On Being the Church

About twenty years ago I was pastor of Friedens Lutheran Church near Greensboro NC. The chair of the “Search Committee” who had recommended me to the congregation was an ex-Baptist. She and her husband were very active in the congregation in a variety of roles. One day she knocked on my office door and asked if I had a few minutes to “chat.” I waved her in and after we had settled in chairs around my coffee table she got right to it.

I like your sermons, I really do. But I’ve been aware that there is something about them that I’ve not been used to – either in the Baptist Church I grew up in or here at Friedens, where Gary and I have been members for fifteen years. During your sermon this past Sunday I realized what the difference is. Most pastors preach to the individuals in the church, talking about how the scripture of the day speaks to us personally and about how we each are called to respond. You don’t do that – at least not often. You preach to the congregation, to the church as a whole, about the impact the Word has on us as a community of faith, and how we, as a congregation, are invited to respond.

I don’t remember exactly what I said to her, other than to acknowledge that she was right. I have pondered her words over the years. It’s true, I have never been an advocate of a “me and Jesus,” Christianity. I have always believed that to be a Christian is to be a part of His church, an active participant in the community of people called together to follow Jesus. I believe that it is well established in Scripture and Tradition that being a part of the folk who gather weekly around “Word and Sacrament” is a vital part of what it means to be a Christian.

I will attempt to explore this truth in this year’s “Wednesday Evenings in Lent.” Wednesday, Feb. 25 through Wednesday, March 25, we will gather in the Parish Hall for a light supper and some “Light Middleweight” theological sparring. We will look at four Statements:

We are the Church - Weeks 1 and 2
We are the Episcopal Church – Week 3
We are Church Together - Week 4
We are Church for the Sake of the World – Week 5

Thanks to former ELCA Lutheran Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton for this basic outline. In preparation for your participation, you might do a little reading for extra credit.

Scripture - Acts 2:37-47, Hebrews 10:24-25.
Tradition – Book of Common Prayer p. 871, Article XIX “Of the Church”. BCP, p. 359, Nicene Creed, Third paragraph on Holy Spirit and the Church.
Reason – BCP, p. 854, Catechism, “The Church.” (We’ll talk more about Anglicanism’s “Three-legged Stool” approach to religion in Week 3)

I look forward to thinking, talking, and praying with you about what it means to be the Church in this time, and this place.

Peace, DELMER

All Hollow’s Eve, 2024

We mask our fear of death
with faces of silliness, or power, or both -
attempting to laugh off or scare away
the dread knot of anxiety that fills our hearts and souls.

Pumpkins with crooked grins and flickering flames
stand-in for all those things which really keep us up at night -
the loss of life or love or sanity,
the slowing step or fading memory
that remind us that we too will one day go
where those who have died have already gone.

And where is that, exactly?
Where is that “far country?”
And do we really want to go there?
On this night we approach with timid step
the house where God’s deepest and most enigmatic mystery dwells.
We knock and quake behind our masks and hold out our hands and beg,
“Trick or treat?” -
whilst deep within we hold on to the fervent hope
that all the things we have heard and believed about a God of grace are true.

Delmer Chilton

Called to Meddle

A quote from The Rev. Dr. Tony Campolo, pastor and college professor - ‘When I gave them food, they called me a saint,’ said Bishop Dom Helder Camaro of Recife, Brazil. ‘Yet when I asked why they had no food in the first place, they called me a communist.’

If like a Good Samaritan you dress the wounds of a mugged man who has been left for dead, you are deemed a godly person. But if the muggings continue, and you ask why the government doesn’t have police patrols and better lighting along the road, you will be asked if you, a religious leader, have overstepped your bounds. (Tony Campolo in Adventures in Missing the Point by Brian D. McLaren and Tony Campolo, Zondervan, 2003, p. 117)

Dr. Campolo has put his finger on the dilemma every pastor and other religious person faces when trying to decide what to do, and what to say, about “the least of these,” (Matthew 25:40) the Lord has put in front of us. There’s an old “preacher joke” about the man who was preaching a revival sermon one night. One deacon in the front row was amening everything he preached against: diatribes against drinking, cussing, gambling and running around – all received an uplifted hand and a hearty “Amen!” Then the preacher began talking about the evils of using tobacco. At this point the deacon, a tobacco farmer, shouted out, “Hold on there. You done quit preaching and gone to meddling!”

When the church speaks out against gun violence, when we ask for more and better gun control, when we plead that, for the sake of the innocent, the powers that be must find a backbone and stand up to the gun lobby – we find ourselves shushed. We are told that this is none of our business, that to talk about an American’s sacred right to own enough firepower to wipe out a small village is sacrilege, we are informed that we have quit preaching and gone to meddling.

Well okay, meddle I will. I grew up on a farm, we had a few guns around; shotguns for killing hogs, .22 rifles for dealing with large rodents and other pests. My father wasn’t very fond of hunting, but my uncles were and I never shied away from eating venison steaks and what we young boys called “Bambi burgers” just to annoy our sisters.

My point is this: while I recognize that there is a place for firearms in American life, things have gotten completely out of hand, and we must talk about this and we must come to an answer that starts us going in a new and safer direction. We in the church cannot just stand back and tend to the wounded without speaking out and advocating for change.

Folks, taking up a collection and sending money to victims is a good thing, but it is not the only thing, and it is not the final thing which must be done. We are called to do more than simply tend to the wounds of the victims – we are called to prevent people from being victimized in the first place. I encourage each and every one of us to be thinking, praying, studying, talking with each other, and talking with your neighbors about these concerns. Step out in faith when a path is opened to you. Find a way to speak out and to take action on behalf of peace and inclusivity. To stand back and shake our heads and do nothing is to participate in the continuation of the problem.

