Jacob at the Jabbok

The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.  He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had.  Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.  When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.  Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me."  So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."  Then the man said, "You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed."  Then Jacob asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And there he blessed him.  So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved."  The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.  (Gen 32: 22-31)

One of the challenges for me in this journey of discipleship is realizing that if I acknowledge that life itself is a gift of God, then all of life is a gift.  To use theological terms - all is grace.  But if I acknowledge that, it really does mean ALL of life - joys, blessings, triumphs, sadness, loss, tragedy.  All is grace.  All?  Really?  I wrestle with that.  It challenges me on several levels.

Overall, I have lived a pretty charmed life.  But I have not exactly been a stranger to tragedy, either.  I experienced a major trauma in my life when I was 18.  Years later, I can identify the blessings that God has wrought out of that trauma.  They are amazing and many.  The tough part of the journey is seeing grace in the trauma itself.  Yet it is, in fact, into the very darkest moments of our lives - up to and including death itself  - that we encounter Jesus. 

I attended a retreat just over a year ago and we talked about this concept of all being gift.  We acknowledged that there are all sorts of gifts in life - unexpected, unwarranted, unwanted, unwelcome.  Certainly, sadness, loss, tragedy would all be unwanted & unwelcome gifts.   Yet, it occurs to me that every experience in my life has shaped my ability to love and trust God, and helped me grow more fully into the image of Christ - including the difficult experiences.  Perhaps especially the difficult experiences. 

PENIEL*

Alone in the desert, wrestling comes.

Hips are displaced.  Names are changed.

Blessing comes and God is seen

face-to-face.

Nothing is ever the same again.

And yet my life has been preserved.

ALL IS GRACE!

Jacob at the Jabbok.

Do broken hips bring blessings

or blessings broken hips?

Or is, perhaps, the broken hip the blessing?

THE UNWANTED GIFT:  Unwanted, unwelcome. unwarranted - and I am grace-filled and unwilling to refuse it.

ALL IS GRACE!

May you be grace-filled.

PK(+)

*  "Peniel" is an original poem composed by Kathleen Suggitt Feb 2010.

FUNERAL FOLLIES: Tales from the Trenches

I have been at this pastor thing for almost 5 years now.  Not long enough to be considered experienced by a long shot, but long enough that certain aspects of parish ministry have taken on a natural rhythm of their own.   Funerals are one of those aspects.  In my first 8 weeks of ministry I officiated at 10 funerals.  Last summer, there were 5 in a three week period.  Times like that solidify a sense of ease and professionalism that makes one able to be present and available to the family in the midst of grief and a little bit of momentary choas in their lives.  It also allows one to develop a sense of personal rhythm in officiating.  Most of the time ...

Last week I was privileged to officiate at the funeral of a member of the congregation who was also a well-loved and respected community figure - the former chief of police and mayor.  The sanctuary was filled with many of our community's public servants most of whom were unknown to me.  As usual with a funeral, I was honored to be the one who would be proclaiming the good news of the promise of the risen Christ to this gathering. 

I said my prayers before worship and walked through the kitchen and fellowship hall on my way to the sanctuary.  I made my regular check of the supply of deviled eggs for the luncheon - it has become an amusing inside joke between the women who prepare the lunch and me.  Then I went upstairs to wait at the rear of the sanctuary for the last few minutes before the worship service would start. 

As the funeral director began to close the coffin and prepare for the processional, I realized that the funeral pall was not in its usual spot.  Realizing that it was hanging in the secretary's office, I started discreetly down a side aisle to retrieve it - only to find the aisle blocked.  Undeterred and unrattled, I headed for the opposite side aisle - blocked. With all the poise I had, I walked down the center aisle and out of the sanctuary, only to return a few minutes later with the pall.  Just as I arrived at the rear of the sanctuary, the carillon struck the hour.  We would start right on time.

