From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

I do not know how the crow flies. All I know is that’s the way most of us want to go. The shortest route. The straightest path. The quickest way. The crow, of course, is not dependent on good roads, open roads, paved, plowed or salted roads. For the crow can fly above it, to it. To my knowledge, no old timer at a backwoods gas station ever said to a crow: “Birdie, you can’t get there from here.” The crow can get there from anywhere.

Several of you asked whether I went outside on Wednesday evening to watch the lunar eclipse. To which I replied: “No, I stayed in the house to watch the Red Sox win the World Series.” As I told Kris, you can always watch a lunar eclipse.

Last Sunday….Mother’s Day….Sue Ives was sharing a platform moment with the children who attend our Sunday Night Alive service in the Christian Life Center. Using a bird’s nest as her prop, Sue led the children through the stages of being a mother bird, from bringing food to the nest so her offspring could eat, to gently pushing them from the nest so her offspring could fly. Bright child that she is, Anna Kileen (age six) figured out where Sue’s message was going and inched closer and closer to her mother who was also on the platform.

I don’t know why everybody crams into the kitchen. But every time we throw a party or host a family gathering, that’s where people seem to end up. So last year, when we bought in Bloomfield, we got ourselves the biggest kitchen we have ever had.

Truth be told, I’d go back to Egypt in a heartbeat. Where I’ve been twice, dragging tourists behind me. I’ve descended into the bowels of the pyramids, claustrophobic though I am, singing in the darkened dungeon of that inner sanctum:

“Bless us and save us,” said old Mrs. Davis.
“Joy, joy,” said Mrs. Malloy.
“Mercy, mercy,” cried Governor Percy.
“Saints, preserve us,” yelled old Richard Purvis.

A colleague who has spent his entire ministerial life pastoring in the South, writes:

Once upon a time they came from the East, found a level plain in the Land of Shinar, and built a city where they settled. They were as ingenious as they were industrious. They were all on the same page, given that they were all of the same language.

Later this evening, while the rest of you are finding your way to any number of Super Bowl parties, I will be finding my way to Metropolitan Airport so that Julie can fly back to San Francisco following a whirlwind visit for the funeral of a family friend. So I’ll miss the first half and maybe a little more. But I find myself in the strange position of not caring who wins.

During this morning’s services, we introduced Carl Gladstone, Lynn Hasley and Jeff Nelson to the gathered congregations. All three graduated from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in mid-May. All three were commissioned for ministry by Bishop Linda Lee at sessions of the Detroit Annual Conference later in May. All three were appointed to the ministerial staff of First Church, effective July 1, 2004.

On a day in October, coming back from Chicago, I stopped in Grand Rapids for a round of golf, stealing 18 holes from the greedy jaws of winter. On a 200 yard par three, I dropped my tee shot five feet from the pin and proceeded to sink the putt. Since it was the only time I matched or beat par all day, I smiled at my partner, shook hands around the foursome, and thanked the prevailing gods of golf for their uncommon and surprising beneficence.

Let me begin with a story from one of the great preachers of our time.

I don’t know whether you’ve noticed or not, but not everything that looks tame is tame. Like some of the animals that run around my neck of the woods. One Sunday afternoon, a little red fox scampered across our deck. Then, just a few nights ago, we froze him in our headlights on the side of the road. Maybe it wasn’t the same fox. And maybe it wasn’t a fox at all. Not that I would know.

Over the course of eight summers (from the summer following the third grade to the summer following the eleventh grade), I went to church camp twelve times. A week each time. Meaning that there were some summers when I went twice. I camped at Lake Louise, Lake Huron, Mill Lake and Judson Collins Camp on Wampler’s Lake in the Irish Hills. That’s where I started.

My daughter is home and here this morning. This is my soon-to-be-married….even-sooner-to-be-thirty….daughter. Where did they go, these days of our lives? I don’t remember growing older. When did she?

Before computerization in the publishing business, records were kept in hard copy, in file folders, placed in file cabinets, kept in file drawers. At both the offices of the News and the Free Press, before the joint operating agreement, there was a room called the Living Obituary File. In that room were file drawers with clippings and information on the rich and the famous in the greater Detroit area.

