as my ears are to my eyes; one body as the Apostle Paul says.

Oh, and don’t look for a loophole by asking Jesus to define neighbor. Another guy tried that and it kinda blew up on him. Turns out Samaritans, in other words those folks that you are sure are out, are in.

Again, this is not to say it isn’t hard. Our prayer also mentions trespassing; or debts or sins, depending your religious family. It also talks about forgiveness and being delivered. Irritations happen. There will be times, obviously, when we disagree; often about important things. There will be times when we are called to speak the truth, to remind one another of justice, and remind one another to listen to the better angels. There will still be times that I am completely baffled by your opinion and there will certainly be times that you think, “There’s Jim with the crazy theology and the ill-informed political view.” But I’m going try to stop wearing any team jersey other than the one that says Christ and I’m going to try to remember that even if you happen to be sporting a different one that particular day, underneath you are wearing the Christ jersey too.

Giving in to division is giving in to a lie. It is destructive. Our Father, forgive us.

I journeyed through Advent this year wrestling with my current life’s persistent question: If a preacher retires to the forest, does he make a sound? Somehow I emerged into the new year with a new motto for 2019: To do the concert even if no one is coming.
It came to me as I watched the YouTube video, II Andante (Rutter’s Gloria) that Andrea Lingle of Mission Wisdom Foundation suggested as part of an online course, “Advent: into the Light and Dark.”
It was a concert piece that featured a huge orchestra and choir. Every member was dressed immaculately, the musicians in the strings section moved their bows as if they were synchronized dancers, and of course, the music was wondrous.
There were so many people on stage it occurred to me that they could possibly outnumber the audience. Then I wondered, what if they did? What if there were twice as many people on stage? What if there were only a handful of folks in the audience? What if no one came? Did they still make a sound? Of course they did. It was an offering.
And there it was: To do the concert even if no one is coming.
To do the concert; to sing the song, light the candle, write the book, love others, make an extravagant offering, smile at the guy in Walmart, speak truth to power, hug my wife… Do the concert; learn my part, practice, buy the suit, get there on time, give it my best, offer it…like the lily no one ever sees, like the waterfall that cascades when no one is there, like the crow that shouts “look!” and no one hears, and yes, like the tree that gives up reaching for the sun and crashes to the earth, to do the concert – even if no one is coming. Not because some day in heaven the guy from Walmart will walk up and say, “Man, I sure needed that smile that day.” Do the concert because we are invited to join the orchestra, to be a part, to play a tune for the Creator, even if no one else hears.
A couple of life times ago, I was a house painter and the fellow I worked with always painted the tops of the door frames, edges of the baseboard, behind the toilets, everywhere that lacked paint, even if no one would ever see it. His reasoning? “The angels will see it.”
More recently, one of my hiking buddies and I took our lunch break on a large stone that had been sitting right there, watching a billion years unfold. As we ate our p-nut butter sandwiches, we marveled at the tiny flowers on the wilderness floor, the massive hardwood trees all around, the crazy blue sky behind the leaves, and the noisy creek below us. We breathed mountain air and heard several birds calling out.
“Boy, God sure is wasteful with beauty,” my guy said. “I think you mean extravagant,” I replied. He slowly nodded, “Yes, yes I do.”
To do the concert. To join in the extravagant concert.

Andrea Lingle, in the new book Rooted in Grace: Essays on Dialogue Without Division, says, “Christians began, not as people of the cross, but as people of the table… the table reminds us of our fundamental need for others.”

The recently passed Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin sang it this way: “You need me (need me) And I need you (don’t you know it?) Without each other there ain’t nothing neither can do.”

God’s folks haven’t always got this right.

I remember as a boy eating lunch at the table in my aunt’s kitchen while a few feet away, a screen door separating us, sitting on the brick wall in the carport, the African-American woman who had been cleaning the house that morning ate her sandwich from home. When I asked why she wasn’t at the table with us, the answer my uncle gave was, “She’d rather eat with her kind.” Like I said, God’s folks haven’t always got this table thing right.

In the epistle to the Galatians we find the apostle Paul’s version of a run in with the apostle Peter concerning the table. Paul says that they were all in Antioch, enjoying one another’s company, eating together during dinner until some of the rules guys from Jerusalem came to town. Somehow these brothers had gleaned from the scriptures that good Jews were not to eat with gentiles and according to Paul, Peter got a bit timid and joined the Jerusalem party for supper.