We are invited by God to be a part of the solution, we are called by God to meddle in the affairs of the world because that is the only way we can truly “do it for the least of these who are members of my family.” (Matthew 25:40)

Peace,
Delmer

This World is not my Home

As both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures point out, we live under earthly governments, and we are to be faithful citizens of those governments as long as that citizenship does not put us in conflict with our more important citizenship in God’s eternal kingdom. There is an old gospel song that says, “this world is not my home,” a reminder that all of us have a higher calling to serve God above our human leaders.

In this year’s election cycle, things are quite likely to get hotter and hotter as we draw closer and closer to Election Day. Each of us has the right to have and in express our individual polit ical opinions. But the scriptures remind us of the limitations of all earthly power and call us to keep things in proper perspective. Our membership in the Body of Christ and our relationship with the other members of that body are much more lasting and important than any temporary and fleeting commitment we may have to this or that politician, party, or program.

The truth of the matter is – some of us are right, and others of us are wrong. Right and wrong about politics, right and wrong about which person should be, or will be, elected to this or that public office. And that’s all right. Because - right or wrong, whoever we elect won’t be in that office for long, and whatever they do will eventually fade away. But the love of God in Christ for each and every one of us will last forever.

So, in light of those facts, let us do our best to hold to a standard of truth, justice, and compassion in the political questions of our day and vote our conscience, accordingly - always seeking to do the right thing for as many people as possible for as long as possible.

But let us also hold to that standard in a spirit of love, seeking in all that we do and say about life and politics, to reflect the love, grace, and compassion of the one whom we serve.

Peace,
Delmer

Scarcity? Or Abundance?

I recently read a book called Slow Church. It takes a page out of what is called the “Slow Food” movement and applies it to the church. The Slow Food movement began in Italy (where else) as a protest against Fast Food. Slow Church is a rethinking of the way we've been doing church in this country for over a hundred years. I really think they're on to something. It is a book that is more about asking the right questions than it is about providing the right answers. The authors encourage local church communities to think deeply about God's grace, generosity, hospitality, and patience; and to shape our relationships with each other and with our neighborhood as an image of God's relationship with us.

One of the most important parts of the book for me was the discussion of God's abundance and the devastating effects of "perceived scarcity." In chapter eight, Mark tells the story of Jesus feeding the seven thousand. Of this story, the book says, "The disciples' focus was on what they LACKED. Jesus was focused on what they HAD. He took an inventory of the food at hand, which amounted to seven loaves of bread, and then ordered the crowd to sit down. He gave thanks for the bread and told his disciples to distribute it. Then someone found a few small fish, Jesus ordered that these be distributed as well. When everyone had eaten their fill, the leftovers were gathered and they filled seven baskets. . . . . Like the disciples, we tend to focus more on what we don't have, what we can't do and where we fall short. We often define and appraise our faith communities the same way. What is ABSENT can OBSCURE what is PRESENT."

What is absent can obscure what is present. When I was a kid on the farm, I frequently focused on what was absent. I said to Daddy, "If we had a tractor sprayer like Mr. Reynolds, we wouldn't have to mess with this home-made rig pulled by the mule." "If we had a big truck, we wouldn't have to haul the tobacco around on the back of this trailer." "If we had an irrigation pond, we wouldn't have to spend so much time damming up the creek to make a pool." And Daddy always responded, "Yeah, and if frogs had wings they wouldn't bump their bottom on the ground. But they don't, and we don't, and get to work."

Sometimes we in the church focus on what is absent and fail to see what is present. We find ourselves saying, "If we had more members," or "If we had better attendance," or "If we had more money, or a nicer building; or, or, or ___________.” We see our lack and it fills our eye so much we cannot see what we have, which is truly very good. This book recommends being what it calls “asset-minded.” A good exercise for all of us is to take a few minutes to map out the assets of our personal lives, of our neighborhood, of our country, and of our church. I invite us to remember the many ways God has been abundant to us, to say prayers of thanksgiving for all the things we have, and to think of exciting ways we can use our many blessings to share God's love with the world.

"Get Up and Go"

When I was ordained as a deacon, the Bishop said something I have never forgotten. "Sisters and brothers in Christ, the Holy Spirit will lead you somewhere you don't want to go. If you wanted to go there, the Spirit would be unnecessary."

I thought of those words recently when our First Reading one Sunday was about Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. Philip was one of the first seven deacons selected and set apart by the laying on of hands. I'm pretty sure that hitch-hiking in the wilderness was not what Phillip and the others had in mind when they accepted the call to serve the Lord. After all, the need presented to them was food distribution to the widows – nothing whatsoever was said about going on the road, preaching, baptizing or anything like that. But like the Bishop said, "The Holy Spirit will lead you somewhere you don't want to go," or at least somewhere you never expected to go, doing things you never expected to be doing. "Get up and go," the Spirit said, and Phillip "got up and went." He was told no more than that he should head south to the road between Jerusalem to Gaza, not even what it was he was supposed to do when he got there.

This is a recurring theme in the scriptures; this business of God saying, "get up and go," and people of faith "getting up and going." Let's see, among many others - there are Abram and Sarai, told to leave Ur of the Chaldees and go to "the land that I will show you." There's Jonah, who first "got up and went" the other way, but after that mis-adventure with the fish, the second time God called he came around and got up and went. And most famously, there's Saint Paul who, after his experience of the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus was told to "Get up and go" to the street called Straight. And Paul "got up and went."

We are, I am, a lot more hesitant than Abram and Sarai, or Phillip, or Paul. We are, I am, a lot more like Jonah – apt to run in the opposite direction, or at least to ask for specifics of the job and add conditions for our participation. "I'm available on Tuesdays – after Pilates" "I'll go anywhere – but no, not there, that won't work for me." "I'm not sure I'm suited to working with those people – they push me too far out of my comfort zone."

