Kiss the Habit 2/3/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures: Proverbs 22:6, Colossians 3:1-10

When it comes right down to it, there are really only two kinds of people in Michigan….those who think that the best fried chicken in the world is served in Frankenmuth, and those who don’t.  And among the pro-Frankenmuth people, there are only two kinds of people….namely, those who eat their chicken at the Bavarian Inn, and those who go across the street to Zehnders. And at either of those places, there are really only two kinds of people….those who eat their chicken with a knife and fork, and those who pick it up with their fingers. The next time you go to Frankenmuth, take your own survey. Pay special attention to the way people eat the small pieces like wings and legs. Most people concede that chicken legs are finger food when pulled from a bucket and eaten on a blanket. But all bets are off when there is a tablecloth beneath you and a waitress beside you.

Table manners are hard to figure. Most of us know they’re important. Most of us make some attempt to practice them, especially in what is called “polite society.” And most of us have enough knowledge of mealtime “do’s and don’ts” so as to be able to pass a multiple-choice test on etiquette (provided that the test is graded on the curve). But most of us would have a hard time grading our own table manners without comparing ourselves to friends whose manners are more abysmal than our own. In short, we know “gross” when we see “gross.” Those of us who are men take great pains to call such crude displays to the attention of our wives, using them as justification for doing things as we’ve always done them. “You think I’m bad,” we say. “Look at him.” Thank God for the slobs of the world. They make the rest of us look good.

Children, of course, do not care about any of this. For them, food is pleasurable. Getting it into their mouths, by whatever means, is the pathway to pleasure. And manners are the “monkey wrench” by which pain is introduced into this pleasure-system. Kids associate food with fun and manners with rules. They get confused when too many rules get in the way of having fun. Which puts mothers in an awkward position. Because while mothers make the food which produces the fun, mothers also make the rules which get in the way of the fun. This means that fathers should either make more of the food or more of the rules, thereby taking mothers off the hot seat. This is especially true, given that the same fathers who let things slide at home are the most embarrassed (and become the angriest) when the kids screw up in public.

Manners, however, are hard to correct at home. This is especially true when kids become old enough to argue that they really do know the proper way to eat, but shouldn’t have to demonstrate it when it’s just parents and siblings at the table. “We’ll know what to do when we’re out,” they say. “Don’t worry about us. Do you think we’d eat this way and make these horrible noises if there were real people around?” Which always led me to wonder why Kris and I weren’t considered “real people.” Not that I ever got anywhere when I raised that question.

But I did wonder about their basic premise….that they would be able to turn it on in public if they hadn’t practiced it in private. Sometimes, I would ask Bill and Julie: “What if you suddenly found yourself at an elegant dinner party seated next to Walter or Wanda Wonderful? Would you know what to do?” They, of course, were absolutely certain they would know what to do. They were also certain that the parents of Walter and Wanda Wonderful probably worried about the same thing. Just as my parents worried over me. And just as your parents worried over you. It’s universal.

But don’t dismiss my concern too quickly. Because the world is full of people who don’t know how to eat, but who were certain they would be able to figure it out when the time came. Except they couldn’t. Or didn’t. And part of the problem lay in the fact that such things were not practiced (day in and day out) in a way that enabled them to become “second nature.” For while practice may not make one perfect, practice will (over time) make one comfortable. And that’s the goal, don’t you see? Just as the rules of grammar are not learned for the purpose of making you a grammar teacher, the rules of eating are not learned for the purpose of turning you into Emily Post. The rules of grammar are practiced so that you can eventually forget them and enjoy speaking, just as table manners are practiced so that you can eventually forget them and enjoy eating.

If it appears that mothers are (therefore) on to something, they are far from alone. For military commanders know the same thing mothers do. So do football coaches, drill instructors, and police academy trainers. You can almost hear the litany: “Practice things until they become second nature….until they become habitual….until they become comfortable….and until you are confident you can perform them under stress.” Which doesn’t mean that one-of-a-kind situations won’t arise….for which there will have been no practice, and for which fresh thought will have to be expended at the moment. But if most responses have been practiced to the point of becoming “natural,” it will be easier to do the “unnatural” when a problem presents itself, unlike any that has been seen before.

Over the past several years, I have become interested in the subject that is often referred to as “character development.” And while the subject is immense, to the point of being overwhelming, one thought is becoming clearer and clearer in my mind….that the development of character has less to do with the correctness of any particular decision we make, than with the consistency of the behaviors we practice. In short, character development has more to do with habits than choices.

Take truth-telling. That’s a practiced behavior, if ever there was one. How does one learn to tell the truth? One learns to tell the truth by telling it over and over again, until it becomes virtually impossible to lie or deceive. Unfortunately, the contrary is also true. The first lie makes the second one easier to tell. And the first lie may even make the second one necessary to tell, given the need to cover up the first one.