It seems about once a week, someone will say to me: “Who do we call to schedule an appointment with you?” Like I have people who do that for me. Which I could, I suppose. But if you want an appointment with me, you call me. Or you take your chances and drop in on me. Which carries no assurance. But you never know.

Your First Church trustees….ever relentless in their efforts to look out for you and this building in which you gather….have turned their attention to doors. More to the point, they have returned their attention to doors, given that I remember holding….then tabling….this same discussion five years ago. For the doors in this building are old and worn. They neither look good nor work good. Few of them can hold a finish on….or keep intruders out.

I find it fascinating that in the very same week St. Christopher has been called into question by the Roman Catholic Church, I should be standing up to preach a sermon inspired, in no small part, by a love affair that many of us have with the automobile. For St. Christopher has long been revered as the patron saint of drivers.

You tell me. How ironic is this? On Friday night I stayed home for a change, the better to research this text about a manager-in-residence who takes a few accounting liberties, commonly known as “cooking the books.” Then I awakened at 4:00 in the morning with all of this swirling in my head, leading Kris (who was also awake, given my tossing and turning) to say: “Why don’t you go downstairs and outline your sermon? Maybe then you can go back to sleep.”

It seemed odd when she said it, but (as I was soon to learn) there was much more to it. She was bright, vivacious, talented, attractive and young. He was bright, vivacious, talented, handsome and less young. Color her, mid-twenties. Color him, pushing forty….not as in nudging forty, so much as in shoving forty. He was my friend. My divorced friend. She was his friend. His new friend. His new, never-before-married friend.

This sermon was preached in response to the 300th anniversary of John Wesley’s birth on June 28, 1703. Its only connection with Father’s Day was the observation that John Wesley represents our denominational father in the faith. Birthday celebrations were somewhat big in the Detroit area in mid-June, given the four-day bash in honor of the Ford Motor Company’s 100th birthday. All things considered, the timing seemed appropriate.

Anywhere you go anymore, there will probably be some kind of reminder (verbal or visual) to turn off your cell phones or put them on “vibrate.” We will soon have that kind of reminder here. Don’t ask me how. But we’ll have it, given that several services in a row….before, during and after Easter….were interrupted by ringing cell phones.

As will soon become apparent upon reading the sermon, these words were written in observance of First Church’s annual observance of Pentecost. For those reading them from afar, let me acknowledge my awareness that Pentecost Sunday officially falls on June 8 of this year. As you probably know, Pentecost moves across the calendar in direct relation to the date of Easter. Some years ago, I decided to institutionalize our Pentecost observance on the first Sunday of June.

Every trade has its tools. And one of the tools unique to my trade is a good sermon illustration. Which is why, when a good one surfaces, it becomes an attractive target for thieves. Not that we preachers like seeing ourselves in that light. But when it comes to a good story, we’ll steal from anybody.

In one of their recorded hits the Kingston Trio didn’t sing last Sunday night, one can find the words:

Given the incredible talents Chris and Doris Hall possess, along with the incredible blessings Chris and Doris Hall bring, I would not….even for a moment….seek to be frivolous at their expense. Meaning that this morning’s title (“Are Chris and Doris Hall in Their Right Minds?”) is a serious question rather than a tongue-in-cheek quip. A question I intend to answer. With an answer that is chock-full of meaning.

Let me introduce you to Bill Muehl….Grosse Pointer by location….Episcopalian by confirmation….University of Michigan trained lawyer by vocation….who was rerouted by God in 1944 to New Haven, Connecticut, where he ended up teaching forty years’ worth of young mumblers at Yale Divinity School how to preach. Including me.

While I find it hard to keep up with local press coverage, my friend David Mosser manages to sift through news dispatches from Great Britain. Which was how he learned, last November, about two British mental health workers who visited a female client, chatted for several minutes, decided she wasn’t interested in talking with them, and then left (presumably to fill out a case report in the car before continuing on to their next stop). What they somehow failed to observe was that she was dead.

