Between the Crosses

Psalm 98; John 15:9-17

 Memorial Day Weekend

            In Flanders fields the poppies blow, between the crosses, row by row.    The American Legion paper “Buddy Poppy” was inspired by this haunting poem.   It was written by John McCrae.  He was a Canadian physician, author, artist, and soldier during WWI, where he served as a surgeon in charge of a field hospital during the Second Battle in the Belgian municipality of Ypres (pronounced e-press).    This fierce trench battle basically ended in a draw.  It is infamously remembered because it marked the first time Germany used mass poisonous gas on the Western Front.  

            Death surrounded John McCrae.   He was particularly anguished by the shell burst death of Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of Ottowa on May 2, 1915.   This younger man was a former medical student who’d become a friend.    There wasn’t a military chaplain available to conduct the funeral ceremony.   So McCrae led one.   The next day, while sitting in the back of an ambulance parked near Alexis’ grave, this author of several medical texts and earlier poems composed what you have before you on the bulletin cover.  He did so to help process his anguish.[i]   He did so to memorialize all those who sacrificed their lives defending against their enemy.  He did so to exhort the living to press on for the good cause.  We are the dead; short days ago, we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow; Loved and were loved, and now we lie, in Flander’s Fields.  Take up our quarrel with the foe!  To you from failing hands we throw, the torch; be yours to hold it high!  If ye break faith with us who die, we shall not sleep, though poppies grow, in Flanders Fields.

            What in particular is it about the poppy that drew this poet’s attention?   About what was just a common weed in Europe?   The vivid blood-red color of many certainly comes to mind, as well as their association with sleep and death in ancient mythology.    Perhaps John McCrae most had in mind, however, is that poppies were known to symbolize both remembrance as well as resurrection.    One good reason for this is that poppies literally pop up again year after year.  They self-seed, often showing up in neglected spaces.[ii]   But I’ve also come to understand that some seeds can lie on the ground for many years.   They sprout only after the action of rooting up the soil around them.[iii]

            Jesus taught that faith is like a seed (Luke 17:6).    Throughout our lives, the measure of seed given to us by God is blown about by the wind of the Holy Spirit.   Each time it lands, we have a choice.   We can let it lie.   We can remember and trust that it will eventually pop up into new life, that when we are united with our Lord in a death like his, we will certainly also be untied in a resurrection like his (Romans 6:5).   Our other choice is to root up the soil around us.  We can immediately work the common ground all of humanity walks upon for the sake of Jesus Christ.   We can then watch life suddenly and beautifully bloom, life that offers living hope and truly honors selfless sacrifice for the biblical ideals of love, peace, and justice.    When we root up the soil for the sake of righteousness, we make known our Lord’s ultimate victory.  We join with the Psalmist who exhorts us to joyously sing along of new and marvelous things, while assuring us that all the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God. (Psalm 98)

            Through the Gospel of John, Jesus makes it clear that the faith given to us by God should not lie asleep.   We are all called to faithful obedience and to fostering holy friendships.   We are firmly instructed to abide in our Lord’s great love.  This love is not the stuff of glossy romance.     It’s not the sentimental empowerment such as was propagated at the beginning of WWI.    It’s intimately obedient and radically selfless love.    It’s the love contemplated whenever we look between the crosses.  It’s the love born on the grave grounds of grief and that victoriously pops up across every plain of this world through the power of our Savior.   It’s the love that was warmly manifest one shivering Christmas Eve in the hearts of human enemies four months into WWI, when both sides of the trenches agreed on an unofficial truce in order to sing “Silent Night” together and share provisions.[iv]

            University of Illinois professor Jonathon Ebel has written a book titled Faith in the Fight: Religion and the American Soldier in the Great War.   His research focused especially on Christianity and involved spending eight years “combing through letters, poems, diaries and memoirs from troops, their family members and people who worked for war support agencies such as the YMCA.  He also reviewed public literature such as Stars and Stripes.”[v]   By the time he was ready to author the book, his initial expectation of what he was going to write shifted.   Here’s what he had to say about this to an Illinois news reporter  – ““I started this project back in March 2001 thinking that I was going to tell a standard World War I story about disillusionment, where people bought the Christian pro-war rhetoric, went off to fight and realized later that they’d been duped,” Ebel said. “As it turns out, I found something quite different.”[vi]  

