Weird Twelve-Year-Olds (Reflections on the Sunday After Christmas, Year C)

“Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49)

I don’t remember how I got into the habit of using the nick-name “Slick” for Stephen. Really, there was nothing pretentious or cosmopolitan about this kid. He was just an average twelve-year-old with a round, friendly face who looked like any other kid from a blue-collar family in Northeast Philly. He had a jovial way about him, and an openness that reminded me of Curly from the Three Stooges. You couldn’t help but like him.

Stephen hadn’t been a regular in Sunday school, and this really upset his grandmother, Joanne. One day she came to my office and lamented that her daughter-in-law was not sending the grandchildren to church. She wanted to know if there was anything I could do about it. I noticed that Stephen was of age to begin Confirmation studies, so I wrote his mom the sort of guilt-inducing letter which only a clergyman can write, telling her that she and the boy’s father had promised at Stephen’s baptism to provide for his instruction in the Christian faith. I sent this epistle off via the USPS, pretty secure in the knowledge that it would likely end up unopened in the circular file cabinet. To my delighted astonishment, I got a phone call from the mother a few days later, and Stephen was enrolled in Confirmation studies that fall.

I’ve been a Bible and Catechism teacher for over twenty years, and I also spent six excruciating years as a junior high special ed teacher for the Los Angles public schools. In all that time, I’ve had few students I’ve enjoyed as much as the kid I called “Slick.” He came into class knowing virtually nothing about the Bible or the Christian faith, and he devoured Bible stories like they popped out of a Pez dispenser. For some mysterious reason known only to Slick and God, this kid just took to religious studies. He had a marvelous sense of joy in learning about Jesus and the characters from the Hebrew Scriptures. During one class he exclaimed, “The Bible is the most fascinating book ever written!” Now, I ask you, how many twelve or thirteen-year olds say that?

To be honest, I find most students see Confirmation class as a minor Purgatory which must be endured for the sake of parents and grandparents. Their one solace is the knowledge that once they have made their Confirmation, they will have “graduated” from church and those parental tyrants will never again demand their attendance at religious services. I’ve also noticed some parents suddenly drop off the church’s radar as soon as their youngest child makes Confirmation. I guess they feel they have paid their debt to the angry God and, in their superstitious way, have guaranteed that neither they nor their children are in danger of suffering the torments of Hell. They can now sleep in on Sunday and get ready for the Eagles to play Dallas.

Every once in a great while, however, I get a kid like Slick. Every now and then there’s that one student who feels the passion and the mystery in the Word of God.

I think of Slick and Jeremy and Mickey and Jessica and Kayleigh, and a whole bunch of other really cool young adults who have endured my catechetical teaching over the years and who have demonstrated that mystical affinity for things spiritual. Not every kid has it. Many of us don’t contemplate eternal questions until we’ve suffered the weirdness of life and tripped over the knowledge of our own mortality. But some young people just have that light inside which draws them to the things of God.

The gospel lesson in the RCL for the Sunday after Christmas (Luke 2:41-52) is the only story in the gospels which deals with Jesus as a youngster.[i] What really thrills me about this story is that Jesus is twelve years of age and would soon be making his bar mitzvah. He’s the same age as the kids who are in my Confirmation class. BY the way, the term “bar mitzvah” literally translates as “son of the commandments.” That is, should a boy make his bar mitzvah at age thirteen, he would then be considered old enough to take responsibility for living under the Law of God. As a son, he would be an heir of the faith of Moses—a truly awesome responsibility if you think about it.

So here’s this twelve-year-old who has just experienced the annual ritual of the Passover and its sacrificial duties. He’s supposed to get in the caravan with the other families and walk the seventy miles or so back to Galilee when the festival is over. Note the cool detail in verse 44 that Jesus’ parents just assumed he was okay even though they didn’t see him for an entire day. Talk about “taking a village!” We can only imagine that everyone in the caravan[ii] looked out for everyone else and for their kids, so there was no worry if you didn’t see your own boy for 24 hours. You knew he was okay.

Note, too, that Mary and Joseph are referred to as Jesus’ parents.  Plural. Joseph is called Jesus’ father in verse 28. Yes, we confess that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but for all practical purposes, Mary’s husband was Jesus’ dad. Paternity is not just a matter of DNA. It’s about taking responsibility for raising children. Joseph was taking his boy to Jerusalem and teaching him the faith. He taught him a trade. He made sure he was fed and clothed. In this sense, Joseph was every bit Jesus’ real father.

