BEING CHRISTIAN IN SPITE OF YOUR THEOLOGY [Sun, 10-25-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—BEING CHRISTIAN IN SPITE OF YOUR THEOLOGY [Sun, 10-25-26]

 

I know a man…I’ll call him Bud. We’ve been friends for 80 years. He still lives in the Indiana Delta. Indiana doesn’t have a delta, of course, but I call it that because its culture is much the same as the Mississippi Delta.

His adult granddaughter lives with him. Along with her partner, who is black. That would be bad enough, of course, but to make matters even worse in a small town in the Indiana delta, they are a lesbian couple. For several reasons, they have no place else to live.

There were tears in Bud’s eyes and words as he said to me, “I know what they do is against the Bible. I know they are wrong. But I can’t send them away because I love my granddaughter so much…”

I said, “Bud, you’re a Christian in spite of your theology.”

Our theology, our beliefs about God, should enable our experience of God, not get in the way of relating to God. Our theology should make the way plain [Mark 1], not be a stumbling block on the way to God [I Corinthians 8]

As persons with physical bodies, naturally the primary way we relate to God is physically. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand.

We relate to other physical people—and other parts of the physical creation--through our physical bodies, including our physical brains. In other words, we are in the world, even though we are not of it. [John 17]

We are not of the world because we have a soul. Well, that’s not quite accurate. We don’t have souls; we are souls. Indeed, as CS Lewis reminds us, we are souls that have bodies, not bodies that have souls.

Our theology about God is not the same thing as our relationship to God.

I’ve written before about a young man I’ll call Owen. He belonged to a conservative congregation in the town where I pastored, but he wanted to date my teen daughter. He thought that before he could do that--so that he didn’t get involved with infidels--he had to get me straight on theology.

“You can’t be saved unless you believe in the substitutionary atonement,” he said.

“How’s about Kathy Silver?” I asked. “She loves coming to church. She loves all the people. she sings the hymns, even though she uses different words. She prays The Lord’s Prayer along with everyone else, even though she’s always a phrase or two behind. She can’t even say substitutionary atonement. Will she go to hell?”

At that time, Kathy was in her late twenties, but with the mental level of a four-year-old, the same mental level she would always have.

To his credit, Owen was reluctant to assign Kathy to hell, but he finally admitted that, yes, she would go to hell, because she did not, could not, believe in the substitutionary atonement.

I love theology. I have a doctorate in theology. But, as I have often said, God gave us theology for fun. When we take it seriously, it creates all sorts of problems. Thoughts about God and God are not the same thing.

Our other daughter--not the one Owen wanted to date; at least he was smart enough not to try that--was once asked by a group of conservative friends if she were saved. They were surprised when she said yes, because she did not use that kind of language when they talked about spiritual things. “When were you saved?” they asked, assuming she would name some moment in time, like an event at a revival meeting.

“I was saved on Good Friday,” she said.

John Robert McFarland

 

I used to refer to my home part of Indiana, the pocket, as The Mississippi of the North. But in reality, the whole state of Indiana is The Mississippi of the North. So, I now refer to the pocket as the delta.

 

TOO SOON OLD AND TOO LATE SMART [F, 10-23-26]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter— TOO SOON OLD AND TOO LATE SMART [F, 10-23-26]

 

Early in his ministry, while still a teen-age college student preacher, John Wilkey included a Greek word in his sermon, sure that his country congregation would know nothing of it and he would thus look quite smart. After the service, Miss Ruth Tapper corrected his pronunciation of the word. Turned out Miss Tapper was Dr. Tapper, with a doctorate in ancient Greek lit!

That was an early lesson in humility for the boy who became The Rev. Dr. John Conrad Wilkey.

Similar to that of legendary sports writer Bob Hammel. He was writing for his hometown newspaper when he was so young that his mother had to drive him to events. Once he was not sure of the first name of the game’s high scorer, but he was in a hurry. So he did not look it up. He guessed. It was a wrong guess. He ran into that “boy” many years later. He opened up his billfold and pulled out the newspaper clipping with his wrong name.

