What’s God Been Doing?

One of my favorite authors is Frederick Buechner. He is an ordained Presbyterian pastor who has spent most of his ministry as a writer, rather than in more traditional pastoral settings. If Christians have to put Buechner in a category (which is one of our favorite pastimes) we would say he is a “liberal.” It is an interesting label to give to someone whose archived writings are housed at Wheaton College along with those of C.S. Lewis. Wheaton is also the home of the Billy Graham Center. Wheaton would hardly be described as “liberal.”

         

One of Buechner’s more meaningful experiences was the time he spent as a visiting professor at Wheaton College in 1985. Buechner had just completed a stint as a visiting Professor of Preaching at Harvard Divinity School, where he became the talk of campus by beginning his first class with prayer! He describes his experience at Wheaton this way:

         

“I’d been sort of a closet religious person for years and years, moving among people to whom faith was either a dead letter or something not to be talked about. All of a sudden I was surrounded by people who found it very easy and natural to talk about faith. It was wonderful.”

         

One day he was having lunch with two students, and the conversation suddenly shifted from small talk about weather, the movies and other mundane subjects, when one of them asked the other what God was doing in his life, as naturally as he would have asked the time of day. Buechner writes, “I thought if anybody said anything like that in my part of the world, the ceiling would fall in, the house would catch fire, and peoples’s eyes would roll up in their heads.”

         

“What has God been doing in your life?” 

         

It might not elicit the same response in our circles as it does in Buchner’s, but at the same time, it is often a stumper. People have a hard time answering the question. It can’t be because God isn’t doing anything...God is always up to something! It may be a stumper because too often we aren’t paying attention. We don’t take the time to even reflect on the question for ourselves.

         

Or, more condemning, we don’t leave room in our lives for God to do much. We fill our schedules with events, tasks, meetings and responsibilities and there isn’t any margin for God to wiggle into. Even if we spend devotional time each day, too often it is a quick read, some helpful tip, and then we move on. We don’t spend much time in reflection of what God might be trying to say to us, much less what He is doing in our life.

         

If you were to ask me, my answer would be, that recently God is calling me to wrestle with the transformational power of His love. God’s love changes people. Do I trust that His love has transformational power, or do I need to put parameters, boundaries and limits on His love?

         

So, let me ask you:

         

What has God been doing in your life?

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Place, Pace, Perspective

New place, new pace, new perspective.

         

It is an axiom I find helpful. Sometimes when I am writing, or working on a project, I find it helpful to find a new place, somewhere other than my office or our home. The new place literally and figuratively provides a new perspective. The different surroundings awaken me to new insights. New people remind me of the vast array of human beings, each with their own perspective on life, which certainly is not the same as mine. It reminds me that my way of thinking is just that, my way of thinking. It is not necessarily “right”, nor should I assume others will embrace it.

         

A new place also provides a new pace. Leaving the office, or even our home, seems to slow me down. Perhaps it is because things are unfamiliar and I have to be more conscious of my surroundings. Whatever it takes, slowing my mind down is a good thing.

         

For some people I am speaking a foreign language. For them familiarity is the key to perspective and insight. The same place, at the same time, and the comfort and security that comes with knowing where everything is inspires some people. It is a personality thing.

         

This year we live in a new place. Memorial Day weekend will be different here.

         

On Memorial Day weekend in Traverse City our church attendance grew with visitors who had second homes in the area or who had chosen Traverse City as a weekend vacation destination. Our own members didn’t leave, where else would you want to be on an early summer holiday weekend? In Chicago we are having only one service due to the great exodus.

         

It is supposed to be in the 90’s this weekend in Chicago. Where can we go to beat the heat? How much of a hassle will it be to get to a beach?

         

In Traverse City we were perplexed by which beach, lake, or beautiful spot to choose.

         

In Traverse City we could work around the house in the morning and still get to the beach in five minutes for the rest of the day. In Chicago it will be a little more challenging.

