Get Real 10/3/1999

First United Methodist Church

Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture:  Luke 24:13-35

Before I comfort you, let me trouble you just a bit. More to the point, let me trouble you with a pair of ways of viewing the Sacrament….the Eucharist….the Lord’s Supper….the Last Supper….Holy Communion, if you will. The first will trouble you because it’s a tad cynical…. although there is truth in it. The second will trouble you because it’s a tad literal….although there is truth in it.

The first “troubling” comes courtesy of Frederick Buechner (Bob’s cousin), who has written as many words about Christianity as anybody I know, and who feels them, deeper than most. From him, I give you this….concerning the Lord’s Supper:

In the final analysis, it is make believe. You make believe that the one who breaks the bread and blesses the wine is not the plump parson who smells of Williams’ Aqua Velva, but Jesus of Nazareth. Then you make believe that the tasteless wafer and cheap port (in our case, the bread cubelet and thimble of moderately priced grape juice) are his flesh and blood. And then you make believe that by swallowing them, you are swallowing his life into your life, and that there is nothing in earth or heaven that is more important for you to do than this. It is a game you play because he said to play it: “Do this in remembrance of me. Do this.”

I suspect you are troubled by that. You are probably troubled by the words “tasteless wafer”…. “cheap port”…. “make believe”…..“game that you play”….and (perchance) “plump parson.” No doubt you are also troubled by the underlying tone, which would seem to suggest that there is little about the Sacrament that makes ordinary sense. Still, there is truth in his words. The wafers (in churches which employ them) are tasteless. The port (in denominations where port is poured) is cheap. There is, about the Sacrament, an implicit necessity that one “make a belief” at the time of partaking….or, at least, borrow one. And the whole thing is done (in part) because Jesus said to “do it.”

But, somehow, none of this seems high enough….or holy enough. Which is why, having troubled you with Frederick Buechner, I would further trouble you with the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215 AD), coupled with my last-ever eighth grade Confirmation Class (Farmington Hills, 1993). Said the Fourth Lateran Council:

At the time of their consecration, the “gifts” of the Sacrament (meaning the tasteless wafer and the cheap port) cease to be bread and wine in anything but appearance and, instead, become (in their entirety) the body and blood of Christ, himself.

To which my eighth graders, upon finally figuring out that this Doctrine of Transubstantiation meant exactly what it said, offered up (in most un-holy unison) a resounding “Yuck.” Proving only that while most teenagers can’t abide the sight of blood, they would rather see it than taste it, any day out.

As for the rest of us, we are far too polite to say “Yuck” in response to a doctrine that many in the Christian world still hold dear….especially Roman Catholics, who have embraced this position officially since the Council of Trent in 1551. Yet I know precious few Roman Catholics who (today) would be able to explain “transubstantiation,” let alone feel moved to defend it.

At the time of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther broke from the position that (properly consecrated) the bread becomes Christ’s body and the wine, Christ’s blood. But Luther’s break was far from complete. Luther decided that Christ’s body and blood are present in the midst of the bread and the wine….but are present “along with” (rather than “in place of”) the bread and the wine. This doctrine came to be known as “consubstantiation”….although there is no indication that Luther ever used the term, or felt moved to explain how both elements could co-exist in the same morsel of food or in the same swallow of wine.

Eventually, Ulrich Zwingli came along and said that the elements of the Sacrament do not change at all. What starts out as bread in the Sacristy remains bread in the stomach. And what begins as wine pouring out, remains wine going down. Ever since then, Protestants have been taking up positions between Luther and Zwingli….although very few Protestants have chosen to re-cast their lot with the Catholics.

But if the Catholics are right, don’t you see, there is no need to “make believe” anything about the Sacrament. For Christ is in it….from the very first prayer of the priest, to the very last swallow of the supplicant. Which is why, if the congregation at Mass be slim some morning, the priest must drink every remaining drop of the consecrated wine. Because while Christ freely spilled his blood on the ground at Calvary, it would be utterly inappropriate for an agent of Christ’s church to re-spill (even a drop of it) down the sink or the sewer. Why, I don’t know. But then I’ve never served and volleyed from the Catholic side of the net.

I doubt if the next ten Roman Catholics you meet will be able to explain any of this to you. But they may understand it under a different name….not “transubstantiation”….but “the Doctrine of Real Presence.” The priest serves. I consume. And Christ is there….physically as well as spiritually.

Which has a certain measure of attractiveness, don’t you see? For in a world where so many of faith’s assurances are hard to locate, measure or pin down, there is a wonderful specificity about this one. Where is Christ? On the tongue, that’s where Christ is. Whereas we Protestants sing, at the hour of the Supper: “Here would I feed upon the bread of God. Here would I touch and handle things unseen.”

Do we believe in a Doctrine of Real Presence? Not as an organized body of believers, we don’t. Historically, we cast our lot with the “it’s bread all the way from store to stomach” people. But, yet, we say that “Christ is here”….whenever we do this. In part, because Christ said he would be here. And, in part, because none of us is willing to settle for “a Doctrine of Real Absence.”

I sometimes worry that we talk just a bit too glibly about our ability to have a relationship with Jesus Christ….leading the unsuspecting to assume that relating to Jesus is, in every way, the same as relating to a spouse, a sibling, a neighbor or a friend. To be sure, there are some elements that are very common. But there are others that are very different.

