“Our Falling Apple Moments”

These are my thoughts for the 3^rd Sunday of Easter, 26 April 2020 (Year A).  Even when you normally work from home as we do, things can get piled up, pushed around, and buried on the desktop.  And that later point is a fairly good trick when your desktop is your computer screen.

I think that the Gospel reading came at a time when there is talk about getting out of the house.  We certainly would like to be outside, especially as the weather gets warmer and we begin to see the changes in the world that tell us spring is arriving (you all can post photos of the flowers blooming in your garden if you want.).

I sometimes think that we feel that we have a better chance of being with God if we are outside.  We sing of being in the garden alone with him or seeing all that is there as “Our Father’s World”.

And we are, perhaps, getting a little tired of staying inside.  It is okay to stay inside when it is winter and the weather is hardly conducive to rambling walks in the garden or forest.  It is getting warmer and the days are getting longer.  There is something inside us that says we must go outside; we must be with others.

It hurts when we cannot be with others; it hurts when we see people we know suffering and we cannot do a single thing to comfort them.

But common sense, that intuitive nature about life that we were given by God, tells us that perhaps now is not that time.

From the moment we began our own journey with Christ, we have known that we must set aside a time and place where we are with Him.  Many years ago, I was wandering the campgrounds of Perkins Scout Reservation north of Wichita Falls, Texas.  In this wandering, I came across a clearing with a tree stump in the middle.  On that tree stump was a hawk, resting, I suppose, from his day’s labors.  There was something about that image that gave me a sense of calm.

Four years later, I would find another tree stump, this one on the edge of the campus of NE Missouri State Teachers College.  I was there to begin another part of my journey and on those days when the journey seemed a bit rocky, I knew that I could come to that place on campus to once again find my focus.

I do not know if that clearing on the campgrounds is still there.  I know that work on the sidewalk took out the tree stump but the spot is still there.  Still, I cannot go to those places of focus but they are imagines in my mind and I can use those images to help me refocus.

There is evidence to suggest that Isaac Newton came up with his ideas about motion and gravity during a period when the bubonic plaque had closed Oxford University and he had returned to the family farm.  While there is no evidence to suggest that a falling apple was the impetus for his thoughts of motion and gravity, he was able to envision the experiment and its results.  Similarly, the evidence suggests that much of Shakespeare’s works were done during periods of plaque that had closed the theaters of London, forcing the Bard to return home to a more contemplative mode.

These are “our falling apple moments”; times when the way we would like to focus has been take away from us and we find it necessary to find a new way.

In this way, we remember that our journey with Christ continues.  In these moments of quiet reflection and solitude, we can refocus our lives.  When the time comes that we can journey out into the world once again, we will be refreshed and able others to continue or begin their journey.

“Theory or Experiment”

Here are my thoughts for the “Back Page” on this 2^nd Sunday of Easter (Year A), 19 April 2020.

Tradition has it that Nathaniel Bartholomew was the scholar of the disciples.  In John 1: 48, he asked Jesus how he knew him and Jesus replied that He had seen him sitting under the fig tree.  Tradition has it that Nathaniel was studying the Scriptures and it was that knowledge that allowed him to respond that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

One might say that Nathaniel was engaging in a bit of inductive reasoning – making a generalization from a set of specific observations.  The Scriptures of that time would have held many references to the identity of the coming Messiah and, in knowing what had been written, would have been about to conclude that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.  To some extent, then, Nathaniel was theorist, basing his ideas and conclusions on what others had done.

I think that Nathaniel’s friend and compatriot, Thomas, was more of an experimentalist.  He needed to see the evidence before making any sort of conclusion.  His conclusion that Jesus had risen from the dead comes not from what others said but on what he saw for himself.

But what does this all mean for each of us?  Are we theorists or experimentalists?  And what does how we see the Resurrection help others?  I think that if we are who we say we are, we are experimentalists because it is by what we do that others see that Christ is alive.

Those who say that the only path to salvation is through Christ offer a theory without evidence (and too often, it seems, live lives that belie the notion of Christianity).

But by actively living a life with Christ, we can offer the evidence of what is to come.

So, do you lead a life of Christ that is theory based or experimentally based?

“This First Easter”

Here are my thought for this Easter Sunday,12 April 2020 (Year A)

This piece is entitled “This First Easter” because it is, for me, one of many “first” Easters. 

For most of us, this will be an Easter where we will not be in our church but, because of technology, we will still be able to celebrate the Risen Christ.  We will know that our friends will be celebrating with us, but we will not be with them to celebrate. While I appreciate the technology that allows us to celebrate Easter, I miss the interaction of the people that comes from meeting together and, perhaps, gives more meaning for the day.

And as I thought about this being a “first Easter”, I also thought about other “Easters” in my life.

My first Easter would have been March 25, 1951. As I was just six months old, I really don’t know much about that day.

There was the Easter that I celebrated in 1969.  As I describe in Our Father’s House”, I was a student at Northeast Missouri State College and about to go home in Memphis for spring/Easter break.  I knew that I would be in church with my family on Easter Sunday, it was not my church (it was the church I attended while in high school) and that didn’t feel right.