But Jesus also had a feeling that he had another Father. Something inside him—we’d say it was the Holy Spirit—drew him to the teachers of the Law. He had a hunger inside of him to hear what they were saying and to ask them questions about the mysteries of God. Luke includes this story to show his readers that Jesus wasn’t just some self-proclaimed peasant teacher. Rather, he was one who hungered for the things of God all his life, who listened to the scholars, who questioned his faith, and who amazed adults with his understanding. He was steeped in the tradition of his people, and desired to grow in wisdom.

Would that we all showed that desire to grow in the things of God! Instead of looking superstitiously at our religious observance and considering that we’re “done” learning once we’re out of Sunday school, wouldn’t it be wonderful to attack the Bible and our worship and prayer lives with the same zeal as the twelve-year-old in the Temple?

Think about it, won’t you?

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[i] There are a ton of stories which were written about the boy Jesus in the first centuries of our faith. Scholars refer to them as “Infancy Narratives.” Very few of them survive because the books which contain them were condemned as heretical by church councils in the Fourth Century. This story in Luke is the only one the early church felt was authoritative.

[ii] I wonder if the caravan of Central American migrants who are seeking asylum in the US have become this sort of family? I kind of think they have.

Herbie's Christmas Story

Anyone who has ever seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation might get an idea of the kind of Yuletide fanatic my late father-in-law was. Like Chevy Chase’s Clark Griswold, Herbie hung colored lights, tinsel, and silver bells on anything in his home that didn’t have a pulse. Christmas was his special time. He loved to have friends and family to the house. He filled his front yard with inflatable and illuminated Santa, Frosty, and Rudolph statues. He even strung colored lights around the interior of his living room and left them up all year.

Herbie’s been gone for several years now, but I still remember this story he told me of a memorable Christmas Eve during the Great Depression. He was a boy of maybe twelve or fourteen at the time who’d grown up the oldest son of a family of pious Roman Catholics in Metuchen, New Jersey. Even as a lad, Herbie loved to sing. On Christmas Eve he, his next-oldest brother, George, and a playmate whom I’ll call “Bobby” (I’ve long since forgotten the boy’s name, and Herbie isn’t around to ask anymore) would go door-to-door serenading the neighbors with Christmas carols. Money was tight in those days, but these young entrepreneurs figured they could earn a few pennies, nickels, or dimes by their musical talents. Herbie and George sang while Bobby accompanied them on the harmonica. The few dollars they earned allowed their mothers to buy Christmas toys for the younger children at the local Woolworth’s.

Unfortunately, on this particular Christmas, Bobby had left the neighborhood and moved several blocks away. This wasn’t an uncommon event during the Depression when food money was scarce and families often sent children to live with relatives who were better able to provide for them. Undaunted, Herbie and George set off through the streets of Metuchen to locate their friend and begin their caroling enterprise. It was late afternoon of Christmas Eve and heavy snow had begun to fall over the town. The boys walked through the wintry whiteness, block after block, not entirely certain of their friend’s whereabouts. They turned down the street where they believed Bobby had been taken in. I imagine their feet making huge divots in the fresh snow as they squinted through the feathery white flakes for a number on a mailbox or doorpost. At last they came to house which seemed to Herbie to be the right one. He marched up the walk and knocked with his mitten-clad hand on the door.

The door opened, and a man he and George had never seen before looked down at the two boys.

“Can I help you?” asked the man.

“We’re looking for Bobby,” Herbie said.

“No one here by that name,” replied the man. “What are you boys doing out in this weather?”

“We’re carolers,” said Herbie. “Our friend Bobby plays the mouth harp while my brother and I sing.”

The man smiled. “I think I know of your friend,” he said. “There’s a boy about your age around here who plays the harmonica, but he lives the next block over. I’m not sure which house.”

Herbie’s face fell. “Oh,” he said. “You see, Mister, we need him to help us earn our Christmas money. But we’re sorry we bothered you.”

The boys turned to go, but the man called them back. “Wait,” he said. “Just what would you boys do if I gave you five dollars?”

This was quite an amazing question. Five bucks in those grim days of the 1930’s was a fortune to a couple of lads like Herbie and George. Herbie answered the man honestly. “I’d take it home and give it to my mother,” he said.

The stranger reached into his pocket and pulled out five dollar bills and handed them to Herbie. “Merry Christmas,” he said. Herbie stuffed the bills into his pocket, thanked the stranger, and he and George raced back home through the falling snow. This was a windfall, a virtual Christmas miracle! Five whole dollars! The boys couldn’t believe their good fortune. Five bucks could sure buy a lot of joy from the Five-and-Ten!