         

One place is not better than the other (although some would no doubt disagree), they are just different.

         

God calls us to a place; a city, a country, a job, a school, a ministry, a church, a team, a....(put your own words here).

         

When God plants us somewhere we will flourish there. Every experience may not be great. We may miss people, or places. In every new place there will be a new pace and a new perspective, which is God’s way of helping us to grow. When God plants us somewhere we will flourish, even if it means flourishing in difficulty, pain or trials.

         

Place, pace and perspective are God’s unique gifts to us.

         

No matter what place you find yourself in this weekend, I pray that you will slow your pace and open yourself to God’s perspective. And remember the purpose of the weekend...giving thanks for the many who have offered their lives so that we can enjoy the freedom to have a long weekend!

What We Need, When We Need It

They had moved to the Mid-West from Texas because of his job. They knew no one here, but because they were young and it was a great business opportunity, they embraced the adventure. Both of them had grown up in homes deeply rooted in Christianity. The church was an important place for them. This was particularly true as they settled in a new town. The church was a natural place to meet people who would become friends.

They dove into our young couples group headlong. They weren’t shy about volunteering to help with anything. The only thing that stood out more than their enthusiasm was their delightful Southern accent. Our young couples group became their family.

After they settled for a while, they decided to start a family and were soon not only pregnant, but pregnant with twins! He traveled a lot, so she was frequently home alone.  She found being home alone difficult, particularly as the pregnancy progressed and she was near her due date. She dreaded the thought of him being out of town when the time came for her babies to be born. He assured her that he was never that far away. Most of his customers were reachable by car. He was never gone over night.

She kissed him goodbye one morning as he left for a day of sales calls in Milwaukee. He assured her that Milwaukee wasn’t that far from Chicago. It was like every other morning, until about noon when the babies decided to make their debut. She went to the hospital by herself and put a call into her husband which went to voice mail.

She arrived at the hospital and was sent to the delivery area, but after some testing the doctor came back with bad news. Her babies were in distress and would be stillborn. It was as if a bomb had gone off in the room. She was shocked and not sure what to do. She couldn’t reach her husband. She had the hospital call me, and I rushed there all the time wondering what in the world I would do or say. This was a first for me.

When I arrived at the hospital I was directed to the special area for problem deliveries. Her husband couldn’t be reached, I was to scrub in and be with her until her babies were born. I felt completely overwhelmed. They had skipped this training in seminary. I found myself in constant prayer. What else do you do when you are desperate?

The nurses were unbelievable. Obviously trained for this kind of situation, but more importantly experienced and gifted. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. It was as if God had dropped several of His minions into the room. I felt horribly inadequate. They assured me that my role was to simply be present, a poor substitute for her husband.

He called the hospital and they told him the babies were being born, but they did not tell them they were in distress. They didn’t think it was appropriate news to deliver over the phone, especially when he had to drive from Milwaukee.

The babies were stillborn. The nurses brought them to the mom and I stood by her bed and held her hand as she wept uncontrollably. I joined in her waterfall of tears and found myself with nothing to say that wouldn’t seem trite and unhelpful.

Her husband called again. He was stuck in traffic. It was going to take him an extra hour to get to Chicago. I waited with his wife for him. This was going to be horrible. We would have to break the news to him and revisit the gut-wrenching trauma all over again.

I sat on the sidelines in complete awe as the nurses tended to her. My stomach felt empty and my soul had a hole in it. Watching these amazing women go about their work with sensitivity, gentleness and expertise brought me comfort. They were doing a ministry of mercy, caring and love. God was at work through them.

The husband arrived. The nurses called me out to meet with them as they told him what had taken place. He scrubbed quickly and rushed to his wife’s side. I felt like I was somewhere I didn’t belong, uncomfortable as they shared their grief.

A half hour later I joined them again. We hugged, cried and prayed. We listened carefully as the hospital staff talked us through the next steps.