The rest of the worship service went without a hitch, until the recessional.  Right before the recessional song, I nod to the funeral director who comes forward to accompany the casket back to the rear of the sancturay.  I looked to the rear of the sanctuary - no one was there.  I nodded to the organist to begin playing, assuming that he would hear the music and show up.  By the time the second verse started, I knew that it was time for an alternate plan.  I moved to the end of the casket and began to move it down the aisle.  A couple members of the local law-enforcement stood up and helped me.  The recessional was on its way.  Not exactly according to Hoyle, but it worked.

Committal at the cemetery had its share of glitches - all beyond my control, but still adding to the completely unconventional nature of the funeral.  When the the Honor Guard went to play taps and the recording in the bugle failed to function - 3 times - I was torn between maintaining appropriate reverence and bursting out laughing.  Remarkably, I was appropriately reverent.

The laughter came when I got back to the church and hit the kitchen.  Everyone was chuckling and as the full stories came out, we had tears running down our faces.  The crowning moment was when our council president relayed that a former pastor's wife was in attendance and came down and chewed him out.  The pall wasn't where it should have been, and it was wrinkled, and apparently it was his job to babysit the missing funeral director.  

I started to laugh and said that I really do not think the God cared one bit.  I am a firm believer that we give God our very best when it comes to worship.  I like things in good order and my Irish can get up if I find myself left high and dry in worship because someone else dropped the ball.  But that week - what we got was our very best.  Our person in charge of altar care is on leave as her husband battles cancer.  Our secretary was on leave after surgery and a cancer diagnosis.  The folks filling in the gaps did the best they could.  

And I believe that whether the pall on the coffin was missing or wrinkled did not change the reality that the deceased had been CLOTHED IN CHRIST IN HIS BAPTISM.  It is a God-thing. 

Our best - in worship, in ministry, in daily life - is always going to be short of the grand gift that our Lord deserves.  Sometimes - as in this particular funeral worship - our best is going to be one folly after another.  The beauty of all of it is that God takes our best, our worst, and everything in between and uses it all to show love and grace.

I sometimes think that if the institution of the church would be just a little less full of itself, there would be much more room for the grace of God to be visible.

I am thankful for the funeral follies of that day.  It was a good - and comical - reminder of what is truly important.  And it isn't flawless timing, well-pressed linens, or even a well-preached sermon.  It is the grace of God breaking into our flawed lives and bringing its own life.

I believe grace happened that day - not in spite of, but in the midst of every flawed folly that happened.  And I believe that will more fully and truthfully proclaim the love of God than the most flawless of worship services.

Here's to farce and folly!  The reminders that it is never about us.

PK(+)

Love: Good, Better, Best

"You have heard that the law of Moses says, 'Love your neighbor' and hate your enemy. But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust, too. If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. (Matt 5:42-47)

This was part of the gospel text in the lectionary for this past Sunday. One of the joys and challenges of preaching each week is when you are working with a text like this one that is so rich. Recently, I was winding up my day with my devotional reading from Eugene Peterson* and this was my devotional text. (Note to self: Look ahead at nightly devotions prior to composing weekly sermon!) Not surprisingly, Peterson managed to challenge me once again.


He describes this command of Jesus to love enemies as a “daring and courageous initiative that closes the gap between offender and offended.” My first reaction is “Wow, and here I always consider that command a burden, not something daring and courageous.” But that was just the appetizer. The main course – the reflection that caught me up short was Peterson’s reflection on love. “Love is not a reward to be parceled out as a favor to friends; it is a tactic by which we share the best in us so that others have an opportunity to live at their best.”


OUCH! Is that the way I regard love? As a favor to be parceled out? Do I use love as currency to get what I want and reward those who please me? If I am being honest, I suppose that at my broken human worst there are times when I do regard love this way. There are too many times when I decide who I think deserves my love; when I reward others with the ‘gift’ of my love.  How often do I act as though there were a scarcity of love, as if having given it to someone whom I decided did not deserve it means there will be less for someone else or that I will end up with none. I know better, don’t I? 