As the brothers made their way through the snowy streets, a thought occurred to Herbie. His father was a very proud man who might not take kindly to his boys accepting charity. To Pop, money was to be earned. Herbie realized that he and George hadn’t sung a note in exchange for the bonanza of cash stuffed in his pant pocket. His father wouldn’t like this.

“Don’t tell Pop how we got the money,” Herbie told George. “Just say we earned it singing.” The little brother agreed, and the two presented the cash to their mother who happily set off for the Woolworth store. Later that night, however, Herbie’s conscience got the better of him. The family was preparing to go to midnight mass, and Herbie felt uncomfortable receiving the Sacrament after having told his parents a lie. Reluctantly, he confessed the truth to his father.

As far as I know, Herbie was never punished for the fib, but his father insisted that, since the money had already been spent, the only right thing to do was for Herbie to take him to the man’s house so he could shake the generous fellow’s hand and formally thank him on behalf of his children. The day after Christmas Herbie set off with his father to the kind man’s house. Unfortunately, having been confused by the snow and excited by the gift, he couldn’t remember the right street. He never again saw the man who had been so generous and kind, who had made this one Christmas so special.

When Herbie told me this story, I thought it captured the meaning of Christmas. God loves us and provides for us—as Luther would say—daily and abundantly. We can’t earn the gift of the Christ child and the redemption which that child came to bring us. We do nothing to make ourselves worthy of it. It’s a gift. God loves us. God just does. And, as grateful as our hearts are, we can never truly express our thanks. We will never, in this life, see our Benefactor face to face. The best we can do—as Herbie always did—is celebrate that generosity in our hearts, and pass it on to others as often as we can.

May God bless you and those you love this Christmas and throughout the New Year.

It's a Woman Thing (Reflections on Advent 4, Year C)

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”  (Luke 1:43)

Blessed? It doesn’t feel that way at times, does it? Just speaking as a guy, I don’t know how you women do it. I mean, how can you be so patient with a human being growing inside you? You put on weight, your hormones go berserk, you have to pee all the time, your ankles swell up. And then there’s the constant vigilance. One of the girls in our high school youth group was just doing a project which required her to carry around a 10 lb. bag of flour and care for it like it was a human infant. She had to make sure the bag was never out of her sight. I guess this was a shot over her teen aged bow to let her know that motherhood is a ton of work.

Shoot. If men had to have babies the human race would be doomed.

So why are the two women we meet in the Gospel lesson for Advent 4, Year C (Luke 1:39-45) so freakin’ happy? It’s a secret those of my gender will never understand or appreciate. It’s a woman thing. But it’s also a God thing. It’s another example of God knocking everything this sinful, stupid (and often male-dominated) world thinks is proper right on its butt.

If you look at this story in the world of the text, both of these ladies are outcasts in their own way—and neither of them is supposed to be pregnant! Here’s Elizabeth. People think she’s post-menopausal. As I suggested in my post on the Feast of John the Baptist[i], all of the other priests’ wives must’ve whispered behind their hands in the beauty parlor when Mrs. Zechariah came in. “Poor dear,” they’d say. “She can’t have children. She must be cursed of God, bless her heart.” And I’m sure Zechariah and Elizabeth felt the sting of their childlessness. Zechariah might even have had a few sleepless nights wondering who would take care of Elizabeth if he should die and she be left without a son to take her in. But God—taking his own sweet time about it as God is wont to do—provides her with a blessing in her old age.

And then there’s Our Lady, Mary. She shouldn’t be pregnant either. She’s not married. In the world of this text she could be “put away,” or stoned to death as an adulteress. Yet the “fruit of her womb” brings this moment of unparalleled joy. Even before the baby is born, the promise is felt.

This is the great paradox of  Advent/Christmas: the cursed and outcast are rejoicing. In their mutual distress, they find a joy in each other and a joy in the Lord. If you think about it, it’s great that they’re together. Elizabeth gets a strong, young helper to assist her through her pregnancy, and Mary gets a preview of what she’s to experience.

This is a story of defiant joy, or—more appropriately—hope. These women are teaching us that our spiritual life is never about what happens to us. It’s only about how we choose to embrace it. They embrace it believing in the fulfillment of God’s promise for those God loves.

We’re all like kids at Christmastime, aren’t we? We just can’t wait for God to put things right. We’re impatient for blessings. We look at the world and the growing darkness and we wonder, when is God going to get around to fixing this crazy-assed stuff? When will my prayers be answered?

I certainly can’t tell you that, but I know that, like Elizabeth and Mary, the most important thing is to keep believing. God’s time is not ours, nor is God’s logic ours. What appears to be a curse can turn into a miracle. It is certain that we’ll never see God’s blessing if we give up looking and praying for it.

