silence

2/23/11 My breath prayer today comes from the Psalms. It goes something like this, "In silence my soul waits on the Lord, my hope comes from him." I am sorry I don't remember the exact scripture reference or wording. What's really important to me today is waiting in silence on the LORD. I have been waiting for signs. I have been working too hard. I have been pushing my own agenda. What I need is to wait in silence. God will show up in God's own way and God's own time.

Love,
Lynn

His

2/22/11 My breath prayer for yesterday was from Isaiah 49:13b, "For the LORD has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones." What I like about this passage is the personal pronoun for God. His...we are his. We are his people; he comforts us. His suffering ones receive his compassion. I can get through a lot knowing I am His.

Love,
Lynn

disarming love

2/21/11 from my sermon on Matthew 5:38-48

Turn the other cheek...I gave the shirt off my back....Go the second mile...We have heard these phrases before. Now we know that they come from Jesus from his Sermon on the Mount. Far too many times we have taken them to mean "submit, be passive, give in, endure, take it."

Those words, Do not resist an evil doer, only serve to cement this understanding for us. But this is not the best translation. A better way to interpret this verse would be, Don't retaliate against violence with violence or don't react violently against an evil doer.

We have been taught about our two options to violence...fight or flight. What if there is a third way? I am using the work of Walter Wink and his book Jesus and Nonviolence for this sermon. I am calling this third way: disarming love.

I need a volunteer for this next part. Turn the other cheek...what does that mean? Did you notice that the verse says if someone strikes you on the right cheek? What would happen is this: the powerful person would use the back of his right hand to strike someone on the right cheek. That type of blow serves to put one in his or her subservient place. What happens when you turn the other cheek...so that the left cheek now faces the striker? It gets the striker in an awkward position. If he uses his right backhand, he could catch the nose; not a very forceful blow. Or he could miss the left cheek altogether as it would appear flat to him. To use his right fist on the left cheek would cause the striker to admit that the person he was hitting was his equal. He would not use his left hand at all. The left hand was considered unclean. It was used only for wiping one's bottom. It would have brought shame on him to use his left hand. So to turn the other cheek is far from being submissive; it is a creative way for the one struck to cause the striker to deal with him or her as an equal. It is a way to assert self-worth. It is a way of saying, "Deal with me as a person, not an object." It is disarming love.

There was a young boy who was a runt. He further had the problem of a constant runny nose, sinusitis. Therefore, he was an easy target to be picked on by the bully on the school bus. One day, the runt had had enough. He came up with a creative way of dealing with the bully. As the bully approached, the runt blew his snot into his right hand. He then held it out to the bully, and said, "I've always wanted to shake the hand of a real bully." The bully fell back in total fear. He crept to his seat and never bothered the runt again.

For this next part, I won't use a volunteer as you will soon see. If someone sues for your outer garment, give your inner garment as well. People back then only had an outer garment and an inner one. If you were really poor and owed money, it was permissible for the creditor to keep your outer garment during the day as a pledge that you would pay back your debt. But Jewish law said that at night, the creditor had to return the outer garment, because it was what the debtor slelpt in to keep warm.

So when the creditor sues to take the outer garment permanently, what can the debtor do? He gives the creditor his underwear. Can you see this in court? The creditor is there holding the outer garment in one hand and underwear in another. The debtor is nekkid (as we say in Texas) and says "what else are you going to take?" In the Jewish culture, the one who is naked in not in shame, but the one who caused his nakedness. It is a creative way to change the power dynamic. It is disarming love.

There was a shanty town in South Africa during apartheid that was causing the white government trouble. They sent in troops to raze it to the ground. The soldiers said, "You have 5 minutes to gather your stuff, and then we are going to bull doze the town." What did the women do? They stood in front of the bulldozers and stripped off all of their clothes. The young troops ran away. They had been exposed for what they were doing. They had to see the women as human beings they were hurting.

I need a volunteer for this next part. Go the second mile it says. The occupying army of Rome could force a local citizen to carry his pack for one mile. The Romans built great roads with mile markers. It was a way to remind the locals who was in charge. However, the soldier could only force the local to carry just one mile. To do more was against the law and might incite the locals to rebel. The packs were heavy, maybe 80 lbs. Mine is full of Bible dictionaries! So can you see at the end of the mile, a Jewish man saying, I'll go another mile. All of a sudden the soldier is in a quandry. Do you think I am not man enough to carry my own pack? Do you want to get me in trouble with my superior officer? Imagine this humorous dynamic: the big powerful Roman soldier begging the Jewish local, "Please give me my pack back." It is a way of turning the tables, of shifting the power, of using humor, of being creative. It is an act of disarming love.

