Reading through John

Next Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent—and I’m not giving anything up. Nope. This year I’m adding something, instead. I’m going to read through the Gospel of John, a little bit each day, finishing it by the end of Lent’s 40 days. I hope that you will read along with me. 

And here’s why:

1.      I believe reading Scripture is better done together. (That thought isn’t original to me, by the way.) I’ve set up a Facebook group “Reading through John” so that we can share our thoughts on our reading and gently hold one another accountable to the task. John’s Gospel can be challenging. I will need encouragement and a little cheerleading. Maybe you will, too.

2.      I believe that John’s Gospel gives us one of Scripture’s clearest pictures of the radiant heart of God. The book begins in the glory of light coming into the world and finishes with life lived in the name of Jesus. I need that right now. Maybe you do, too.

3.      I believe that God wants to use this precious time of Lent to speak to me and to each one of us. There’s a lot of noise in our world right now, a constant drumbeat of outrage, each beat more outrageous and demanding more of our attention than the last. Taking a half hour out each day to sink into some of the most beautiful language in the English language will be good for me. Maybe it will be for you, too.

4.      I believe that God wants to equip me for the work that lies ahead of me and each one who claims to follow Jesus. There is much to be outraged about, much to grieve, much to ponder, much to do. John’s gospel acknowledges that the world is hostile to the light of God, that darkness is powerful and pervasive. I need to hear that word, the word of grace, the Word made flesh. I need to catch a glimpse of the light that darkness cannot overcome. Maybe you do, too.

If this sounds good to you, I hope that you will give it a try and join me in reading through the Gospel of John during the 40 days of Lent. Invite your friends, too, both near and far to be part of our Lenten journey through the magic and wonder of the internet! Remember…find us on Facebook at “Reading through John.” Request an invite – and you’ll be in.

If you want to participate, but need some help, shoot me an email at pastornina@tlrchurch.org.

Week 1 reading (below) begins on Ash Wednesday, March 1. (Daily Readings will also be posted on Facebook.)

March 1: John 1:1-18

March 2: John 1:19-34

March 3: John 1:35-51

March 4: John 2:1-12

March 5: John 2:13-25

Risky Business

My friend hates to go to the dentist. He takes exception when his wife—lovingly—calls him a weenie. He’s not afraid of going to the dentist, mind you. He hates it. These in his mind are two distinctly different things.

I believe my friend. Because I’m not fond of going to the dentist, either, and it’s not because I’m afraid of the pain. After all, Novocain was invented in 1904 and Novocain is my friend.

No, it’s not the possibility that going to the dentist is going to hurt. It’s the reality that going to the dentist is going to mean me lying flat in a chair with someone else’s hands in my mouth. 

Can’t move. Can’t talk. I feel helpless at the dentist and I hate it. She simply hits the button to recline the chair, and I start to sweat.

In case you were wondering, I don’t much like to fly, either. Do you see a pattern here?

I confess. I might have some control issues. But then, don’t we all? Or at least most of us? Enforced bedrest is great for about 24 hours and then all you want is to go to the bathroom by yourself without asking. I’ve heard it said more than once that the worst part of getting old—and no one thinks getting old is a snap—is the day when you hang up your car keys for the last time. And anyone who has sprained her ankle and had to depend upon her children to push the wheelchair? Yeah, I’m told you learn to use those crutches pretty quick.

And then illness strikes. Or you lose your job. Or your hopes and dreams for a great relationship fall apart. The future looks bleak. You don’t know which way is up. And the advice of your friends?

Let go and let God.

Is there an instruction manual for that?

Trusting that God is in the midst of our anxiety about now and then and yet to come requires intentional practice, lots of it, maybe a lifetime or so. It means going out on purpose and looking for uneasy, uncomfortable spaces to inhabit so that we get to know up close and personal those places and the feelings they engender. It means shaking up our routines and embracing the unexpected that will happen when we do that. It means opening the doors and the windows of our lives together that the high wind of the Holy Spirit might blow through us, trusting that the breath of God, scary and unpredictable as it can be, is in fact love in our midst.

For me—and the beloved gathered here in the community I treasure—trusting that God is in all of this means saying yes to  the uncertainty that comes with a pastoral sabbatical and welcoming this time as a blessed, life-giving, faith-building, disciple-growing, challenging adventure. 

