Thankful for Upcoming Renewal

Among the many things I am thankful for this season, I include our Administrative Board and Staff-Parish Relations Committee for their consistent support of my ministry here.

At my request, each group has approved a period of Renewal Leave for me in 2014 – from January 14 through April 5. This Leave, sometimes called sabbatical leave, is authorized by The Book of Discipline for long-serving clergy.  I am completing my 7^th year here at Burke and my 36^th year serving in the Virginia Conference. I’ve always wanted to stay fresh in ministry, and I find myself ready for an intentional period of replenishment and renewal.

There is no crisis driving this.  My personal hopes are to re-set my spiritual and physical disciplines, to travel some, to read more widely, and to gain a new perspective on my life and ministry.  Ronald Heifetz, in Leadership Without Easy Answers, talks about the need for us all to take “balcony time” – to leave the swirling dance floor and go to the balcony, where the patterns and directions of the dance are clearer.  When we’re ready, we can re-join the twirling and spinning with new energy and perspective.

While I’m on Renewal Leave, Rev. Judy Fender will serve as the church’s Executive Leader, making the daily decisions and committee oversight that affect the church as a whole.  Rev. Morgan Guyton will be the Pastoral Leader, being responsible for worship and congregational care details. Jan Williams will continue as our Administrative Leader, anchoring the office with continuity and professionalism. All other staff will be present as usual.

We also have an impressive schedule of preachers for those Sundays.  We will welcome the Revs. Steve Jones and Ed Pruitt, former pastors of BUMC; Rev. Ken Jackson, our District Superintendent; and Dr. Kendall Soulen, Professor of Systematic Theology at Wesley Seminary.  We are also blessed with strong preachers on our staff; you will hear from Morgan Guyton, Katie Webster, Judy Fender, Douggie Royer, Lauren Blitz, and Cheryl Guyton. Worship will be fresh and strong.

On Tuesday, January 14, twenty-six of us will fly to Israel for pilgrimage to the Holy Land. What a perfect way to begin this period of renewal! I will be absent from our return until Sunday, April 6, when I’ll celebrate the Lord’s Supper with you.  I’ll look forward to traveling through Holy Week and Easter – and beyond! – with you as well. 

I’m very grateful for my seasoned and creative colleagues here on the staff. They’ve promised not to upend everything in my absence (though I ‘m sure I heard some snickering!). They’ll help our church’s lay leadership to step forward in new ways too. 
 
So I hope this will be a period of renewal for all of us as we begin 2014 together.

Tyler at the Navy Yard

To those of you who heard or read about our son Tyler’s involvement in last Monday’s Navy Yard shooting – thank you so much for your concern and prayers.  As we’re rudely reminded once again of the fragility of life, we’re grateful that he’s alive and well.

Tyler works on the 3^rd floor of Building 197.  He arrived about 8 am and was just emerging from the men’s room when he heard the sound of gunshots and the deafening fire alarm.  He was immediately directed into the stairwell just as the shooter fired bullets down the corridor he’d just left. When he got outside there was a still-locked gate, and people began to panic.  Some were able to scale the 9-foot wall, but many more simply couldn’t.  One very large woman from Tyler’s office began to panic because she knew she wouldn’t get over that height.  But Tyler and two other guys came back and reassured her. “Relax, we’ll get you over,” and they began lifting her, then other people, up to the top of the wall.  Others began to lower people down to the other side.  Before someone finally opened the gate to allow everyone to get out, they’d helped about 15 people over the Navy Yard wall.

Tyler texted us from Nationals Stadium before we knew anything about the event. We never had to worry for his personal safety. But we, like you, stayed riveted to the TV for hours that day and grieved over the horrible sense of “Here we go again” and the tragic loss of life.  And while this again confronts us with the need for some type of gun control, suffice it to say that simple background checks – the type Congress and the NRA squashed earlier this year – would have saved a lot of lives on Monday. Why is that simple step so hard??

Bev and I know that the horror of Monday’s event touched many lives a lot closer than ours.  But knowing that Tyler was in Ashland the day the DC snipers were there; that he was at Virginia Tech in the spring of 2007; and now being in Building 197 – and remembering Garrett was in Japan during their earthquake / tsunami / nuclear crisis – has reminded us of the unique challenges of parenting in the 21^st century!  How grateful we are we don’t have to face those issues alone.

I remembered Psalm 90 that says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Bev remembered the prayer, “We know not what a day will bring forth, only that the hour for serving you is always present.” It’s hard to be so frequently reminded of the fragility of life.  But maybe that’s exactly what we need.  Not the terror of violent death, but the reminder that life is short and uncertain and immeasurably precious.

We don’t need an excuse to hug our loved ones tighter.  Thank God for life!  And pray for one another.

Pastor Larry

Days of Summer ...

