Month: August 2020

Sometimes I would leave my house in Quito and the traffic lights would look like this all the way down my street. Red lights and green lights both aglow in every direction at every intersection.

I chose never to get my Ecuadorian driver’s license for a number of reasons. This was one of them. But I asked someone I worked with once “what do you do when this happens?” And they shrugged their shoulders and responded basically that they would hit the gas, honk their horn to make lots of noise as they went through the intersection, and pray.

Last night we finished up our study on the book of James. And in the final chapter, James tells his audience to go to God in all kinds of circumstances. When they are sick, when they are celebrating, and when they’re in trouble. To sing songs of praise and to ask him for what they need. To “make lots of noise and pray.” We can pray when the light is green. When the light is red. And even when we’re getting conflicting signals. God’s the one who knows which way he’s trying to send us.

Bishop Jonn Yambasu, leader of the Seirra Leone Annual Conference of the UMC, died this week. That’s him on the right of the photo next to me at Wrightsville UMC in August 2016. I got to meet him and talk to him that weekend, and I’ve heard him preach and speak at annual conferences and other events since then. Bishop Yambasu was also the person responsible for bringing together the group who wrote the “Protocol of reconciliation and grace” after General Conference 2019. He was upset with how poor a witness of Christ’s love he thought that Conference had been to the world, and he wanted us to be better, so he felt compelled to do something about it and gather those leaders. As the Council of Bishops, the United Methodist New Service, and other groups have published articles about him over the past few days, I keep seeing phrases about the pandemic interrupting the approval of that protocol, and about how Bishop Yambasu’s work was not done.

My impression of Bishop Yambasu is that he wouldn’t mind his work not being done. He was a leader who sought peace, and that’s a job that’s never done. And he was a leader who expected that the next generation of believers would be, as the Psalmist soberly yet hopefully wrote, better than those who came before. May we know that our part in God’s reconciliation of the world is not done. May we be better than those who came before. And may we teach the next generation to be better than ourselves.

As we have all gotten lots of practice with cameras and microphones and editing software, we’ve all encountered some bumps. Last week I tried to record some music while wearing headphones plugged into the sound system. This week Chip tried recording his own voice with the headphones on. Neither of us were successful the first time. There is just enough delay in the signal getting back to the headphones, you get confused trying to listen to yourself in the room and listen to yourself on the headphones (a split second behind). Keeping any sort of speaking/singing rhythm is difficult to impossible. It’s like that little echo you’ll get in a Bluetooth phone conversation, but a thousand times worse. You just can’t get anything done if you continue to try to listen to all these voices coming back at you. You have to flip a switch in your brain and only listen to the right voice and filter everything else out.

I didn’t mean to become a recording expert. I also didn’t mean to get hung up in the book of 1 Samuel. But Samuel had to learn how to listen to the right voice as well. When he hears a voice repeatedly, Eli has to tell him the correct response: “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” Most of us are familiar with that story, or at least that line. But I love how that part of the passage ends, with God telling Samuel he’ll do something that will “make both ears of anyone who hears it tingle.” May we listen to the right voice. May our ears tingle.

Last week I wrote about Samuel anointing Saul in the 10th chapter of the book of 1 Samuel. But it turned out this week I would keep coming back to a few words in that chapter which I hardly noticed the first time I read them. Samuel was anointing Saul to prepare him to go do God’s work. To be king of God’s people. But Samuel and Saul are really just witnesses to what God is doing all along. It wasn’t the anointing that made Saul king. It was God. The NIV says Saul was “changed,” and the Message translation say he was “transformed.” But in verse 9 the NRSV tells of God’s work in Saul with this set of words: “God gave him another heart.”

Our congregation has been praying for Kim H. to literally get a new heart this week, and she did. I can’t help but wonder what God is preparing her for in the days and weeks to come (no pressure, Kim!). And I can’t help but wonder what he’s preparing us each for. May we look for a new heart from God. And may we continue to be transformed.