Packing light

Jesus told his disciples: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.” Nowadays you get 50 pounds.

Which is both a lot and practically nothing. For instance, a person could take unlimited underwear. But you don’t need to take unlimited underwear because underwear’s easy to wash in the hotel sink. Jeans, sweaters, not so much. It can be done, but it’s not pretty. So one pair of jeans for three weeks and hope against hope for a coin-op laundry?

Similarly, socks pack real well. They fill in the cracks between everything else and can even be packed inside shoes. But shoes take up a lot of room and weight. So, the question becomes, how many shoes do I need for all those socks?

The truth is I have too much stuff. Because I like stuff. Stuff is my security blanket. Stuff grants the illusion that I am in control. I like to have the right stuff for whatever comes and that translates into a whole lot of stuff for a three week trip, stuff for rainy weather, stuff in case it’s warm, stuff for the almost certainty that it won’t be warm, stuff for hiking, stuff for the beach, stuff for the pub, stuff for the remote possibility that we eat somewhere other than a pub, stuff for church, stuff for country, stuff for town, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff.

And then of course, there’s the camera, the iPad, the portable, packable keyboard, and books, guidebooks, prayer books, the latest Janet Evanovich. My friend gave me a beautiful Bible for my sabbatical. I love it. It feels so good in my hands. The leather cover, the glorious paper, the beautiful typeset inside. I don’t want to leave it home.  

It’s a lot of stuff, which I don’t have the room or the weight to pack.

Jesus said take nothing for the journey. I’m not there yet—probably won’t ever be. But in the spirit and discipline of sabbatical, this time I’m letting go and traveling light. The shoes on my feet and a pair in the suitcase. The iPad loaded with books in my purse; the Bible stays home. 

Which leaves room in my suitcase for my pillow.

Dude—get serious. I’m not traveling that light. The pillow goes.

The older I get, the less I know, but....

Perhaps you are thinking right now that you have never heard God speak to you. Well, I promise you, the preacher intoned with absolute conviction, you will hear God speak to you this morning.

I envy him his certainty. And his guts, frankly. That’s quite a promise to make on someone else’s behalf, two someone’s actually, God and the folks sitting in his pews. What if God’s not in the mood to chat up the congregation? What if the congregation and its several members are not in the mood to listen? Scripture and the witness of the saints certainly seem to suggest that God, on occasion, is silent. And that humankind frequently tunes God out.

I’m choosing to believe that what the preacher meant to say was that Scripture, understood in the Reformed tradition to be the Word of God written, would be read from the pulpit that morning and that, in the reading, we would hear God speak. Still, I didn’t hear a whole lot of the Scripture reading as I was preoccupied with the promise that I WOULD hear God speak. To me. That morning. In that place.

I do envy the preacher his certainty, especially when it was offered with such grace and compassion for those who sat under his preaching that Sunday. I envy it, but I don’t like it. That certainty makes me deeply uncomfortable. It implies, doesn’t it, that the preacher knows, absolutely knows what God will do. Which implies that the preacher also knows absolutely what God won’t do. Which implies that the preacher also probably knows other God stuff, too, like who God loves, who God hates, and what God eats for breakfast, and why God feels like that about the ones he loves and the ones he hates.

Certainty is how we end up with a high-profile preacher proclaiming that “God isn’t an open borders kind of guy.” Certainty is how we end up with another high-profile preacher stating as fact that 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina were God’s judgement on an unbelieving nation. Certainty is just exactly what brings us the faux doctrinal Nashville Statement, a whole bunch of high profile preachers getting together to inform an unbelieving world that God not only rejects same sex relationships as sinful depravity, not only rejects those who live and love in the way they believe that God has made them to do, but rejects also those who love and affirm and support their LGBTQ+ sisters and brothers in their loving walk with one another. 