            What he found was a strengthening of the religious framework surrounding the war.   Despite the tremendous horrors of destruction and death, soldiers found the war to be profoundly meaningful to their faith.    For example, he reviewed reports of infantryman decorating their gas masks with strains of Protestant hymns such as “I need Thee, Oh! I need Thee, every hour I need Thee.”   Although he also found evidence of atheists in foxholes, for the most part he discovered that Christian faith “lent transcendent meanings and purpose to death and suffering, elevated those who died in combat to the level of heroes and martyrs and promised them eternal salvation.”[vii]

            After reading about this book, I was curious about what was being preached and published by Presbyterians at the time.   The internet really is an amazing research tool.   I used it to find an article published on January 20, 1914 in the Presbyterian Outlook magazine.   It was written by a Rev. J. Brierley.   Paraphrasing his fine words just won’t work, so I hope you find this excerpt interesting and relevant --

            “Faith, in all the spheres, has shown itself the governing principle, the motor force of human progress, and if there is to be any further progress it will be on its lines.  The next step, if progress there is to be, will lie in a great national and international act of faith … Suppose we as a nation … threw its whole force into a great act of trust!  Suppose it appealed to its neighbors on their better side instead of their worst … We shall have no way out of the present imbroglio till the Christian Church begins once again to indoctrinate the nation with Christian principle; till, by the passion of its own enthusiasm, it fills with this faith the [person] in the street and the [person] in the Cabinet; the faith in the highest in [people]; this faith, with all its glorious risks, with all its glorious and sure results.”[viii]  

             This sermon was a call to respond first and foremost to horrendous human conflicts by peacefully abiding in Jesus’ selfless, sacrificial love for all humankind -- ally and enemy alike.   It was a call to remember and root-up the spiritual soil we all walk upon as God’s precious children.   Again, this love is not merely a soft, sentimental affection.   It intimately and bravely battles against evil, in times of conflict and in times of peace.   This great love understands evil has been ultimately conquered through Christ.   The power of our Lord’s victory is manifested in a myriad of ways by the Holy Spirit.   It is active in all our lives before, between and beyond the crosses.  

            In addition to family food gatherings and fun summer welcomes this Memorial Day weekend, I pray all the branches of the Christian family tree in our country and across the world passionately consider how the Spirit is leading them to help more and more people abide in the selfless, saving love of our Lord … with all of its “glorious risks, glorious and sure results.”   Amen.  

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[i] http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/inflandersfields.htm

[ii] http://www2.fiskars.com/Inspiration-Projects/Growing-Flowers-in-the-Garden/Growing-Poppies-from-Seeds#.U4CNxvk7um4

[iii] http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/inflandersfields.htm

[iv][iv] http://history1900s.about.com/od/1910s/a/christmastruce_2.htm

[v] http://news.illinois.edu/news/10/0421war.html

[vi] ibid.

[vii] ibid.

[viii] http://preshist.wordpress.com/

Many Potholes, Many People

Ezekiel 36:22-28; Romans 12:1-8

            How well have you all been handling all those potholes out there?   The harsh winter sure has left its mark on our roads.    Driving around in my little silver Sentra feels like I’m in a lunar rover navigating craters!   After being unpleasantly surprised once or twice along our regular driving routes, we do come to know where the biggest potholes are.  Then we try to avoid them or fly over them safely, all the while anxiously hoping they’ll somehow be properly filled in soon.    If they are unattended long enough we complain to whoever will listen.  Perhaps we take a further step and make a formal request with local government or whoever owns a particular public parking lot.   Those parking lot ones might just be the worst. They’re sneaky.  You successfully dodge shopping carts and other vehicles backing out of parking spaces.  Then all of  sudden your vehicle chassis unexpectedly kisses fresh pitch.    Potholes are unsightly.  Potholes are scary.  Potholes really can’t be ignored.  If they are, they only deepen, widen, become far worse.

            Some folks in my wonderful wife Stef’s hometown of Scranton, PA have a unique way of addressing their community pothole crisis.   I was quite inspired when I read about it online earlier this week.  It falls into the category of optimistically seeing the glass, or, in this case, the pothole as at least half-full. 

