John the Baptist
You cannot get to Christmas without John the Baptist. Of course, if a person simply celebrates “culture’s Christmas” it is possible, but biblically, theologically, and liturgically, it is not possible to reach the Christ Child in the Manger without first encountering John the Baptist.
In Mark, Luke, and John we see John before or simultaneously with Jesus. Matthew includes John the Baptizer immediately after the Holy Family returns from Egypt. John is a part of the Christmas story, and his role is unique: to introduce Jesus.
He is not your “normal” guy, he is rough around the edges, and he does not fit into the traditional religious establishment. But with his camel hair clothes and diet of grasshoppers, he calls us to get ready, to prepare our lives for the coming of the Messiah.
John the Baptizer is not present in our nativity scenes we place around our homes, but he is there. He is calling us to get ready, to get our lives in order, because a baby is coming that will change everything.
This Sunday in worship we will hear from John the Baptizer who brings an important Advent message. Get ready. Prepare your heart. Clean out and make room. One is coming who will take over your life, and we must be ready.
Beginning with Comfort - November 30, 2020
From the Pastor…Beginning with Comfort
Yesterday in Sunday School we began considering how each of the Gospel writers begin the story of the Good News of Jesus. Mark, we learned yesterday, skips the normal birth narrative altogether. The only birth that is described in Mark’s Gospel is the watery birth of baptism. Matthew, Luke, and John also have their different approaches to the beginning of the story of Jesus.
When George Frederick Handel begins his telling of the “Messiah” story, he also begins the story in a unique way. After the instrumental introduction, Handel has a tenor step forward and slowly, clearly sing Isaiah 40.
Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.
Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her,
that her warfare is accomplished,
that her iniquity is pardoned:
for she hath received of the LORD's hand double for all her sins.
The tenor doesn’t rush through this verse, he dwells pointedly on that first word. Comfort. Before the music allows us to move on, we hear the word comfort no fewer than six times.
Our culture, given the choice, would start and end it with the Hallelujah Chorus (Handel does neither), because we always want to skip to Hallelujahs. But Handel and the Church understand what God’s people often need, especially when we’re in exile, is comfort.
We are in need of comfort these days, for so much of what we’re experiencing is so un-comfortable. And on the Second Sunday in Advent that is exactly what the prophet brings to us:
A God who offers comfort.
A shepherd who tends and feeds his flock.
A shepherd who will gather his lambs into his arms.
And will place them on his lap.
And will gently guide us.
Worship will be online this Sunday, but join in the experience to find how God offers comfort to those who are in the un-comfortable deserts of exile and loss.
Advent Blue - November 23, 2020
Advent is not Christmas. Christmas comes the Eve of December 25, and it lasts for twelve days. Advent is the season that begins four Sundays before Christmas, it actually is the beginning of the church year, a year-long telling of the story of God’s work of Redemption in Jesus Christ.
Advent is a season of slowing down, of waiting, and keeping hope that Christ is coming into our world. Christ came at Bethlehem and will come again at the end of the age in “power and great glory,” but He also comes again and again in this “in-between” time. Advent calls us to wake up, to be still and silent, to practice patience, and know that Christ is coming.
To mark this time of waiting, we light the candles of a wreath. One for each week, and as the candles are lit we see increasing light. Each of these candles have a significance for us. The first candle is a reminder of hope, the second points us to peace, the third, joy, and finally we light the candle that reminds us of love.
Every year the candles have been three purple and one pink. But this year, there is a little change. Rather than using purple this year, we will use dark blue. More and more churches are making this shift from purple to blue, and there are several reasons behind this. First, purple is a color often associated with the season of Lent. We put a purple cloth on the cross during Lent, and if we had paraments for the communion table and pulpit they would be purple during that pre-Easter season. Churches have desired to make a visual distinction, and many have chosen to go dark blue for Advent.
The reason this deep blue color has been chosen, at least in part, is that it is the color of the sky just before dawn. It is no longer the black of night, but there is just enough light to turn it a deep blue. When you see that color, you know that dawn is not too far away. There is reason to hope for a new day, because you see that light is coming.
The Light “that shines in the darkness” is needed in our world today. It seems that darkness is all around us. But we know that the night is nearly over. There is reason to hope. Christ has come, Christ is coming, and Christ will come again.
May the deep blue of this years (three) Advent Candles be to us a reminder that the night is soon past. Light is about to break on the horizon. It may be the darkest season of the year as we move toward the winter solstice, but it is when it is darkest that the light is most visible.
Happy Advent, let us wait in hope.
November 16, 2020
The year I worked as a hospital chaplain I normally liked getting a call from the Birth Center at Rex Hospital. Frequently, this meant that a healthy baby had just been born and the mom and dad desired to have a chaplain present to mark the joyful day with a prayer and a blessing. Those were always wonderful visits, but they were not very common. More frequently, I visited those who were struggling. Many of those, before leaving the hospital, had received hopeful words that because of a treatment or a surgery they were on the road to healing. But most of these could not be characterized by joy. Relief, yes, but not joy.
The same is true in Pastoral Ministry. I spend a lot of time with people who are struggling. I have regular conversations with people who are facing health issues, family tension, grief, addiction, and who are just discouraged. Occasionally, I get to share moments of joy. Parties, anniversaries, and weddings. But the norm is not joy, it is crisis and pain.
In all of this I have learned something deep and meaningful. Even though most of my time is spent with those who are facing a tragedy, hardship, or crisis, I have discovered that those people are often very grateful. It flies in the face of reason, but I have heard a man who was diagnosed with ALS tell me that “it could be worse, I have so much to be thankful for.” I have listened to a woman who’s 30-something-year-old daughter recently died tell me that “I’m so thankful because she did have such a full life.” And it seems that this attitude of Thanksgiving is not based on circumstances, but on a grateful heart. It is as if those for whom “everything is coming up roses” can miss an “attitude of gratitude,” and those who are facing a crisis can still have gratitude rooted deep in their soul.
