HOPE IN THE RYE [F, 10-30-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

HOPE IN THE RYE   [F, 10-30-20]

I have been thinking about hope. Partially because it is an assignment from The Royal & Philosophical Society of Guys in Exile, but also because everything about the world seems so hopeless. Fortunately, I have recently been reminded of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye.

It is the quintessential story of teen angst, the protagonist angsty teen being Holden Caulfield. The title comes from Holden’s dream, which he describes to younger sister, Phoebe. There is a huge rye field, on the edge of an abyss, and many children play in the field, unaware of the abyss. Holden runs along the rim, and whenever a child gets too close to the edge, he catches them and pushes them back into the field.

Holden decides to solve his problems by going somewhere else, by running away. When life becomes too much, teens think that a change of place is the solution. Old people think that, too. In his last few years, my father changed from nursing home to senior apartment and back again,  to the same settings in different towns, over and over, quite sure that if he only got into the right place, he would be just fine, 85 again.

Before Holden runs away, he wants to say goodbye to the only person who does not seem phony to him, sister Phoebe. He tells her to meet him at the museum for farewell. When Phoebe shows up, she has her suitcase. She is going with him.

That’s the last thing Holden wants. He tells her she can’t go. He walks away. She follows, dragging her suitcase. All through NYC he goes, Holden trying to lose Phoebe, the little girl dragging her suitcase behind her, resolutely following. She doesn’t say anything when he yells at her to go back, doesn’t try to change her brother’s mind; she just follows.

Finally, he gives up and takes her to the park. There he buys her a ride on the carousel. As she rides around, she reaches out, dangerously, to “grab the brass ring.” [On a pole beside the carousel, too high for a rider to see into it, is a box full of metal rings. As they go by, riders can reach into the box and grab a ring. There is only one brass ring in the box. If a rider grabs the brass ring, they get a free ride.]

Holden wants to push Phoebe back onto her horse, keep her safe, be the catcher in the rye. But he has learned something from Phoebe. “I guess,” he says, “If a kid is going to try for the brass ring, you’ve just got to let them try.”

Phoebe is the Christ figure, the embodiment of hope. She doesn’t try to keep her brother from his bad decisions, because loving someone means letting them be free. Because she loves him, though, she is willing to go with him into whatever future his decisions, bad or good, might take him.

Christ is not the catcher in the rye, keeping us from playing too close to the edge, but the savior in the rye, not taking away our freedom, not pushing us back to safety against our own desires, but going over the edge with us if that is what it takes. Being catcher and being savior are very different.

God will not save us from going over the edge, from reaching too far as we try to grab the brass ring, but God never abandons us. In Christ, God will go over the edge with us.

Hope is not in the action of God, but in the presence of God.

John Robert McFarland

EXPECTATIONS [W, 10-28-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

EXPECTATIONS                  [W, 10-28-20]

When the little first grade boy fell off his chair in the reading circle, just to get attention, Mrs. Edith Hufford laughed harder than the kids. She was in her early 60s. She had been teaching only two years. She wasn’t just their teacher; she was their grandmother. She thought that everything they did was cute.

So when she said, “Read,” all those kids said was “How far and how fast?” They wanted to please her. If she wanted them to learn, they were going to learn. That’s the way a kid is with a grandma who thinks they’re cute.

Both our daughters were gifted with Mrs. Hufford as their first-grade teacher at Oakdale School. At the end of first grade, they were both reading at 8^th grade level.

We were just lucky, for she didn’t teach long, only 5 years. She had started classes at ILSU when she was in her 50s and her sons were students there. She wanted to learn along with them. Of course, with a husband and a bunch of sons to take care of, she could take only one course at a time, so it required a long while to get her degree and begin to teach. When her husband hit 65, he retired, and so she did, much to the dismay of parents, and children, and a principal, who wanted her to teach forever.

In Katie’s YA book, What Goes Up, she includes a woman, who is just like her teacher, Mrs. Hufford. Even calls her Mrs. Hufford. That may be one thing Mrs. Hufford didn’t expect.

