Bowling Alone, Praying Together 10/24/2001

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Oct 24, 2001

Scripture: Hebrews 12:14-13:2

While driving home with my wife on Friday night, it occurred to me that this is the only church I have ever served without its own bowling league….or, at the very least, its own bowling team. Not that I ever bowled in any church’s league or on any church’s team. I haven’t rolled a bowling ball in 15 years. Not that I can’t. It’s just that I don’t. I don’t own a bowling ball, bowling shoes, a bowling glove or a bowling shirt. If put on the spot, I can knock down a few pins. I can also tell a strike from a spare, keep an accurate score card, and spout a bit of bowling jargon. But the alley I know best was the one that ran behind my house in my youth. And, since the days of my youth, I’ve converted far more sinners than splits (especially 7-10 splits).

As a non-bowler, I have company….but not a lot. As of late as last year, there were over 91 million bowlers in America….maybe the most ever.  But what is surprising is that the proportion of those 91 million Americans who bowl in leagues has declined by almost 75 percent since the 1960s.

Who says so? Robert Putnam says so. And who is Robert Putnam? Robert Putnam is the Dillon Professor of International Affairs at Harvard, who, in January of 1995, published an article entitled “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital.” When the article appeared in the Journal of Democracy, it caused something of a stir, academically. Now that Putnam has followed with his book, Bowling Alone (released just last year), his thesis has pushed a hot button, popularly.

Why? Because the decline in league bowling is but one small symptom of what Putnam calls the collapse of American community over the last four decades. As a nation of individuals, we are doing as much as we ever did….probably more. But we are doing it with each other less and less. Especially when it comes to joining up with each other in more-or-less formal organizations to do whatever we more-or-less like to do.

Membership in civic and fraternal organizations is down, down, down. Rotary clubs, along with the Lions, the Elks, the Optimists, the Knights of Columbus, PTA, the Masons, the Shrine, the Star, and the Rainbow Girls all decry a lack of recruits, affiliates, novitiates, brothers, sisters, sign-on-the-dotted-line members or ready volunteers. What’s more, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, labor unions and ethnic clusterings all tell the same story. One of our members used to own a marvelous athletic complex adjacent to the State Fair known as Softball City. There were diamonds everywhere and league games every hour of the day and night. He sold it a couple years back. Unable to fill it up, he could no longer make it pay.

If this were anecdotal evidence (a story here, a story there), it would be one thing. But this is researched and documented evidence. Putnam is a thorough fellow. There are nearly a hundred graphs and charts in his book. As with any social theorist, he has his detractors. But all of them concede that he has done his homework.

Civic disengagement is his theme. He says that we have been disengaging ourselves from each other (evidenced by the breaking of organizational ties) for over 30 years. And he argues that it is more than a mere coincidence that, over the same period, we have seen other forms of civic disengagement such as declining percentages of people who vote in an election, sign a petition, serve on a committee, write a letter to a politician or take the time to attend a public meeting.

His earlier work (on political and economic development in Italy) reported a similar finding. He noted that the most progressive communities in Italy all had something in common. Each of them had a community choral society. People that sang together (at least once weekly) apparently did lots of other wonderful things….community benefiting things….together as well. Just as there is “economic capital” you build up for yourself and the culture by buying bonds or banking assets, there is “social capital” you build up for yourself and the culture by forming bridge clubs or joining bowling leagues.

Stick with the bowlers for a minute (and trust me, this really is going somewhere important). Obviously, the fact that people are not bowling in leagues does not mean they are bowling singularly. They may be out there with their kids, their neighbors, their co-workers, or any number of folk. But they are not there with the same folk every time. Neither do they bowl at the same time every week. Which worries the people who run bowling alleys (or “centers,” as they now want to be called). For while there are enough occasional bowlers to fill the lanes on good nights, it is the leagues that buy 75 percent of the beer and pizza. And, as any owner will tell you, the money is not in lane fees or shoe rentals. The money is in the beer and pizza.