Consider today’s story. It is late Easter afternoon. Jesus is alive. But there are very few people who know it. Two, who do not know it, are walking away from “the scene of the crime” (as it were). They are walking to a village named Emmaus. Jesus falls in step with them. The three of them talk. About hopes raised. And hopes dashed. About confrontations….condemnations…. crucifixions….and unsubstantiated rumors of resurrections. Them complaining. Him explaining. But nothing connecting.

Until the village gets near….the day gets short….and they get hungry. He appears to be going further. Don’t miss this little detail. Jesus is always going further. Jesus may companion our journey. But Jesus is not bound by our agenda. Most of the time, we want to stop before he does.

They say: “Stay and eat with us.” And while he is at their table….as their guest….responding to their invitation….“they recognize him in the breaking of bread.” Then, suddenly, he isn’t there anymore. But that glimpse is enough. Enough for them to look back down the road they have already come….back down the steps they have already taken….back down the stories they have already told….back down the history they have already lived….so as to enable them to say: “It was the Lord….all along. And there were signs. But we missed them. ‘Til now.”

* * * * *

I envy the people who can get Jesus….every morning, if they like….between the tongue and the teeth. And who know, with absolute certainty, who it is they’ve got, and where it is they’ve got him.

And I envy the people who can go to the garden (or to hymn 314)….every morning, if they like….and walk with Jesus while the dew is still on the roses (whenever that is).

But I am not those people. I am a little slow. Save for three or four occasions, most of my “Jesus sightings” have come after the fact….figuring out that he has been with me, after he has moved on….making sense of what he has said to me, after he’s gone silent. It’s kind of like a really great meal. Sometimes the aftertaste is the best.

It's Not That Easy Being Green 4/25/1999

First United Methodist Church

Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture:  John 14: 8-14

                  Mark 12: 41-44

Preliminary Word in Response to the Crisis at Columbine High School

Let me join with other clergy across the nation….and across the chancel….in the pain that is shared and the prayers that are offered for fallen teachers and students, and for shattered families and friends.  Let me also express my gratitude that here, for our kids, support is being offered by Matt Hook and our youth counselors….especially to Amanda Stubbs, who once lived there, now lives here, and whose best friend died in that library.

There will be more to say….in time….when (hopefully) we will be more focused on cure than blame.  For now, I have nothing new to add, save for a trio of "n" words that keep rolling through my mind.

The first is "nihilist."  The nihilist is one who believes that nothing matters….meaning that life is cheap, insignificant and expendable.  To the nihilist, it matters little if you live or die….or if anybody lives or dies.  All of which fosters a culture of death, whereindying moves from being intriquing to compelling.  Fortunately, very few of us are nihilists.

The second word is "narcissist."  This is one who believes that I (alone) matter….my wants, my needs, my desires, that's what's important.  "I can make room for others in my world, to the degree that they mirror me, support me, or endorse me."  Unfortunately,  the world does not lack for narcissists.

The third word is "neighbor"….not as in "Hi, neighbor!  How's the weather?  What do you say we join forces and paint the fence?"….but as in the command to love the neighbor as the self, and (more to the point) as in Jesus' answer to the lawyer's question: "Just who is my neighbor?"

To the nihilist….no life is sacred.

To the narcissist….my life is sacred.

To the neighbor….all life is sacred.

The question….where our kids are concerned: "How do we make neighbors out of nihilists and narcissists?"

The Sermon

Last Sunday morning, along about 7:45, I had Alta Yager and Thelma Wilmouth check me out in the narthex.  I needed to know if I looked all right….if my tie matched my suit….and if all of my colors were coordinated.  I needed an outside opinion, don't you see, because I didn't have Kris to rely on.  She spent the weekend in Saginaw, leading a retreat for spouses of clergy, which is why Alta and Thelma were needed to tell me if I passed muster.  I did.  But, then, they're incredibly kind.

I always thought the deployment of color was an art.  Now I learn it is something of a science.  Nobody would open a restaurant without consulting someone schooled in the principles of color.  I am told it has become a very "in" thing to have one's own color analysis done by an expert.  I suspect it is a service commonly purchased by women.  But what do I know?  Maybe I should pay an analyst to settle, once and for all,  the debate as to whether I look better in blue or brown.

Psychologists have done color analyses for years, claiming that knowledge of the colors we prefer will give them clues as to the kinds of people we are.  I remember great professional consternation over a child who brought a daily picture from home to give to his kindergarten teacher,  each picture colored only in black.  The professionals poked around in the child's psyche.  They probed his family history.  They paged through recent life experiences, looking for unresolved encounters with death.  They should have checked his art supplies.  They would have discovered the only crayon he had was black.

I am harder to define.  I like most every color.  I do not, however, like pink.  And I am not much on pastels.  I dislike colors that feel a need to sneak up on me.  Instead, I would prefer that my colors march right in and make a statement.  For some reason, I have always liked green.  But it has to be a green green….a man's green….like "kelly" or "emerald."  None of this mossy or olive stuff.  Perhaps I can account for my preference biographically.  For while I didn't go to Michigan State, I am one-quarter Irish.  My paternal grandmother's maiden name was Kennedy.  When we changed the sanctuary carpet, two churches ago, I persuaded them to do it over in kelly green.  The first Sunday after the new carpet was laid, the choir walked down the aisle to discover that someone had placed a putter and several golf balls in the center of the chancel.

There are, however, more negative associations with the color green than with other hues on the spectrum.  Medically, green is associated with bile, giving rise to the phrase "bilious green."  Green is the color we turn when we are "off our feed,"  "under the weather," "sick to our stomach," or "too long at sea."  Green isthe color of copper when it ages, bananas when they are hard and cheese that turns bad.  And the last time I looked, green was also the color of pond scum.

