Category: Pandemic Writing 2020-2021

Details

I love our Preschool Chapel curriculum. And it’s rare that I love any curriculum. But the artwork that goes along with it has lots of details. Some I hope the preschoolers notice, like how all the Bible characters are depicted (rightly) as non-White. But there are some details which I know they won’t notice, for instance this week in our Good Samaritan story how the priest is wearing an ephod and breastplate.

I would bet many of you couldn’t say offhand what exactly an ephod is. And I only can because I once wrote a sermon on 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 and Colossians 3:12-17 which I was almost brave enough to title “Holy Ephod, Batman.” The ephod was a garment for the priests used in worship, particularly for times of trying to discern the will of God. Its inclusion in this image (which was created for pretty young believers), reminds me that no matter how long we live, no matter how long we walk with God, no matter how closely we study the scriptures… there will always be more detail, more depth, more questions, and more answers, from the God who meets us where we are, and continues to reveal himself to us.

I’m Ready

My sister-in-law is never ready when my brother pulls the car up to a drive-through. She has to look at the menu for a while and think. So the interaction at the drive-through speaker typically goes like this.

Employee: Good afternoon, may I take your order?
My brother: We’ll need just a moment.
Employee: Ok, order when you’re ready.
(after a minute Caitlin figures out what she wants)
My brother: Ok, I’m ready.
(everybody finally proceeds)

My nephew is nearly four, and he has heard this series of phrases many, many times. He has learned that the process of getting. his. food. doesn’t really start until someone says “I’m ready.” This has started to cause a problem for my brother. He has to keep Quentin in the far back on the passenger side of the car and make sure all the windows are rolled up, because upon pulling up to the speaker, Quentin now just starts yelling “I”m ready! I’m ready!” My brother just smiles and rolls his eyes a little bit. And I have to think that sometimes, when I forget that God’s time is just a little bit different than ours, when I think “I’m tired, I want things to move a little faster, I’M READY!!!!” that God smiles and rolls his eyes at me a little bit, and continues to love me even when I just don’t quite get the process.

Do You Have Any Frankincense?

“Do you have any frankincense?” Sharon asked me a couple weeks ago. And as I responded “Yes,” as if that were a a totally normal thing to ask (and as if that were a  totally normal response to give), I thought about just what a weird person I have to be to have frankincense just sitting around my office all the time. But I’m also reminded that Jesus was just a little bit weird. He paid a tax by having a fish basically spit out a coin. He cursed a fig tree. And weirdest of all was the company he kept. Jesus didn’t mind being a little bit weird, or hanging out with others who were. So go be weird for Jesus. And love all the weird people around you.

Esperar

One of the advent hymns we don’t often sing is Toda la Tierra. It was originally a Catalonian text by a Spanish priest named Alberto Taulé, and translated into English (specifically for The United Methodist Hymnal) by Gertrude Suppe. Mrs. Suppe translated the opening line “Toda la tierra espera al Salvador” as “All earth is waiting to see the Promised One.” But in both Catalan and Spanish, “esperar” means more than “to wait.” It can also be “to wish,” “to expect,” and “to hope.”

In the Spanish translation of Psalm 33:20 (We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield) the modern NVI says “Esperamos confiados,” or “we wait/hope confidently,” and the traditional Reina Valera (in many ways the Spanish language equivalent of the King James) just says “Nuestra alma esperó,” or “our soul waited. It doesn’t need another word because hope is built in. Waiting isn’t always the easiest thing. But like many things in our faith, we do it because hope is built in.

Rain, Rain

A few months ago, my 3-year-old nephew was learning the words to “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” but those four words were all he could get. My sister-in-law would sing the second half (“come again another day”) but he would just look at her blankly and start over: “Rain, rain, go away… rain, rain, go away… rain, rain, go away…” as if it were his fervent prayer for the rain to go away… and not come another day.

Quentin doesn’t know it, but he’s stumbled upon a pretty basic human struggle. We want all our afflictions to just go away, and not come another day. But Paul said Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God. May we remember that God is here to console us, and may our presence be consolation to those around us, whatever afflictions come our way.

Feast and Famine

This post is dated November 5, which is when it will be published, and I expect a lot of people to actually read it on November 6. But I am actually sitting here writing this week’s thought on Monday, November 2. Election day hasn’t happened yet. None of the results have started coming in. I’m still completely unaware of what may be decided (or not) by the time anyone reads this. And I decided to write it early because I may just not have the motivation to write by Thursday. Maybe I will. But I expect this week to be rough for everyone in the country. A season of famine, so to speak, as our candidates use a last few days to take swipes at each other. We have different seasons as a people, as a Church, as individuals. So I’ll tell you a familiar story of feast and famine the way it’s explained by our Preschool Bible.

