MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND [5-29-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND [5-29-23]

 

Seventy years ago

I worked at Moe’s

so that he could go with Ethel

to her parents

 

I toiled with joy

Five dollars was a fortune

 

More, much more than that

I was trusted

 

to open and to close

pump the gas

clean the windshields

raise the hoist

to lube the dirty chassis

change the oil or fan belt

slice the cheese and lunchmeat

hand over loaves of Wonder Bread

dole out cans of beans

making change the old-fashioned way

in my satisfied head

 

An independent high school man

of means

 

John Robert McFarland

THE LAST SERMON

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE LAST SERMON

 

I have already preached my last sermon, and I didn’t even know it!

I have decided to quit preaching several times, because I thought I should. In order to concentrate on other things, like my own spiritual development. But that decision to quit never stuck. In part because I didn’t want to leave my friends hanging when they needed to get out of town for a Sunday. This time, though, I think final means final, because it is my energy level that is making the decision.

I figured on making a big deal of my last sermon. After all, preaching was central to my life and identity for a long time. Not making a big deal of it to anyone else, but to myself. Lots of remembering, wallowing in nostalgia, looking at old worship bulletins, etc.

I figured I could get to September of 2026 and preach my last sermon on the 70^th anniversary of my first, when I was a nineteen-year-old Indiana University sophomore. 70 is a round and impressive number.

In September of 1956, I told the DS that I was thinking that some day, maybe, perhaps, I might want to be a preacher. He said, “Good, you can start next Sunday.” 3 churches, on the Chrisney circuit. I didn’t even know where Chrisney was! That was 66 years ago last Sept.

I suppose a 66 year anniversary would be a nice number for a last sermon, but it’s awfully close to 666, and I don’t really want folks associating my preaching with that number.

Seventy years is a long time. September of 2026 is a long way off. Too long, as it turns out.

I was on the committee to persuade the Lilly Foundation to pay for a “renewal leave” for our pastor, Jimmy Moore. I even wrote the congregation’s rationale for why he should have a leave for 3 months. [“We really need a break.”] I assumed, and so did others on the committee, and so did our associate pastor, Mary Beth Morgan, who is Jimmy’s wife, that I would be available to back her up while Jimmy was gone.

That, however, was a year ago. When Mary Beth asked me to preach on a given Sunday in May, I realized I couldn’t do it. I had declined so much, both physically and mentally, over the last year that I could no longer stand for 20 minutes and think for 20 minutes, both of which are necessary for preaching.

[Okay, I know it’s possible to preach sitting down, but sitting down doesn’t do anything for the brain. Or the throat. Or the eyes. Or remembering whether it is Point 2 or Point 3 that follows Point 1.]

Not realizing that you will keep declining, when you are as old as I am, is in itself a sign of mental decline.

I am dependable but not reliable. Dependability is a matter of character. Reliability is a matter of timing, as in being able to show up when you say you will.

So I actually preached my last sermon a year ago. But even though I did not intend for that sermon to be my last, it was a perfect way to leave the pulpit. Three of my high school friends drove a hundred miles each way to come in person. Several of the students—now old retired people—from my campus ministry days were there via livestream, even though they live in far-away places. And it was a good sermon. About forgiveness, Jesus’ own most frequent sermon topic.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

HOW WILL I BE REMEMBERED? [R. 5-25-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—HOW WILL I BE REMEMBERED? [R. 5-25-23]

 

The story is told of the little boy who was taken, quite reluctantly, to kindergarten. Later in the day, he was upset. His teacher thought it would help him if he could talk to his mother, so she called her. When the mother answered, the teacher handed the phone to the boy. “Who is this?” the mother asked. “This is your son; have you forgotten me already?” he wailed.

No one is remembered for long, unless you are a shaker or mover. We understand that, but we want to be remembered by those who know us, in whose lives we have played a part. In winter, we look at the snow that covers up the reminders of spring and summer and autumn, and we wonder. Who will remember me? Especially, how will they remember me?

Bob and Lois Teague were our neighbors when our girls and theirs were little. We moved onto Fairchild Avenue, next door to each other, at the same time, the first houses either of us had ever bought. We lived side by side for six years. Bob and I did not have a lot in common--except we were both trying to raise little girls, and provide for our families, and fight dandelions--but we were good neighbors.

Years later, when we were in our mid-fifties, he called up and said something that shocked me. “I always admired you and wanted to be like you,” he said. I had no idea that he had ever felt that way.