Summer is in full swing here at your church!  Hard to believe it’s almost mid-July!  But here’s what’s on tap:

Summer Sermon Series:  Best Places to Live in Burke.  Come and tour the houses of Welcome, Prayer, Generosity & Hope.  Saturdays at 5, Sundays at 9:00 & 10:30

Voices of Youth:   Some of Virginia United Methodist’s best teenaged singers.  Support Tamara Zerbo and her new friends, and welcome a wonderful hour of uplifting, enthusiastic music.  This Saturday at 5:00.

Church Picnic:  Our first in way-too-many years! Wear your Hawaiian shirt and bring some picnic food to share.  This Sunday, July 14, 12 – 3 pm, Burke Lake Park, Shelter C.

Youth Missions:  All the acronyms are scheduled and ready to go (or already gone):  CCC, JP, CRH, and helpers at VBS.  If you don’t know what they mean, ask one of our youth.  Remember to pray for our young people in their acts of Christ-like service to others this summer.

Activities for Children:  Make-Something Mondays, Camp Mission Edge & Vacation Bible School (both August 5-9), Summer Carnival (August 11).

Small Groups for Adults:  Anointed, Transformed, Redeemed; The Life You’ve Always Wanted; Divorce Care; The Voice You Long to Hear; Single & Parenting; Men’s Spirituality.  Information on all of these open groups is available on our website www.burkeumc.org. There’s a chair waiting for you!

I mentioned Sunday that it’s good to be back after a Sunday at Annual Conference and a Sunday in Ireland. There’s no place like home!  You, Burke Church, are a great blessing to our community and the wider world. Come and be a part of the work we’re doing – and the fun we’re having.

PS – Congratulations to our organist Linda Brese, who has earned Colleague Certification by the American Guild of Organists.  This higher-level certification recognizes her ability in a variety of keyboard skills, organ repertoire, and vocal and choral accompaniment. Congratulations, Linda! We’re blessed to have you here.

            Pastor Larry

New Year's Thoughts

As a United Methodist pastor, I mark years at the halfway point.  Calendar years may run January to December, but appointment years run July to June. Our family marks the years by where we’ve lived; when that changes, it’s always the end of June and the start of July. 

So I remember that it was almost 6 years ago that the moving van pulled up at the Wesley Pond parsonage and we began our sojourn in Burke.  It’s a good time, as I begin Year Seven as your pastor, to say again what a joy and a privilege it’s been to serve here. You are a loving, faithful, open, generous, and welcoming church.  The years have gone quickly, and we still have so much more good to accomplish, and so many more blessings to experience.

This month for me also marks the completion of 35 years of full-time active ministry.  I began my first appointment out of Yale Divinity School at Fairlington UMC in Alexandria in the hot summer of 1978. In between Alexandria and Burke we have lived in Herndon, Richmond, Ashland and Arlington – each community full of loyal Christians and good friends. Those years have also gone quickly, and I’m blessed to have had a very fulfilling ministry in each place.

Our Annual Conference begins tomorrow in Hampton. I’m one of our clergy delegates, along with Judy and Morgan; lay delegates are Randy Allen, Nancy Flythe and Jim Hudson; Todd Ringenbach is a District delegate; and Marti Ringenbach will attend to be licensed as a Local Pastor. Morgan will begin his fourth year as our Associate, and Marti her first (at Springfield UMC). And we’ll celebrate our deepening relationship with the Methodists of Cambodia. 

Many of you got to meet our four Cambodian guests this past Monday evening.  Ann Stingle, Judy Fender and I had the privilege of housing and coordinating them in their visit to the D.C. area. Thank you for your attendance at our dinner and program last Monday evening.  We learned so much about the potential to rebuild a nation as well as a church, and you generously contributed $1500 to help make that happen.

Immediately following Conference Bev and I will fly to Ireland for about 10 days. Friends who live there have invited us for so long to come and visit, and we’d always declined.  But in one of those “We’re not getting any younger” epiphanies, we decided we needed to stop saying “Someday.”

(I remember the poster that said, “There is only Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  There is no Someday.”  I learned  that to accomplish anything at all, it has to be planned for one of those seven specific days.  That’s all we’ll ever have.)

So I’ll look forward to seeing you in early July. July will bring us a visit from the Voices of Youth on July 13 and our first-in-a-long-time Church Picnic the following day, July 14.  Much to look forward to!

Oh – and plan to stop by the Sweet Frog Frozen Yogurt store in the Giant / BB&T shopping center on Burke Centre Parkway tonight (June 20).  We’ll be sponsoring an Open Mic evening from 7 – 9 pm. Should be great fun.

Taking Sides

I’ve long remembered the story of the elderly woman who was frail, hard of hearing, and nearly deaf.  Despite these obstacles, every Sunday morning she rose early, dressed and did her hair and makeup, and then called a taxi.  The taxi took her to church. After the service she took the taxi home.  This was her regular Sunday routine.

