The Tale of the Three Little Churches

Once upon a time, there were three little churches. They were happy little churches. One day, they set off into the wide world to seek their fortune.

By and by, they came to a pile of bricks. The first little church said, “Look, a pile of nice bricks! I’m going to build myself a house out of these bricks. Would you like to share it with me?”

“We’ll help you build, said the second little church. But we can’t live here with you.”

“Suit yourself,” said the first little church. They happily set to work, whistling and singing and building a fine, solid house of bricks. It had four brick walls, a good concrete foundation; it had ninety-nine stairs to the upper level, and forty-four stairs to the lower level, and the three lively little churches loved to run up and down them all.

When it was all done, the three little churches had a big dedication service, and they invited all their friends and neighbors. The bishop and the district superintendent came, they sang lots of songs, and had lots of speeches, and of course they had a big potluck afterward, and everyone made pigs of themselves. Then the friends and neighbors all went home, and the other two little churches went also, leaving the first little church happily arranging the furniture, polishing the knickknacks and dusting the bric-a-brac in its nice, new house.

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Meanwhile, the two remaining little churches went on their way, whistling happily. They came to a pile of cedar lumber. The second little church said, “Oh look! Cedar lumber!”

“I see it!” said the third little church.

“I’m going to build myself a house out of this cedar,” said the second little church. “Would you like to live in it with me?”

“I’ll help you build,” said the third little church, “but I can’t live here with you.”

“Suit yourself,” said the second little church. They happily set to work, whistling and singing and building a fine, big house of cedar. The first little church came too, once it had finished dusting its bric-a-brac and polishing its knickknacks. Soon they had completed a lovely house. It had high cedar beams in the ceiling, and wonderful woodwork in the stairwells, and it gave the three little churches the feeling of being in a great ship at sea.

Again, a celebration, a dedication service, speeches and singing, and a potluck lunch, at which all the little churches once again pigged out.

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When all the visitors went on their way, the third little church went on its way, humming and rubbing its full tummy. It came to a pile of straw. “Oh, look at this wonderful pile of straw!” said the third little church. “I suppose I could ask for some help from the churches back there, but this is such a light material, I’m sure I can build an excellent house without their help.” Nevertheless, the third little church (because it was a connectional church) called its fellow churches, and together they bundled and built, bundled and built, until they had raised a light and lovely house of straw for the third little church to live in.

“This is by far the easiest house of the three we’ve built,” said the second little church, the one with the house of wood.

“I agree,” said the first little church, “but I am concerned about its durability; what will happen if there’s a wind, or perhaps even (heaven forbid) a fire?”

“One thing about straw,” said the third little church, “you can always get more.” (The others rolled their eyes; the third little church was so naively optimistic sometimes.)

Again the three little churches held a big dedication service, and again the speeches and the singing, and after that the potluck, where they ate and ate, until they were all sufficiently suffancified, and there was still a lot left over. It was marvelous!

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What the three little churches did not know was that while they were inside, singing and eating and making merry, outside the house of straw along came a great big, wild wolf. “What have we here?” the big, wild wolf said to itself. “I’ll just lurk in these bushes, and listen, and sniff, and find out.” And, since it was a house of straw, the great big, wild wolf heard every word, and smelled every smell, and through the windows saw every plump, juicy member of each little church. “We’ll just see about this,” smiled the big, wild wolf, with a big, wild smile. And when the first two little churches went home, the big, wild wolf lurked along behind, and saw the house of wood, and the house of brick, where the other two little churches lived.

So, the great big, wild wolf lurked off into the darkness of the forest. For days and days, from the darkness of the forest, it watched the three little churches going about their business, and it devised a plan.

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By and by, the first little church was gathered inside its house of brick, singing and eating and having a delightful time. Along came the big, wild wolf. “Little church, little church, let me come in,” called the big, wild wolf. “Not by the hair of our chinny-chin-chin,” chorused the first little church (in perfect four-part harmony).

(At this point, the story breaks down a little; different voices sang out different reasons why the big, wild wolf ought not be let in: we don’t know you; you’re different; our nine hundred stairs aren’t accessible for you, sorry, but that’s the way it is; there isn’t room in our house, or our hearts, for you; you might even be dangerous.)

“Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in,” sang the big, wild wolf.”

“We know this story already,” said the first little church. “The big, wild wolf can’t blow in the brick house.”

“You’re right,” said the big, wild wolf. “If you don’t let me in, I guess I’m shut out.” And the big, wild wolf went sadly away.

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The next Sunday, the second little church was gathered in its house of wood. Same story. Wolf came, called. “Not by the hair of our chinny-chin-chins,” sang the second little church (though some were wondering what chinny-chin-chins were, exactly). The second little church was nervous, though, because they knew the story, too (perhaps it was written by the brickmasons’ union), and the wooden house simply does not fare very well. So, while the wolf was on one side, and they could hear its great, swooshing inhalation, the second little church ran out the exit on the other side, and dashed into the forest, high-tailing it for (you guessed it, they did know their story) the brick house of the first little church. Behind them, they heard the cracking and splintering of timbers, as the big, wild wolf huffed, and puffed, and blew that house of wood in, out, up, away, every which-a-way, hither-and-thither, helter-skelter, and higgledy-piggledy! The big, wild wolf itself, they never saw.

(Now, since it was a Responsible little church, the insurance policy was up to date, and although it was heartbreaking to lose their first wooden house, and incredibly inconvenient, they were able in time to build a second house, this time far more windproof. But that’s another story.)

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The following Sunday, the third little church was gathered in its house of straw. (Quite a few of its members had stayed home, or decided that while the winds were unpredictably strong it might be a good time to visit the church in the brick house, but many other members showed up for the first time in weeks or months, as folk are liable to do when there are Troubles — and the Troubles of the church in the house of wood had folks kind of shaken-up.)

Again from the forest came the wolf, the great big, wild wolf, even bigger and wilder than before. The third little church had been expecting it. “Little church, little church, let me come in,” roared the great, wild wolf.

But the third little church knew their story too; and they knew that it wouldn’t do any good to make the big, wild wolf angry. Some of them ran away out the back door, some were too frightened to move. But most of the congregation had decided that, if the big, wild wolf came, they would just let it. And if it blew down their house of straw, well, “One thing about straw, you can always get more,” they would say.

So when the big, wild wolf called, “Little church, little church, let me come in,” the third little church sang a new chorus: “Come in, come in and sit down! You are a part of the family!”

“I’ll come in, but I don’t sit!” said the big, wild wolf. “I’m wild, remember?

And because there wasn’t a door large enough for the big, wild wolf, the big wild wolf breathed in, a big, wild breath, and puffed its big, wild cheeks, and blew.

First, the roof of straw blew in, and out, and up, and away, every which-a-way, hither-and-thither, helter-skelter, and higgledy-piggledy! Nothing more could be seen of the roof of straw, but only sky.

Then, the side-walls blew down with a whoosh until they became mats of straw on the ground, and the room became part of the woods all around, and they saw the great, big, wild wolf.

At this point, almost every member of the third little church was terrified. “This’ll be the end of us!” they thought. But one member, a tiny little thing, one of the oldest, but frail and maybe a few cards short of a full deck, some thought, piped up. “Come on in; you’ve missed the announcements, and you’ve missed the sermon, but the main thing’s the potluck, and at a potluck there’s always room for one more.”

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And what happened then? Well, the way they tell it over at Third Church, the great big wild wolf lowered its face, ’til the littlest, oldest member could look it directly in its huge eyes. “You welcomed me,” said the big, wild wolf. And the littlest, oldest member walked toward the big, wild wolf, and stroked its cheek. Then a child pulled loose from its parent, and ran to the big, wild wolf. “Me too!”

The potluck dinner was simply amazing. The meal lasted forever, and the big, wild wolf, with the rest of the little church, pigged out. The table seemed more full of leftovers than it had ever been before. After dinner, the little church looked about. “One thing about straw, you can always get more,” said the trustees, “but how shall we build so that we’re big, wild wolf-accessible?”

“And how can we arrange the furniture, for a big, wild wolf who doesn’t sit?” asked the worship committee.

“We don’t even have any howl choruses in our hymnal,” said the music director.