But the proprietor is not Putnam’s concern. Neither is it mine. Instead, Putnam worries about what the loss of a league does to the individual bowler on the one hand, and to the republic on the other. Start with the republic. When you participate in a bowling league (interacting with the same people week after week), you practice the virtues and skills that are prerequisite for a democracy. You learn to show up on time, do your part, carry your end and root for your teammates. You also learn to operate in a framework where rules must be followed, traditions honored, sportsmanship exhibited and accurate scores kept. Moreover, someone on the team has to send the notices, order the shirts, keep the records and know whose birthday comes when. All of which are associational skills.

But such leagues (just like church choirs, community bands and neighborhood pinochle groups) also provide settings in which members can talk about their shared interests. Sure, you could call a talk show….wait 30 minutes….blow off steam for 30 seconds….then do it again in 30 days. But no one holds you accountable for things you say on a phone-in talk show. Nor do they know you well enough to understand “where you’re coming from.” But when you sound off to your bowling team, they are going to understand you some weeks and challenge you other weeks…. because they see you every week. Which means that (over time) they are going to alternately love you and put it to you in ways that will not happen with people you see less frequently.

What groups are Americans still joining in great numbers? Americans are still joining self-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Weight Watchers International or Recovery. And Americans are joining cause-related groups like the National Rifle Association, the Sierra Club or the Right to Life Caucus. But most people leave self-help groups when they get what they came for….thinner, saner, soberer. And, as concerns the cause-related groups, the most that 95 percent of the members ever do is write a yearly check and skim-read a monthly newsletter.

We could talk about why this has taken place and whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. But you can do that on your own. Instead, I give you what follows….in part, because it will transition me from social analysis to sermon and get me closer to where I want to take you.

Putnam observes (correctly, I think) that one major difference separating Americans raised during the Great Depression and World War II from those coming of age in the ‘60s and later, is that the younger group has lacked “great collective events” to bolster their civic identities. Unlike the Depression and World War II, the defining movements in American life over the last 35 years (the Cold War, the drug war, Vietnam, civil rights, the feminist movement) were most notable for their divisiveness. Instead of reaffirming commonly-held values, they often pitted sharply divergent norms against one another. Which created conflict....bred distrust….and caused us to move (often unconsciously) further away from each other. “Don’t get too familiar,” we seemed to say. And if you do, don’t do it too often. Jump in (by all means), but leave yourself room (and time) to jump back out.

I do not believe we are going to recreate the 50s all over again. But could it be….could it conceivably be….that September 11 (and everything since) have given us a “great collective event” that has brought us closer together than it has split us apart? Not that we are of one mind about it. Or about anything. But something has cut across the things that divide us, putting us in touch with other things (deeper things….half-forgotten things….almost buried things) that unite us. To the degree that we are again becoming more intentionally associational as a result.

More to the point, is it likely that some are going to come to a place like this….a church like this….for regular dosages of the same serum they sought as a one-time antidote to that crisis of the spirit we know as Terrible Tuesday? The crisis came on 9/11. We collectively called 911. And the Church of Jesus Christ responded. But before any response was made, the call was made. Something in us said: “Call here….try here….come here.” Like the prodigal in the far country, we knew where home was. What’s more, we knew that there would be a light there….people there….prayers and pray-ers there….a story (into which to fit this story) there…. and a presence there (that, if it couldn’t completely secure us, could demonstrably strengthen us).

I have friends, made across the years, who have never been active in any church. And I have other friends who, in the years we were together, were more active in a church than they are now. From time to time, they call the switchboard, ask the secretary what time our services are, inquire as to whether I am preaching, and then show up. After the service they greet me at the door, test my memory for names, hug me (while mumbling into the padded shoulder of my robe about “how long it’s been”), and then (almost to a person) say: “We just had to come and get ourselves a fix.”

Which is a fascinating choice of words, given that “fix” is an image drawn directly from the drug culture. What are they saying? Are they coming here to shoot up….turn on….get high? And if so, on what? On me? Or you? Possibly the choir? Perchance the scenery? Maybe on what we mix and bottle here? Or could it be something else….something bigger than anything “we” do here? I certainly hope that whatever it is, we haven’t cut or cheapened it in the delivery. After all, if Jesus’ self-authenticating miracle in the gospel of John was to change water into wine, I’d hate to have it said of me that I got it nicely changed back again.

