Look! Up in the Sky

The older I get, the more I realize I’m…getting older.  It isn’t easy to get old.  As we get older, we have to let go of things, including the idea that we’re independent.  Or should I say give up the illusion of independence?  It doesn’t matter how old we are, we always depend on others and I’m not just talking about our loved ones.  I’m talking about a whole lot of people we’ll never meet:  the ones who keep the lights on in our homes, bring the groceries to the store, fill the tanks beneath the gas station, take away our garbage and patrol the streets at night.  We say we don’t want to be a burden to people.  How many do we already burden? 

No, it’s not independence we give up.  Independence is an illusion.  What we actually give up is the freedom to pick and choose what we’ll depend on.  If we live long enough, we all have to submit to the demands of aging.  We’re stuck with it. 

Some people fight going into a nursing home.  I sympathize.  I’ve visited a lot of nursing homes over the years.  Some aren’t bad.  Some leave a lot to be desired.  None of them are home.  When you roll in a chair through those doors, you don’t go back to the way things used to be.  You go through a door into an uncertain future.   Most of us don’t like to live with uncertainty.  Uncertainty is weakness. 

But Paul says, “When I am weak, I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).  What does that mean?  It means we can’t know how strong God is until we know how weak we are.  There is no Easter joy without Good Friday suffering.  If I’m young enough, smart enough, strong enough, what need have I for God?  

Aging is about letting go of one thing to take hold of another.  Once or twice in the last couple years, as I’ve seen my immortality symbols (house, church, strength) shrinking, as I’ve looked in the mirror and found not youth but crowsfeet, as I’ve turned away in annoyance, not to say disgust, I’ve had to ask myself, “What’s it gonna be, friend?  Bitter old man or sweet old grandpa?” 

The answer will determine whether the remainder of my earthly sojourn is happy for me and helpful to others.

The prayers go up and up and up.  Why does an old widow receive healing, but a young mother dies? Why are some temptations resisted and others not? Why, when the people do everything right and pray constantly on their knees, does their church remain small and weak?  

Sometimes we can come up with answers that make a certain amount of sense.  Other times, we can’t.  Sometimes it might help to ask ourselves, what if God answered every prayer? 

If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably figured out that we all kind of have a tendency toward selfishness.  Of course, that translates into our prayers. The late Erma Bombeck used to pray, “If you can’t make me look thin, make my friends look fat.” 

If prayer is a means of getting what we want, then we already answer a lot of our own prayers.  We push the pedal, run red lights, speed through residential areas.  We buy a lot of expensive junk.  We overeat, smoke, and drink, ruining our health. We run ourselves ragged, dragging our children with us. We harbor resentment, hold grudges, curse people. Wars, genocide, pollution, unjust systems; some have more money than they can spend in three lifetimes.  Others can barely come up with one meal a day.  Mankind hasn’t exactly handled the power it has very well.  What if God answered every prayer?  In essence, He’d be turning the world over to us to run.  You don’t have to be a deep thinker to figure out where that would lead! 

Maybe this was what Garth Brooks was getting at when he wrote this song, “Just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care.  Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”

I remember a line Trapper John had in a long ago episode of MASH:  “I don’t like a movie, I get up and leave.  I don’t like a war, I’m outa here!”–or words to that effect.  That same sentiment characterizes too many church-goers these days.  They seem to think worship should entertain and the preacher should soothe.  If he doesn’t–if he stops telling funny stories and starts preaching the demands of discipleship–they’re outa here.   Believe me, I feel the pressure to conform to those expectations.   But, as American life continues to change at a dizzying pace, as our culture continues to deteriorate, the demands of discipleship will increase, not decrease.  Sooner or later, preachers, we’re all going to have to quit the games, e.g., “My church is bigger than yours,” “A man’s got to make a living,” “You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” etc, and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  To put it in ol’ Trapper’s terms, this ain’t a movie we’re in, it’s a war–a war for the souls of men.