Joseph had 12 sons. But he had only one colorful robe. He gave it to Joseph. Joseph showed off his father’s gift. His older brothers grumbled. They felt angry and jealous. They didn’t want Joseph around. They found a way to get rid of him. But God was with Joseph and kept him safe. Many years later, the brothers did not have enough to eat. They traveled far away to find food. They didn’t recognize the man who had food to share. “It’s me!” Joseph told his brothers. I forgive you for being angry. I want to help you.”

Joseph experienced a feast of gifts from his father and a famine of brotherly love. But when his family experienced a literal famine later on, he offered them not just food, but the feast of forgiveness. No matter what season you’re in right now, the best way to experience the feast of God’s love is to offer it to someone around you. Amen.

Image and Bible Story Credit: Frolic Preschool Bible, published by SparkHouse.

Still His

For a big chunk of this morning, the we lost electricity all over the building. The only lights around most of the preschool were the glowing exit signs (I think the Fire Marshal would be very happy to see them all working). So you know what the preschool did? They just kept doing their thing. They played and learned and had fun together all by phone flashlights and near windows, and sometimes, yeah, just in the dark. They didn’t stop being who they were because of something outside their control.

Ephesians 1 reminds us that we are God’s children. It says that in him we have redemption, forgiveness, grace, inheritance, salvation, and a mark of the seal of his promise. We’re given all this so that we might live for the praise of his glory. I’m grateful to serve a God who is the same when everything else is different, and thankful that we find our own identity not from any external force, but from the God of the universe who chooses to dwell within us.

Keep doing your thing.

Sitting, Waiting Wishing

At a (virtual) conference I’m attending this week, I got to hear Jo Saxton talk about waiting; how lately we all have moments when we’re just waiting for things to go back to normal. I hear the word “wait” and tend to think of some Jack Johnson lyrics, where he seems to be in the midst of a situation that has no chance of changing soon. And yet Jo used the example of Ezekiel, who was commissioned a watchman. And a watching isn’t just sitting, waiting, wishing, in a bored, relaxed, stupor. She pointed out that a watchman had to be alert, ready to announce the presence of friends or foes. The Hebrew word used to describe Ezekiel’s job means “to peer into the distance.” It’s not so much a passive waiting, but an active searching. Are we waiting for things to go back to what’s familiar? Or are we peering into the distance toward God’s next move?

Counting Days

Today is the anniversary of the start of the Gregorian Calendar. In 1582, after Pope Gregory XIII declared the switch, Thursday October 4 was followed by Friday, Oct 15. He thought it was important to make the civil calendar of the Papal States and the religious calendar of the Catholic church match up with what actually happens around us in God’s creation (the Julian calendar assumed a year lasted 365.25 days. The Gregorian calendar gets us closer to the reality of about 265.2422 days that it takes the Earth to revolve around the Sun). Gregory was doing in a literal sense what the Psalmist asked God for help doing, and learning to count his days with wisdom.
 
Not everybody got on board though. Here in the Americas, as well as in England, the calendar didn’t change until 1752. After waiting 170 years, they had to skip another entire day and move 11 days forward in the calendar instead of 10. Change gets harder the longer we resist it. But sometimes there are perks to changing. And to numbering our days. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, lived during the time that England switched calendars, and now we celebrate two birthdays for him. So may you be wise. May you be ready to change when God asks it of you. May you make your days count. And may you celebrate twice as much.

Yapa

There is a Spanish word that usually gets translated as “tip” (as in leaving the waiter a good tip), but which we use in Ecuador almost exclusively the way English speakers would say “a free gift.” It’s commonly something a business uses in their marketing. “Buy a refrigerator and we’ll throw in a toaster. It’s a yapa.”

Yapas are also sometimes an extra piece of bread in your order, they way we’d call it a “baker’s dozen.” But people are so used to this expression, it can be anything you get as a bonus or a surprise. Samples at the grocery store? Yapa! Onion ring in your fries? Yapa! Mysterious leftover parts when you’re done constructing that IKEA furniture? Yapas! I hadn’t thought about this concept for a while, until I had one of those extra-things-in-my-bag experience at a fast food place this week. I pulled out the unexpected item and didn’t think “aw, man, how else have they messed up my order?” (the way I probably once would have reacted), I just surprised myself a little and said “Una yapa!”

Jesus was constantly telling people to look at things differently. Even in our very out-of-the-ordinary scripture lesson for this Sunday, he tells people “you judge-y guys want to chuck me aside, but now look how big and bad I am” (that’s from the Danny Peck Translation). He was unexpected, but in the best way. May we recognize Jesus when he shows up in our lives. And may we excitedly say “una yapa!”