Pastor's Notes

Some say life is or isn’t like a bowl of cherries. Forest Gump said life is like a box of chocolates. Instead I say life is more like experiencing Ikea. We amble around getting lost and when we find what we want, we do not always get proper assembly for their furniture figured out, but somehow we construct something that will hold books, ourselves, the evening meal or our coats. Many times following the directions is a great help. Other times directions seem useless, even problematic to accomplishing the finished product. Sometimes going it on our own in our own way works best.

Anecdotally I once heard the divorce rate in a town increases by 13.2% after an Ikea opens its doors. Personally I have never had my marriage affected by trying to figure out the various widgets and where and how they might go, but my fingers certainly hurt afterward from the tiny and very non-ergonomic tool needed for assembly. So it is with life. We don’t always get the best equipment, but somehow we mostly seem to get through it, sometimes with an ache or two.

If ever you have gone through an Ikea store, you are aware that going through it all takes a lot of wandering here and there. There are some short cuts if you want to skip right to the Swedish meatballs or look for a new office chair. Some short cuts, however, make you miss some of the best stuff. Other short cuts are not that at all…they return you to a section you had once traveled through. Wandering through the entire store following the lighted arrows on the floor takes you past some pretty cheap looking things, some decent looking furniture and some things that have you scratch your head as you ask yourself, “What is that?”

We also find ourselves wandering through life frequently wishing for or trying short cuts. Some work out well, some instead backfire. We follow the directions in life taught us by parents and elders when we were children. Most were pretty good advice, some should have been tossed aside by us long ago. Many things in life cause us to wonder and ask “What is that?” Like Ikea’s lingonberries we can see and taste some things by themselves but still remain uncertain as to what they are.

A crisp walk through Ikea can be done in as little as 2,000 steps. Some websites, however, claim the average shopper spends 9 miles wandering around in circles, mostly looking for restrooms. Life is like that too. We would rather be shopping but some basic human need gets in the way preventing us from doing so.

Finally we make our purchases in Ikea only to discover they have no bags to put them in unless we want to purchase a huge bag the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Where then do we store that bag once we get home? We could go in the back yard and camp out in it or, perhaps, cover the car we keep parked in the driveway. Life too gives us many inconveniences many of which we can’t seem to figure out what to do with them. Others find us creatively innovating some unique and clever usage.

Life is a lot like Ikea. For Christians we might not always know where we are headed. We may not have the best directions to follow and our tools may seem inadequate for the many challenges that come our way. Short cuts to following Jesus are often problematic. Yet God seems to think God has gifted us sufficiently for all that God calls us to do. So wander around, get lost, take the long way some times and short cuts a few other times, and use what God gave you. If God is content with the gifts we have been given, we can be as well. And even in the midst of life’s wanderings, don’t forget to stop and enjoy the Swedish meatballs.

Do you by any chance have a microwave, range, coffee maker, and, perhaps another appliance or two all with slightly different times on their timer/clock? Maybe one is screaming for attention right now by constantly flashing 12:00. With all those digital clocks, do you still have yet another analog clock hanging somewhere in the kitchen?

This is one of the 21st Centuries greatest dilemmas: how to program each of our digital clocks to have the exact same time displayed. Well, maybe not one of the greatest dilemmas, but a sore spot in modern kitchen living and family ritual. “But Mom, I wasn’t late according to one of our clocks…!”

These devices have clocks not so much to keep us informed as to the local and current time, but because they have timing devices and need to be set for cooking, brewing, and defrosting. That way our roast, our coffee, and our frozen items are never, or at least rarely, not done properly. Yet with so many clocks somehow we still seem to struggle to make it somewhere on time.

Time is important to us. Some of us have to punch time cards for work. Others have to make note of the hours spent working. Many have jobs where no one checks the time unless work is ill-prepared or the worker not always available. Then we hear what is expected of us in terms of the time we put in.

I served one church who insisted on us keeping a log of our time working. Did that include my reading at home? What about commute time to hospitals and nursing homes? Did it include often long conversations when we bumped into a member in Target on a day off or a restaurant at night?

After a while we staff got together, shared our frustrations, and asked if there was some important work not being done. When assured that was not the case, we pushed, and succeeded to have this log disappear.

What is it about time? Time just plods on, second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour. Time is indifferent to us or our schedules. It just does its duty and goes on.

We worship a God of all time. God, in fact it is said, existed before there was time. I don’t picture all the clocks around God being perfectly timed. Instead I think there are no clocks around God. God works continuously at God’s decision to love God’s creation. It is also not that God is indifferent about time. God cares when someone is in peril and would like to see that peril end quickly, that is, in little time.

The Greek word in the Bible for God’s time is Kairos. It is understood as God’s timing. Those of us with faith in God need to put trust in God’s timing. While God’s timing may seem to be like all those kitchen clocks off kilter, God’s timing belongs to God and we can trust god knows what needs to be done when.

In the meantime we can try all we want to synchronize our clocks (Good luck with that!) but we can also try to order our lives into God’s timing. When does God want the war in Ukraine to end? I have no doubt it is now. When does God want hunger and poverty to cease? Again the answer is the same. With these and so many pressing issues in life we need to ask ourselves and each other: “If not now, when?” The answer to that question makes all our clocks irrelevant and our marching orders clear.
It is not our clocks that need synchronizing, it is our following and service.