An older woman out in public ran into an old friend she hadn’t seen for a long time. They started chatting, decided to have coffee, etc. She kept trying to think of the other woman’s name and just couldn’t. Finally she said, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t remember your name. Will you tell me, please, what your name is?” The other woman thought and then asked, “How soon do you need to know?”

The older we get, the more relevant that joke is. We just don’t remember very well. If we remember at all, it’s a lot slower than it used to be. It humbles us. Or should.

Coaches, preachers, teachers, executives…old people... these often share a common approach. They think, and often like to repeat, “it’s my way, or the highway.”

I intuitively knew better when I started preaching. Or perhaps it was just because I was young, nineteen, and knew I was ignorant. For whatever reason, for my whole career, whenever I became the “new” preacher, I did not try to change what I inherited. Until there was some good reason to do so.

A good reason always came, because nothing remains static. Situations change, and churches have to change in order to meet them. So do governments and schools and businesses and…

At some point, old age is not just more of the same; it is a different way.

A different way of thinking, of remembering, of hoping, of faithing.

My way is never the only way, and often not the best way. But…what do I know? I’m just an old guy whose only way is to tell a story or three and let you figure stuff out for yourself.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

UNIQUE, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE [W, 10-21-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections On Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—UNIQUE, LIKE EVERYONE ELSE [W, 10-21-26]

 

It wasn’t that I had anything against Jerry Orbach.

In the 1990s, most of us knew him as Detective Lennie Briscoe on TV’s “Law & Order.” He had made his rep, though, as a song and dance man on Broadway, originating the role of El Gallo in “The Fantasticks.” I enjoyed seeing him in his various roles. Still, I didn’t think he was right for the gig.

The gig was reading the audio version of my cancer book. [1] I thought I was the one to read that, because I had lived it. I knew exactly every nuance of every word. Jerry was an excellent actor, but he had not lived the cancer journey, especially my cancer journey.

I asked my print editor at AndrewsMcMeel to talk to the audio editor at HarperAudio. “I don’t know,” she said. “We just sell the rights. Then it’s up to them. Orbach’s name will help them sell more.” But she agreed to try, and the folks at HarperAudio agreed to let me “audition.”

This was the 1990s, still “primitive” recording and communicating. I had to send them a tape of me reading the book. They were satisfied enough that they flew Helen and me to New York and put us up in a hotel so that I could do the reading.

During the taping, one of the audio engineers told Helen, who was hanging out with them in the sound room: “He’s got nice pipes. Jerry does, too, but he’s usually been playing poker all night when he comes in to read, so we have to do a lot of repeats.” They were pleased that I did not play poker.

I thought of this as I listened to Bob Dylan sing the original recording of “Don’t Think Twice,” just after I had listened to Hoagy Carmichael play “Stardust.” They were terrible! PP&M did “Don’t Think Twice” so much better than its composer. Willie Nelson, Harry Connick, Jr, Nat King Cole—just about anybody did “Stardust” better than its composer.

So I decided that it was a principle that people who were trained singers or actors or musicians did better than composers and song writers. Then I remembered that I had done better at reading my book than a trained actor, so I decided it was a principle that…

We like principles, don’t we? They give us organization. We can look at a situation and make sense of it quickly because it fits a category. Malcolm Gladwell—in all his books, but especially in Blink and Talking to Strangers—points out that this serves us well, saves us time… until it leads us astray. 

You are not a principle. Your thoughts and actions cannot be categorized. You don’t react the same way every time, even if the conditions and people and situation are the same. Don’t put yourself into a box. Live within your limits, but don’t be limited by them. You are unique, just like everyone else.

John Robert McFarland

1] NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio]

FRAGILE IN THE TRANSITIONS [M, 10-19-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—FRAGILE IN THE TRANSITIONS [M, 10-19-26]

 

I’m beginning to have more sympathy with the man who moved because he heard that most accidents happen at home. “Not taking any chances,” he said.