Then he said, “But I have taken it too far. I’ve gotten cancer, too, just like you.”

Months later, when Bob was dying, he and Lois asked me to officiate at his funeral service. I made a trip to spend some last time with him. I asked him how he wanted to be remembered. “I was faithful,” he said.

Now it was my turn to admire and emulate. At that point, I wanted to be like Bob. I wanted to be remembered as one who had been faithful.

That still sounds like a good way to be remembered.

 

John Robert McFarland

 

PUSHING THE ENVELOPE AT ARBY’S [M, 5-22-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter--PUSHING THE ENVELOPE AT ARBY’S [M, 5-22-23]

 

Arby’s graciously sent us some coupons in the mail, offering us a 2 for $7 sandwich deal. Helen figured that was better than having me cook again, so we tooled over there. But only after she went with me to Dick’s Sporting Goods to make sure I bought a pair of new running shoes, which in my case are walking shoes.

She went to the earring store across the mall hall, and I examined shoes. I found some I liked, and looked around wistfully, appearing to be, I hoped, an old man who needed help and was willing to spend money, but the three clerks were busy talking to one another and didn’t notice me. Well, I had done my best.

Helen didn’t think so. When I explained the situation to her, she grabbed a clerk by the nose and dragged him over to me, where he promptly, after scanning my selection with his “device,” proclaimed that they did not have my size, but it was quite simple to take a few hours and order a pair online right then and there. He even helped me take a photo of the transaction on his computer screen, so that I would have a receipt, which was a new experience for me. So, let no one say I’m not willing to push the envelope!

[I looked that up to see why people say “pushing the envelope” when they mean acting dangerously. Has to do with the “envelope of time” when it’s safe to launch a rocket.]

But back to the main point—Arby’s.

We’ve been to Arby’s in other places, but never here, here in Bloomington. We were surprised. We were the only people there. Not even employees. Well, that wasn’t quite true. After standing at the counter for a while, a jolly young woman appeared and was willing to give us food. We showed her our coupon, and she asked us for a name to call out when our sandwiches were ready. I looked around. We were the only people in the place.

I told her my name was Ambrose. I always say that in those sorts of name-calling restaurants. She looked quizzically at Helen; people do that a lot. Helen told her my name is John. I explained to her that John is such a common name in my generation that if they call out “John,” every old man in the place gets up and tries to get my food. But there is never another Ambrose.

Helen said, “You’re holding things up.” I looked behind me. An open-faced middle-aged man had come in and was standing in line, if you can call one person a line.

Helen said to him, “Your name isn’t John, is it?”

“John Ambrose,” he said. Everybody wants to be a comedian.

When our sandwiches were ready and the girl called out “Ambrose,” he tried to get my food.

A shoe store and a fast-food restaurant is plenty enough for us in one day. We took our food home, where we can eat without pushing the envelope.

John Robert McFarland

 

EARLY MORNING TALKS [5-19-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—EARLY MORNING TALKS [5-19-23]

 

I have a few friends who are still alive. I talk with them by email or in the flesh. But my older family members have all finished their earthly journeys, and most of my friends have, too. That’s one of the liabilities of old age. It’s also one of its assets.

An asset because I still have access to Grandma Mac and Uncle Randall and Uncle Johnny and Aunt Gertrude. And friends like Darrel and Don and Mike and Dr. Wilkey and Jack and Bettie…  easier access than if they were still living, because we don’t need to be in the same physical space, or even have an electronic connection. We have spiritual communication. That is immediate. I spend my first hours in the morning talking with them.

Don’t worry. I told this to my doctor, and she said it’s okay. Well, actually, she didn’t say anything, but she’s given up on getting me to do stuff, so I take silence as consent. Also, I’m her favorite patient. I think she must be writing a book.

But in the early morning hours, I ask GL or Joan what they think I should know that morning, what wisdom they have for me. I don’t “hear voices,” but they lead me back to times we’ve spent together in the past, conversations and activities, and give me a chance to look at them in a new way, because we’re both older and wiser now. Well, they’re wiser. I’m at least older.

Mostly, they say, Trust the moment. It contains everything you need.

I am thankful for those early morning talks and memories and opportunities.

John Robert McFarland

Faithful reader Nina noted that in my cooking list, in the "Hands column, I have "mac and choose. Yes, it's a typo. But yes, it's also accurate. [Also, my computer has stopped using the end quotation marks..]

