Daily Lesson for November 11, 2016

Today is Veterans Day and we set it aside to remember and honor all those who have served our country in military duty. We are grateful to live in the country we do and give thanks for the sacrifice of those who have stood guard in defense of our beloved country.

Last night I spent the evening with several Marines and Marine Families from my congregation as we celebrated the birthday of the US Marine Corps on November 10, 1775. We heard stories from Col. Rance Nymeyer from his days as the co-pilot of Marine 1 and Capt. Dick Baker told us about his ongoing struggle to get assistance for so many of the veterans struggling with PTSD and traumatic brain injury. Sgt. Lee Pennington regaled is with stories from Boot Camp -- a slightly revised, cleaner version of reality, and of his combat in the Korean War. For me it was an evening full of some tears, a great deal of laughter, and most of all a swelling heart for having the honor to know and pastor these fine veterans. Their hearts swelled when I told them that the first person I ever baptized was a Marine set for deployment in Iraq in 2006.

At the conclusion of the evening another friend was asked to read a poem by LCDR Jeff Giles, about a male-believe conversation between a civilian and a soldier, "perhaps a Marine" standing guard outside in the cold on Christmas Eve. The civilian welcomes the soldier in, but the soldier explains that it is his duty to stand outside and "at the front of the line" that separates the civilian and his home and family "from the darkest of times. The poem concludes with these lines:

I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.

I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother..
I can stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."

"So go back inside," he said, "harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I asked, "or prepare you a feast?

It seems all too little for all that you've done,
For being away from your wife and your son."
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell us you love us, and never forget.

To fight for our rights back at home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled."

Veterans have fought and bled for us and our posterity on far away beachheads. May we today remember and honor their service and sacrifice and dedicate ourselves always to fighting the good fight for them and their posterity here at home.

Daily Lesson for November 10, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Romans chapter 12 verses 9 through 16a:

9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. 10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. 11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. 12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. 16 Live in harmony with one another . . .

Last night Second B hosted a prayer service called "For the Healing of the Nation".  We scheduled this several months ago, long before the outcome of the election would be determined. We simply felt that what we would need after a bitter and protracted election season would be to simply be together as a community.

I selected the Romans reading above as a preface to our time together in the sanctuary, acknowledging that many came weeping and others came rejoicing.

What was so beautiful was that the space was held for all to be present. There was weeping --some visible. There was rejoicing -- discreet.  There was respect and a place for all. We began with passing the peace and together "America the Beautiful".  Deacons and pastors then led us in prayer for our elected leaders, for our nation, for our world, and for the healing of all wounds. I then prayed for our own beloved community. We then broke bread together, shared the communion, and sang the hymn: "Blest Be the Tie that Binds".

Yesterday, I saw many on Facebook saying one thing we need to do now as a nation is to get out of our bubbles. Half the country voted for Mr. Trump, the other half voted for Mrs. Clinton. The two halves live in different places -- geographically and ideologically.  We live in different states, different zip codes, and on different channels. We do not know and hardly even recognize one another. As I said in a sermon earlier this summer, we are two Americas:

"[O]ne brown the other white; one urban the other rural; or, in some places, one nouveau urban and the other, I am thinking of Ferguson now) ghetto suburban. One category is increasingly fixated on what America was, while the other is still held captive by what it was not.  One flyover the other speed past."

In times like these we say things like, "America needs to come together".  This I believe is literally true but also physically impossible. I mean, how?  How do two Americans separated by such distance come together?

Perhaps it is impossible. With the neighborhoods now so Balkanized, the schools so re-segregated, and no "Life" or "Cosby" or Great reat War to bind us altogether perhaps coming together is just too great a challenge in an age of identity politics, class warfare, and what sociologist Robert Putnam called "Bowling Alone".

But then there's what happened last night. Weeping, and rejoicing, and the passing of peace, and the breaking of bread, and the final two stanzas to "Blest Be the Tie":
"We share our mutual woes,
Our mutual burdens bear;
And often for each other flows
The sympathizing tear.
When we asunder part,
It gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart,
And hope to meet again."