Or take cheek-turning. One kid accidentally bumps another kid in the hallway at the high school. In a flash, the bumpee lays the bumper flat on the floor with a punch. Good-bye consciousness. Hello concussion. The good news is that there is no gun. There often is, anymore. People get shot for a bump, a slur, or even a look. Violence is in. But not everywhere. Consider Amish children….Mennonite children….Quaker children….who, from day one, practice methods by which aggression can be met non-aggressively. Certainly, a rare occasion might arise which would evoke a physical response from even the most polished cheek-turner, just as the habitual truth-teller might lie to the Nazi at the door to protect the neighbor’s Jewish children hiding under the bed. But how many times do such exceptions occur, really?

As concerns decision making, I don’t know whether I heard it on television or read it in some novel, but I love the line of the young lady who, trying to let her date down easy, smiled and said: “You know, I’m really not in the habit of unbuttoning my blouse in the backseats of automobiles.” What a splendid response.

Again, I submit: Character development has less to do with choices than with habits. We need to identify desirable behaviors and practice them until they become second nature. Because not all desirable behaviors are a part of our first nature. That’s what Paul says to the Colossians. He tells them that if they have really been raised with Christ, they should walk away from the way they formerly walked….putting behind them their old nature and its practices, while putting on their “new nature,” which (he goes on to suggest) is something one keeps working on, and working on, until it fits.

Which training begins young, says the collector of wisdom in the book known as Proverbs. “Train children in the way they should go, and they will not depart from it.” All of us have heard it. Most of us can sense the truth of it. Like seeds planted early, patterns practiced from our earliest years can produce a lovely foliage.

Which I can illustrate from my early days. I was eight or nine years old at the time when, on the sidewalk in front of the neighborhood grocery store, I found a $20 bill. That was a lot of money in 1948. Not just for me, but for anybody. Not knowing quite what to do with it, I pocketed it and took it home. When I told my folks, they didn’t say:

·         Gee, Billy, this is your lucky day.

·         How about splitting it with your old man?

·         See, just like we’ve tried to tell you, God rewards good little boys.

Nor, did they begin to sing:

·         Every time it rains, it rains twenties from heaven.

Instead, they said: “I wonder if somebody lost it who needs it more than you do?” Which, as it turned out, somebody had (lost it, I mean)….who did (need it more than I did, that is). Which I found out when I found him. Don’t ask me how I found him. That’s a good story, but not essential to my point. But, as a result of that experience, it has become my habit (across the years) to think about your loss first and my gain second….to the degree that it’s no longer something I have to think about. It has become my second nature….one that is more in keeping with the Gospel.

But I have an even better story for you. While at my recent seminar in Sea Island, Georgia, someone began talking about Frank and Nellie Baker. Who you don’t know. And there’s no reason you should know. But, in his heyday, nobody knew more about the history of Methodism (including the life of John Wesley) than Frank Baker. I only heard him once (ironically, in England at the rededication of Wesley’s Chapel on All Saints Day in 1978). But the man could think. And write. And remember. Especially, remember.

Which was why it was so tragic when his memory began to go. Frank was one of those people who suffered from Alzheimers for no small number of years before he died. Which is a bad enough disease for anybody. But for a scholar….a thinker….a chronicler of history….it was nothing short of tragedy. Fortunately, Frank was a relatively peaceful Alzheimers patient rather than a feisty one. Meaning that he was able to stay at home through most of his declining years. And meaning that Nellie was able to care for him with a minimal amount of help.

Shortly after Greg Jones came to be Duke Divinity School’s dean, he and Susan paid a courtesy call on the Bakers. Without apology, Nellie welcomed them in, gave them tea and cookies, introduced them to Frank, and included her husband in the circle of conversation as if he could still participate. Which he couldn’t, of course. There he was, all dressed up, sitting in his wheelchair, with friends in the living room, but there was “nobody home”….if you know what I mean. Which everybody overlooked, out of kindness….and respect. Although, on several occasions, Frank interrupted to say: “Now who did you say you were?”

At last, the pot was drained of tea and the conversation was drained of pleasantries. Leading to good-byes from all but one. That one being Frank. When suddenly he broke into the conversation, clear as a bell, to say: “By the way, if you ever need anything to eat, stop by and we’ll give you whatever we have cooking on the stove.” It was the most intelligent sentence he had said the entire hour. Heck, it was the only sentence he had said the entire hour. But it made wonderful sense. And it was warmly received.

Only later did Greg and Susan learn that Frank and Nellie Baker had opened their home….and their dinner room table…to scores of students across the years. Two and three nights a week, they had students over for dinner. And every Sunday they trolled the narthex of their Methodist church, finding strays who might like a warm and friendly place to have lunch. And every time volunteers were sought for a local soup kitchen or meal preparers were needed for the local homeless shelter, it was Frank who said: “I think Mother and I can do that.”

Long after most of his mind was gone….most of the wires had been cut….most of the connections had wafted away with the wind….Frank Baker knew enough to invite a stranger to partake at his table. It was the case of the practice becoming the person….and the habit taking over the man. When everything else was gone, that’s what was left.

All over this state, treatment centers are filled with people who have habits that need to be kicked. Would that churches could be filled with people who have habits that need to be kissed. Or blessed.