And yet we are shocked that an unbelieving world thinks that the Christian God is at the beck and call of the rich and the powerful and the privileged against the poor and the dispossessed. We can’t understand why an unbelieving world would think that the Christian God sanctifies wars and walls and whiteness.  We are deeply grieved to discover that unbelieving world is certain that the Christian God is not love after all, but hate and condemnation and exclusion and rejection and that that same unbelieving world wants absolutely nothing to do with this Christian God of whom they have heard. 

A few years ago, two women came to me and asked me to officiate their wedding. They didn’t need my approval or my blessing. They were going to get married. God had placed this on their hearts, of that they were certain. But they wanted the church’s blessing on their love and commitment. They wanted the church to pronounce God’s blessing on their life together and they wanted to hear it said out loud “in front of God and everyone.” So I did. We all did. Loudly and with a lot of holy hugs, as I remember it.

The older I get, the less I know for sure. But of this I am certain. God is love. And God’s son Jesus asks us to be love, too, to love one another as he has loved us, to love one another sacrificially. What do you suppose an unbelieving world might think of our God if those high-profile preachers preached that?

For such a time as this

I preached this sermon on September 11, 2011 at Lawrence Road Presbyterian Church, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, just about 60 miles from Ground Zero ...

Esther 4:5-17

Romans 12:9-21

Ten years ago this morning, Jim and I woke up in the slightly down-at-the-heels Bridal Suite of the slightly down-at-the-heels Holiday Inn in International Falls, Minnesota, just about 300 yards short of the Canadian border. No—no special occasion or anything. The Bridal Suite was the only first floor room left at the Holiday Inn, which, being slightly down-at-the-heels did not, of course, have a working elevator.

I was in the bathroom, which I remember as being awfully small and utilitarian for a putative bridal suite, getting ready for the annual trip north to our cabin. Jim switched on the TV while he waited, the Today Show as I recall, Matt Lauer and Katie Couric talking about a reported small plane crash at the World Trade Center, down the road from where they sat in the NBC studio. Sad, we thought, but no big deal. 

As we came out of the dining room a little later, and saw the bar TV across the way, we realized how wrong we had been. Something awful, really awful, was happening and no one was quite sure what. Jim and I decided in that moment that if we were going to go to the lake, we’d better go right then. We made a run for the border crossing. A young man, a kid really, met us at the gate wearing body armor, something I’d never seen before, and carrying a machine gun like he wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do with it. He waved us through without a word. And the border closed behind us. We were the last ones through for nearly a week.

That’s what Jim and I were doing ten years ago this morning. I’m sure that you remember what you were doing, too. September 11, 2001, was that kind of a day, a day to remember.

And remembering is, I think, part of what we are called to do as Christians. Our remembering honors the sacrifice of those who died in the attacks, and those who died that day trying to save them. Our remembering honors those who have given so much since then to protect the freedoms that you and I enjoy every day. Our remembering honors the grief and the loss of the families who lost so much on September 11 and on all the days that have followed. That’s a big part of who we are as Christians. We remember.

Which I’d like to suggest, by the way, as we, each one of us in our own way, observe this solemn day, may not be exactly the same thing as never forgetting, at least not for Christians anyway, for those who claim to follow Jesus. In a real sense, the idea of never forgetting  holds in itself an unspoken imperative to never let go of what we felt that day, the anger, the fear, the hatred, to never let oneself move past the hurt and betrayal, never, ever forgive, no matter what. Remembering is a positive action; it does something. It enters into the other’s pain; never forgetting holds on tight to that pain and uses it against the other like a shield. As Christians we work hard to forget and forgive, even while we remember.

Our faith knows the power of remembrance. That’s what Mordecai wanted his kinswoman Esther, the Jewish queen in our Old Testament story this morning, to do. He wanted her to remember. There he stood in the courtyard of the palace, dressed down in sackcloth and ashes, a living, breathing, shouting, lamenting reminder to Esther of who she was and what she alone could do. Remember who you are, Esther. Remember from whence you have come. Remember all those who aren’t as fortunate as you, who don’t live in places of power, who don’t have a voice with which to speak the truth in love. Remember what can and will happen to them. Remember, Esther, Mordecai insists, that you are one of them, one of us. In the face of terrible persecution, of the threat of total annihilation, remember. 