In recent years, green has become synonymous with the word "ordinary."  This has largely resulted from a song associated with Frank Sinatra (who recorded it) and Kermit T. Frog(who introduced it.)  "Frog" is not only Kermit's last name.  It is also his nature.  Kermit is a Muppet….a Sesame Street regular….a colleague of Ernie, Burt and the Cookie Monster….the alter ego of the late Jim Henson….and the husband of Miss Piggy.  I am not regularly atuned to Kermit's comings and goings, but one of the potential benefits ofbeing a grandfather (when it comes) is that I will have an excuse to watch Kermit once more.

So what, say you.  So this, say I.  Kermit is green and wishes it were otherwise. I know the feeling.

            It's not that easy, bein' green

            having to spend each day the color of the leaves,

            when I think it could be nicer being red, or yellow, or gold,

            or something much more colorful like that.

            It's not that easy, bein' green,

            it seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things,

            and people tend to pass you over, 'cause you're not

            standing out like sparkles in the water, or stars in the sky.

            But green's the color of spring,

            and green can be cool and friendly-like.

            And green can be big like an ocean,  important like a mountain,

            or tall like a tree.

            When green is all there is to be,

            it could make you wonder why, but why wonder, why wonder?

            I am green and it'll do fine,  it's beautiful,

            and I think it's what I want to be.

There's a lot of truth there.  I suspect many of us suffer some "greenness" in our lives.  Perhaps it comes as a result of being short….or shy….or plain….or oddly colored….or feeling handicapped as a result of where we were born, how we were born, to whom we were born, or with what we were born.  All of us have known our moments of "blending in with so many other ordinary things," to the degree that a word like "average" becomes synonymous with a spiritual disease….as in the phrase "hopelessly average."  "And people do tend to pass you by," as Kermit says.  Which may be the unkindest cut of all.

The realization of our "greenness" begins to hit about early Junior High, when a girl looks in a mirror and realizes that she's plain or pimpled…. heavy or skinny…. too short or too tall….or that she can never wear her hair in a certain kind of way and that her figure is eventually going to fall short of centerfold proportions.

Or perhaps it is when a boy first realizes that most of the teams have already been chosen by the captains,  and just once he wishes he could be somebody's first pick instead of being relegated to that moment when the leftovers are divided and somebody says: "All right, we'll take the three 11-year-olds and you can have Ritter and the kid with the broken arm."

While the realization of "greenness" often begins with issues of "appearance" for girls and "athletics" for boys, agebroadens the problem as girls discoverthere is more to life than the way they look, and boys discover there is more to life than the games they play.  The older we get, the more we realize how many arenas there are in which "ordinary" is the best we can hope for.…"middle-of-the-pack" is as far as we are likely to go….and "outstanding" is a word more aptly descriptive of what cows do in the field than what we are likely to do with our lives. 

If it is true that life's most painful metaphysical discovery is that of our mortality (meaning that some day we will not be), very close to it is the discovery of our mediocrity (meaning that some day we will not be everything we hoped.) 

I remember seeing a cartoon depicting a wicked stepmother, posturing in front of a looking glass and inquiring: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?"  To which came back the answer: "Snow White, and don't you forget it, sweetheart!"  Certainly not a kind response.  But accurate, one suspects.

I find it interesting that thetwo mass murderers at Columbine High School started out with a plan to kill male athletes.  And when the newspapers ran pictures of the girls who were murdered, they were (to a person) quite fair of face.  Which may be mere coincidence.  But I doubt it.  It wouldn't be the first time that violence was the by-product of alienation….and alienation, the by-product of jealousy.

Some of you will remember Bob Morley, my guitar-playing colleague from California.  Bob has so many talents in speech and music, I can't believe he ever spent a "green day" in his life.  But then he wrote a book which included a chapter entitled, "Blessed Are The Gentle Dweebs, the Late Bloomers and the Hopelessly Average."  Bob is describing himself, don't you see.  Listen: 

            I was painfully skinny as a teenager.  I looked like a skeleton with skin.

            My figure consisted of one adam's apple and two kneecaps.  I loved basketball

            but hated the outfit that revealed my embarrassingly deficient physique to the

            cheerleaders.  Not only was I skinny, but I had a dangerously gentle streak that

            was truly out of character in the rugged Kansas farm town where I lived.

            My friends were the kind of guys who went hunting, butchered hogs, chewed

            tobacco and talked rough.  They raced stock cars and attended tractor pulls.

            I liked music and art.  I tried hunting, but always harbored a secret hope that

            the squirrel would get away.

That brought back memories.  I was neither thin nor gentle.  But I was profoundly unconfident and rather cherubically youthful of face.  Since I looked young, I never saw myself as a leader or a lover (albeit secretly longing to be both.)  In my early years I was never elected to anything.  Neither was I the kind of guy girls passed notes about or sat by the phone waiting for the calls I never made.  I used to say it was a good thing I met Kris when I was 23 and she was 17.  Had we both been 17, she would have never given a second glance to a guy like me.  A few years ago, I stopped saying that.  I realized it sounded like a put-down of my wife.  For the truth of the matter is that, when I was 17, she might very well have looked at a guy like me.  But I wouldn't have been able to bring myself to approach a girl like her.