While at church one morning, her pastor said to her, “I know what an effort this is for you.  You know you don’t have to be here each week.  You can listen over the computer, or I can have someone bring you a copy of the service. You don’t have to go to all this trouble. So why do you do this week after week?”

"Because," she replied, “I want people to know which side I’m on.”

It’s easy for people of all ages to find reasons to stay inside, or stay away altogether.  This may be even truer for young people who have an array of digital amusements that older folks could never navigate. There is also less expectation among young people that they will take a stand for the Lord. That’s one reason why Confirmation Sunday is always moving for me.

When we’re so often told that Christianity is always just one generation away from extinction, I’m heartened by young people who step forward to say, “I’m on Jesus’s side.” I’m encouraged by these teenagers who want to be a part of God’s great work in the world, teenagers who cast their lot with the disciples and denominational church and say, “Count me in.” Every year on Confirmation Sunday, a fresh group of adolescents comes forth to make a public profession of faith, to kneel before God, to receive the prayers and the laying on of hands, and to rise into a new life of Christian discipleship.

This Sunday is Confirmation Sunday.  It’s an appropriate Sunday for Marti Ringenbach, our Director of Youth Ministries, to preach the sermon.  She has worked faithfully and diligently in the Confirmation program and is beloved by so many of our youth.  Marti has also responded to the calling of the Holy Spirit in her life -- she's preparing to become the Associate Pastor at Springfield UMC as of July 1. 

So this weekend is a time for celebration and wonder at how the Holy Spirit persists in calling people to take sides and choose the Lord. “Let no one despise your youth,” Paul wrote to young Timothy, “but set the believers an example in speech and conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.”

Come to encourage them, to celebrate them, and to show them they’re not alone – that you stand with them on the side of Jesus Christ.  

 

            Pastor Larry

Water on my brain ...

Summertime always means “water” to me.  I was blessed to grow up along a wide branch of the Elizabeth River in Tidewater Virginia.  June meant getting the boat & motor ready and launching it for the summer.  All summer I skied with friends, explored new inlets, crabbed a little, met girls, and skied some more. Summertime also meant sailing, the beach, the local pool, cool showers, water balloon fights, on and on.

Water is on my mind as we approach this first June weekend. I hope you won’t miss Cruise Ship:  The Musical, Burke’s annual musical variety show.  It premieres this Saturday evening at 7:00 pm. The encore performance is Sunday, June 2, at 3:00 pm. It’s funny, it’s upbeat, it’s musical as all get-out – and there’s a great blend of familiar faces and some Hollywood stars too!  We promise it’ll be safe, clean, smooth sailing – and we’ll definitely dock on time!

To fit with the chancel / stage setting, I’m going to talk about Jesus stilling the storm (Mark 4:35-41). You can join us at the 5:00 LifeSign, just prior to the Saturday Cruise Ship premiere, or on Sunday morning. We see in that story how the joyful elements of summer (light breezes, peaceful water) can turn into metaphors for the testing times in life:  heavy winds, roaring seas, dangerous waves.  How can Jesus help us through those anxious moments?  How can we not be overwhelmed?   We’ll find clues in the story – and in our hymns for this weekend, “Stand By Me” and a BUMC favorite, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.”

Later this month our confirmation class will confirm the vows that were spoken at the baptisms. Confirmation Sunday is always a moving service, as we witness a new generation of young people saying Yes to Jesus Christ.  These 8^th graders say Yes to the One born through the birth waters of Mary, the One baptized in the river waters of the Jordan.  They say Yes to the water poured on their own fuzzy heads long ago.  They say Yes to the One who’ll see them through their own storms of life, now and forever.

Can you say Yes to the waters this month?  Yes to the waters that gave you birth?  Yes to the baptism that brought you into God’s fold?   Yes to the path that leads “beside still waters”? Even Yes to the path that leads through stormy seas?  Hear the Word of God:  “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you!” (Isaiah 43:2)

All water can carry us closer to the heart of God. This summer and always – let Jesus Christ be your Yes.

            Pastor Larry

Wishing You a Noisy Pentecost

This coming Sunday (May 19) is Pentecost Sunday.  One of the three great festivals of the Christian church (along with Christmas and Easter), it celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit to the gathered followers of Jesus.  It may be because it’s a celebration of a disembodied God – we can more easily envision a newborn infant or a battered man than an invisible spirit – that Pentecost doesn’t have the traction of Christmas and Easter.

Yet Pentecost is the event that establishes the church as an eternal and worldwide fellowship. Christmas and Easter require participants to be “on site.” An embodied God has to be in a singular location in space and time; if Jesus is “there,” he can’t be “here” – at least not until after Pentecost.

Pentecost is, in a sense, the celebration of God’s radical availability to us.  Pentecost shifts us from being observers to participants.