I do, or at least I SHOULD.  It troubles me to think that I use love as a currency with which I barter.  There are a couple of things that I find troubling about this.  First, it is bothersome to realize how often I actually use love as currency - something to be given when I am pleased or withheld when I am not.  If that isn't bad enough, the implication -and it is probably dead on - is that tug-of-war with love is the way I treat my FRIENDS.  If that is the way I treat my friends, how far removed from the command to love my enemies must my actions actually be?  Sadly, much more removed than I can imagine or would like to admit.

I struggle with this concept of love they way Peterson posits it.  As if the concept of loving my enemies as commanded by Jesus isn't enough, Peterson manages to take this nebulous, universal command to love enemies and gives it a concrete particularity.  Peterson gives us an image of what loving our enemies might look like. And that image involves a particlar and very personal sense of vulnerability.  Sharing the best of myself so that others have an opportunity to live at their best. 

I am not an only child, so I did learn to share pretty well as a child.  But I must admit, I do not share MYSELF well.  I am a reserved and private person. (who happens to be sharing all this on a public blog.  Now THAT'S irony.)  When I meet someone it takes me quite awhile to decide if I trust them well enough to actually share myself with them.  My thoughts, my feelings, my joys, my sorrows, my hopes, my dreams, my fears.  These are MINE and I guard them quite closely.  I am pretty doggone particular about which FRIENDS I share the best of me with.  To even consider sharing that with a stranger or, even more alarming, someone I would consider an enemy is just downright ... well, scandalous!

That's when the scandal of the gospel really gut punches me.  Nowhere in scripture do I read of Jesus trying to discern just which of us he was willing to give his best.  Deserving or not, all of creation got every bit of Jesus' love and all of creation is promised Jesus' resurrected life.  It isn't parcelled out a little here, a little there, depending on whether Jesus is pleased.  Jesus doesn't wait for us to be trustworthy friends before giving his best.  No, St. Paul tells us that "while we were still enemies" Jesus gave his life for us.   

So, here I sit, convicted of my failure to love by the Holy Spirit.  I fail to love enemies at all and I fail to love friends fully and unconditionally.  And in the scandal of that conviction, I am confronted with the scandalous love of Christ - who gave and continues to give his best so that I have the opportunity to live at my best.  

When confronted with the scandal of the cross, I am compelled to admit that loving enemies (and even friends) IS a daring and courageous initiative.

Lord, let me be bold, daring and courageous.  Loving where and whom I have never considered loving before.  AMEN

BE BOLD!
PK (+)

Life-giving Light

In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make.  Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone.  The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.  (John 1:1-5 NLT)

This has long been one of my favorite scripture passages.  Yet if anyone had asked me "why" I would not have been able to give a specific reason.  Until today.  Something happened today that made me realize why this particular passage holds such intense meaning and promise for me. 

This morning I was granted the immeasurable privilege of being invited to walk with a young woman journeying through a difficult time in her life, to share her emotional pain and spiritual wrestling.  The privilege was granted because I had journeyed a very similar path many years ago.  I need to confess right up front that I didn't sleep especially well last night.  I tell myself that nightmares, hard memories, and old demons have long been laid to rest.  The reality is they lurk just in the shadows waiting for the smallest opening through which to reappear and launch their attacks on my self-esteem and faith.  Walking with this young woman was as good as flinging a door wide open and inviting them to sit down and eat me alive.  The old saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread seemed fitting in the circumstances.  Yet I knew that this was something that I felt especially called to do.  I, better than most, know how critical it is at times like that to hear someone say "I've been there.  It gets better." 

I listened this morning, and shared a little.  I was the best non-anxious presence I could be.  We prayed together. Maybe I even helped a little.  I hope and pray so.  Yet the biggest miracle of the morning occurred in me after the young woman and I parted ways.