 

 

HANDS [M, 5-15-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—HANDS [M, 5-15-23]

 

I am cooking again, sort of. Which seems a little unnecessary, since I am married to a great cook. But… well, it was her idea first.

Several years ago, when we still lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Helen said that I needed to learn to cook. If she died first, I would need to cook for myself. If she got disabled, she would want to eat.

So I started cooking one day a week. Learned to do meatloaf and mac & choose. Casseroles. Basic meals. But that sort of got lost when we moved to Bloomington. We just slid back to the old pattern, to our natural abilities, with her cooking and me doing the dishes.

We’re not getting any younger now. In fact, living in Bloomington has been very hard on us. We’re becoming “puny and feeble,” as they used to mark next to old folks in the Solsberry Methodist membership book, so their nineteen-year-old preacher would know who to call on before it was too late.

So I was shaping a meatloaf the other day. Concentrating. Staying in the moment. Using my current mantra, “Trust the moment; it contains everything you need.” Using my hands…

It reminded me of when grandson Joe was about four years old. His mother noticed a cut on one of his hands. “Joe, what happened to your hand?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he answered, a big indignantly. “I can’t watch it every minute.”

When you’re young, your hands are so busy. There are so many jobs for them. You can’t watch them all the time.

When you’re old, you have time to watch your hands. It’s rewarding; hands are quite fascinating. Also, you need to, because it’s easy for old brains to forget what old hands are supposed to be doing.

The first sermon I remembered was by Paul Byrnes, the postmaster at Oakland City, IN. He was a Methodist lay preacher and filled in at Forsythe, my little open-country church, from time to time, whenever needed. I was probably twelve or thirteen. Paul preached on hands. He talked about how different Bible characters used their hands, how people brought offerings to the temple in their hands, how Jesus used his hands to heal, what various folks brought to God in their hands.  I remember most how he ended, by saying: “What do you bring in your hands?”

Ever since, I have thought about the importance of hands in trying to live successfully, in living a Christian life. They’re so important that Jesus said it would be better to cut one off than to misuse it. [Matthew 5:30.]

Many years later, when he was not young, I asked Paul Byrnes to come be the associate pastor where I was preaching. He had just gotten divorced. You didn’t do that, in my home town--especially as an old person, especially as a preacher--and be very acceptable to folks. I thought he might like a change of place. I knew he would bring something useful in his hands.

He thanked me, but declined. “I did think I would need to leave town,” he wrote, “but when you asked me to work with you, I realized that I didn’t have to move away, because that boy who used to listen to me preach thought I could still be useful. If you know you’re accepted, you can live anyplace.”

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE [R, 5-11-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE PURPOSE OF LIFE [R, 5-11-23]

 

The purpose of life is to love.

To love perfectly. At least, eventually.

We love by living in God, who is the source of love. As I John 4:16 puts it, “God is love, and those who dwell in love dwell in God, and God in them.”

We dwell in love, and thus in God, by loving what God loves, which is all of God’s creation and its inhabitants. [Yes, snakes and spiders, too.]

It is John Wesley [1703-1791] who pushes us on this. He says that we are to “go on to perfection.”

Not perfection in knowledge or action, of course. No one can do that. But perfection in love.

Because love is a decision.

Wesley was an Arminian, meaning he thought Jacobus Arminius was right about life: we have choices. The other leading theologians of The Protestant Reformation—Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Huldrych Zwingli –were predestinationists.

Predestination is different from fatalism. Fatalism says we have no choice about anything, i.e., “when it’s your time…” Predestination is not about everything, or about this life at all. It’s about whether you’ll go to heaven or hell in the next life.

Wesley did not believe that free will means that we have choices about everything. Random stuff happens all the time. But as Viktor Frankel pointed out in Man’s Search for Meaning, from his experience in the Nazi death camps, we always have some choice, at least the choice about how we shall respond to the random stuff that happens to us.

“Going on to perfection” in love means that our choice is love.

There are two movements to living in God, living in love: inward and outward. In Wesleyan terms, the inward movement is called personal holiness. The outward movement is social holiness.

Personal holiness is becoming aware of the presence of God so that God can direct us in our choices, direct us to love. Personal holiness includes prayer, Bible reading, individual and corporate worship, meditation, singing, paying attention to the witness of trees and flowers and birds and children.