Well, Helen and I aren’t taking chances, either. We’ve signed up for Shady Pines. Except here it is called Bell Trace. They call it “senior living.” It’s popularly called “assisted living.” Helen calls it “No more cooking.” I call it, “No more…just about anything…”

Well, actually my life won’t change much. I can recline on the sofa and drink coffee and read just about any place. Helen has famously stated that “men enter assisted living the day they get married.”

Even though my life won’t change much, I still have to be careful in the transition, because, as Helen’s yoga teacher used to say, “We are fragile in the transitions.”

She was talking about going from downward dog to--I can’t say to what, because downward dog is the only yoga name I know—but I think her wisdom works in all the rest of life. We are fragile in the transitions, be they physical or spiritual.

It is well known that old people fall more often in unfamiliar surroundings, or if they move too fast in trying to get from one position or to another, like starting to walk too quickly after standing up. So, while we are looking forward to someone else doing the cooking and picking up the mail, we are also reminding ourselves that we’ll have to be careful.

We have some time to get used to the idea of moving. We’re only on the wait list. It may be several months before an apartment becomes available. But we’re already beginning to feel the fragility, the vulnerability of being in a state of flux, even if only in our anticipations.

We should have made this decision six months ago, but life is rarely lived that way. In reality, we don’t know what we need until it’s already too late.

As we age, we are not as agile. So often, a fall happens when we’ve tried to make a fast turn. When we are less agile, we are more fragile.

It is not just our bodies, though. Our spirits are less agile, and so they are fragile in the transitions, too. 

Like going from sleep to wakefulness in the morning. If I get up before I’ve waited for a moment or two to let my mind get in sync with God, the transition leads me into all sorts of bad thinking. And bad walking.

Every day, there are dozens of little transitions that can be dangerous. Addicts know this. Just going from sitting to standing, going from one room to another. Those are fragile times. You think, without doing it consciously, “Oh, this is a time I could have a drink,” or “This is a time I could place a bet,” or “This is a time I could grab a donut…”

In psychology, the phenomenon of possession is often triggered by rapid change. Possession means a feeling of losing control of one’s self, of being in the control of some other force.

In the Bible, especially in the story of Jesus, in those times, it is said that people are possessed by demons. Demons are strongest in times of transition.

I wonder about Jesus on the cross. What a major transition. Did the demons get to him? Was his faith fragile in that transition? Is that why he asked, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” [Mt 27, Mark 15]

But the Jesus story did not end there. Despite the fragility, despite the demons, that was a transition to a better time.

Once we get to Bell Trace, I’m going to deal with the demons in the time-honored ways: prayer, friends, and just sitting in one place all day. The demons can’t get possession of you in transition if you never transition.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

SANCTUARY [Sat, 10-17-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—SANCTUARY [Sat, 10-17-26]

Lord, prepare me, to be a sanctuary…

That was the first line of the chorus we sang to open Sunday morning worship at my new church. It was my first Sunday at that church, and the chorus was new to me. I wasn’t quick to pick up the words.

…pure and holy, tried and true…

No, I got those okay, but I got mixed up on the next words, because I was distracted. I was thinking about the rest of the service, how to read the congregation when it was my turn to be up front. I was retired, and the bishop had appointed me there, part time, as a transition for a congregation that was troubled and confused and needed a sanctuary in their sanctuary.

…with thanksgiving I’ll be a living…

I read the congregation pretty well that day, that year. We had a good time together. I had inherited quite a few wrinkles, but we got them ironed out.

After that first service, though, the song leader’s wife confronted me, in a rather hostile fashion. She thought I had not sung Sanctuary with enough gusto. Apparently, I thought I was better than others because I had a lot of education. And, yes, I had a lot of experience, but that did not mean that I understood the people in that congregation. The District Superintendent had told them all about how competent I was, but she wasn’t being fooled.