And the name of the place where it happened is Church.

What We as Christian People Must Now Do

In the wake of the election of Donald Trump as our new president-elect, we as Christian people must commit ourselves to doing what we have always been called to do:

To give honor to whom honor is do, including our recognition of Mr. Trump as the democratically-elected president of all of us.

To pray for Mr. Trump and all other elected officials, asking that vice may wane, virtue wax, and wisdom prevail.

To bless and not curse.

To, in the words of the ancient Prophet, "Seek the peace of the city."

And where there is injustice or iniquity, to be a voice for the voiceless and a light in the darkness, speaking our spiritual truth to worldly powers.

As people of faith it is our solemn duty to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. May we observe both ordinances with the character and conviction worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And may it begin with me.

Daily Lesson for November 4, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 13 verses 18 through 21:

18 He said therefore, “What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? 19 It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” 20 And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? 21 It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.”

When we read this teaching we get it that Jesus is telling us the kingdom is always small in the beginning -- like a tiny mustard seed or a small pinch of leaven. But, what we might miss about what he is saying is that the kingdom is also pesky and unwanted.

The mustard plant is a weed -- notoriously difficult to contain. For you Southerners, the mustard plant is the kudzu of the Middle East. Then there's the leaven. Leaven in the Bible is always seen as bad, even a metaphor for evil.  Leaven is always to be gotten rid of. "For just a little leaven spoils the whole [unleavened] loaf."  Mustard bushes and leaven -- these are things to be fought against by the whole community.

But for Jesus, these are signs of the coming of the kingdom of God -- undesired and unwelcome and vehemently opposed, yet also tougher than a boot and impossible to get rid of.

When that great colonial gadfly Roger Williams was kicked out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony for questioning authority, the General Court ruled that he must be expelled [or executed] in order to prevent the "spreading of his Leaven to sundry."  And what nefarious "Leaven" was that exactly?  It was his dangerous ideas about human rights for native peoples, and religious tolerance of all persuasions and that very, very dangerous idea that the Church and State ought to be separate.

These were the dangerous ideas the General Court tried mightily to stamp out. But eventually, the little pinch of yeast leavened the whole loaf.

It always does.

(PS -- I'll be taking a few days off from Daily Lessons. See you soon.)

Daily Lesson for November 3, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from the teacher's bathroom at Anderson Elementary:

Yesterday I stopped off in the faculty unisex bathroom while on my weekly mentoring visit at Alderson Elementary School and discovered something surprising and wonderful, at least as far as elementary bathrooms go anyways.  

I have volunteered at Alderson and it's predecessor Parkway Elementary for six years.  Over the years I've had three children as mentees, a brother and a sister and a new mentee whom I'm just getting to know. These kids come from hard neighborhoods with challenging and stressed home lives. The families of everyone of my kids has loved their child dearly.  Still, the opportunities these kids have a minimal, the home life is often stressful.  And the classroom is filled with 20 other kids walking to school from the same difficult circumstances of home. 

After six years of showing up I know the names and stories of many of the other kids besides mine. I know the ones whose fathers are in prison. I know the ones whose cousins were murdered. I know who just got back from burying their mother. I pray for them.

And I pray also for the faculty and staff. I am amazed at the beginning of every school year to see their faces once again. They could be somewhere else -- another school.  But they are here, at this school with these kids and their stories. I wonder how they do it.  How do they keep showing up?  How do they remain?  How do they keep from just losing it when the kids bring all the chaos from home into the classroom?

And that's what was so wonderful about what I discovered on the wall in the bathroom. Taped next to the light switch was a quote by someone named Haim Ginott:

"I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather . . . I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized."