Maybe that’s why Pentecost is the noisy celebration.  The others are quiet.  We get the impression that observing Christmas, for example, is like being a spectator at a golf match.  “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.” “Silent night, holy night, call is calm, all is bright.” Sshh.

Easter also evokes our awe.  Easter stories include dumbstruck disciples, personal conversations, baffled guards, and maybe the sound of running feet. Eventually we get our religious response ordered into an well-planned concert, with a brass quartet, massed choirs, choreographed dance and harmonized Hallelujahs. All in orchestrated order.

But Pentecost is noisy! What a racket.  All heaven breaks loose – a violent wind, different languages “spreading out like fire,” Galileans babbling in a multitude of languages, widespread bafflement and confusion. “They’re all drunk,” the bystanders jeered. Even the participants who knew better asked “What on earth is going on?”

Isn’t it odd that the public and visible expression of God – the “Word,” Jesus Christ – arrives in silence?  And that what we so often claim to be inward and private – the Spirit of God – breaks forth in such a public and cacophonous way?  God again turns our expectations upside down.

This Sunday we invite you to join the excitement of the Spirited, worldwide fellowship of the church. You will hear languages spoken you have never heard before! You’ll meet new members, and you’ll celebrate the Spirit in fresh ways.  We ask you to wear something RED – the color of fire and energy and passion.

For that matter, join us also the day before. This Saturday morning  (May 18) we will literally Change the World.  We invite you to wear anything Burke UMC-related that you have:  any BUMC T-shirt, nametag, buttons or hats.  We’re welcoming our neighbors from 10 am – 1 pm to “Drop In and Do Good.” Together we’ll package meals, plant a community garden, prepare school and medical kits, sort relief items – and enjoy free food and music too!

“Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” (Colossians 3:14)  A Burke shirt on Saturday, something RED on Sunday.  God’s love can be raucous and spirited!  Let’s prove it!

Pastor Larry

Mothers Work for Peace

Last week I mentioned that one of the most moving memories of my trip to Israel was our visit to Kfar Aza kibbutz.  Kfar Aza is a neighborhood of about 700 people just a few miles east of the Gaza strip. The residents live under the constant anxiety of bomb shells being lobbed in from Gaza.  When the public address system intones “Code Red, Code Red,” they have 12-15 seconds to find shelter.  Unsurprisingly it’s the younger residents who feel most helpless and angry. 

The mother who spoke with us said, “It’s just very hard to raise a 13-year old son.  It’s even harder to raise a 13-year old son without a heart full of hate.” 

Most of us aren’t living in situations that dire, but we parents often face similar challenges with our kids. It may be guiding them through the horrific news of bombs in Boston or kidnapping in Cleveland. It may be helping them survive the taunts of their peers, the fickleness of their friends, or the hurts of a broken heart.  

God bless you moms especially, those of you who know that faith in a loving God is so critical in challenges like this. God knows and loves your child, and nothing the world does or says has the ultimate power to define them. They are defined only by their infinite worth as God’s children. 

God has set in their hearts a life purpose to be discovered and gifts to be utilized. God helps us not to automatically return evil for evil; Jesus can free us from the cycle of violence and help us to forgive. The Body of Christ at its best shapes us as a loving community of grace, and teaches us how to show grace in a frightening world.

Mother’s Day has its roots in Julia Ward Howe’s attempt to establish a “Mother’s Day for Peace” in the years following the Civil War.  It took hold in the U.S. in the years leading up to World War I.  At the heart of Mother’s Day is the simple passion for peace.

I want to bless all of you mothers who work day by day for peace at home, peace at work, peace at school, and peace in the hearts of your children. There’s no task more important than raising children with hearts that can love.

Happy Mother’s Day!

 

Pastor Larry

Jesus in Color

I want to thank you again for your prayers for me as I spent the last week in Israel. We spent as much or more time looking at 21st Century Israel as we did at 1st Century Israel. We went to Jerusalem and Galilee and the Dead Sea. We also went to the Knesset, a kibbutz near Gaza, and the Red Cross station on the border of Syria. Both were powerful perspectives for me, and I look forward to sharing my insights in the weeks to come.

One thing about 1st Century Israel that struck me was the opportunity to put places and colors to the locations we only read about in the Bible. When I read in Matthew 13, "That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea," my vision of that event remains vague and colorless in my mind.

But when I was actually in the land, I realized how concrete these events were. I understood that the fuller story would say, "One Wednesday morning in the spring, about 8:30, the sky was a glorious blue, the sun was hot, and the breezes off the Sea of Galilee caressed the faces of the disciples. Jesus went out of his house in Capernaum, walked through the town and down to the grassy bank of the Sea of Galilee, and sat on the ridge by the intersection."

His days were like ours - blue and green, grey or brown, rainy or cool. Seeing the land itself (which is so important is Israel's life, then and now) - its roads and ridges and overlooks - helped bring His story to life.

