On the Road Again

Me and Willie Nelson.  It’s in your head now, isn’t it?  “On the road again / Goin' places that I've never been / Seein' things that I may never see again / And I can't wait to get on the road again.”  That’s the second verse.  The first one says “I just can’t wait to get on the road again.”  I’m not sure I can sing that right now.  Make no mistake, I’m still loving my job in Nashville.  And I’m still loving my wife and son here in Indianapolis.  So, I’ll get on the road again to be here and then be there.  But I’m beginning to think the road thing isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.  Especially in the summer, when they thing they have to work on those roads and slow everyone down.  That gets old real quick!  Sitting bumper to bumper on an interstate somewhere along the almost 300 mile journey.  Creeping along, inch by inch, knowing that the miles are still sitting there waiting to be traveled.  I’m a science fiction fan, where are the worm holes?  Where are the transporters?  Beam me home Scotty!

Nope, gotta drive it.  Mile after mile.  And then this weekend I got home on Friday and then Saturday (today) I had to go to Kokomo for the first meeting of the Indiana Conference Delegation to General and Jurisdictional Conference!  And I took the interstate around Indy.  On a weekend.  Bad choice.  And then tomorrow, after the open house, back on the road again, to Nashville.

Oh, open house.  My brother asked about the initial house viewing last week.  As La Donna replied, they came, they saw, they left, and haven’t said a word.  To us or to our realtor.  So, photos were taken on Wednesday, there’s an open house on Sunday, then we wait.  And hope.  And clean.  Well, she cleans.  I get on the road to Nashville.  I may never be forgiven for this one.  We are hoping and praying for a quick sell.

And just now we were online looking at houses to buy.  Ones we can afford, which narrows the available ones considerably.  Some look good.  Some sound good, price wise and dimension wise, and they make us wonder what’s wrong with them.  Sorry, we’re suspicious types.  But we look and we wonder and we imagine where we will be.  I found one that I thought was great, until I checked out the map, it was halfway to Paris... Tennessee!  Well, not quite, but a long way out anyway.  So, we looked again.

There is just so much we don’t know.  So many questions we don’t have answers for.  And that can be difficult at the best of times.  So much so that there are moments where we feel like maybe we just should have stayed put.  Things would be easier.  

Genesis 12:1-4 Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." 4 So Abram went, as the LORD had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.

I had to include the last verse here.  For those, like myself, who are wondering why I’m doing this thing at my age.  I haven’t hit 75 yet, so there.  But my real reason for including this passage came at the end of the first verse: “to the land that I will show you.”  Did you catch that?  God didn’t show up at Abraham’s door with plans all in place.  He didn’t have the checklist completed and the route Google mapped.  God said, “go to the land that I will show you.”  Or in other words, we’ll figure it out as we go.  

When we sign up for this gig, this following Jesus gig, this going all in on faith gig, then there are times when we move forward without all the answers.  We take the next step because it seems like that is what God is calling us to do.  So we go, even when it is scary, even when it is frustrating, even when it costs more than we realized it was going to cost.  We take the next step.  So what is your next step?  What is God calling you to do tomorrow?  Or next week?  Or sometime soon.  Maybe it is scary, maybe it involves traveling, or maybe it means reaching out to someone nearby and healing something broken, or reviving something that has died.  Because God’s call takes all kinds of forms.  Not all of them involve changing location, but there is usually some sort of change called for, some sort of growth.  

So, though the drive doesn’t excite me right now, I’ll get on the road again tomorrow.  I’ll keep following the call and keep building a new life with Discipleship Ministries.  I am loving my job, just wish it was closer, or we were closer.  Maybe one day we’ll find our current promised land and be able to settle for a while.  Until then, I’m on the road again.

Other than venting, and keeping you all informed of the progress, what’s the point here?  Well, maybe there isn’t one.  Except for a call for prayer for us.  Maybe that’s all there is to it.  Maybe I’m including you in this little venture because things feel a little better together than they do apart.  

“Here we go, on the road again / Like a band of Gypsies we go down the highway / We're the best of friends / Insisting that the world keep turnin' our way”  

We’re on the road together, even when the world isn’t turning our way.  Or the way we imagined.  Or hoped or prayed for.  Or even if it is, we still prefer to be together. So whatever road you’re on, if you’re following your call, then we’re that band of Gypsies traveling together.  So, let’s get on the road again.    

