A Lament

I wrote this lament after the Pulse shooting in Orlando. This morning after hearing the news from Texas, I feel all I have is lament. I've added to it... I hate that I will again.

Where shall we find sanctuary from the weapons of war,
shelter from extremism and hate,
and refuge from humanity's inhumanity?

Where shall we find sanctuary at school,
in church, at theater,
or where we dance?
Where shall we find shelter on a baseball diamond or a concert field?
Where may walkers walk in peace?
Where shall we find sanctuary at work and at play?

Where may my black brother walk down the street without fear?
Where may my gay sister know that none revile her?
Where shall my children drill only for fire
and not the depravity of man?

Where shall our children gather?
Must we see every open space as danger?
Must we suspect every stranger?
Must we resign ourselves to hopelessness?
Can nothing really be done? Really?
Where shall we find sanctuary?

Where shall a call to prayer be answered only in love?
Where shall a Good Book be searched for words of peace?
Where shall a prophet speak only for hope?

Where shall we find sanctuary, O Lord?
Where if not here?

Calvin and Luther Skit

I was tasked with writing this skit for a meeting of Presbytery.  The instructions were to write something brief, funny, and yet meaningful as we sought to remind pastors and elders of the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation.

I include a link below in case it is useful to you!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6lEQ8ZCssJ7UXBRNGp4d2NPcjg

Civil War and Memory

When I was an early teen, I went with my grandmother to the Charleston Museum. In the Civil War section, I asked her if anyone from her Virginia family had fought in the war. She paused and recounted a story that her own grandmother had told her: near the end of the war Confederate soldiers had come by her grandmother's family farm and conscripted on the spot a young male relative. The boy was never heard from again except for word that he had died. At that point in my life, I suppose I was looking to hear a couragous story. Instead, my grandmother (who had her own experiences of seeing friends go off to war and not return) told me a story of a little boy's life thrown away in the last, futile gasps of a dying army. In her story, the bad guys were not the reviled "Yankees" but troops in gray sweeping children into the maw of death in service of a doomed war machine.

I can't confirm that story. I do not know the relative in question, and I am certainly not a descendant. It is hard to decend from a child soldier killed in battle or - perhaps more likely in the poorly-supplied and half-starved southern armies - died of disease.

I can't confirm the story, but it did challege my boyish concept of the war. Little I have learned since then has given me cause to hold the southern cause in the esteem I once did. The rebellion of the southern states unleashed economic devistation and death upon the country.

Another moment from my early teenage years stands out: One Saturday morning while driving out of the South Windermere shopping center, I asked my father if he wished the south had won the war. Now my father looked with pride on his great-grandfather, Sgt. Lunsford F. Harley of the 1st SC Inf., but his answer to me was quick and decisive. We should be profoundly grateful the south lost. He invited me to imagine just how the agriarian and economically backward southern states would have done as an independant nation in the 20th century.

This is before you get to the morally indefensible, utterly reprehensible issue of slavery.

While the soldiers of the Confederacy may have been as individuals valiant and honorable, the cause that they served was not worthy of that valor or honor. The Confederate cause cannot be separated from the maintenance, indeed furtherance, of the institution of slavery. Claimed causes such as "States Rights" only provide cover for the economic and political concerns related to maintaining slavery in an increasingly skeptical world. Confederate victory would not have created a utopia of traditional family values, small government, good manners, and liberty, but it would have created a society far less free and far less prosperous than the society and nation (with all its problems) that we currently enjoy. While we might remember our ancestors in gray with some affection, we should be profoundly grateful for the courage and the sacrifice that led the boys in blue to victory. Theirs' was the cause of liberty.

The Confederacy did its level best to destroy the United States as it existed at the time and as it exists now. To cite a single example, I cannot imagine a history without a UNITED States of America, the strength of its people and industry, to defeat the evil which threw itself upon the world in the Second World War.