It's not that easy being green.  So what do you do, once you discover you are?  Well, there are a lot of approaches that won't work….a lot of attitudes that won't help….a lot of avenues that won't get you anywhere.  You can slip into self pity…."poor me."  You can consume yourself with envy…."lucky you."  Ironically, envy is often called "the green disease."  You can curse God, your parents or fate.  You can shout or pout.  There are any number of things that come quite naturally.  But none of them will work.  For it is still your greenness that must be worked out in fear and trembling.  Just as no one can come along and tell you "don't sweat mortality….you're not really going to die," neither can anyone come along and tell you "don't sweat mediocrity….you're going to dazzle the world in everything you do."  Because you are going to die.  And you are not going to dazzle the world.

But there are avenues that will get us somewhere.  Theybegin, not with what we see when we look at ourselves, but with what God sees when He looks at us.  For we need to remember that God not only loves dweebs, late bloomers and the hopelessly average, butalso employs and empowers them.  Consider the disciples.  I wouldn't have picked them to launch anything.  Few of them were well-traveled, well-connected or well-heeled.  The fact that they were free to follow Jesus on a moment's notice has often been evidenced as a sign of great devotion and loyalty.  But it probably meant they were so unimportant in the scheme of whatever it was they were doing, that they had precious few loose ends to tie up.  Had Jesus submitted their resumes to a Management Consultant firm, the entire lot of them would have been found lacking in education, background, demonstrated capability, or prior experience with the team concept.

Yet Jesus found ways to maximize the performance of the whole, marrying the strength of one to the weakness of another.  He used their failures as occasions for training.  He encouraged them at the points they were most indecisive.  He convinced them they could get positive results.  And he told them, in ways they could swallow, that they would eventually do greater things in their mediocrity than he had done in his divinity.

That's how God works with people….not at the level of skill,  but at the level of willingness.  The issue (for God) is not with what we bring to the party.  The issue is with our willingness to accept the invitation.  I once heard Peter Gomes, Dean of the Chapel at Harvard, tell about visits to the campus made by Mother Teresa and Desmond Tutu in the same semester.  He said that there were striking similarities between the two of them.  Then he added: "They were both noticeably average and genuinely surprised that God had chosen to use them." 

Second, it is only when we stop looking for strengths we don't possess, that we will begin to value the ones we do.  After all (says Kermit):  "Green is the color of spring.  Green can be cool and friendly-like. And green can be big like oceans….important like mountains….tall like trees.  If, on one hand, the church tells us  it is vitally important to confess our shortcomings, it is (on the other hand) equally important that the church help us identify our strengths.  I once heard an angry parishoner snarl at his pastor (while shaking hands at the door) : "Some Sunday, just for a change, could you give us a word or two on what….if anything….we're doing right."   Ouch.

Perhaps you have noticed that I seldom ask you to do a job without first sharing my belief in your capacity to do it….and then telling you the strengths I sawthat led me to ask you in the first place.

Finally, not only does God employ the average and help them to own their strengths, He promises some amazing victories when his resources are hitched to theirs.  The ringing conviction of Holy Scripture, from Moses to Paul, is that impossible things have happened because improbable and incapable people did not realize they were impossible.  Which explains why Paul could get away with preaching all that "more than conquerors" stuff to a little band of Christians in the shadow of Imperial Rome, without being laughed out of town.

Let's lock this up and put it to bed with a football story.  The year was 1969.  The event was the Super Bowl.  The teams were the New York Jets and the Baltimore Colts.  It was a mismatch on paper.  The Colts of Johnny Unitas represented the venerable National Football League.  The Jets of Joe Willie Namath represented the fledgling American Football League.  Talk about David going up against Goliath.

John Dockery, a nondescript defensive back on that 1969 Jets team, described what happened during that game in Miami.  Said John: "There was a moment, late in the third quarter, when I looked up at the scoreboard and it flashed through my mind like a bolt of lightning, we could actually win this thing.  My God, we could really win this thing. "

Funny thing about that Super Bowl.   If memory serves me correctly, the Jets wore green.

Going Through Home 11/22/1998

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: Deuteronomy 26:5-11

In the odd years, when we didn’t go to Aunt Marion’s for Thanksgiving dinner, we went to Grandmother’s house. At least, insofar as I remember, we did. It wasn’t over the river or through the woods. And we never took a sleigh to get there. Good thing, too, because I only remember it snowing once in 50-plus years of Thanksgiving days. I think it was in 1949. I was young then, because Frank Tripucka was still the Lions’ quarterback. That was in the days before Bobby Layne came riding out of Texas to rescue the Honolulu Blue and Silver.

Grandma always had to have a late dinner because we sometimes went to the football game…. my father and me. Other years, we bundled up and went downtown to see the parade….the one where the real Santa Claus used to ride down Woodward Avenue before climbing up on the marquee of the J.L. Hudson Company. Until they closed the J.L. Hudson Company. Then, just the other day, they imploded it. Twenty-seven seconds and it was one big pile of rubble. I guess the real Santa moved. Nobody told me where.

Somehow Santa, Grandma and Bobby Layne get all mixed up together in my memory of those early Thanksgivings. Or maybe it’s me who gets all mixed up. It all runs together now. Pleasantly so. Thanksgiving has a way of doing that to you. It makes you want to go home again. Or it makes you think about going home again. More gratitude gets lost in nostalgia than in any other forest I know. From our pilgrim fathers to our present fathers, Thanksgiving generates thoughts of home….places we have been….people we have been with….events and experiences that have shaped us….and mis-shaped us.

Our past comes tumbling out in those stories. For there is not one of us who does not understand that the was-ness of our lives powerfully affects the is-ness of our lives. So much has gone into our making, that we occasionally need to sort the building blocks from the stumbling blocks that are stashed in the basements of our souls.

