Jim's Place

      I regularly read the Op-Ed pages of the Tennessean and the New York Times as a way of trying to stay informed on the day’s events.  I do so with an ever-increasing wary eye on the new reality of media outlets being “influenced” by political parties or corporations.  In other words, be cautious not to believe everything you read.

     I also tend to read the local “letters to the editor.”  It’s one way to keep your finger on the “pulse” of certain things going on.  Today I see a letter from a gentleman titled, “It’s time to end the Bible’s influence on public opinion.”  The title draws me to read the letter.  It is a response to a story from last week about how clergy and other religious folk are trying to use the Bible to advance their opposite opinions on immigration reform. 

     You may have seen last week that the recent controversial immigration law in Alabama is being opposed by a lot of clergy, including the United Methodist Bishop of the area.  They claim one of the Bible’s chief admonitions is to show hospitality to the stranger and that the new immigration law does the opposite.  On the other hand, another group of Christians is saying that the Bible also says it is important for people of faith to obey the laws of the land and that the Apostle Paul was adamant about this.  Anyone entering this country or remaining in this country illegally is going against the law of the land and, therefore, the Bible.

     So today’s letter is from a guy who asks, “When will humans in this enlightened and advanced age of progressive science and technology learn to escape the church’s and the clergy’s claim of ‘authority’ and use their God-given ability to reason in order to properly identify and solve their problems?”

     I am filled with mixed reactions to his letter.  My first reaction is to scream at the top of my lungs that his view of the Bible and the church is mistaken.  I want him to know the richness of the story of God’s interaction with creation and humanity.  I want him to see that the people of faith, as they are reported in those pages, are real people with real problems and that they often suffer and bleed and die.  I want him to know of this Jesus we talk about—the one who spent time with sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors and loved them all.

     And then I remember that this guy’s understanding—or misunderstanding—of our sacred text is the result of nearly 2000 years of church folk fighting the wrong battles.  We clergy and you laity apparently decided long ago that the Bible serves as a dandy weapon if that’s the way you wish to use it.  We have mistreated people outside AND inside the walls of the church with the Bible for as long as it has been in print.  People have died because of certain ways they interpreted the Bible.

     In other words, I resonate with his frustration because I know we (and I) are partly to blame for it.  If we, in the church, continue to bicker over petty differences, we will deserve the ignominious death that awaits us. 

     My answer to this letter writer is the same as it is to the rest of us—the only way to properly appreciate what is in the Bible is to know what’s in there—NOT just what somebody else TELLS you is in there, but what you have discovered for yourself.  Our scriptures have withstood 2000 years of scrutiny and seem to be doing just fine.  What they cannot withstand is the ignorance or laziness of believers who don’t care to take the time to learn what’s in there.

     So pick up your Bible today and get re-acquainted.  I promise everything you need to know about God and how God wants us to be with each other can be found there.  Join a Sunday School class and learn more.  Attend one of the Bible studies that are taught during the week.

     One more thing–the next time you hear someone wax eloquent about how sure they are that God wants us all to do something that sounds suspiciously like it might have come from one or the other political party in this country–and then claim that the Bible says so– just walk away.

PEACE
JIM

  Have you noticed that we are in a presidential election cycle?  Kidding.  How could any of us miss it?  The Republican Party is in the process of determining a candidate.  The Democrats will be spared a primary battle this time around and both parties are positioning themselves for the general election.  The driving issue for this election has been –and will continue to be—the economy.  Even though there are a host of very critical issues that need to be addressed (i.e. healthcare, military, education, social security, etc), it is the candidate who can convince us he knows the way out of our economic mess that will likely remain standing next Fall.

     I wonder if we Christians understand that the economy is a religious issue?  The root of the word economy goes back to the idea of the stye-ward, from which we get our word, steward.  The stye-ward’s function was to make sure that everyone in the household had what they needed to live—no more and no less.  The Biblical notion of economy was one of enough.  The story of the children of Israel in the desert following their escape from Egypt contains the basic premise:  God provided manna for them to eat—but only enough for one day.  Any attempts to collect too much and hoard it, failed—the excess manna spoiled.

     Somehow, we have embraced a different notion of economy in this country.  We seem to have replaced God’s idea of enough with a new idea of excess.  It appears that we have embraced a very Darwinian understanding of life—the survival of the fittest.  The strong only get stronger.  The weak get only what they deserve.  And in the end, they get run over.

     I’m not qualified as an economist to imagine what all this means.  But as a Christian, I’m pretty sure it means that we have stepped out of what God wills for us as a community.  I’m pretty sure it means that we have decided that selfishness is somehow better than generosity.  And I’m pretty sure it will lead to a decline of what made us such a unique nation—in fact, the decline is well underway.

     Lest you believe this is a diatribe against capitalism, it isn’t.  I am a firm Wesleyan on this.  John Wesley said that the faithful Christian should “earn all he can, save all he can, and give all he can.” My aim is to be sure we Christians stand up together and remind everyone that it is the “give all we can” that seems to be in danger.  And selfishness diminishes everybody.

     One last point—one of the newer movements of the last year has been the “Occupy” movement.  For them, the battleground is between the so-called “1 percent” versus the so called “99%.”  I admire their passion—just as I admire the passion of the tea partiers.  But I would remind them and us that to be counted among the world’s richest 1%, a single individual has to earn a total of only $34,000 a year.  Members of the planet’s true middle class live on an average of $1,225 per year.