Remember—for such a time as this.

Paul understands this too, the power of remembrance. He spends eleven of the sixteen chapters of his extraordinary letter to the church at Rome reminding his Christian brothers and sisters who they are in order to push them to do what they alone can do, to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Remember who I once was, he writes, the worst sinner of all, a persecutor of the Lord and his followers. Remember who you once were too, sinners every one. Remember what the Lord did for you anyway, that while you were yet sinners, Christ died for you. Remember that you have been justified by the faith of Jesus Christ, a free gift that you have done nothing to deserve. 

Remember that there is now no condemnation for you, that in the power of the Holy Spirit, you have been set free. Remember that nothing, not your sin or someone else’s, not any power on earth or in heaven can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus your Lord. Remember that, despite who you are and where you’ve been and what you’ve done, God has shown mercy to you every step of the way. Remember who you are, who God has made you to be. In the face of great persecution by the Roman power machine, of the threat of total destruction, remember. 

Remember—for such a time as this.

Methodist theologian Will Willimon once wrote: Back in high school, every Friday and Saturday night, as I was leaving home to go on a date, I remember my mother bidding me farewell with these weighty words, “Remember who you are.” You know what she meant. She did not mean that I was in danger of forgetting my name and my street address. She meant that, alone on a date, in the midst of some party, in the presence of some strangers, I might forget who I was. I might lose sight of the values with which I had been raised, answer to some alien name, engage in some unaccustomed behavior. “Remember who you are,” was her maternal benediction as I left home.”

Remember—for such a time as this.

There’s something about the act of remembering who we are and whose we are that gives us the strength to live into that reality. When we remember, we once again enter respectfully, even humbly, into the story, whether it’s our story or primarily someone else’s. Our remembering brings great tragedy down to a human scale; it can and does call us into relationship with the other, with the neighbor and the stranger. Somehow remembering aligns us with the grief-stricken; it places us shoulder to shoulder with the widow and the orphan, the poor and the helpless, the lost, the least, and the last. We remember hunger and we share our food. We remember thirst and we pour another cup of water. We remember loneliness and we welcome the stranger. We remember grief and we hold on tight to the ones who mourn. We remember the sweet, sweet taste of forgiveness and maybe, just maybe, find in that memory the grace to forgive those who name themselves enemy, even those who have injured us so deeply and grievously. At its best, our remembering tears down the walls that divide us, the walls that refusing to forget so easily build up. It’s resurrection work, this kind of remembering; in the power of the Holy Spirit, the promise of our Christian faith is that even the dead will be raised.

Ten years ago, Jim and I rode out the first days after September 11 alone on an island in Canada, cut off from what was going on here at home. These were the days before everybody and their brother had a cell phone surgically attached to their ear and communication with our family and friends was mostly by payphone—you remember those relics of another time, right? We got what news we could get from the TV at the local bar and grill. It was so quiet, eerily so, and we felt so very, very alone in our sorrow and our fear.

 

One day shortly after we arrived, we headed into town once again to try and connect with the folks at home. As our boat came around the point into the marina, there on the flagpole hung the Stars and Stripes where the Maple Leaf had always flown before. The grouchy, crabby couple who had always taken our American money as if they were doing us a huge favor (my interpretation and I will absolutely own that) had somehow scrounged up an American flag from somewhere and hung it where we would see it first thing. They wanted us to know we were among friends. They remembered us—and for us, that day, it made all the difference in the world.

I don’t think very many of us would contend that the world is a better place since that Tuesday ten years ago. Maybe it’s just me, but the phrase “going to hell in a hand basket” seems to fit the bill pretty nicely. But the witness of Esther and Mordecai and Paul and the claim of our faith is that you and I have been given what it takes to make a difference, to change that world, one prayer, one holy hug, one cup of water a time. We can, if we only will, participate in what God has been doing since the beginning, what God was doing in Jesus Christ, and what God continues to do even in times such as ours in and through the Holy Spirit. Remember—we are the body of Christ in the world, and as our Lord and Savior healed and fed and forgave and raised the dead, so we too are called and gifted and sent out into the world to do the same.