Twenty-twenty has been a tough year. COVID 19 has taken over 200,000 American’s lives since mid-March, and the infection numbers are now as high as ever. People have lost jobs and homes. It has been a crisis-filled year. We have watched the cruelest of racial violence that has taken God-created life, and then we have grieved when protests have also turned violent and destructive. It has been a tough year. Our hearts are still divided and troubled by an election season that for many continues without appropriate resolution. And our hearts are burdened.
But, this year, more than most, I find it easier to be still, to observe silence, and to consider what it means to be a thankful person.
Find time in these next two weeks to consider the blessings of God in your life. Remember all of God’s good gifts. God’s faithfulness, and goodness, and mercy, and peace. Even in the midst of a trying year, God has been faithful to us His people.
This Sunday in worship we will do just this. We will stop, pause, and think of what it means to be grateful. To offer thanks to God, even in the midst of a difficult time. And we can do this not because “everything is right with the world,” but because our God continues to be good. Join us this Sunday, for worship is our natural response to God’s good work in the world.
Give thanks, for God is good. God’s mercies endure forever.
An Interestingly Different Christmas - November 11
An Interestingly Different Christmas...
I was in a pastor’s meeting last week when another pastor told about a deacon’s meeting during which they were discussing Christmas Eve worship. They were attempting to identify the elements of worship for Christmas Eve they could keep this year, in light of the COVID Pandemic. The one thing, they thought, they could keep, was the lighting of candles. But then, someone asked, “yes, but how are we going to ‘put them out’?” Great question when we struggle with an airborne virus.
This year presents challenges for May Memorial’s “normal” celebration of Christmas, but May Memorial has decided to see those challenges as an opportunity to think and work outside the box. It is appropriate to mourn the loss of “normalcy,” but we can simultaneously look to “the new” and find meaning there. Below is an outline of how we will celebrate Christmas this year at May Memorial. This is not a “normal” year, and in some ways that saddens my heart. And yet I am excited about the new ways we may celebrate this most meaningful season of the year.
Advent and Christmas for the
May Memorial Family
Advent Hospitality: A Gift from the Home… (of name)
November 30 – December 25
Consisting of artwork, music, Christmas symbols and decorations, and readings, these gifts will come from members of the May Memorial family and will be sent out each morning during Advent.
Advent Wednesdays,
Noon until 1:00 p.m., December 2, 9, 16, and 23
Come for a few minutes, or the entire hour. You will hear music from the May Memorial Carillon and guest musicians. This is not a concert, but a time to enjoy the peace and beauty of the May Memorial Sanctuary during the Advent Season. The Advent Wreath will be “re-lit” each Wednesday so those who gather can hear words of hope, joy, love, and peace as we wait for the Coming Messiah.
Sunday, December 20
YouTube Premiere Children’s Christmas Pageant
The pageant will premiere on YouTube and in our sanctuary (video presentation) at 3:00. The sanctuary premiere is offered for those who do not have access to YouTube, although anyone can attend.
Thursday, December 24 (Christmas Eve)
11:00 a.m., YouTube Premiere Service in the MMBC Sanctuary, made available especially for those without a computer or access to YouTube, although anyone can attend.
4:00 p.m., MMBC Christmas Eve Worship on YouTube Premiere
This will be an online worship service much like our worship services while in early pandemic weeks.
Republican or Democrat? A New Name Not on Tomorrow’s Ballot - Nov 2
Years ago, I baptized a young woman, she was about 15 years old. I had performed her mom’s wedding ceremony when she married a wonderful man, and the entire family joined the church. It was a wonderful day when the daughter professed her faith in Jesus and planned to be baptized. I remember the day of her baptism, I baptized her and her new stepfather the same day. When she was baptized, I said the things I normally say. I talked about Salt and Light from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, she made promises, renouncing sin and evil and promising to serve Christ in the world. She professed her faith, confessing that “Jesus is Lord,” the earliest of Christian confessions. I also talked to her about a new name. I told her that as she had given her life to Christ, as she passed through the waters of baptism she then had a new name, and that new name is “Christian.”
I frequently say this to those I baptize, and I didn’t think much about it that day. I didn’t think she had even heard me. Later that week I realized that she did in fact hear that she had a new name. On her social media accounts, she had changed her name, temporarily, to Hannah (not her real name) Christian. She then went on to tell her friends on social media that “today I was given a new name, I was given the name Christian.” I was amazed at her boldness.
Even though many of us have already voted, tomorrow is election day. The signs have been up for what seems like years, the ads have rolled thousands of times on our TVs. The candidates have given speeches and made promises and criticized and stretched the truth (lied?) and done all they can do to win tomorrow’s election. And it is unlike any election season most of us have ever seen.
Things are uncertain, and even downright frightening.
But tomorrow as the Democrats and the Republicans have it out, remember, you have a different name. And it is not Republican or Democrat. Your name is Christian, it was given to you when you professed Christ and passed through the waters of Baptism. And regardless of what happens tomorrow, your allegiance will still belong to the one who gave you His name in the watery womb of baptism.
There are many “Caesars” who call for our loyalty, many “Nebuchadnezzar’s” who build “golden statues” and call for us to bow down when the music plays. But we owe our allegiance to none other than Christ, and because of what happened at Easter, Christ has won the day. When Hannah (and all Christians) profess faith saying “Jesus is Lord,” it means that all others, whether they have won an election or not, are not.
John Upton, Executive Director of the BGAV, shared with pastors last week that he has repeatedly heard over the past months that the Corona Virus has changed everything. No, Upton told us, Easter has changed everything. Jesus has changed everything.
Even your name.
"C'mon Kelsey, You' Got This!" - October 26, 2020
“C’mon Kelsey, You’ Got This!”