            I invite you to open your minds and picture potholes that have been transformed in the following ways – small ones turned into a bird’s nest, a Barbie doll pool, and a place to chill oysters on the half-shell; a large parking lot one turned into a place to do the dishes, and another into a morning cereal bowl; there’s the one that turned into a hot spot to make popcorn, as well as the one with a toilet seat placed over it.    These are all incredibly creative and fun photos submitted by Scranton residents.   They did so as part of a community-spirit project called “Pothole: Positively Filling Negative Space.”    One of the project leaders summed up its point by saying, “This event keeps the community spirit [of loving to hate potholes] but loses the complaining.  Potholes become something to wonder at.”[i]

            All this get me wondering.   What other kinds of “potholes” do we all deal with on a daily basis?    As we travel along both the straight and winding roads of our faith journeys, what are the negative spaces we need filled with positivity?  And what exactly is our hope about how they will be filled?

            We all have our emotional potholes -- those parts of our being that have been slowly eroded by life’s damaging storms and the constant heavy traffic patterns of anxiety, insecurity, shame, sin.   The more healthily aware we are of these, the better able we are to receive the love, peace, and joy that fill them so nicely.  But if we ignore them, they just sink us deeper into subterranean strife.

            Churches need to be conscious of these same potholes.    Anxiety, insecurity, shame and sin seem to always be going about their wearing down work.    This opens up “negative spaces” that anyone can fall into.    In the Spirit, these need to be prayerfully, constructively and collectively attended to in order to help create safe journeys for all who pass through following Jesus Christ.

            The news headlines about pockets of humanity all across the country and this world also reveal treacherous potholes.    These potholes are much more than annoyances to complain about.  They can be massive, extremely dangerous and are much too often deadly.   They are caused by grave human injustices and atrocities.    These ought never to be navigated around or blindly ignored.    May we praise the Lord for every single faithful heart and mind and body extending Christ’s voice and powerful presence to all such pockmarks plaguing this planet.  

            Thankfully, the apostle Paul wisely addressed all this.   And long before him, a great many a prophet such as Ezekiel, who called out hearts of stone in order to pave the way for the new hearts God mercifully promises. 

            In Romans 12, Paul speaks about not allowing ourselves to conform to the ways of this world.   We are strongly exhorted to travel through life with sober judgment, to not ever hit the road greatly impaired by sin and intoxicated with ourselves.   But as we can never completely hit this mark, Paul reminds us that God fills every pothole by giving each of us measures of faith.   Every measure has a specific, positive purpose for repairing the road to living together uprightly in the Lord.   Some of us exhibit our measure of faith by teaching, others of us do so being generous compassionate, cheerful, and demonstrating diligent leadership (to name just a few).   In this way we individually and collectively offer spiritual worship that is holy and acceptable to God in all we do.   Reading Paul’s words here makes it clear that we are all in the same car and responsible for driving the church and all humanity toward greater unity and glory in Christ!   

            Pastor N.T. Wright sums up this Roman’s passage nicely with these words – “The key to it all is the transforming of the mind. Many Christians in today’s world never come to terms with this. They hope they will be able to live up to something like Christian standards while still thinking the way the rest of the world thinks. It can’t be done.  Having the mind renewed by the persuasion of the spirit is the vital start of that true human living which is God’s loving will for all his children.”[ii]

            Being open to Spirit-driven mind transformation just doesn’t come naturally to any of us.   It takes a lot of faithful discipline and shared community support.   Shortly after Stef and I spent time discussing Scranton potholes and this whole metaphoric theme, she emailed me an Upper Room daily devotion found on Facebook that offers a great example.   Being married two years as of tomorrow and being a clergy couple is pretty terrific! 

            The devotion was right on topic.   The author had complained about how her car had “rattled” and “rocked” after hitting yet another pothole.   Then “angry after another jolting journey home,” she prepared to vent her fury via a letter to the local newspaper.    But a holy stirring within her mind and heart caused her to pause.   In those moments she was lifted up by her faith out of the damaged, negative space within her.   It’s not that she suddenly felt the issue shouldn’t be properly addressed.  It’s that she knew she had to wait until her agitation subsided.   As it did, she gained greater acceptance about how “knowing Christ doesn’t guarantee a completely smooth ride, but with Him we can endure life’s uneven road.”   She put Jesus’ life journey front and center, realizing afresh that “He endured a much harder road to the cross” and “because of that great love, He will guide us through our journey and provide us with what we need to reach our destination.”[iii]

            What potholes are you experiencing today that are in need of prayerful pause?  That are in need of good personal and relational discernment?  Of being filled with measures of faith and spiritual gifts through our community of faith?   What spiritual gifts have you been blessed with to glorify God and to help our Lord repair all the sinful erosion in this world?