Shalom,

Derek 

Wash Me!

We’re cleaning today.  Well, I was, now I’m sitting here writing this.  I got permission from the list-maker, just so you know.  And I’ll be back at it soon.  But for now, here I am.  We’ve got lots to do.  The house has to be ready.  We have a potential showing tomorrow.  And if that doesn’t result in an instant sale (please let it be so!) then the photographer comes on Wednesday and we list the house and have an open house next weekend and then do whatever needs to be done until it is sold.  

It was easier when we had a parsonage.  Oh, we still had to clean.  We did our best to make it look new for the next pastor and family who would come after us.  But we didn’t have all the showing and keeping it clean in between time, pretending that no one really lived here.  That’s the standard, it seems to me.  To make it looked inhabited, but not lived in.  Nothing out of place, nothing actually used, just looking like it could be.  

It’s a high standard.  Almost unattainable.  I’d be more worried about it if I hadn’t gone look at a few houses when I was in Nashville.  Some of them were super clean, some were ... lived in clean.  Maybe we worry too much about it.  Maybe most folks understand what living in a house is like.  Maybe clean enough is clean enough.

But then, we want to make a good impression, we want someone to imagine living here enough to want the house themselves.  Imagine themselves in this space.  With their clutter and not ours.  So, we have to move stuff out of the way, so they have space to imagine.

And maybe that’s why God is so concerned about cleanliness.  At least the Psalmist thinks that God is concerned about cleanliness.  There’s that line in the twenty-fourth psalm, that says you can’t get close to God with dirty hands.  You can’t find your place on that hill, in that holy place if your heart is smudged and your hands aren’t washed.  “Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?  4 Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.” Psalm 24:3-4  

I know that there is more of concern than a little dirt on one’s hands in that reference.  But still, the cleanliness of the hand seems important enough to add to the list, next to heart and mouth.  Be clean.  But then, cleanliness doesn’t guarantee that all will be well.  In Psalm 73, the psalmist says I was clean, I had good cleaning habits, but still I stumbled.  Still I struggled.  Cleanliness in and of itself didn’t save him.  His hands were clean, but his heart was full of himself, of pride, of arrogance.  And he felt it when he came face to face with God.  He realized he was relying on his own cleanliness, his own ability to make himself worthy, rather than on the love and grace of God.  It was when he recognized his neediness, his own helplessness, that he came closer to the kind of cleanliness that God requires. “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire other than you. 26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:25-26 

But the best known call to cleanliness comes from Psalm 51.  Behind that psalm is dirtiness almost beyond description.  The story of David and Bathsheba and Uriah and Nathan the prophet is too messy to recount in this space, but it includes breaking of covenants and abuse of power and a sentence of death for an innocent, two innocents to be accurate.  Not to mention all the others within whom innocence died so utterly.  Could anyone ever be clean again after such a series of events?  It seems unlikely.  And yet that is the prayer of Psalm 51.  “Create in me a clean heart, O God.”  

Psalm 51:1-17 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. 5 Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me. 6 You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. 10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. 17 The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

Is it possible to be clean again?  We don’t think so, do we?  We might scrub and scrub, we might humble ourselves as much as we possibly can, we might try to fix what we have so irreparably broken; but deep inside we know it is a lost cause, a waste of time and energy.  We can’t get the toothpaste back in the tube.  We can’t mend the hearts that we have broken, the covenants we have smashed.  We just can’t.  It is simply beyond us.  We are no more capable of making ourselves clean than we are of flapping our arms and flying to the moon.  

Which is why Psalm 51 is a petition, a plea for help.  “Wash me,” says David.  Only then, he knows, will he be clean.  He can scrub all day long, but there will still be stains, there will still be fault.  So, he asks for help.  He asks for the cleansing that can only come from the One who made us in the first place, the One who holds our true image in the grace of memory and hope.  The only One who can restore us to that image.  Wash me, and then I will be clean.  Purge me, blot out my stains, restore me.  

