Allow me to tell you about Tim. Tim was once my youth director in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Tim had a degree in electrical engineering from THE Ohio State University. He worked for Lockheed Martin, utilizing his college degree.
Somehow his work didn’t quite do it for Tim. Tim sought work in the church and that’s how he and I were partners in ministry. On a staff of 28 full-time people, we had not openings for an electrical engineer, but we did have one for a youth director. Tim easily rose to the top of the candidate pile and was hired.
We did a lot of confirmation retreats at First Lutheran. Nine each year, to be exact. Three for each Junior High grade. The first retreat I planned with Tim, he thought it would be a good idea to bring his accordion. “You’re not going to play it, are you?” I asked, “They will laugh you out of the camp.”
Nevertheless, Tim persevered. The confirmands were fascinated! They had never seen nor heard an accordion before. It was all new to them. They especially enjoyed doing “the Hokey Pokey”, also new to them. Me? I was stuck with images of Myron Floren of Lawrence Welk fame and not so excited about the accordion.
I was reminded of this at a recent fundraiser BINGO game with our grandchildren. BINGO, a very old game, was new to these 5-11 year olds. It was fun and participatory. They loved it! To them it was not at all new. BINGO, …accordion….so old they can appear fresh and new.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a very old message. It has passed through the millennia and has roots in Judaism before Jesus. It has been around a long time. We might even say it is as old as God. How does this Gospel appear to you? As something old or something new? Perhaps you see it as both.
It seems to me this Gospel of Good News is best when it arrives as something new. Though it is not new in its general message of love, forgiveness, release, and redemption, the forms it may embody can be new. It can come through a stranger. This news, delivered weekly in Word and Sacrament, sometimes may strike us with more power on some days then on others. It may strike us and make us new so we can be some of that good news to another.
Tim eventually went off to seminary and became a pastor in his native Ohio. Sadly, death came to Tim before his time. He was in his late 40’s. I was shocked when I read his obituary in the Living Lutheran magazine. As someone currently quite a couple decades older than Tim at his end, I am encouraged that the lesson of his accordion might be a parable to me, a senior among clergy. Maybe something old can be seen as something new. Maybe I’ll teach our students the Hokey Pokey on our next retreat. Nah, probably not!