Pastor's Notes

Recently I read a story of a 1993 study of piano students done by psychologist Anders Ericsson. Purposely he studied students of differing abilities. Some played at elite levels, some were merely average, and many were somewhere in the middle. A key finding was that a major difference from those well-known, stage performing pianists, and those who played locally was the quality and quantity of practice. 

Since this study Ericsson’s study has been challenged and somewhat edited. Yet a general thesis seems to be affirmed for piano students to poker players: practice typically makes you better at things. This comes as great relief to me whenever I think about a doctor who “practices” medicine. 

So if practice makes one better at Tiddlywinks to chicken farming, can it make us better at following Jesus? In fact, can one actually “practice” following Jesus? Perhaps a good example is the response of the local Amish community after the school shooting of one room Amish school in West Nickle Mines, Pennsylvania. Five school girls were killed and five more severely injured. Yet shortly after the shooting the Amish family reached out to the family of the shooter to offer both comfort and forgiveness. They went so far as to set up a charitable fund for the shooter’s family. When asked how they could do such a thing following an attack of such horror upon their community, their response was both swift and confident.  “Do you think we just woke up and decided to do this?”, they asked,  “This is who we are, this is what we teach and believe and work to live out every day of our lives.”

Would it be disrespectful to say that what the Amish had done prior to this tragic event was “practice” their faith? I don’t think so. Most of us should be so disrespected for such practice of our discipleship. Now there are some critical things we can say about the Amish life and lifestyle, but my point is this: for the disciple practice might not make perfect, but it can make for growth and depth. 

Some pianists need to work on their left hand playing, some need to work at sight reading, while others need to think and reflect more upon the music for better interpretation. Some simply need to practice to learn and play a piece of music. What area of your discipleship could use some polish? What part of following Jesus might require a bit more thought out and practiced discipline on your part? 

The Christian life, or perhaps better put, a Christian life is not built by a momentary decision or even one well thought-out decision. It is a life-long practice. It is one step, one success, one failure, one uncertainty at a time. It is learning and re-learning, and it is practice. It is practice over time. 

Sometimes even the best strike a wrong note.  This only serves as a reminder that all need practice; even the best who became the best need more practice.  The Jesus whom we follow is okay with this. After all, the show must go on!

Pastor Gary

Our words and language matter. Many times our words do not land on “deaf ears.” Others hear our words. Others often react to our words. They react by agreeing and going along with what we say even to the point of trying to live out our words. Or they react negatively to our words and try to live as they have or live out the exact opposite of our spoken or written words.

Our faith is communicated by words. Even our deeds which can communicate our faith are many times preceded by words.  Sometimes it is words of scripture, words of a sermon, words of prayer, words spoken in worship or sung to music, or the words of another that can strongly communicate our faith.

I sometimes think the most dangerous word used in “faith speech” can be the word “if.”If you love, if you believe, if you do or if you don’t do.  Grammatically, if is a conjunction. You remember those from the 3rd grade. I would also say if is a propositional word, a transactional word. It proposes a deal. If assumes then.  There will be a consequence if we act or fail to act in a particular manner. The consequence may be good or it may be bad.

We need to be careful when we use the word if in faith speech. Most times Christians use the word if it assumes a consequence from God. If we do something good, then God will love us and care for us. If we do something contrary to our faith, God will at the very least punish us in some way or, perhaps, even abandon us and cease to care for us. IF……

All of us who follow Jesus realize we have a great need to change. We have a need to change for ourselves, those in our lives, and we need to change to better align ourselves and our life to God’s will for us and for creation. But that if word messes with us. It gets there in our thought process, in our understanding of our relationship with God and even in our prayer life. We too often seem to think and act as though God will only truly and fully love us if  we change. We need to drop that little two letter word in such thinking. God does not love us if we change. We need to substitute another word for if…..the word that. God loves us not if we change, but instead, so that we can change. One small word change makes quite a difference!