You are asking, "Does this really work?" It worked in Poland, in S. Africa, in E. Germany, some places where Walter Wink did some training. It worked in India. It worked in the American South during the civil rights struggles. It may be at work right now in Egypt, in Tunisia, in Yemen, in Bahrain. It is love that disarms.

You are saying this is really hard to love enemies. Yes it is. We are called to see the enemy as a person too, more than that, as a child of God. It is too easy for the oppressed to react violently and to become the oppressor. Then an endless cycle repeats. Ghandi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

It is hard to love our enemies. Our inability to do so throws us back into the arms of grace. We cannot do it by ourselves. Only Christ in us can do it. Only with the community's help can we do it.

And then Jesus says, Be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Thanks a lot. We want to give up. But I looked it up this past week. The verb tense is not in the imperative; it is future tense. Jesus says, "You will be made perfect. As you grow in me, you will become like me. My love will be perfected in you." Jesus is opening the possiblity for us to love...even to love our enemies.

We have a symbol of this disarming love that is upfront and center in our churches. It is the cross. Jesus takes what looks like death and defeat and turns it into life and victory. Christ crucified, dead, and risen is what disarming love looks like. That is the good news I have to share.

breathing is important

2/10/11 For the past several days, my nose has been stopped up. I have continued with my Neti pot which is a way to do nasal rinse. Sometimes, my nose is so closed that barely any saline water makes it through. I have started on Claritan D, which dries me up, but makes me feel a little unbalanced. Night times are the worst. It is hard to sleep deeply if you can't breathe. I am supposed to sing a song on Saturday night at an event we call That's Amore', a time to celebrate love. Right now I just want to be able to breathe.

Love,
Lynn

the law

2/9/11 This week's lectionary reading for the Psalter is Psalm 119, the longest Psalm, and the longest chapter in the Bible. Over and over, it extols the virtue of keeping God's law. Many different words will be used for God's law: instruction, teaching, statutes, precepts, decrees, commandments. Keeping the law is more than following the rules; it is being in relationship with the One who gives us the guidance we need to live, to thrive, to prosper.

Love,
Lynn

choices

2/8/11 Yesterday my breath prayer for the day was Deuteronomy 30:19, "I call heaven and earth to wintess against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendents may live." In seminary, we took a class on preaching. This was the passage that was assigned to me for my first sermon in front of my peers and the professor. I don't think I did a very good job. I really didn't have any idea of what preaching was all about. I hadn't discovered my unique "voice" yet.

If I were preaching this passage today, I would say how trusting God is with us to give us the ability to choose. I would say this is probably what sets human beings apart from the rest of creation and what qualifies us most as being made in the image of God: the ability to choose. God chose to create us. God gives us choices.

Love,
Lynn

defined by generosity

from my sermon on 2/6/11 from Acts 20:32-35

The love of money and possessions can corrupt a preacher just as easily as anybody else. In high school, I remember reading Elmer Gantry, the story of a dynamic evangelist who was seduced by his own powers of persuasion and the things of this world. Since then, I have seen many examples of preachers, evangelists, and pastors who have gotten caught up in this web of desiring more. Their stories have been splashed across the media.

In this passage of scripture, Paul offers the witness of his own life as one who is free from this disease of acquiring more. The antidote is generosity. He remembers and practices the words of Jesus, "It is more blessed to give than it is to receive."

He offers his life as an example to follow. I hesitantly offer mine. I have never done this before. I may never do so again. I talked to our worship team; they discouraged me from doing this. I talked to my wife; she said, "Please don't do it." I consulted the Sunday Parade magazine a couple of weeks ago. Maybe you say the article: which would you rather admit? Your age? Your weight? Your salary? 77% said they would admit their age. 15% said they would admit their weight. Only 8% said they would admit their salary.

I am 57 years old (nearly 58). I stepped on the bathroom scales yesterday, and they read 148. And my salary is....I will tell you in a minute.

What pushed me over the edge to share my example was going to a workshop, the New Church Leadership Institute. A gentleman named Clif was teaching about stewardship. He said, "You preachers must take the lead. You must be forthcoming. The congregation is hungry for your leadership. You must set the example."

We are back to Paul, who offers his life as an example to follow. It is as if he says, "What we do is more important than what we say." So I offer my life, not as an appeal to your intellect, not to debate you, not to present you with a problem to solve, not to make you feel guilty because you don't give enough, nor to make you feel superior because you do so much better than I do. I offer you my example to give you room...holy space... in which you can find yourself in your relationship with Christ and generosity.