That seems odd to me since it was Peter who went to Cornelius, a Roman soldier’s, house and when the Spirit fell on the gentiles, he went back to Jerusalem and said, “Guys, all I know is that the Spirit told me to not call anyone profane or unclean and it looks to me like the gentiles are as in with God as we are.” (See Acts 10)

Maybe that day in Antioch Peter hadn’t really thought it out. Maybe he was just sitting with some old friends, catching up on stuff from home. Maybe he was telling them that the idea of two tables was silly and he wanted to introduce his old friends to his new friends. All we know is that Paul interrupted with a rather forceful, “Dude, you’re sitting at the wrong table.” This table stuff was important to Paul.

Paul wanted everyone at the same table or everyone in the carport. For Paul, there wasn’t a gentile table and a Jewish table. There was only the Jesus table and everyone is invited and welcome there. In fact, that may be the table litmus test: Is everyone welcome? Is everyone valued? Is everyone needed?

It’s worth pointing out that Paul didn’t go to the rule keepers’ table and say that they needed to include the others. He essentially said that the exclusive table was invalid and the rules boys needed to fix themselves a plate of humility and take a seat with the “outsiders.”

Pondering that could help us see the Lord’s Table in an entirely different light. Folks like me (housed, straight, white, no ink, educated, male, ordained, citizen, relatively clean police record… ) aren’t actually called to welcome the people my aunt and uncle were uncomfortable with at all. The call on my life is to get up from where me and my buds are sitting, get over to Jesus’ table and say, “Would it be OK if I sat here?”
I need you. You need me.

(My wife, Kathryn, has a couple of essays in the book, Rooted in Grace. She told me not to say that so if you see her, don’t tell her.)

“Live long enough and the people you love get old.” (Lori McKenna)

The song with those words was playing in my head as I sat in the nursing home and listened to my ninety-one year old Dad say for perhaps the one hundred and fifty-sixth time, “If I could just get out of the bed by myself, stand up and walk, things would be so much easier. Of course, if I could do that I’d walk right out of here. (pause for chuckle) But, if you can’t be home, this is not a bad place to be. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for.” It’s a safe bet that in a couple of days, when I make my regular Sunday afternoon call we will hit one hundred and fifty-seven.

Of course he’s not the only one getting old. The other day I was looking at Jim the Grey in the mirror and it occurred to me that I am a senior citizen in every measurable way, excluding maturity. Not sure how or when that happened. It seems like I was a young man forever but I only got to be a regular adult for about three weeks.

When you officially reach the fall season in life it is hard to get your mind around how much time has gone by since that fellow in the nursing home was a twenty-five year old smoking a cigarette in the waiting room when he heard, “Congratulations Mr. Hunter, it’s a boy.”

Sometimes I lie in bed at night and think, “For crying out loud, my daughters are older than I feel.” Maybe I should stop thinking of them as seventeen year olds. But as I often say, “I’m not complaining. I’m just noticing.” (Actually, I have no memory of ever saying that but I like it so I’m going to start often saying it.)

All the graying and lack of body cooperation aside, one of the unexpected discoveries of this season is that, if one is so inclined, growth in spirit continues. Sometimes it feels as if it has even accelerated. It’s almost embarrassing.

I mean you’d think that after committing to team Christ in 1971, earning a couple or three degrees, being an ordained minister for thirty- bunch years, and qualifying for Medicare a fellow would feel like more than an apprentice in life. Yet every day creation shares a new secret, sacred words bring new insight, life is found in community, justice feels more urgent, prayer is more intimate, and the Christ in everyone becomes a little clearer.

On days that I want to try imagining the unimaginable I give listening to the younger folks a whirl. I try to imagine what they are seeing from their spot on the continuum of life and I wonder what they will be seeing, feeling, thinking many years from now when they are lying in their beds thinking, “For crying out loud…” I certainly hope that the young ones in my life will be realizing, as I presently am, that “life-long learner” isn’t just a cliché.

Like I said, sometimes it’s a little embarrassing. Seems like I should have gotten some of this stuff earlier. I should have taken a lot of stuff more seriously, a lot of stuff less seriously. I guess I’m a late bloomer.