May God’s peace be with you, my friend. Keep hoping.

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[i] Published June 18, 2018.

"What Should We Do?" (Reflections on Advent 3, Year C)

And the crowds asked him, ‘What, then, should we do?’” (Luke 3:10)

Some weeks ago I wrote a post about my late friend Patrick[i]. Patrick was something of a control freak, and he wasn’t all that comfortable with paradox or ambiguity. For Pat, things were black or white, right or wrong. He liked definite answers. I can’t say that I blame him much as there are certainly times when precise information is really important. Performing open-heart surgery or dealing with high explosives might be times when you’d really like to know things exactly. Unfortunately, matters of faith sometimes call for intuition and spiritual discernment or the intervention of the Holy Spirit. This is not comforting to the Patricks of this world.

This Sunday, however, all you Patricks out there can rejoice. This is our pink-candle Sunday, known liturgically as the Rejoice Sunday or Guadete Sunday (if you’re into Latin). Historically, it’s a time for the Christian Church to take a break from the somber anticipation of Christ’s second coming and all those lessons about the End Times and repentance, and kick back a little. Yes, even though John the Baptist is still at it this week, calling folks a “brood of vipers” and warning us about the “wrath to come” (Luke 3:7-18), he’s ready to give a list of some practical “dos” and “don’ts” which should make the control freaks feel a little more in control.

In last week’s lectionary, if you’ll recall[ii], John was proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. This could beg the question: Just how does one repent? What do you do when you repent? What does bearing fruit for the kingdom look like? Are there any practical steps which let me know that I’m repenting?

Well rejoice, my friend, because this Sunday you’re in luck. John has some pretty clear and unambiguous words about living a godly life. First, start by recognizing that your life in Christ is supposed to accomplish something. This is true for you as an individual and for our congregations collectively. There has to be some kind of “fruit” here. Somebody’s life needs to be made better, some needs have to be met, some comfort has to be given, and some bridges between people need to be built. If you’re not doing this or helping this to be done in some way, you might want to start challenging your own priorities.

Second, some justice needs to be done. If you have goods to share, you need to share them. See what John has to say about having two coats (v. 11). That’s pretty straight forward, don’t you think? In the same breath John is calling for an end to oppression. What are you doing to make the world a more just and peaceful place?

Thirdly, recognize that God has met your needs and be grateful. On the crappiest day you’ll ever have (and I say this a lot), God is providing daily and abundantly. The wealthiest person in the world is the one who is satisfied with what he or she has. Be grateful and see how it changes your thinking about stuff.

Fourth, be aware that Christ is your judge, and all of this is just a call back to good, old-fashioned discipleship. I amuse myself by thinking Luke could’ve inserted a line in this passage that read, “And Lutherans were asking him, ‘What should we do?’” The answer, of course, would be the old instructions of Lenten piety:

Pray every day.

Read the Bible.

Worship every week within the religious community.

Be generous in giving an offering of your finances, your time, and your abilities.

Be present as a volunteer in your church and your wider community. Be involved.

Create relationships with other Christians. Pray for them and share your faith with them.

Be an example to your children and their children.

If you committed yourself to doing the above, don’t you think your life would change? Rejoice, my friend. This isn’t hard at all!

May God bless you during this holy season. Thanks again for dropping by.

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[i] See my post of September 12, 2018. You can click on it here.

[ii] If you don’t recall, the Gospel lesson was Luke 3:1-6. Or you could just scroll down to the post immediately below this one.

Why Listen to John? (Reflections on Advent 2, Year C)

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” (Luke 3:4b)

When I was a grad student at the University of Wisconsin back in the early ‘80’s I used to see this wild dude preaching at the Free Speech platform on campus. He was an elderly African American gentleman with a long white beard like Santa Claus. I have to say, he was a pretty scary old cat. He dressed in a worn blue choir robe, held an enormous Bible in his hands, and shouted to the students like a crazed King Lear. He had this sonorous voice and his eyes would bug out has he preached Hell and damnation and called on us all to repent.

We all gave him a pretty wide berth.

The preacher we meet on the Second Sunday of Advent in the Revised Common Lectionary (Luke 3:1-6) seems every bit as weird and off-putting as the old gent I described above. We know from the descriptions of John the Baptist in the gospels of Matthew and Mark that he was not a little bit “out there.” I mean, here’s a guy living in the desert, dressed in skins, eating bugs, and “crying in the wilderness.” This isn’t your sophisticated three-point Sunday preacher. He’s a guy proclaiming destruction, calling people out for their transgressions, and announcing radical change—valleys filled in and mountains made low.

