LOOKIN’ GOOD [Good Friday, 4-3-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Good Friday Memes of An Old Runner—LOOKIN’ GOOD [Good Friday, 4-3-26]

 

When I turned forty, I realized that I was no longer young enough to get by on good looks and personality, and my lithe and limber body. My body had suddenly, it seemed, become stiff and uncooperative.

The running boom was just beginning then. Everyone who was not running was jogging. Gurus like Dr. George Sheehan and Jim Fixx wrote books. Many running magazines were starting up, as were running clubs. Every town festival included foot races of uncertain length, since apparently in running races you had to use unknown quantities, like kilometers.

So I decided to become a runner. I laced up my old basketball shoes and went to the park to run. Very quickly, my heels and soles and tendons and knees were aching.

I went to Jim Matta, a church member and the athletic director at the high school—and father of famous basketball coach, Thad Matta, who was only ten then—and told him my woes. Long before Spike Lee and Michael Jordan did that commercial, Jim said, “It’s gotta be the shoes.”

Now, everybody wears running shoes all the time, even men in suits and ties, even women in church dresses and evening gowns. Our pastor has a wonderful array of pulpit robes and stoles, and “underneath are the everlasting running shoes.” But running shoes were just a gleam in Phil Knight’s eye then.

I went to the shoe store on Main Street. In those days, folks thought shoes were leather things you put on your feet to walk to work and school and church. Running shoes were strange new things. People didn’t even know how to pronounce Nike. But the store had a pair of running shoes in my size. I had never heard of the Patrick Shoe Company, but I bought them because they were cream and crimson, my colors.

Within five minutes of running in those magic shoes, all my pains were gone. What a difference a heel makes.

So I became a runner. I bought a red track suit to go with my shoes and I ran all over town. My teen daughters were mortified. Their friends called me “The Red Phantom,” because I was so fast that I was just a blur. Or maybe it was only because of the red suit.

But I wasn’t just a runner. I was a racer. There were 10 K races in one town or another every weekend. Many were on Sunday morning, when I was busy otherwise, but enough were on Saturday that I became a regular on the racing scene. I even joined The Kickapoo Running Club. I won little statues for coming in 2^nd in my age group. [Usually there were three runners in my age group] I still display those statues on my book case, on the shelf where I used to keep theology books.

I don’t know exactly why, but the proper protocol in those days, whenever you met another runner, you shouted out to each other, “Lookin’ good.”

The races were often on an out-and-back course. That meant that we pack runners would still be going out and meet the front runners after they had made the turn and started back. They were running hard, all-out. they were sweating and puffing and beginning to lose smoothness. We called out to them, “Lookin’ good,” which was the exact opposite of how they really looked. But they looked the way they were supposed to, for people who were running all out, trying “…to run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” [Hebrews 12:1-2]

One of my favorite anecdotes/illustrations/points comes from Lin Yutang’s A Leaf in the Storm, enough so that I have used it many times. It is revolutionary times in China. The storm in the title is political upheaval and war. The leaf is a young woman named Malin who has always taken pride in her beauty, who has always lived in luxury and pleasure, but is reduced to the status of a refugee, fleeing the war on foot along muddy roads. Her fine clothes and shoes change from being status symbols to a hindrance.

Along the way, she sees peasant women who are ignoring the war. They’ve seen it all before. They are working in their rice fields, as they always have, for once the storm has passed, people will need the rice again. They are stocky and lumpy and have no comeliness of face or figure. They are standing almost up to their knees in mud. Their legs are not shapely to look at. But Malin has an epiphany. The legs of those peasant women are beautiful, because they are doing what they are meant to do. They were lookin’ good.

Today, on Good Friday, seeing Jesus there on the cross, those who understand look at that broken body and whisper, “Lookin’ good. Lookin’ good.”

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE WATER OF MAUNDY [R, 4-2-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Maundy Thursday Mutterings of An Old Preacher—THE WATER OF MAUNDY [R, 4-2-26]

 

I have always been fascinated by Jesus’ references to water. He lived in a land where water was important because there was so little of it. So did I.

When I grew up on the farm, we had no indoor plumbing. Clean water had to be carried in in buckets and dirty water had to be carried out in other buckets.

The water came from a cistern and a well. The cistern caught water off the roof of the house. It was covered by boards. We dipped a bucket in to get the water that we used for washing clothes and other household chores. The well had a pump with a long handle. We kept a jar of water beside it to “prime” it so that it would produce.

It was a deep well and so the water was good. We used it for drinking and cooking. During long summers, though, it would go dry. So did the cistern. It was then that I had to go to the Heathman’s house to carry water in a bucket. Their house was up a hill on our little gravel road, about the distance equivalent of two city blocks, maybe three. A family of six needed a lot of water. That made for a lot of trips up and down the hill.