And then, he says, then I’ll share it.  Then I’ll show it.  I’ll be a showplace of cleanness, I’ll be an example of what cleanliness is all about.  Then I’ll have an open house of the chambers of my heart and all will walk through and see what it is to be clean.  To live within and still be clean.  Because the Cleaner is at work within me.  Wash me and I’ll sing your praises, says the psalmist.  

Maybe those who walk through our house in the days to come will sing praises.  Maybe.  Maybe they’ll say this is where we want to live.  And will sign a contract.  And we’ll be done.  Maybe.  Sigh.  But until then, I need to get a bucket of hyssop and get back to work.  The baseboards are saying “wash me and then I’ll be clean.”

Shalom,

Derek 

Get Up On Your Feet!

Home again.  I was down in Nashville for a full week this time.  My second week on the job.  The problem is there is a huge youth conference taking place out in Kansas City right now, and a large portion of the office was out there,  Then, of course, it being summer, there were also many out for vacation.  So, the office was like a ghost town for part of the week.  Some came drifting back, but still it was plenty lonely at times.  Plus, our big planning retreat is still a week away, so I’m not always sure what I’m supposed to be doing.  

No big deal, I could spend the time unpacking and arranging my books and assorted office stuff around.  Except, uh oh, too many books to fit on the shelves I was given.  While I was puzzling over this, and thanking God that I got rid of as many as I did, or I’d really be in trouble, I got an email from one of the administrative folk telling me how to put in a work order for things in the office.  Perfect!  So, I put in the order – “Can I please have another set of book shelves, please.”  Yeah, two pleases, I was trying to suck up.  Anyway, a couple of days later one of the maintenance guys showed up and says, we’ve got some, but they’re no good.  But there are some in the other building.  If you can wait a bit, I’ll see if we can get you one from over there.”  Sure, ok, no problem.  I like the cardboard vibe I’ve got going on here (and at home, come to think of it).  So, I’m waiting for more shelves.  Meanwhile, my office looks like a kid home from college who doesn’t quite know how to put things away in his room.  

The other good thing about having some time on my hands this week is that I got to concentrate on my presentation at Mission u.  What’s that?  You don’t know what Mission u is?  Well, let me tell you.  The United Methodist Women sponsor summer experiences of learning about social and missional issues so that you can go back to your local church and stir up trouble.  I mean, so you can go back and get folks motivated with hands on experiences and plenty of data and background information.  It is a four day immersion into issues and solutions in local and global missions.  In other words, it’s something you ought to be doing!

There are three studies during Mission u (BTW - it used to be called School of Christian Mission, but someone decided “school” in the summer sounded like a non-starter, so they changed it).  One is the Spiritual Growth study.  I have been privileged to lead the Spiritual Growth Study many times for Mission u and it’s previous incarnation.  I always have a good time, teaching and learning with these women and a few brave men who come with questions and answers and most of all the motivation to make a change in their lives, in their churches, in their communities and in the world.  If there is one group in our whole denomination who takes that mission statement seriously - to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world - it is the United Methodist Women.  Especially the last part of the statement, the transformation of the world.  The United Methodist Women aren’t satisfied with making themselves disciples, or even their families or churches disciples with all the benefits of belonging.  No, they want the world to know that they are also a part of the kingdom of God.

Or “Kin-dom of God.”  That’s how the author of the book I am privileged to teach this coming week at Mission u has renamed “kingdom.”  Rev. Janet Wolf, is the author, and frankly it is one of my favorite books ever for the Spiritual Growth Study.  Wolf tackles her subject so well, it is compelling and inspiring. And her subject? The Gospel of Mark.  The title is Practicing Resurrection: The Gospel of Mark and Radical Discipleship.  I love that title, “practicing resurrection.”  The implication is that resurrection is not something that happened only to Him, but something that becomes a part of us.  Or we become a part of it.  Or something.  

And the whole idea of the kin-dom of God is that we are being made into a family.  All of us. Or, as I used to say regularly, all y’all, We are connected by the resurrection, we are made alive and whole and a community that is bigger than just us.  And here’s the thing, this family that is so inclusive, so all encompassing, has room for folks who don’t even know about it yet.  Who haven’t heard.  And who may have felt turned away or left out by the church and the people who claim to be followers of the resurrected one.  Which is why we need to practice resurrection.  Because the resurrected life isn’t one of sitting still, but moving forward.  Moving outward.