“Not a problem,” said the big, wild wolf. “Climb aboard.” So the whole little church stepped up, clambered up onto the back of the big, wild wolf. It was exhilarating there! Hymnals, and seating arrangements, and even questions of building accessibility, liability, and diversity looked so small from there.

The big, wild wolf loped off into the forest. Soon everyone was singing, laughing, even howling. The little senior member who had invited the wolf to the potluck was overheard to say, “I don’t really like this wolf-music as well as the songs I learned in Sunday School, but it seems to make the wolf happy, and seeing the wild wolf so happy makes me so happy I could just burst.”

The End

©1999, Wes Stanton

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Last week I read the story of the Three Little Pigs to my near-five-year-old granddaughter, and was reminded of this piece I’d written several years back. I wonder if this would hold her interest, I thought. So I printed it out, and gave it a go. She stayed with it, all through, so I decided it might be worth sharing with you.

I’m indebted as always to so many for anything I write. Perhaps you find echoes of Kipling’s Just-So Stories in some of the linguistic silliness, or C.S. Lewis’ Aslan in the Big Wild Wolf who does not sit (he’s wild, remember?), maybe a hint of Maurice Sendak’s Wild Things. Maybe you envision this as a reversing reworking of Walt Disney’s classic version of the Three Little Pigs, with a dollop of the United Methodist Book of Discipline thrown in.

I hope the only direct quote, though, is James K. Manley’s formative “Part of the Family,” which helps me remember how a church ought to welcome. If you’re going to read the story aloud, you might want to click this link, and learn the chorus’ tune to sing when you come to that part of the story.

Praying for an enemy

A few years ago, as part of the Two Year Academy for Spiritual Formation, Luther Smith (I think!) gave us the assignment, to write a prayer for an enemy.

Here’s what I wrote. If I were doing it today, it might be different. No, because I am doing it today, it is different. But when I gather myself to pray for an enemy, an adversary, a person or group who has done me harm, or a person or group who has a pattern of doing harm to any member of God’s beloved creation, this is something of how my prayer is led.

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Prayer for an enemy

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (Matthew 5:44)

If he were ISIS, this exercise would be easier!

I could abstract him,
“other” him,
pray for him in generalities,
and let the wind of distance sort out the chaff

At this point, it would all be chaff.

But he is nearer to me,
he hurts people,
he throws me into complicity,
and I cannot see him changing.

So who the hell do I pray for,
to pray for this enemy?
For him? Or for my sorry self?
For loathsome him? Or the self-loathing he gives me?

So I pretend for a moment.
[It might be safe, if I give a time limit.
Five minutes. Two. One.]
For a minute, I’ll pretend he’s just anybody.
I do what prayer I pray for the sick,
or the sad,
the poor,
or the lonely,
the oppressed
or the disaffected:

In the quiet,
(help my disquiet!)
I speak his name.
Claiming all your compassion
and justice
and longsuffering
and hope
I look on him
with your eyes
as from the cross (where he nailed you … where I nailed you)

[Damn it, this was supposed to be pretend, an exercise, something safe!
Now I’m Jonah in the shade of the gourd,
I knew you were going to pull something like this!
That’s why I have resisted this prayer for so long,
why I ran in the opposite direction.]

But here we are, you and I.
I hold him with your mind.
I give thanks for him, my enemy.
With your eyes I see,
     through his self-made smears,
     your shining reflection
I breathe, and realize your breath, his breath, mine,
     are not essentially different.
And I recognize that what troubles me most in him
     what makes him my enemy
     is the same stuff that troubles me most in myself.
I give thanks for him.

I am with him in your gaze.
What I hate in him is what I hate in me.
What I pray for him is what I seek for me.
Shock him out of smugness into awe,
O Christ whom he persecutes!
Wake him til he is truly woke.
Let him find humility that need fear no humiliation,
Save him from willing or doing harm.
May he live at peace, as you are peace.
May he live in joy.

From Above Contest #21

This one could be anywhere, or anywhere on the Dry Side, at least. So I’ve let a couple hints creep in.

This is a Google Maps satellite view of a United Methodist related location in the Pacific Northwest.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is twofold:

1. Pinpoint the location in the photo, using Google Maps. Share the answer with a map link in the comments, AND 
2. Correctly state what the location is, and why it’s United-Methodist related.