It was Mrs. Hufford’s expectations that made those children learn, not her exhortations or pedagogical skills. She expected them to learn, and she loved them into meeting her expectations.

Today is Katie’s birthday. As I think about our years of trying to help our children grow, I’m especially grateful to those who helped us in that task. We don’t do that alone. I give thanks for Mrs. Hufford, and her expectations.

Looking back now on the people who influenced me, it was their expectations that made the difference. They didn’t demand my best, they just expected it. When I fell off the chair, either by accident or in an attempt at humor, they laughed. I shall forever be grateful for those who expected more of me than I expected of myself.

John Robert McFarland

HOPE [M, 10-26-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

HOPE  [M, 10-26-20]

One day—I think we were preparing for company—Helen said to me, “Thank you for all the stuff you have done today…and thank you for all the stuff you’re going to do that you don’t even know about yet.”

That’s hope. Not wishing. She knew I would do what needed to be done, if she directed me.

I would not do what needed to be done because I was aware it needed to be done. I am afflicted with the male disease of ED-Electile Dysfunction, electing not to see what needs to be done around the house. Even in the absence of my awareness, however, she knew that I would do what she asked. “Not my will but Helen’s be done.” She had that hope because she lived in a story where that was the reality. She knew the narrative, and she knew the characters. It wasn’t wishful thinking; it was hopeful thinking.

So, what’s the difference between faith and hope? They have a lot in common, and distinctions are mostly about definitions. I define faith as awareness or knowledge that God is with us. In the last words of John Wesley, “The best of all is, God is with us.”

Faith is about the present. Hope is about the future. It’s going to turn out okay, because we know the story and we know the characters. Hope doesn’t mean it will turn out the way we want, but that it will turn out okay.

By “future,” I don’t mean “life beyond life.” Even as I come very close to the end of this life, it never occurs to me to think about the next. It seems more reasonable to me that there will be something more after I have “shunted off this mortal coil,” [1] but it is irrelevant. If you live your life now in the hope that you will “go to heaven” when you die, you have no hope.

There is a difference between awareness and recognition. I don’t think I’ve ever been aware of the presence of God, a “heart strangely warmed” episode. But I have always recognized the presence of God, known that God was the teller of the story.

I have a bit of the “holy envy” that Krister Stendahl and Barbara Brown Taylor talk about when it comes to God-awareness experiences. I think that would be neat, to “feel” God. But I’m sure it is not necessary in order to have hope.

Well, I am ruminating on this matter of “hope” because it is the topic for the next Zoom meeting of The Royal & Philosophical Society of Guys In Exile,” and each of us is to bring some thought, by self or others, relating to hope.

John Robert McFarland

1] I am always bemused and distressed by the lack of provenance awareness in internet search engines. I looked up “mortal coil” to be sure it was from Hamlet, since I get Shakespeare plays confused with one another, and according to Google, “mortal coil” was either a British rock band or a 2017 novel by Emily Suvada.

 

 

 

 

THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSIVE PRESENCE [Sat, 10-24-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSIVE PRESENCE      [Sat, 10-24-20]

I was recently reminded of my high school basketball coach, Alva Cato. He was also my algebra teacher and our class sponsor, along with Miss Grace Robb. I was class president for three years, so I got to work with Mr. Cato, and got to know him. That was a valuable part of my high school experience.

Mr. Cato was a patient and encouraging man. Not long before he died, Mike Dickey, my best friend in our class, told me of how he had struggled so much with algebra when we were freshmen. One day, Mr. Cato was looking over his shoulder as he was trying to do the algebra assignment and said, “Mike, you can get this. Take it slow. Be patient with yourself. You can get this.” Mike said, “That made all the difference. Math became my best subject.” Mike remembered that for 65 years.

There was a limit to Mr. Cato’s patience, though, when it came to basketball.

Don Falls was the tallest boy in school, maybe in all of Gibson County, six feet four inches. In those days, that was gigantic. But at 6 feet, one inch, I was the second-tallest guy on the team, so it was my job to guard Don in practice. It was not a desirable assignment. Don wasn’t just taller, he also outweighed me by at least 50 lbs. Even worse, for me, he wasn’t just bigger than everyone else, he was skilled, especially offensively.