Jesus and the Big Apple 3/24/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures: Luke 19:28-42 and John 1:45-51

If you would believe it, it was a mere 1973 years ago that Jesus woke from sleep, greeted the dawn, attended to the necessities of the morning, and then said (to everyone within earshot): “Friends, let’s go to town.”

Nobody talks about “going to town” anymore. The image has the words “country bumpkin” written all over it. All week long in the boonies….the outposts….the villages….the farms…. herding cattle and mending fences….until, late of a Saturday afternoon, it becomes time to bathe the body, stuff the wallet, saddle the horse, crank the Chevy, and head for someplace with a few more lights and a lot more action.

Today, there is hardly any place where “town” isn’t….and hardly any time when “town” isn’t. I seldom hear anybody talk of “going to town” anymore. Even those who talk about “nights on the town” could just as well be talking about Tuesdays as Saturdays. And to whatever degree “town” be equated with the nearest and biggest city, I am preaching to many this morning who haven’t “been to town” in years.

Not that Jerusalem was as foreign to Jesus as Detroit is to many of us. Depending upon which chronology of his ministry you extrapolate from which gospel, Jesus had been there a few times. Certainly more than two. Probably less than ten. I think it’s fair to say he didn’t go often, and didn’t stay long. Jesus was a northern boy….village boy….“field and stream” boy….in short, a country boy.

Over the past several weeks, I have been working my way through Martin Marty’s A Short History of Christianity, wherein can be found these words:

            In the early years of the Roman Empire, the years when Caesar Octavianus (later named Augustus) was emperor, when Herod the Great was ending his reign in Judea, when Roman procurators ruled the Jews, and when writers of the Augustun Age (like Ovid, Horace and Livi) were flourishing, there was born in Palestine, to a girl in Nazareth, a child who seemed destined to obscurity in the carpenter shop of her husband. He was given a name common in the period, Jesus. Little is known of his early years. When, at about age 30, he began preaching, he was rejected by his own townspeople as a carpenter’s son, and by the urbanites to the south as an upstart from Nazareth.

Those words are both stinging and true. He was “an upstart from Nazareth,” a place from which almost anybody was “destined for obscurity.” Even one of his own disciples reflected Nazareth’s low status by wondering, out loud, how anything good could come from a place like that. And, in all likelihood, nothing much would have happened to Jesus….positively or negatively….had he stayed there.

Come late May, when this year’s clergy retirees assemble on the stage of the Annual Conference at Adrian College, we will be introduced to a man who has served the last 36 years in one church. I am sure he has done good work there. I am equally sure they value him highly there. But there aren’t five of you here this morning who could name his name….or his church’s name. In part, because he prefers it that way. But, also in part, because he never went to town. Truth be told, he pastored longer than Jesus lived. Not that Jesus couldn’t have pastored till retirement, had he but listened to those who said: “Don’t go to town.”

But there were voices….of history, destiny and deity….that counseled otherwise. So Jesus went to Jerusalem….the biggest possible place (we’re talking “population”)….at the busiest possible time (we’re talking “Passover”). And he did not last the week. No, he did not last the week.

But that was not perfectly clear on Palm Sunday. Maybe to him it was. But I am not certain, even of that. For, given my belief that, in the enactment of God’s plan, a measure of flexibility must be granted to history in its unfolding, I have to allow for the possibility that it could (conceivably) have turned out differently.

Certainly, Jesus had an agenda. But he was far from alone. Others had agendas, too. Among his own people….the Jews….one counts at least four groups with four agendas. And as he rode into Jerusalem, each of those groups might have written his script differently, depending upon their ideology.

Some Jews were Zealots….meaning militants….meaning people energized around physical confrontation with Roman authority. Many Zealots were Galileans (meaning northerners). But Jesus, himself, was a Galilean from the north. And there were camps in Galilee where would-be guerrilla fighters were trained and semi-sophisticated weapons were fashioned. One of Jesus’ disciples is never referred to by his birth name without also adding, “the Zealot.” Two other disciples are called “Sons of Thunder” and may well have had leanings toward this group. And the word “Iscariot” (as in Judas Iscariot) is not Judas’ last name. Rather, it is likely a title, identifying him with a society of dagger men or brigands (the “sicarii” meaning a crudely fashioned blade of dagger-like dimensions). What did the Zealots hope that Jesus would do inJerusalem? Polarize and provoke, that’s what the Zealots hoped Jesus would do in Jerusalem.

A smaller number of Jews were Essenes. For all intents and purposes, they were a group of celibate Jewish monks. And provocation was what they feared most and desired least. So fearful were they of confrontation that, by the time Jesus rode into the city, most of them had left the city. Where had they gone? To create a small, monastic-like community by the Dead Sea….a community today remembered only by the name Qumran….but popularized by the relatively recent discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. Jesus may have been linked to the Essenes through baptism, given that John the Baptist, prior to his beheading, may have lived among them. Had Jesus encountered any Essenes in Jerusalem, they would have counseled not provocation, but prayer.