Hint: I had no idea this place existed until this afternoon. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to drive there. More photos (with snow) to follow.

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Ta-Daa! The location is the German Methodist Cemetery on Urquhart Rd, west of Benzel, about six miles southeast of Ritzville, Washington. We own a cemetery! Who knew? (Well, others may have known, but they never tell the pastor anything!)

On Wednesday afternoon, a neighbor contacted the Trinity UMC Facebook page, to ask about the cemetery. On Thursday morning, with the thermometer reading 9 degrees, I drove out to the intersection of Benzel & Urquhart. I walked up Urquhart, which wasn’t plowed, to the cemetery.

Here are some images of the morning’s walk.

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Sunday updates:

Trinity folks told me a lot more about the cemetery. The most recent burial there was in the 1980s, and the person didn’t have a grave marker.

The church had a cleanup day at the cemetery “a few years ago.” (They didn’t take the frame of the old car, though — that’s been there a while. I kind of like it!)

The cemetery is at the back of the lot, because the front of the lot USED to be the location of the German Methodist Church — the first building, before they moved to town. The original building is now a mile or so south of the cemetery, where it’s now part of a farm. (Do we have another From Above contest coming up??)

And Bill Heinemann, whose parents are buried there, has planted the land in native-type grasses, to help keep weeds down. Also, it’s a good place to visit when it’s NOT high summer, because of ticks & snakes.

Thousand Oaks

Another week, another mass killing.

It hasn’t always been this way.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Not only are there more mass murders, including mass murders by firearm, in the US than any other developed nation, but the rate of such violence has seen a drastic rise in the past decade.

Source: NBC Chicago

There are multiple “causes” — lots of links in the chain. It’s not just high-capacity and high-speed firearms. It’s not just the firearms industry lobby. It’s not just toxic masculinity. It’s not just mental illness. It’s not just military experience, PTSD, or moral injury. It’s not just that people need Jesus (the U.S. has more Christians, as a percentage of population, than just about any other country – heck, we’re the birthplace of evangelicalism! – and it has far the highest level of deadly violence in the developed world). It’s not just political extremism. It’s certainly not just that there’s a ten-year shortage of “good guys with guns.”

What it feels like to me: the difference in the past decade is a generally elevated societal stress level, that makes our small problems bigger, peels away our abilities to cope, puts each of us closer to the edge of some extreme method of coping or responding, and more of us fall over that edge than before — into violence, or self-harm, or self-isolation, or cynicism, or extremism, or several of the above. I’m sure the sociologists or public health folks have a technical term for generalized societal stress levels, and can measure it and find a graph to prove or disprove the correlation that I’m feeling. But what I feel is that people (me included) are more stressed-out, to the point of dysfunction, than before. It’s doing damage, not only when folks commit violence, but also in day-to-day living, as we “zone out” at work and can’t live up to our vocation, as we escalate irritation into rudeness, or nervousness into fearful isolation.

We’re not all equally overwhelmed, though. Some of us have healthy networks of caring community. Some of us have spiritual practices that help. Some of us have been taught that seeking assistance is honorable, and not a failure of masculine virtue or warrior integrity (the military encourages seeking help now, in ways they didn’t, back in the day). Some of us have not lived through the trauma of war, or the trauma of coming of age in the 90s or 00s. Some of us are cushioned by privilege and economic security. Some of us are cushioned by functional family systems.

It hasn’t always been this way.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

So what will you do? What will you do, not only to help yourself to live further from the edge of violence and isolation, but to transform your web of acquaintances, your neighborhood, your community?

How will you strengthen your existing groups – civic groups, faith groups, workplaces — to be welcoming, caring communities?

How will you practice your spiritual practice with gentle constancy, and encourage others to grow in their own spiritual practice (without being “judgy” or “holier-than-thou”)?

How will you seek appropriate help when you need it, and encourage others to seek it, both by your example and your testimony?

You’ll notice I’m not talking here about a more rational firearms law. I think there’s a place for that, but just as there’s not a single cause, so there’s not a single remedy. We can work for a transformed society today and every day, in all our interactions.

