I Thought this Only Happened in Church

I thought this only happened at church!

I was at breakfast with my son at the local diner in downtown Gaithersburg.  Oatmeal for me.  Pancakes and bacon for him.  He's 14 and I'm 41, so our ages and our meals are both reversed. 

A man vaguely resembling Dave Matthews waited for his take-out order sitting on a chair nearby our booth.  There was no one at his table, and there were several open tables in the diner. In walks a local, taps the man on the shoulder, and says, “That’s my seat, would you move?”

The man was slightly startled, but smiled and complied, perching on a nearby chair to wait.  My son and I noticed this simultaneously.  He leaned close and semi-speaks, semi-whispers, “I thought that only happened in church.”

“I know, right?” I whispered back.  We both laughed aloud.

All these years as pastor I’ve assumed that only churchgoers were the seat mongers.   Turns out I’m wrong, habits and territorialism apply to all humans.  It only seems hypocritical when Christians do it.  Universally, people are funny about where they sit. 

For example, the White House Press Secretary assigns seats for reporters.  Airlines do it.  Theatres, symphonies, and rock bands, too.  Wild Bill Hickok surely regretted his seat choice at a poker table when he was shot in the back. Rumor has it that some synagogues actually sell tickets with preferential seating to their high holy days services. 

Anticipating the Easter Sunday full house, I briefly considered bolstering our ailing church budget by selling preferred seating for this weekend’s service.  I figured front row seats would be free, middle/middle seats would go for twenty dollars, and that back row seats would be forty.  Guaranteed "End of the Row?"  Two dollar surcharge! 

But that was a short-winged flight of fancy because good religion doesn’t work that way.   And I certainly don’t want to tangle with Jesus, who said, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you love to have the seat of honor in the synagogues and to be greeted with respect in the market-places” in Luke 11.43.  Easter is free to all would come. 

So bring a friend and get here early for a good seat as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus this Sunday at 10:30.  I pray that our seats won't matter because our hearts will be drawn to stand and worship God as we marvel at the empty cross and the empty tomb.     

Saving you a seat,

Gimme a sign, God!

Gimme a sign, God!

Have you ever been in the midst of a decision large or small and say, “Hey, God, would you just gimme a sign?”  Like one of those "JOHN 3:16" signs at sporting events.  Bold.  Neon.  Clear.   

The walls of this pastor’s study have listened as parishioners talk to me about decisions. I ask people, “I wonder if God really cares about this decision?” and they typically want to throw a coaster at me.  I only ask that question when the decision deals with two “goods.”  Seldom do people come to my study to talk about a choice between a clear “good” and a clear “bad.”  They already know those answers. 

These people of faith really labor over choices because in the deepest place of their soul they want to please God.   And their choices matter.  Perhaps God is more interested in watching His children have the freedom and responsibility of making those choices, rather than our struggle for the elusive yet “perfect” will of God.  After all, what happens if you miss out on God’s perfect will?  Do you get the less perfect will of God? 

Of course not. 

God can work with our choices and still be God.  Frequenly the choices we face are of equal “good” to God, as long as we keep ourselves in between the ditches on the highway of life.   I would submit that all the signs we need are all around us, if we will but notice and accept them as such. 

Join us this week for worship to work on seeing the "signs" from God in our life.  In the meantime, watch some sports and look out for that person with the big "JOHN 3:16" sign in the stands.  You might even consider bringing your own "John 3:16" sign to church this Sunday, there will be an appropriate moment during the sermon to use it!  John 3.11-21 is the focal passage, so read it at home and bring your Bible to church.  We gather for worship at 10:30 am and Bible study is at 9:15 am.

See you Sunday,

Pastor Gary

Statues of Forgiveness

A few weeks ago my family toured the battlefield of Gettysburg National Military Park. About a month beforehand, my 14-year-old son read Killer Angels, a classic novel of the Civil War and he surprised all of us, including our licensed guide, with his knowledge of the events of July 1-3, 1863. I was beaming with pride on the outside, but I was dying just a little on the inside. 

Let me tell you why:

I was raised in the South. You might even call it the Old South. I was taught that my belly button was “where the Yankee shot me.” In North Carolina history class the Civil War was the “War of Northern Aggression” and a blatant attack on states’ rights. Being named “Sherman” made you suspect. Confederate flags were emblems of “heritage, not hate.”

Sometimes you know, sometimes you understand

I long ago assented intellectually that those ideas were wrong, and in many regards flat out evil. Perhaps it was my freshman year at the University of North Carolina that kicked in the corrective process and began the construction of a new world view. All that knowledge heaped up on an impressionable 18-year-old will do that.  But we know a whole lot more than we understand, and sometimes it takes a while before knowledge and understanding become the same thing in us.

Knowledge gave way to understanding for me as I toured the Pennsylvania farmland-turned-battlefield.  This war, anything but “civil,” left a gouging and permanent scar on our nation.  Countless others have chronicled the bloodshed, the financial cost and the subsequent rancor between the North and the South. But deep in the psyche of many Southerners lays the systemically placed feelings of defensiveness, embarrassment and shame. Those feelings are not chosen, nor are they all about losing a war.  Those feelings are rooted in something common to all humans, regardless of their relative position to the Mason-Dixon line. Simply put, it is nearly impossible to admit you’re wrong. That you’ve chosen the wrong side. That you’ve committed sin. And that you’ve caused destruction. 

And, yes, slavery was a moral wrong and the root cause of the war.

Though our memories are short on the hard lessons of history, we are still subject to the same foibles. Our blood thirst is unquenched and we still wage wars. We are still greedy, still fight to preserve our own comfortable ways of life and still enslave others, whether through economic, emotional or sexual abuse. We still hate to admit we’re wrong. And as for me, I can’t stand to say I’m sorry.

Limping toward God

Of the 1,400 or so monuments at Gettysburg, the 2005 Maryland monument is the most moving. Now that I’m a Marylander, I made it a point to seek it out. Now that I’m a Marylander, I take pride in it. The monument is a striking bronze sculpture of two men, perhaps brothers, who symbolize the brothers from a divided Maryland who fought on both sides of the war. They are limping as if injured, from the battlefield. Their eyes are firmly fixed ahead, but neither is able to make it forward without the other.

Not a bad metaphor for the church. Wounded, we limp in on Sunday, wondering if Jesus will patch us up again for another week. Leaning on each other, we approach God, knowing we need to say we’re sorry -- to each other and to God -- for the things we have done. 

There is a more familiar statue of forgiveness for Christians, and that is the cross. Jesus’ work upon the cross shows us there is no need for us to be stuck in the shame of our sin. There is only the requirement that we lift our heads up and admit our mistakes to God. 

Only there, before God in confession, can we move past the hot mess of our shame over what we’ve done. And only then, before God in confession, can we stop the long slow dying process, turn toward the light of grace, and grasp ahold of that bright hope that is the kingdom of heaven.