I have spent more time than I can count sitting by softball fields this Fall. We have loved getting involved with PYAA “Ponytails” and seeing Laura practice and play. This is the final week of the Fall Season, and this past Saturday we spent all day at the field as Laura’s team played in the “Halloween Tournament.” Our first game on Saturday morning was against Amelia, but it wasn’t our first time playing them this season. Beverley and I looked forward to the Saturday morning game against Amelia, but not for any reasons you may suspect.
Amelia’s second baseman (basewoman?) is a girl who is much smaller than many of the other players. She has a long ponytail, and her glove is nearly as large as she is. We don’t know this girl, but when her team plays, she is a non-stop encouragement machine. During our last game against Amelia their pitcher really struggled with accuracy (this is not uncommon in Ponytails fast-pitch softball). She simply couldn’t throw a strike. But this little second baseman, her confidence in the pitcher never seemed to be diminished. “C’mon Kelsey, You’ Got This!” she would shout, over and over again. Kelsey had walked the last four batters, pitching balls above the batter’s head and behind the batter’s back, but the second baseman kept at it. “C’mon Kelsey, You’ Got This! STRIKE HER OUT!” I don’t know if Kelsey struck anyone out that entire game, but that second baseman was going to encourage her regardless of the circumstances.
Encouragement is important.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon reading the many cards and notes I was given during worship yesterday morning. And as I read all of those expressions of love, support, and kindness, I felt many things. I felt deep joy, joy to be your pastor and to share life together. I felt gratitude, because I am blessed to be the pastor of the May Memorial family. I felt nostalgia, as many of you wrote about encounters or visits or memories that we have shared. I felt love, because the love that I have for you is great. I felt many emotions yesterday afternoon, but most of all I felt encouraged. I felt like, once again, that “I can do this,” and yes, with God’s help, “we’ve got this.” And we do.
So I say thank you for encouraging me. I was blessed by your notes, and honestly, I needed it. Thank you.
This coming Sunday is All Saints Day, the day we remember the saints of our church family (and all saints) who have gone before us. On All Saints Day we frequently read from the book of Hebrews in which the preacher tells us that “we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, so run the race that is set before us, laying aside all of the things that so easily beset us.” The writer is saying, be encouraged, all of heaven is rooting for you. Our ancestors, our saints, they’re cheering for us, encouraging us, even in this difficult time, to keep on keeping on. Don’t give up, whatever your facing. No matter how tough the race, you have a cheering section that is reminding you that “c’mon, you’ got this.”
Not Normal - October 19, 2020
From the Pastor
Not Normal
August 2 was the day, it was the first Sunday we regathered in our Sanctuary. We were worshiping online-only since Sunday, March 15, and finally on August 2 we were “online-only” no more, but physically present for worship in “the church.” I looked forward to that day with great expectation, and my heart was full of joy when we finally regathered.
Before Sunday, August 2nd, the Regathering Team stated clearly: it will not be the same. There were to be differences in the “mechanics” of worship and gathering, and when we came to worship we should not expect it to be as it was on Sunday, March 8. I heard that statement from the Regathering Team, and I repeated that word of caution. But it didn’t really sink in with me. I was focused on the joy of regathering in our sanctuary.
Yesterday was our tenth Sunday back in our sanctuary, twelve weeks since August 2 minus two Sundays we went “online only.” And being twelve weeks into this phase of regathering, I understand what is meant by “it will not be the same.” Church is different than it was. I feel it, and you probably do too.
One church leader observed about the pandemic, “we thought it was going to be a snowstorm and it has ended up being an ice age.” For the church, we are in an ice age of “not normal.”
There are many suggestions as to what we should do during this “ice age of not normal.” Some point to a “virtual age” for the church. That the new-found media capabilities are the future of church life, that buildings owned by church families are quickly fading into the past. Others suggest (by their behavior) that we should simply ignore the seriousness of COVID 19. There are churches doing with, with no social distancing, no masks, and full-on congregational singing. Behind this is the erroneous belief that we may behave as we like for “God will take care of us.” And I do believe that God will take care of us, but maybe the way He’s doing that is by giving us good experts to help us find our way through this Pandemic.
But for me, with all the options, I think during this “ice age of not normal” we have an opportunity to adjust our expectations considering what is most fundamental to the Church. What are the things that we must keep doing in order to continue the mission God’s has given us?
First, we continue to worship. To pray, hear God’s Word, and offer our praise to God.
Second, we continue to be on mission. Showing love and support for our community, teachers, Food Pantry, etc.
Third, we continue to be formed as faithful disciples. We continue to have Sunday School and Wednesday night Bible Study so we may hear scripture together and be formed by God’s written word together.
Fourth, we continue to provide opportunities for fellowship. This has been a “slower start” for us at May Memorial, but opportunities are on the calendar, such as the Tailgating-Style Church Picnic.
Fifth, we continue to demonstrate hospitality, love for strangers, who enter our fellowship.
These are foundational to our life together as a church, whether the time be “normal” or we continue to be in the “ice age of not normal.” And these things we continue to do.
Do not lose heart. God is still speaking to us. God still calls us. And God still leads us. God is with us, and we are still God’s people, however strange this “ice age” may be.
A Meal that Makes Church Church - September 28
From the Pastor - A Meal that Makes Church Church
What makes the Church Church? This has been an important theological question for much of church history. When a local church gathers together and engages in our practiced rituals, planned activities, work in the community, and times of fellowship, what makes it uniquely church? What is the difference between a church and a social organization? The Freemasons have rituals and they perform benevolent work. Rotary and Lions Clubs have memberships and community service projects and good fellowship. So what distinguishes a group of people as Church and not simply another community organization?
For the Reformers this question is easy. The Church is the place where the Word is rightly proclaimed and the sacraments are rightly administered and practiced.
This coming Sunday in worship the May Memorial Church will once again celebrate the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, in our sanctuary. Over the past six months we have made attempts of having Communion in our homes during a “virtual” worship service. We have waited an additional month in our sanctuary to be sure the environment is relatively safe before we add another component to worship. And finally this Sunday we will celebrate the Lord’s Supper in our sanctuary.