Mark 16:1-8 When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2 And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3 They had been saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?" 4 When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6 But he said to them, "Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." 8 So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Rev. Wolf uses a number of stories to help us get the feel of what Jesus was about.  Stories about radical change in individual lives and in social customs and structures.  It is clear, Wolf tells us, that Jesus didn’t come simply to give people a warm feeling in their hearts.  Warm feelings are great!  We find, however, that the experience of faith comes more often when we practice it.  More often then, when we practice it, than when we just think about it, or learn about it, or even pray about it.  Too often we use our “thoughts and prayers” as a means to avoid living our faith, practicing our resurrection.  It is in the practice that we discover the kind of life that Jesus wants so much for us to know and to live.

And by practice we don’t mean rehearse, or try until we get it right.  It doesn’t mean we are rookies or somehow inept in living the life of resurrection - though we might be!  No, practice as in what doctors do, or what lawyers do - they practice medicine and they practice law.  It doesn’t mean they aren’t professional, though all of us have made that joke.  No, it means they are doing it.  And yes, the more we do it the better we are at living that life.

In the story from Mark, the women decide not to practice this new life, this new understanding.  They run in fear – terror and amazement, Mark says.  They were too overwhelmed by the implications of Jesus resurrection that they couldn’t imagine it having anything to do with them.  Even though the invitation was issued.  “Go,” says the young man in white, “and tell His disciples, including Peter who did all he could do to exclude himself from the team, who acted as though he wasn’t a part of them, but resurrection includes all, even those who act like they aren’t included.  Go and tell them that Jesus is already moving.  Already on the way.  Going to where they live, going to their home town, their neighborhoods.  Go and tell them that if they want to see Him, they’d better get up on their feet and move!”

That’s what practicing resurrection is about.  Getting up on our feet and moving.  Moving out to the edges where things are risky, but folks are hurting.  Moving out to stand in solidarity with those society says aren’t worth our time or our effort or our energy.  And moving out to advocate for change that makes sure that everyone gets a fair chance to live, to make a living, to participate in a society based on more than supporting the people at the top.  To help build something more like a “kin-dom” where we all belong to one another in mutual love and support.

Is this going to be easy?  Is resurrection easy?  I don’t know, I haven’t tried it.  But I want to.  I want that life.  That resurrection life.  That living in the kin-dom life.  How about you?  

If you do, get up on your feet! 

Shalom,

Derek

Living in Between

So here’s what happened. On this long holiday weekend (BTW, happy 4th of July everyone!) the list was long.  The list of tasks I was invited to help accomplish in my time at home, before heading back to Nashville for my new position with Discipleship Ministries.  Some of which I do with La Donna and some of which I am left to do on my own.  Some of which is here at the house as we continue to pack and get the house ready to sell and some of it is running errands out and about in the area.  So, this was a trip to accomplish a variety of things, a four point circuit that would then bring me back home having accomplished all that was before me.  The journey started at the license branch, to turn in the plate from the wrecked car that Rhys totaled when someone ran a red light right into him last March – yeah, OK should have been done long ago, I know.  Anyway, as always the License Branch was a bottleneck on my high speed circuit.  So, I was looking to fill the waiting time and happened to call up Facebook on my phone.  For some reason, I punched the profile part of that oh so necessary app and discovered that it was all wrong.  I was still listed as Lead Pastor of Southport and so I was attempting to change that.  Got the job changed and then was trying to change the location.  I was still resident in Indianapolis, owned a house here, but it wasn’t quite accurate, so I decided to say I was now in Nashville.  Figured it would just sit there on my profile and when the move was accomplished I could announce that with a post.  

Little did I know that Facebook was so excited about my transfer that they posted it for me!  So now all of a sudden, I’m announcing to the world that I’ve moved to Nashville, which got all sorts of reactions from various and sundry friends and acquaintances.  Some of whom were thinking that I misled them when I said we were going to wait for a while before selling the house and others thought I had already gone.  So I had to insert a post saying, well, yeah, but no.  I’m in Nashville, but not in Nashville.  I’ve moved, but we haven’t moved.  If you get what I’m saying.  Looking at the posts still coming in from that, I can’t tell who has figured it out and who still thinks we’ve pulled up stakes and moved out.  And I’ve given up trying to correct all the thinking.  Because the truth lies somewhere in between.