I cried  - a little for her, tears of sadness because I know the road she has ahead of her.  Then the floodgates opened.  Tears for me - an emotional and spiritual downpour of relief.  I flung a door wide open and laid myself open to all of those demons, set a spread for them over which a gourmet would have raved.  Then I sent them away hungry.  As memories and demons were chomping ravenously, I was able to hear my own words to that young woman. 

There is light in even the darkest, deepest hole.  It SHINES in the darkness and the darkness can NEVER prevail over it.  I KNOW this.  I lived in that hole.  I experienced a dark night of the soul; such complete hopelessness and despair that I would go to bed at night praying that I would not wake up.  Then I would wake up every morning railing at God for not answering my prayer. 

What I know now, in every fibre of my being is that every night when that prayer reached God's ears, God wept.  God wept knowing that I felt such despair.  God wept knowing that I felt beyond God's love.  And while the Father wept, the Spirit prayed with sighs too deep for words, and the Son kept shining into the darkness of my despair.  That truth, resonating in the very core of my being, allowed me to send demons away hungry today.  It allowed me to sit and enter into a young woman's pain and proclaim love and light and new life. 

NEW LIFE:  I am living it - every day.  The hole is not bottomless, the darkness is not all encompassing, and despair is not without hope.

I write this tonight because I want others to know that truth.  It matters.  It changes everything.   

Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone.  The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. 

I know.  I pray that you do, too.

In Christ -

PK (+)

As the Crow Flies or Alternate Routes?

I have a friend who is the queen of alternate routes.  Whenever we used to travel together, she was frequently suggesting we take an alternate route to our destination.   Alternate routes were never the shortest or the quickest route.  Although they were usually the more interesting route.  One particular time, however, our alternate route turned out to be a little challenging.  After 7 hours on the road, we found ourselves as far away from our destination as we were when we had left home.  It ended up taking us 12 hours to make a 4-hr trip.  I confess, by the time we checked into the hotel I was a little cranky.  It didn't help that we arrived so late that the swimming pool and hot tub were closed for the evening.   

I have noticed that there is a phenomenon that occurs frequently in congregational ministry.  There are folks who prefer 'alternate routes' when it comes to communication or getting things done.  Rather than dealing directly with the person with whom they have a concern, they will engage a third person to serve as a go-between.  I call that "playing geometry" because the technical term for using a third person as a buffer in dealing with another person is called "triangulation."   Sometimes it is a matter of trying to get something done without directly asking the person you want to actually do the job.  You drop a hint to a third party who drops a hint to a fourth party who then lobbies on your behalf with the party you want to deal with.  One of the members of our faith community calls that "back-dooring."   Another says it is like going to Sandusky to get to Fremont.  For those of you reading this not from my geographic area - it is like leaving Detroit, MI and going to Atlanta, GA to get to Chicago, IL.  While that may make sense to some airlines (although I cannot imagine how) when it comes to congregational life it is toxic.

Alternate routes, whether it is in communication or as a way to "work the system" in order to get our way, when engaging in life together as a community only serve to increase anxiety, create hostility, spread mistrust and misunderstanding, and undermine healthy community. 

When I was a kid I used to ask my dad how far away someplace was and he would tell me it was so far "as the crow flies."  Once I got old enough to realize that our car needed roads and going by road was usually not as short as "as the crow flies," I would ask "but how far is it, really."  Still, I grew up knowing that the shortest distance between two points was what my dad called "as the crow flies."

When it comes to relationships and communications in a community "as the crow flies" is the ONLY way to go.  First of all, it is the most respectful and Christ-like way to deal with one another.  Second, it minimizes musunderstandings and miscommunication.  Third, it is the way to weave a community together with integrity.  Finally, it is generally the shortest, fastest, and most effective way to accomplish tasks and build faithful, relationships.