And crowds don’t avoid him, but, rather, they come out from their towns and settlements to hear him preach! What was with this guy? Why listen to John? Why would the crowds leave their work and come out to listen to this guy and get dunked in the muddy waters of the Jordan? Would you? If you encountered John, wouldn’t you cross to the other side of the street and try not to make eye contact?

Here’s what I think: I think the people who encountered John were deeply in touch with their own need and their own pain. They didn’t want to pretend nothing was wrong. They knew life sucked. They were thirsty for a word of hope. Aren’t you? Or are you still pretending, after the dire warnings of Advent One, that everything is peachy? Who are you trying to kid?

Every once in a while (and especially during the holidays when festiveness and gaiety mask our insecurity, our sad nostalgia, and our mourning) we need John’s tough love. We need to heed the call to repent. This is a word (metanoia - metanoia in Greek) which literally means to change the mind. John isn’t asking us to say “I’m bad, and now I’ll be good (although, if the shoe fits..!). Rather, he’s asking us to look at ourselves, be honest, and try to see things in a new way. He’s not promising that the Savior will come and do all the work himself. Granted, God’s salvation is free as the wind, but if we want to live an authentic life in the face of everything we have to shovel through on this planet, we’d better start by looking at ourselves.

Luke places the entrance of John at the end of a list of potentates and rulers because he wants us to know that God works through ordinary people like us. It’s not the emperor, the king, the governor, or the high priest who prepares the way for the Savior. It’s us. The evangelist Jim Wallis put it like this (I paraphrase): We don’t need a bunch of elected representatives sticking their wet fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing. We need to change the direction of the wind.[i]

The RCL pairs the story of John with a reading from the post-exilic prophet Malachi (Malachi 3:1-4). This prophet is calling for a messenger who will come and get people to worship in purity and righteousness. He wants the people of God to be refined. This doesn’t mean that we lift our pinky fingers when we drink form the communion chalice. It means that we approach God’s house and make an offering of our worship in the right frame of mind. We don’t come out of obligation or fear or in the hope of being entertained. We come hungry for God’s word, believing that we are being challenged, and trusting that our presence as the people of God’s promise has a purpose in the wider world. We come with a sense of mission. We come for one another. And we come being ready to change.

So what does this change look like? John the Baptist has some suggestions, but we’ll get to them next week.

May this Advent season be a blessing in your heart and inn your home. Thank you or reading!

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[i] See Wallis’ God’s Politics: A New Vision for Faith and Politics in America (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2005)

Time to Lift Our Heads (Reflections on Advent 1, Year C)

For my eleventh birthday my dad took me to the movies. Like all good American dad and son combinations, we went to see a Western double feature: Rio Lobo with John Wayne, and Monte Walsh with Lee Marvin and Jack Palance. I loved the John Wayne flick, but I was a little too young to really appreciate Monte Walsh, a film about two cowboys facing the end of an era when trail hands were employable. I saw the picture on TV years later, and I found it touchingly tragic. I recall one scene in which Palance’s character tells Marvin, “It’s over, Monte. Nobody gets to be a cowboy forever.” As I look back on that eleventh birthday outing, I wonder what my dad must’ve felt like watching a movie about the death of an industry. At the time, he himself was facing an industry-wide layoff.

This past week General Motors announced that it would be closing several plants and laying off about 14,000 workers. Just as railroad spurs and barbed–wire fences eliminated the need for cowboys in 1900, so automation and consumer demand for different types of vehicles are eliminating the need for many auto workers. The world is changing, and you have to wonder just what the future will look like. Is there a whole way of life which is vanishing and won’t come back? I’ve seen a prediction that China might well become the world’s leading economy by 2030[i]. Is the “American Century” over? Are we witnessing the end of something we hoped was eternal?

Even more startling than the economic news is the way the physical world seems to be changing. There is “on earth distress among the nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves” as global climate change causes more destructive weather events from hurricanes to droughts to rising sea levels. Will the roaring waves cover half of Florida in my lifetime, do you think?

And what about the Church? We keep hearing that more and more Americans do not identify with any religion at all. When I came to Philly in 1994, there were 60 ELCA congregations within the city limits. There are fewer than 30 today. The 5 million member ELCA has shrunk to about 3.5 million in the same time period. Sometimes I wonder if I’m going the way of the cowboy. Am I becoming an anachronism?