And, the bonus? Well, for one thing, it will be great fun.

Now—if I just didn’t have to get on a plane……

The Gift of Receiving

It’s been a long week. I wasn’t heartbroken when I woke up to enough snow on the ground to justify a personal snow day. A hot cup of tea, my rocking chair, and the book I had been trying to finish for the last month sounded wonderful.

The scrape of a snow shovel on the front porch did not. Sound wonderful, I mean. It sounded like my awesome neighbor down the street doing me a good turn and shoveling my walks. I am grateful, don’t get me wrong, kind of, sort of, if by grateful you mean I feel guilty for sitting on my rocking chair while someone else does the work that I shoulda, coulda, woulda done myself.

The Apostle Paul quotes Jesus as saying: It is more blessed to give than to receive. No doubt Paul and Jesus know what they’re talking about. But—it’s also a whole lot easier to give than to receive and often more personally satisfying. Giving feels good. It feels worthy, and important, and necessary. It feels right. It feels righteous. Giving is almost brag-worthy.

Receiving? Receiving is hard. It doesn’t come naturally. There’s not a whole lot of glory in it.

We have to practice receiving, like when we receive the peace of Christ from our neighbor in the pew. Or when we feel the prayers of our friends. Our kids practice as they listen patiently to each other and acknowledge one another’s high and lows, hopes and dreams, challenges and opportunities. It may not be all that obvious, but we practice receiving when we make a visit or tutor a student or wipe a toddler’s runny nose and wind up getting more than we could ever give. Sometimes we practice when we’re sick and we accept the gift of chicken soup and Stouffer's lasagna whether we want it or not, or when we come to the table with hands held out, not to take bread and juice and blessing, but to receive them as a gift  from the hands of another.

Years ago, when I was a brand new pastoral intern shaking hands at the back door after worship, an elderly woman slipped me $20 and whispered, Merry Christmas, as she scooted out the door. 

It was July. 

I started after her to give the money back. I didn’t need it. I had enough and more of my own. How could I take this poor woman’s money? The deacon on the door gently grabbed my arm and stopped me. Sometimes, he said, you simply have to receive the gift.

I’m still working on that.

Bill

Tomorrow we’ll bury Bill. We’ll set tables, bake brownies, and lay out trays of little roast beef sandwiches, the only sandwich Bill would eat. The choir will sing “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.” Bill loved that song. It’s Friday and February and most likely cold as the grave, but someone will make sure the heat is on and the pews tidy. And after all the visits and the prayers, tomorrow, in tears and laughter, we will bury Bill.

Because that’s what we do. Bill told me, back when he joined our little band of Jesus followers, that we had a rep for a turning out a good funeral (his words). He didn’t want much, he said. Just give him one of those good funerals, and we’d be fine.

Friendships have deep roots in our congregation. Some of these folks have known each other for years, lived on the same block, raised their children together. Like many community congregations, family names run through the red books, showing up in generation after generation, populating the Properties Committee, and the choir, and the youth group.

But we recently celebrated our church’s 100^th anniversary and we discovered that what we thought was shared history wasn’t. Close to 50% of our membership had joined in the last fifteen years or so. They were polite about the 100^th anniversary memory book, but….

Back in the day, folks hung around. They grew up in the neighborhood, went to church there, got married, had children, and were buried there, often in the cemetery back out behind the nursery school playground.

Nowadays, not so much. If folks even did grow up in the church, it wasn’t this church.

I think we have to be intentional about growing community. I’m not sure that, in today’s digital, mobile world, community can be considered to be a given wherever two or three are gathered in his name. If we want to be what we say we are, if we want to be a family, sisters and brothers gathered around the Risen Lord, then we who are on the inside of the circle are going to have to work for it, be intentional about getting to know the siblings God has brought our way.

We’re going to miss Bill. It’s a fact that he was one of our newest members, but you never would have guessed that. He walked in the door one morning and joined the choir. As I recall, someone said, Can you sing? He said, yes I can. They gave him a robe and music folder—and Bill was home.

So tomorrow we’ll bury Bill. We’re going to turn out one of those good funerals, like we promised Bill that we would. There will be brownies, and trays of little roast beef sandwiches. I’m guessing there will be some laughs, too, and plenty of tears. After all, if only for a little while, Bill was family. And in our neck of the woods, that’s what families do.