One of the big influences on my life was my dad. He was a dreamer, a risk-taker. You can know this easily because he was a farmer. At one time, Dad had 100,000 chickens. We did not raise chickens for meat. We had laying hens which produced eggs. With this large commercial operation, Dad had a lot of creditors. I remember some of them coming to our door to ask Dad for money. I remember going to fill my car with gas at Mr. Ritchie's Shamrock station, he who had a daughter in my grade, and him telling me to have my dad come by to pay his bills. So I have issues of shame when it comes to money and possessions.

I also got some positive images from my family. I got an allowance. When I got 50 cents, I understood that a nickel of that belonged to God. My church, First Methodist in Littlefield, Texas, reinforced this. Even as a child, I was given my own offering envelopes for the whole year. I understood from an early age that all I had I had been given. It did not belong to me. It belonged to God. I was to be grateful and to show my worship of God by giving back to God.

Now growing up, we were never poor. We never missed a meal. We always had clean clothes. Sometimes the blue jeans I got were too long for me, because my mom figured I would soon grow into them. Do some of you remember rolling up the cuffs of your jeans until you grew into them? We had a comfortable house. We would go on vacation in the summers to the mountains of New Mexico which were only a few hours away. Sometimes we had a cabin. Sometimes we camped out.

As we children got to be school age, my mom went back to work to help make ends meet.

Another big influence on my life is my mom' mom, my grandmother Johnson. She was born at the start of the 20th century and lived to see the start of the 21st century. She died at age 101. After she died, we were cleaning out her house. And this is what we found: bags of rubber bands taken off the daily newspaper, a stash of bread sacks, a drawer of used aluminum foil. Grandmother was not a hoarder. She was one who had lived through WWI and the Great Depression and WWII and so much more. She did not throw things away. She used them up, wore them out, recycled. I remember finding all of the milk jugs that she had washed out and used to catch rain water. She thought her plants did better with rain water than city water. I remember going to her garden out back and picking fresh asparagus. I remember picking home grown tomatoes. Is there anything better in life than home grown tomatoes? There're not anything like the store bought tomatoes that don't taste much different from the styrofoam they are packed in. I remember the fig tree and the fig preserves grandmother put up. I learned simplicity and stewardship of the earth from my grandmother. I also remember she was in worship every Sunday as her Presbyterian church.

This leads me to my marriage to Cathy, who also happens to be a Presbyterian. She is Methodist only because she married me. I was attracted to Cathy not just because she was beautiful on the outside but also because she was beautiful on the inside. We could share prayer and spirituality together. She was also very generous. One of our first dates was going to finish up a home repair project that Highland Park UMC was doing in Dallas. Cathy and I have always given a lot. For the first 15 years of our life together, we moved slowly to the level of tithing, giving 10% to Christ and His Church. For the last 17 years we have been able to move to a tithe and beyond.

In this passage from Acts, Paul says that he is not dependent on the church for his income. He desires no one's silver or gold or clothing. He supports himself by working with his hands as a tentmaker. I know something about hard work and working with my hands. Growing up on the farm, I learned at an early age about feeding chickens (they don't understand if food is not set out for them), gathering eggs, washing eggs, sorting eggs, and taking eggs to the stores. We also had pigs, and I following a similiar process in raising them up from piglets until taking them to market. Later Dad became a contractor-builder of commercial farm operations. I learned about driving nails and pouring concrete. I know about working with my hands, but today most of what I do is indoors and doesn't involve much heavy lifting.

Today, I am dependent on you for most of my income. And here's the awkward dynamic: you vote on it right in my presence. Every year, we have a meeting called a church conference and some 60 of you show up. My compensation package is presented, and you vote on it. How many of you have your compensation set this way? Not too many. Anyhow it is not a secret what I make.

This past year, my base pay was $53,844. To that was added $7200 for utilities and $22,088 for housing. Health insurance for Cathy and me was $12,576. My degree was in math but it was from A & M, so I figured that came out to $95,708, pretty close to $96,000. So last year, I gave to this church $800/month or $9600 for the year, a tithe of my income. Please know I believe in this church and in our denomination. We have very low overhead. We efficiently deliver real help to real people. The most important thing we do is to bring people into a relationship with Christ. Other entities can provide some of the services we do of feeding, clothing, housing, etc., but the church is uniquely positioned to be in the "changing people's hearts business." I heard a talk at the Austin Seminary this past week, where a layman said, "For all of its faults and frailities, church is still the best idea I have ever heard."