I do not who Haim Ginott is. I do not know if he is a Democrat or a Republican, socialist, capitalist, communist, animal, vegetable, or mineral. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because I already know the one truly important thing. And the really important thing is this: That somewhere in that school there is at least one person who is self-aware, whose eyes are open, who is not afraid to look at and reflect upon his or her own beautiful and/or frightening truth. There is at least one person who believes in what Plato said, that "the unexamined life is not worth living." I know there is one person over there off Parkway Drive in East Lubbock, Texas who believes these kids deserve someone standing before them in their classroom who is striving to be and do his or her very best -- striving to be good. And in reading the little sign posted there with Haim Ginott's words I know this one person believes it all so much that she or he is is willing to do something seemingly small yet very significant to try to get all the others to believe it and see it all too.

And the word for that person in the English language is called "teacher".

Daily Lesson for November 2, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Luke chapter 13 verses 10 through 17:

10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. 11 And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.” 13 And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. 14 But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” 15 Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? 16 And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” 17 As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.

There is no greater gift than the gift of empowerment.

To reach out one's hand, lift up one's own voice, or raise up one's own back tall and straight.  The bent down and broken stand up like pines and wave their branches in glory to God. The lame rise and walk and suddenly a hymn bursts forth from deep within their soul:

I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

God's gift is empowerment. God desire is for those in bondage to find freedom.  God wants to release the captive inside of everyone of us.

And I see her standing. In the middle of the synagogue on the evening of the Sabbath. She's standing. She didn't know her own stature. Eighteen long years. She'd forgotten just how tall she was. She'd forgotten what it felt like to look a man in the eye.

I’m pressing on the upward way,
New heights I’m gaining every day;
Still praying as I onward bound,
“Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”

Then there are the naysayers. "You're not ready." "The community is not ready." "Not now." "Not yet." "There are six days on which to be healed; come back tomorrow."  "Why, after all this time, do you want your freedom now?"  "Maybe we should study it a little more."  "Wait."

But Jesus says there's been enough waiting. "Woman," he says, "you are freed.  Walk where you want to go.  Walk and talk. Walk and sing. And teach others to walk and to sing with you.  Walk tall and proud. Walk real proud."

And all the people said, "Amen."

(In honor of Susan B. Anthony and all the other suffragettes who rose up to demand the right of women to go to the polls this week.)

Daily Lesson for November 1, 2016

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Martin Niemoller:

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

Something in me today thought of Martin Niemoller, the German pastor whose struggle to speak out against the Nazis was so tragically expressed in his poem which is prominently featured inside the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

I think, of course, about our own struggles to speak in our own times and in our own nation.  I think of a Muslim friend.  I think of a gay parishioner. I think of an unborn baby. I think of an old woman lying in the cold corner of her room in a cinder block nursing home, unable to raise the blanket to warm the bony top of her shoulder and unable to raise her voice to ask anyone else to help.

Who will speak for these, so wonder, if not me?

And then I think of something else -- another word from Niemoller, haunting in its own way. It is the recurring dream he had at the end of his life, before he died at 92 years of age in 1984.

In the dream, Jesus was there and he was with the other one -- Der Fuhrer.  Hitler. It was the great day of judgment. And Hitler stood there before Jesus, who asked him why.  "What drove you to kill so many?  Why were you so cruel?"

The answer, Niemoller said, was what woke him in a cold sweat:

Hitler wept and hung his head. "I didn't know about you," he said. "No one ever told me how much you loved me."

It is a struggle now to speak -- to be a voice for the voiceless.  I know it is imperative that I speak.

Yet the dream haunts me just as it must have Niemoller. And I wonder if the dream might not be for us now?  Has anyone dared to speak a word of love?  Has any one person dared to love someone they are supposed to hate, someone their world or their nation or their political affiliation has given them permission to hate?  Has any one person on the past year of election politics decided not to forward some snide or ugly meme but instead chosen to pray for the other party?  Has anyone ever chosen not to speak lest the truth be spoken in love?

I wonder if we have ever tried. I wonder what what it would be like if we did. I wonder if it might not heal this land.

I wonder if it would heal me.