In the gospel lesson for Advent 1 Year C (Luke 21:25-36) Jesus warns the disciples about the changes to come. Previously in the chapter (verses 5 – 24) he’s prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem, the dissolution of the Jewish state by the Gentiles, and the persecution which his followers will face. In these verses he warns of a cosmic change which will be seen in the very moon and stars. “The powers of the heavens will be shaken,” he says. And he says it like it’s supposed to be a good thing!

I don’t know about you, but when I look at the way things are these days, I can’t help but think that, if Jesus means to return in a cloud with great power and glory, NOW would be a pretty good time for him to do it!

I’m scared of the time to come just as much as the next guy, I guess. But Jesus promises us that when we see the signs of change, it means that the Kingdom of God is near (v. 31). He assures us that his words will not pass away, and that the moment of change is the moment when we need to raise our heads—whether we want to or not. In verses 34-5 he warns us against avoidance. We can’t just pretend that things aren’t changing. We can’t just get stoned and laugh it off or busy ourselves with the minutia of daily life and fool ourselves into believing that hard choices won’t have to be made. I mean, haven’t we all seen people who just give up? They can’t deal with the loss, so they just shut themselves away and wait to die. We’ve also seen churches in which the congregations still think it’s 1960, still do things the same old way, and slip peacefully beneath the waves with their last breath gasping, “Where are the young people?”

No. Jesus is asking us to face the tribulations head on. He is asking us to be in prayer for strength (v. 36). I don’t really believe (and I hope I’m not wrong about this) that the future years will see mass destruction and a return to the Stone Age. I hope our prayer for strength won’t be for the strength to survive cataclysm and the breakdown of civilization. Granted, for victims of flooding in Georgia and Florida or victims of wildfires in California, the prayer for strength really is a prayer for survival. For the rest of us, however, it will be a prayer for faith in the face of things which are vastly different than we thought or hoped they’d be.

If we don’t see Heaven open and Jesus descending with the angelic host, we’ll have to start looking for him and his kingdom in other ways. We’ll still need to pray the great Advent prayer, “Come Lord Jesus!” We’ll still need to believe that our desperation is God’s opportunity. We’ll pray with faith and confidence for a new way to be the church, a new way to be society, a new way to treat our planet, new people to love, new ways to serve, and new ways to experience the loving, forgiving, healing form of Jesus in our lives, our work, and our relationships.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

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[i] That’s according to Fortune. If you click on the name, you can read the article.

The Truth King (Reflections on the Feast of Christ the King, Year B)

"My kingdom is not from this world..." (John 18:36)

It’s an embarrassing thing for an American to admit (especially an American of Welsh ancestry), but I really love royalty. At least British royalty. I love the way they have weddings with parades. I love seeing the Queen’s Household Cavalry, and the scarlet uniforms and the music and the flags waving. Being a junkie for ritual, I just eat that stuff up. I love it when all the crowd starts singing “God Save the Queen.” It’s just so classy the way they do stuff over there in the UK.

As sad as it is to think about, I imagine I might just get to see a royal coronation ceremony someday. Not that I wish any harm to Her Majesty! She’s a swell old gal, but she is getting up there in years, you know. Eventually we’ll see a king sitting on the throne, and I’ll bet the show the Brits put on for that event will be pretty darn spectacular—fireworks and trumpets and God-knows-what.

But I’m given to understand that our friends across the pond are a little conflicted about the succession of their monarchy. The next in line, Charles, always seemed to me to be a pretty stand-up guy. He does a lot for charity and really cares about the environment and the poor. But he is a bit stuffy people say. He also committed adultery on his very popular Princess, and I’m not sure folks have quite forgiven him for that. The tabloids rumor that a lot of folks would much rather see the hip, young William, Duke of Cambridge leapfrog over his old man and be the new king. After all, he’s a good-looking, modern, family man with a gorgeous wife, adorable kids, and a charming smile. What more could you ask for in a king?

But rules are rules, aren’t they? Common folks don’t get to pick their king, they just have to take the one who is next in line or, as was done in the past, the one who is crafty and mean enough to beat out the competition. But if you got to choose a king, what qualities would you look for in him? In the Hebrew Scriptures book of 1 Samuel[i], the people of Israel demand that God give them a king so they can be like all the other nations. They want a guy who reflects everything that they hope to be. God gives them Saul, a tall, good-looking fellow and a fierce warrior who—for a while, anyway—is able to whoop their enemies and make the Israelites feel like they were really hot stuff.

I guess that’s important for the kingdoms of this world. We want a king we can admire, who is the embodiment of our ideal. We want him to be strong and ruthless and a terror to our enemies. We want him look like us. We want him to be adorned in glory and be a picture of wealth and aristocratic breeding. We want our kings to be GREAT.