And do you know how God generally responds to our hesitation and condition making? Pretty much the way our parents responded when we explained to them why we couldn't make our bed, or do the dishes, or mow the grass. God stands there and listens, and then says, "That's nice. Now, get up and go."

Truly, it's a good thing that God does not fully explain things to us before asking us to respond to the call. If God did tell us everything we would face, most of us would not say yes. It would be too frightening. And the reason it would be too frightening is that we would foolishly assume that God was asking us to do these impossible, over-whelming, out of our comfort zone things using our own reason and strength, our own ability and skill; and nothing could be further from the truth. God doesn't tell us what we'll be doing because the main thing God needs from us is our willingness to go, our willingness to trust that when the ministry need appears, the ability to respond to it will appear as well.

This is what happened to Phillip. He got up and went to the south, to the road that runs through the wilderness from Jerusalem to Gaza. And as he stood there, "an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians," came along in his chariot. Now, suppose God had said to Phillip, "I want you to go and talk about Jesus with one of the most powerful people in the world. And by the way; he's not Jewish, indeed he's ritually unclean because of his sexuality, and he's an African." How excited would Phillip have been about that? On the one hand he might have felt overwhelmed and under prepared; on the other hand, he may have been like Paul and Jonah – unwilling to go because he didn't want to be involved with one of "those people." But God didn't give Phillip that kind of choice.

And he doesn't give us that kind of choice either. We are called to go where the Holy Spirit leads us – whether we want to go there or not. We are called to open our doors - our arms, our hearts, and our minds - to all people; not just the people we happen to like and who happen to like us. When God calls us to get up and go, the only faithful response is to get up and go.

In the Biblical story, the eunuch asked Philip, "What prevents me from being baptized?" Here's a similar question for us: Are we preventing others from being baptized, from coming to faith, from hearing the story of Jesus? This is the question the early church had to continually ask itself. The book of Acts is the story of the first Christians learning to break down traditional boundaries between Jews and Greeks, slave and free, men and women, etc. etc. etc.

And the boundaries must continue to fall. Every time we think we're finished, every time we think we have finally gone as far as we can go, every time we believe we have opened our arms as wide as we can open them; the voice comes and whispers in our ear one more time, "Get up and go." And the question is, will it be said of Good Shepherd Church that we "got up and went?"

Peace,
Delmer

"With Eyes Wide Open"

Baptist minister and social work professor Tony Campolo tells of a time he was on a supervisory visit to missions in Haiti where his undergraduate students did internships. One evening he left his hotel and went across the street to a small restaurant. He was placed at a table beside a large, first floor window that looked out on the street. It was a working dinner - he was eating alone. He kept his head down as he carefully checked over the mission files and travel plans he had laid out on the table. It was only when the waiter brought his food that he looked up and noticed the group of small boys outside his window. They had bare feet, sad eyes, and distended bellies. The boys leaned against the window, shading their eyes so they could see as they stared at his meal of chicken and rice with fruit. After placing the food in front of Tony, the waiter pulled down the shade and said, “Don’t let them disturb your dinner.”

The season of Lent is a good time for us to lift up our eyes and hearts from the day-to-day business of our lives to take a good look around at the world’s needs. Too often we are like the waiter, seeing the needs of others as a disturbance rather than as an opportunity to love and serve.

The needs of the world should disturb us, must disturb us. To stand by while children starve, others suffer from curable diseases, and still others are subjected to inhuman living conditions by corrupt and evil governments - this is participation in evil as surely as if we had directly made the decisions that condemned so many to so much suffering. “Things we have done or left undone,” the prayer of confession says. (Book of Common Prayer, p. 360)

Our call as Christians is to keep the shade up; to focus the light of God’s love and righteousness on the world’s great inequities and injustices. Our call as Christians is to find creative ways to make a difference, to do our part to chip away at issues of poverty, disease, and oppression; both across the ocean and across the street. We are not permitted the luxury of turning our heads and looking the other way. There used to be a little religious comic strip called Pontius’ Puddle. The characters were frogs and tadpoles and dragonflies and such. One day a frog said to a dragonfly, “Why doesn’t God do something about all the bad things in the world?” The dragonfly replied, “God Did! God made you, didn’t he?” Peace, Delmer

On “Learning” the Faith

Almost fifty years ago I was in my first semester of seminary, beginning my pastoral education. One of the first books I read was “Values for Tomorrow’s Children” by Episcopal priest and professor John Westerhoff. His basic premise is that learning to be a Christian is profoundly different from learning to be an historian, or a biologist, or an auto mechanic. In most of those fields it’s about learning the facts and practices. If you know it, and can do it, you’ve learned it.

Religion in general, and Christianity in particular, are very different. Simply put, intellectual information is a far second to Spiritual formation in Christian Education. To Westerhoff, Christian Education is about shaping “cruciform” lives, lives that conform to the life of Christ, lives that consistently, daily, naturally, take up a cross and follow. The “facts of the faith,” the theological information, is therefore only useful in terms of how it helps us shape our lives in the imitation of Christ.

In the Early Church, Lent developed as a period of Pre-Easter instruction in the faith for recent converts. As a group they studied and prepared together, culminating on being baptized by immersion on Holy Saturday and taking their First Communion together at dawn on Easter morning.

By Medieval times, though Mass was celebrated each day in the church, people were only required to commune once a year, preceded by confession. Then, as now, people have a tendency to gravitate toward the minimum, so Easter Communion was the norm. Since by this time, most people had been baptized as infants, Lent stopped being a time to prepare for baptism and instead become the main period of Christian instruction and formation for adults as they prepared for their Easter Confession and Communion.