Let me start with a disclaimer of sorts. I am not a grandfather. Neither do I sleep with a grandmother. Kris and I have two children. Our son, Bill, died nine years ago. Our daughter, Julie, presently lives and works in California. We often tell her that grandchildren would be nice. We drop hints about how much fun it would be to take a four-year-old to Disney World.

The following communion meditation was shared on the fourth and final Friday of a month-long mission project in Manciones, Costa Rica. My wife (Kristine) and I were privileged to be a part of this collective effort. Our goal was to build a church for a new congregation. Which, while not fully completed at the time of our departure, was well on the way.

If you were to force me into making a list of my all-time favorite Bible stories, this one would surely be on it. That’s because I’ve been to the pool with the five porticos. I’m talking about the “real thing.” You don’t get many opportunities like that in Jerusalem. Eighteen feet of rubble has covered most of the original biblical sites in the city.

W.W.J.D. “What would Jesus drive?” Apparently, a group of clergy (Protestant, Catholic, Jewish) asked that of a group of Detroit-based automotive executives on Wednesday as part of a campaign to improve environmental ecology. And while I know a little something about the issue, I know next to nothing about the group.

This morning’s sermon is occasioned by a very special day in the life of First Church, Birmingham. We gather to celebrate a 50-year anniversary in our present sanctuary, having moved here from the corner of Maple and Henrietta in September of 1952.

It happened just a couple of weeks ago, on a Friday as I remember. But it’s happened so many times, it’s hard to separate one occasion from another. Kris and I were in a nice restaurant…. alone, for a change. Most of the meal behind us. Coffee and the check in front of us. When the waiter appeared before us and said: “Kindly allow me to tempt you with a little dessert.”

Eight and a half years ago, in the pregnant stillness that characterizes this sanctuary on Christmas Eve, I told you of my mother’s birth. It took place in New York City in July of 1915. She was the first child born to Agnes and Anton Meyers. Her last name should have been Markesich, but my grandfather changed his name at Ellis Island, figuring that “Meyers” sounded less foreign than “Markesich.”

As Laura Simms tells it, there is a Norwegian fairy tale which features a hero at an intersection looking at three signs. The first reads: “He who travels down this road will return unharmed.” The second: “He who travels down this road may or may not return.” The third: “He who travels down this road will never return.” As the fairy tale tells it, the hero chooses the third.

The entire summer before I went away to college, my mother made me go to the basement and practice ironing my shirts. This was back in the day when mothers….at least my mother….ironed everything including tee shirts and shorts.

Every man should have a wife who is as easy to please as mine. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said: “You don’t have to buy me anything. All I want is a day of your time.

From time to time, I have both revealed my true age and tested the outer limits of your memory by talking about the games I once played as a child. But, to my knowledge, I never once mentioned that grand old standby of playgrounds everywhere, “Red Rover.”

About a year ago, Will Willimon (my colleague at Duke) was invited to meet with several students studying to be attorneys. They wanted him to speak to the subject: “On Being a Lawyer and a Christian at the Same Time.” Which not everyone believes is possible.

You don’t have to be very old to know enough Bible to win a pot of money on Jeopardy. But you have to have a few years under your belt to understand enough Bible to win (or even survive) in the game of life. Where the Bible is concerned, you can learn it by reading it.

In the tradition of the late Sam Levinson, Harry Golden was a popular Jewish author and after-dinner speaker whose stories I first encountered in a delightful collection entitled “Only In America.” In one of his essays, he said he was puzzled, as a child, by his father’s religious habits. For although his father loudly and frequently proclaimed his disbelief, he never missed a service at the local synagogue.

Since we have been talking together about fish and fishing, you have told me every fish story in the book. Not all of them preachable. Most all of them apocryphal. But there is this one, shared with me wistfully….but certainly, sincerely.

Not that I don’t appreciate the generous introduction, Peter. I really do. It’s just that I don’t feel entirely comfortable here. I’d feel more comfortable up there. Back where the choir loft used to be. That’s where I sat with the tenors. In fact, nobody ever sat there before I sat there. I was here the day they opened the doors.