When the people of Israel told the prophet Samuel they wanted a king, Samuel warned them that they were making a big mistake. They wanted a man of power, but Sam told them that his power could easily be abused, and in Saul’s case (to say nothing of the many who would follow him on the thrones of Israel and Judah), it was. Nevertheless, throughout history we have called for rulers who represent some false idea of ourselves. Years ago, I read Charles Bracelen Flood’s Hitler: The Path to Power. I was surprised (as, I guess any American might be) that there were some in Germany in the 1920’s who actually wanted a dictator. They wanted a strongman who would take over, knock some heads together, and make everything alright after the chaos of a lost war and an economic depression. They wanted a leader to reign with ruthless efficiency. Unfortunately, we too often get what we want and we suffer as a consequence.

The problem, of course, is that no earthly ruler is ever perfect. We look for a leader who is the image of what we think we want, but that leader will invariably turn out to be a false messiah.

In 1925, Pope Pius XI—after witnessing how kings, czars, emperors and Kaisers had managed to screw up Western civilization and cost the world 16 million human lives in the senseless slaughter of World War I—added the feast of Christ the King to the liturgical calendar. I guess old Pius figured it was time that we turned our eyes to a true king—a king who came to bear witness to the truth.

In the Gospel lesson for Christ the King Sunday (John 18:33-38), Pontius Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” Pilate, the poor slob, hasn’t got a clue. He sees kings and emperors as an embodiment of what he thinks is greatness. But it’s a false greatness, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. No matter how powerful a ruler may be, no one has complete control over the doings of this planet save God.

The king who stands before Pilate is the reflection of who we, as human beings, truly are. He was born a peasant. He was born homeless. He was a refugee[ii]. He was a worker—even the crown of thorns he was to wear was a symbol of dirt-scratching hard labor[iii]. He was unappreciated. He had family issues. He was lied to and betrayed. He lost loved ones. He was bullied. He knew physical pain and helplessness. He knew loneliness, temptation, and disappointment. He knew the truth.

We are so afraid of our own vulnerability, but Jesus wasn’t afraid of it. He came to share it with us. And if he can share our truth, can’t we share his love and compassion? If he can love us in our truth, can’t we love others in theirs? Christ our King is not a false image. He came to us with nothing to hide. He’s not a king who towers over us who will eventually disappoint us. He’s a king who stands with us. How full and meaningful our hearts and lives will be if we can learn to be his loyal and true subjects.

Thanks for visiting my site this week. I really am glad you came! Oh! And by the way, Christ the King 2018 marks my 20^th anniversary as Pastor of Faith Lutheran of Philadelphia. My thanks to everyone who has made this part of my earthly journey so meaningful.

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[i] See 1 Samuel chapters 9 – 30 for Saul’s unfortunate story.

[ii] See Matthew chapter 2.

[iii] See Genesis 3:17-19.

We All Lose Our Jerusalem (Reflections on Pentecost 26, Year B)

“…all will be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2b)

I have a really cool bunch of kids in the Confirmation class I teach. One of them is a talkative little firecracker named Emma. Emma is twelve-years-old and she loves to dance. Last week she told me that she’s motivated to get good marks in the seventh grade so she can get into a good high school.

When I heard this I thought, “Whaaatt??!! You’re worried about getting into a good high school?” In my day, you just went to the high school in your neighborhood. There was no such thing as competing to get into secondary education. It was all pretty much the same. You might worry about a good college, but nobody stressed over high school.

Suddenly I realized how much the world has changed. I started to recognize that kids today are under a lot more stress than I was at their age. They all carry phones with them now. That’s pretty convenient, but it also means that they’re all at risk for being stalked or cyber-bullied. They also worry about getting shot. It seems that some schools even have drills for what to do in the event of an active shooter.

Okay. I taught for several years in the Los Angeles school district and I had some gang kids in my classes. At least two of them were injured in gang-related drive-by shootings. But I never expected or imagined anything like the events of April 20, 1999.

You see, everyone has a day when their Temple crashes, when things they believed in and trusted and felt safe about crumble. We remember the deaths of people like President Kennedy or Dr. King or John Lennon. We remember 9/11. For me, it was the violence of that April day when two disturbed young men opened fire on their classmates at Columbine High in Littleton, Colorado. And it’s the knowledge that Emma and all the other Emmas have never lived in a world where the threat of an active school shooter was not a possibility.

