Pastor's Notes

The God of our Minds

June 1, 2021

I have always envied Bill Moyers for the kinds of questions he could create to ask his broadcast interviewees. Moyers, as you may know, was a press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson. He also had a great interest in religion, earning a Master’s of Divinity degree at a Baptist seminary. Moyers won many awards and honors as a journalist and author following his stint as press secretary.

One question I will always remember Moyers asking was to a Jewish woman who was a professor of law and ethics. “What goes through your mind when you use the word God?” Quite a good question, don’t you think? Now I pose it to you, dear reader, “What goes through your mind when you use or when you hear the word God?

Now first impressions are important. What was the first thing that flashed through your mind when you thought about this question? I wonder how many of us first had a picture flash through our mind that looked like the God represented the in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco at the Vatican. In that work, God looks like an older Italian man of long ago complete with white hair, white beard, and white robe as God reaches out to a naked Adam. This picture is great for its art and depicts God as one passionately reaching out to one God created. On the other hand, to me, Adam looks a bit bored by it all.

Of course there are other pictures of God that can appear to our mind. God on a throne, judging. God sending lightning bolts to a world with evil. Or God as an invisible, genderless, spirit moving about. Sometimes this spirit is painted as a dove, other times as flames. I remember one painting where people were painted recoiling and rejoicing. In this painting God was a spirit painted by blurring a bit of the scenery where this spirit God was supposed to be present.

Then there is the Children’s sermon answer: Jesus. A good and correct answer, of course. Yet that also forces this question: which Jesus? The one overturning tables in the temple? The Jesus carrying a lamb? The Jesus sitting placidly on the mountain teaching the crowds? The Jesus raising Lazarus or healing a woman’s daughter? In many ways we could sum up these pictures of Jesus along with many others in this picture: Jesus hanging on a cross. Here is an image of God for us. A God who is willing to suffer and die and take no revenge on those who would kill God.

I had a theology professor who defined God this way: God is whoever or whatever brought the Israelites out of Egypt and whoever or whatever raised Jesus from the dead. This may be a good definition of God, but it is lacking as a visual image. This is why Christians have always gone back to the cross. It is not because Christians are morose. It is because even now, millennia later, there is a part of us that is still dumbfounded that a God would allow this to happen.

What goes through your mind when you hear or use the word God? Perhaps it may depend upon which day this question is asked. Certainly it depends upon the stage of life we are inhabiting. Over the years what goes through our mind when we hear or use the word God changes as we evolve and change. The God of Jesus can be pictured in many ways. That is a good thing for those who, over time, need God in many ways. Hang with Jesus….there are lots of pictures there to take up residence in our mind.

The Good Sometimes Needs the Bad and the Ugly

May 26, 2021

It was tenth grade. Michael Lukac was a new teacher in our high school. Sophomore year was the year American history was studied for those traveling the path toward college. Mr. Lukac was also my baseball coach. What a combination for me: historian and baseball guy! God is good!

Like all other students I also had American history in fourth grade. Between fourth and sophomore year such history came in bits…Black history month, Washington and Lincoln’s birthday, etc. Other history courses were world history, Pennsylvania history, and early world history including classes on anthropological discoveries and theories….just ask me about Louis B. Leakey and Olduvai Gorge!

Mr. Lukac began his first class by saying we were going to learn history in a new way. We were going to study people and events as they were, not as we hoped them to be. He quoted a few things from Ben Franklin’s Autobiography (required reading for those planning on college) where, let’s just say, Dr. Franklin was not quite consistent with his New England Puritan roots while in Europe. Scandalous!

But Mr. Lukac would not let us linger there. He shared with us some of Franklin’s harsh comments regarding the Germans in Pennsylvania and the good points of Franklin’s participation in the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutional Convention. We learned about Poor Richard’s Almanac, the Franklin Stove, and, of course, the experiment with electricity and lightening.

What we learned was the man on the hundred dollar bill was a complex person. He did both great and not so great things, but his contributions to the founding of our country are that for which he is rightly most remembered. Many find such complete pictures scandalous. We should only be taught the good things and ignore or feign ignorance about the others. I would argue to do so is to deny our history, and to deny our heritage is a human history and heritage. Rather than inspire us to do better, it can have the opposite effect of allowing us to give up as we cannot aspire to such greatness.

What about family? Do we cover up the faults of family members past and present? Or do we call them for who they are or were in all their completeness? For heroes of family or history, I do not think such complete pictures bring these people down. Moreso, I think they can work to bring up ordinary people as we become more acutely aware that we share a common humanity.