Taken in abstraction, it would be ridiculous were it not so tragic how much marble and bronze we southerners have put up remembering what is the worst part of our history. We can add to that tradgedy the additional tradgedy of the use of those very monuments by those who put them up a generation after the war to underline the re-emergence of white economic and political power over African Americans.

Lee and Jackson were undoubtedly skillful. Ordininary Confederates were valiant, but that skill and valor only served to make the war longer and more terrible.

I do not think that we should forget or erase our history. And I would suggest that monuments to the Conferderacy do belong and should be preserved in cemetaries, on battlefields, and in museums where they can tell something of the tradgedy and horror of war. But glory and honor are not theirs to tell, and I think that we should back away from pretending that they are.

There are so many other moments of our shared history which could decorate our thoroughfares and courhouse lawns. We can and should remembers the founders of our nation and the soldiers of the Revolution. We should remember the veterans of the World Wars. We should remember the heros of the Civil Rights movement. We have all too much opportunity to remember the dead of our present wars. Provocatively, we should remember those Southerners who remained loyal to the Union, and those freedmen who joined the Union Army at risk of death or re-enslavement if captured. We should remember many others. The crowd of monuments to the Confederacy that dot the South seem to be a misuse of good bronze.

My fear for us is that, frustrated with the divisions of the present day, we begin to hear the siren call of glory found in those old bronzes remembering fondly civil war and forget just how terrible such war is. The repugnint, evil voices shouting in Charlottesville seem to have forgotten (or never learned) those lessons. We should not join them.

If you want to remember a Confederate soldier today, remember a Virginia farm boy, taken from his family, and never seen again. That is civil war.

A Tale of a Prophet and a Whale and the Grace of God

This post was originally given as a sermon at Winter Park Presbyterian Church and may be heard on the sermons page here:  http://winterparkpres.org/sermons/

In the evening, just before bath time, Amy or I will say, “Lydia, it’s time to clean up your toys.”  The response that we sometimes get is a very polite “no, thank you.”  Lydia seems to miss that what was said was not an invitation!

Similarly, Jonah hears God say, “Jonah go at once to Nineveh,” and in his own way he tries to respond, “No thank you!” It doesn’t work for him either.

Jonah is a story about a very reluctant prophet.  He tries to flee.  He literally buys a ticket for the other side of the world.  He gets tossed into the sea.  He get’s swallowed by a great fish.  He gets spit back up. He still doesn't want to listen.

However, I believe that it is also a story about our own shortcomings.

Have you ever been stubborn?  Have you ever been upset with someone?  Have you ever just not liked someone else?  Have you ever been praying for a sign out of one side of your mouth, and been ignoring signs large and startling with your eyes?

Jonah is funny, but  Jonah is also a mirror that holds our own foibles up in front of us.  If we look closely, in Jonah’s actions, we can see reflections of our own.  As Jonah flees, we can remember times we have fled from God.  As Jonah lands in trouble, we can remember those times as well.  As Jonah encounters people he is not ready to forgive and to whom he does not want God’s grace extended, we can remember times that we have been so selfish.  As Jonah throws a fit when we does not get his way, we can remember our own fits,  yet at the same time, Jonah strongly declares that despite all of those foibles of Jonah and of us, the work of God, the justice of God, the Grace of God continue.

"Jonah Under the Bush" - by Amy Harley

Fleeing God

Have you ever tried to flee to a place where God is not?   Have you ever thought, “you can look away now, God”?     Have you ever said, “I’m too busy now God”?   Have you ever been so distracted by your own business and busyness that you wouldn’t give God a chance to slip a word in edgewise?

We may not flee God like Jonah, but chances are, that we flee in our own ways.

Jonah tries to flee to a place where God is not.  The good news is that he cant do it.  139.

Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
   if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
   and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me fast.

When have you tried to flee God?