For more on the subject, go to    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/opinion/08macdonald.html?_r=2

The idea of commitment has become a cliche.  But what is a cliche if not a truth with the edges worn off?  Everywhere I look I see lack of commitment–to marriage, to church, to all sorts of relationships.  It seems to be the fruit born of the philosophies that sprang up in the sixties and seventies.  The Ipod generation, picking only what it wants and tossing the rest, didn’t appear in a vacuum. 

Commitment is an adventure.  I don’t mean a movie where the bullets always miss the hero and a thrilling musical score cues his next move.  I mean an adventure–a hazardous journey of uncertain outcome.   There are resolutions to a variety of stories along the way, but we won’t see how some of them come out.  I’ve got several unresolved stories in my life.  I’m still waiting to see their denouement.  What’s more,  the big story itself doesn’t end until…well, til death do us part. 

It takes guts to walk that walk.  It takes courage to make a commitment.  It sometimes takes all you’ve got to keep it.  And our reward?  Chuck Colson has a good piece at Christianity Today that not only addresses the issue of commitment but suggests the benefits thereof: 

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/august/10.49.html

Pride seeks power, the ability to control others, to move them around like toy soldiers.  If the proud can’t get power, they’ll go to Plan B, i.e., Be close to to powerful people. 

You know what a name dropper is, of course.  He mentions he knows this famous person and talked with that celebrity and had supper with another big shot.  There’s real pleasure in name dropping.  I know.  I’m about to drop one myself.

Several months back, I got to ride in a car with Bob Russell.  If you don’t know who Bob Russell is, he led Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY, to become one of the largest churches in America.  I was at a retreat Bob was leading.  He invited me to ride with him to his house for supper.  Now a bunch of us were going there for supper, but he didn’t ask any of the others to ride with him.  He asked me.  The other fellows stood by the van and watched as I got in the passenger seat beside this author, this leader of a church of 25,000, this great man.  I’m not going to lie to you, friends; it felt good!  As they say down south, I was walkin’ in tall cotton!

But what struck–and humbled–me about the ride with Bob Russell wasn’t his power and influence.  It was his humility.  As the recently retired pastor of a megachurch, he didn’t have to take special time for me.  Who would’ve expected that?  He could’ve simply led the sessions at our retreat, and we would’ve gotten a lot out of them.  It would’ve been enough.  When his work was done, he could jump on his white horse and ride off like the Lone Ranger.  Instead, he treated me and the other guys like fellow pastors, comrades in arms.  He made each of us feel important.

Pride makes a person less approachable, less real.  Pride wears a mask.  It builds a wall around a person.  Humility tears off the mask, breaks down the wall.  It takes nothing away from a person–not accomplishments, skills, or good looks.  It just makes a person easier to know, more fun to be with.  

Are you fun to be with?

Has it really been more than three years since Anna Nicole Smith died?  So many celebrities, so little time to mourn them.   

Here’s a link to a piece I wrote in the wake of that poor ditzy’s soul’s death:

http://www.breakpoint.org/component/content/article/71-features/1452-the-price-of-fame

It’s tough to be a preacher.  Maybe you’re more comfortable with the term “pastor.”  I didn’t grow up calling the man whom I primarily knew as a preacher by that term.  It took me a long time to accept ”pastor” as an alternative.  It’s a long story.  Anyway, regardless of what we call him, he’s got a hard row to hoe. 

Our work has never been without stress.  I regularly talk with a semi-retired minister friend who’s been at it since I was born.  Through the years, he’s labored under financial burdens, felt the gut-punch of betrayal, and the frustration of falling worship attendance.  What the apostle Paul described as the pressure of anxiety for his churches is nothing new. 

What’s new is the pressure to keep up with the social and technological trends of a constantly changing world.  In the last twenty years, I’ve labored under the pressure to grow a mega-church, to stay on the cutting edge of worship music, to provide a veritable supermarket of spiritual goods and services.   In the last ten years, I’ve felt the pressure to be ”missional,” i.e., getting out of the church house and into the poor house.  In the last year, I’ve struggled to adapt to advances in electronic ”social networking,” e.g., Facebook.   This is not an exhaustive list!  What’s more, none of the above have replaced the old challenges; they’ve but  added to the old reliable weight of church finances, church personalities, and church conflict.    