One of the cool things about being retired is that I get the opportunity to have more interaction with people that don’t consider church a part of their life. Nothing against church folks, and I always intended to befriend more people outside the church when I was a pastor, but when an introvert like me spends 50 or so hours a week planning, worshiping, learning, working and playing with church members, his aren’t people fun tank is getting pretty close to empty.

Now that my church life consists of worshiping and just a tiny bit of planning and working, I get to be with folks in more secular settings (Though I don’t think they call it “secular settings.” I think they call it life.)

Occasionally when people discover that I am a retired pastor, they feel a need to let me know that they used to attend church but now they are done with it and have declared for the atheist team. I’m cool with that. In fact, I want to hear more about it because often we have more in common than my unbelieving friends may suspect.

They tell me that they can’t believe in a god that is judgmental and harsh toward people that don’t follow a narrow set of rules or believe a certain way. I tell them I can’t either. They say they are more inclined to kindness and peace and they believe that how we treat one another is more important than what we believe. I think the Spirit concurs.

They say they are committed to a scientific view of the world and can’t throw out researched and tested truth about the life of the universe. I tell them that I am with them there as well. I believe that when Jesus said that he is the Truth it wasn’t meant to be a statement that limits or opposes those who seek scientific truth. I believe it means that whenever we encounter things that are true like ancient geology, vast astronomy, and history that indicates evolution, we see God’s fingerprint. I believe that creation exposes the Creator and I am awed by that. Richard Rohr says that when we find truth, we find Christ.

They say that they won’t follow a god that allows horrible human suffering. Ok, now they are getting closer to some of things that trouble me as well but I do not believe that God is the one to blame for the suffering that we either inflict on one another or allow to continue, and my guess is that we would be surprised at the ways that the Spirit stands with and sides with those who are in great pain. In fact, the good theologians and sound Bible scholars tell us that God has a preference for the poor and suffering.

So, when folks tell me they have left the church and are done with god I am not disturbed but my question for them is this; now that you’ve left where are you going? If the answer is that you are moving toward kindness, peace, reality, and standing with those who are suffering, I would like for you to consider the possibility that when you experience these things you are experiencing the true God, the one who said he is the way, truth, and life. Try not to hear those words as some want you to, narrow and exclusive. Try to hear them as an invitation to a spacious, truthful, way of life. You may find that you have left a little bitty god in order to make your way home to the God who is.

I always wondered what it would be like to baptize a baby and then to be around twelve or so years later for its confirmation journey.  I guess I now know a little bit of what that is like since a little over twelve years ago, in a little Presbyterian church, Kathryn and I placed our water soaked hands on our granddaughter’s forehead and I choked back tears as I said the words I had spent two days memorizing, “child of the covenant, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” Then, last weekend, it fell to me to be a chaperone on her church’s confirmation retreat to Lake Junaluska.

To be honest, I am not entirely sure how she felt about her Granddaddy coming along.  She did say, “awesome,” when I told her I was coming and she smiled every time I asked her to take a picture with me so I guess until I hear differently, I will assume she was completely overjoyed and wouldn’t have had it any other way, even if Meme had offered to come instead of me. OK, that is probably a push but since they needed a male chaperone, I win.  I’m guessing she picked up on how I was feeling about being there. Best. Weekend. Ever.

I tried to give her some space and not hover the whole time but I watched her like, well like a granddaddy watches a girl that he thinks hung the moon.  I watched with a full heart as she learned more about being a Christ follower and was introduced to words that I hope will become a vital part of her life: prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness. (The folks at Junaluska giving us a cool tee shirt with these words on the back will help)

As I followed along through the six workshops and four worship services it occurred to me that a tremendous amount of information comes at you during the confirmation process and it may take a while to process.  For me it can all be summed up as a simple conversation with God.  God says to us when we are baptized, “You are mine,” and when we are confirmed we say back, “Yes I am.” Then we spend the rest of our lives learning to live as God’s child.

As we live into all this, those words on the tee shirt: prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness are about as good as any I’ve run across to help keep us on the path.  Learning to pray, being there, paying attention, being generous in all we say and do, seeking to be helpful in all the ways we can, and being bold in Christ’s way of living is an assignment that can take your whole life.

Holy stuff and I got to see my granddaughter take some big steps along that sacred way. I am reminded of Jesus saying something about blessings being “a good measure, pressed down, shaken together and overflowing.”  Overflowing indeed.