Some would ask, “How could a God of love allow something like this to happen?”

I have no satisfying answer except that we live in a world full of pain, difficulty and sorrow. Horrible things happen that we cannot explain. God watched His own Son suffer at the hands of people, and I believe God has unique empathy for parents who live in pain and particularly the pain of losing children.

I do know that this young couple, hundreds of miles away from family when tragedy struck, felt the unique presence of God in the midst of their tragedy. God placed them in the midst of a hospital staff that were God-like in their caring and compassion.

I do know that God gave me what I needed when I felt completely inadequate.

God gives us what we need, when we need it, and we often don’t know it until it’s over!

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Scenes from the Parking Lot

I was sipping my coffee and reading the paper in my favorite coffee shop not long ago. It was a Chicago style spring day...gray, ominous skies, and windy, really, really windy.

Looking out the window can be somewhat entertaining, even if it is at someone else’s expense. Watching the effort people were putting into opening their car doors against the wind. Watching them grab in a panic as their door blew open violently with the wind. Hat grabbing, dress flattening, coat buttoning, and body leaning all were strategies employed to fight against mother nature.

I spotted a young mom maneuvering carefully across the lot pushing a two-child stroller. She approached her car and you could sense her strategizing in her mind how she was going to execute her next move. She had to get one child out of the stroller and place them in the car seat, leaving the other in the stroller besieged by the wind. She finished that task and then took her second child out of the stroller and that’s when the challenge set in. Her stroller went blowing across the parking lot like a rocket blasting off. She gave it a curious and somewhat panicked look. Now she was in a real dilemma. Would she dare leave her two kids in the car alone while she chased after her stroller? The stroller was already a good distance from her car. How far would it continue to blow?

My instinct was to get up and help, but my mind was playing some tapes from the past which made me hesitate. Within the last couple of years I had tried to help people in distress and it had backfired on me. There was a young boy in a Walmart rest room who seemed disoriented and somewhat frightened because he couldn’t figure out how to get out the exit door. I showed him the way and opened the door for him. His mother was waiting outside and noticed the bewildered look on his face. Her automatic conclusion was that I had done something untoward to her son. She began to pepper him with questions about whether I had touched him or done something to him. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I told her what had happened, but she encouraged me to leave, and she wasn’t polite about it.

I had stopped to help a young girl whose car had stalled alongside the road. When I approached she jumped in her car and locked the door. She yelled through the window that her dad was coming.

Our society has evolved into a place where it is difficult to help anyone anymore. “Stranger Danger” has instilled fear in all of us to the point where everyone is viewed as a threat regardless of how well intentioned they might be.

So, do I run out to the parking lot and offer to help, or don’t I? It seems odd that I would even have to think about it, but given my past experiences, I actually hesitate. I decide to run out of the coffee shop and go directly to the stroller. The young mom looks on still not knowing what to do. She sees me headed to her stroller and remains by her car. As I push the stroller toward her car, fighting against the wind, I can see a sense of relief on her face. When I arrive at the car, she gushes with appreciation, so much so I find it embarrassing. It wasn’t that big of a deal. This is what we are supposed to be about as people, “doing unto others as we would have them do unto us”, loving our neighbors with random acts of kindness. Corralling a runaway stroller is not quite the magnitude of intervening when someone is being physically assaulted.

         

I did not walk away basking in my chivalry. I was wondering how it has come to this, where we are afraid to approach strangers, help children, offer assistance, or even be friendly, without wondering whether or not they have evil intentions.

         

Today it is becoming more difficult to love others as we love ourselves.


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Half My Life

4+7+24=35.

It isn’t meant to be a difficult math problem.  It is what I am thinking about this weekend. It is one way of documenting my relationship with Hope College.

4 years as a student.

7 years as an Assistant Chaplain.

24 years on the Board of Trustees.

35 total years in a direct relationship with a college.