Both are present, of course. For our past is not simple. There is both dark and light there….good and evil there….beauty and horror there. And the mixture tends to bother us, to the point that we conveniently rid ourselves of half of it. Some of us remember only the good stuff. We remember things as being better than they were. All the bad slipped out somewhere. Meanwhile, others of us remember only the bad stuff. We remember things as being worse than they were. When we weren’t paying attention, all the good slipped out somewhere. Both are oversimplifications. And clinging too tightly to an oversimplification is one of the better ways I know of becoming emotionally ill.

If you look at the past and say, “It was wonderful….there was no darkness there,” then you can’t help but wonder why the present never quite measures up. Why can’t my turkey ever taste like Mom’s? Why can’t our family table look like the one Norman Rockwell used to paint? Why do we have to sit here listening to Ritter on Thanksgiving Sunday….when, in years gone by, we could have listened to Thomas, Wright or Ward?

But if you look at the past and say, “It was terrible…there was no light back there,” then you are going to spend a disproportionate amount of time nursing old wounds, squeezing fresh pus from old abscesses, while downing two-for-one cocktails of shame and remorse. Eventually you end up as one of those people who never go outside without an upper-body sash, the one on which you pin your collection of injustices, hurts and grievances….positioned on the sash by date of occurrence or date of remembrance.

Both groups want to go home again. But each group remembers only half the directions. John Claypool writes: “To look exclusively at either the good or the bad is to have partial vision. Instead, we must come to terms with the fact that both dimensions exist, and accept them accordingly.” Claypool then goes on to suggest that Thanksgiving, as a season, can be of particular help to us here. For Thanksgiving involves looking back, with a sense of gratitude for all that is behind us. The danger, of course, is to reserve our gratitude for only those things that are pleasantly behind us.

For a number of years, I had reason to be concerned with a young woman who was feeling an intense amount of pain. Very little in her life was going well. Almost everything in her life was going poorly. Her story would have confounded Robert Schuller. On more than one occasion she cried out, usually to me, that she had experienced enough hell to know that she would rather not experience any more. But in an effort to address her problems, she tried one quick-fix method after another. None of which worked for very long. Occasionally she tried the slow-fix method known as therapy. Which might have worked, had she stayed with it. But she never did. Three or four weeks into each program, she would get a pretty good inkling as to where the process was going and what she would soon be facing. To which she would say: “I’m afraid to look at it. Twice before I tried and had to quit.”

So she never saw it through. And whatever it was she couldn’t face in the past, ultimately consumed her in the present. Which explains why she died.

Contrast her story with that of a girl named Alice, about whom Keith Miller writes in a book appropriately titled Habitation of Dragons.

When I was a little girl, I was put in an orphanage. It wasn’t pretty. But, then, I wasn’t pretty. No one wanted me. I can recall longing to be adopted by a family. I thought about it day and night. I even got close a couple of times. But something always seemed to go wrong. My social worker said I was trying too hard. People would come to look me over and, without meaning to, I would say or do something to drive them away. Then, one day, I was told that a family was coming to take me home. I was so excited that I jumped up and down and cried. My social worker told me it might not be permanent, but there was no way I was able to hear that.

One day, a few months later, I skipped home from school to the big, old house where we lived. I saw my battered suitcase sitting by the door. One look at the suitcase and I knew. They didn’t want me. This happened to me seven times before I was 13 years old.

As Keith Miller described it, the group reached out to her, trying to do whatever they could for her. Finally she said: “Look, don’t feel sorry for me. You see, I needed my past. It’s part of what led me to God.”

Putting his finger on Alice’s point is an old North Carolina hero of mine by the name of Carlyle Marney. He, too, talked about the need to tell the darker truths of one’s own story. Except that Marney did not stop with that grim prospect. He suggested that if this is all one does, one may very well drown in the dirty waters of self-deprecation. “Instead,” he said, “what is needed alongside an awareness of original sin, is an equally-powerfully awareness of original love.”

I like that. I’m not entirely sure what it means. I suppose it means that we need to give equal time to the good things that have happened to us. For we have been loved and looked after throughout our lives. From the beginning to the present….when we have been naked and bloody, dirty and of little apparent beauty….we have been picked up, cleaned up, washed up and held. For all the slights and cruelties that we have endured, there have also been ways….equally real and equally tangible….that “goodness and mercy have followed us all the days of our lives.” And at this point in his argument, Marney’s words become beautiful indeed.

It is from this point….if we can get to this point….that we begin to make peace with a culture that spawned us, with a mommy and daddy who shaped and mis-shaped us, and with the institutions which blessed and distorted us. We can go through home again. And we can accept whatever stuff God had at his disposal in making us.

Thomas Wolfe was wrong. We can go back home again. Not to stay. But to visit….so that we can leave on better terms than we left before. We pass through home, the better to see it with what the Bible calls “second sight.”

Every family tree has flawed fruit. And yet the Psalmist writes (16:6): “Welcome, indeed, is the heritage that falls to me.” Which is not an easy admission to make. For there is much of that heritage we’d just as soon deny….and branches of that tree we’d just as soon prune.

Kathleen Norris, whose book is alternately informing us and moving us each Tuesday morning at 9:30, writes: “When I see teenagers in public with their families….holding back….refusing to walk with Mom and Dad….ashamed to be seen as part of a family….I have to admit that I acted that way once, both with regard to my family of origin and my family of faith.” Meaning that the churches we remember weren’t perfect either….alternately doing wonderful things for us and terrible things to us. But that, too, can be dealt with, so that we finally come to a point of gratitude for what was there, without requiring “what was there” to have been perfect.