Mr. Cato made me stop guarding Don, though, because I kept getting in his way. It was defense simply by presence.

I was skinny and slow and couldn’t jump. I couldn’t reach high enough to block Don’s shot. But I could anticipate. Whatever move Don made, wherever he went, I was already there. 

One day, Mr. Cato grabbed me by the arm and said, “John, we’re never going to get any practice done this way. You go guard somebody else.”

Mine was not a defense of skill or size, but simply of presence. I got in the way.

We speak often in the church about “a ministry of presence.” Especially in times of sorrow and loss. There isn’t much we can say to a person who is in anguish, but we can just be there with and for them. Stories are often told of a little child who goes and sits on the lap of a sorrowing person and just weeps with them. That’s a ministry of presence.

That ministry of presence can be a defensive presence, just getting in the way of folks who want to be offensive. People in the winter of their years aren’t very fast or strong, but we’ve been around long enough to anticipate where the offenders are trying to go. We can get in the way, not just physically, but also spiritually. And by voting.

Take your love to where it can get in the way.

John Robert McFarland

Indiana people might know more about Mr. Cato’s son, Gene, and his great-grandson, Michael Lewis. Gene became the commissioner of the Indiana High School Athletic Assn. and presided over the demise of Indiana’s famous and iconic one-class basketball tournament, thus assuring his place in hell. Michael Lewis played for Bob Knight at IU. I was at IU basketball practice one day with Bishop Leroy Hodapp, whom Knight referred to as his pastor--trying for a ministry of non-presence, hoping not to be noticed by the irascible coach, since said coach would often take out his ire on spectators if things weren’t doing well on the floor-- when Michael messed up a play because he had been poked in the eye. Knight ranted at him. Michael explained the eye poke. Coach Knight retorted that Michael always played like he was blind anyway.

 

 

THE GIRL ON THE BIKE [R, 10-22-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

THE GIRL ON THE BIKE   [R, 10-22-20]

There was no reason yesterday for my moroseness. Yes, the sky was gray and droopy. Yes, I was missing my friend who died recently. But gray skies and lost friends are common sorts of days. There are plenty of those days when I feel like lengthening my stride and lifting my head as I walk. But not yesterday. My head was drooping like the sky, and my legs were trudging unwillingly.

Then the girl on the bicycle appeared.

She’s not really a girl. Probably about thirty, although age is hard to guess, for she’s always wearing a helmet. Well, a man should not try to guess a woman’s age, regardless. And she is a woman, not a girl. I understand that we should not diminish women by referring to them as girls. But to someone my age, any woman is a girl if she’s under forty. Or maybe seventy. And if she can ride a bike.

She rode by me, silently. Not slowly, but not fast. And, as she always does, she smiled and waved in the same way—quietly, patiently, pleasantly, undemandingly.

The rest of my walk, as I always do after I have encountered “the girl on the bike,” I smiled, almost like I had seen a puppy or a laughing baby. The skies were still gray and droopy, but I was not. Well, not the droopy part.

I have no idea who she is, what her name is, what her status in life is, even what model bike she rides. And she knows nothing about me.

To her, I’m just the old man walking. To me, she’s just the girl on the bike. And that’s all I want her to be. If I met her, talked to her, got to know her, it would diminish her magic.

I understand a little bit about why she is magic to me, why she always makes me smile. She’s young and healthy and rides a bike. She makes me remember when I was young and healthy and could ride a bike. She represents a future I can’t have. With luck, she can ride that bike and wave at old men walking for another fifty years. I’m nostalgic for something that is not yet.

So, I came home and wrote this. When I get into one of my dismal moods, feeling that “If I had my way in this wicked world, I would tear this building down,” [1] I think: Why in the world do I write my little Christ In Winter columns? I say nothing that other writers don’t say better. How useless this is.