I was amazed that she knew me so well just by the way I sang, or did not sing, Sanctuary.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I like Sanctuary. I just hadn’t heard it before…” But she was already walking away. She never returned.

…sanctuary for you.

Was she just being protective of her husband, the song leader? Did she think I was dissing him by having to mumble some of the words?

Not likely. I wasn’t up in front, sitting in the chancel, where everyone could see me. In fact, I had my back to the congregation, sitting in the front pew, waiting while he led the opening chorus and made announcements.

Nobody in the congregation seemed to notice her absence. At least, they didn’t say anything about it. The song leader continued for a few weeks but finally told me he wasn’t coming back anymore, either. Nobody said anything about that, either.

There are a thousand reasons to dislike a pastor, and some of them make sense. Some don’t.

My predecessor in that congregation, everyone agreed, was a nice and intelligent man, but a terrible preacher. No one understood what he was talking about, and he didn’t know how to finish a sermon. He just kept on and on. Finally, a woman made three signs that she held during his sermon while sitting in the front row. The first read Ten Minutes The second read Five Minutes. The third read You’re Done. Everyone said that he seemed appreciative when she held up the last sign. He stopped immediately, even in the middle of a word.

If a church has an incompetent preacher, there are lay members who get satisfaction by filling the gaps of incompetency. They get used to it. When a new preacher comes along, and those gaps are no longer there, they are disappointed. Their importance is diminished. They are not happy about that. The church is no longer their sanctuary.

Lord, prepare me, to be a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living, sanctuary, for you.

That church was the last of my every-Sunday appointments, although I did a couple of short interim pastorates after that. I’ve not heard a congregation sing Sanctuary in all in my 20 years since. But I sing it every day, myself, to start my day.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

WHY THE CHURCH WON’T SURVIVE [R. 10-15-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Observations of An Old Curmudgeon—WHY THE CHURCH WON’T SURVIVE [R. 10-15-26]

 

Craig Miller called the other day. He was a student at IL State U when I was campus minister there. I helped him get into my seminary alma mater, Garrett School of Theology, at Northwestern U.

Craig recently turned 80 and decided he should take a thanks tour, “visiting” the people who were important to him along the way. A really neat idea. We had a nice long conversation, not only about ILSU days, but the forty or so years that we were clergy colleagues.

At the end of our talk, he said, “One more thing. Just sort of yes or no. Are you in favor of what Garrett is doing?”

I said, “My brain tells me it’s probably a good thing, or at least necessary. My heart, though, is very sad.”

“Yes,” he said. “Me, too.”

Here is the deal. Garrett is trading its great old building on the Northwestern campus for a couple of office type buildings on the campus. I don’t know what will become of the large and beautiful Chapel of The Unnamed Faithful, but the Garret library will be subsumed into the Northwestern library. There are various housing and eating options on campus.

In many ways, it’s a good deal for Garrett. Its present building has a lot of deferred maintenance. It has high utility costs. It needs to put its assets into students, not buildings.

Except students are sort of a problem, too. Meaning Garrett doesn’t have any. Oh, yes, it has students, but isn’t a seminary an extension of the church? Isn’t it supposed to be preparing students to be pastors?

When I was at Garrett, nine of every ten students were preparing to be preachers. Now only one in ten seminary students wants to be a congregation pastor. The others are preparing to be chaplains, counselors, social workers, professors, et al. They want to be spiritual. They want to be part of the church. They just don’t want to be a preacher.

Garrett is facing facts. It’s not really a seminary, a theological school, anymore, because no students want to be pastors. Of necessity, it is becoming a professional school for people who want to be part of a helping profession, and not make any money. That used to include pastors, but not now.

That beautiful, gothic Garrett building was appropriate for educating pastors. Its new office buildings will be appropriate for its new mission, although I’m reluctant to call it a mission. It’s more like a business, a business that exists to survive. Survival like in, We’ve got a faculty and a history and it seems like we should be doing something and we don’t know how to quit….