In answering the question of what constitutes a “true church,” the 1800’s Baptist Newspaper Editor J. R. Graves of Tennessee had a lot to say. He contended that the idea of a “universal” or “invisible” church is a dangerous fallacy. The idea that the church is “God’s people from every time and place” sharing an invisible bond, according to Graves, was simply false. According to Graves, the church is always local, visible, and “in-flesh.”
J. R. Graves and his “Old Landmarkism” is not popular these days, and rightly so. But I know that being physically present with the church family, in our place of sanctuary, at the Lord’s Table, being fed the Lord’s Food, that is where my soul is nourished and I receive the Break of Life and Cup of Salvation. It is not in front of a computer screen while I sit on my front porch.
The Corona Virus is still keeping many of us apart. It is a dreadful reality we all continue to live and struggle with. But just as the Lord’s Supper is a forward-looking foretaste of that Heavenly Banquet for all of God’s people, our celebration now also looks forward to a time when we can all gather and be joined at that Table where we are all welcomed.
"I Will Try to Get Jesus out of Trouble this Sunday," or, "This Parable will Offend You" - 9/22/20
It is Monday, and I’m going to tell you all the problems that I am having with the text that I will preach on this Sunday. I’m not sure how I’m going to preach this parable, but today, Monday, I’m just seeing the problems.
The parable is the one called “Laborers in the Vineyard.” It is found in Matthew 20, and honestly it is a little (a lot?) offensive. Jesus tells the story about a landowner, a vineyard owner, he has work to be done. So he goes out early in the morning and hires a group of workers. He tells them that he will pay them a fair day’s wage. They agree, and they start work early in the morning. Mid-morning the farmer sees that he needs more help, so he hires more workers. Tells them the same thing, that he will pay them a fair wage for their work. He does the same thing again at noon, and at three o’clock, and then just a short time before the work day ends.
All goes well, until it is time to pay the workers. He starts with those who worked the shortest amount of time, and he pays them a large amount compared to the duration of their labor. No problem yet, because those who started earlier in the day probably think he is going to pay them more based on the “hourly wage” of the latecomers. But he doesn’t. He pays them all the same thing. They worked different amounts of time, some started at six in the morning, some started just moments before quitting time. All paid the same.
First, paying workers all the same is not fair. Some worked about twelve hours, some worked about an hour. To pay them all the same is not fair. You do not get equal pay for unequal amounts of work. Sure, a CEO today may make hundreds of thousands of dollars a week while factory workers don’t make that in a year, but those are different jobs and different responsibilities, right? These were all hired hands, pulling weeds or picking grapes or pruning vines. The same work, different hours, and they all get the same? It is just not fair.
Second, what will this teach those latecomers? They probably laid in bed until noon, finally rousing up with the sun at its highest in the sky, stumble around for a couple of hours, and then come upon this work. They will probably try to do the same thing tomorrow. Why would they show up at six the next morning after being paid the same? Isn’t this reinforcing their bad, lazy, habits? Of course it will reinforce those habits.
Jesus is in real trouble this coming Sunday. Didn’t he know that Americans were going to read this story? Everyone knows you don’t do this. My children understood fair and unfair before they started Kindergarten. What is Jesus trying to do?
I’m going to try to get Jesus out of trouble this Sunday, but we may just have to deal with what he says. Come and see.
A Hard Sunday to Come to Church - September 13
A Hard Sunday to Come to Church
When I was a college religion major on my way to seminary, I relished the idea of contemplating the hard questions of our faith. I loved Biblical and theological discussions, especially about difficult topics that many would think are “deep” or difficult or somehow hidden in scripture. As I became a pastor, those same conversations became questions that I am often asked about when someone thinks they are getting “down to business” with scripture and what God wants us to know and do. “I’m really trying to ‘dig deep’ in scripture, I really want to understand the Bible, what do you think about this?”
When someone says something like that, more often than not they are wanting to talk about End Times. This normally involves the Book of Revelation, a verse that refers to something like a rapture, and the book Left Behind. Some people really get into this type of thing, especially when they can find a Facebook story that says something like “Corona Virus Vaccine is Secretly Implanting Microchip that is the Mark of the Beast.” To some people, this is important, and it is hard stuff.
For others, it is predestination. Calvinism and the T-U-L-I-P. For others, it may be the Trinity. How can One be Three and Three be One? These are hard things, and some like to think that the mental acuity mixed with Biblical information required to grasp them is a feat of faithful strength. (Please note I’m not comparing the importance of Trinitarian Theology with Dispensational “Left Behind” thinking.)
These may be important (The Trinity), and they may be difficult. But nothing compared to this coming Sunday. “Okay, Jesus, how often should I forgive someone? Let’s see, how about seven times?” “No, not seven times, but…seven times seventy times.” Let’s do the math on that one. That could be 490 times. Or, it could be forgiveness without end. Seven times is a lot, but to keep forgiving, over and over and over, well, that may be a little much. Except it is what Jesus tells us to do. The “pre-millennial-pre-tribulation-raptured-dispensationalism” idea that has become popular with its pieced together verses from Revelation and Daniel is complicated to understand. But harder to understand is how a gunman can walk into an Amish schoolhouse, shooting, injuring, and killing children, and how that Christian Amish community can offer forgiveness. How that community offers love and support to that shooter’s family. Now that is hard to understand. If we are honest, we are less shocked about the shooting than we are the forgiveness. I love to understand ideas and important concepts about our faith. We should be informed Christians about what we believe. But more than being an informed Christian I want to be a forgiving Christian. In a way it is a “hard Sunday” to come to church. But I expect there are some who want this. Jesus’ hard words come as good news, that we are called, empowered, and equipped to be the people who offer unending forgiveness.
Merry Marymas? - September 6
Merry Marymas?