Then I think that maybe for you, I’m the girl on the bike—nothing special, not spectacular, no great depth, just a pleasant brief encounter, a smile and a wave.

Also, a reminder: If you see a droopy old person walking, smile and wave.

John Robert McFarland

 

1] The Peter, Paul, & Mary version of “If I Had My Way.”

PUMPKIN SECURITY [T, 10-20-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

PUMPKIN SECURITY          [T, 10-20-20]

Bob Teague, our Normal neighbor of over 50 years ago, was a traveling salesman, driving his Volvo all over Illinois for various companies at different times. To break the monotony, he visited various roadside attractions. One year, as Halloween approached, he stopped at a pumpkin stand, and laid eyes on the biggest pumpkin he ever saw. Now, Bob was not a profligate guy in any way, but he decided he had to have that pumpkin. What a Halloween jack o lantern it would make! It was sure to delight his own two grade-school daughters, and the other children in the neighborhood. But when he got it home, and displayed it on the front steps of his house, right beside ours, he realized that he had forgotten about David.

David was not very old. About ten. But he was already an irascible curmudgeon. Once as a neighbor man was up on a ladder, working on his house, David tried to kick the ladder out from under him. No particular reason. That was just the sort of kid David was. He did not like adults. Or much of anybody or anything else. Bob knew David would not be able to resist abusing that pumpkin.

So he called David over, showed him the pumpkin, told him its back story, demonstrated how proud he was of it. He didn’t give David a lecture on civic responsibility, did not threaten him, did not say he would tell his parents. Instead, Bob put David in charge of pumpkin security. “You’re the only kid in the neighborhood I can trust to keep the pumpkin safe,” Bob told David. “I’m counting on you.”

The pumpkin lived a long and healthy life, at least as far as pumpkins go.

One of the biggest laughs I ever got at a funeral was when I said, “This may come as a surprise to some of you, but Bob could be stubborn.” Yes, he was, but it served him well. He told me once how a fellow salesman one night on the road suggested they go out and “find some women.” Bob was insulted. “He knows I’m married. What kind of man does he think I am?” As he was dying, I asked him how he wanted to be remembered. “I was faithful,” he said, meaning not just marriage, but his whole life.

Bob was faithful, yes, but to values, not positions. He and I both supported the Viet Nam war in its first years. We believed what the government told us. We couldn’t believe that the government would lie to us—about “the light at the end of the tunnel”, about how many young boys were being sacrificed for the careers of politicians, about how corrupt was the puppet government we had set up, etc. I realized around 1967 that we needed to stop that war, but it took Bob longer. Remember, he was stubborn. But the day I knew the war was over was the day Bob said, “They lied to us. We’ve got to bring those boys home.” His stubbornness was in faithfulness to the truth.

He could have dug in his heels against David, but he knew the kid needed some worthwhile responsibility rather than some lecture about responsibility.

Whenever I see a big Halloween pumpkin, I think about my stubborn, smart neighbor, Bob, and I give a big jack o lantern smile.

John Robert McFarland

I hope people put masks on their jack o lanterns this year.

 

BRIGHT MORNING STAR-a poem [Sun, 10-18-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

BRIGHT MORNING STAR-a poem [Sun, 10-18-20]

Bright morning star,

alone in the blackness

of the world out beyond,

I open the door each

day to see if you are

still there, to see if we

are yet traveling

together into the day.

Some morning soon I

shall look for you

and you will be gone.

Then, where will I be?

John Robert McFarland

OTHER THINGS TO DO [F, 10-16-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

OTHER THINGS TO DO      [F, 10-16-20]

The Crumble Bums, now known as The Guys In Glenn’s Garage, since we can’t go to the Crumble Bakery anymore for coffee, and so now meet in the aforementioned garage, which is quite spacious and cleaner than most living rooms, with all the doors open, so that we’re sort of outside, which is going to be worrisomely cool very soon now, more than six feet from one another, masked except when we are sipping coffee, each one of us having brought our own brew [Mine is Santa Fe Roasters chocolate pinon], talked this week about how television viewership for sports has dropped dramatically during this viral pandemic--in the context of our conversation about the baseball playoffs and the recent deaths of so many famous players--which seems a bit counter-indicated, because you’d think sports fans would be even more devoted to the televised version of athletic competition, since the feats of athleticism cannot be viewed in person.