Likewise, can we not talk about the evils of slavery while simultaneously holding up our ideas of freedom, equality, and justice for all? Too often we look at our American ideals as something we have accomplished. Instead they are ideals to which we aspire and remain works in progress. It seems to me our founders did not think they had constructed a system or nation that had it all right (constitutional amendments were anticipated) but rather a democracy that could fix wrongs and continue to move forward. To know where we need to go, requires knowing fully who we have been and who we are. Fully.

Followers of Jesus need not be threatened by the fact we and all our heroes and heroines are human. If such figures are to inspire and help us be better human creatures, we must be linked to them in our humanity. Jesus did not come to create or rescue heroes and heroines. Jesus came to save us from denying our humanity so we could better live it out. Grace is not for mistakes or errors. Grace is for things done and left undone. …things that wound our humanity, wound the humanity of others, and matter deeply.

Years ago a member of my congregation came to me asking if I would do her son’s funeral. He was shot by his wife in front of his children as he was attacking her. Over the years he had been arrested for abuse and for being a drug dealer. “Will you do his funeral?” she asked. “Only if I don’t have to whitewash him” was my response. She didn’t want me to paint a picture of him as anyone other than who he was. The mother had hoped that perhaps those in attendance might learn something from his troubled life.

In my funeral sermon I was clear about who this young man had been. Then I said to both parents, “Thirty-five years ago you both brought your son to this very baptismal font. You knew then to whom your son really belonged. Once more, today, you are called to do the same thing again; put him in God’s hands and entrust him to God.”

Both parents experienced these as words of grace that helped lighten their heavy burden. I don’t think this could have happened if we had pretended him to be otherwise. I am convinced God’s grace comes through most strongly when we confront our human realities. Thank you, Mr. Lukac for teaching us about our heroes in their complete humanity. Thank you, Jesus for embracing our humanity. Thank you, Jesus for enabling us to live as the humans God created us to be.

Fragments of Thought

May 18, 2021

I have this feature on my phone called “notes”. Actually it is an app. It is one of the few apps that came with my phone that I actually ever use. I put things like the church alarm code there, reminders of things to do, and occasional witty or funny sayings I have come across.

The main jots in my phone notes are sermon ideas or ideas for weekly writings and such that pop into my head while reading, watching TV, driving, walking, or trying to fall asleep. Many make it into sermons or writings. Most just sit there, perhaps for some future inspiration. Still many others sit there for me to review many months later and wonder what they mean or why I had typed them into the “notes.”

Last night I was looking for a passcode to something not very secret. As I searched for this I even surprised myself about the various notes I wrote to myself. I was surprised by the range of topics. Here are some of the headlines or, in some cases, opening lines: Not all sacrifices are equal, Deconstructing heroes, We are not invited to judge but to change, Like me, does it take you forever to decide which OJ to pick (some pulp, no pulp, lots of pulp)?, Thinking about good and evil, Improved means to an unimproved end, Sphygmomanometer, Are we working at home or living at work?, We never know if we are happy when we are in the middle of something, and, to just list one more, Is Guilt necessary to being a Christian?”

There are more; plenty more. Plenty! Perhaps some of the above will make it into something I say, teach, or write. Most likely not. Many not mentioned are social justice issues and issues of equality. Some of the above may have or possibly will morph into such issues. What strikes me is the range of topics. Personal, theological, philosophical, whimsical, pragmatic, comforting and challenging are among the various topic possibilities.

What this all says to me is that no topic is off limits for church and faith. If faith is more than a ticket to heaven after life’s end; if faith is for living in this world, in this life, now and for living into the future, then any and all topics of this world are fair game for God and therefore fair game for faith and church. Really, would you like some part of your life where God would be absent?

I have never understood those who say, for instance, the church ought to stay out of politics. That would mean a major arena of life that affects how people live is off limits for God? No wonder our politics is such a mess. Maybe we all ought to think a bit more about God before we fill out our ballots or take our positions.

Look Into the Mirror

May 11, 2021

It seems no one can resist a funhouse mirror. You know, the kind that distorts your reflection. You may be smaller, taller, or wider. It may make you look like a Q-tip or a snowman/woman. Your eyes may bulge or you might have four of them. I’m talking about that kid of mirror!

Years ago in Denver’s Eltich Gardens, there was such a mirror just outside the playhouse located on the grounds of this large (currently a Six Flags) amusement park. There admiring herself was a woman whom I immediately recognized as actress Cloris Leachman. To be polite, I asked her, “Are you Cloris Leachman?” She gave a wry smile and said, “Maybe.” And I responded, “Well, if you were, maybe I’d tell you I enjoyed your work.” We shared a laugh, then she turned, gave a wave over her shoulder, and walked away. But notice, even the famous could not resist one of those mirrors.