There is a purpose to God’s love for us, indeed. But God’s love is not the carrot hanging on the end of a stick out in front of us, exhausting us as we naively pursue it. God’s love is instead the engine behind us pushing us, making even uphill travel easier than we have a right to expect.

Maybe if we drop or at least judiciously employ that word if in our thinking about God and God’s relationship with us, ….if we do that, our understanding and appreciation for God and God’s love will have a new and greater perspective. Perhaps there is a place for if after all!  That’s all, folks!

People of faith always want to see God in their life and recognize God at work in the world. Certainly scripture affirms God’s presence in our life and that God is at work in the world. Yet how often do we fail to see or even sense God’s presence and handiwork?

Maybe we ought to ask ourselves what we expect to see. Do we expect grand and glorious activity that is hard to miss? Do we expect something more mundane like a neighbor bringing by a bowl of hot chicken noodle soup when we are ill?  God may indeed be at work in these and similar gestures of kindness and care. 

As I write this Hurricane Sally is wreaking havoc on the Gulf Coast while fires rage in the West Coast and elsewhere. Many fellow Christians see this as some act of judgement by God. “See! God is at work here”, we are told. Why do we only expect to see God at work in such great and horrific events? For what kind of angry, vindictive God must we be searching? Is this view consistent with the Jesus whom we see in the Gospels?  When we have a certain expectation of how God acts, we tend to see only this God.

Yet what I have seen most often is if we want to miss God, then we are fooling ourselves into thinking we know exactly what we are looking for, we will no doubt miss God when we know exactly what we are looking for.   Israel was looking for a king with armies. Many of them missed God. On the other hands lowly shepherds didn’t really know what to look for, but recognized the Messiah when they saw him. People of faith thinking they knew exactly what to look for, missed the Messiah and the star,  while pagan Wise Men who hadn’t a clue knew someone and something special when they saw it. Yes, if you want to miss God, know exactly what you are looking for.

Jesus calls us to places that are new and often strange to us and to people with whom we normally do not associate. The one who ate with tax collectors and sinners, the one who brought healing to foreigners and people of different faiths, calls us to imitate him in our following. To what strange places and to what very different people have you gone in your life because of Jesus ? Often these are not where or among who we expect to find God. Yet, there God is…exactly where we do not expect to find God.  Imagine of the church is where everyone is safe, but all are uncomfortable. 

Throughout my ministry I have always been part of ecumenical Christian groups. Many were quite different than me and us. Yet at times I caught a glimpse of God in these groups and in these people. I also noticed these experiences made me more Lutheran. 

Here at ASU and in Tempe we have interfaith groups: LDS, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Bahai, and all walks of Christianity. We visit their places of worship, host them in our Campus Center, speak at some of their events and have some of them speak at our events. Again, I have seen God at work and I have seen my Christianity sharpened.

We don’t expect that. We are often too trapped in our own blinders knowing exactly what we seek and what we expect. God can come to those with blinders. But how much greater God can appear when we remove them and open our vision fully, no knowing what to expect.  I have to keep reminding myself, God does not always play by our rules or our conventions. That is in part what makes God, God.

This is some of the vocabulary of our COVID 19 caused pandemic. Imagine the fun Roget could have had with all these words! As I (and probably you) tire of this replay of language, I would welcome a “thesaurusitic” change to many of these words.

Although these words are in no particular order, it seems to me one word I have heard daily since we began to take this virus seriously enough to drastically alter our lifestyle, is the word “weird.” Breathing down weird’s neck, it seems, is the word “strange.” Maybe both those words sum up the entire experience if not the vocabulary.

Missing in action have been the words transformation, growth, better, optimism, cheerfulness, confidence, trust, joy, and other similar words of hope. Mostly the vocabulary has been trying to express our anxiety about it all and our lack of experienced navigational skills in such new waters. Many are words, acronyms, and names of things new to us (PPE) or our way of living (curb service). Yes, weird pretty much does it. No wonder we seem to so frequently turn to it to succinctly express our feelings.