The other thing about 1st Century Israel that struck me was the proximity of one place to another. When I experienced how close Capernaum is to the Mount of the Beatitudes, and to the beach where the disciples ate fish with their Risen Lord, then the concrete reality of His life struck more forcefully. I experienced the geography of Jesus's life and could easily apply it to our geography.

That is, a parallel to his ministry there would be to say, "Jesus taught in the Rolling Valley Mall parking lot. Then he walked down Old Keene Mill Rd to the intersection, where he called his disciples. Later he gathered with them at Burke Lake Park. The next day he walked to Chipotle. "

I could visit the places that this man actually lived. Just as it rooted the reality of His life in a particular geography, it also rooted Jesus' life more closely in the geography of my heart.

I did errands around our community today, with the vision that Jesus could be that young man jogging down Burke Centre Parkway. He could be in that group of teenagers in Chipotle. He drives down our roads on a beautiful blue and green May morning, just as surely as He walked in Galilee.

 

Pastor Larry

A Whole New World

Happy Easter!  You know, I’ve really come to love Easter more and more in recent years.  It may not match up well to the emotional buildup and quiet holiness of Christmas, but I’m learning that its meaning is far more revolutionary than I’d ever realized.

For years I thought that the Resurrection was mainly a symbol that life goes on, that God gives us a second chance. If something comes to life that once was dead, it must be sharing that “Jesus-spark” that keeps hope alive when everything looks dead.  (Never a big fan of peeps and chicks, but certainly dormant flowers that bloom in the spring made a fine symbol of Easter.)  And Resurrection must be the proof of an afterlife, that there’s more to existence than this earthly plane.

And although I am one of those people that believes in the bodily resurrection, I didn’t quite know how to respond to the assertion that “Life just doesn’t work that way; resurrection is scientifically impossible.”  So Easter mostly had a “Don’t give up hope” encouragement to it, and I mined that as deeply as I could.

Well, that’s not deep enough, not by a long shot.  It may be all of the above (except maybe the afterlife proof), but it’s so much more.

Now I see, for example, that science is the study of repeatable events. History, on the other hand, is the study of non-repeatable events. History is the accumulation of events that happen that we don’t insist on being subject to scientific examination.  We use different means of verifying their having happened. Scripture, tradition, reason and experience can all bear witness to the likelihood of a bodily Resurrection. So I believe that resurrection may or may not qualify as a scientific event, but it definitely qualifies as a historical one.

Now I’ve come to see the resurrection of Jesus as the in-breaking of God’s New Creation.  It’s the inaugural weekend of a new and unprecedented reality.  We have been in a fundamentally different order of creation since that Sunday ages ago.  “Our old history ends with the cross; our new history begins with the resurrection.” (Watchman Nee)

Our world is qualitatively different now.

Now I see that we live in “a new world order, [one which] has opened up in the midst of the present one. God’s future has arrived in the present in the person of the risen Jesus, summoning everybody to become people of the future.” (N. T. Wright) God’s future is one in which the dead are raised. It is the future in which sin and death lose their power. In God’s future our battered planet is renewed, justice becomes the norm, all reconciliations are accomplished, our human bodies are remade, and the knowledge of God is rewritten on every human heart. 

God’s future is the one consistently proclaimed throughout the Bible.  And it’s a future that happens here – not in heaven, but on earth as it is in heaven.

The reality of the resurrection removes this ideal from “Wouldn’t it be nice…?” and places it squarely in the realm of “This will be.”  That’s why it summons every one of us to become “people of the future.”  This is what’s before us, so why not start living it now?  Why play by the rules of a losing contest? 

If you want to live a life that endures and counts for something, remember:  “The entire plan for the future,” said Billy Graham, “has its key in the resurrection.” That key will open more doors than we ever realized before.

Pastor Larry

What is "Bearing Your Cross"?

On one of the episodes of the old TV show MASH, Radar O’Reilly is trying to locate medical supplies for his Army surgical unit.  He calls every clinic and supply center he can think of, but he just can’t find any.  Hawkeye and the others will have to do without.  Radar sighs as he explains this to Hawkeye, “That’s just another bear we’ll have to cross.”

However mangled the phrase comes out, it’s one we recognize from the gospels, especially from Holy Week.  “We all have our crosses to bear,” we say, not always fully grasping what that means. 

What does it mean? 

For Jesus, bearing the cross was his experience of enduring unavoidable suffering.  I call it unavoidable because it was the natural consequence of following his call, of living his life with integrity as it unfolded. Could he have avoided the cross?  Could he have run away? Not if he were to be true to himself.

“Bearing the cross” in your life would also be the experience of enduring unavoidable suffering.  The suffering of the MASH unit lacking supplies was unavoidable. Living with a chronic illness or birth defect may be unavoidable.  Assisting another person with the same thing could be bearing the cross as well; the suffering may be avoidable – you could leave your ill husband or turn your back on your child – but when your integrity won’t allow you to do that, it’s not really avoidable.