The thing about fun house mirrors is that they reflect to us a person whom we do not recognize. They are, at best, a caricature of ourselves. We chose our clothing, comb or brush our hair in a particular way, and go out into the world hoping to make a good impression. We cannot see ourselves so we must be doing this for others. Then along comes a funhouse mirror as if to say, “Nice try. I know better. You are more than your well-crafted image.”

Are you who you think you are? Am I? Maybe. Partly? I wonder how God sees us. Sometimes I think God’s view of us isn’t too far off that of a wavy, funhouse mirror. I wonder if God looks at us and sees someone recognizable, but not the person whom God intended to create; certainly not fully the person whom God intended to create. Alas, God does not respond, “If you were, I would love you.” And God does not destroy our funhouse image of ourselves to create a perfect picture of us. God seems to prefer working with the warped reflection of who we really are.

I don’t know if Jesus would have gotten a kick out of one of these mirrors. Perhaps Jesus would have gotten a kick out of any mirror as there were no such things in Jesus’ day. Mirrors, as we know them, are only about 200 years old. Yet images distorted and real never seemed to deter Jesus. Jesus met people where they were. This is what gives me the ability to say this is how God operates. Distorted images are not a place from which God will distance God. They are places of invitation for God to come and do godly work. God can and does use both misshapen figures and misshapen characters. God is able to use even our noncommittal “maybe” as God works to turn it into becoming an “I am!”.

Working on our appearance and image is one thing. Striving to work on who we are as a child of God is quite another. Our true mirror is neither that of a funhouse nor that like we have in our homes. It is a cross. There we see who we are. There we see whose we are. There we see the hope we have to continue along the path of being a child of God. There are no maybes in the cross, only God’s emphatic embrace in Jesus Christ.

Half-Staff/Half Hearted?

May 4, 2021

Yesterday I saw both the Arizona and United States flags flying at half-mast. I remembered this was to honor and memorialize a victim or victims of another recent shooting in our country, but I could not remember who or which victim(s). There have been so many lately. ….far too many.

I do remember my cynical response to the lowering of flags after a shooting that occurred a month or so ago. Cynically, yet somewhat “prophetically” I said, “Why don’t we just leave them at half-staff with such mass shootings now a regular occurrence?”

My fear is that instead of incensing us the continued number of deaths by gun violence have desensitized us. After being at Columbine I thought this could never happen to me. Now I am not so sure. The shooting at a King Soopers (Kroger) grocery store touched me greatly, but only for a while. You see in our nearly two decades in Colorado, we shopped regularly at King Soopers and were frequent visitors to Boulder.

All of us look for solutions. Mostly we look for something simple and easy. We need to start at the most obvious truth and work our way from there. We can’t yell out, “The second amendment!” as though this should stop all discussion about any form of gun control. Neither can we be naïve enough to think a few of the right gun laws will take care of our problem.

We need to look at the most obvious truth which is that we are the most violent nation in the free and industrialized world. Virtually no other nation has the extent of our problem. Not Switzerland with gun ownership. Not the UK or other nations with more restrictive gun laws.

We are a nation prone to violence. Why? I am not sure. What I do find interesting is that the most restrictive gun control our nation ever had was in the rugged days of “the old West”. Tombstone, Deadwood, and Dodge City among many other rough and tumble towns had prohibitions against guns. Where was the second amendment cry there and then? Yet shootings did occur. What lies at the source of our problem that attracts people to violent “solutions” by choosing shooting? What drives people to thinking shooting another is a solution? To blame mental illness does not cover it either. Many shooters are not mentally ill. They knew right from wrong.

Why? We need to ask this question of our nation and ourselves. I am someone who once hunted and grew up on a home that usually had about three weapons for hunting. I am also a person who sees no proper use for an automatic weapon. If truly we need such a thing for protection in our country, then we are a lost cause as a nation.

But violence…..violence….why do we seem to turn to violent outbursts? Why are we more prone to this than other nations? I have a few thoughts, but none definite and none that I know of that are supported by research, study and experience.

Are we content to let things as they are? Are we content to just attack and yell at one another and cast blame? Or rather than shooting our mouths off are we able to ask questions of ourselves and determine what can be done about our penchant for violence as a culture and are we willing to give up a few of our sacred cows to deal with this?

Flags at half-staff ought to mean something. Victims of violence, often random, ought to mean something. We ought to be better than this. Can we be better? How vulnerable are you willing to be in such a probe? To pick up a cross is to make oneself vulnerable. Followers of the crucified one can do this……can’t we?