But to my friends who come for a “fix,” I find myself wanting to say: “Stick around. For this is one place where an overdose is permissible and addiction is downright desirable.”

Pardon the crudeness of my images, but I’m aiming at something here. After 37 years, I am kinda “bullish” on this church thing. I think the Bible is, too. We’re giving them away today….Bibles, I mean. I hope our kids read them. I hope you all read them. Because if you read big whole chunks at a time….not just little snippets, a story here, a story there, a couple of verses marked out with a little lacy bookmark crocheted in the form of a cross….I mean, if you really read it like you might read a novel so as to get caught up in its sweep, you are going to find that the Bible doesn’t spend 20 pages (tops) talking about private and solitary journeys of faith. In the Bible, faith journeys are corporate journeys….the nation of Israel first, the emerging Church of Jesus Christ, second. To be sure, we may meet Jesus one-on-one. But we walk the life of faith together.

Three nights after the attack on the World Trade Center (at a hastily-convened dinner party), one of you raised a glass to toast nine of us, saying something to this effect: “I’ve watched all the TV I can watch alone. I’ve absorbed all the reality I can absorb alone. All I can say is that I’m glad you were available on such short notice, because I need to be with friends like you.” And looking around, I realized that the ten of us were “church.” And hearing the emotion in his words (he who isn’t usually given to such emotion), I realized that this was church. By contrast, I broke bread with three couples in 36 hours, in northern Michigan, just two days ago. And, concerning the world situation, all of them said: “We feel incredibly safe up here. But we feel terribly isolated.”

Oh yes, my friends, we need to be together. We need to be together in the Lord. And, in the spirit of “Hospitality Sunday,” we need a few who will greet us in the name of the Lord. So volunteer, will you? We need people who will say to us: “Come on in. Take offyour hat. Stay a while. We’ve been waiting all morning for you. The preacher’s been sweating all Saturday night for you. The choir members have spent Wednesday or Thursday evening practicing their little lungs out for you. There isn’t a better place in the world for you to be than here. And there isn’t a better time for you to be here than now.”

Last Sunday I had to leave this sanctuary without shaking hands at 12:00 because I had to board a plane at ten minutes past one to fly to Raleigh-Durham. It was my first flight since….well, you know when. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. I mean, they had lots of greeters at the airport. Some with uniforms. Others with guns. A few with those wands they use to feel you up electronically. Then, with the TV monitor announcing that we had just commenced bombing Afghanistan, I boarded the plane.

            Greeters at the airport.

            Greeters at the church.

I suppose there are jobs just waiting to be had at the doors to a 747, just as there are jobs waiting to be had at the doors to the Church of Jesus Christ. I’ve gotta tell you, the pay’s better at the airport. But you tell me. Which job would you rather have?

Note:  Both Robert Putnam’s article (1995) and his book (2000) are readily locatable through normal channels (including the Internet). Suffice it to say, it is hard to pick up a book on present-day congregational life without hearing Putnam quoted. As for the sermon itself, it was initially requested as part of an effort to increase our congregational consciousness in the area of “Hospitality Ministry” (hence, the text) and to increase the number of persons volunteering to be greeters. Somewhere along the line, it took a wide turn into a sermon on the communal nature of the Christian life. Which either reflects sloppy discipline on the part of the preacher or overpowering evidences of the Holy Spirit in the process of sermon preparation. Hopefully, the latter.

Bless the Roadkill 6/24/2001

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

June 24, 2001

Scriptures: Ecclesiastes 12:1-6, Psalm 36:5-9

I suspect enough time has already passed, since the last day of the school year, for at least one of your children to assault you with the statement that he or she is bored. Which is something akin to a warning, which says: “Boredom may be my condition. But with this announcement, I am making it your problem. Suggest something to relieve it, or prepare to assume responsibility for any trouble I may get into as a result of trying to do something about it myself.”

I can see why kids might be bored today. I mean, there are no more alleys behind the houses anymore. So how can they play Kick the Can or Duck on the Rock? And with the simultaneous disappearance of wooden steps leading down from the front door, how can they kill several summer hours throwing a tennis ball against them, trying for doubles, triples and home runs on the rebound?