            God’s promised power of restoration through Jesus Christ fills all of our negative spaces, all the potholes in our lives, our communities, and across the globe.    How amazing that the Lord works through the single-sized layers of human macadam to eventually construct great pathways of divine deliverance for all God’s children!  

            This is yet another discipleship lesson I learned firsthand during my college days as a counselor at Camp Johnsonburg.    I mean this metaphorically, as when we built up faith person to person and through small groups.   And I mean this literally.   Full counselors were assigned to be out of camper unit for two weeks of the summer camp season.   Each of the three seasons I ministered there, one of the out of unit weeks was spent offering music sessions each day.  The other was spent working maintenance.    And one of the ongoing things that had to be done was driving around in the back of a beat-up pick-up truck with shovels and stone to fill in the potholes all around the natural ground camp roads.   This was for both safety and aesthetics.    

            All these years later, I continue to cherish the value of participating in this crucial repair work on every road of ministry I’m blessed to travel upon.   Especially since I don’t travel any of them alone, but with our Lord and in the blessed company of good and faithful folks like yourselves who journey here, there and everywhere at the ready to be prayerful, creative and constructive to the glory of God alone.   Amen!       

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[i] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/13/pothole-art-pop-up-studio-pennsylvania_n_5317354.html

[ii] N.T. Wright: Paul for Everyone, Romans Part Two: Chapters 6-16 (New Testament for Everyone) (p. 68). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

[iii] https://www.facebook.com/BlessedChristianStayAtHomeMoms/posts/66718874663439

"Meanwhile, Standing By ..."

Hosea 11:1-4; John 19:25b-27

            The Gospel of John turns on a powerful, darkness-dispelling spotlight and shines it right upon Jesus standing center stage in every scene.   This radiance is especially dramatic during Jesus’ most amazing, gracious act of love for us … during his crucifixion.    It broke through the shady scheme of the Roman soldiers casting lots for their famous victim’s tunic.    It broke through the terrible dehydration of taking last breaths upon a cross.  The scene stealing, power-switching sound of this spotlight being turned on comes to our ears with the words, “Meanwhile, standing by the cross of Jesus…” 

            I think the adverb “meanwhile” can sometimes sound like a little bit of extra color commentary happening off to the side of something much bigger.   We say things like, “There was a huge traffic jam on Rt. 78 making me late for work.  Meanwhile, I just sipped from my travel mug of coffee and talked to Siri.”   In this morning’s Gospel lesson, however, this word is not used in any incidental way.   It very intentionally calls our attention to life-giving reality in the midst of sorrow, suffering, death itself.    John makes sure we know that the ministry of holy caregiving through community was going to live on long after Jesus declared “mission accomplished” from the cross.    

            What better way to do so than to remind us of a mother’s love?   To highlight Mary and her selfless, unique devotion to the son she delivered to be the Savior of the World.    Hers was both the deep, undaunted love of being both his mother and his disciple.   So there she stood by the foot of the cross, by the tortured feet of her firstborn child.   Many others associated with Jesus’ radical movement had fearfully abandoned hope.   After all, standing there in open support of a condemned criminal of the Roman Empire was a dangerous thing to do.   Yet this did not deter Jesus’ mom.    Her undying love was going to stand by him to the very end.  Her magnifying faith in the mighty, miraculous, liberating and life-saving power of God was going to radically transcend the unjust reality of what was happening to her child.   I believe this mother and disciple trusted that the crucifixion was not an ending but an exodus.   

            Meanwhile, as all this was happening, the selflessly intense light of Jesus was focused on what his mom’s life could be like without her eldest son physically walking beside her and helping to take care of her.   Though not stated anywhere in the Bible, it’s widely believed that her husband Joseph had died by the time of Jesus’ final journey through Jerusalem.   In that ancient, male-dominated culture, it was normally a social and economic tragedy to become a widow.  She was among the most vulnerable members of society.  She wore distinct garb as a sign of her impoverished status.   She suffered severely restricted rights.  In short, the death of a husband was sort of a cultural death for the wife.[i]   

            John’s Gospel makes sure we don’t miss that this is what was on Jesus’ mind during his final earthbound minutes.   This concern and caregiving for the most marginalized of God’s children.   The sinful capital punishment was being carried out, but meanwhile, at the very same time, the sacred loving bonds of family and faith community were being further instituted.  And so Jesus looked down at his mother and at John, the disciple very near and dear to him.    He spoke to redefine their relationship in the light of his life’s work.   John would be like a son to Mary, and Mary would be like a mother to John.   As a member of John’s household, she would be socially and economically cared for and protected in that ancient, oppressive culture.   And in response, she would remain intimately involved in caring for those who were her children as well as those who were her church family.   Followers of Christ, then and now, are constantly called to be caregivers of one another through community.