I’ve had my hopes dashed more times than I can remember.  I’ve wrestled with doubt and depression.   Many a morning, I’ve awakened far too early, anxious thoughts of some church crisis or troubled soul buzzing in my head like hornets.  I’ve quit several times the last few years–in my mind, at least.   

Somebody will read this and find a happy whetstone upon which to sharpen his anti-clergy blade:  Well, if you had any sense, if you knew your New Testament from a hole in the ground, you’d know that we’re all supposed to be ministers.  You’re dis-eased because you’re participating in a diseased system, a gangrenous limb on the body of Christ, a stench in the nostrils of God!    Away with pulpits and church buildings!  Away with professional pastors and preaching! 

Yeah, yeah, I know.  You’ll be happy when I’m selling used cars and my flock worships at Tim Horton’s Sunday mornings the way God intended.  Your assaults used to worry me.  They only bore me now.    You’ve got your thing, brother, and I’ve got mine. 

Yeah, it’s tough.  It’s always been tough.  It’s apt to get tougher.  I’ll probably quit a few more times before I’m through. Meanwhile, let me tell you a little of why I stay a preacher.  

In my position, I get a chance to do a variety of things: preach, teach, visit, write, plan and implement those plans.  I’m called in to help people in need.  When I walk into a hospital room or a nursing home room or a living room where people are anxious and afraid, all eyes turn to me.  I’m struck by the power I possess:  “Here’s someone who represents God.  He can help us.”  It doesn’t puff me up; it steadies me, focuses me.  

When I preach, I sometimes feel charged with joy, joy like a child with a brand new box of Crayolas and a new coloring book, like a woodsman standing with a sharp ax before a meaty tree.  I feel light as a feather, as though I could rise up off the ground.  If a calling is truly defined as “the point where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet,” then I must surely be called to preach. 

I don’t always feel that joy, of course, not on Monday morning, not often in study and preparation, but I know it.  I know it like a secret given only to me.  I see a need, a hunger to hear from God.  I know God has and can use me to fill it.  I’m right where I ought to be.  

I’ve been at this preaching-pastoring thing a long time, thirty years come October.  In truth, I’ve been at it so long it’s in my blood.  Many years ago, I read an article in a mainstream magazine that spoke of “journeyman” ministers.  I guess that’s what I and a whole lot of others out there, guys the world will never hear of, are.   I’m on a journey.  At times, it seems a mere tiresome hike across town with many an irksome delay.  Other times, I feel like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings,on a great quest with a great deal at stake.  I want to finish the journey.  I hope I can finish it strong. 

Hey, pray for your preacher, will you?  Thanks.

I enjoy reading Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter, currently columnist for the Wall Street Journal.  Her last essay discussed Shirley Sherrod, 62, Georgia director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.   She was that, at least, until she made a speech down there in GA.   The speech included some remarks that, taken out of context, made her appear a racist.  The Obama administration panicked and she was out of a job.   But it all came out okay. 

You can read Peggy’s recap of the speech and the events that followed here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/NA_WSJ_PUB:declarations.html

But here are a couple paragraphs to whet your appetite:

“So what are the lessons? That we’re all too quick to judge. That we don’t even let the evidence of our eyes stop us in our rush to judgment. You can’t see and hear Ms. Sherrod and fail to understand that she’s a thoughtful, serious person.

That we are not skeptical enough of what new media can cook up in its little devil’s den. That anyone can be the victim of a high-tech lynching, and that because of this we have to be careful, slow down, look deeper. We live in a time when what you say is taped, and those tapes can be cut, and the cuts can be ruinous, and if you think it only happens to the rich and famous, think again. It’s coming to a theater near you.”

The always insightful, always relevant Ms. Peggy Noonan, Ladies and Gentleman.

“If it had not been the LORD who was on our side…” Psalm 124:1

This is the business that Jack built.  This is the city where sits the business that Jack built.  These are the people that commute to the city where sits the business that Jack built.  These are the tools that the people use that commute to the city that work in the business that Jack built.  These are the checks that pay the people who use the tools that commute to the city that Jack built.  This is the earthquake that destroys the city and wipes out the records which Jack used to write the checks to pay the people who use the tools that commute to the city where sat the business that Jack built.    