Social holiness is about how we relate to God’s creation and creatures. That includes intentions as well as actions, since actions can be misunderstood or rejected. We can’t force others to accept love; that would be unloving. Sometimes the intention of love is as far as we can go, but it’s still our choice.

Wesley was so sure that the purpose of life is to choose to love that he made his preachers, including me, pledge to “become perfect in love in this life.”

I must be getting close.

John Robert McFarland

I have often preached that the purpose of life is to have a good time. My text is John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I’m here; let’s party.” The only way to really have a good time--not all those false good times of booze and dope and promiscuity and power and selfishness--is to love.

BALM IN GILEAD, M, 5-8-23

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—BALM IN GILEAD [M, 5-8-23]

 

Going through old papers, discarding them… I read today a handwritten letter from Scott & Catherine Smith, thanking me for the funeral for their son, Bob, when he committed suicide at age 20. In an interesting kind of temporal karma, the envelope noted that the letter was written on today’s date, exactly 43 years ago. Over half my life ago. Strangely, I remember everything about Bob’s death and funeral, except what I said in the sermon, the sermon that his parents thought was so beautiful and comforting.

As part of Bob’s funeral, we sang “Balm in Gilead.” I never hear that hymn without thinking of Bob and his family and that funeral. But how could I have done so well with the sermon for that funeral and not remember it? Because it was about Bob, not about me. And I had not known Bob. Until I listened.

I had been Directing Minister at Wesley UMC in Charleston, IL for less than a year when Bob took his life by jumping from the top floor of the EIU classroom building where his father taught physics. Like lots of college students, Bob didn’t come to church, so I had not met him, although his parents were regulars at worship and involved in other ways in the church and the town. Catherine was the head of the volunteer ministry at the county jail. Scott was president of the local ACLU.

The funeral for a young person is always a special challenge for a preacher. A suicide even more so. Even more with someone you don’t know. But according to the note, I knew Bob without knowing him.

There was really no mystery in that. Catherine started the note by thanking me for letting them help plan Bob’s service. The thanks needed to go the other way. I was able to do that service well because I had learned how to listen to people at the time of death, how to listen with the heart as well as the ears, how to read laughter in tears and tears in laughter.

That was not the way my seminary professors wanted me to do funerals. They thought that you needed to listen only to God. Because the preacher was to talk only about God. It was a worship service, and you don’t worship a person, even one who just died. I was taught that I should not even mention the deceased but concentrate the service on the divine. I tried. Wow, did that not work!

That was 15 years before I needed to listen to Scott and Catherine and Bob’s brother, “Chick,” and sister, Karen, tell me what they needed to hear in that funeral service. By then, I’d had good instruction in listening, from folks who told me about the people they had loved and lost.

Even earlier than Bob’s funeral, I had a reputation for doing funerals well. Following one funeral, I was told that a young woman from out of town said, “He could recite the alphabet and make you feel better.” But that is just a pleasant voice. I did nothing to develop that. I got that reputation for doing funerals well more by using my ears than by using my voice, by working hard at learning to listen to what people told me, and then repeating their words in narrative. They already knew the words, but they were hearing them put together as story for the first time.

I also knew that somebody, on behalf of everyone, had to face publicly all the questions that death, especially a tragic death, pulls forth. As the preacher, I had no choice; I had to face those questions, even if I couldn’t answer them.

Scott, that science-minded physics professor, said in the note that the sermon I can’t remember was so beautiful it had to be composed in heaven, and so Bob must have enjoyed hearing it. He looked forward to the time they could talk about it with him.

That time is now. Scott and Catherine have finished their earthly journey. I’m glad I got to share a part of it. There is a balm in Gilead…

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE RHYMES OF GOD [F, 5-5-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE RHYMES OF GOD [F, 5-5-23]

 

Bruce Springsteen said, “A young man with a guitar and a rhyming dictionary is very dangerous.” He would probably have written a song about it, but it’s hard to rhyme “dangerous.”

The human brain is set up, it seems, to appreciate rhyme, to want rhyme, to need rhyme, in certain situations, like songs, and poems, and rap.

Rhyme is especially important if we want to remember a song or poem.

Helen was trying to remember “The pig got up and slowly walked away…” but she couldn’t get the next line because she had remembered a word that meant the same but didn’t rhyme… “You can tell a man who drinks… by the company he chooses…” No, that can’t be right, because it doesn’t rhyme. No, not “drinks.” You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses…” That was when the pig got up and slowly walked away.