The story (legend) is told that on September 8, about 430 A.D., a man in Angers, France, had a vision. The vision was of a celebration in heaven. The angels were singing and rejoicing, their hearts were filled with happiness and joy. Upon seeing such a celebration, the man asked what the celebration was about. The answer came from an angel, and the message was that they were celebrating Mary’s birthday, that she was born on the night of September 8.
For Catholics and some Protestants this has become a feast day. Today, September 8, is celebrated as the day that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was born.
We’re not exchanging gifts or having a party at my “Blessed Assurance-singing-Baptist” household today for Marymas, but this morning I have been considering Mary. Normally Baptists give a little more thought to Mary closer to Christmas, on that fourth Sunday of Advent when we tell her story. The Visitation by the Angel, the Annunciation, the visit with Elizabeth, the Magnificat, and the birth of Jesus. We consider this at Christmas, but September is not the time I normally think of Mary.
Today I think of Mary’s life, her life before the Angelic Visit, and her life after. I consider that her life is, in a way, divided into two parts, life before the angel, and life after the angel. And those two parts hinge on one simple word. Yes. Mary was willing to say yes to the Angel, yes to God, and because of that “yes” her life, and our lives, are forever changed. Because of her yes.
God still gives us chances to say yes to participate in God’s work in the world. Yes to being agents of peace and justice, agents of reconciliation and compassion. We can say yes to being light in dark places. And we can say yes for our life together to be a foretaste of what it will look like when “God’s kingdom comes on earth as it is already in heaven.”
Say yes to God today. May that be our first response when a messenger comes and tells us that God is at work.
Beauty in Barren and Dry Places - August 24, 2020
Beauty in Barren and Dry Places
John Ames, Sr., born in 1880's Kansas, has taken his son, who bears his name, to find the grave of his father. John Ames, Jr., is the elderly Presbyterian Pastor in Marilynne Robinson’s fictional town of Gilead, Iowa, and he is writing to his son about faith, family, community, and his life’s experience. This boyhood trip with his father to find his grandfather’s grave is a story he recounts early in Robinson’s Gilead. The two Johns first travel by train, then they rent a horse and wagon, and they take the final part of their journey to find the grave on foot. The entire trip takes about a month, and it is a journey which they could not afford into a dry and barren Kansas. After finding some faithful Christians who remember the ministry of the deceased Ames (all of the Ames’ men were clergy), they finally locate the small, overgrown, and neglected graveyard.
John spends time with borrowed tools cleaning up the dry piece of land, setting tombstones back upright and repairing the broken fence. Then John Sr. sits on the ground beside the grave of his father, remaining there for two long hours. He stands, and he begins to pray. While he prays in that desolate place, John Jr. could not keep his eyes closed for such a long time, he opens his eyes and begins to look around. John Jr. is surprised, because to his amazement he says he sees the sun setting in the East. Young John had his bearings right, and after a moment of confusion he realizes that he is seeing the full moon rising just as he is seeing the sun setting in the opposite direction. He is overwhelmed at the moment, and reluctantly he speaks to his father who is still in the middle of his long prayer. The two John Ames stand in that parched and dreadful place, but when John Sr. is pulled out of his prayer to witness the setting sun and rising moon, he says “I would never have thought this place could be beautiful. I’m glad to know that.”
It seems to bring great comfort to him knowing that the place where his father’s remains were laid to rest is (or could be) a place of deep beauty. Up to that moment, it had only looked dry and deserted and dreadful, but when his eyes were opened from his prayer he saw the beauty that the place could hold.
We live in a world, a culture, that often looks only dreadful. We have witnessed it this year, the ugliness all around us. Thousands and thousands of deaths to COVID 19, the repeatedly televised senseless death of George Floyd, the ugly violence of protests that has left destroyed businesses and vulgar graffiti that I would just as soon my daughters didn’t see. Some days since March 15 have seemed just as dry and barren and ugly as that neglected cemetery in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead. And living in this place takes a toll on us.
But remember, God calls us in the midst of our prayers to open our eyes, for there is beauty breaking through all around. We are called to see the light that is shining in dark places, and we are also called to reflect that light. We live in the “already/not yet,” a place where God’s kingdom already is come but not yet fully.
Where are the places you see God’s beauty today? Is it with your family, or maybe in seeing the dark green of late summer. Maybe it is a verse of scripture or a good meal with a friend. And how are you displaying the beauty of God’s kingdom in the world? An act of kindness, or a simple deed of mercy.
We are always in need of seeing the beauty of God’s kingdom, but our world needs is more now than ever. Keep your eyes open for it. Be the source of God’s beauty in the world.
The Cross and the Lynching Tree - August 17, 2020
The Cross and the Lynching Tree
A couple of weeks ago during a May Memorial Wednesday night gathering we read the text from Matthew’s gospel in which Jesus, angry at the Pharisees, refers to them as “blind guides leading the blind.” This is a repeated theme in the gospels. In another text, after the healing of a blind man, Jesus discusses this issue of blindness, of “not-seeing,” and the story concludes with the Pharisees saying to one another, “surely he is not talking about us.” He was. They were blind to all kinds of important things.
Last week I read James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree. In it Cone discusses in detail the “American Holocaust” of the lynching of over 5,000 black men, women, and children. It is theological as much as it is historical, and Cone contends that the similarities between the death of Jesus on the Cross are too similar to the deaths of those lynched in the United States for us to miss. Lynching and crucifixion, as a public display, are as much about the witnesses as they are about the victims. “If you question the system, this will happen to you too.”
But what I carry with me from Cone’s deeply troubling work is how the church is tied up in the culture that lynched over 5,000 black men, women, and children. First, it was conservative or Evangelical church members who were doing the lynching. These were not godless atheists or agnostics who were burning and whipping and shooting black human flesh. One contemporary observer noted that “the most cruel heathen could do no worse” (than the church members were doing). Another wrote that “if this is Christianity, I hate and despise it.”