A cherished colleague writes: I went to see a lady in our church who was facing surgery. She had never been in the hospital before, and the surgery was major. I walked in there. She was a nervous wreck. Then she started crying.

When this service is done, I am going to not one, but two Super Bowl parties. But I find myself in the incredibly strange position of not caring who wins. I do have a slight wager riding on the outcome. But it is with Hunter Hook. It involves ice cream (as most of our wagers do).

“To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.” If only we knew, with absolute certainty, when it was. The time, I mean.

When I reached what I thought was my lowest point, somebody said to me: “Cheer up; things could be worse.” So I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse.

That line did not originate with me. But it could have been written by this poor, unnamed man in Luke’s little parable. The man once harbored a demon. Then the demon left, or was expelled…. the story doesn’t say. The demon wandered the desert in search of lodging. Finding none, it returned to the man. In the meantime, the man had swept, scrubbed and tidied his soul. So the demon went out and collected seven demons worse than itself. Whereupon they entered in. And the Bible says that the man’s “last state” was considerably worse than his first.

I love looking at those big picture books that are sold to those of us who need something to put on our coffee tables. You know the ones I am talking about. Some contain pictures of animals. Others, pictures of Australia.

Lord of all pots and pans and things,
Since I’ve not time to be
A saint by doing lovely things
Or watching late with Thee....

This sermon was introduced in my Steeple Notes letter with the following paragraph:

It was, as I remember it, the winter of’64….which slid, ever so slowly, into the spring of ’65. I was in New Haven, Connecticut, finishing my final year in Yale Divinity School. I was also a Methodist waiting for an appointment. My first appointment. Not that I was alone in my anxiety. Even though Yale was intentionally inter-denominational, there were a couple of other Methodists on the floor….Jim Bortell of Illinois and Ivan Burnett of Mississippi. Which explains why most nights, along about ten o’clock, we would go to the refrigerator in the basement, dish ourselves some ice cream, and spend the next half hour speculating on where we would be appointed (and what it would be like, once we got there)...

William Shakespeare suggested that sermons could be found in stones. And Annie Dillard once wrote an entire book under the title, Teaching a Stone to Talk. Both ideas are figures of speech. Stones do not talk. Neither do they preach. You may hold opinions to the contrary. But in this season where the spirit of charity is supposed to overwhelm us, I trust that you will keep them to yourself.

A couple of Fridays back, Matt Hook left me a voicemail asking if I would like to go to the zoo with him and his four kids. Leigh was gone for the weekend and Matt may have been looking for some relief. Either that, or he looked around the house and said, “Zoo here….zoo in Royal Oak?”….and dialed my phone. Unfortunately, I missed Matt’s voicemail, given that I haven’t been to the zoo in years and I do enjoy Matt’s kids. Besides, it’s fun to relive your childhood through children….even somebody else’s children.

Let me launch right into this with a story that is so perfect….so fitting….so right….it would be a crying shame if it turned out not to be true. It concerns a young man who went off to college. Upon reaching the dormitory, he began to unpack his suitcases. Apparently, his mother had done his packing for him. In the process of putting clothing into drawers, he discovered two long narrow pieces of cloth among the shirts, socks and underwear. They were neatly folded and ironed. At first he didn’t know what they were. But when he looked at the design, he recognized the pattern as being one that he had seen before. At last it came to him. These were the strings of his mother’s favorite apron.

Three kids are in the schoolyard, bragging about their fathers. The first one says: “My dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper….calls it a poem….and they give him fifty dollars.” The second kid says: “That’s nothing. My dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper….calls it a prescription….and they give him a hundred dollars.” Leading the third kid to say: “I’ve got you both beat. My dad scribbles a few words on a piece of paper….calls it a sermon….and it takes eight people to collect all the money.”