The largest group of Jews, of course, were Pharisees. And for as many harsh things as Jesus sometimes said about them, it is a pretty good bet that he numbered himself among them. Coming, as he said, not to overthrow the law but fulfill the law, he shared the Pharisees’ delight in the law, regretting departures from it almost as much as they did. And since it is commonly known that the more cosmopolitan the city, the more sloppy people get with the law, the Pharisees….upon seeingJesus ride into Jerusalem….would have counseled neither provocation nor prayer, but purification (as in “tidy things up and straighten people out”). I suppose one could argue that Jesus’ act of driving the money changers from the Temple, while surprising in its aggressiveness, was a very Pharisee-like thing to do.

And then, of course, there were the Saducees. Jerusalem was full of them. Who, while they were Jews, had learned how to get along with Romans…..gained the trust of Romans….to the point of prospering in spite of Romans. Everybody knows that in hard times, there are people who “get along by going along.” It wasn’t quite to the point of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.” But, concerning the Romans, the Saducees had learned that you could do quite nicely (economically, politically, even religiously) if you didn’t go out of your way to antagonize them. Consider the fact that the Sanhedrin….the Jewish supreme court (which pronounced the initial death sentence on Jesus)….did not lack for Saducees. So any Saducean sympathizers Jesus may have had in Jerusalem would have counseled him not to provoke, not to pray, not even to purify, so much as to placate (“We’ve heard about you, Jesus. In time, we might even rally around you. But for now, don’t make waves.”).

Don’t you see that everybody had expectations of him that morning? But not the same expectations. Preachers understand this. We ride into a new church….meet the committee….read the job description….preach the first sermon….attend the first reception….eat the first cookie…. and then smile inwardly, saying to ourselves: “What a good feeling. From first appearances, it would seem that we are all on the same page.”

Then, one by one, they start to come….into the office….closing the door….introducing themselves (“I just thought you’d like to know a little bit more about me, Reverend”). Which is always followed by the introduction of an agenda: “Well, Reverend, not to take up too much of your precious time….but one of my reasons for coming today is to give you my take on a little situation in our church that probably hasn’t been made clear to you yet. But, given your great beginning and your obvious skills, I just know you’ll want to do something about it, once I give you my reading of it.”

So, who do you listen to? And how much weight do you give to what you hear? Those are the questions that make ministry difficult (even more than “What did I do to deserve this?….Why don’t I feel anything when I pray?….(and) Do you really think I will see my loved one in eternity?”). I think it is fairly common knowledge that my beleaguered and beloved colleague (a mile and a half to the north) is suspended from his pulpit this morning, not because of words (as a writer) he failed to footnote, but because of expectations (as a leader) he failed to meet.

Mike Davis knows the problem. Who is Mike Davis? Mike Davis is the coach of the Indiana Hoosier basketball team (which, on Thursday night, broke a small chip off of my heart, by beating the Dukies….and which, given yesterday’s victory in Lexington, now moves on to the Final Four).

But Mike Davis is the “Rodney Dangerfield” of college coaching, quoted as saying the other day: “I win 20 games two years running and they don’t like me. I win the Big Ten title and they don’t like me. I qualify for the Big Dance my first two years on the job, and they still don’t like me.” Why is that? Because he doesn’t wear a red sweater, throw occasional chairs, and answer to the name of “Bobby.” That’s why. And if those are the primary criteria, he never will meet expectations.

How many marriages regularly bite the dust….not because of anything either partner does, or because of anyone either partner sees….but because there were expectations regarding the marriage that weren’t realized. How easy it is to move from “this hasn’t turned out like I expected” to “you must (therefore) not be the one I needed.” But if you wait until all the expectations are both understandable and acceptable, you will never marry….you will never coach….you will never preach….and you will never go to town.

Into the city Jesus came….as if to confirm, once again, Bill Coffin’s wonderful axiom that “you can’t save the world from a safe address.” And his entrance excited enough people so as to bring their song-singing, coat-throwing, palm-waving, hosanna-chanting behavior to the attention of the fearful, who said: “Teacher, stifle this disturbance….or (in short) shut these people up.” To which he replied: “I suppose I could do that. But if I did, the very stones over which we are strolling will scream. So I won’t….shut anybody up, I mean.”

There are those who say we shouldn’t make a big deal out of Palm Sunday, given how things turned out. They are joined by those who say we shouldn’t make a big deal out of Palm Sunday, given those who turned back. But I would point out two things.

1.      Jesus gave those revelers permission and encouragement to do exactly what they did, and say exactly what they said.

2.      In spite of the fact that they may have misunderstood the eventual nature of his kingdom, they were cheering the right king. We haven’t always, you know.

* * * * *

For years, I was a night person. Read at night. Wrote at night. Did my most creative thinking at night. Sometimes stared at the television, late into the night. Those days are done. I am no longer comfortably nocturnal. Which is why I couldn’t care less if Letterman moves one way and Koppel, another (even though I am “into” Koppel more than I am “into” Letterman). There was a day when I was a Tonight Show junkie. Currently, that means Jay Leno. Before him, that meant (help me here)….that’s right, Johnny Carson. And before him (to whatever degree life existed before Johnny Carson), there was (more help please)….you’ve got it, Jack Paar.