So I went to the pastor of 1st UMC in Kirksville, Marvin Fortel, and asked if I could take communion before I left town for the week.  He agreed to do that and we met in the chapel of the church. And it was then I began to have a better understanding of what my faith meant.  It was a conversation that I have remembered over the years (see my notes in “The Changing of the Seasons”).

A few years later I was in Lexington, North Carolina for the funeral of my maternal grandmother, Clatie Hunt.  I flew out to North Carolina on Maundy Thursday and stayed for the wake and the funeral on April 3, 1972.  The next day, April 4, 1972, was Easter Sunday and I flew back to St. Louis and drove back to my home in northeast Missouri.  This was, to the best of memory, the only time I was not in a church on Easter Sunday.

In recalling these two Easter Sundays, one where I celebrated Easter on the day of the Last Supper one where I could not be in church, I realized that there were many Easter Sundays where I don’t remember if I was in church or not.  But this was the period that I have come to call my “wilderness years” so it is understandable that I would not remember.

But as I wondered in the “wilderness” I also began to remember the covenant I had made with God in 1965 when I earned the God & Country award in scouts.  And so it was that I began to be more active in the church, making sure that, at least on Boy Scout Sunday, I was the lector. I began to sing in the choir again and, in 1991, received the call to be a lay speaker.

On Palm Sunday in 1997 (March 30), I became part of a pastoral worship team serving two small rural United Methodist Churches in Mason, Tennessee.  In 1998 I would move from Memphis to Whitesburg, KY. I was asked to become the lay pastor for the Neon UMC in November, 1998.

On April 4, 1999, I would celebrate “The First Easter” as a lay pastor.  In the message I gave for that Sunday, I would use a story written by Thomas G. Pettepiece that was in my Prayer Guide.

Today is Resurrection Sunday. My first Easter in prison. Surely the regime can’t continue to keep almost 10,000 political prisoners in its gaols! In here, it is much easier to understand how the men in the Bible felt, stripping themselves of everything that was superfluous. Many of the prisoners have already heard that they have lost their homes, their furniture, and everything they owned. Our families are broken up. Many of our children are wandering the streets, their father in one prison, their mother in another.

There is not a single cup. But a score of Christian prisoners experienced the joy of celebrating communion – without bread or wine. The communion of empty hands. The non-Christians said: “We will help you; we will talk quietly so that you can meet.” Too dense a silence would have drawn the guards’ attention as surely as the lone voice of the preacher. “We have no bread, nor water to use instead of wine,” I told them, “but we will act as though we had.”

“This meal in which we take part,” I said, “reminds us of the prison, the torture, the death and final victory of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The bread is the body which he gave for humanity. The fact that we have none represents very well the lack of bread in the hunger of so many millions of human beings. The wine, which we don’t have today, is his blood and represents our dream of a united humanity, of a just society, without difference of race or class.”

I held out my empty hand to the first person on my right, and placed it over his open hand, and the same with the others: “Take eat, this is my body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of me.” Afterward, all of us raised our hands to our mouths, receiving the body of Christ in silence. “Take, drink, this is the blood of Christ which was shed to seal the new covenant of God with men. Let us give thanks, sure that Christ is here with us, strengthening us.”

We gave thanks to God, and finally stood up and embraced each other. A while later, another non-Christian prisoner said to me: “You people have something special, which I would like to have.” The father of a dead girl came up to me and said: “Pastor, this was a real experience! I believe that today I discovered what faith is. Now, I believe that I am on the road.” (From Visions of a World Hungry by Thomas G. Pettepiece)

This was Pettepiece’s first Easter in jail.  I do not know why he was in prison or where he was in prison, though the use of “gaol” suggests he was in Ireland.  I would use this same story a few years later in “The Message Is Clear”.  Thomas Pettepiece’s daughter discovered this writing of her father but could not offer any information about what he might have been doing.

So on this First Easter, we are much like Pettepiece and the other prisoners, separated from our church and our family.  And in our separation, we cannot even celebrate the “Communion of the Empty Hands.” On a Sunday when we should be celebrating the Risen Christ, we have a sense of sadness and our view of the future is shrouded in a cloud of gloom and despair.  We have to ask ourselves if there will ever come a time when we will again be a physical community of believers.  As we gather collectively on the Internet, we have to wonder what the future will be.

And if we stop for a moment, we can realize that these are the same feelings that the disciples and followers had some two thousand years ago.  Two thousand years ago, the disciples were in hiding, knowing that if they were seen in public, they were likely to be arrested and suffer the same fate as their Teacher and Friend; as they woke up that first Easter morning, they must have thought that there was no future.  After three years with Jesus, how were they ever going to go back to the old life?  What will the future hold?

Today, as we watch the sun rise over the eastern horizon, we know that the Tomb is empty and the Son of God has risen.  It would take a few hours on that First Easter before the disciples got the word from Mary and the other women of that news.

And because we do know that the Tomb is empty, we can, even separated, celebrate the Risen Christ.

Whether this is one’s First Easter or one of many, it is beginning of a season.  As I thought and pondered about these words, I also realized that there will be days when in the solitude of our own room, we will feel the presence of the Lord, just as the disciples did in the Upper Room.  Some may say that this is a simply a hallucination but then again, I am pretty sure that people said the same thing back then.