Kids could certainly go down to Bill Bowman’s porch, play Hearts till bedtime, drink Bill’s mom’s grape Kool-Aid, try to stick Bill with the queen of spades, or keep the queen of spades in a glorious, but all-too-often-futile effort at “shooting the moon.” Yes, they could certainly do that if Bill Bowman hadn’t moved to California 40 years ago….where he may or may not play Hearts anymore….“shoot the moon” anymore….or drink grape Kool-Aid anymore. But since Bill was a tax accountant (last I heard), those days on his porch….playing Hearts….“shooting the moon”…. drinking grape Kool-Aid….may have been as good as it ever got. Although I hope not.

All of us get bored from time to time. No big deal, really. Unless boredom becomes chronic. And unless the bored one assumes no responsibility for its alleviation, but figures that somebody else (God, parent, husband, wife, kid, friend, therapist, preacher, you name it) ought to fix it. In effect, making his boredom my problem.

At its core, boredom is a spiritual problem. To my way of thinking, it is but one step removed from the ultimate spiritual problem. I am talking “Original Sin’s first cousin” here. Meaning that boredom is sinful….and the people who suffer from it (chronically or repeatedly) are sinners. Harsh words, to be sure. But hear me out.

For years, we have labeled Original Sin as “pride.” Not the kind of pride that pursues excellence and takes pleasure in achieving it. Not the kind of pride that sees one’s self as a person of sacred worth and does nothing to demean it. Not the kind of pride that carries one’s self with dignity, and interacts with integrity. No, I am talking about the kind of pride that moves past chutzpah into hubris….past hubris into self-centeredness….and past self-centeredness into arrogance. I am talking about the kind of pride that says:

            I am the center of all things….the measure of all things….the final judge and jury of all things….one who has gone head-to-head with God in an old-fashioned game of King of the Hill, until God cried “Uncle,” conceded defeat and slunk home.

That wonderful, mythic, cosmic, primal story in the Garden….featuring trees and temptations, apples and arrogance….is much, much more than meets the eye. God says to Adam: “The whole garden, it’s yours. Every last tree, yours. Every last apple on every last tree, yours. Save for one tree. The tree in the center of the garden. Do not touch the tree in the center….or eat of its fruit….lest you die.”

But, with lots of help, Adam reaches toward the forbidden tree and bites the forbidden fruit. Why? Three reasons. The tree looks good. Its fruit is associated with wisdom. And Adam is told that whoever eats of it will know everything God knows….thereby rendering God superfluous. Original Sin is not apple thievery in the narrow sense. Nor is it willful disobedience in the broader sense. Original Sin is prideful arrogance in the ultimate sense. It is saying: “I will charge the hill. I will claim the center. I will occupy the middle. And whatever I think about things….as to whether they be good or bad, right or wrong, wise or stupid….shall be, if not the last word, the only word that matters.”

·      Pride, in the last analysis, is the failure to find God’s authority binding.

·      Boredom, in the last analysis, is the failure to find God’s creation interesting.

·      Pride says to God: “You can’t make me.”

·      Boredom says to God: “You don’t amuse me.”

Well, you could say: “What do you expect from little minds?” But over the years I have noticed that boredom does not diminish as intellect rises. Rather, some of the brightest people I know suffer from it most. The venerable preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes being one. “Remember your creator in the days of your youth,” he says, “when life is still interesting.” For soon it will be less so (he says)….same old, same old (he says)….full of disappointment and defeat (he says)….hardly worth the effort it takes to live it (he says)….certainly yielding no pleasure (he says). “Remember your creator in the days of your youth,” thus seems to mean: “Get this God business settled while life still has a measure of freshness and vitality to it, because once the good stuff goes (which it will), finding the God stuff isn’t going to be easy.” See, I told you that boredom was a spiritual problem.