Our hold on everything is so fragile, isn’t it?  If not for the Lord, our physical agility, our domestic tranquility, our upward mobility would so quickly go south it’d make our heads spin.  If the Maker wasn’t a giver, we’d all be in a heap of trouble. 

So why should we the needy give of our substance?  If our hold on things is so tenuous, doesn’t generosity only push us closer to the edge of disaster?   The fact is, we give because we are needy!   

Here the Curly Howards among us squeal in frustration, slapping their faces:  “Are you tryin’ to gimme the double-talk?”  Just bear with me a moment.   Among our many needs is our need to give.   We’re made in the image God the Giver.  He not only gives us the world and all its wonders,  He gives us health, strength, and daily food.  He gave us His only Son to die for our sins.  Through the presence of Christ in us, we’re being remade into His image–the image of a loving, giving God.  We need to give–like we need toothpaste, Vitamin D, and seatbelts.   Greed cripples and disfigures us, defacing the image of God in us, like spraying paint on a cathedral. 

The prophet Malachi asks, “Will a man rob God?”  ?  If we refuse to make God’s dream come true, if we resist becoming more like Him, which is His deepest desire, certainly we’ve robbed Him.   No, God doesn’t need our money, any more than Niagara Falls needs a squirt from a syringe.   God needs nothing from us.  It’s we who are the needy, not Him.  And we need to give.   Otherwise, we rob God of…us! 

You think about that as the offering plate goes by Sunday.  Amen.

Returned from play rehearsal last night, flipped a couple dips of low-fat ice cream into a bowl, and slipped a disc into the old DVD player.  This one featured episodes from Season One of The Greatest American Hero.   Remember GAH?  It came out not long after Chris Reeve made us believe a man could fly, riding the cape of Superman‘s success.    Stephen Cannell (who also produced the A-Team) had a simple but compelling idea:  what if an ordinary guy was given extraordinary powers and told to save the world?  The Emmy-nominated series, particularly the first season, was a delightful mixture of sci-fi and comedy with a wonderful cast and, for its time, great fx.   Having enjoyed several of these episodes on DVD, none of which we could remember seeing,  Barb and I and were struck by how good this thing really was.    The dialogue is witty and sharp, the situations and characters believable.  The theme song remains a great pop tune, capturing with cheerful irony the plight of the hero: 

Believe it or not/I’m walkin’ on air/I never thought I could feel so free/Flyin’ away on a wing and a prayer/Who could it be?/Believe it or not, it’s just me!

We watched the interviews with Cannell, William Katt (Ralph Hinkley), and the still-lovely Connie Selleca (his girl, Pam).  Along the way, we gathered interesting tidbits of information like where the unique emblem on the super-suit came from (a pair of scissors on Cannell’s desk) and the fact that Katt and Robert Culp (excellent as FBI agent, Bill Maxwell) didn’t get along well in the beginning. 

What drew the principals to this show was the down-to-earth, human approach.  Stephen Cannell, who disliked super-heroes and had no desire to make a “Saturday morning cartoon,” wanted to show an ordinary man in an extraordinary, not to say absurd, situation.   In this, he succeeded.  The theme of each episode revealed some aspect of human nature–greed, egotism, even hypochondria.   The network bosses, however, wanted Ralph to “chase monsters through sewers,” as Bill Katt put it.  They wanted huge world-ending threats and super-villains.  Toward the end, the suits got their way and Katt thinks this is what killed the series. 

Nearly thirty years ago, when the show first appeared, I thought the title a little odd:  “‘The Greatest American Hero?’ “What’s so great about this guy?” I wondered.  “He doesn’t like the suit or the powers or the responsibility.  He can’t even fly right.”  Now I see what Cannell was after and why the title is appropriate:  The truest hero has always been a person confronted with an impossible situation, torn between security and responsibility.  He chooses to shoulder the responsibility, like Ralph Hinkley does, invariably at great cost.   By that definition, the Greatest American Hero could well be reading this post.   

On behalf of a grateful nation, Sir or Ma’am, thank you.