But I doubt that any of you remember the night Jack Paar said to his New York studio audience: “I want to introduce you to a man who has been in all the news as well as on the cover of all the major magazines, because he has liberated his people from a tyrant and a dictator.” And upon seeing him, the audience rose as one….clapping….cheering….standing on the seats…. dancing in the aisles….raising a din that seemed as if it would never die. And who was it all for? Fidel Castro, that’s who it was for.

We don’t always get it right, do we?

But they did….lo those 1973 years ago. To be sure, they may not have known everything he would do….everything he would be….everything he would offer….and certainly not everything he would ask. They may not have had the most scholastic or panoramic view of his kingdom. And they probably didn’t know even a fraction of “the things that would make for peace,” let alone see “heaven opened and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

But, praise God Almighty, they had the right guy. Oh yes, my friends, they had the right guy.

Note: My calculation that Palm Sunday took place 1973 years ago is based on the assumption that Jesus was born in 4 BC and died in 29 AD. My description of Zealots, Essenes, Pharisees and Saducees is taken from a number of sources, most specifically Jim Fleming of the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Thomas Cahill in his relatively-recent book entitled Desire of the Everlasting Hills. There is some question about the equation of “brigands” in 29 AD with Zealots who were historically referenced in 66 AD, but there is little doubt that Jesus was aware of informal revolutionaries who resisted the dominant oppression. Meanwhile, Martin Marty’s status as a historian is all but unassailable and his A Short History of Christianity is a good refresher course for any preacher who hasn’t plowed through the material since seminary.

The reference to my colleague “a mile and a half to the north” relates to a clerical suspension based on charges of plagiarism (a story that has made its way all the way to the venerable pages of the New York Times). A Fred Craddock audiotape recalled the Jack Paar/Fidel Castro story. And Peter Gomes (Memorial Church, Harvard) gave me additional justification (as if I need any) for making a “really big deal” out of Palm Sunday when he wrote:

            When we have our own palm procession here, the Memorial Church is transformed from its usual frosty decorum into a splendid chaos, where there is movement, noise, a little confusion and a lot of action. And it is wonderful when intelligent people don’t quite know what to do. When there is a spectacle and you do not participate in the spectacle, even then you are a part of the spectacle. A church school pupil once told me that he liked this service better than any other because there was a lot going on. He didn’t exactly know what was going on, but there was lots of it and he liked it.

Dust and Ashes 2/13/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Genesis 3:17-19

During the mid-sixties, when I was just starting out, the “in group” (musically speaking) was a folk duo out of Nashville who traveled the country under the name Dust and Ashes. They were good. And they were Methodist. Now, some forty years later, I don’t know if they’re still singing, still recording, or still traveling under that name. But if any day is a “dust and ashes” day, this day is a “dust and ashes” day.

We are formed from dust, says the Good Book, and we shall return to dust, once our time on earth is done. I learned that as a child. As did most of you. As to what I made of it then, I can’t rightly recall. But all of us have heard of the child who came downstairs and asked his mother whether he could believe everything he heard in Sunday school. When she asked for specifics, he told her about the “from dust we came, and to dust we shall return” claim. Leading her to answer: “Well, son, if you heard it in Sunday school, it’s got to be true.” Whereupon he responded (with no small manner of urgency): “Then you’d better come upstairs quickly. Because, from what I can tell, someone is either coming or going under my bed.”

Infantile humor aside, life is not only mortal but fragile. Last night, Kris and I pulled into our driveway about 10:30 following a five-day trip to Salt Lake City. We attended the Winter Olympics….an event alive with athleticism (with young life straining against past and present limits to skate smoother, jump higher or ski faster). As is her custom, Kris went straight to the answering machine. And after four calls from aluminum siding salesmen, we learned of a young man, age 34, who decided to end his life at the end of a rope….effectively setting his own limits.

Some choose death. Death chooses others. Sixty-five percent of the people I say a few well-chosen words over (at the close of their days) have already chosen cremation. And a growing percentage of those I inhume in the garden in front of the church. I do it all for them. I dig the hole for them. I say the prayer over them. I open the box that contains them (prying loose the hard plastic lid with the business-end of a letter opener). And then I let go of them, allowing the collective dust of their earthly life to pour from my hands into the cavity waiting to receive them. So much for the body.

And our achievements, while having a slightly longer shelf life, eventually follow suit. Four weeks ago on a Saturday, the woman I live with asked how my sermon was coming. She was not so much concerned with its quality as with its completion. In short, was I finished? And if not, would I be willing to take a break from writing? In the interest of marital harmony, I said: “Sure, why not?” So we went to an antique store in St. Clair Shores….one she’d read about earlier that morning and wanted to visit. Once there, we began our respective wanderings….mine bringing me to a rather large shelf containing no small number of Oscar-like statuettes. Each had a pedestal. And each had some printing on the pedestal. Always a name….followed by an accomplishment. One spoke of excellence in bowling. Another, excellence in golf. A third, excellence in public speaking. Still another, excellence in community volunteering. On each statuette there was a little orange dot. Each dot contained numbers. Twenty-five cents. Thirty-five cents. For the bigger statuettes, half a dollar. Never more. Strangely, I found myself wandering through the rest of the store humming a beloved old hymn.