There is another word we can employ: legacy. What will the legacy of this experience be for us as individuals and us as a congregation, a community, and a nation? Legacies don’t usually just happen, they are built. What might we be able to construct to pass along to future generations that might be helpful in a way that makes some part of living better? I offer no solutions, only something for you and for us to think about and consider. Let’s leave more for our grandchildren than stories of Lysol shortages and waiting in line to get into COSTCO.

We are people of God, we are followers of Jesus. Surely we can search our own depths for insights of faith and living to pass on. This has been a “teachable moment” we might say. Let the taught themselves become the teacher. We too have a vocabulary. Some of our words overlap with the pandemic language. Our words are faith, hope, trust, pray, love, care, blessed are, forgiveness, eternal, grace, peace, joy, and so on. Overriding these words and giving them power is this word, a name: Jesus. This word, this name is our ultimate navigational tool in this and any time. It is our ultimate teacher whom the taught can pass along and teach. Let’s not allow weird to alone be what might become our legacy of this time. Let the faith that might touch us and transform us if only a little be a major part of legacy for this time.

Floyd was a custodian, carpenter, handyman, and all around good guy at the church I served in Fort Collins, CO. He would set up and later take down tables and chairs for our senior meals program, arrange each meeting room for upcoming events, and clean the entire 25,000 square feet of the building.  

Floyd also constructed very nice furniture for the church when we had some unique need. One day I asked him if he could make me a portable table-top lectern. We could use it for Stephen Ministry classes, certain adult classes on Sundays, and any number of times there was a speaker in a classroom. 

The response I received was Floyd’s usual, jolly, “Ok, Pastor. I have some scraps at home so it won’t cost us anything.” Two days later he brought in the finished project. It was very portable, coming in three pieces that could easily be assembled in seconds. 

With such a design it could be tucked under one’s arm and carried anywhere without burden. In the almost 30 years since its creation, this table-top lectern found itself in most any room of the church. It went with me to both Rocky Mountain and Grand Canyon Synod assemblies whenever I led a workshop. It is placed in the center of our makeshift altar here at University Lutheran Easter Sunrise worship. If you saw last Sunday’s worship, I used it when forced to record in the Campus Center library. 

“Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” was the title of the last Dr. Seuss book published during his lifetime.  It is also an apt description of the travels of this little lectern. Neither Floyd nor I had any idea this lectern would still be around almost 30 years later much less serve in so many places for all kinds of functions. We both thought he was simply crafting something for one church program consisting of 20 people each week. 

Three pieces of scrap wood have served a very useful purpose over the years. It would seem they may continue to do so for some years hence. This makes me wonder what simple things you and I may be doing now even in, and perhaps especially in, this pandemic setting that might last long beyond their intended purpose. What lecterns might we be constructing that will far outlast their moment? Maybe some of our “lecterns” will be memories created that will continue to touch someone. Maybe our “lecterns” will be what we did not do in our frustration and loneliness.  Maybe our “lecterns” will be passed along through some recipient of our work who in turn passes along something we gave or shared with them.

It is not important that we recognize a particular thing that we do may have a greater and longer purpose than intended. Floyd and I both were very happy and content with how this lectern served its original purpose.  That alone was sufficient. What is important is that we recognize our words, our deeds, and our life often go far beyond themselves to places and people we never envisioned. It is enough just to know this is possible. 

I wonder how often I would have thought of Floyd over the decades if I did not have that table top lectern. I confess each time I use it, I do not think about him, but many times I do. And when I think of him I think not only of his skills at carpentry, but the kind of person he was and some memories I have as serving as his pastor and having him on our church staff. Good memories. The kind that can keep a person hopeful in less hopeful times. 

Make your “lecterns”, perform the tasks of your life, routine and otherwise. God can take lecterns and make them into memories that touch us. Even our daily grind that demonstrates a “stick to it” determination can speak volumes now and later. “ I remember how Dad or Mom, or __________was during the pandemic” will be the tale of many to their children and grandchildren. They will be sharing a story that they may have tried to emulate later in their own life in a difficult time. 

Build those lecterns! Scraps are just fine. You never know where they will end up. O, the places they might go!