I hope my girl doesn’t mind that I made this public. My hope is that when you read this you will catch a glimpse of how much I love her and how proud I am of her. Then perhaps you will think of someone you love and remember that love comes from God. The One who constantly says, “You are mine.”
–

It feels a little out of sync that on a beautiful spring day I would be having autumn thoughts but more and more I am becoming convinced that there are particular seasons in one’s life and this forest dwelling Granddaddy is at the very least in the fall of life, perhaps early winter.  That is not a lament.  It is a thanksgiving.  It was a blessed spring and an exciting summer.  They set the stage for this current season but now the task is to be where I am and to receive the gift of the present.

A big part of that gift is that I am reestablishing my relationship with the little spring boy inside me.  He lived a less anxious, simpler life, taking each day as they came.  The planning, striving man of summer is becoming a fading memory.

But spring boy doesn’t see as a child anymore.  Autumn has changed him. He sees more widely and more deeply.  He is more aware of the vastness of life.

One way to say what I am trying to get across is that I am seeing old things in a new way.  A good example of this is the experience I had the other day.  Via a devotional email, I ran across a quote by Missy Buchanan, from her book, Aging Faithfully and it stuck with me.  She wrote, “Prayer and aging go hand in hand.  An active prayer life provides you a constant source of friendship.  Nothing is too insignificant or too overwhelming to tell your heavenly Father.  Walk closely with God and feel divine goodness all around you.”  Upon first glance, I didn’t think there was anything particularly ground breaking there. In fact, I think we covered it when we sang, “Jesus loves the little children” and “Jesus loves me this I know.”  But, in the autumn of life when loneliness and nagging anxiety can come calling a little more often than you would like, what could more assuring than simple reminders that Christ is present, offering companionship, and that every moment is sacred?

A deep peace comes with the autumn of life, if you allow it.  To experience this peace, it requires openness, an acceptance of what is, embracing mortality, and forgiving yourself for the hurts you caused others and yourself.  This can feel hard but it is actually done with the simplicity of a child.  Sort of like when I was a little boy and would get in a fist fight with one of the neighborhood boys; before our parents could work out the peace treaty we were starting a new game of baseball or hide and seek as if bloody noses and fat lips were nothing compared to the joy of playing with friends.

Forgiveness.  Not making a huge deal of it, simply forgiving yourself for being human and getting on with life. We might wish desperately to change the past but holding that wish too tightly is a surefire recipe for stuckness.

It is true that I have tried hard for some things I didn’t achieve.  I have failed in ways that hurt people who were dear to me.  I have thought I was going to die.  But, in the fall of life I see that these things were my greatest teachers and they have helped me to see more clearly in this present day; this autumn (early winter?) day that the Lord has made.

I am starting to see what Jesus was talking about when he spoke of dying to self.  I believe he was talking about the false self; the one that seeks badge upon badge in order to convince itself that it is worthy and winning.  I think when we let go of that imaginary life we are met by true life; true life that is marked by simplicity, mercy, and humility.

I am not knocking those other seasons, especially since as I write this, I can look out my window see new leaves starting their time in the sun.  I’m just saying that autumn has a gift and I receive it.

It was sixty years ago, as I was trying to make my way through the first grade, that my mother gave me an assignment that I am still working on, “Just be yourself.”

It was around that same time that I was amazed to learn the scientific fact that no two snowflakes are alike. Of course upon the next snowfall I grabbed my magnifying glass and set out to be the kid that disproved that theory, without success.

This morning (Thursday March 22, ’18) as I read the Franciscan priest Richard Rohr’s daily devotional that comes via email, I realized that these two childhood memories are very much related. What ties them together is the word the thirteenth century Scottish theologian, John Duns Scotus, coined, “haecceity.”

Its complete definition is beyond my grasp but essentially it refers to the unique identity in each being. To put it simply, there is only one you and only one me. Or, as Father Richard puts it, “We are not one of a kind; we are one of an eternity.”

If I am on track with what Duns Scotus was saying, my mother was giving me the best advice a human could receive. I have nothing better to do with this one life than to be the person God gifted me, and me alone, to be.

To drive home the point, Rohr blew the top off the parable about the pearl of great price. You remember it. Jesus says that the kingdom is like a merchant that discovers the one pearl that is worth everything so he sells everything he has so he can obtain that one pearl. Father Richard says, “Part of our vocation is to appreciate ourselves as the pearl of great price.” Ponder that a moment. To be who God calls us to be, our true selves, is worth it all. Everything.