This past year, I also gave $2725 to our building fund. I am on pace to pay my $10,000 pledge to Bldg M by May. I also gave this past year $1100 to Offering Christ Today fund to help start new UM churches in our Southwest Texas area. Furthermore, I gave to my 2 seminaries, to the CROP walk for Hunger, to Texas A & M, to KUT radio, and many more causes. Beyond that I have worked with my hands on Habitat for Humanity, at my local park--Mary Moore Searight, and my neighborhood association, among other concerns. You need to talk to Cathy about her own giving, but she is also very generous.

I have tried to set you an example because I believe in this God and Jesus and Church and Bible thing we are doing. Christ is the center of my life. I have no meaning with Him. I am so grateful for all I have.

Paul says that he set an example that by such work we must support the weak. We are known best by how we treat the least. I am proud of you as a congregation for all you do for others. And this is what we find: that it feels good, feels right, feels holy to so such. We meet the presence of Christ and there is nothing like it in this world.

Paul then remembers a beattitude that is not found in the Gospels. Jesus says, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." A Beattitude is a way of being, a way of being connected with Christ. It is what we were made for.

I have set you an example to show you that my life is defined by generosity, first by what God has done for me in Christ Jesus. This 2011 year, I plan to give $820/month or $9840 for the year. I offer you my example this week so you have time to reflect in your soul what you are called to do next week as we make our commitments to Christ and offer them here on this table.

I leave you with these questions: How will you be know? What example will you set? How will be defined? I hope you will be defined by generosity.

itinerate

2/3/11 United Methodist pastors have a particular word in their vocabulary: itinerate. It means that when we answer the call to be an ordained elder in the church, we agree to move where the Bishop sends us. Yes, we are consulted about the move. Yes, family situations are taken into account. But we still surrender to the authority to the Bishop who sends us much like a general would deploy resources and personnel to win the battle.

This itineracy concept is one of the hardest on my relationship with my wife and two sons. We have been blessed in the churches where we have served, but there is a level of anxiety that comes when you don't know where or when you might be sent next. The boys have left behind friends. Cathy has left behind employment that she enjoyed.

That's why I love my breath prayer for the day, from Psalm 112:6, "For the righteous will never be moved; they will be remembered forever." Did you get it...."Never be moved." No more itineracy. I may be in my last appointment. Only God knows for sure. Only the Bishop says "Move."

On a deeper level, we are all just passing through this life on earth. We are all on a journery. We all itinerate. Maybe to not be moved and to be remembered means to stay close to God forever in relationship.

Love,
Lynn

rolling blackouts

2/2/11 This morning I was intending to wait until the sun came up, go walking, then lift weights, shower, and go into work a bit later to avoid the traffic. As I came downstairs about 6 a.m., all of the power went off in the house. I looked around at our neighbors' houses, and they were dark as well. Cathy and I had some breakfast. Cold cereal and milk. the home security system was beeping every few seconds in an annoying way. I got to thinking that the garage doors openers were electric....how were we going to get the vehicles out? I remembered there were manual openers in case of emergency. I got the doors open that way, and Cathy backed out the vehicles. Just then the power came back on. I started to go back to my original plan of waiting and going into work after the traffic cleared. Then the power went off. So I headed off to the mall again to walk there. It is about 19 degrees with a windchill down near zero. Enroute to the mall, the lights were working, except when I got to Ben White, a major road. Just as I was pulling up, the traffic lights went out. We drivers played chicken at each intersection. I got to the mall without incident. I did my walk and light weights while I walked.

It struck me with the loss of power that we were not very far removed from those who barely survive. Very quickly things got down to basics of food, warmth, safety. We are all vulverable. I wish for you a day without rolling blackouts.

Love,
Lynn-

mall walking

2/1/11 A big cold front blew in over night, bringing with it high winds, freezing wind chills, and some rain. That meant I wasn't going to walk outside this morning. I got off early to avoid the traffic on the slick streets. I went to Barton Creek Mall which is on my way to the church. I joined the dozen other mall walkers this morning in contrast to walking all by myself most days. I had ads reaching out to me with Gucci Guilt ( I am not making this up!) as opposed to trees and rocks and deer on my usual park trails. I had hits from the 60's and 70's blaring over the loud speakers as opposed to my usual quiet, except for wind in the trees and birds calling out. I was glad to be walking where it was dry and out of the bitter wind this morning, but on the whole, I prefer walking outdoors.

Love,
Lynn