Every so often I meet someone, even in Birmingham, who says: “You want to know why I don’t come to church? I’ll tell you why I don’t come to church. Because my parents made me go to church when I was a little kid and I hated it.” At which point I always want to laugh. Because, as an answer, it’s so pathetic. But I stifle my laughter, figuring that it would be rude. Then I want to say: “How old do you think you are going to have to be in order to get over this….get beyond this….get through this ‘thing’ with your parents?” But I don’t ask that either, because it would come off as intrusive.

I am a man of moderate passions. But I hate the Chicago Bulls. Still, I think I would like Phil Jackson. He’s the guy who just took a hike as their coach. Phil Jackson is a deeply philosophical man, who chose for the title of his biography Sacred Hoops. Jackson knows what it means to come to terms with a religious heritage that was both blessing and curse. He was raised in North Dakota by parents who were both Pentecostal preachers. It quickly became clear to him that their way was never going to be his way. His parents were deeply disappointed in him (spiritually), not because of anything “wrong” he did, but because of something “right” he couldn’t do. He couldn’t speak in tongues. The gift never came to him. So the fullness of their blessing never came to him either.

Painful is his recollection of the day he came home from school to find his mother gone. Apparently, her failure to be there….or to leave a note….was so rare as to put him into a panic. He was certain that what the Pentecostals call “the rapture” had happened, and that Jesus had reappeared for the purpose of whisking his mother off to heaven….leaving him behind. Apparently, she had given him reason to believe that one day, when he least expected it, such a thing might just occur.

But now, as a grown-up, Jackson has come to terms with all of that. Pain has been healed. And he can respect and appreciate the faith of his parents, without feeling that it should necessarily be his. Coming back to his Christian roots through the back door known as Buddhism, he has reassembled a faith that he can call his own, comfortably and without apology.

He could have spent the rest of his life counting his bruises. But, in the same place he got the bruises, he also found some blessings. So he figured he better count them too. And when he did, he found that God was working through it all….helping him fashion a life out of the things that had blessed him and the things that had bruised him (given that many of those things were one and the same).

That’s the point to all this remembering. Not just to get it clear….to get it right….or to get it comfortable. The point is to bring us to the recognition that we have survived, you and I. Some of us have made it twenty years. Some of us forty. Some of us sixty. And a few of us, eighty years or more. We have made it to this day. We need not have, you know. There were times we didn’t think we would. And almost didn’t. There were times we went down the wrong road and got royally lost. There were times we followed the devices and desires of our own hearts and found ourselves going in circles. And there were times then the road was clearly marked. But we sat down beside and refused to go down it at all.

But we are here. We didn’t go under. Not because we are brilliant (let’s not give ourselves that much credit). Not because we are buoyant. But because a strength beyond our strength has pulled us through. Don’t you see it? What we are trying to remember is God himself. That’s what Israel remembered. Israel’s theology was built upon a communal rehearsal of the mighty acts of God. Every time the people got distressed, depressed, defeated or down, someone would gather them around the fire in order to count the bruises and the blessings, threaded with the story of what God had done for his people.

A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. And the Egyptians treated us harshly, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage. Then we cried to the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice, and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which thou, O Lord, has given me. And you shall set it down before the Lord your God, and worship before the Lord your God. And you shall rejoice in all the good which the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

Deuteronomy 26:5-11

It was the sharing of that memory, coupled with the telling of that story, that gave people the courage to go on. For the one thing they could discern in their past….even though it was seldom clear in their present….was the leading of God. They believed, not in spite of their past, but because of their past. They believed that there had been times…..often the most unlikely times….when they could trace a thread of holiness through the horror. And the thread was nothing less than the leading of God.

So remember.

            Remember it all.

                        Remember it as honestly as you can.

                                    Remember, and be glad.

For God was in it. God is in it. God will be in it. It is God who is bringing you through…. bringing you out….bringing you home. So count your many bruises. Then count your many blessings. One by one by one. Not to impress anybody. Not to impress yourself. But so you can see what God has done. Which is the only real source of courage that I know.

Note: I am indebted to Keith Miller’s Habitation of Dragons, John Claypool’s Opening Blind Eyes and Kathleen Norris’ Amazing Grace. Frederick Buechner also plows some of the same ground in his book The Longing for Home. And I have long since lost the source of Carlyle Marney’s observation, even though I have never misplaced my affection for Carlyle Marney.

The Near Edge of God 12/13/1998

First United Methodist Church

Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: John 1:1-3, 14

When I was three years old, I used to think that the true measure of things was how big they were in comparison to how big I was. There were Billy-sized things. And there were bigger things. But when I was three, almost everything fell into the category of “bigger things.”  Most everything was huge when I was small, but seems to have shrunk, now that I have become huge.

Whenever I go back to the house in which I previously lived….the school in which I previously studied….the fields in which I previously played….and the woods in which I previously roamed….I am amazed at how common, how ordinary, and (yes) how tiny they seem compared to the way I remember them. I find myself wondering: “How did it happen that (after I left it) they came along and downsized my entire neighborhood?”

But it wasn’t just my neighborhood, don’t you see? The world got smaller as Billy got bigger. When I wasn’t allowed to cross the street, there was no end of mystery about what was on the other side. Much of which has now disappeared, given the number of times I have crossed the Atlantic. Albion (on the day I went there to start college….which, ironically, was the first time I ever laid eyes upon the place) might just as easily have been the end of the universe. Given a car and a map, I was far from certain that I would have known how to get home to Detroit. Which changed quickly….not because Albion moved, but because I did.