It hasn’t always been this way.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

 

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(Image source: https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/Recent-Mass-Shootings-Thousand-Oaks-500027402.html)

Tree of Life

[Note: In today’s worship service at Trinity United Methodist, Ritzville, this is what I said (more or less) at the beginning of the service.]

Post-Its of things we’re leaving outside as we go in to worship. Photo: Willie Deuel.

This week I arrived in Wenatchee for the Gathering of the Orders, along with most of the United Methodist clergy from our Pacific Northwest Conference. We began, as always, with worship. At the sanctuary entrance, we were given post-its, and invited to write down something we were laying aside, so that we could better worship, engage in holy conversation, and grow in the Spirit, un-distracted.

It was a very good gathering. I had been asked to lead two workshops on Walking as a Spiritual Practice. If there’s time today, that’s what I’ll be talking about in the sermon.

But …
This is the week a white supremacist, after trying to force his way into First Baptist Church, a primarily Black church, in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, murdered two Black customers at a nearby Fred Meyer Store (they call them Kroger in those parts).

Those who died in Jeffersontown were:
Maurice E. Stallard, 69, and
Vickie Lee Jones, 67.

And …
This is the week a right-wing extremist was arrested in Plantation, Florida, for mailing at least fourteen [update: FIFTEEN] bombs to presidents, political leaders, news organizations and public figures all across the country.

And … 
This is the day after a Christian terrorist [warning: these 2 links contain very offensive material] killed eleven people (and wounded six more) at Congregation Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On a web page with neo-Nazi messaging, the alleged killer professes Jesus and misquotes the Gospel of John to bolster his anti-Semitism, and names the work of HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, as the prompt for the murders he committed minutes after he posted.

Those who died this week in Pittsburgh:
Joyce Fienberg, 75,
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54 (brother of Cecil)
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 86 (Bernice and Sylvan are husband and wife)
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69

[UPDATE: Both HIAS and Congregation Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha have “Donate” buttons on their homepages now. One way to show them they are not alone is to contribute, even if it’s not much.]

This is the week we gather for worship.

But how do we worship, in such a time as this? Can we simply write these horrors on a post-it and lay them aside, stepping into the sanctuary free and easy? No. Yet we can, and we must, worship.

How do we find refuge in prayer, in such a time as this? How do we find that “place of quiet rest near to the heart of God”? And yet we can, and we must, pray.

How do we praise, in such a time as this? How do we claim the joy of the Lord as our strength? And yet praise is possible, though it may be the praise of a Job, who cries out for his vindicator in his suffering, that though his body be destroyed, yet in his flesh he would see God. (Job 19:25ff)

How do we intercede, in such a time as this? When public repetitions of professed “thoughts and prayers” ring hollow, how do we entrust the hurting other to the loving care of God, and offer ourselves to their healing and restoration? And yet we must sit alongside the wounded and the grieving, if we are to join our intentions with the will of God, or our attentions with the attention of God.

How do take Christ’s holy name as our own, in such a time as this? When mass murder is committed in his name, how do we continue to profess him as our sovereign and our savior? And yet we can, and we must, profess him, and follow him to the side of the grieving, even though it be walking the way of the cross, of risking and suffering on behalf of others, if we are to walk his way of real Life.

How do we take Christ’s holy name to the world – to Jews, to Muslims, to our neighbors and our children who have turned away from Christian faith – when Christ is used to justify racism, and abuse, and genocide and oppression? And yet we can, and we must live his life and walk his walk more publicly, to show the world that Christian faith is better than its perversions.

Today I pray for the Or L’Simcha / Tree of Life congregation, and I lift up the vision from the end of the Christian scriptures, that God’s intention for the completion of creation, includes complete healing:

On either side of the river is the TREE OF LIFE with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Rev 22:2 NRS)

Sit with the thirteen names above.

Sit with the hope inherent in the name, Tree of Life.

Sit with the words and the imagery of the verse above.

For the healing of the nations. For the healing of the Tree of Life. AMEN.

Because I’m a Methodist

As I was being introduced to the Staff-Parish Relations Committee of Trinity UMC, a committee member asked me why I wanted to move to Ritzville.