So what to do? Well, I could tell you that creation is not only good, but very good. That’s in the Bible. I could tell you that the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth forth God’s handiwork. That’s in the Bible. I could tell you that you are but a smidgen lower than the angels, and that all things have been placed under your authority and dominion. That’s in the Bible. I could tell you that you are both fearfully and wonderfully made (with the word “fearful” best translated “awesome”….as in “awesomely made”). That’s in the Bible. I could remind you of this wonderful image from the 36th Psalm about “drinking from the river of God’s delights.” That, too, is in the Bible. Or I could tell you of the ophthalmologist who never tires of greeting strangers at breakfast by asking: “Have you remembered to thank God for the fluid in your eyeballs this morning?” Which isn’t in the Bible. But which does reintroduce the amazing relationship between divine design and human benefit.

In a hymn that got broomed from the acceptable list, two hymnals back, I used to sing: “Life is good for God contrives it; deep on deep its wonder lies.” But we could sing that hymn until we were (collectively) blue in the face, and it wouldn’t cut through the malaise that the truly bored suffer. So, instead, I am going to give you several slices out of a day….my day…. Thursday….which (to your way of thinking) might be right up there on the list of dullest days ever recorded. But without further explanation or apology, here it is (in five easily-digestible pieces).

I am up north….Elk Rapids….alone….36 hours (no more, no less). I am there to read, think, cut grass, clean the ditch, play with my chain saw, figure out how to finish this sermon, and remind myself that man does not live by bread alone.

Although the morning starts with bread (whole wheat toast, actually)….two slices….cut diagonally….cherry jelly….gracing the edge of a Harbor Café plate which also includes scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns (extra crispy) and coffee. This is what the Harbor Café calls the “Morning Special.” This is also what Jan Boyer calls “heart attack on a plate.” But I often see Jan in there. So what does that tell you?

I am alone….table for one….town paper to my left….Detroit paper to my right….both eyes on the paper….both ears on the conversations. Other people’s conversations. I love to eavesdrop, don’t you know. Not because I have any ill intent as to what I might do with whatever I might learn. But because I love the stories people tell….in the living….in the talking….and in the banter between neighbor and neighbor, neighbor and waitress, waitress and cook. Life is too close in a 30-seat café for people to live it privately. Especially at breakfast….where you can get a little weather with your eggs….a little gossip with your eggs….a little local color with your eggs….a little humor with your eggs….and, every so often, a little heartbreak with your eggs. I never mind going to the Harbor Café alone, because they give me unlimited refills on both coffee and community.

On to the barber shop, where Mike has cut the town’s hair and minded the town’s business, about as long as anyone can remember. Mike can talk about virtually anything. But Mike is really good when it comes to talking about history….especially the town’s history. Every town in every era needs somebody to keep the chronicles (either scratched on paper or etched in the head). First Chronicles. Second Chronicles. No matter. It’s not enough that people live the stories or tell the stories. Somebody’s got to weave the stories together, don’t you see. It’s called oral history. Barbers do it best. They also do it cheap. Eleven bucks for the haircut. Three bucks for the tip. No charge for another chapter of Third Chronicles.

Late afternoon now. Weary from playing with my toys (mower, whacker, chain saw). Smelly, too. The only guy who will take me that way is my neighbor, Charlie. Charlie cuts my grass when I’m not there. So, finding myself in need of a break, I grab a can of Squirt and go sit on Charlie’s deck. Small talk. Good talk. Harbor talk (who’s selling….who’s buying….water up or down…. that kind of talk). Only this time, there’s more talk. Charlie’s mother died three weeks ago….age 91….congestive heart failure….blessing, really…..Alzheimer’s setting in….didn’t know where she was, some of the time….started praying (near the end) in a language Charlie didn’t even know she knew. Her funeral was 100 miles away. Charlie got in an accident on the way to the funeral, ending up in the hospital without quite knowing how he got there. His little dog got loose at the scene of the accident. Disappeared for three days. Showed up on a stranger’s porch, leg bone sticking through his skin.

Not exactly the best week in Charlie’s life. Mother, dead. Car, wrecked. Dog, found. No pins in Charlie’s leg. Seven pins in the dog’s leg. I didn’t really know Charlie’s mother. Barely knew Charlie’s dog. Still, one weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice. It’s what Christians do, whether the water be up or down.