Every being, every human, every dog, every honeybee, every daffodil, every snowflake is one of an eternity. A sacred, precious, priceless, treasure.

So you do you and I’ll keep working on being me.

Two questions challenge us after the mass shooting at the high school in Parkland Florida on Ash Wednesday. Both will require courage and soul searching if we are to face them.

The first is the one that haunts us all: Where was God? Or, I guess more to the point, what was God doing during this awful tragedy? It is a good question and one we must wrestle with if we are to walk in a mature faith. I won’t claim to have my final answer to this one, let alone yours. I will only remind us that scripture and experience teach us that God is present in our suffering, never leaving us, and seeing us through the most fearful events of our life. And, I will suggest that God was present in the lives of the teachers that put their students first when evil struck, especially the coaches that didn’t seek cover but protected the teenagers with their very lives.

Where was God? Our God who is not aloof, but is willing to suffer with us was in the halls of Majory Stoneman Douglas High School and just as life was promised on a cross, somehow we believe that good will overcome evil, even in Fort Lauderdale.

The next question is more practical and easier for me to get my mind around: Where will God be next, or what will God do next? This is one we can answer when we decide to act and not just pray.

God will be with:
– The one who makes another donation to Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence
– The member of the school board that seeks ways to secure our campuses
– The one that volunteers at a school in order to be an extra set of eyes for our children
– The one that reaches out to the loner young man that struggles for meaning
– The friend or family member that sees something and decides to say something
– The representative that supports funding for mental health initiatives
– The one that writes their congressman and pleads for them to look at the issue of school safety with fresh eyes and not through the filter of overused speeches
– The leader that decides that leading is more important than grasping power
– The NRA member that realizes that the second amendment doesn’t mean our country needs to be gun saturated, the country with the most weapons per capita in the world.
– And finally, God will be with the one that weeps and the one that weeps with them.

“Not a sparrow falls without your Father knowing it. Even the hairs on your head are all counted.” (Jesus, trying very hard to teach us that God cares for us and we can live without fear.)

Under the heading of things that you learn as a child and then keep on the shelf for sixty years, I never really thought deeply about the hairs on my head being counted. I kept it filed under things you know if you happen to be omniscient. As in, you and God are at a party and someone asks, “How many hairs are on Jim’s head?” and God quickly answers, “126,422. Not too many in the crown area though.” And, everyone is amazed that the Creator apparently has the correct number for over seven billion people. I Told you I hadn’t thought deeply about this.

(Random thought: since there are over seven billion people on the planet and, per google, there are between ninety thousand and one hundred and fifty thousand hairs on the human head, the math would imply that there are thousands of people that have the exact same number of hairs on their head as I do. That never occurred to me. I wish there was some way I could nod at them or give them thumbs up when I pass them at Walmart. Now back to the original point.)

Turns out I had this particular quote by Jesus filed in the wrong place. Jesus’ point is not that God knows everything. Jesus’ point is that God cares about everything. When crisis comes, our fear doesn’t lessen because we believe God knows stuff. It lessens because we believe that God loves us and cares about what happens to us. Think about it. When you are in the ER, it’s comforting to believe that your care giver has a lot of medical information but what really calms you down is when they show you that they care. Jesus wants us to know that God cares. God is paying attention.

I love my wife dearly but when we were separated at the grocery store the other day, I couldn’t remember what color sweater she was wearing. I hadn’t bothered to pay attention. On the other hand, per Jesus, God knows how many hairs are on her head and he knows this not because he is all knowing but because he bothered to count them.

Like I said, I have known about God counting hairs since I was a little boy but this isn’t little boy stuff. The context for Jesus is that there is scary, hurtful stuff in the world and it will likely come our way, but we don’t have to succumb to fear because God is with us and knows what is going on.

Again, don’t miss the point. Jesus is not saying there aren’t things that are fearful. There are. There are tragic things, horrific things, and heart rending things. Even Jesus, in the midst of a torturous death cried out that God had forsaken him. But those weren’t the last words from the cross. His last words were words of trust and commitment. “Into your hands…” He was not afraid.

He was not afraid because he believed that very day birds all over the globe had breathed their last and God was present. He was not afraid because he believed that the God who cares about everything, down to the last hair follicle, would see him through.

That was true then for him. It is true now for us.