I wasn’t particularly expecting the answer that came out of my mouth.

God, I said. Because of God.

Will and Grace at Annual Conference

It’s time, and a little past time, for my near-annual request that boards of ordained ministry, conference worship committees, and our bishops, get it right.

There’s a line in the ordination service that I’ve heard my bishops get wrong almost every year, for all forty-ish of my years of ministry. Certainly, I’ve witnessed them get it wrong far, far more often than I’ve heard them get it right.

After the candidates have been examined, and responded “I will, with the help of God,” the Bishop responds to these sacred statements of their intention – of their will – with:

“May God,
who has given you the will to do these things
give you the grace to perform them.” (2017-2020 Ordinal, pp. 21, 41, 60)

Most of the bishops under whom I’ve served, most years, near-exhausted after presiding over complex legislative sessions and fractious clergy sessions, and now on the home stretch after a too-long day in a too-long week, deliver these lines with two words especially emphasized:

“May God,
who has given you the will to DO these things
give you the grace to PERFORM them.”

This spoken emphasis implies that the ideas being contrasted in these lines are “do” and “perform” – which, sorry to say, are synonyms. As an ordinand, it was puzzling. Almost every year, it is a little jarring. And it’s a missed opportunity.

The contrast intended in the ordinal is not between the synonymous “do” and “perform,” but between the clearly distinct pair, “will” and “grace.”

“May God,
who has given you the WILL to do these things
give you the GRACE to perform them.”

Yes. Even our determined intention to fulfil our vows (our WILL to accomplish that list of sacred tasks) is frail, and in the heat of conflictual moments, the thirst of long dry spells, the deadeningly monotonous slog through administrivia, the ice of fears and failures, our work is utterly dependent on God’s GRACE.

Please, bishops? Will you stress WILL and GRACE this year? May God (and perhaps the help of your worship committee’s highlighters) give you the grace to perform it!

Source (and pages to highlight the bishop’s copy): https://gbod-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/legacy/kintera-files/worship/2017-2020_Ordinal-FINAL.pdf, pp. 21, 41, & (for consecration of bishops) 60.

The Blood-Besprinkled Bands

United Methodists don’t often gather midweek to observe the festival days of the church year. Christmas Eve and Holy Week are just about the only exceptions. All Saints Day was Wednesday, November 1. We observed it last Sunday, November 5, remembering the saints of our lives in prayer and song, thanking God for the communion in which we “join our friends above” in heavenly joy, united by love even while we are separated by the “narrow stream of death.”

One of our hymns was Charles Wesley’s 1759 lyric, “Come, Let Us Join Our Friends Above.” (#709 in the UM Hymnal) The tune is cheerful, and so are most of the lyrics, though I debated leaving out verse 3:

Ten thousand to their endless home
this solemn moment fly,
and we are to the margin come,
and we expect to die.
E’en now by faith we join our hands
with those that went before,
and greet the blood-besprinkled bands
on the eternal shore.

I almost omitted this verse because it was going to be a downer. Singing about our unity in love, even spanning the “narrow stream of death,” that’s one thing.  But singing in the same cheery voice, that “we expect to die,” that’s another.

If that’s not enough, those “blood-besprinkled bands” remind us of Jesus’ slow and bloody death on the Roman cross that both repels us, and – because it’s part of his saving story and ours – has that “wondrous attraction” we sing in a better-known song. Whether we lean heavily into the language of bloody sacrifice as God’s way of atoning (at-one-ing) us with God, or whether we don’t, we’re gonna come away from the cross with some blood spatter.

Anyway, we sang the hymn – all four verses. We sang that jarring truth that “we expect to die,” and we greeted, in our faithful imaginations, the “blood-besprinkled bands” of those who have died into the fullness of the presence of God.

And then.

And then, as Steve and I visited in the fellowship hall, as Steve’s grandkids and my wife Kathy were downstairs with the Sunday School, the news came through our social media feeds. Sutherland Springs.

In that solemn moment, all those ancient lyrics words were transformed. Go back now, and read verse 3 again (or read the whole thing) in light of the  shootings in the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Richard Rohr, in Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, echoes Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death, when he asserts that “it is not love, but ‘the denial of death’ that makes the world go round” (Rohr, Kindle edition, location 356).