There are a number of theories/reasons about why this is so. Many sports have been forced out of season, and no one wants to watch water polo in the winter or hockey in the summer. Schedules are unpredictable, since games get postponed, sometimes at the last minute, because of infected players. Many watch sports because they have bets on the games, and folks who are out of work don’t want to risk the money for the electric bill on a gamble.

But the one I like best: Without televised sports, people have discovered that there are other things to do.

I personally still enjoy watching sports. I’m glad there was a baseball season, even though it was short--and strange, with no fans in the stands--and even though the Reds scored minus three runs for the whole season. [Hyperbole, yes, but not by much.] I’m excited that it looks like we’ll get to see some Big Ten football and a somewhat shortened basketball season. But I also feel liberated from the need to watch sports. Yes, I have discovered there are other things to do.

Maybe one decent gift of the pandemic is getting us out of unproductive ruts. Okay, I may be stretching a bit, trying to keep from being totally despondent about our current troubles, but work with me here. Read a book. Write a letter. Say a prayer. Work a puzzle. Finish that quilt. Bake some cookies. Take a walk. Learn to knit.

Clean up the garage—maybe some guys will come have coffee with you and give you stuff to think about.

John Robert McFarland 

“Christ is a prediction.” Irenaeus

DISSIDENT LIVING [W, 10-14-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

DISSIDENT LIVING     [W, 10-14-20]

It seems wrong right now to write about, or even think about, anything but the upcoming election… if democracy can survive… the increasing rate and magnitude of nature disasters… the accelerating of hatred and division… the debasement of religion for the sake of power… the virus…

Recently, though, our daughter, Katie Kennedy, the professor and author, [1] said that she is helped to get through these times because she is a Russian history scholar. She has read much in the journals and diaries of Soviet dissidents, people who lived under extreme tyranny and brutality. She noted that even though their lives were under constant anxiety and in constant danger, as they resisted the oppressive regime, they took time to record outings with their grandchildren, the beauty of nature, the fellowship of friends. They did not let the dominators dominate them. Even as they resisted the tyrants of the world of hate, they lived as citizens of the world of hope.

So, I think I’ll take on the role of a dissident… well, I already have. But I think I’ve let the dominators dominate me. I spend too much time in anger and despair at the ways of the haters. Yes, I resist, in all the ways I can, but even my best and strongest resistance amounts to very little, if anything, so I’m left with only the anger and frustration. Now I need to spend more time in the world of hope, of friends and nature and family. So, thank you, friend, for reading this, on this beautiful autumn day here in Indiana, and let me tell you about my grandchildren…

John Robert McFarland

1] Her most recent book, for middle-graders, and Congress members who are smart enough to read, is The Constitution Decoded: A Guide to the Document That Shapes Our Nation, published by Workman.

PAINTINGS, POEMS, AND PEOPLE IN A PANDEMIC [M, 10-12-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

PAINTINGS, POEMS, AND PEOPLE IN A PANDEMIC  [M, 10-12-20]

We have a friend whose grandparents came to the US from Europe a century or so ago. They had a relative in Europe who worked as a housekeeper and babysitter for a young, unknown artist. One week he told her he was short of money, but he was able to pay her the five dollars he owed, or she could have one of his paintings. She had seen his paintings. She was no fool, so she said, “I’ll take the five dollars, Mr. Chagall.”

I suspect that the one he was going to give her was the one that sold for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s in 2017. Of course, in her lifetime, it probably would have brought only 10 or 15 million.

Marc Chagall’s paintings are of people, sort of…and horses, sort of…sometimes horse heads on people, and… well, I just don’t get much from his paintings.

I don’t get much from this pandemic, either, but I’m pretty sure this pandemic is like Chagall’s paintings—more meaning and significance there than is obvious at first.