Various “Catechism Books” were prepared for the clergy to use as they guided the people in preparation. At first, these were a list of the Ten Commandments, with examples, so that people could figure out what they needed to confess. Eventually the Lord’s Prayer and the Creed, IN LATIN, were added for the people to memorize so they could participate in the Mass more easily.

At the time of the Reformation, various reformers used the already familiar Catechism form to teach the new Reformed or Evangelical faith. The main differences were that it was now in the language of the people (German, French, English, etc.) not Latin, and the focus of teaching had shifted from the Ten Commandments and the Confession ritual to the new Protestant doctrine of justification by grace through faith. All instruction was aimed more at a change of the heart and a post-conversion change of lifestyle than the previous emphasis on cleansing oneself of all possible sins. In the process, Christian “education” became a matter of soul formation rather than religious in-formation.

This year, on Wednesday nights in Lent, I will lead short Soul Formation sessions based on the form, but not the content, of Reformation Catechisms. We will examine the Ten Commandments, the Creeds, The Lord’s Prayer, the Sacraments, and yes, Confession (or more properly “Absolution”) as a way of going deeper in our personal and congregational efforts to follow Jesus more closely on the Way of the Cross.

Peace, Delmer

Do You Get It?

Epiphany is the season of light. The word means, “something previously hidden coming into view.” Epiphany is not about something that didn’t exist before suddenly being created; rather it is about our becoming aware of a reality that has been there all along. Perhaps the slogan for Epiphany should, “Oh, now I get it!” It’s like in math class when an equation suddenly makes sense; or one of those optical illusions where, if you look at it just right, you can see the name of Jesus or something. “Wow, now I can see it.”

The first chapter of John sets the tone for the season of Epiphany. The author reminds us that through “the Word” God spoke the world into being, spoke light into the world’s chaotic darkness. John then makes a magnificent connection by saying that “the Word became flesh and lived among us;” revealing to us that the Christ, the creative force of God, has been around since the beginning and is now become visible to us in the person of a humble carpenter from the little village of Nazareth. It is an al most unbelievable claim, one that is widely debated. The God of the Universe, the creator of all that is, was, and ever will be; walking around as a Jewish carpenter/teacher? If we had not been told this all our lives it would stagger the imagination. It is not only difficult to believe now; it was difficult to believe then. This is why John and the other Gospel writers talked so much about signs, and fulfillment of scripture, and miracles, etc. They were putting forth all their evidence that this man was indeed who he said he was – no matter how hard that was to believe.

We in the modern world are conditioned to think of truth as facts – particularly empirical, scientifically provable facts. And the “divinity of Christ” is not that sort of truth, it is not a “fact” that can be measured and recorded and repeated in experimentation. Rather, it is an Epiphany, a revelation, a reality that is deeply em bedded in the fabric of the universe and which becomes real to us through faith. This does not mean that to believe in Christ’s divinity is irrational; it simply means that it is not a thing that can be reasoned out using either science or philosophy. It stands outside those areas of expertise.

The Epiphany of our Lord on January 6 celebrates the arrival of the Magi to worship the king revealed to them by the star in the heavens. Then, on Sunday, January 7, we observe the Baptism of our Lord in which a voice comes from heaven to declare Jesus as the Son of God. The Epiphany season ends on Sunday, February 11, with the Transfiguration story - Jesus goes up on a mountain with a few disciples. There light, and voices, and visions reveal him to be divine. On the Sundays in between we will look at a variety of ways in which the Gospels reveal to us that Jesus is the Christ. We will also begin to see what it looks like for us to be Jesus’ sisters and brothers, fellow children of God. Along the way, it is likely we will all have many “Aha” moments when we say to ourselves, “Now I get it!”

Peace,
Delmer

Something to Sing About

The world’s celebration of the Nativity of Christ is surrounded by Song. No secular artist puts out a Thanksgiving CD or an Easter Album, but almost everybody tries to “cash in” on Christmas, either with new songs or old favorites. Christmas songs fill the malls and stores and radio playlists from early November until Christmas Day. And the question arises: What is it about Christmas that causes the heart to sing?

It was like that from the beginning. In Luke’s Gospel: Mary sings The Magnificat, Zechariah celebrates the birth of his son John (to be called the Baptist) with a song that points to the birth of another child, the “Coming One.” Of course the angels sing to the shepherds on the night of Christ’s birth, and at the dedication of the child old Simeon sees the baby and bursts into a song of praise.

Again, what is it about Christmas that causes us to sing? We have lots of good Easter hymns, but the secular world is much more likely to know “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” than “Thine Is the Glory.” Not so with Christmas carols. Almost everybody can sing at least one verse of “Away In a Manger” or “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and can at least recognize the tune of a dozen more. Is it just the vast exposure on Radio and TV, or is there something about the Birth of the Christ Child that makes us want to sing?

A couple of things occur to me. First: the only really appropriate response to mystery is adoration, and what better way to adore than to sing. The story that we celebrate at Christmas is a “something more” mystery. Underneath all the theological baggage and argumentation there is this for all of us: life can be very ordinary and difficult and painful and short and depressing. The birth of a child as the Son of God, a message from beyond that God does love us after all, that this world is not “all there is,” that Peace and Love and Joy are real and are really important and are really possible is a message we all need to hear.

So even those who have their doubts about God, and Jesus, and the Church can believe in the “something more” that Christmas represents to them: the potential for good in a cold and lonely world. And that mysterious possibility is something to sing about.

Second: for those of us who receive the story as a true story, a story about how the God of the universe let go of all the trappings and power of Heaven to come and be born in a stable, taking on, as the Eucharistic prayer says, “our nature and our lot,” well, that too is a mystery beyond words. We cannot comprehend a love that big, and that deep, and that complete. So, when ordinary words fail us, we, like Mary, and Zechariah, and Simeon, and the angels; burst into songs of joy and gladness.