And as we find ways to take private walks in the woods, we are most likely to encounter Jesus in much the same manner the disciples did on the road to Emmaus. 

In the coming days and weeks, as we begin to return to the world, we will, as the disciples and followers did, discover Jesus Christ is here, with us.  We approached this First Easter with caution and possibly fear.  We asked ourselves how we could celebrate the Risen Christ when we ourselves have been separated.  And yet when this day is over, we know that we have been given the opportunity to reconnect with Christ, much in the way the disciples did two thousand years ago.

And no matter when it might occur, we will have a gathering of family, friends, and neighbors, much as the followers celebrated the Day of Pentecost.

The world tomorrow will not be the same as it was two months ago.  Much has been discovered about our society and our world that has long laid beneath the surface.  The cry for the Presence of Christ, so long quiet, has become very loud.  Some will try to return to the “old days” and quiet the voice, just as their predecessors tried to do two thousand years ago.

Even as we are apart from family, friends, and neighbors, we are again one with Jesus and we will hear the call that came to the followers at Pentecost to take the Gospel message, to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and free the oppressed.  Take this “First Easter” to reconnect with Christ.

“Keep Your Eyes on The Prize”

Here are my thoughts for the “Back Page” for this Palm Sunday, 5 April 2020 (Year A).

The title for this piece is based more on April 3rd and April 4th than it is on April 5th.

Still, when I think of Jesus entering Jerusalem on the First Palm Sunday, with the crowds cheering and celebrating, I cannot help but think they had their eyes on a prize.  It was just that Jesus’ eyes were on a different prize.

The crowds were cheering that day because they saw Jesus as a sectarian messiah who had come to overthrow the religious and political authorities and replace them with a new set of authorities.  No doubt many in the crowd saw Jesus’ entrance as the means for them to take over the power structure.

And we know that many in the crowd this Palm Sunday will be in the crowd on Good Friday calling for the execution of Jesus.  Their eyes were on another prize and they were not going to recieve it.

There is no doubt that with one word, Jesus could have established a sectarian kingdom.  He was given that opportunity three years before by the Evil One but turned it down.

On that first Palm Sunday, JEsus had his eyes on another prize, The Kingdom of God that would be open to all, no matter who they were.  But Jesus knew that He had to go to Calvary for everyone to receive that prize.

On Friday of that first Holy Week, the disciples felt that the prize had been taken from them.  But on that First Easter Sunday, they saw the Prize.  It would take them time but the disciples would take the prize into the world..

I wrote a piece for my blog a few years ago entitled “Where Were YOu on April 4, 1968?”  I was a senior in high school at Nicholas Blackwell HIgh School that year.  I may have been aware that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis to support the sanitation workers’ strike but my eyes were on another prize, graduating from high school and returning to my college studies at Northeast Missouri State Teachers College (now Truman State University).

If my classmates or their parents were aware of Dr. King’s presence, most of them would have seen him as an outsider and an interloper who had no business getting involved in Memphis’ affairs.

I do not recall if Dr. King’s speech on the evening of April 3rd was covered by the local media.  But when he told the people who did hear him that night that he had been to the mountaintop and he had seen the Promised Land, you know that his eyes were on the prize of equality and justice.  Whether he knew that he would be assassinated the next day is a matter of conjecture but Dr. King knew that there were many who did not want to see him succeed.

Even today, there are those who would seek to establish a religious and political system that separates the people.  They seek a society where the door to God’s kingdom is closed, where entrance is denied because of their race, their gender or sexaual identity, or their economic status.  Their vision of God’s kingdom looks very much like that religious/political establishment that opposed Jesus two thousand years ago.

Sadly, the events of the past few months have shown that Dr. King’s vision of the Promised Land has become enveloped by a mist and perhaps clouds of hatred and violence.  What the pandemic has shown us is that the world is now even more separated by economic and political status, by geography and class.  The dream, the prize of equality may still exist but it is now far off in the future, covered by the mist and clouds.  

Tony Campolo noted that,

. . . if you think being religious, being Christian, being spiritual is getting ready for the next world, you’ve missed the message of Jesus.  Jesus didn’t come here to get you ready for the next world, He came into this world to transform you into people through whom He could do His work in this world.

In 1968 my eyes were on another prize but one year later, in the chapel of 1st United Methodist Church I came to realize that the door to God’s kingdom was opened to me when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.  And as I walked through that door, I set my eyes on the prize.

This year there will be no cheering crowds, no groups of children parading up and down the aisles of our churches waving palms as the congregation shouts “Hallelujah!”  But that does not mean that the prize is not there.

In a few weeks, we will be able to come together as we once did.  But all that has taken place over the past few months has given us a new understanding of the Prize that we have claimed and now must share with the world.

The world in which we live today may be separated by illness but it was separated by ignorance, hatred, and violence before that.  We have been given a new vision of the Prize and we know that when we are allowed to gather together, one of the things we will do is share the Prize that we received.

So on this Palm Sunday, keep your eyes on the prize and hold on