My right shoulder is lower than my left. I think that was from carrying water with my right arm from age ten, before I had stopped growing. When my wife made my first pulpit robe, she had to allow for that low shoulder.

I never took a shower or a bath until I went to college. We always washed out of a shallow basin on a wash stand. In college I lived in a decrepit old leftover BOQ building from WWII. It had a very ugly and dank shower room. But it had plenty of water. I thought it was wonderful.

I am careful with water. I don’t waste it, even now, when it comes out of a faucet or a shower head. I know what it’s like not to have water.

Jesus knew that, too. Which is why foot washing was such an important part of a host’s responsibilities toward guests. Guests had been walking, on dirt roads, in sandals. It wasn’t just that their feet were dirty, they were uncomfortable. But it was a servant’s job to wash feet. If the host did it, that was a mark of ultimate respect for the guest. And foot washing took water…you didn’t waste precious water on just anybody.

When Jesus and his disciples came in for supper that Thursday night before crucifixion, they’d been walking the dirt roads. Their feet were dirty. Somebody needed to wash them. So Jesus did.

We call that Thursday “Maundy” as a form of the Latin “Mandatum,” meaning a command. Jesus gave a new command to his disciples on that night, that they were to be servants, and he showed them how, by doing the foot washing himself. [John 13]

Foot washing has long been a part of our Maundy Thursday rituals as we prepare for Easter, sometimes literally, usually figuratively, often just as a homily subject. We rarely use actual water.

Several years ago, a CNN producer telephoned me. She was working on a special in which she was saying that the next big crisis in the Middle East would be water instead of oil, and she wanted to check some theological points with me. In the midst of an oil crisis, it’s hard to believe water is important, but everyone needs water to live. No one needs oil to live.

If, however, any of us are to live for long, we need to learn how to be servants, not of the oil, but of the water.

John Robert McFarland

I usually post every other day, but there will be extra posts—meaning almost every day—during the Easter weekend. I’ll be posting on April 3, 5, 6, and 8.

 

 

 

HOLY WEEK BIBLE BLUES [M, 3-30-26]

 

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Blues of An Old Man—HOLY WEEK BIBLE BLUES [M, 3-30-26]

 

“When they had sung the hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” (Mk 14:26, Mt 26:30, NRSV)

One of my favorite vocalists is the marvelous Kate Campbell. I think her “10,000 Lures” (with Mark Narmore) is the best musical presentation of the Gospel I’ve ever heard. And “The Last Song” (with Walt Aldridge) evokes Jesus’ last moments with his disciples in a haunting and memorable way. It’s hard not to imagine yourself sitting there at that last supper…

“After the supper was over and the table had been cleared away

When the last bottle was empty, there wasn’t much left to say

Jesus started humming an old tune, everybody fell right in

They sang the last song, the last song”

I would love to hear that song Jesus and the twelve sang. What were the words? Kate says:

“I reckon it was some kind of soul song, maybe kind of sad and slow

All about how we get weary, all about holding on

Only Jesus knew what was coming; still he never said a thing

He sang the last song, the last song”

What did Jesus’ voice sound like? Did he sing out, or did he sing harmony? You can learn a lot about a person by listening to them sing.

Singing is natural. Everyone does it. Until we learn the rules. That’s strange, isn’t it, rules for singing? Singing is as natural as breathing, but we don’t have rules for breathing.

I’m not talking about the rules for being sensitive and civil. In John Wesley’s “Directions for Singing,” he says: “Sing modestly. Do not bawl…” That’s a good rule, but it’s not really about singing; it’s about being respectful of others.

I’m talking about the rules for singing that are really rules for not singing, like “Don’t sing at the table.” Singing would be a lot better than most of what goes on at tables. Maybe Jesus started that last song because he was tired of hearing the disciples argue about which was going to be first in the kingdom.

Wouldn’t a rule like “Always sing at the table” be better? But no solos. The rule would be: If someone starts “Down in the Valley or “Jailhouse Rock,” everybody joins in. Oh, but there you run into those pesky rules again.

There are definite rules about singing the Blues. They include: 1.) Most Blues begin with: “Woke up this morning…” 2.) “I got a good woman” is a good way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, “I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town.” 4.) The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch… ain’t no way out.

The Blues rules started me thinking about Bible Blues. Quite a few Bible folks had reason to sing the Blues. Samson, for instance.

I got a good woman but she cut off all my hair

She took the razor to it and finished up with Nair

I went to slay some Philistines, for laughing at the Lord

But when they saw my hairless head they all just looked real bored

I’m gonna shake these pillars, all so nice and round

I’m fixin for to die, but I’ll bring this building down

Or take Jonah:

Woke up this morning, and there weren’t no mail

Looked around, O Lord, I’m in the belly of a whale

I tell you boy, when God tells you to set sail

Whether it comes by phone or fax or by that new email

You go where the message says; don’t fail

Or you’ll end up in the belly of a big old whale

Well, maybe the first rule should be: Don’t do your own Bible blues…

John Robert McFarland

Don’t worry; the rest of the Holy Week meditations will be better.