I think of that as I read poems in the morning. Some have too much meaning. They’re like being hit with a hammer. Others are obscure, but there is meaning—something that touches the spirit--if we dig deeper, listen with more focus.

At this point, I should tell you what deeper meanings I have gotten from this pandemic, but so far, it’s more like the hammer whack on the head.

I have learned something via the enforced isolation from people, though: people can be either a means of grace or an escape from grace. Being forced to stay away from people, I realize how often I use people as a shield against God rather than allowing them to be a conduit of God.

That’s especially tempting for people in the “helping” professions, I think. I am guiding, counseling, teaching, healing these people, so they are my clients, not my messengers from God. My action is all going toward them rather than from them.

Being on my own now, most of the time, I have to confront God “just as I am.” That’s not always pleasant, but it’s productive.

Well, let’s just leave it at this. If someone offers you a Chagall painting for a week’s work, take it, even if you don’t understand it.

John Robert McFarland

ONE STORY TO TELL [Sa, 10-10-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

ONE STORY TO TELL         [Sa, 10-10-20]

Quite a long time ago, I learned that people aren’t interested in the way we do things, only in the results. I was waiting for a mechanic to finish up my car. The owner of the shop decided I should learn how mechanics create and run their business. It was fascinating, to him, and totally boring to me. Also, I ended up not trusting him, for I knew about his short cuts and ways to charge more even when not necessary.

So, be alert. What follows is not about faith, but how preachers get around to talking about faith. It’s fascinating to me. I suspect not nearly as much to you. You have been warned…

Some months ago, [or several centuries, in pandemic time] when we were trying to continue life as it had always been, only on Zoom instead of in person, I was asked to do a program for our church on story-telling. I have a doctorate in theology, so I pointed out that I can talk theology if I must, for in 1977, I had read every page of every book on theology ever written. At least, it seemed that way to me. I can talk about everything from “first cause” to “the rapture,” from Thomas Aquinas’ “five proofs” to the “via negativa.”

From all that study, I have concluded that God gave us theology for fun. It’s when we take it seriously that we get into trouble.

Theology and faith are not the same thing. We often confuse theology/belief with faith, though. Theology is belief, the intellectual expression of faith. Theology is “thought and speech about God.” Faith is living in relationship with God.

Which is why I consider myself not a theologian, but a storyteller.

From the time I started preaching, I was interested not only in faith, but in the way that faith is communicated, for I knew that the way faith is communicated changes faith, helps us grow in relationship with God or deters us from doing so. I knew before I ever heard Marshall McLuhan say it, that the medium is the message.

I also knew from the beginning, although I could not have articulated it then, that story is the best medium for communicating faith, for a lot of reasons, mostly because we live in story form.

When I was in seminary, almost all of us students had churches we served on the weekends. My fellow students would complain when they returned to campus that “They didn’t remember at all the points I made about soteriology, comparing Schleiermacher and Kierkegaard. All they remembered were the illustrations.”

I thought: If what people remember are the illustrations, the “stories,” maybe those really are the points, and what we say about the stories [theology] are the illustrations.

Historians know that the past isn’t just there; it’s created by the stories we tell about it. For instance, the story I told you above about how I read every theology book ever written. If you don’t know the context, and you didn’t real very closely, and you really don’t care, you might repeat that as though it is factually true. 

The same is true of current reality. It is created by the stories we tell about it. Donald Trump and Fox News know that very well. If you can control the stories, you can change the “truth.”

I recently read a person of faith who said that “we are being killed by bad theology.” Well, yes, but not so much by bad theology as bad stories.

There is only one story that matters. As Helen reminded me a long time ago, when I was trying to find some new and novel way to express a particular aspect of faith, “You have only one job when you preach, and that is to remind us that God loves us.”

John Robert McFarland

 

 

“HIM SERVE WITH MIRTH…” [R, 10-8-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

This year is not a time of mirth. To write mirthfully, even about mirth, seems wrong. All the more reason, I suspect, to look for mirth. [It’s also fun to say “mirth.” Try it…]

An old man got up in church to give his testimony. “Forty years ago, the Lord filled my cup to the brim, and he hasn’t put anything in or taken anything out since.” A little boy spoke up and said, “It must have wiggle tails in it by now.”