Actually, “enduring” may not be the best word.  The power of Jesus Christ is such that He can help us embrace the unavoidable suffering.  In that sense, we‘re not just gritting our teeth and enduring something; we dare to accept it.  Our suffering is lessened when Christ helps us shoulder our particular circumstances because they are hidden gifts.

By the grace of the Lord, a broken heart can become a source of compassion. Caretaking can become an opportunity to show deeper tenderness.  Doing without can awaken our creativity or inspire our gratitude for what we do have. Losing strength can help us reframe our identity with God.

Pope Benedict’s recent resignation reminded me of the final days of his predecessor, John Paul II, in 2005. I’m old enough to remember when John Paul began his papacy in 1978.  He was striking for being a very athletic Pope, a barrel-chested man who loved skiing and hiking and being outdoors. But by 2005 his health had certainly deteriorated, and Parkinson’s had weakened him terribly.  Many urged him to abdicate so that the world could have another strong, vigorous Pope. 

But where once he could emulate for the world a strong, vigorous Jesus, at that time he chose to emulate instead the weakened and dying Savior.  Like Jesus, John Paul II embraced God’s “power made perfect in weakness.” He embraced his deterioration as an offering to his Lord and a bearing witness to God’s faithfulness.

As of Sunday we enter Holy Week.  I hope that the experience of Jesus’ cross-bearing can lead you to choose what may have seemed unavoidable. In every hardship God can bring you unexpected blessings and joyful gifts.

Pastor Larry

Traditions Old & New

One of the privileges of my role as spiritual leader of a congregation is to invite you into deeper experiences of the Holy Spirit. Often there are rich traditions of the church’s worship that have been forgotten, rejected, or co-opted by one ‘side’ or another.  Yet millions of people find themselves enriched by reclaiming the old and making it new again.

Old practices can bless us in fresh ways.

The use of ashes on Ash Wednesday is a key example. Once practiced solely by the Roman Catholic Church, making the sign of the cross with ashes has been reclaimed by the universal church as a powerful witness to the enduring love of God.

Here are several new/old practices we’re including in observing Holy Week, the final week in Jesus’ life. They’ll be offered on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday (March 28-30).

• Footwashing is Jesus’ command to his followers in John 13. In John’s gospel it receives far more attention than the Last Supper itself.  Often practiced by the “low church” denominations (Anabaptists, Baptists, Mennonites, Brethren, etc.), footwashing is a powerful experience of devotion to Christ and loving servanthood before others. We will offer this option again (as we did last year) in our 7:30 pm. service.
• The Stations of the Cross have been long embraced by the more “high church” wing of Christianity (Roman Catholics, Anglicans, etc.). In our Protestant version it becomes a way for you to walk Jesus’ Good Friday journey in a thoughtful, contemplative way, and at your own pace. Our sanctuary will be open for your personal meditation from 9 am – 7 pm Friday, March 29.
• Tenebrae is Latin for “shadows.” It has its roots in twelfth-century Christianity as a reflection of the meaning of Jesus’ death on a cross. It incorporates music and word, sound and silence, light and darkness into a profound retelling of the crucifixion journey. It will form the foundation of the Good Friday service, also at 7:30 pm.
• A relatively new tradition, worship in the style of the Taizé community in France will anchor our Holy Saturday service.  It is a contemplative service of quiet singing, Scripture reading and prayer, all in candlelight.  This Taizé worship begins at 5:00 on March 30. 
• A Psalms Vigil will follow from 6 pm – midnight. We will read meditatively all 150 psalms. You are welcome to come and go – or remain – as you can.

The barriers between “low church” and “high church” are coming down!  What’s old is new again, especially if it brings us a powerful experience of Jesus Christ. I hope you’ll find these a nudge beyond your comfort zone. Try something new and old at the same time.  I hope these worshipful opportunities will be especially meaningful to you in your faith journey.

Pastor Larry

Dear Friend of Burke UMC,

 The calendar is pulling us into February already, and the season of Lent is just around the corner.  During Lent I plan to preach on the events that led to Jesus’ death on the cross for us.  So I took a book to lunch today and began reading.

The book was titled The Last Week. It helps us grasp what happened to Jesus on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday of Holy Week, to understand more clearly the quick turnaround between the triumph of Palm Sunday and the tragedy of Good Friday. I’ll draw on this for our Lenten sermon series. 

As a fortunate parallel, we’ll begin a discussion of The Last Week this coming Sunday.  Audrey Romasco will host a group read-and-discuss beginning Sunday, February 3, at 10:30 am.  This is an opportunity I hope you won’t miss.

The authors refer to the traditional meaning of the word “passion” as speaking about the suffering of Jesus. Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ focused on the agony Jesus endured for us.  “Passion” is from the Latin noun passio, which means “suffering.”