 

 

 

 

MARY ALBERS [SAT, 3-28-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Good Memories of an Old Campus Minister—MARY ALBERS [SAT, 3-28-26]

 

I’m thinking this morning about Mary Albers, because I listened this morning to the Peter Paul and Mary recording of “500 Miles.”

Mary was the soloist on that song when our Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] student choir sang it as the anthem for a worship service at First Methodist Church of Normal, IL, on the campus of Illinois State University, during Homecoming weekend.

First Methodist had three Sunday morning worship services in those days. The middle service was considered to be the “student” service. Usually the only differences between the three services was the music—a soloist at 8:00, the Wesley Foundation choir at 9:30, and the Chancel Choir [including ISU music faculty] at 11:00. Well, the liturgists were different, too. Not many churches used lay liturgists in those days. Clarence Young, the associate minister of the church, was the liturgist at 8 and 11, leading the worship except for the sermon, and I was the liturgist at 9:30. Gordon White, the senior pastor, preached at all three services.

Occasionally I was allowed to preach at the student service, since I was “the minister to students.” Students came to worship in large numbers in those days, because they had done so at home, but also because speech and English professors at ISU assigned them to do so when I preached. When it was announced ahead of time that I was preaching, a lot of “regular” church members came at 9:30 also, The 500-person sanctuary was packed on those occasions.

For some reason he probably regretted later, Dr. White let me preach that Homecoming Sunday in 1967. I asked Duncan White, the music professor who was conductor of The Wesley Foundation Choir, to have the choir sing “500 Miles.” He had never heard of it, but he listened to the PP&M recording I lent him and reproduced it very faithfully as a choir number.

It was a large choir, about 30 students, but Mary sang the first verse by herself: If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles… And she sang the last line by herself, unaccompanied, If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone…

It was poignant, and a perfect setup for my sermon about the prodigal son and homecoming. It was even more poignant for those who knew Mary’s story then, and who knew it only a few years later.

When she was a teen, Mary felt God’s call to be a preacher. But that was in the early ‘60s. People, even the Methodist university where she started college, told her that girls can’t be preachers. So she transferred to IL State U, to become a special ed teacher.

None of us had any idea that Mary--beautiful and intelligent and called and whole--would be dead before she was 25, dying of cancer in the Philippines, where she went as a Peace Corps volunteer. She was a lot more than 500 miles from home.

 

Every time I hear that song, I think of Mary, and I know that she was called by God—called to live, and called, across those 500 miles, to home.

John Robert McFarland

COMFORT LANGUAGE [R, 3-26-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Word Sayer—COMFORT LANGUAGE [R, 3-26-26]

 

After Tom Cone--my late, great friend, and former college roommate--had a stroke, it was hard for him to find the right words. One day we drove up to Greenfield to take Tom and Sally to lunch. Tom mostly listened to our lunchtime chatter; that was easier for him. But as we were leaving, he wanted to ask me if I were still preaching. He worked hard, but couldn’t frame the exact sentence he wanted. Finally, he blurted out, “Do you still say the words?”

Too often now, I have to write a condolence letter to a friend, usually because their wife or husband has died. With most of my friends, it is hard only because of the grief. It is not hard to find the right words, because they are Christians. They already know the right words. They know which are the comfort words. All I have to do is remind them. All I have to do is say the words.

Especially in former times--before old age pretty much confined me to my house--in addition to the church, I was in other fellowship communities—writing, running, cancer, baseball, university, continuing education, pickle ball, folk music... Since I was the only preacher most of those folks knew, I was often asked to do a funeral for someone who was congenial to me but marginal at most to the church, who sometimes had no relationship at all to the church and its language.

At those occasions, not only was I looking at the faces of folks who did not know Christian language, but those funerals were usually in secular buildings. Church buildings provide comfort just by the way they are constructed, and by the symbols, like crosses and stained glass and open Bibles. Secular buildings provide none of those automatic points of meaning, these points of comfort.

In my retirement years, I did not have a church building I could use for funerals, which was probably just as well. Non-church people don’t want to have funerals in church buildings anyway. Just as automatically comforting as those buildings are for believers, they are automatically uncomfortable for non-believers.

I knew that my job in a funeral was to provide comfort and help people to grieve well. I was experienced at that in a church setting. I was good at it there. But I was in uncharted territory when I did not have my usual building and my usual language.