            So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross

            Till my trophies at last I lay down.

Bodies to dust. Achievements to dust. So, too, our enjoyments….equally dust-bound. I’ve heard half a hundred jokes about whether there are golf courses in heaven. The best of them concerns a message sent back from the “other side,” complete with good news and bad. The good news is that heaven’s links are lavish beyond belief. The bad news is that the hearer has a tee time the following Tuesday.

As to whether any of that is true, I haven’t a clue. But I can take you to another antique store (when you’re married to my wife, you learn the landscape)….this one in Naples, Florida. Where I can show you an entire room filled with golf clubs….nearly-new golf clubs….in nearly-new golf bags. The clubs were purchased by people who retired and moved to Naples, believing that they would now have “world enough and time” to play. Except they didn’t. Sobering, isn’t it? Humbling, too.

Still, there is this. It is into dust that God first breathed….and continues so to do. And it is dust that once, for thirty years and change, even housed the eternal. And it was in dust that Jesus silently wrote with his finger, while an adulterous woman’s accusers walked away (one at a time), quietly dropping the stones they had intended to throw at her. As to what Jesus wrote in the dust, who can say? But if you ask, that woman will tell you what it felt like to have her life handed back to her. It felt, for all the world, like mercy.

Ah yes, we may be dust and ashes. But this earthly stuff (this “stuff” that constitutes our nature) is infused with the divine and shot through with the holy. Meaning that, unlike the dust with which we deal, this dust…our dust….is never discardable, but is infinitely renewable, redeemable and (at the end of the day) resurrectable.

Ben Jones is the middle child of Greg and Susan Jones. One night, at the age of nine, he was waiting in bed for the story and tuck-in routine that was a ritual in that house. But when the reading was done….and when the tucking was done….he didn’t wait passively for his mother’s kissing to be done. Instead, he said: “Let me kiss you tonight.”

But he did not kiss her once. And he did not kiss her twice. He kissed her seven times….on the forehead. Three across. Four down. Puzzled, she received it. But didn’t “get” it. Until later, while talking to her husband (who, after all, is the dean of a divinity school) she realized that Ben’s kisses were offered in the form of a cross.

Where had her nine year old come up with that? As best as she could figure, it had to do with an Ash Wednesday service the family attended, which featured a cross of ashes marked on the forehead of each worshiper present. On the surface, it seemed as if Ben had the symbolism all screwed up.

            Ashes? Kisses?

            Ashes? Kisses?

            Ashes? Kisses?

But isn’t the message of the hour….the message of the season….the message most of us need desperately to hear….that we are as kissable as we are fallible?

But what does a nine year old know?

Plenty, it would seem.

Calling for a Little Backup 1/13/2002

William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Genesis 3:17-35

Where to begin….this sermon….any sermon….a year’s worth of sermons? How about a love story? You can never go wrong with a love story. Besides, isn’t that how we ended the year just past….with a love story (albeit, of a different kind)? That one spoke in “baby talk” about God’s passionate devotion to his creation. This one speaks (in gritty adult conversation) about Jacob and Rachel’s passionate devotion to each other. Oh, it’s a good one. So good that somebody ought to film it. But who would play Rachel? Meg Ryan? Gwynneth Paltrow? Julia Roberts? Ponder that for a while. Drop me a note, mid-week, if it keeps you awake. Somebody in the church should think about it before the people in Hollywood think about it for us.

Actually, Rachel enters the story late. As does Jacob, by a few seconds. A few seconds, that is, behind his twin brother Esau, at whose heel the Bible says Jacob is grabbing when they come…. first one, then the other….from the womb. It is as if Jacob is saying, even prenatally: “Out of the way. Me first.” Which wasn’t how it turned out at birth. But which was very much how it turned out in life, given that Esau was never so quick again as the day he came into the world. In fact, Esau was slow. Of step. Worse yet, of wit. And hairy, too (or so the Bible says). For we are told that Esau was a hairy man while Jacob was a smooth man.

I don’t know much about that. What I do know is that Jacob soon surpassed his slightly-older brother….tricking him once….tricking him twice….even tricking their daddy with the connivance of their mommy (go to work on that one, all of you amateur Freudians)….to the point that by the time both boys were teenagers, Jacob owned the elevator while Esau got the shaft.