But we also use the word “passion” to mean a high degree of interest or energy for something.  “His passion is gardening.”  “She speaks with great passion.” Jesus had a passion in his sense, too.  His passion was the Kingdom of God.

This is what Jesus was most passionate about – living for God’s justice, God’s rule, God’s determination to put the world right.  He dedicated his life to speaking and teaching and embodying the realm of love and justice God was shaping.  You could say that his passion for the Kingdom led to his passion on the cross. His commitment to God’s world put him into inevitable conflict with the world around him.

Already I’m pondering over my Diet Coke where my passion lies.  Am I dedicated to the vision of God’s Kingdom?  Am I energized by living God’s way?  Am I as passionate about the Kingdom as I am about maintaining my beliefs – or my political views – or my team’s success on Sunday – or my family?   What do I yearn for the most intensely?

Before I’m finished the Preface I’m asking big questions.  Lent is a time for doing that – for asking big questions and listening for big answers.

But relax – there’s still a Super Bowl between now and then. Audrey’s class is a couple of days away. There’s another Diet Coke in the frig.  That big stuff can wait.

Then again, some big questions just don’t wait.

 

 

Pastor Larry

Burden or Blessing? Both.

Sometimes a burden can be a blessing.  Sometimes a blessing can be a burden.  Often the two are one and the same.

There is an indigent jobless man who comes by the church frequently.  When I first met Joseph, I confess that I considered him a burden.  He interrupted my work; he always needed something; he was very persistent; and, being a large man, he was somewhat intimidating.  I learned from clergy colleagues that several had told him to leave the church and never come back.

But somehow, only by the sheer grace of God, I began discovering that I liked him. Joseph has a nice sense of humor and a very interesting story.  I’ve learned what it’s like to survive in his world as he does, and I find I’ve become less judgmental.  He’s persistent, yes, but gentle.  I sort of enjoy his company, and I think what he needs more than food or money is … well, someone who enjoys his company.

I’m beginning to claim burdensome Joseph as a blessing from God.

Some of these thoughts were stirred up by a conversation at our Wednesday prayer group.  We heard these words from the Psalms:  I remember your name in the night, O Lord, and keep your law.  This blessing has fallen to me, for I have kept your precepts.  (Ps. 119:55-56)

In Christian faith we’re taught that the law was a burden to people.  “God has all these rules,” we’re taught, “and people tried in vain to keep them all, and they couldn’t, and the law of God was a liability in their relationship with God.”  But Jews didn’t share that belief at all.  They saw it differently.

The law – the Torah, the teaching – was a gift from a loving God.  It was a source of inspiration, a source of guidance, ethics, and praise.  Obedience to it was a blessing, as the Psalmist states above.  Just a few verses earlier the same writer says, I find my delight in your commandments, because I love them.  God’s Word was clearly a blessing.

Yet the early Christians weren’t entirely wrong, either.  The law could and often did become an obstacle on the path to holiness.  Its words judged and convicted people; it set standards that were impossible to achieve; it prevented many Jews from experiencing God’s blessing because of its high demands and expectations.

It was both burden and blessing.

And so it is with much of life.  We’re burdened by a chronically ill child or an aged parent.  We have a medical condition that persists. We’re in a job that wasn’t what we dreamed of, but it’s too late to change now.  Many situations that feel like burdens are really opportunities to know God’s blessing. And we can grow inwardly because of the illness, or the caretaking, or the lost dream. 

We can instead reframe our sense of affliction.  We can name the gifts it has brought us, even against our wills.  We may have more patience, more compassion, more love than we would otherwise. We find unique inspiration. We can begin to see how God has led us by unconventional paths to a harder-won and more valuable wisdom. 

I hope you’ll ponder and pray over your burdens.  Some of them may need to be lifted and given to Jesus, nailed to his cross.  (Remember that he said, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”)  But some burdens become lighter when we see them “from the back side” and recognize them as gifts from God. 

Then we can say gratefully with the Psalmist, This blessing has fallen to me.

 

Pastor Larry

 

It Was Mostly an Ordinary Christmas

 

Before I get too far into a New Year and the tree comes down, I usually spend some time reflecting on the Christmas past. This year I've finally admitted what I've been afraid to admit for so long.

Christmas is not "the most wonderful time of the year." Not for me, anyway.

It's hard to admit. I don't want to sound like a Scrooge, muttering "Bah, humbug" under my breath, then feeling guilty about being unsentimental. I understand the sadness that so many feel when a loved one has died or a marriage has ended; it certainly wasn't a Merry Christmas for the residents of Newtown. But even as an ordinary month, I just can't find and maintain some unique joy every single day.

It's too much work.