Peace, Delmer

Duh-ciples

A few years ago I was leading a preaching workshop when one of the participants, a plain spoken Methodist preacher from south Georgia, brought the house down with laughter when she told us she had recently preached a sermon about the “Duh”-ciples. She said, “That’s how we pronounce d-i-s-c-i-p-l-e-s in south Georgia and every time I hear it I think, ‘That’s about right – whenever Jesus said something important, the disciples looked at him all slack-jawed and said, “Duuuuh? What do you mean, Jesus? ”

When I stopped laughing, I started thinking. “Am I a “duh-ciple?” “Do I only pretend to understand what Jesus is calling us to be and do? Do I nod, all the while both not understanding the message and not caring enough to figure it out? Or am I a disciple? One who both learns and practices what Jesus taught.”

The words “disciple” and “discipline” come from the same root and have similar and overlapping meanings. They both derive from the Latin “discipulus” which means learner or pupil. Eventually in English, disciple came to mean someone who was a pupil of a particular teacher or system of thought and discipline came to mean first the subject studied (“the discipline of mathematics”) and only later the methods used to teach the subject. Finally, discipline came to mean the measures by which authority figures instill obedience in others – be they soldiers drilling, or football players practicing, or first graders learning to stand in line – all need to be taught discipline.

It seems to me that the surest route to not being a “duh-ciple” is a bit of creative self-discipline. No adult likes to be told what to think or do by another person, even if, or maybe especially if, that other person claims to speak for God. Rather, we need to be both students of Jesus and followers of Jesus. We are called to study over and pray about the words and deeds of Jesus. Rather than dully nodding our heads and muttering “duh,” we must think deeply about what is said and make every effort to understand it. Just as importantly, we need to create for ourselves a “discipline” of prayer and actions that follows the example of Jesus.

For example, rather than just thinking about and talking about world hunger; we must also actively engage in the feeding of people who are hungry. It is only through the discipline of acting out our faith that we truly come to understand it.

Peace,
Your fellow “duh”- ciple, Delmer

A Paradox

Aunt Mildred, my daddy’s sister, had a big chest freezer in the basement. One time when she and her husband were away visiting the cousins down near Southern Pines, there was a winter ice storm and the power was out for several days. When Aunt Mildred and Uncle L.W. got home, the freezer had thawed around the seal and then refroze – sealing itself shut. There was no way to get it open.

Well, that’s not exactly true. There was a very obvious way. Unplug it, turn it off, let it thaw. But Aunt Mildred didn’t want to do that. She considered herself to be on the horns of a dilemma. “There’s a lot of good meat in there,” she said, “if I unplug, a lot of that meat will be ruined.” Uncle L.W. countered, “But, it’s frozen shut and we can’t use any of it. We may as well thaw it out and use what we can.” Aunt Mildred’s freezer stayed plugged in and frozen shut for several years while they argued about what to do.

I have thought of that freezer over the years when I have found myself frozen with no idea of what exactly I should do. I have also sometimes realized that, like Aunt Mildred, I thought I had no options when really I did. The problem was simple - I didn’t like any of my options, therefore I did nothing. Aunt Mildred couldn’t see any way to get at her frozen meat without losing some of it, and she was unwilling to lose anything, therefore she gained nothing. There have been times in my life that I have been so afraid of making a mistake, of doing the wrong thing, that I have been immobilized, unable to act.

One of my favorite professors at Duke Divinity School, Dr. Herb Edwards, taught “Black Church Studies.” He often said, “The trouble with the church is that it does not believe in the resurrection. Because we are so afraid of death, we are unable to take the risk of living boldly for God.” This attitude strikes churches of all shapes and sizes, we become frozen, afraid to risk, fearful of losing what little we have, so afraid of dying that we forget to live.

The Gospel calls us to life; to life abundant, to life that takes chances, to life that makes a difference in the lives of others. A couple of weeks ago the Gospel lesson said, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:25) That is the paradox that ultimately solves our dilemma. We are free to act, individually and as a congregation, in new, and bold, and often scary ways - attempting new things that might fail, taking the risk of losing - all for the sake of the possibility of letting loose the love of God into the world.

Peace, Delmer

The Three Legged Stool

Recently a friend fell into a conversation about church with a local Baptist minister. When she said she attended the Episcopal Church, he smiled and said, “Oh, you go to the “thinking church.” How did the Episcopal Church get the reputation as “the thinking church?” Even though most Episcopalians don’t know his name, they owe a great debt of thanks to the Rev. Richard Hooker (1554-1600), a priest in the Church of England. In his book “Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity,” he laid out what became the standard Anglican understanding of how we think about who we are as a Christian people in the world today.

At the time that Hooker wrote, the Church of England had separated itself from the pope and the Church of Rome. Their link to the traditional, hierarchical, top down method of doing theology had been cut. While the Church of England still knew the tradition, now that they didn’t have to listen to the pope, there was much argument over who got to interpret the tradition and decide what it meant. At the same time, the Reformers on the continent, not only Luther and Calvin but also many others, cried out for “sola scriptura” that is, “The Bible only,” as the source of Christian understanding. And both England and the continent were in the early days of the Enlightenment, the renewal of respect for human reason, for humanity’s capacity to explore, and think about, and understand, the world around them.