When first I sang, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,” I really did wonder. And still do….sort of. But an introductory course on astronomy (coupled with seven Star Trek movies) have reduced my reverence. And every time I tilt back my head and belt, “O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds thy hands have made,” it occurs to me how little I consider such things at all. Until people I respect say: “Hey, take a look at this. It’s going to blow your mind.” So once in awhile I do. And once in awhile it does.

Just the other day, while reading to keep ahead of my Wednesday morning study group, I stumbled upon Leonard Sweet telling me that physicists are currently dismantling every boundary that separates us from the universe, meaning that we are learning more….drawing closer….and sensing connections that we never saw before. But the more we learn, the less we seem to know. For each step of science opens the door to several hundred miles of history. Speaking of the inability of science to measure the “blackness” of matter in space, University of Washington astrophysicist, Bruce Margon, confesses: “It’s a fairly embarrassing situation to admit that we can’t find 90 percent of the universe.” Which I can’t comprehend. Here I am, worrying about a clothes dryer that eats every seventh sock. And there he is, looking for 90 percent of the universe. (“Now slow down, Bruce. Think of where you last saw it.”)

We live in a galaxy so big, that a light ray (traveling at the rate of 186,000 miles per second) takes 100,000 years to go from one side of the galaxy to the other. And how many galaxies did God create? More than one, they tell me. But I’ve never seen ‘em. Which is not God’s fault….that I haven’t seen ‘em, I mean. Physicist Charles Misner believes this is why Albert Einstein had so little use for the church (even though he said a lot of things that seemed friendly to religion). He must have listened to preachers like me….talking about subjects like God….and figured that he (Einstein) had seen far more majesty than I’d ever imagined.

Still, there is Sweet’s suggestion that the old distinctions between out-there and in-here are breaking down…..meaning that we are connected to the totality of the universe (including the 90 percent of it we can’t find) in more ways than we previously expected, and that we are connected to the God of the universe in more ways than we previously believed.

Let me try and explain, knowing that in doing so, I am skating at the naked edge of my knowledge zone, and (quite possibly) your comfort zone. It all has to do with what the scientists call “Chaos Theory”…..which is anything but what the name would seem to suggest. So work with me, here.

Until very recently, we believed in a world that could be understood and managed. In fact, we believed that way since 1686 when Sir Isaac Newton wrote a startling book entitled Principia. In that book, Newton suggested that the earth circled the sun (rather than vice versa), and that the atom was the basic building block of the universe. He also suggested that the solar system worked like a vast machine, operating on a series of fixed laws. He summed up these laws in four relatively simple algebraic formulas, thereby putting the question of “how things worked” to bed, where it stayed nicely tucked in for some 300 years.

But now Newton’s model has come apart….the covers have become untucked….and mystery is once again loose in the cosmos. With the work being done in quantum physics, we are discovering a sub-atomic world that does not behave (at all) in the ways that Newton said it did. Things are impossible to pin down, what with particles turning into waves and waves turning into particles. Things that have shape and mass one minute, become pure energy the next. And nobody knows when such changes will occur….and why.

Which makes it hard to predict anything in the universe. Or study anything in the universe. In fact, the very act of attempting to study a particle, changes it (meaning that scientists can no longer stand outside of anything and observe it). Because the very particles and waves that are responding to each other, will end up responding to the watcher as well.

Picture a teacher saying to her class (at the beginning of the morning): “Class, that big guy sitting in the back corner is from the Board of Education. He has come to observe us today. But we will just go on with our work like we always do. So forget he’s here and open your books to page 132.” But they won’t “forget he’s here.” And very little will “go on like it always does.” Because his presence will have changed everything, don’t you see? I suppose he could observe the class through a two-way mirror so that nobody in the room would be able to see him. But the quantum physicists tell us that, in the universe, there is no two-way mirror behind which to hide. So every act of trying to chart something, changes it. Which means that everything reacts to everything else, and there is no such thing as pure scientific activity.

What this also means is that it is no longer helpful to think of the world as a machine. For machines are full of little parts….all doing what they were made to do….always have done…. always will do….until they wear out and (in order to keep the machine running) someone replaces the worn out part with another, to do exactly the same thing. Which is how machines work. But not universes.

A better image for the universe is that of a living body, in which no part operates independently from the rest, and where every change in one part of the body is noted, recorded, and adapted to by changes in every other part of the body.

For those of you who don’t like physics, consider economics. It used to be said….and probably still is….that every time Tokyo catches a cold, Wall Street sneezes. Which occurs not only because we are world-connected economically, but because we are world-connected informationally. Wall Street knows (or learns) of Tokyo’s troubles, almost instantaneously. And you and I understand the role of technology in the information-sharing process….meaning that we know how we know.

But when such connections are spotted in the universe, we don’t know how we know. A few of you may be familiar with the “butterfly effect,” first brought to our attention in 1961 by a research meteorologist named Edward Lorenz. Interested in why he could not come up with foolproof weather forecasts, he found that every weather pattern is acutely sensitive to conditions present at its creation. Meaning that when a butterfly beats its wings in Beijing, it affects the weather (weeks later) here in Birmingham. We are that connected.

But that’s not all. We have found that two particles separated by whole galaxies (you remember that I said there are more than one) seem to know what each other is doing. Change the spin on one, and the other reverses its spin….wherever it is….at the same instant. We don’t know how it knows to do that, since it happens faster than the speed of light. It probably has something to do with what is now being called “Field Theory,” which is more than I can explain and more than you need to consider (given my sense that your eyes are moments removed from glazing over).