When church people see someone in a collar or pulpit gown standing in front of a cross and reading from a black book, there is automatic comfort. “If God is for us, who can be against us…”

But what if they have no awareness of a loving God? What if a robe just means you’re still in your underwear? What if that black Book of Worship is no more special than the Betty Crocker Cookbook?

I never solved that problem completely, but I tried to generalize the specific language of Christian faith, being true to its meaning even if not the same in its syntax. After all, as Marcus Borg said, “We are not saved by syllables.”

There are many ways of saying that God is love, and that God is with us. I learned that I could lean on the everlasting arms without using that image to folks for whom it would have no meaning.

When I die, though, I want someone in a black robe to intone, “In that we know not what a day may bring forth, but only that the hour for watching baseball is always with us…” Yes, that’s comfort language for me, because today is Opening Day of the baseball season!

John Robert McFarland

WHEN THE SERVICEBERRY BLOOMS [T, 3-24-26]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—WHEN THE SERVICEBERRY BLOOMS [T, 3-24-26]

 

The serviceberry bush/tree is basically a northern plant, from Maine to Iowa. It has beautiful spring buds and bright red and orange leaves in the autumn. Its berries are important to plants and animals and can be used by humans to make jellies and jams.

Oh, and you can’t get married or baptized until it blooms.

Two hundred years ago, in many places even just a hundred, if you lived in Maine or Iowa or in-between, when roads were dirt tracks, or mud tracks, or snow-covered tracks, you were shut-in from the rest of the world from November to May.

Finally, though, after that long, hard, isolated winter, the serviceberry bloomed, and you were part of the world again. The serviceberry’s bloom meant that the preacher could get back in to your world, and hold services. That’s why the Amelanchier is called the serviceberry. When it bloomed, it was time for services, again.

Sunday morning worship services, yes, but also marriage services for those who sought warmth with another in the cold and lonely months of winter, and baptismal services for the babies born to warmth-seekers.

And not just the services. The bloom of the serviceberry meant that the preacher--the one with both spiritual and legal authority--could sign the documents that proved you were a part of society, getting married and having a family.

In these modern days of snowplows and SUVs, the preacher can get through at any time. But nobody cares if there are services. Nobody cares if the preacher signs the documents, even if there are documents to sign. No need to wait for the serviceberry to bloom.

Still, isn’t it nice when it does?

John Robert McFarland

Thanks to Phyllis Carlson, the Yooper flower lady, for telling me about the serviceberry.

HERE IS THE RIGHT PLACE [SUN, 3-22-26]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—HERE IS THE RIGHT PLACE [SUN, 3-22-26]

 

Bill Linneman, distinguished professor emeritus of English at ILSU, wrote a column in which he announced that he was giving up driving. “I live in a retirement community,” he said, “and they have a bus that takes me anywhere I need to go. It’s much more fun and relaxing to watch the sights and scenes instead of the town instead of trying to avoid wild and stupid drivers. That’s the reason I’m giving up driving. Also, I failed the exam.”

What if I fail the driving exam? What shall I do if I can’t drive? That is always a looming problem as we age in this gasoline-driven America,

My late beloved friend, Bob Butts, drove a whole lot of cars a whole lot of miles over a whole lot of topography, even though he never passed a driver’s license exam, until he was 70.

He grew up in Mississippi. As a teen, he was riding around one day with a friend who said, “Hey, you want to go get your license?” “Sure,” said Bob, even though he couldn’t drive, since his family didn’t have a car.

But he went to the BMV, and he took the test. He failed. But the examiner must have checked the wrong box on the form. A couple of weeks later Bob received a license in the mail. He did not return it.

After that he lived in several different states, all of which have different laws for getting driver’s licenses, and renewing them, and he hit all of them just right, like hitting all the lights just as they turn green. All the states assumed that the one before it knew what it was doing and kept renewing his license. He did not have to take another license exam until he was 70.

My father lost almost all his sight in an industrial accident when he was 35. He had been driving since he was 12. He was a car guy, an excellent amateur mechanic, a perfect fit for the burgeoning automobile society of America. He was the most independent-minded man I have ever known, and suddenly he couldn’t drive. It changed him. He was no longer able to get out and about, so he withdrew into himself.

I think that driving a car is a spiritual thing. At least, God is involved. God invented cars to help kids separate from their parents, according to Anne Lamott.

That’s the problem, isn’t it? Cars allow us to go some place else, and we thus assume that some place else is a good place to be. And it is, because God is there. But God is also right here. We don’t have to go some place else. Perhaps the end of traveling in cars can be the start of traveling in the soul.

I think a key to carlessness comes from something Henry David Thoreau of Walden Pond said. When asked if he had traveled much, he said, “I have traveled a great deal…in Concord.”

Travel is good, but wherever you are, that place has all you need. Here is the right place to be.

John Robert McFarland