Denial of death surely makes the healthcare industry go round: we all have our stories of heroic, macabre and unimaginably expensive measures to preserve bodily persistence long after bodily and mental joy or competence have departed.

Denial of death makes the security industry go round: one guy tries to wear explosive shoes on a plane, and millions of travelers now remove our shoes. A couple people tamper with pills, and all sorts of tamper-resistant packages are now mandatory. There are armed guards and metal detectors in the entrances of schools and hospitals … and churches?

Denial of death makes popular religion go round: we treat dying as a spiritual or moral failure. With all good will, we say of those who recover from illness, that they’re blessed (implying without meaning to, that those who don’t recover are not). We say that healing comes through faith (implying that illness comes from a failure of faith). Even at funerals, even in the presence of the body, denial of death is epitomized in that final line of Mary Frye’s poem: “Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.”

We Christians slip into this denial of our own death all too often. It’s easy, especially in a culture that denies it all the time. But we do die. And Christianity doesn’t even try to deny death. In the Gospels, the only times Jesus talked of the cross, it wasn’t about the cross he would carry, but about the one that we would carry:
“All who want to come after me must say no to themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24 CEB)

And the cross isn’t just about inconveniences and irritations. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in The Cost of Discipleship (1937), “Jeder Ruf Christi fährt in den Tod.”  — “Every call of Christ leads to death.”

There are several different directions we can go from here. This blog’s already way into TLDR territory, so I’m only going to touch on one:

The killings in Sutherland Springs prompt me to dive deeply into what it is to “take up my cross.” Taking up my cross might involve undergoing oppression unto death by state violence, or the violence of a culture that reinforces toxic masculinity and violence against women, or the crazy correlation of firearms and mass shootings in this country, or some other systemic evil. It might. But it will not involve surrendering my truth and my trust in God to these possibilities.

I can’t speak for the dead and wounded in Texas. Their blood cries out from the ground. It would be wrong of me to co-opt their story.

But I testify: when I have focused on my own safety, or on suspecting or blaming or demonizing others, I have been farther from following Christ.

And I testify: when I have been intent on living his life, and on discerning and naming the Spirit and image of God, the imago Dei, in others, I’ve been nearer to his way.

And yes, crosses are involved.

A Hermeneutic of Grandma Callahan

Note: The United Methodist press & web are going to town about a book of inspirational writings that the United Methodist Publishing House published, then recalled after it was revealed that the author (or, “author”) had plagiarized at least some of the work in the book, presenting it as if it was his own.

The author is a United Methodist pastor that most of us wouldn’t have heard of. But the book would have been a best-seller, at least in church circles, because the contents were daily reflections that he had sent to a parishioner whose name we know: Hillary Clinton.

From all accounts, it would have been a really good book, if permissions had been received where permissions were required, and if credit had been given where credit was due. But instead, it’s just a mess.

Here’s what that gets me thinking about. 

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The week after Annual Conference one year, I visited my Grandma Callahan at Wesley Terrace, her retirement home. She was unhappy, and perplexed.

Sunday morning, she’d attended worship in her nearby church, where her pastor had preached a really inspiring sermon, a sermon that hinged on a story of something that had actually happened to him that very morning. Grandma Callahan was really moved.

That evening, she went to vespers at her retirement home.  This guest preacher was another United Methodist; he had a pretty good sermon, but it hinged on something — the same thing — that had actually happened to him that morning on the way to church.

I could help her with her perplexity. At Conference our bishop had opened his sermon with “When I was walking this morning, … .” It was a really good story, and it gathered energy because it had actually happened to him just that morning, and it was a perfect illustration for his point!

(My text-criticism sensors were going off during the bishop’s sermon. I get suspicious about preachers’ stories that are just too neat or clever. It might be my Saturday Night Live hermeneutic, with Dana Carvey’s “Church Lady” character announcing, “How conveeeenient!” The bishop could have gotten that story from a book of sermon illustrations for all occasions.)

Both of Grandma’s preachers had heard the Bishop’s sermon the previous week. And, perhaps weary from a week at Conference, both had used it. And both had passed it off as their own experience.