 

Some songs are easy to remember just because they really have only one line: I want to hold your hand… Sweet Caroline… I will survive… Or sometimes only one word…Amen… Alleluia… They don’t need rhymes; they are the exception.

We recently watched a documentary about Leonard Cohen and his song, Hallelujah. It took him 7 years to write it. It rhymes, often more through onomatopoeia than actual rhyme. At one point a friend talked of how Cohen tried to get two particular lines to work together. He used, the friend said, “180 different combinations.” They showed several of them. They all rhymed. What struck me, though, was that each rhyme changed the song, it's possible meaning. Grace and face and place and pace and ace, etc. will do that. No wonder the song took seven years.

We get most of our religious instruction, and thus beliefs, through hymns, the songs we sing in church and Sunday school. Sometimes we get bad instruction from those songs, as in Charles Tindley’s Leave It There. The chorus says, “If you trust and never doubt, he will surely bring you out. Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.”

Now part of that is excellent theology. “Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.” But not “If you trust and never doubt.” No one trusts without also doubting. Doubt is a part of faith. If we learn that it is wrong, sinful, to doubt, we’ll never have a chance to get “out.” [1] But Tindley needed to rhyme with “out.” We get a lot of bad theology because we need a rhyme.

Rhyming is dangerous, as Springsteen says, but I find that sometimes when I am looking for a rhyme, and can’t find one, I find a better belief. Like, “If you trust and never whimper, God will take away your distemper…” Or, maybe not.

John Robert McFarland

1] Tindley was a black Methodist preacher around 1900, and “out” was an understandably popular place in black theology, as in “come out the wilderness,” out of slavery, etc.

Jesus Loves Me as I Wash My Hands [T, 5-2-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—Jesus Loves Me as I Wash My Hands [T, 5-2-23]

 

I never paid attention to how long I washed my hands; I just washed them. Then covid19 hit, and we were instructed to wash for at least 20 seconds. There were no vaccinations yet. Masks were scarce. Washing hands was our best, and sometimes only, protection. I started taking hand washing seriously.

I learned that singing “Jesus Loves Me,” at a slightly slower pace than usual, took exactly 20 seconds. I still sing “Jesus Loves Me” every time I wash my hands. It seems right.

It also reminds me of being in Childrens’ Hospital at the University of Iowa with grandson Joe, 175 miles away from where we lived then.

He was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma [liver cancer] when he was 15 months old. He spent most of the next year in the hospital, enduring one miserable treatment after enough. As all cancer patients know, the treatment often seems worse than the disease. And he was so little. He didn’t really understand that all this bad stuff was supposed to be good for him.

His father couldn’t be at the hospital very much. He had to stay home and work to keep the health insurance in force. His mother, our daughter, hardly ever left Joe, but that meant someone had to take care of his four-year-old sister, Brigid. That became Helen’s job. Katie, of course, had to leave Joe to eat and shower, and needed to spend some time whenever she could, with Brigid. On those occasions, Joe and I palled around together, mostly patrolling the hospital hallways so that he could escape the all-too-familiar surroundings of the pediatric cancer ward.

Sometimes, though, he’d just be too tired. Those were times when I sat in a chair in his room and held him in my arms and sang to him. All sorts of songs. Anything I could think of. Our favorite was “Jesus Loves Me.” It was just right for falling asleep.

 

I tried to sing softly, because there was always another child in the room, on the other side of a curtain. One day I had just gotten Joe almost to sleep when a man stuck his head around the curtain and whispered, “Please sing a little louder. We need to hear over here, too.”

We became known as “the family with the grandpa.” Once at a Dance Marathon--when the U of Iowa students raise millions of dollars for the children’s hospital-- I was going through a door at the Union Building, a whole crowd of people pressing both ways, and a woman I could not remember ever seeing before said, “Hello, Joe’s grandpa.” One of the best ways I could ever be identified.

According to the internet, “Jesus Loves Me” was written by Anna Bartlett Warner. It first appeared in an 1860 novel, Say and Seal, written by her older sister, Susan Warner. The words were spoken as a poem to comfort a dying child.

I knew nothing about the Warner sisters when I used to sing that to Joe. It just seemed right. It was the first song I learned as a child. Probably the first song most of us learn. When famous theologian Karl Barth was asked to summarize his 12 volume Church Dogmatics, he said, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

That will probably be the song I sing on my dying day. As I wash my hands…

John Robert McFarland