White liberals, whether they be secular or Christian, would love to think they got it all right, that it was not their party, their church, their “tribe” that participated in this atrocity. Cone spends more than a chapter pointing out how the mainline church, how liberal Christians, stood by and refused to name this murderous evil in their culture. Reinhold Niebuhr is perhaps the most celebrated American Theologian of all American history, but certainly of the 20th century. He pastored a large Presbyterian Church in Michigan before going to Union Seminary in NYC for a revered teaching and writing career. Reinhold Niebuhr probably influenced American government, culture, and religion more than any other Christian thinker and theologian, and he is still cherished by many Christians, especially those of a more liberal orientation. Barak Obama once stated that Reinhold Niebuhr was his favorite theologian, the one who influenced him most deeply. But Cone points out over many pages that Reinhold Niebuhr did nothing to call out this evil in America. Neither did the evangelists Dwight Moody, or Billy Graham, or Billy Sunday. The list goes on and on.
There are exceptions, the German Dietrich Bonhoeffer is one, who made the courageous moral decision to speak out. But the exceptions are few.
The blind were leading the blind.
I would recommend The Cross and the Lynching Tree, it is a great book. Cone discusses how music voiced much of the despair and lament felt by black Americans. He talks about the song Strange Fruit, written by a Jewish American (Abel Meeropol) and sung by Billie Holiday, and how no record company would record the song because it painted such a clear picture of what was happening. You can't listen to this song and "not see."
But as I read and considered Jesus’ words “blind guides leading the blind,” I wondered how we think today that we see everything so clearly. The Democrats will tell you this week in their convention that they are the ones who see it all so clearly. Next week the Republicans will do the same thing. But remember, the Pharisees missed it. Nineteenth and twentieth century American Christians missed it. German Christians missed it as Hitler rose to power. In the history of the church between these two historical times there were blind guides leading the blind as well. How foolish for me to think that the blindness Jesus spoke about has cleared up, for a country, a culture, or just for me.
I am prone to blindness, and so are you. Understanding this should keep us humble, and looking, and trying to refocus. Because the things that we are blind to can be deeply important, matters of life and death.
How to Teach and a Story to Live - June 8
History to Teach and a Story to Live
There are two stories told at Monticello. Beverley and I participated in this first-hand last summer when we took Laura and a friend for a day at Jefferson’s amazing home. The first story is told inside the house. For us it was told by a wonderful young woman, an undergraduate at William and Mary who was spending her summer giving the planned presentation to groups she guided through each room at Monticello. She told of Jefferson’s contribution to Religious Freedom, his service as American President, his intellectual power, his creative inventions, and his letter writing. It is an amazing story about an amazing man, and that tour reflects JFK’s statement when hosting the Western Hemisphere’s Nobel Prize winners at the White House: I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
The other story is told along Mulberry Row, the path lined by shops that kept Monticello operating. That story is about the enslaved human beings who spent their lives as property of another person. It is a story about Sally Hemmings, the enslaved woman who was Jefferson’s mistress, or as the Monticello website names her, his concubine. Whatever she is labeled, it is agreed that under no circumstances is the sexual relationship between a slave holder and an enslaved female ever truly consensual. It is a true story, and it is hard to hear. The woman who led this tour at Monticello was not a college student with a great summer job, but was a historian from UVA. Beverley and I were glad that Laura and Maggie were on the hillside playing during most of that presentation, because the violence and cruelty of that story is hard to hear.
Both stories are true, and to understand the history of Jefferson one has to hear both. You don’t understand those stories, especially the Mulberry Row story, by looking at the monument of Jefferson at the visitor’s center. It takes more than that. You must go up the hill and listen to the story to understand the history.
One of the amazing things about scripture is what the writers and editors didn’t leave out. There are some unsavory stories of sin and violence in the Bible, but they were left in. Stories of sexual violence and deceit and murder. Stories of marital unfaithfulness and bribery and abuse. But they are included. Because to understand the story, we need both sides.
As God’s people we are invited to hear and understand both sides of the story. At Monticello, and in scripture. Because in hearing the whole story we are called to live into the story of what God is doing in the world. There is a long, over-arching story where we discover God at work redeeming all things to Himself, and we are called to join with God in the work of that story. We know how it ends, with humankind being freed and redeemed and adopted into God’s family. When all things shall be made new. And that is the story that we are called to understand, but most importantly, to live into.
"Re-Gathering" - May 18
Ten weeks ago, the church made what I thought at the time was a very difficult decision. That decision was to not have worship (or any gatherings) in person, in our building, for the following week. I thought that was a hard decision, but as it turns out that choice was much easier than the decision of when and how to re-gather for worship and activities.
I want to share with you two things.
The first is what was discussed by the re-gathering team last week. The second are some of my thoughts, not decision made by anyone at May Memorial Church.
First, from the re-gathering team. At last week’s meeting the team decided that at least during phase one of Virginia’s re-opening plan we will continue doing what we have been doing. We will worship online and have Sunday School by Zoom. The team will meet again next Tuesday and see where things stand. The team is working to make preparations for when we re-gather in our building. They are purchasing and installing hand sanitizing stations, they are also purchasing masks that can be distributed to worshipers.
The team is taking caution in our regathering plan. May Memorial is an older congregation, and for many of us a COVID 19 diagnosis would be very serious.
Second, a few of my thoughts. The team looked at guidelines from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and I am also aware of how other churches in our community (and beyond) are regathering. One of the guidelines coming from Virginia is for churches to have “adults only” worship because young children cannot wear masks, and younger children are not conscious and careful of the spread of germs. Other churches are having multiple services and reservations are required for attendance to those. These steps are seen as safe ways to phase back in to in-person gatherings for churches.
I struggle with both of these. It is not my decision, but these ways of adjusting do such harm to our practice of worship that I wonder if we have been seduced into being something other than the Church. What if a person shows up and they do not have a reservation? What if a family shows up with a four-year-old? Will they not be admitted to worship that day? Will we turn people away? A senior adult who didn’t make their reservation, or a family with a “germy” four-year-old who may accidentally go in for a hug? When we start turning people away for any reason, I fear we have ceased to be the Church.