I could help her with the perplexity: how the two preachers happened to use the same story on the same day. But I couldn’t help her with the unhappiness: how two [or, counting the bishop, three!] preachers could have such lack of integrity as to tell a story that obviously wasn’t their own, as though it was their own? If my own pastor tells one experience that’s patently not their own, how can I trust them in any other thing they say? And if two out of two (or three out of three) pastors have that lack of integrity, what is to be inferred about all the others?

I still can’t help her with that.

The very idea that preachers can get “sermon illustrations” from books of sermon illustrations has always baffled me. But at the very least, the VERY least, the preachers — including the bishop — could use the line I heard Fred Craddock use (giving him credit, of course): “I don’t know if this ever happened, but it’s True.”* Where quotations are used in print or online, the citation should be complete, like a proper footnote. Where a person’s words or ideas are used in preaching or speaking, credit should be given orally, and (wherever possible) in text as well.

It’s about showing ourselves trustworthy in a few things, at least in one thing. It’s about not losing people’s trust, not only in ourselves, but in others. And it should be so easy!

I think our bishops can help with this. Let them decide to model ethical preaching & writing , and to state that it’s one of their expectations of the pastors they appoint. Let the preachers they invite to address the Conferences also model these standards.

I think the United Methodist Publishing House can help with that. Let it decide to do due diligence in considering manuscripts and screening for plagiarism before agreeing to publish, and make its policies & procedures public. When it fails, let it show how it failed, and how it is revising its policies & procedures, to minimize the chance of a repeat.

I hear the seminaries are already doing a decent job of encouraging ethical preaching & writing, and the ethical environment is far more diverse, with social media, electronic communications, and more awareness of power & privilege differentials, but ethics around use of other people’s material in preaching & writing wasn’t really emphasized in my day (except of course for academic writing).

I think my Grandma Callahan can help as well (along with the many Grandma Callahans of the church who are still in this life). Let them go to the preacher whose story they suspect, and ask pointed questions: “Did you write that, or did it come from someone else?” And give them pointed feedback: “When I notice you doing that, I lose trust in you.” But don’t just  be negative. Be just as engaged when they DO cite their sources: “I really appreciate that you shared that story from ______. Could I borrow the book? I want to know more.”

It might make the after-service handshake line a scarier place for preachers, but that’s not a bad thing.

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* Substandard footnote: I remember Fred Craddock say this at Kilworth Chapel, the University of Puget Sound, many years ago. It stays with me, and I probably have the words right.

Not so with us

As I write this on June 8, I’m witnessing the Senate Intelligence Committee questioning James Comey, and thinking about the importance of leadership without intimidation or coercion, with mutual trust and respect for differences. Presidents can abuse their authority, and so can pastors. We can abuse our position: rank or title, our resumé, our uniquely defined roles. We can abuse our personal characteristics: size, gender and personality traits. We can use these positional or personal realities to get our way even when it’s wrong, illegal, evil. And we can do damage.

Even in the United States, with its government of the people, by the people, and for the people, presidents can seek to become autocrats. Even in the Church, which exists for God’s glory and the development of disciples of Jesus Christ, pastors and laity can abuse the authority God and church give them.

Jesus said to them, “The rulers of the nations lord it over them; and those in authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ But not so with you; rather the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like one who serves. … I am among you as one who serves.”   — (Luke 22:25-27 NRSV, alt.)

I, and most pastors and laity I know, desire to lead like Jesus, without domination or manipulation. But now and then, in our denomination and in our congregations, we “throw our weight around.” (Isn’t it interesting that this common saying portrays aggressive use of physical size as a metaphor for inappropriate coercion using positional authority!) Now and then we seek to get our own way using force or emotional manipulation: we threaten; we use anger, we take offense, we withdraw, we use financial pressure, and more. Instead, we should work together as partners who seek to understand and collaborate, appreciate, and come to a shared way that’s better than our own.

St. Francis of Assisi is credited with this prayer:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is discord, union;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy. 

Grant that we may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
           — source: Book of Common Prayer

May this be our prayer as we work with each other, especially if we are called to lead, in church and in nation.