Paul writes his letters included in the New Testament prior to the writing of the Gospels. Interesting that Paul seems very little interested in the details of Jesus’ life if he knew them. The Words of Institution, spoken by the pastor, at every Holy Communion are from Paul’s First Letter to the church in Corinth. They are as biographical as Paul gets concerning the life of Jesus. Paul was much more concerned about Jesus’ return. His writings indicate Paul thought that return immanent.

The Gospels, on the other hand, appear to be written some decades following the life of Jesus. It is postulated by some that eyewitnesses to Jesus were dying off and there was a need to write down an understanding of Jesus’ life. Each have their own unique stories giving the reader differing understandings of the meaning of Jesus’ life, deeds, and teachings.

This should not surprise us. Each time I sit with the adult children of a deceased parent to plan the funeral or memorial service, I hear different and differing stories about Mom or Dad. While there are many common understandings among the offspring, very different and unique ones are expressed as well. We are all touched differently by our parents. We are all touched differently by Jesus and the God revealed in Jesus.

The Gospels seem to have been written when the church was being established. Issues evolved including the controversy over including Gentiles in the church and not first making them follow Jewish ritual involving foods, circumcision, and practice.

Some of the background of the early church can be sensed when reading the Gospels. All seem to agree there was fear and confusion concerning the resurrection. What to make of all this? You and I need to realize that more than a body was entombed with Jesus following his crucifixion. Hope was sealed in that tomb as well. All the hopes and dreams the followers had for Jesus seemed defeated as well. On the road to Emmaus the two travelers explained they thought Jesus was to redeem Israel. Now that was no longer possible.

All the dreams, hopes, and expectations followers of Jesus had for themselves, the world, and humanity as well as Israel seemed lost. Love of neighbor? The Romans crucified that love. Turn the other cheek, share your coat, live for each other? Killed by the Romans and entombed with Jesus. Not only was Jesus gone, it was all over. At least their movement ceased to exist and was now dead along with the one leading it.

Ah, but resurrection came. It raised Jesus. It also raised all the hopes, dreams, and expectations of his followers. A life lived with and for others was now possible. All of us being neighbors to one another…that too was raised with Jesus. Jesus lives! The teachings of Jesus lived! The will of God as seen and understood in and through Jesus was raised to life again! The tomb of Jesus is no longer a prison for hope. It is the place where God did God’s greatest work.

Sometimes our human spirits are greatly bruised, even crushed. We can identify with those disconsolate followers of Jesus after the crucifixion. But God is at work even in our misery, sometimes even using that misery and never fearing to enter into it with us.
The stone was rolled away from more than a body. It opened to let hope free and reveal God as the one who determines and brings hope to all that seemed to be endings. Christ, and all that was and is about Christ is risen! Risen Indeed!

The Song “Shallow” sung by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in the movie “A Star is Born” has as one of its lines a question, “Tell me, girl, are you happy in this modern world?” Well, let me ask you that question? Are you happy in this modern world?

The word modern is possibly the operative word in that question. I hear so many statements of frustration that begin with something like, “In today’s world” or “Not today”. Even those most content with the modern world miss some things from the way we once lived and operated. Change brings with it new and exciting things. It also brings with it a certain degree of loss.

What you and I most often fail to understand is that the world has always been modern. The only difference between yesterday’s version of modern and today’s version is what forms modern takes. Once upon a time a horse-pulled combine was a modern machine. We are currently in a modern era where petroleum fueled cars are fast becoming something of the past, not the modern times.

I remember being surprised when visiting Norway, a significant oil producing nation, that it was the oil companies behind much of the pursuit of alternative energy in that nation. When I asked one of the oil company’s representatives why they were working to put themselves out of business he had an interesting response. “We have never viewed ourselves as oil companies” he answered. “We see ourselves as producers of energy and energy constantly changes and evolves. Once fire was a major source of energy. Then water. Windmills have pumped water for generations. Coal has had its time and oil is now able to see its ending. We know whatever sources become future suppliers of energy will have their time until something else comes along.”

Yes, the description of what is modern changes. Today’s modern will be next year’s, or at least next generation’s understanding of old, out of date, and anything but modern. Followers of Jesus need to worry less about what is modern and more about how we live in this modern world and use its modern ways. Will we use them in ways that serve others or ways that help only ourselves and might even do some harm to someone else?

It might seem odd to think of Jesus as living in the modern world. Yet, Jesus did live in the modern world of his time. Unlike many of Jesus’ day, it seems Jesus could read and write. He had a grasp of the scripture of his day and gave his understanding of it out freely and openly so much so that his words continue to resonate with many in today’s modern world.

We Christians need not fear the modern world. Instead, we need to try and understand what it does well and what it does poorly and work with it and against it when needed, to see to it that modern does not mean harmful.

Are you happy in this modern world? We who believe in new life can look for places where the modern world brings a new and better life. Look for places where modern brings something harmful. I think of the alienation and loneliness among young adults which I continue to read about and hear from our own students that comes in part from spending so much time on technology instead of being in person with others. Work to be more personally relational, for example.

Don’t let modern be a bad word nor assume anything modern is an improvement over something old. A task for followers of Jesus is to strive to make modern an improvement.