It is a hard question and I don’t know the answer. We are a community-minded church who welcomes all, regardless of age. We are not a church that turns people away. And these are things that are important to our identity.
God will guide us, each step of the way. As I said in yesterday’s sermon, sometimes we are only called to take the next right step, the next step where God shows us the way. We can’t see all the way to the “other side,” but all we must do is take the next right step, and little by little, God will show us the way. Of this I’m sure.
Elmo Scoggin, C. P. E. Bach, and Music in the Night - May 11, 2020
Elmo Scoggin, C. P. E. Bach, and Music in the Night
When I was in Seminary I never officially lived on campus. The Seminary owned a couple of “commuter dorms,” spaces with small bedrooms (or cubicles) for commuting students to spend a night or two each week. This fit schedules of working students well, and I was married and serving a church in Duplin County, NC.
There were many nights when I would have class beginning at 6:00 p.m., and I would not leave Wake Forest, NC until nearly 10:00 p.m. My drive home would last late into the night. It was a long drive at the end of a long day, but I had a calming presence on my ride home on those nights.
Elmo Scoggin was a Professor Emeritus at Southeastern Seminary when I was there, and he continued to live in Wake Forest. He had taken a job in his retirement, as a radio host on a local classical station, WCPE. WCPE is not an NPR station, it is a listener supported all-classical music station, 89.7 on the FM dial in NC. The station took it letters from J. S. Bach’s son, Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach. CPE Bach was also a musician and composer, one of J. S. Bach’s 20 (yes, 20) children.
At 10:00 each night, Dr. Scoggin would host the all-night radio show, Music in the Night, and he, along with the music, was my calming companion on my drive home. Elmo Scoggin was a kind, dignified gentleman, and he worked at WCPE many years before his failing health caused him to retire.
I still love WCPE, and even though I cannot pick it up on a normal FM radio, (although WCPE claims their signal can be picked up just southeast of Richmond) the station has made it easy for listeners all over the world to hear all-classical all-the-time. No advertisements. No politics. No news. It is a refreshing and beautiful offering to the world, and it is one of the only stations left in the country which has a live DJ twenty four hours a day seven days a week. I also love it when the announcer states that WCPE has a transmitter in Frog Level, NC. I love the name Frog Level, it makes me think of a North Carolina “place.”
There is a great WCPE app, available on iTunes or Google Play, and the app is free. You can also listen to WCPE on a computer. If you have a smart device, a Google or Amazon device, you can simply say, “hey google (or Alexa), play WCPE,” and it will begin.
My favorite part of the week on WCPE is Sunday mornings. WCPE has two programs consisting of sacred music, the first begins at 7:30. Sing for Joy is produced in Northfield, MN, on the campus of the Lutheran St. Olaf College. Pastor Bruce Benson is the host of Sing for Joy, the thirty minute program includes music that goes along with that Sunday’s lectionary readings. It is mainly hymns and choral anthems, and Pastor Benson does a wonderful job explaining the connections between the music and scripture for that day. It is a great program, you can even subscribe to their free mailed newsletter which is sent out monthly.
After Sing for Joy is over at 8:00 a.m., the program Great Sacred Music begins, and it lasts for several hours. You may hear some hymns on Great Sacred Music, but it is primarily organ works and extended choral pieces by the world’s great composers. Every Sunday you will hear a Bach Cantata, as well as pieces by the “big” composers, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mendelssohn. Sometimes Great Sacred Music gets a little “heavy,” but I always find joy in hearing the music that is chosen by a live DJ.
Fridays on WCPE is “all request,” and this past Sunday morning on Great Sacred Music all of the music had some reference to Mary, Mother of Jesus, in honor of Mother’s Day There is a weekly opera night on WCPE, featuring the show from the Metropolitan Opera in NYC, and there is still Music in the Night, even though Dr. Scoggin is no longer the host.
Elmo Scoggin died in October of 2011. After his retirement from Southeastern Seminary, he lived a quiet life in Wake Forest. He worked out at the YMCA and fished in local lakes and ponds. And of course, hosted Music in the Night. He wanted his death to be as quiet as his life, wanting no funeral, and at his request there was no obituary in the local paper. He was an Old Testament scholar, and archeologist, a kind gentleman, and a faithful disciple.
I invite you to become a listener of WCPE, especially on Sunday mornings. I’ve always listened on Sunday mornings, and during this time of social distancing it has meant that I have been able to listen a little more on Sunday mornings. It is a peaceful part of my life, and I invite you to give it a try.
Do Nothing - May 4, 2020
Do Nothing
The spiritual community of Richmond Hill, located in the Church Hill area of Richmond, brings together a diverse group of individuals from the Central Virginia region and beyond. There’s Baptists and Catholics and Episcopalians and Lutherans and Methodists. There’s people of European descent and African descent and Asian descent. There are wealthy Richmond business-people and “residents” who live at Richmond Hill while serving the community and finding their vocation there. There’s pastors and seminary graduates and church laypeople. It is a remarkably diverse place.
One of my closer friends at Richmond Hill is a Richmond Attorney. He is a “super-lawyer,” practicing law for years in Virginia and teaching at the University of Richmond Law School. In the second half of his life he became serious about his spiritual life and was trained as a Spiritual Director. He is active in his local church, a large Episcopal Parish in Richmond. We have several things in common, but we come from very different backgrounds.
I enjoy the time I am able to spend at Richmond Hill with Jack, he prays for me and offers good feedback to my ideas and questions.
Jack has told me that when he consults with clients, often the hardest thing for the client to understand is the importance for them to do nothing. To not reply, react, reach out, move forward, or attempt to help their case. He told me that people most often cannot hear “do nothing,” so he would tell them to “sit tight.” For some reason, Jack said, “sitting tight” seemed like an active image, and people would come closer to hearing that than “do nothing.”