A Whale of a Lot of Trouble

In the story, Jonah is swallowed by a whale.  It makes for a good story, but it may not be that surprising that setting off in a direction far away from God will end up getting your in trouble.

We may know no one who has been swallowed by a whale, but we surely know people who have gotten themselves into a whale of a lot of trouble by trying to flee to a place where God is not.

As family or friends, we may hurt and long for our loved one in the belly of a whale of a lot of trouble.

Or the day may come, or perhaps came many years ago, when we are in such trouble.

Or perhaps it is the day when we have felt overworked and overwhelmed, like the waters were above our head.

The Good news of Jonah is that God is still with Jonah is the belly of the whale.  God hears Jonah’s prayers, and Jonah is in the end delivered from his predicament,

He is not left off the hook - his call is still the same, he is to go to Nineveh.

When were you or someone you love in a whale of a lot of trouble?




Being a Prophet in Bad Guy Central

What is all the fuss about Nineveh?   Nineveh is bad-guy central.  Nineveh as capital of the Assyrian Empire - an empire which devastated the kingdom of Judah.  If Nineveh can change because of an encounter with the word of God.  Anyone can!!!

Jonah may well be fleeing not so much because he does not want to be a prophet as he does not want to be a prophet to Nineveh.  Not them, God!   Anyone but them!


Something for us to think about both as individuals and as a church is that:   It is just possible that the place that God calls us to go may not exactly be the place we want to go.  We might be called to a place where we don't yet want to go, where we don’t yet feel prepared to go.  We might be called to a place that takes us out of our comfort zone.   God's ways are not our ways. God's plans are greater than our plans.

Or we may look upon other folks and think of them like Ninevites.  We divide the world into us and them, and we're shocked to discover that while God loves us, God also loves them.

Jonah tries to flee to where God is not, but he can't do it.  Jonah thinks that God does not love the people of Nineveh, but God does.  Jonah seems to think that he can derail God's plan by preaching a single sentence to Nineveh.  He can not.  God has set about to save the city, and that is exactly what happens.  God is greater than Jonah can imagine, and that is very good news.  God is greater than we can imagine, and that is also very good news

When have you not offered grace or hospitality or welcome to someone because you simply didn’t want to like them?




Throwing a Fit 

When the people of Nineveh do repent, Jonah is upset to the point of telling God that he would like to die.

God lets Jonah go out of the city in a huff, and when Jonah sits down on the outside of town, God sends a plant to grow over him.  Jonah likes the plant, and is put out when the plant withers.

Jonah once again gets into a rage and a fury.  He complains to God, and God makes a very good pint.

 ‘You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?’

I love that the last words in Jonah are “and also many animals”

God’s point is that God cares tremendously about these people.  Jonah can’t imagine that.

Jonah essentially rolls on the ground and pouts.  Being the parent of a 4-year-old, I know what this looks like.

It may have been many years since we have literally done this, since we have literally  rolled around on the ground, but maybe, if only in our hearts, we have thrown a fit like Jonah in years more recent.

When was a time that you just couldn’t take it any more and you threw a fit?




There is good news in Jonah!

If Nineveh can repent.  Anyone can.  Certainly we can.  God is persistent.   God keeps with Jonah even though he could have been written off.  God is persistent even with us!   When we flee, we mess up, but God still is after us.

God loves even those who we do not.


Jonah - An Unfinished Story


Friends, a moment ago I mentioned that the last words in the story are “and also many animals”.

We aren’t told how Jonah responds.  We don’t get to hear Jonah respond, “well God, I guess you have a point, I guess I need to forgive and love the people of Nineveh too.”

Does Jonah continue to roll around on the ground in a fit, or does Jonah rise up and follow God?

Jonah is an unfinished story.   In a sense, what Jonah does is not what is important.  How does our story end?  When we’ve been stubborn, when we’ve been short on compassion, when we’ve been confronted by God’s grace in ways that we’re just not comfortable with, how does our story end?

