A Christian Faces Death

We had just moved to Lodi when word came of the death of Joseph Cardinal Berardin of Chicago from cancer. In his last days and in our last days in Chicago those who had ears to hear learned much from him about how a Christian might face death.  Now we have another such opportunity, which I pass on to you here (click on this link):

Cardinal George looks to God as second cancer fight begins :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

Spiritual Shopping

In a guest column in our local paper last week, the author quite rightly was bringing to the attention of the churches a neglected close-to-home ministry field - residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities.  She was on target in pointing out that foreign mission trips, servant events, and other exotic service projects like working at food banks sparkle in the eyes of many Christians looking for ways to serve others, but we tend to overlook the folks who live in the nursing home down the street who need our love, our care, and our serving just as much.  I thank her for bringing these folks to our attention once again.

And yet . . . well, here is her first paragraph, verbatim:

I awoke to a bright sunny Sunday morning, feeling good about myself and looking forward to honoring my God at one of the many churches in Brunswick.  I say many because in the 10 years I have lived in Brunswick, I have yet to settle on one particular church.  Each of the six churches I frequent offer something that feeds a part of my soul but not any one can offer everything.

Hmmmm, I thought as I read this.  Here is a consummate comparison consumer.  Apparently she attends one church to meet one segment of her needs, another to meet another segment, etc.   I wonder - is there a particular church she attends when she's "feeling good about herself" and another she attends when she's "not feeling so good about herself"?



And the more I thought about her column, the more I wondered some other things - 

• How many people in our society use churches this same way, the way we choose between WalMart and KMart and StuffMart, depending on who has the best deals that week?

• How many Christian people have gone beyond a personal relationship with God to privatizing that relationship?  How many Christian people call Him "my" God with a sense of exclusiveness, even pride of ownership?

• How many Christian people can't see, or don't want to see, the body of Christ assembled in any particular place, worshiping and honoring the Triune God (not just "my" God) but also receiving from Him grace and mercy and love and forgiveness?  How many pass right by the body as it struggles and grieves and mourns, like the priest and the Levite on the road to Jericho, because they do not want to recognize the body?  How many deprive themselves of the comfort of the Sacraments (especially the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper) because they do not, as Saint Paul said, "recognize the body" not only in the Bread, but the Body gathered to eat the bread?

• How many Christian people call the church to task for its shortcomings from a position of smugness rather than a position of humility?

I don't know the answers to these questions.  I suspect that an answer to each one of them is "more than a handful."  But my charge as pastor of the church that I serve is to care for the Christians who are here - who recognize the body, who don't always feel good about themselves, who share the God who loves them and share His love with each other, who crave the comfort of the Sacrament and its forgiveness, who commit themselves not only to an hour on Sunday morning every so often but to repeating that hour week after week, season after season, and building relationships within the church in so many other ways.

If the author of the above article were to visit our church, we'd welcome her.  If she chooses ours to be one of the six or seven she shops at, we'd still love her.  But we'd know that even while she's shopping to find just what she thinks her soul wants, she's starving that same soul of everything our blessed Jesus has to give her.

Allan R. Bevere: Some Thoughts on the Chick-Fil-A Food Fight

Allan Bevere is on the faculty at Ashland Theological Seminary.  His thoughts from his blog offer a worthwhile thinking-point.

Allan R. Bevere: Some Thoughts on the Chick-Fil-A Food Fight: There was Chick-fil-A appreciation day yesterday in support of the restaurant and traditional marriage, and tomorrow there will be gay an...

I Must Have Missed It . . .

. . .  so the week has gone by without me either eating or not-eating a chicken sandwich.  Neither was I paying much attention to the Olympics, nor to trying to explain the unexplainable evil in Colorado, nor to ever-present political commercials in our lovely swing state of Ohio.  Instead, . . . 

. . . I was contemplating a sermon for this coming Sunday on how Saint Paul can have the nerve to put pen to paper and write to the Ephesians "there is only one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all" and intend it for us, too, as my congregation comes together as individuals this Sunday and is melded into One by the Holy Spirit . . . 

. . . I was rejoicing over last weekend's Vacation Bible School when our kids and adults, oblivious to anything else in the news, came together for the weekend to enjoy one another's company, learn something about Jesus, and play hide-and-seek with Him . . . 

. . .  I was having a heart-wrenching conversation with a father who's wrestling with how he can help his adult son overcome his addictions . . . 

. . . I was having more conversations about a new grandma whose newborn grandson is in NewBorn Intensive Care with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (withdrawal from his mother's drug abuse) . . .

. . . I was having yet another conversation with a local counselor about how we can work together to help individuals in our area . . . 

. . . I was having still another conversation with other counselors and  Formational Prayer Caregivers about how we can help others learn to pray for healing for many . . . 

. . . I was refinishing a small crucifix I had found at a little antique mall . . . 

. . . I was doing a lot of other stuff, too, that had no political nor professional ramifications.

So I must have missed it - whatever it was that people were supposed to be celebrating or protesting, standing up for or shouting out against the other day.  I must have missed it.  So please just let me ask this one question:

"How are things between you and Jesus these days?"

Hide and Seek and Gummi Fish

This is Mimi.  She's making a fishy-face for our Vacation Bible School "Rocky-Point Lighthouse."  Normally she pretends to be pretty shy when she's at church, but she loosened up at VBS.


Last year in May I was blogging about Mimi's tendency to call me "Jesus" and how I was kind of awed by that, wondering how I could fill those shoes.  This year I think Jesus and I are in a better place with our relationship:


While the other kids were playing kickball in the field, Mimi came up to me, put her little hand in mine and said, "Come on, Jesus, let's play hide and seek!"  I smiled a big smile, and next thing you know I was counting to ten by a big tree while she was running off in delight to hide behind another tree in the yard.  (Pretty soon there were about a half-dozen other giggling kids hiding while I was counting and seeking them - behind the trees, in the trees, behind the shrubs.)  But when Mimi said this to me, my immediate thought was, "Wouldn't Jesus love it when a child comes up to him and just simply says, 'come on, Jesus, let's play hide and seek!'  I bet he'd be smiling from ear to ear while he finds a tree to count by."


Later, during snack time, Mimi gave me a couple of her gummi fish.  This was a big deal for her and me, because it was the first time she spontaneously shared anything with me.  Cool, I thought.  These are yummy gummies.  But later, when our Director was asking the kids during one of the program segments if they had done anything to "Shine God's Light" with somebody else that day, Mimi said "I shared my gummi fish with Jesus."  Again, a huge smile on my face as I thought, "Wouldn't Jesus be delighted with a child who shares her gummi fish with him?"  In fact, we jump so quickly to the miracle of dividing a few small fish and some loaves of bread among five thousand people - but what if the part that the adults leave out of the narrative is the smile and the joy of Jesus that the child would share their (gummi) fish with him?


And what if Jesus is just waiting for you (or me) to come up to Him and say "come on, Jesus, let's play hide and seek!" or "Here, Jesus, have some of my gummi fish"?  Nothing more - but nothing less!  - than that.  What if?


Of such is the Kingdom of God.