That’s the kind of early 20^th century, rural joke I told in sermons when I started preaching 65 years ago. It was out of date most places even then, but not in my life, or in the little open-country and tiny-town churches where I preached.

I grew up on a primitive farm—drinking from a communal water bucket, work done by horse and boy power, etc. The churches I pastored were primitive, too. There weren’t many places left where people stood up in church to “give a testimony,” but the folks in those churches had seen it done. Not many people drank out of open water buckets, but folks knew what they were. And folks knew how wiggle tails congregated in water left alone too long.

So, that story was a good reminder that faith needed to be renewed regularly, or it would get wiggle-tails in it. Try using that in a sermon today and look at the blank expressions on the faces of the hearers.

I thought of this when a friend recently told of hearing a preacher use a WWI story in such a way that it was clear he was using notes from a sermon he’d been preaching for a long, long time. I loved those preacher stories I heard, and re-told, when I started out, but they have wiggle tails in them now.

Mostly, I’m writing about this because of my morning hymnal singing. I recently completed singing through the hymnal, Marching to Zion at # 733, and starting back at O For a Thousand Tongues, # 57, again. [Yes, the first hymn in The UM Hymnal is # 57.] I sing two or three hymns each morning. It’s too much trouble to stay up with the seasons of the church year, so I just go straight through. It’s sort of strange to sing “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,” on a humid morning in July, but it also helps me hear the message in a different way. This morning, “All people that on earth do dwell” came up. # 75. “…sing to the Lord with cheerful voice. Serve him with mirth…”

Isn’t that wonderful? Serve him with mirth!

Reminds me of the boy who was at his grandmother’s one Sunday. Everything he wanted to do for fun, she said, “No, you can’t do that on the sabbath.” He wandered down to the barn lot where he saw the forlorn looking, long-faced mule. “Poor guy,” he said, “you must be a Christian, too.”

Oops, I did it again. An out of time illustration. Nobody calls Sunday the sabbath, or thinks there are things you can’t do on it, or has a mule. The point is still good, though—Christians should serve God with mirth, not long faces.

The settings for “mirth” have changed, but not the need for it. I was a very serious preacher when I started. People listened politely, but they weren’t “with” me. I found that if I told a story that was really funny, they were “with” me. We laughed together. Some humor is mean, disrespectful to a particular class or gender or race. But humor that is respectful draws us into one, as we laugh together.

“God serve with mirth, God’s praise forth tell, come ye before God and rejoice.” Isaac Watts.

John Robert McFarland

 

YES, WE OVERCAME [T, 10-6-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Here is how I’m looking at all those times we sang “We shall overcome…” We did.

 We got Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson as well as Barack Obama and John Lewis. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Ann Coulter as well as Leslie Stahl. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Kim Reynolds as well as Ann Richards. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Joni Ernst as well as Tammy Duckworth. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We got Amy Coney Barrett as well as Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We overcame. That’s what we were marching for.

We marched to be sure they were included, the ones who had been excluded for so long, included in the power so that they were free to exclude others. Before we marched, ethnics and women had no chance to be hateful, to exclude others. We marched so they would have that freedom, that power, to be like everybody else.

Humans are humans. Greed and selfishness and exclusion are not qualities that go with color or race or religion or gender. Those qualities are in all of us. There is no amount of marching, no number of times singing “We shall overcome” that will overcome human nature.

You would think that they would know we didn’t push so hard on those gates that kept them out so that they could close them again. You would think that since they were once not allowed in, they now would be sure the doors stay open to let others in.  But that’s not the way human nature, the way original sin, works.

We were successful with “We shall overcome.” Now we need to be successful at “Have thine own way, Lord.”

John Robert McFarland

WHAT I HAVE TO OFFER [Su, 10-4-20]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

As I walked yesterday morning, I crossed the street to avoid the CW. [Cheery Woman.] As we passed, though, nicely distanced physically--and socially, I thought--she called out, “You doing good?”