Which made Esau rip-roaring mad. And which made Jacob leave town (quickly), finally landing in the land of Aram (which, today, would put him squarely in the middle of Syria). Which was his mother’s brother’s land….meaning his uncle’s land….meaning his uncle Laban’s land. But before Jacob reaches town, he reaches the town’s well….the local “watering hole” as it were…. where, as sometimes happens at local Birmingham watering holes, he meets a woman. And he falls deeply (and immediately) in love. Within three verses of meeting sweet Rachel, we are told that he kisses her and breaks into tears. Jacob is the first person to fall in love in the Bible (or so Harold Kushner, America’s favorite rabbi, tells me). Prior to Jacob, men take wives and may, or may not, come to love them once the deal is done.

Jacob wants to marry Rachel but, because he has left town quickly and because his wealth is future-wealth rather than reach-in-your-pocket-and-flash-a-big-bankroll-wealth, he has no money to pay for Rachel. For you see, in agricultural societies, the loss of a daughter represented the loss of a field hand. So the would-be suitor needed to put up some kind of compensation for thinning the family work force. Which Jacob did by saying to Laban (his uncle….Rachel’s daddy): “Look, in exchange for sweet Rachel, I’ll work for you seven years. Work hard. Work long. Work cheap. Like, for nothing.”

Seven years come. Seven years go. And concerning those seven years, the Bible says: “They seemed to Jacob as but a few days because of the love he had for her.” All you single guys out there, write that down on your bulletin. If a variation on that line doesn’t wow her, she’s got a block of ice where her heart should be.

So there is a ceremony. Everybody sings. Everybody dances. Everybody drinks. Everybody drinks too much. And old Uncle Laban….wily old Uncle Laban….pulls a fast one on the fast one, slipping Rachel’s older sister, Leah, into the marriage bed in the place where Rachel ought to be. Leading Jacob to learn what many have subsequently discovered. That as clever as you are, sooner or later you’re going to run up against somebody slicker than you are.

So, back to the drawing board. How many more years for Rachel? Seven more years for Rachel. Which Jacob pays. I told you this is a love story. Finally, fourteen years after their first kiss, Jacob and Rachel are properly husband and wife, just as Jacob and Leah are husband and wife (although Leah, if you read Genesis carefully, is primarily a baby-maker, while Rachel is clearly the beloved).

Still, nobody leaves Syria for six more years. During that period, Jacob prospers….both in terms of children and animals. Then, in year twenty, Jacob (with a little nocturnal nudging from God) says to wives, kids, manservants, maidservants and sheep (insofar as one can talk to sheep): “It’s time to get out of here. Let’s go home.”

The story, which is actually a paste-together job of two different writers, then gets a tad fuzzy as to whether Jacob’s getaway is going to be easy or hard. Assuming it is going to be hard, Jacob rounds everybody up and leaves the ranch while Laban’s back is turned, giving himself (and his not-unsizable entourage) a three-day head start on his uncle.

But with all those babies.…not to mention all those sheep….Jacob can’t move very fast. So seven days later, Uncle Laban and his band of merry men catch up with the departees, whereupon everybody huffs a lot, puffs a lot, bluffs a lot, but nobody hurts anybody….or even threatens to hurt anybody….until Laban says: “You stole my gods. It’s bad enough that you took my daughters, my grandbabies and my sheep. But why did you have to grab my gods, too?”

What are we talking about here? We are talking about “teraphim” here….household idols…. small cultic worship objects….maybe with a carved face, maybe not….maybe figurines, maybe not. Nobody’s quite sure what they were. Or who took them. And in the dominant version of the story, Jacob doesn’t know who took them. In fact, so sure is Jacob that nobody in his party took Laban’s gods, that he tells his uncle: “Go ahead and look. You find ‘em….whoever has ‘em….I’ll kill ‘em.” Well, you know who has ‘em, don’t you? Of course you know who has ‘em. Rachel has ‘em. She swept them up on the way out of town and has been hiding them ever since. But Laban, at Jacob’s urging, goes hunting. He turns Jacob’s tent upside down. No gods. He turns Leah’s tent inside out. No gods. He searches both maidservants’ tents….and, for all I know, every other tent on the grounds. No gods.

Finally, he reaches Rachel’s tent. Where Rachel is sitting. On the gods. And she says: “Pardon me, father, if I do not rise up and show you proper respect, because (at the moment) it is with me as it sometimes is with women.” Meaning that Rachel is in the red tent (to borrow an image from a well-written and popular novel). For to “be in the way of women” is to be religiously and ritualistically “unclean.” To which Laban can only say: “Oh….(or) Sorry….(or) Next time I’ll knock.” In point of fact, whatever Laban said is lost to history, since neither storyteller bothered to record it.

The question, of course, is why? Not why didn’t they record it. But why did Rachel steal the gods?

            To add to the booty?

                        Possibly, but not likely.

            To show up her daddy?

                        Possibly, but not likely.

            To present to her hubby?

                        Possibly, but highly unlikely.

The gods Rachel stole were not representations of her husband’s God. Presumably, over the twenty years of conversation following that first kiss, Jacob’s God had become Rachel’s God. Presumably, they had come to some kind of agreement that theirs was the one God….the creator of the heavens and the earth….the God of the covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and soon-to-be Joseph (her child, Joseph)….the one God of Moses and the Law, David and the monarchy, Isaiah and the prophets….the God of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ….and through him, the God of our faith, apostolic and universal, which even we (at least one Sunday in six) rise and fervently proclaim. So what is this business about Rachel’s sweeping “holy stuff” off her daddy’s mantel and stuffing it under her skirt?