Tradition, Scripture, and Reason: each raised its voice to say, “Me, me, choose me!” Supporters of each of these ways of “doing theology” pushed for their way to become THE way in the Church of England. And Richard Hooker brilliantly created the combination that has come to be known as “the three-legged stool;” a very homey image for such an important idea. The thing about a three-legged stool is that it will not wobble – it may not be even or level, but it will not wobble. Even if one of the legs is a little shorter or longer than the other two, or if they are all of differing lengths – set it down and sit on it and it will not wobble. So it is with Anglican (Episcopal) thinking. The trio of Scripture, Tradition and Reason are not always given equal weight in answering all questions, but each one is always considered:

Scripture: What does the Bible say about it?
Tradition: What have Christians thought about this for the last 2000 years?
Reason: What makes sense to us now?

The really brilliant thing about the three-legged stool is its versatility. Individual Christians can use it in thinking about their personal faith and life; a congregation can use it to think together about where God is leading them; large groups like the diocese or the national church use it in deliberating on matters of deep import.

So, the next time you find yourself feeling grateful for a place like Good Shepherd Episcopal Church where you can not only think freely about your life of faith, but also speak freely about what you think – pray a prayer of thanksgiving for Father Richard Hooker and his three-legged stool.

Peace, Delme

The Passing Form

Do you remember the movie “Selma,” about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Voting Rights March? My wife and I were talking about it the other day and had trouble remembering when and where we saw it. Turns out it was in Cleveland, TN, because that was the closest showing we could find. As we talked, I also remembered that afterwards we went to Cracker Barrel and had a late dinner. (Depending on how you take the word “cracker,” it was, on reflection, a somewhat ironic choice.) Oftentimes when I go there to eat, I enjoy looking around at the old pictures and knick-knacks that Cracker Barrel collects to decorate the walls. And I always remember a line from 1 Corinthians 7:31. “For the present form of the world is passing away.”

The world reflected in those old family portraits, and advertising signs, and farm implements, is pretty much long gone. There were living echoes of it when I was a child – like my Great-Grandfather Watson. He was born in 1866 and died in 1960 when I was six years old. The world he was born into and grew up in was almost completely gone by the time he died. Or the world of white domination and black subjugation that the white people of Selma, and other places all across this country, tried to hold onto has mostly slipped away. For good or ill, Paul is right, “the PRESENT form of this world is passing away.” It always has and it always will.

Scripture encourages us to hold onto God and the good, and to be willing to let everything else go, because it will go whether we let it or not. Sometimes we humans foolishly think that the world that we create – the political structures, the economic systems, the cultural norms and more, the art and science and definitions of truth and value - will last forever. But they don’t. Even our ideas about how to be church are transitory, here today and gone tomorrow. Indeed, “the present FORM of the world is passing away.”

The “present form,” but not the world itself. The world is God’s precious creation. Remember, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,” and “The Son came not to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved.” (John 3:16-17)

In his letter to Corinthians, Paul’s advice about “let those who have wives be as though they had none,” etc. can be a bit confusing, but notice – he doesn’t say quit marrying, and mourning, and rejoicing, and buying, and selling, and otherwise dealing with the world. He does say to remember that all those things, including our very lives, are a part of the present form of the world that is passing away; here today and gone tomorrow. The only thing eternally permanent is God and our relationship with the holy – and we don’t have to worry about that passing away, for God has claimed us and will never let us go.

Peace, Delmer

Heavenly Highway Patrol

A few years ago I was on a trip over to Chattanooga when I glanced in my rear-view mirror and saw a silver car with black trim and black writing on the hood. “Oh oh,” I thought, “it’s the Highway Patrol.” First thing I did was check my speed. Okay, not speeding. Then I proceeded to drive very carefully, maintained my lane, used appropriate turn signals to change lanes, etc. And the car stayed right behind me, six car lengths back. This went on for ten or fifteen minutes as I grew progressively anxious. “Why are they following me?” “Have I done anything wrong?” “Is my License Plate expired?” “Do I have a tail light out?” “What!?”

I got particularly nervous when the road widened out to two lanes on my side and four or five cars passed both the patrol car and me, going at least ten miles over the speed limit in the process. “Why aren’t they going after them? Why are they still following me?” As I drew up to a stop light my paranoia was really high; I was thinking of pulling over and putting my hands in the air. The silver and black car pulled up beside me and then I could read: STUDENT DRIVER written across the front. I felt equal parts silly and relieved. Then the passenger side window in the student car was rolled down and the rider signaled me to put mine down. When I did, the driving instructor thanked me for being such a good role model of correct and careful driving. (Apologies to anyone who has ever ridden with me, but it appears I am capable of good driving if I put my mind to it. You can stop laughing now.) I smiled a weak and humble smile, waved and nodded. I was too ashamed of myself to actually say anything; being thanked under false pretenses and all.

Well, I soon recovered and began thinking about both literature and theology, as is my wont. First I remembered a famous line from the Flannery O’Connor’s short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. A character called the Misfit says about a mean old grandmother who died trying to save her grandchildren’s lives, “she would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." The Misfit and his fellow criminals were like the Highway Patrol in one respect - their constant surveillance created a situation in which one felt compelled to do the right thing.

The theology question for us as a people of faith is this. “Do we need a Heavenly Highway Patrolperson watching our every move in order for us to do the right thing? Is it necessary for us to be pushed into a corner, confronted with dire matters of life and death, for us to summon up the courage to trust God and follow Christ?” The point of living together in Christian community - joining one another in worship, prayer, Bible study, and caring action in the community - is that we be shaped into a people whose Christianity is natural and not forced; people who will do the right thing not to please God, or to avoid God’s wrath, or because we must. Our aim is to be people who to do the right and loving thing because it is simply who we have become in response to God’s love for us.

Peace,
Delmer

We are all Beggars

“Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food.” I have always appreciated this quote from the Rev. D. T. Niles, a minister from the island nation of Sri Lanka. Today I ran across it in its original context and was even more impressed. The full quote goes like this: “Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food. The Christian does not offer out of his bounty. He has no bounty. We are all simply guests at the Master’s table and, as evangelists, we call others to dinner.”