Now that Christian Laettner (great name) and Jerome Williams (another great name) have begun to corral some offensive rebounds, nobody misses Dennis Rodman. Dennis was a loose cannon when he played here. And, given his fondness for driving around in his pickup with a long gun riding shotgun, Dennis may have carried a loose cannon when he played here. But he doesn’t play anywhere, anymore. Just when he should be at the top of his game, nobody wants him….not the Bulls….not the Suns….not the Mavs….not even Madonna or Carmen Electra. What’s more, he is running out of skin to tattoo. And he’s only 33.

While we still, as of this moment, have two open positions on our program staff, absolutely no one has come to Gary Morris or myself suggesting that we interview Jeremiah. Jeremiah wouldn’t fit here. For the fact of the matter is, Jeremiah never fit anywhere. Not in his time…. which was 600 years before the birth of Jesus. Not in his place….which was the kingdom of Judah (roughly half of present-day Israel).

On a day, not so long ago that I can’t remember it, I made an illegal left hand turn….blatantly…. with my wife in the car. This is the same wife upon whom God once laid the responsibility of reminding me that I have been granted no immunity from such things as winter flu, cholesterol in the arteries, the after effects of burning the candle at both ends, and ordinary traffic laws.

The title of this morning’s sermon sounds like the oft-repeated refrain of the man they call L.P. (as in Larry Parrish, beleaguered Tiger manager….for the time being, but apparently not for eternity). In fact, if John Lowe is to be believed, Larry might be history before these words are hardened into print or circulated over the World Wide Web. For not only can’t the Tigers win ‘em all, they can’t win many….or any. Which seems to be getting to everybody.

Like a lot of people I know, my mother stopped going to movies several years ago….shortly after Howard Keel stopped singing to Kathryn Grayson. Too much sex and violence, she said. Too many dirty words, she said. And too few happy endings, she said. She wanted happy endings….thus ensuring that she would leave the theater feeling better than when she walked in. Which may be an oversimplification of her position on the matter. But not by much.

In the home where I was raised, a very small yard was dominated by a very large tree. Every other year the tree produced apples. But we seldom, if ever, ate any. That’s because they were never any good. Some were bruised. Most were malformed. And virtually all of them housed worms. If you had patience (and a good paring knife), you could turn a bushel of them into a quart and a half of applesauce. But that, and a week’s worth of blossoms, were about all the tree was good for. Fruit farmers we were not. Had we wanted good fruit from the tree, we would have taken better care of the tree. But, as I remember it, we never thinned it, never trimmed it, and never sprayed it. And the effort we didn’t expend was reflected in the reward we didn’t receive.

From time to time, I am met by a visitor at the close of the service whose sole purpose in waiting for me is to get me to sign his bulletin.  Don't get the wrong idea.  He is not seeking my autograph.  What he is seeking is my verification that he has been present in our sanctuary.  At issue is his attendance record and his desire to keep it spotless.  Back home (in his own church) it is easy to have his presence noted and marked.  But on vacation, he apparently feels some need of proof.  So he takes home a bulletin signed by the pastor.

Last Sunday, Harold Melin ushered in the center aisle at 9:30. This Sunday, Harold is in Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital with heart problems. He needs a pacemaker. But, so far, they haven’t been able to install one. It seems that Harold has funny veins. They cross….where they aren’t supposed to.

Dear John,

Greetings from Birmingham, Michigan….home to Oakland Hills and a lot of other nice places. And home to a polyglot of people….some of whom love golf….some of whom love gambling….some of whom love Miller Lite….some of whom love the Lord….and some of whom love all four. 

Last week’s mail brought a Christmas letter from friends, the first line of which reads: “Well, another year under our belts….and I mean that literally.” And most of us can identify with that, since we will be saying pretty much the same thing, come the middle of January. For whatever else Christmas may be, it is an unbridled adventure of tasting and feasting, nibbling and snacking, that commences around the time the Thanksgiving Day Parade rolls down Woodward Avenue and concludes shortly after half time of the Orange Bowl.

Pardon me if I exaggerate, but it sometimes seems as if everyone I know is either starting a diet, or breaking one. We have become a people preoccupied with poundage. There is a slice of conventional wisdom which says: “You can never be too rich or too thin.” But we know better, don’t we? Especially the part about being too thin. “Thin” kills….some of our brightest and some of our best.