So if you are one of those people who enjoy alternate routes - when it comes to traveling, have at it.  You may just find a great antique shop or that perfect romantic restaurant.  But when it comes to life together as a community, especially a spiritual community, always go "as the crow flies" directly from point A to point B.

Go ahead - SOAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Blessings -

PK

Half-full, half-empty,

The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.  John 10:10



Common myth says there are two types of people in the world - those for whom the glass is half-full and those for whom the glass is half-empty.  Less visual people might use the words pessimist and optimist.  I would like to pose a third option - those for whom the glass is always over-flowing.  In our best moments, that can be used to describe those of us who are Jesus- followers.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus essentially tells his hearers that it is not simply enough to not break the commandments, but one must act in all ways to the betterment of others and the community.  That was the blessing and the gift of the commandments in the first place - a shaping of a new community in which relationships are held primary; first the relationship with God and flowing out of that, the relationship with community.  Jesus takes us one step further - turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, give up your coat AND your shirt, love and pray for friends and enemies alike. Martin Luther did likewise when he wrote his explanations of the Ten Commandments and included with his "thou shall not" a caveat of "but instead .." which calls us to do everythng within our abilities to work toward the betterment and wholeness of neighbors.

These can be challenging concepts for us.  And Jesus doesn't just stop there.  Throughout the gospels, Jesus is portrayed as ever-broadening the meaning of neighbor and stretching the limits of community until boundaries are completely broken.

As challenging as it may seem to us at times, it is through the fullness of his call to be in relationship with him and others and this stretching and broadening of community that God, through the working of the Holy Spirit, is bring forth the kingdom among us.  This is part of what Jesus meant in the gospel of John when he proclaimed his intent that we have abundant life, life in all of its fullness.

Abundant life is not meant to describe a preponderance of possessions or some lovely place we 'arrive at' in the hereafter.  It is the beginnings of the kingdom that is happening all around us in the here-and-now every time we experience the fullness of relationship that goes beyond merely keeping the letter of the law given to us in the commandments.  That experience of abundance and fullness can only happen by the grace of God in Jesus the Christ and through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 

A glass may be half-full or half-empty.  There is no such thing as half-obedience.  That is why the grace of God is such a beautiful gift for which we must regularly give thanks and praise to God.  Without it, we are left to our own broken, half-hearted attempts at obedience and we discover over and over again that we have fully missed the mark of obedience!

May your cup runneth over.

PK (+)

Splintered Souls and Spirit-filled Spaces

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  Matt 5:3



SHATTERED SOUL



 At first blush, there seems to be an incongruity in this declaration that Matthew tells us Jesus makes.  A second thought makes it seem even more out of whack.  Serious reflection, however, draws one into the depths of the truth and beauty of this simple statement.



Spiritual poverty is a difficult experience.  Recently, I was sharing with a friend and colleague about our experiences of PTSD.  My friend had mentioned something about being healed and I noted that after 35 years I am still not healed.  I am, however, healing - and always will be. I cannot undo the experience that splintered my soul.   Jurgen Moltmann writes something similar in his book Spirit of Life.  Moltmann writes, "In the the depths of experiences like this, there is apparently no such thing as 'time as the great healer', and no merciful forgetting.  So we can never say about an experience of this kind 'I had it' as if it were finished and done with, something past and gone.  We are continually still involved in experiencing confronting events like these, because they continually, over and over again, press for an answer."  ( p. 21) 

What 'confronting event' splintered my soul is irrelevant.  What is important is that those who have experienced a splintering of the soul for whatever reason find themselves also experiencing a deeply felt poverty of the soul.  In the midst of the splintered poverty we discover some important truths of life.  In a culture that celebrates "self-made" and "self-sufficient" individuals, the poor in spirit are sharply aware of the reality of their existence as "God-made" and utterly "God-dependent."  Everything flows out of the goodness of God and is dependent on the grace of God. 