“The Christian does not offer out of his bounty. He has no bounty.” We in America might say, “Christians do not offer to others out of their personal wealth. We have no personal wealth.”

What Niles means is simply this; all we have to offer to others is what God has already given to us. Generosity of spirit begins with remembering that all that we are and all that we have has come to us from the graciousness of God. Not simply, or even primarily, our material things; but more importantly the love and forgiveness we as Christians have experienced from God in the church. This sense of receiving from God’s grace goes out from our emotional and moral center as we realize that who we are; our physical and emotional and intellectual giftedness, comes directly from God’s hand. Our ability to work and earn a living, our enjoyment of the arts and sports and community life; the love we give and receive within the life of the church; all these things are gifts from God’s hands. They are pleasures to be received at the Master’s table.

At some point all of us begin to ask ourselves a variation the Kris Kristofferson song, “Why me, Lord?” “Why do I have plenty while others suffer?” And the answer comes to us as it has come to many Christians down through the ages, “You have what you have, you know what you know, you can do what you can do – not for yourself but for others. You have been blessed not for privilege; but for purpose.”

True generosity flows out of the awareness that all that we are, and all that we have, has come to us from God’s gracious hand, and that it came to us so that we could pass it on to others. We are invited to use it where it is needed most to serve God’s people best.

We are all beggars, and as beggars we are called by God to invite everyone to the Lord’s bountiful table.

Peace, Delmer

A National Prayer Concern

Like everyone else my age, I remember where I was when I heard about the assassination of President Kennedy; the fourth grade classroom at Red Bank Elementary School in Claudville, VA. It was, for me, the beginning of the end of innocence. Until that time I lived in a warm little bubble of family and friends and school and church. Almost everyone I knew (except my evil older brother) was good to me and everywhere I went I felt safe. But a man with a gun and a problem shattered my world.

In the years since there have been many people (mostly male) with guns and problems. And they all seemed to think that the guns were the solution to their problems; or at least a way to scream into the dark night of their despair with a voice certain to be heard. The list is long. There have been very public shootings like Martin Luther King, Jr., way, way too many school shootings, and three in the last week (April 13-20) - 1) a teen-age boy knocking on the wrong door in Kansas City, 2) a young woman and her friends in the wrong driveway in rural New York, and 3) a high-school cheerleader getting in the wrong car in Texas. Over the years there have been other gun deaths that were very personal and private; relatives and friends and parishioners who thought that their only way out of their particular problem was a gun fired at themselves or others.

It is because of these many personal occasions that I am not quick to dismiss the more distant, public events on TV as awful things that frighten but do not affect me. As the poet John Donne said, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” No, we are not islands, living out our lives secure behind out actual or metaphorical locked gates. We are connected to one another in more ways than most of us can count, and in answer to Cain’s rhetorical question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” we are impelled to answer, “Well yes, actually we are.” As people who are called by God to live responsibly in relation to one another, it is our Christian duty to do our very best to care for our community and our country.

As a nation, we have a problem. In particular, we have a gun problem. There are certain people who simply do not need to have access to guns. For whatever reason, the system we have now is not working in keeping guns out of the wrong people’s hands. I invite you to join me in praying, and thinking, and working on ways to help this community and this country deal with this very serious problem. I have no solutions to offer, only a belief that, with God’s help and a firm resolve, we can find a way to step back from running off the edge of this societal cliff.

Peace, Delmer

Nostalgia

A few years ago my wife Deborah and I attended a family funeral. As is typical in the south, many people brought food to the family’s home. While we were still on the way down east, Deborah called a cousin and learned that Aunt Evelyn had brought one of her “famous” lemon meringue pies. Deborah immediately told that cousin to make sure that some of that pie was “laid back” and saved for her. It’s a long trip to eastern North Carolina and I heard a lot about that pie on the way. So many of her other cousins, as she frequently called them to make sure her piece was safe. After the funeral we went to the family’s home for a meal and Deborah got her pie. Actually, all of us had some - there was plenty. The pie was good, but as one of the other “cousins-in-law” and I agreed, it wasn’t “all that.” We also decided that nostalgia must be what made all these now 50-something cousins lavish such praise on a good but not great lemon meringue pie.

My friend the Rev. John Fairless is a Congregationalist minister in Florida. He is originally from the west Tennessee town of Martin, and he recently posted on his Facebook page that he was in “the” barbecue joint in his hometown. He also put up pictures of his plate. After saying he had eaten and enjoyed barbecue all over the south, he opined “But I gotta say, I know I'm home when I get a taste of some good old, hickorysmoked, pulled pork BBQ in west Tennessee!” In a very few minutes, he had 25 likes, and more to the point of this reflection, a lot of folks from Martin chiming in about how great west Tennessee BBQ is, and how much better it is than the BBQ anywhere else in the world. Nostalgia again, I think. I’ve eaten barbecue in Memphis and other places in west Tennessee. It’s good. But Wilbur’s in Goldsboro, NC is better; to me.

There’s nothing wrong with nostalgia, with remembering things from the past with fondness. A problem arises when our affection for the past prevents us from living effectively in the present, or preparing wisely for the future. These are not easy words for me to write. I like the past, a lot. I read massive tomes of obscure church history for pleasure. I picked a hairstyle, and a beard cut, in 1982 - and I have stuck with them for forty years. But I have had to learn to know the difference between something that’s good because it’s classic with enduring value; and something I like just because it’s old, and familiar, and makes me feel safe.