For far too many years I've tried to recapture, even if just for a moment, the magic excitement of my childhood Christmases. The lights seemed prettier then, the trees taller, the gifts more enticing, the anticipation more palpable. We counted down the days - "T minus 8!" - and found it hard to sleep. I know that's a typical childhood experience of Christmas, and as I got older it began to slip away.

So I looked up old childhood LPs on CD. I re-started some traditions that I'd forgotten. I tried to gather small groups for caroling and even rang the bell for the Salvation Army (which I did as a Kiwanis kid). I wanted scenes around the fireplace with my closest friends, passing around the coffee and the pumpkin pie. When our boys were in that "sweet spot" of childhood it came back vicariously. Now it's a season where again my emotional expectations have become - well, burdensome.

What I have found is that, in the midst of a month that's always more demanding than the other eleven, there are moments of light that break through with a special holiness. The Burke Family Christmas was one of those this year: the families, the children, the music, the sheer grace of the Praise Hula Dancers fed my soul powerfully in those post-Newtown days. An evening with my sons was another. The Christmas Eve services - especially the children's pageant and "O Holy Night" - were another. Most everything else seemed just ordinary - which in the Christmas hype is blasphemous.

But when I go back to Scripture, maybe that's the way it's supposed to be! Maybe the evening of Jesus' birth really was that glorious - with light and angels and awestruck shepherds and a heavenly chorus. But inside the stable I think it was anything but.

The straw - damp and ordinary. The animals - loud and ordinary. The atmosphere - smelly and ordinary. The baby - wet, colicky, cold, fragile - a lot of work. The whole month leading up to that night wasn't clean and holy and glorious by a long shot. That's not the Christmas message.

The message is that the light shines out through the darkness - in the midst of the ordinary - and that light will never be totally swallowed up by it. The message I hear in a fresh way now is that the monthly work of Christmas - buying and wrapping, cooking and decorating, planning and preparing, writing and mailing - is often burdensome. (Joseph and Mary's month before wasn't all that magical and giddy either! ) But the flicker and flash of that light - the glimpse of grace in church, the moment at the table, the laugh in the car, the smile through the sadness - that's what we celebrate.

If I get this and live it, I can put fewer burdens on the entire month and what I wish it could be again. I could set my expectations aside and welcome instead what God does give. And I think what God will give is just the flicker, just the glimpse.

Next year there may only be two or three of those in the whole month. But I want that to be enough to remind me of the heart of Christmas. Ordinary darkness is not vanquished. But "the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." That's what I will wait for.

Now May & June - that's the most wonderful time of the year!

I think.

Pastor Larry

Guns & Jesus Part II

(This is a followup to my late December posting down below.  It was on Facebook in several places but was inadvertently omitted from this blog.              -- Larry) 

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I confess.  I confess, as time has passed, that my earlier Tidings posting about Jesus and Guns was in some ways over the top – or painted with too broad a brush. Hyperbole has its place, but only for a time.  For me, I think it was a cry of outrage over what’s happening in this country now. 

But our critics often force us to re-think what we want to say more clearly. They also teach us.  I have been both encouraged and taught.  Thank you. And while I have no illusions that the world is eagerly waiting for more of Larry Buxton’s opinions, here is a brief and more nuanced credo-in-progress:

1.      I believe that one can be a Christian and use guns in wartime. 

2.      I believe that one can be a Christian and own guns for hunting and marksmanship.

3.      I believe that one can be a Christian and own a handgun for personal protection.

4.      I believe that one can be a Christian and a police officer.

5.      I believe that the arms our Founding Fathers intended in their amendment (e.g., a single shot flintlock powered by black powder) should be clearly legal constitutionally. Everything else is up for debate.

6.      I believe that not all gun-owners support the official position of the NRA.

7.      I believe that the “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people” mantra is offensive.  Why don’t we say “Cars don’t kill people” or “Nuclear weapons don’t kill people” or “Drugs don’t kill people”? It’s elementary to acknowledge that an inert object can be safe.  But any number of inert things can become excessively deadly when used wrongly by people. That’s why we regulate them, restrict them, and act to restrain their use.

8.      I believe that the NRA’s position on guns, as articulated by Wayne LaPierre, is obscene.

9.      I believe there is no justification whatsoever for assault or semi-assault type weapons to be available to anyone off the battlefield.

10.  I believe that one thing that can stop a good person with a weapon is a bad person with a weapon. Weapons are not the solution.

11.  I believe that for our nation to survive the 21^st Century, we must let go of some of our “rights.” Our responsibilities must trump our rights. The welfare of the nation must trump what’s good for me. Compromise is not a bad word. We’re all in this together.

12. I believe the truth of the story about the Boston cab driver who told his passenger that he was a Democrat. His daddy was a Democrat, all his uncles were Democrats, and all his brothers and sisters were Democrats too.  “So,” said the passenger, “I assume you’re voting for the Democrats this year?” “Heck no,” said the cabbie.  “Sometimes you’ve got to put aside your principles and do the right thing.”