The truth is that all of us are in between.  In all sorts of way.  We are in the process of becoming.  Wesley called it sanctification, the move toward Christian perfection in love.  But we are also sojourners.  Traveling through this world heading to another destination.  Call it heaven, call it the Kingdom of God, call it Eden and God’s original intent for the world in which we live, we can’t be too settled where we are.  We’re neither here nor there, and yet we are called to be where we are.

Confused yet?  I am.  Always on the road, always here wishing I was there and there needing to be here.  You know the feeling.  You don’t have to travel between multiple states in order to have that sense of dislocation or displacement.  I’ve heard it from folks who debate moving to where their kids and grandkids are, or waiting for the kids to move back toward them, because everyone seems to be on the road these days.  Looking for home.  Searching for safety and a place to settle.  A place to be, to grow and to thrive.  

We are in an era of unprecedented movement.  Some move to improve their opportunities.  Some flee violence and war, hatred and prejudice.  Refugees show up on our shores, cross our borders and we struggle to know how to respond.  “We’re full up” some will announce, no room for more.  This land is our land, we declare.  And of course it is.  But then maybe not.  If this isn’t really home, if we’re on our way somewhere else, then what do we lay claim to?  If we’re not really settled, then where do we belong?

I know this is a delicate issue, one of law and nation. I’m not trying to say the matter is simple.  But I am trying to remember that we all have multiple ways of looking at even the most complex of issues.  The Bible, which is authoritative for me if not for everyone, is full of calls for hospitality.  To remember that we are all foreigners in the land, we are all sojourners, and therefore we treat those who come to our shores with respect and with grace and with honor.  Which may or may not mean making room for them to live among us, but surely does not mean we threaten their very existence by how we treat them when they arrive, however “illegally.”  Scripture tells us again and again that we are not to be like other nations, that we are to have a higher standard.

Hebrews 13:1-3  Let mutual love continue. 2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it. 3 Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured.

Sure, you can search the scriptures for evidence of a call to wipe out enemies and foreigners in the land and you’ll find it.  But is that the standard by which we will choose to live?  Is that the measure of our faithfulness to the God of Jesus our Christ?  Besides, if you look closely, that call to wipe out whole peoples are not about invaders, but about wiping out the ones occupying the land that you want. And historically, we have been faithful to that command, perhaps to our shame.  

Which also means we have to look at our own history to assess our motives in how we respond to the sojourners among us. That those in the highest offices of our land have used people who have been here illegally is not fake news, but a simple fact.  But now that it is a political issue, our attitude is expressed differently.  Now we are using them, but for different purposes and with different effect.  

Well, as they say, that escalated quickly.  It was not my intent to launch a polemic against current immigration practices and certainly not to claim that I have a solution to the problem.  That is above my pay grade.  I am, however, concerned about the conscience of our nation.  Which is under my remit as pastor and preacher and teacher.  And under yours as a follower of the Lord of all that is.  And I think it begins when we look at who we are as God’s people, and acknowledge that we are all refugees from a world that isn’t what God intended it to be.  That none of us are settled where we are, none of us are completely safe and secure where we are, because we long for something more.  We long for peace, we long for justice, we long for home.

In the end that’s our driving motivation.  To go home.  Some of you know that La Donna and I will have moved 21 times when we finally do make the move to Nashville.  There are lots of reasons behind some of those moves.  And none of them were because we were fleeing for our safety.  But all of them have been, and will continue to be because we have chose to follow a God who is on the move.  A Lord who said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no where to lay His head.” (Matthew 8:20, and Luke 9:58)

I don’t think He was calling us all to be homeless.  As soon as we have an address in Nashville, we’ll let you know, and will open our doors to those who may be passing through.  So, having a home is not a bad thing.  But I do think He was reminding us that protecting our home and homeland, can often get in the way of being a follower of Christ.   

And that the best place to live is in between. 

Shalom,

Derek