That is over half my life!

Anyone who knows me, knows that Hope College is a very important place to me. It has very little to do with it being an outstanding educational institution, although it is that.  It was a place where I discovered the joy of learning, where I learned the amazingly broad world of liberal arts with exposure to the arts and literature and philosophy, which I never would have chosen on my own. It was the place where I discovered intellectual curiosity and passion. I learned at Hope that I had intellectual gifts and that it was acceptable to utilize them!

But all of that was secondary, which may seem strange for an educational institution. The primary thing I discovered at Hope was a vibrant Christian faith. I was challenged and nurtured by the college Chaplain, professors and coaches to take Christianity seriously. Hope College provided mentors and models for me who were overt about their faith and who were “real” people, engaging the “real” world.

Hope College is also where I met the person who has had the most profound influence on my life, my wife, Becky. We were an odd couple then. Some think that is still the case! I was an uber-extrovert, and she was the poster child for introversion. She was drop dead gorgeous. I was a jock. Some of our friends (and maybe even our family members) wondered if we would ever last as a couple. Thirty-seven years later, we are more committed to one another than ever before, and embracing all the God puts before us. We need each other!

It was at Hope College that I learned the necessity of seeking God’s will and embracing it with obedience. I didn’t learn that in a classroom. I learned it by the living examples that surrounded me. It was in that environment that the seeds of full-time professional ministry were planted in my heart.

Hope College has provided for me life-long friends. They are people from whom I can be separated by geography and time, but can renew an in-depth relationship the moment we are together. These are people I respect, trust and love.

This weekend I conclude 24 years of service on the Hope College Board of Trustees. It has been a long and wonderful journey, with times of difficulty, moments of trial, as well as great successes. It has been service that has given me more than I have given.

I thank God for giving me the gift of attending Hope and for placing all the people in my life who have been so influential. God is good, all the time!

Rev

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It Sounds Like a Joke

You never know who you are going to meet on the first tee.

At least that is true when you play at public courses and you show up by yourself. Some people don’t like having to play with strangers; I think it’s a great way to meet all kinds of people, like the guy I met last Friday.

The temperature was in the low 40’s, the sky was gray, dampness hung in the air and it was windy. It was a perfect day for golf!

I went into the pro shop and paid my fee. The lady behind the counter asked if I minded being paired with another single player who was only going to play nine holes. “No problem,” I said.

I made my way to the first tee and there he was. He was about my age, shorter, dressed warmly for the elements. He introduced himself and eagerly offered his hand. “My name is Majik,” he said with a Middle Eastern accent. “I’m Peter,” I said. The next words out of his mouth before we had even hit one shot were, “Peter, what do you do for a profession?”

It is a common question, especially for men. I always get a little lump in my throat because I find that when I disclose my profession it changes all the relational dynamics. Clergy people creep some people out!

“I am a pastor of a church,” I told Majik. Without hesitation, he said, “I am not a Catholic. I am a Muslim, but I am not a very good Muslim.”

“I am not Catholic, either,” I said, “I am a Protestant. And I am not a very good protestant either.”

So off we went, chasing our balls down the fairway. Our conversation covered lots of ground. Some of it was about golf. He doesn’t play very much and I was able to give him a few pointers. But the rest of it was a meandering conversation covering a vast array of topics from religion, to education, to The Hunger Games.

He is a doctor with who specializes in arthritis and has a practice in the Southern suburbs. He and his wife immigrated to the U.S. from Iran in the 1970s. He is an American citizen now and very proud of it.

He peppered me with questions about religion. He was genuinely curious. I was trying to explain to him about being Protestant, and denominations, and our denomination in particular. The more we talked the more I realized how crazy it all sounded, and how difficult it must be to grasp. One faith, Christianity, divided up into hundreds of groups from Catholic, to Orthodox, to Protestant and the hundreds of denominations.