The past seven weeks in our nation is a good example of our struggle to “do nothing.” We find it extremely difficult to stay home, to sit tight, to simply stay in place. We have been living in a world of movement and rushing for so long, to sit tight seems to be the hardest of tasks. In addition to our struggle with “sitting tight” there are the millions of citizens for whom sitting tight also means a financial hardship that they and their families cannot bear.
The Church, and before that God’s Jewish People, have been preaching the importance of waiting, of being still, of patience, for thousands of years. The importance of waiting for God, of being patient with each other. And it is a lesson that we have not carried with us very well.
I would like for this time of “stay at home” to come to an end soon. I would like for businesses to be able to re-open and for people to be able to go back to work. I pray that this virus would end, and that tens of thousands of people would not have their lives taken. But, on a less serious level, I long for us to be physically back together as a church. And yet I believe the most important thing for us to do right now is still “sit tight.”
I also pray that when this is over that we will not return to business as usual. That the things we have recognized as important will continue to be important. The simple, free, slow, nurturing habits that we nearly forgot, may they continue to be our practices long after this virus is controlled.
The Church has Left the Building - April 27, 2020
The Church has Left the Building
The Church Has Left the Building. That was the name of the Zoom webinar I attended last week. It was led by the Center for Healthy Churches, and it is one of many training opportunities for pastors in the time of COVID 19. Last week’s training, as indicated by the title, reminded and discussed how to be the church outside of a building. Because the church is not a building, it is the people, and we can be the church without a building. It may be unfortunate that we have gotten so attached to buildings and property, because so much about being the church has nothing to do with buildings. In the book I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church the author insists that on a balance sheet for a church, property and buildings should be listed as a liability, not an asset.
All of this is true, and it has been a major theme in denominations and pastor’s minds over the past seven weeks. I agree, and maybe this time is a reminder to us that we are not a building. But as the pastor of May Memorial Baptist Church, I want to offer a caveat to this idea of the un-importance of buildings.
Several years ago I asked a person in our church family to give a testimony in worship. She agreed, and she did a wonderful job. She told about how God had spoken to her, called her, claimed her, and how she responded and gave her life to follow Jesus. She stood in the pulpit to give this testimony to our church family. It was a wonderful sermon, and I’ll never forget one particular line she said. She pointed with the index finger on her left hand, and she said, “and it happened right there.” She pointed to the floor, directly beside May Memorial’s organ console. That was the location where she had encountered God in such a powerful way.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, the stories of God’s Jewish people, we see over and over where individuals encounter the LORD, and they build a monument, a pile of stones, an altar. Jacob at Bethel. At the crossing of the Jordan. Samuel setting up an “Ebenezer” stone to remind them of God’s faithfulness. I think about all the encounters with God, all the important events in our lives, that happen in our sanctuary. It is appropriate for us to have a place, a sanctuary, where we freely open our lives in worship and to hear God speak to us.
We can and should do this everywhere. The whole earth is God’s place. We all know that. But our sanctuary is a “set-aside-place,” and it is holy, and important, and right now, missed. At May Memorial we do not worship in an auditorium. It is not just another room. Because God has been meeting with us and our forefathers and foremothers in this space, our sanctuary, for over a century.
If you would like to spend time in prayer in the May Memorial sanctuary please know that you are welcome to do that. The executive order from Governor Northam allows for individuals to drive to their place of worship so long as it is not a gathering of more than ten people. Others have already stopped by and spent a few minutes in the sanctuary, and you are welcome to do so as well.
Jacob, at Bethel, poured oil on the stone he had used for a pillow, and he proclaimed, “the LORD is in this place and I didn’t even know it.” The LORD is everywhere in this great big beautiful world, and, unlike Jacob, we do know that it is in “this” place.
May 15, 1910
May 15, 1910 was a Sunday nearly 110 years ago. That day a gift was made to “The Baptist Church of Powhatan Courthouse,” a silver communion set. It was given by Mr. C. D. Wingfield, a relative of Dr. and Mrs. R. D. Tucker, who lived in “The Homestead,” the large home on the west side of Scottville Road close to the Courthouse. Our church had not yet taken the name “May Memorial,” and it was newly identified (by its own members) as a Baptist church. May Memorial started as an ecumenical church, meeting in the courthouse.
When Pastor Rudy Potter came to serve as May Memorial’s pastor he asked Mr. Sam Tilman, Maryvel Firda’s father, to build a small cabinet to hold the beautiful communion set, and it was placed in the narthex. I have noticed that communion set many times, but over the past few weeks it has been on my mind even more.
Since May Memorial has possessed that silver pitcher and chalices, our nation and world has had many trials and hardships. I have thought about it, and over the last 110 years May Memorial has experienced:
World War I
The Spanish Flu
The Great Depression
World War II
Hitler, Holocaust
Rationing to support the war effort
Korean War
1960’s with the assassinations of MLK, RFK, and JFK
Vietnam
9/11
Great Recession
And these are just the “big” things. There have been many other challenges that don’t fall on the radar of world events. And May Memorial has remained.
When COVID 19 is over, and another pastor is looking at the communion set given by C. D. Wingfield in the beautiful cabinet made by Sam Tilman, she or he will be able to add COVID 19 to that long list. (continued next page)
Our attitude is not “we’ve ‘always’ been here, we’ll ‘always’ be here.” But, “God continues to work in our community and world and we continue to be a part of what God is doing.” This does not mean that individual churches last forever, but churches live as long as God has a place for them in God’s work. And May Memorial continues to live in God’s mission in the world.
May Memorial has been Christ’s light through many difficult days, and it continues to be Christ’s light in our community. We have been forced (or called?) to learn new ways of being church, of connecting with each other, and of serving our community. We continue to “Connect to God, Each Other, and the World,” but in new and different ways. God has blessed us in these past 110 years, and God is continuing to bless us.
Stay strong. Be patient. Love one another. God is not done with us. This is not a time to “survive” but a time to follow God into new ways to serve and reach into our community.