Pastor Fairless often says to me that Dr. Liston Mills of Vanderbilt Divinity School frequently reminded his students that all religious questions boil down to one basic issue: “Can God be trusted?” for if we cannot completely rely on God, it is wise to stay in the safe zone of tried and true ways of doing things. But if God can be trusted, then it is important for us to raise up our heads and look around, to see what new “Promised Land” God is calling us to occupy, what new mission and ministry God has for us to explore, what new ideas God is dangling in front of our faces, what new pilgrimage of faith we are invited to step out on. My core Christian belief is that God can be trusted to lead, guide, and provide for us. And I am certain that God’s provisions on our journey will be at least as good as Aunt Evelyn’s lemon meringue pie or Wilbur’s Eastern North Carolina barbecue and hushpuppies - probably better.

Peace, Delmer

It's About Time

By Rev. Beverly Braine

January 1st, New Year’s Day, falls on a Sunday this year. I will be doing the services at All Saints in Franklin on that day. I have requested parishioners to bring their 2023 calendars to church that morning, as I want to incorporate a Blessing of the Calendars in each service.

The ancient Hebrew faith, and the Hebrew faith at the time of Jesus, saw all of life as life under God. There was no concept of a division between sacred life and secular life. God was just as much in charge of the selling of chickens in the marketplace as God was in charge of accepting sacrificial offerings brought to the Temple. All time was God’s time. I think we have lost that perspective, and I think our culture is oriented toward a division between Church and the Marketplace, between sacred and secular activity. In asking God’s blessing upon our new calendars for the new year, I believe we are asking God’s blessing on the activities that will occupy every one of the days of 2023.

In my preparation for the doing of these January 1st services, I took some time to look through my 2022 calendar and my 2023 calendar. I found myself musing over the difference between one’s having almost every square with something written on it (2022) and the other’s squares being mostly blank (2023). Then I noticed that every written-on square had an indication of some involvement with another person or group of people. Whether it was an appointment, medical or business, or a repair service call that was to happen; whether it was a class to attend or a church service, or a social event, other people were involved.

So the squares on my new calendar, mostly empty, some filled in, began to speak to me as both invitation and opportunity: each day ripe with the possibility of entering into a relationship with another person or people, whether the relationship be casual or serious, long or short, lasting or fleeting. I would like to approach each new day as an invitation to travel through that day intentionally in the presence of the Holy Spirit. And then I want, also, to view each day as an opportunity to invite the love of Christ to be present with me in such a way that the presence can be felt with the person or people with whom I will be in contact that day.

In a sense, I think I am trying to reclaim a unity of all of life as life under God. And in that sense, my calendar will be a spiritual aid in that endeavor.

I invite you to spend some time with your not-yet-filled-in 2023 calendar. Hold it. Ask God’s blessing upon it and upon all the days of invitation and opportunity it represents. Treasure the possibilities of the many ways that lie ahead for the sharing of God’s love. May each of our 2023s be filled with blessing and hope.

With gratitude,
Bev+

Active Waiting

In Advent, we are called upon to take both our God and ourselves seriously. We are called upon to recognize that life can be snuffed out in an instant and to live accordingly. We are to stay awake, to watch out for signs of God’s activity in the world. This is a difficult thing to do in the midst of modern, secular, consumerist, Christmas. After 2000 years, we’ve sort of stopped looking for Christ to come, and we’ve settled for a pale, weak, neon lit imitation. We schedule office Christmas parties and celebrate family dinners. We buy presents for our spouses and partners and children and other significant others. We decorate our homes with lights and trees and ornaments. We send out holiday greeting cards to people over the country and we hope that our sanity and our bank account will hold out until New Year’s Day. The church’s plea during Advent is that in the midst of all the “Holiday Hoopla” we will remember to look for Christ, to seek signs of his coming, to be alert for his presence “in, with and under” all the gifting and decorating and partying.

Many of us have for many years held onto a vision of a hopeful future, a future in which no children starve or fall victim to incurable diseases, a future in which people lay aside their differences to worship a common God at a common altar, a future in which peace reigns, where military budgets are empty and schools and hospitals are fully funded. And yet we wait, and we wait, and we seek to stay awake, and we seek to trust and hope and believe that God is coming; God is really coming. And we continue to look for signs that God is just around the corner.

Let me suggest that instead of merely looking for signs of Christ’s coming – our more important invitation is to be a sign of Christ’s coming; in our families, in our communities, in our world. I am inviting us to a season of active waiting, of busy anticipation, of involved preparation, of participatory readiness. As we enter this season of Advent, I invite each of us to not only look for signs, but also to be the signs, of Christ life in the midst of the world.

1) Take five minutes every morning and make a Christmas list. Not a list of things to buy, or things to do, or things you want. Instead, make a list of blessings in your life, a list of people you love and who love you in spite of yourself, a list of the signs of Christ’s life in your day-to-day world. After you’ve made your list, pray a prayer of thanks for each thing on the list

2) Take another 10 minutes every day and read a chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. There are only 28 short chapters in Matthew, so you should be able to finish it. By Christmas morning, you will have been reminded of why Jesus came and of what he did for us. By Christmas morning, you will be ready to celebrate with thankfulness and joy, and to praise the Coming of the Messiah, Emmanuel, God with us.

3) Pick out five names from your Christmas card list. Pick out five people that you have almost lost touch with, five people you seldom see or speak to. Call them up or write them a personal letter or send them an email and tell them how much they mean to you and why. Thank them for being a sign of God’s presence and love in your life.

4) Perform a totally “new to you” act of charity this year. Reach out and surprise someone with the unexpected love of God. Give a part of yourself to someone in gratitude for the fact that Christ gave himself for us.

5) And finally, spend the last five minutes of every day asking God to come into your life in a fresh, new, unpredictable way this year.

But I must warn all of us to be careful. Watch out! God just might explode into our lives at a time and in a way we would never expect!

Delmer