            I was meditating on this passage all throughout my unexpected trip to Florida earlier this week to attend to my mom’s current healthcare crisis.   Jesus’ words of “here is your mother” reverberated through me every time I met a new person in the nursing home rehabilitation center.   I was pleased that many of them readily identified themselves as Christians.   In effect, I did a lot of saying to these sister and brothers, “Here is my mother.”  I did so in an affirming, encouraging way to build up the strong bonds of community caregiving.   I wanted to help the whole staff see her as Linda – a child of God, a disciple of Jesus, a much loved mother, grandmother, sister and aunt -- and not just as the latest Medicaid resident in Room 11.   And I also did so because I can relate to the little boy who once forgot his lines in a church play.    His mother was, of course, right there for him in the front row.  Realizing her son’s mind had gone blank about his lines, she leaned forward and whispered a cue, saying, “I am the light of the world.”  That little boy’s face lit right up like the spotlight throughout John’s Gospel.   Then, in a loud clear voice he declared, “My mother is the light of the world!”   Jesus, of course, is the Light, but my mom’s love for me is most definitely a beautiful light in my life.  

            I know many of you have been and continue to be caregivers for your mothers and other loved ones.   I also know many of you have very positive relationships with those who offer professional, loving care when you aren’t there.   And for nine years I’ve witnessed how consistently faithful caregiving has been shared in this community of FPC family and friends.    Our capacity to come together as caregivers for one another, to faithfully stand by those who mean the world to us and by our neighbors in need both near and far, rests securely in the hope of God’s death-defying, life-liberating and forgiving love through Jesus Christ.  This is hope for each day and for the future.   Being caregivers in Christ is synonymous with being hope-givers in Christ.   

            Practically speaking, what does this look like in our daily lives?    In 1998, I flew to St. Louis for training in how to lead a special congregational caregiving ministry that exists in many of our larger sister churches.    It’s called Stephen Ministry.   As a full-time pastoral intern in a very large program church that hosted this ministry, I helped train and supervise congregational members to offer high-quality, confidential, Christ-centered care to people who are hurting.  

            Stephen Ministry was founded by Kenneth C. Haugk, a pastor and clinical psychologist.   In the final chapter of his book Christian Caregiving: A Way of Life, he states nine practical ways all of us can be faithful caregivers.   We haven’t the time to speak in detail about all nine, but I’ll at least list them with one comment from the author.    Here are the “nine practical ways you can become an instrument through which distinctively Christian hope can flow into others” -- 

            [1] Stick with one another.   Offering a “consistent, caring presence through thick and thin instills hope. “ [2] Be Available.  “Hope is fostered by letting people know they can be in touch with you.”   [3] Reduce Anxiety.  “A problem shared is a problem halved … anxiety reduction can be very hope-producing itself.”  [4] Share Stories.  “Sometimes hopelessness comes about because people believe their problems are totally unique.”  [5] Accept Others.  “By communicating acceptance to others despite their problems and sins – just as Jesus does with you – you can produce great hope.” [6] Emphasize the Positive.  “Sometimes individuals feel so broken that they can no longer discover anything good in themselves.”  [7] Realize Failures and Limitations.  “You can take heart that your own weaknesses and failures are opportunities for God’s strength to show itself, and you can lovingly communicate the same to another.”  [8] Jesus is With You.  “Jesus is not only in you, but with you – with both the caregiver and the care receiver.”  [9] Be Distinctively Christian.  “The language of hope is one aspect of Christian caregiving.  The fact of hope is what Christian care aims for.”

            May we keep these practical points in mind and heart as we celebrate the bonds of truly caregiving love on this day and every day.  May we remember how the Light of our Savior shines through every darkness.   May we stand by Jesus as our Lord stands by us.   Amen!  

             

             

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[i] http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionaries/bakers-evangelical-dictionary/widow.html