All of this is related to what we call “Chaos Theory.” Which is a term I have recoiled against for years, because it sounded like reality was random, purposeless and wildly-out-of-control (all of which seem like synonyms for Godless). Perhaps “chaos” is a bad choice of words, but it doesn’t mean what it sounds like. It simply means that the universe is a giant web. Any place you touch it, everything else will feel it. All is connected. Meaning that we are all connected. And while there is an ultimate order to the chaos (in the sense of boundaries beyond which the web will not go and patterns to which the web will inevitably return), within the web, everything is alive, acting, adapting, participating, exchanging, relating, giving and taking, impacting and sharing.

So what? So plenty. But I will settle for raising a pair of implications in the time I have left. First, I would suggest that God is bigger than we ever thought God to be. And that God is more intimate than we ever thought him to be.

Let’s start with “bigger.” Much of the church’s theology has contented itself with declarations “of the wonderful works that God has done.” But can we declare what God has done, without shutting down a consideration of what God may do next? Chaos Theory is incredibly alive. Meaning that, within certain prescribed boundaries, every part of God’s web tingles….whether we be the tingler….or God. Which is most biblical, although we tend to gloss over such texts as Isaiah 43:18-19: “Do not remember the former things. I am about to do a new thing. Now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it?”

All of which means that while we should love God, praise God, adore and revere God, we should not sit too comfortably in the saddle of familiarity with God….assuming that we know everything there is to know about God. Almost everybody who is anybody in theology is now talking about “the re-enchantment of the universe.” But the theologians did not invent this term. They borrowed it from the scientists. What does it mean? It means that the scientists and the theologians are presiding over a rebirth of mystery, wonder and awe. Science has been humbled, learning that it does not know….cannot predict….and therefore is no longer able to dominate the universe, as was once thought possible. Dominion belongs to God alone.

Which leads Barbara Brown Taylor to suggest that perhaps (just perhaps) some of us have gotten a little too chummy with God. Tune in many sermons on Sunday morning and you will hear preachers speaking of God as they would a pet lion: “Oh, he was fierce once, but there is nothing to be afraid of now. You can climb up on his back if you want to. We’ve had all his teeth and claws pulled.”

Now, I am not suggesting that we should necessarily fear God (although the Bible is not afraid to offer that admonition). But I am suggesting that we should respect God. When a sailboat skipper tells me that he is doing this or that….or not doing this or that….because of the healthy respect he has for Lake Michigan, he is not saying that sailing is no longer fulfilling or fun. Indeed, he may believe that he is never happier, more alive, or at greater peace, than when he is five miles out on the open water. But by “respecting the lake,” he is acknowledging that the waters are cold, deep, challenging and (from time to time) utterly unpredictable. As a seasoned sailor, what he knows is wonderful. But he does not know it all. And what he does not know could change his life in an instant. Sailing begins in reverence. As does theology.

But if theology begins in reverence, it ends in intimacy. If, indeed, everything in the universe relates to (and is affected by) everything else….if, indeed, God is both the spinner of the web and the tingler of the web….if, indeed, it is impossible to know how any one thing works, but only that all things are connected….doesn’t it stand to reason that God (himself, herself, Godself) would want to be known in the most intimate, web-tingling, life-touching way possible?

And isn’t it possible that if the body (rather than the machine) is now the paradigm by which we understand the universe, doesn’t it stand to reason that God would want to become a body….so that through that relationship we might become somebody (and, collectively, God’s body). For this, in all of its mystery, is what the church means by the word “incarnation.”

* * * * *

Oh, God is so big. And yet God is so near.

Go back to the sea. I’ve told you this before, but let me tell you again. The first time I saw the sea, I didn’t so much see it as hear it. And it scared me half to death. I was eight or nine and on a vacation trip with my parents. Late at night, we reached the New England shore with no place to lay our weary heads. No reservations had been made….with mother and father carping at each other about whose fault that was. “No Vacancy” signs (in blinking red neon) dotted every hamlet of the landscape. No moon. No stars. Just the sound of wave after wave smacking the seawall, to the point of spraying the windshield. And although the sea was just being the sea….being true to its nature….doing what seas do….I was very much afraid.

Then in 1981….July….Honolulu.…Waikiki Beach….Kris and I took a taxi to a wonderful restaurant at the base of Diamond Head, where we ate our fill, spent our wad, foreswore the taxi and walked home along the shore. Taking off our shoes, we danced the line where the water quietly kissed the sand (except for those moments, of course, when we stopped to quietly kiss each other). And we were thankful that the sea….also true to its nature….was making itself known to us in this way.

* * * * *

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. And the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him. And, apart from him, was not anything made that was made.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Full of grace. Full of truth. And we beheld….not comprehended, beheld….his glory.

Note:  I am indebted to Leonard Sweet’s book The Jesus Prescription for a Healthy Life and Barbara Brown Taylor’s essay “Preaching Into the Next Millennium,” found in a collection of essays entitled Exilic Preaching: Testimony for Christian Exiles in an Increasingly Hostile Culture.

In a post-sermon conversation with Bob Pierce, I learned that, as a result of the Hubble space telescope, astronomers now estimate the number of galaxies in the universe to be at least 50 billion (and, with some 200 billion stars, the Milky Way is pretty much “an average player” as galaxies go). Larger galaxies are said to contain a trillion or more stars. Not that I’ve counted them.