Everybody wants to talk about the baby, but nobody wants to talk about the birth. Except, that is, a group of women around a coffee pot who figured they knew me well enough to inquire as to which details I did know, and which I didn’t. Their questions had to do with the gynecological details of the nativity story. Apparently, they had been talking about Christmas and drifted into the subject of childbirth. Either that, or they had been talking about childbirth and drifted into the subject of Christmas. More to the point, they were interested in birth trivia….matters of labor and delivery.

“Life is uncertain….eat dessert first.” But I seldom do. More often than not, I don’t eat dessert at all. (But if you have smuggled a key lime pie into the sanctuary this morning, I could be tempted.)

One of the things that surprised me, upon moving to Birmingham, was that my backyard was enclosed by a fence. We didn’t have one in Farmington Hills. Neither did we have one in Livonia. I felt like I was reverting to my childhood. When I was a kid, everybody had a fence. In fact, we had three fences. One fence separated us from the neighbor on the left. Another fence separated us from the neighbor on the right.

She stormed into my office, exasperation dripping from her voice, demanding to know whether the Bible had anything to say about teenagers. So I said: “Why do you ask?” One hour later, she was still telling me why she was asking. Eventually, we got around to the matter at hand…. namely, the Bible and teenagers.

I have written in this week’s Steeple Notes of my life-long fascination with rolltop desks. Which are no good for writing sermons, given their scarcity of working space. But which are great for storing stuff, given their abundance of nooks and crannies, slots and drawers, shelves and cubbyholes. For the beauty of a rolltop desk is not in the stuff you can stash there, but in the stuff you can separate there.

More and more of you have been telling me about a radio station on the AM dial (580 by number), where they play “oldies from the fifties.” So on days when I am feeling my age, I give a listen and am amazed at how many tunes and texts I can remember. Why just the other day I joined the Kingston Trio wondering “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” crooned with Patti Page (in 3/4 time, no less) about that “Beautiful Tennessee Waltz,” and then gave full-throated support to the lyric that begins: “There’s a pawn shop on a corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.”

I happened upon a wonderful story about Albert Einstein, growing out of the days when he crisscrossed the country, giving lectures on the theory of relativity. In order to keep his many commitments, he afforded himself the luxury of a chauffeur-driven limousine. After many months on the road together, the driver said to his famous passenger:

I begin with the following story, e-mailed to me on Friday by my daughter.

On Thursday evenings at 6:00, Kris and I can be found dancing. More to the point, we can be found taking dancing lessons. After years of deflecting her suggestion by saying, “That’s a great idea, we’ll have to do it sometime,” I surprised her (and myself) by signing us up for four weeks of instruction in ballroom dancing. As of this moment, we’re halfway through. And we’re having a wonderful time.

Every small town should have an industry by which it is known. My town (when I am not here) is Elk Rapids. The industry by which my town is known is the mustard industry. That’s right, mustard. Plain old ordinary mustard. I suppose you could say that Elk Rapids is the mustard capital of Michigan. But who cares? Or who knows? I think the town fathers need to do a better job marketing our industry. We should have a Mustard Festival. My daughter, Julie, could be “Mustard Queen.” She could sit on top of a float shaped like a giant hot dog. She could wear a yellow dress.

Reading this nativity narrative….and looking for ways to see it fresh….leads me to wonder whether Mary was the kind of mother who kept a baby book. When the Ritters took a gift to the Hooks last Friday, Leigh was talking about something she needed to include in Joy Elisabeth’s baby book. I assume that Matt and Leigh now have four such books.

Here he comes, ready or not!

I could have said, “Here it comes,” referring to Christmas. That’s because everybody wants to know if I am ready for Christmas. They want to know if I have shopped enough, bought enough, baked enough or mailed enough.

Given my lineage (as I detailed in Steeple Notes), I could just as easily have been a Roman Catholic. My Irish Catholic grandmother could have joined forces with my Slovenian Catholic grandmother and made it happen. They didn’t, of course. So what you see is what you get….a Protestant with “hints of Rome” in his blood.