So, I guess it really is still an extension of the church, because the main purpose of the church now is survival. And, of course, that is why it won’t survive.

John Robert McFarland

THERE’S A TAVERN IN THE CHURCH [T, 10-13-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THERE’S A TAVERN IN THE CHURCH [T, 10-13-26]

 

After we moved to the farm, when I was ten, each spring I would decide to make a room for myself in the attic. Our house was small. My sisters shared a room. Our parents shared a room. I shared a pull-out sofa bed in the living room with my little brother.

There was a narrow staircase up to the attic. It was small, and the house had a pitched roof, so you could stand up in the attic only in the middle, but that middle was floored. By moving the stored junk around, I had a perfect place for a room of my own. No bed, no closet, but I didn’t care. It was a room of my own…

…until summer came. We had heard about air conditioning back then, but I don’t think we had ever experienced it. Anyplace in a hot, humid southern Indiana summer was miserable, but a windowless attic? It wasn’t long before I was back on the sofa bed, which pleased my little brother, since he liked for me to scratch his back while he fell asleep.

Everybody needs a space, as individuals or as groups. We are spatial people. Our space and our identity are tied together so closely.

I’ve thought about this a lot as we have tried to rethink the nature of church. As congregations decline, especially in small towns, they often have old buildings that are too large for them and too expensive to maintain. When the building closes, that’s the end of the church, even though we constantly say that the church is the people, not the building.

The truth is, it’s awfully hard to have a church without a building, because we all need a space. So how--in this era of church buildings closing by the thousands--can the church continue?

Yes, online streaming of worship service is a good idea. Helen and I go to church every Sunday that way, at St. Mark’s On The Sofa, We sing the hymns and pray the prayers along with all the folks across town in the sanctuary. But it’s not the same. People who worship online are folks who started in the physical building. A church that is only online won’t last for long. Probably can’t even get started.

Culturally these days, mega churches do best. People seem to like big, be it a church or a pickup truck. Mega churches are great because you can belong without belonging. But you can’t have a mega church in a small town.

When Helen was growing up in Monon, Indiana, she and her mother went to the American Baptist Church. One night the church was doing a fund raiser and ran out of French fries. They had potatoes, but no way to make French fries. But a tavern downtown did. They called, and the tavern folk said, “Sure. Come on down. You can use our machine.” But they made the mistake of sending Gladys. She was embarrassed to be seen in a tavern. She marched in with her potatoes, looking neither left nor right, went into the kitchen, used the machine, and marched out again. When she got back to the Baptists, they realized the had gone to the wrong tavern! She was supposed to go to Joe’s, but she went to Duffy’s. Being a good Baptist church lady, she didn’t know one tavern from another. They called Duffy to apologize. “Well, we thought it as a bit strange,” Duffy said, “but we weren’t using the machine right then, so…”

That church is closed, but Monon still has its taverns. Which is why in small towns, and maybe other places, too, churches need to share building with taverns. In any town, the last business standing is always a tavern.

Taverns are always available on Sunday mornings. Not only would the church have access to a French fry machine, communion elements are already present, and when the preacher shows up, there might be a few congregants already there, left over from Saturday night.

I’m totally serious about this. If I were a bishop, I’d mobilize everybody with a Bible and a Buick and send them to all the little towns where the churches have closed and have them preach in the taverns on Sunday mornings. If I could still drive beyond the city limits, I’d do it myself.

You don’t need stained glass or an organ or an ordination certificate to be a church. You do need a building. And a preacher. And people. That’s the church.

John Robert McFarland

Joe’s, Duffy’s, and Gladys are all names of convenience. “Duffy,” of course, comes from the old radio show, “Duffy’s Tavern.”

There’s even a prelude chorus to sing to start tavern worship services, to the tune, of course, of There’s a Tavern in the Town. [Look it up on YouTube if you don’t know the tune.] There’s a tavern in the town, [in the town], where the worshippers sit down, [they sit down], and listen to the Word while hymns they gladly sing, and praise the coming of the King…