Do we stay on the ground with Jonah throwing a fit?  Or do we hear God’s word, receive God’s grace, and rise up and follow as a servant, a servant who sometimes wanders, but a servant who has been touched by the persistent, wonderful, amazing grace of God.

The Good News is that the God who would not abandon Jonah and does not abandon Nineveh will never abandon us.

God Is Love: A Study of the Letters of John

Starting on January 7th, the Tuesday Morning Bible Study will begin to read and discuss 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John.  All are welcome to join at 9:15am at Winter Park Presbyterian Church!

“God is love” declares the author of 1st John.  That is quite a claim, and yet it is a claim wholly reflected in the life of Jesus.  It is a claim wholly reflected in the event of the incarnation – that God so loved the world that Christ, Emmanuel, became flesh and dwelt among us.  It is a claim reflected in every broken person healed, every hungry person fed, every outcast person invited back in, every person loved in ways real and profound by Jesus.

“God is love” is a challenged echoed as Jesus says in the gospel of John, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35, NRSV).   That new commandment is repeated throughout the letter.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.  (1 John 4:16b, NRSV)

“God is love” calls us into new relationship with each other.  We, who are created and sought by a God who is love, cannot (or at least should not!) respond by hating our sisters and brothers, whoever and wherever they are.

Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (1 John 4:20-21, NRSV).

God is love.   Our relationship with our sisters and brothers and our relationship with God are fully and completely intertwined.  We cannot nurture one without nurturing the other.  That is both good news and a real challenge!  How shall we live, then?

In the next weeks, we will read, listen, and pray as we hear the words of the letters of John to the church.  All are welcome!

Grace and Peace!

Emile

Charcoal, Fish, and Sheep

It's about grace.

Rather, it's a story about running from grace, being nourished by grace, and being sent out to share that grace.

John 21 is a story about grace:  given, unearned, unexpected, transforming, amazing grace.

Read John 21 here:  http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=255257057

The disciples have skipped town.  They have run away from a world that had just gotten too confusing.  In their desperation, they have attempted to go back in time.  They have attempted to wind the clock back to before Jesus came and called them.

It doesn't work.  Jesus won't let them off the hook.  Jesus won't give up on them.

The disciples used to fish.  With the tumult of their last few weeks: the glory of entering Jerusalem, the bitter disappointment of the crowds, the heart-breaking last supper, the anger of the mob, the horror of the crucifixion, and the strange and astounding news of the resurrection, with everything that has happened, who can blame the disciples for wanting to get away from it all?

So, they go fishin'.  They do the nearest thing they can to hiding under a warm blanket.  Life has gotten too complicated for them, and they run off.

The thing is, they are supposed to be doing something else.  They are supposed to be sharing the Good News, the grace of the risen Christ.  Jesus has already called them to "fish for people" (Mark 1:16-20).  They have run away from their calling.

That's when Jesus shows up.

Jesus comes.  He is not angry.  He does not reprimand the disciples for ignoring their calling.  He simply cooks them breakfast.  

Peter, James, and the others have been out all night.  They have not caught a thing.  They are tired and hungry.  They have tried to go back to fishing, but they have failed.  In a very real way, they are lost.

Jesus meets them where they are.  They are tired.  He has a place for them to rest.  They are hungry.  He has food to feed them.

As the disciples drag their boats and their tired bodies back to shore, Jesus meets them with what Paul Galbreath refers to as the "Barbecue on the Beach."*

They all eat.  Jesus meets them in love.

But that's not all.

As Jesus tells Peter - and by extension - all Jesus' disciples, we are nourished that we might go forth and nourish others.  We are fed so that we might feed.

Simon, son of John, do you love me?  Feed my sheep...

Love. Eat. Feed.

  

Welcome to Charcoal, Fish, and Grace!

Welcome to Charcoal, Fish and Grace!

On this blog, I hope to share occasional thoughts about God's grace - and more occasional thoughts about grilling and food!