Well, I think I have figured it out. What’s more, I’ve even found a trio of scholarly commentators who agree with me. Rachel grabs the gods because she wants a little backup in case the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (and all those other guys) can’t cut it and falls short on delivery. Concerning Jacob’s God, Rachel saluted, but isn’t certain….signed on, but isn’t sure….traveled seven days down the road, but is covering her bets….just in case. And, in that regard, I submit that she is not all that different from a lot of us. Her sin (if schlepping the gods under her skirt can be termed a sin as opposed to a “weakness of the spirit”) is not thievery, nor is it idolatry, so much as what I called in last Sunday’s unison prayer: “Our on again, off again, trust in God.” “Sure I believe,” she said. “But in a world where slam dunks are hard to come by, doesn’t everybody hedge their bets?” She steals the gods from her father because she never knows when she may need them. And she hides her theft from her husband because what spouse wants to tell the last of the true believers (or, in her case, one of the first of the true believers) that, spiritually speaking, she’ll go where he goes, but she’s not where he is.

I abhor telling old preacher-stories that have already found their way into 74,000 sermons. For you’ve heard at least one variation about the man who tumbles off a cliff, finds himself in free fall, grabs a branch, hangs on for dear life, looks in the general direction of the heavens, and then lifts a prayer: “Hey, I say, is there anybody up there?” To which God answers: “Hey Joe….I know….I’ll show….let go….my arms will hold you.”

Still clinging to the branch, Joe prays once more: “Again, I say, is there anybody up there?” Second time, same answer: “Hey Joe….I know.…I’ll show….let go….my arms will hold you.” Third time, same prayer, same answer. Fourth time, new prayer: “Hey, I say, is there anybody else up there?”

The last time Billy Graham was in town, I chartered a bus, posted a sign-up sheet and took a bunch of my parishioners to the Silverdome. We sang. Billy preached. Then we settled ourselves in for the altar call. During the third verse of “Just As I Am,” one of our most committed leaders rose from his seat and went down front. We waited on him, just like Billy said we would. A half hour later, our paths crossed on the way to the bus. I half expected he would say: “You know, Bill, I’ve always been a Christian and I’ve always loved the church. But something happened tonight that touched a nerve in me and that opened a door for me….one that I just needed to walk through.” In point of fact, I had figured out half a dozen things he might possibly say to me. But what I was not prepared to hear was the explanation he finally offered, when he said: “I just figured, hey, it can’t hurt.”

Twenty-five years later, I’m still thinking about his answer. It’s clear that he wasn’t talking about a just-in-time commitment so much as a just-in-case commitment (just in case the commitments I have made before weren’t enough….just in case the beliefs I’ve expressed before weren’t enough….just in case the faith I’ve proclaimed before wasn’t enough). Nothing wrong with it. Nothing wrong at all. But pushing the logic, maybe he should join three or four additional churches, then get baptized in every one. He sounded like my father who never had any feeling for things “Catholic,” yet never drove a car (I mean never drove a car) without a St. Christopher medal pinned to the headliner….just in case, don’t you see….just in case.

No big deal, really. No big deal at all. If it makes you feel better….more confident….more secure (ah, that’s it, more secure)….why not? In fact, why make a fuss about Rachel’s keeping a skirtful of gods? Only this….“this” being my suspicion (just a suspicion, mind you) that loyalty divided is loyalty diluted. Spiritually speaking, sooner or later you’ve got to put all your eggs in one basket. There is nobody else up there.

In the sixties there was what the Roman Catholic Church called the Second Vatican Council. And the changes introduced were so radical that they upset a great many of the faithful….including, to the surprise of absolutely no one, a great many of the priests. In an effort to soften the impact, sessions were scheduled for Catholic clergy, and Jesuits (who have always had a holy calling for teaching) were conscripted to explain the changes. One enlisted to this task was Father Gene Monahan. On the day in question, Father Monahan stood (center stage) before a throng of his colleagues….barefooted….wearing just a pair of whitewashed trousers and T-shirt (an undershirt, really)….and looking into the eyes of an auditorium filled with bewildered priests, this is what he said:

           " I am 54 years old. I have spent most of my adult life with my back turned to the congregation as I ministered to the altar. Now, the church says: “Turn around and face the people.”

           " I have spent most of my life hiding among the incense pots and candles doing my work as a cleric. And now the church says: “Come out and be with the people.”

           " I have spent most of my adult life saying the mass in Latin. And now the church says: “Speak English. It is the language of the people.”

On and on he went, describing the changes (personally and painfully)….until he reached the end of his litany and concluded: “As you can see, I have been stripped of almost everything. All that I have left is God.”

My friends, I would submit to you that where he stopped his speech is the best of all possible places to start our year.