Six o’clock now. Cleaned up now. Showered and shaved now. Best part of the day now. Reading on the deck now. Watching the sun dance on the water now. And watching the chipmunk now. The chipmunk ran pell-mell across my deck until he spotted me and stopped dead in his tracks. Chipmunk….watching me. Me….watching him (or her). With a chipmunk, how does one tell? There we sit for a full frozen minute….maybe more….each of us staring at the other. He’s probably wondering why, after months of non-habitation, the deck is suddenly occupied. But that’s just my speculation. Who knows what he’s wondering? I certainly don’t.

Does he know that I am a big-ticket preacher, reading (at that very moment) high-level theology? Would theology mean anything to him? Would God mean anything to him? Suddenly it hits me. If there is a gap between what the chipmunk knows of me….and between what I know of God…. which gap is greater? I’m afraid it may be the latter.

Which brings me to the carp. They mate in June. In my lagoon, in June. With great gusto, in my lagoon in June. Oh, but they are noisy in their love making, carp are. Jump clean out of the water, carp do. Don’t know if it’s the male or female doing the jumping. Don’t really care. But they put on quite a show.

Don’t really know carp. Don’t much like carp. Don’t know anybody who does like carp. Never see ‘em on the menu. Don’t know anybody who catches ‘em, keeps ‘em. The first time I heard that noise outside my house and somebody told me it was carp mating, I thought: “Who cares?” (that they mate, I mean). But they really get into it. They have no concern, whatsoever, about who might be listening. Which was when a big, ugly, brown one came clean out of the water, twisted in the air, and re-entered the water with a mighty “thwack.” And I don’t know why, but I smiled.

Margaret Valade said that she used to get easily distracted, driving up to their place at the Homestead. Not that I could fathom that, because Margaret is interested in everything. But she’s not bored on I-75 anymore, she said. Now that she blesses roadkill, she said. Which gives her lots of opportunity to do her thing, given that Michigan has lots of roadkill. It makes you wonder why you can’t buy Roadkill Helper at Quarton Market….or at Costco (in 50-pound quantities).

As roadkill goes, Margaret doesn’t bread it, bake it, braise it, or bury it. She blesses it. How? By simply saying to every flattened creature she encounters:

            Thank you for whatever you have given to the planet.

Not that she necessarily knows what the gift was. Just that there was one. And that somebody ought to be grateful.

But when you start thinking that way….about gifts and givers, I mean….you never know how far back it will take you. Or how far up it will take you. Why, when you start thinking that way, you can stare at chipmunks, eavesdrop on coffee drinkers, watch carp make love, listen to barbers write chronicles, or sit on somebody’s deck talking about their mama and their dog, until a “nothin’ day suddenly seems worthwhile”….full of God, you might even say.

How did the psalmist put it?

            How precious is your steadfast love, O God.

            You save humans and animals alike.

            All people take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

            They feast on the abundance of your house.

            And you give them drink from the river of your delights.

Which is better than grape Kool-Aid, I suspect. Though not infinitely better. Happy summering.

Note: The idea for this sermon was born in my Tuesday Morning Women’s Study Group when boredom became the topic of choice and Margaret Valade first astounded everybody with her tales about “blessing roadkill.” Which led me to some thoughts, first penned by Eugene Peterson, on the subject of religious imagination (shared in an Easter sermon several years previous).

The question about the chipmunk’s knowledge of me, in relation to my knowledge of God, was first raised by the late Dr. Leslie Weatherhead in his book, The Christian Agnostic. Only in Weatherhead’s musings on the subject, the chipmunk was an ant crawling up the pulpit of the famed City Temple in London.

Let the record show that before I finished preaching the last of three services, a box of Roadkill Helper had appeared on my desk.

Let the record also show that, as a result of my musings on the mating of carp, I learned more about this breed of fish than I ever thought I wanted to know. Ed Chambliss told me that carp is the basis for gefilte fish which is considered a Jewish delicacy. Rod Quainton and Bob Arends both referenced the fact that carp is a holiday delicacy in the Czech Republic, although Bob thought the Czechs ate it on Christmas Eve while Rod thought it was served on New Year’s Day. Gary Kulak informed me that it is the female carp who jumps out of the water and re-enters with a mighty “thwack,” the better to dislodge her eggs from her underside, prior to fertilization. And Martha Ehlers schooled me on the intricate differences between mating and spawning. Everyone