I felt a little sheepish. Not because I was embarrassed about my faith, but because of how church history has unfolded and how we continue to divide ourselves over mostly inconsequential matters. I mean, let’s be honest, try to make sense out of why a small group of immigrants from the Netherlands need two, (or more) denominations. Try to explain to someone who knows little about Christianity, why there is a Reformed Church in America and a Christian Reformed Church.

Majik was curious and gracious. I am not sure he really understood all the nuances we have created within Christianity. I am not sure I really understand them all myself. The more I tried to explain, the more it sounded absurd. We have made a mess of what should be simple and easy.

SIMPLE VERSION:

“We are sinners, but God loves us anyway. He loves us so much he saved us from ourselves by sacrificing His Son on the cross      on our behalf that we might be one with Him through Jesus, who defeated death through His resurrection. Because He died, we can be one with God now and forever!”

 When we finished playing nine holes, Majik said, “Mind if I continue to play with you on the back nine. I am enjoying myself!”

We finished 18 holes, a Christian pastor and a Muslim doctor, who met on the first tee. (It sounds like the beginning of a joke.)

As we departed Majik said, “I really enjoyed playing with you today. But I enjoyed your company and our conversation more. You are a nice man! Where is your church again?”

I told Majik where our church was located and invited him to stop in some Sunday. “I might do that,” he said. “I told you I wasn’t a very good Muslim.”

You never know who you are going to meet on the first tee.

Unintended Consequences

“For every sermon that you preach, there are three or four you have to choose not to preach.” So goes an old preaching adage. The point being that many scripture passages lend themselves to all sorts of teaching we could do, but you should focus on one topic with a laser beam focus and save the rest for another day.

         

It is an adage too many of those of us in the trade ignore. We feel it is our responsibility to give everyone a drink from a fire hose every Sunday. However, if you know you are ADD, like me, it is better to focus on one topic because you will create enough of your own rabbit trails as it is!

         

So it was last Sunday when I was teaching from I Corinthians 11:17-34 where Paul critiques the church in Corinth about their worship services and in particular their celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Paul’s major concern is that a dichotomy in the church has been developed between rich and poor. The rich were getting to house church early and eating all the food and over serving themselves on the wine, and when the poor showed up there was nothing left. Boorish behavior by any social standards; but in the church, it served to create second class citizens and divisions, an “us against them” mentality, which Paul found completely unacceptable.

         

There is a verse in this teaching which is usually ignored. “For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.” (I Cor. 11:29-30)

         

An unintended consequence of the poor worship habits of the church in Corinth was physical illness and death. Huh?

         

My guess is the Corinthians hadn’t given the consequences of their behavior any thought whatsoever. In fact, apparently, until Paul pointed it out, they didn’t think their divisive attitudes in worship were anything to be concerned about at all.

         

We have a hard time with these consequences. Really, God would allow some people to be ill and others die because of disobedience in the church? Apparently, yes!

         

All parents teach their kids about consequences out of love. “Don’t play in the street, the consequence might be horrible injury.” “Don’t touch the stove, you’ll burn yourself.” “Be careful what you post on Facebook, it could really hurt your reputation or relationships.”

         

The Bible is clear about disobedience having consequences. Wandering in the wilderness for 40 years was a consequence of Israel’s lack of faith. Being held captive by foreign nations as slaves was a consequence of their turning their back on God.

         

In Corinth, people were ill and some died because of their lack of unity. It makes you wonder how individual disobedience is negatively impacting church life in our congregations. Is my failure to tithe the reason we are not successful at evangelism? Is my hostility to others in our congregation the cause of our church financial plight? Is my grumbling and complaining the reason our spiritual vitality is lacking?

         

We live in such an individualized culture that we rarely think about how our disobedience may impact the lives of an entire congregation. But, it is clear that disobedience has consequences, individually and corporately.

I better spend some time doing some soul searching not just for my sake, but for the sake of the body of Christ.