In our Gospel lesson for Pentecost 26 (Mark 13:1-8), Jesus’ disciples are impressed with the grandeur of the Jerusalem Temple. And why wouldn’t they be? It’s, to them, the holiest place on earth. It’s where God receives the sacrifices for sin and grants forgiveness. It’s the center of politics and the pride of their nation. There really can’t be an Israel without this wonderful and freakin’ awesome structure.

But Jesus knows that it’s all just a pile of rocks. For some, the destruction of this monumental edifice is unthinkable. To lose it would be to lose the whole nation and the whole sense of what it means to be a Jew. And yet, all earthly structures—whether buildings, governments, religious institutions, or our sense of safety—are only just marking time on this earth. Loss and change are inevitable.

So Jesus tells us not to be afraid of our losses (v. 7), and he warns us not to believe the hucksters who tell us they can save us from such loss—because they can’t. Jesus calls us to a deeper trust, a trust in his love that allows him to die for us because he knows that the eternal things are not of this world. We all have our Jerusalems. We all have a job or a person or a church or a home or an idea. Something in which we put our faith. We deeply fear losing whatever it is, and we know that we’ll get no advance warning when it is taken from us. But we also must know that through loss something will be found. That is the promise of faith.

I think I get that the kids of today have lost the innocence I might’ve had in the world of my youth. There’s something we all had back then which isn’t there now. But, perhaps I’m finding, even as I worry about my students, a greater sense of compassion is being born in me along with a bit more patience and understanding.

I put it all in God’s hands anyway.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
no merit of my own I claim, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
On Christ the solid rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand. 
(Edward Mote, 1797-1874)

Thanks for reading this week, my friend.ossor a church or a home or an idea. Somethingdeas in which we put our faith. We deeply fear their

Saint of the Month: Willie

Willie Nelson, of course.

The old dude is eighty-five years of age and just as defiant, original, creative, and talented as ever. Kind of gives you hope, doesn’t it?

Now, I’ll grant that this income-tax-delinquent, unrepentant dope-smoking, four-times-married iconoclast may not appear to be a good example of moral piety and rectitude. I really don’t care. I’ve just always dug Willie. There’s just something about the very serene way he seems to be telling us all that, if we don’t like it, we can apply our lips to his posterior (metaphorically speaking) which makes it impossible not to like him.

Willie may not be the most orthodox of believers. He’s sort of a Christian with Hindu overtones and a bit of the Rastafarian thrown in to add seasoning. In his 1988 autobiography, he describes how he had an epiphany that all things are in God, and theology has always been an interest of his. Unfortunately, as a young man the budding theologian was forced to quit his gig as a Baptist Sunday School teacher when pious church-goers complained he was a bad influence because he sang and played in bars on Saturday nights.

But, as Luther teaches, we are all both saint and sinner. And as James, the Lord’s brother teaches, faith without works is dead (James 2:17). And Willie has certainly demonstrated saintliness through his works. He has been the tireless advocate for the American family farmer through his Farm Aid concerts. He raised his voice to denounce the Iraq war and to support LGBTQ rights. He’s championed renewable energy by his production and use of biofuels. He’s joined Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke in denouncing the Trump administration’s policy of separating migrant children from their parents at the border. Whether or not you agree with his use of weed, I think, on balance, Willie has done more good than harm.

Personally, I just like the guy’s style. There is a gentle way in both his music and his character which says that it’s alright to be exactly who you are. In his non-abrasive way, he just doesn’t seem to give a crap about what others think. I also dig the fact that he loves to revive old tunes. His 1978 Stardust album was a departure from his outlaw country music. He recorded, and continues to perform, some of the loveliest melodies from America’s golden age of pop standards—Gershwin, Cole Porter, Mercer Ellington, etc. You just have to love an eighty-four-year-old hippie in pigtails and a graphic T-shirt crooning Hoagy Carmichael. He did the album because, he said, “There’s a whole generation of young people who’ve never heard these songs.” God bless you, Willie, for keeping theses tunes alive and making them sound so cool.

But, for my money, Willie’s best and most under-appreciated album is one I found at a Borders Book Store in White Plains, NY back in 1996. It’s a collection of classic American gospel tunes he recorded with his sister, Bobbie, who plays the piano. The 1990 album is called Old Time Religion. It includes “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” “Lily of the Valley,” “I’ll Fly Away,” “Are You Washed in the Blood,” and a bunch of other great old-time gospel songs my dad probably sang in Sunday School. It’s my tradition to play this album to wake myself up every Easter morning. I put it on my car stereo as I drive through the pre-dawn darkness on my way to Sunrise Service. And I sing along, too. The Resurrection of Our Lord is always sweet when I share it with Willie.