 

Remember that, my friends, on this day of remembrance and every day. Remember who you are and speak the truth to power like Esther did. Remember what God has done for you, who God has made you to be and, like Paul and his Roman Christians, as far as it depends upon you, live at peace with those around you. Remember, and give your enemies bread to eat; share the cup with those who stand against you. Remember that you are loved beyond comprehension and love with everything you’ve got. Remember the One who gave his body, his very life for you and present your time, your treasure, your talents, your body, and your life to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable before the Lord. Remember and heal the sick, feed the hungry, forgive and forgive and forgive once again. 

Remember—for such a time as this.

 

The best laid plans

I’m a planner. On the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator scale, I’m a strong INTJ, that J meaning that I tend to approach life in a structured way, planning, organizing, fixing things to achieve my goals.

This past week, my goal was to get home to New Jersey and get started on a much anticipated and necessary three month break from my pastoral routine. And as a corollary, to not exhaust Jim and me in the process. Given the fact that I, what with preparing for my three months away as I would for my own death and all, was already pretty exhausted by the time we pulled out of Sioux City and headed the Winnebago down I-29 toward Omaha on the first leg of our journey home, I had planned carefully to make sure that Monday’s drive was an easy one, no more than 5 hours max from Jim’s sister’s driveway to campsite #4 at Honeycreek State Park. I’m a planner, a good one, and my plan was coming together nicely.

Until Mile Marker 105. Where the forward progress of our journey home came to a screeching halt. 

Three hours later, the driver of the biggest, heaviest, most impressively shiny tow truck I’ve ever seen hauled us into a farmyard carved out of miles and miles of soybean fields, announced that, chickens, pigs, and sleeping dog notwithstanding, this WAS indeed the right address and thus the auto repair shop we were looking for. He unhooked the RV, shook our hands, wished us good luck, and drove off in a cloud of dust.

It was now 2pm on Monday afternoon. We should have been sitting by the fire in campsite #4. Instead, we were in a farmyard, several miles outside of Onawa, Iowa, at the mercy of complete strangers. And there was absolutely not one thing that I could do to make it different, or better, or different, at the very least. We had promised to be home by Friday. People were depending on us. All our reservations were made, and my carefully plan depended on us arriving at campsite #4 sometime on Monday. 

What if the farmer/mechanic can't fix the bus, get the parts, find the time? What if it takes a couple of days, a week, a month? What if, what if, what if…

Meanwhile, it is a stunningly beautiful day, Iowa-at-the-beginning-of-September gorgeous. The farmer’s garden is lush with apples and tomatoes and giant zinnias of every color. There are chickens all over the place. I love chickens. If it weren’t for the 35-foot Winnebago up on the lift with its guts hanging out, life would be unbelievably good.

But there’s always a 35-foot Winnebago up on a lift, isn’t there? There’s always something, something to wind us up, to kick our anxiety into high gear, to pull our minds and hearts out of whatever small goodness there might be in the place where we are and into the chaos of what might have been and what might be coming next. And if our own personal 35-foot Winnebagos don’t do it, the siren song of unlimited 24-7 access to the agony of the world in the palm of our hands, and the concomitant powerlessness of the individual to affect or remedy any of that agony in the moment, is just waiting to suck us in.

There’s an ancient Celtic prayer that begins with the words: Lord, enable me to place my trust in you, and so live in the present moment. Lead me to accept the now. Guard my heart from stress over what has gone wrong before and what will without a doubt go wrong ten minutes from now. Enable me to trust Jesus enough to embrace what is, to find God in the place where I am.

It was nearly midnight before we got to campsite #4 at Honeycreek State Park, just this side of Tuesday morning. The night was beautifully still and the glory of God burst from the heavens. Lord, enable me to place my trust in you, and so live in the present moment. Not exactly what I had planned, but I’m pretty sure that’s the moment my sabbatical began.