There is nothing that will undo the brokenness of our lives.  A soul, once splintered, will never be the same.  But in the mercy and love of God, the shattered spaces are filled with the Holy Spirit.  It is into the splintered cracks of our souls that the Holy Spirit breathes the grace of God and new life begins to emerge.  It is through the very brokenness of our lives and the splintered openings of our souls that the kingdom of heaven is poured, grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy.

Indeed ---  blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.

May you discover in your splintered soul Spirit-filled spaces that bring the kingdom of heaven.

PK

Bad Days, Bad Words, and Balance: Tales from the Trenches

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!  (2Cor 5:17)

Part of the challenge of doing ministry is finding the balance between our own human brokenness and the expectations of people that a Pastor be the "model of the godly life."    Sometimes it is more challenging than others.  And of course there are those people who are more comfortable with the reality of pastor as a human being than others.  The 'collision points' between the unrealistic expectations and the reality of ourselves as sinful humans can be a little tense, a little more than tense, or downright humorous.

One of my first such collision points occurred after a weekly Bible study.  I admit that prior to becoming a pastor there were a couple of words in my vocabulary that were rather ... unpastor-like.  I worked very hard to purge them from my vocabulary by the time I reached the parish.  Successfully so, I might add.  One day after a Bible study something very frustrating happened that got my Irish up.  I was in my office and on my cell phone talking to a friend.  Ironically, (or perhaps typically) I do not remember what it was.  I do remember that I used a euphemism for the f-bomb, commenting that I found the situation at hand "freaking frustrating."  A couple of days later, one of the persons in the study came to me and said that she was sure that I didn't realize I had done it, but as she was leaving the building she passed by my office and heard me use the word "freaking" - TWICE.  She suggested that it was inappropriate and that if it were one of her kids she would tell them the same thing she was telling me.  I needed to find a different word.  At first I was embarrassed at being treated like a child.  Then I was frustrated.  I suppose I should have had my door closed, but it WAS a private conversation.  Then it became HUMOROUS!  I was being asked to find a euphemism for a euphemism!  Really?  I made the appropriate apologies and have been more careful ever since.  I ALWAYS close my door when I am on the phone now.  

The other one that stands out was more ironic than purely humorous, but it still makes me laugh.  In the midst of a very contentious time in the congregation, there was an individual who was being particularly difficult - harassing me and other leaders, being a general nuisance, and bullying.  One particular day, he took it upon himself to measure the chancel area - 5 minutes before I had a worship service scheduled.  I do not even remember the conversation, but I know that I was trying to keep it short since I needed to get ready for worship.  Later I found out that he had gone to our council president and complained that I had been short with him that morning.  The council president was great in handling it and we both had a chuckle over the idea of someone who had been bullying and terrorizing the leadership in order to get his way, actually being offended because I was short with him when he was getting in the way of worship.  Some days are just bad days.  At least I didn't drop the "freaking" word on him!  Now THAT would have been scandalous.

I think the point in all of this is that it is not always easy for us blooming disciples to find the balance between being human and being the "model of the godly life."  And it is not any easier just because one happens to be called into ministry.

During the process of seminary and the road to ordination, one of the multitude of forms we had to complete asked whether we considered pastors to be "human, just like everyone else" or "should be a model of the godly life."  To be fair, we actually could choose someplace on a continuum between the two.  The thing is, I wanted to check BOTH.  Yes, pastors ARE ... human like everyone else and YES they should be a model of the godly life.  We all should. 

The thing is - we are all, to use Luther's phrase, simul iustus et peccator - simultaneously justified and sinful.  Baptism puts us in right relationship with God and forgives our sins.  It does not make us any less human or sinful.  THAT will not happen until the day when Christ comes again.  In the meantime, there will be bad days, bad words, and the ever-challenging search for balance.  That is part of what it means to be a blooming disciple.

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit is working in us the new life of Christ.

BE BALANCED!

May you bloom with new creation, as the Spirit of Life brings balance to bad days and bad words.

Peace -  



PK