Well, yes, I am, and no thanks for asking. Why in the world does everyone want to know if I’m doing good? Have they no faith in me? I was made for pandemic isolation.

Helen and I have been in virus avoidance mode since March 15. That’s very close to 7 months. The first half of that period, I tried to be useful.

I sent funny sermon stories to our preachers. [I didn’t tell them they might be useful in a sermon; that would put response-ability on them.] I sent them little notes telling them how well they were doing in difficult circumstances. I started writing this column every day, instead of just whenever the muse struck, half of the time with my usual almost-funny story with an occasional wry-twist at the end, half of the time with a real attempt to be inspirational, the “we’ll get through this together” sort of thing.

We said that a lot back then: “We’ll get through this together.” Pretty quickly, it became clear that a lot of us would not get through this, together or any other way. People got sick. People died. People claimed the virus didn’t exist. The government failed us. People lost their jobs. People had to homeschool their children, having no idea what they were doing. Children and adults got depressed and mentally ill. “We’ll get through this together” was either incredibly naive or a hoax.

The second half of this isolated time, and from here on, I assume, I have realized that how I can be most useful is to stay out of the way, call no attention to myself, require no attention from anyone—not pastors or medical people or children or neighbors or friends. It’s self-serving, of course, for staying out of the way is virus avoidance, but for me now, it’s also a ministry.

People are overwhelmed. The one thing I can do for them is to require nothing of them.

I’m old and in the highest risk category for the virus. I can’t get out to the highways and the byways to be helpful to folks. But I can stay off the highways and byways so they don’t have to pick up my carcass.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite happy to talk if you telephone. I’m happy to read if you send an email. Or a letter, but that’s not very common these days. But I’m not going to “reach out.” [How come every contact anymore is “reaching out?”] I’m going to sit home with my wife, and my prayers, and my songs, and my books, and my coffee, and stay out of the way.

My pastors, and my fellow church members, and my friends, and my family, and my doctors, all of whom are good people, might say, “Oh, no, you don’t have to stay out of the way. Taking care of decrepit old people is what we’re here for.”  And I say, “Don’t take this away from me. It’s all I have to offer right now.”

I’m doing good. Leave me alone.

John Robert McFarland

CHALLENGE AND REASSURANCE [F, 10-2-20]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

I have a hard time these days finding “inspirational” reading that is helpful to me. “Inspirational” writers, even those who rather righteously announce that they are “spiritual but not religious,” seem to think that I need to be inspired by being “challenged” to do stuff. But I’m old. What stuff can I do? I’m not even allowed out of the house. I don’t need challenge. I need reassurance.

Today, in my daily search for helpful guidance for my spirit, I read a meditation about the women who followed Jesus around with their big bulky purses, so that he didn’t have to work a job for pay in order to eat. It was a motley bunch of women. Some were just using their husbands’ credit cards. Some maybe earned their money as “sex workers.” Some were washer women. Some apparently did not put their mite into the temple treasury but used it to get takeout for Jesus.

I’ve always liked that story, always liked those women, that motley crew with not much in common, except they wanted to hear good news and make sure others got to hear it, too. Makes me feel satisfied that they are in the Bible story.

The writer saw that story, though, as a chance to challenge me. “Those women used their resources to support Jesus.  What are you doing to support Jesus with the resources you have?”

Well, sheesh. Not much, and I’d rather not be reminded of it.

Instead of a “challenge,” the writer could have just pointed out that there are good people in the world, folks who try to be supportive. Not that one of them will always show up when I am in need; that’s somewhere between naïve and stupid. But there is reassurance simply in knowing there are good people around.

I would apologize to all the old and feeble people in my churches that I “challenged” when I should have been reassuring, but I can’t, because they are all dead.

I suspect, though, that the Holy Spirit helped them to hear The Word, hear what they needed to, in my words, got reassurance even while I thought the words were about challenge. The Spirit is like that. That’s reassuring.

John Robert McFarland