     Give all you can.  After all, most of us are in the 1%.

PEACE
JIM

      It’s already hard to tell that Christmas was just two weeks ago, isn’t it?  We manage to “tear it down” as fast as we can—maybe so we can get back to “normal”?  I heard somebody say, “It’s good to get back to work and to my regular schedule so I can get some rest.”

     We are now in the season of Epiphany, the time in the Christian calendar for “revealing” who the child in the manger really is.  We did that a week ago with the Wise Men—they helped to reveal who Jesus is.  Old Simeon in the Temple helped to do it, too.

     This past Sunday, we learned more about this Messiah at the baptism.  There are a few more weeks of this “revealing.”

     One of you sent me a quote from Howard Thurman that I had not seen before.  Thurman is one of the most underrated theologians of the last century.  It is a quote that captures one very important piece of the Epiphany story:

     “When the song of the angels is stilled,

      When the star in the sky is gone,

      When the kings and princes have gone home,

      When the shepherds are back with their flocks,

      The real work of Christmas begins:

      … To find the lost,

      To heal the broken,

      To feed the hungry,

      To release the prisoner,

      To rebuild the nations,

      To bring peace among brothers and sisters,

      To make music in the heart.”

PEACE
JIM

Two stories crossed my path this week and I share them with you in the spirit of the season.  The first comes from the world of K-Mart.  It seems that dozens of individuals have contacted K-Marts around the country, anonymously, in order to pay off the layaway balances for strangers—specifically those who used layaway to pay for their children’s Christmas. 

K-Mart is the store of choice for many low income families and immigrants whom certain “patriots” are trying to keep out.  K-Mart’s prices are low and it is one of the few “Inns” where they are made to feel welcome.

Sure, these anonymous benefactors are engaging in “seasonal generosity which isn’t likely to fix what ails these families.  But it is generosity, nonetheless, and it is still giving to others.  Maybe it won’t end the economic chaos we’ve created, but it is doing “the next best right thing.”

In a world that seems evermore populated by hatefulness, such acts of generosity make our world a little better and a little more humane.

The second story comes from Plymouth, Minnesota where a teenager is celebrating his 12^th straight year of sleeping in a cardboard box from November 12 through December 31^st in order to spur people to pledge money for the homeless.  His name is Peter Larson and he has raised over $400,000 in these past 11 years with the hope of raising another $100,000 this year, alone. 

 All told, he has spent over 30 nights sleeping outdoors in temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees.  When asked why he does it, Peter simply says, “because I know in my heart I’m helping other people”.

 I wonder if such acts of kindness don’t just serve to give the rest of us hope, but maybe they also give God hope for us, too.  How else could God keep coming back to us year after year at Christmas time when it is painfully clear that we have missed the mark God dreams for us?

Maybe stirred by nothing deeper than singing “Silent Night,”a few more of us turn to the light and a bit of the darkness is vanquished.

PEACE ON EARTH
JIM

     Christmas gifts come in various packages, don’t they?  Sometimes the best gifts come in the smallest packages.  Other times, the best gifts don’t come wrapped at all.  Maybe what most of us need these days is a different kind of gift, altogether.  A gift that stirs the heart.  Here’s one:

     Ed Freeman died last week.  You can be forgiven for not knowing who he was.  Ed was 70 years old and lived in Boise, Idaho.  His death didn’t make any headlines anywhere.  He wasn’t famous—unless you happened to be one of the people whose life he saved one day in 1967.  You see, Ed was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. 

     Imagine yourself being 19 years old and critically wounded somewhere in the Central Highlands of Vietnam.  Your unit has come under a very heavy attack and you are vastly outnumbered—so much so that your commanding officer has ordered all MedEvac helicopters to stay away.  To stop coming for the wounded.  You know this is a death sentence, but you also know the C.O. is right.  He couldn’t risk any further loss of life.

     As you lie there waiting “your turn,” you hear the faint sound of chopper blades.  Soon you see a Huey coming in that doesn’t have any MedEvac markings.  Captain Ed Freeman heard the call and decided to disobey the order.  He wasn’t a MedEvac pilot.  But he dropped in, anyway.  He loaded three of you and flew out amid heavy gunfire and took you to a MASH unit to be cared for. 

     And he kept coming back.  13 times Ed Freeman dropped into that hot LZ to rescue the wounded.  No one knew until afterward that he, himself, had been hit 4 times in the legs and arms.  All told that day, Ed Freeman took 29 wounded out of that jungle.  It is reasonable safe to say that none of them would have survived that day without him.

     Ed Freeman, Medal of Honor winner, died last week in Boise, Idaho.  You probably didn’t hear about it.  I thought you might like to.

     My gift to you. 

Peace
JIM

     We had a good Sunday yesterday with Bishop Joe Pennel helping us to celebrate our 40^th anniversary.  Our youth and handbell choir both led our two services and they were terrific.  So it seems good to ask the question “what’s next?”  After 40 years at our current location—and 120 years as a worshipping Body of Christ—where are we headed??

     I was out of town last week doing sermon preparation through Easter.  I found myself reading the “In-Flight” magazine on my Southwest Flight and, wouldn’t you know it, Southwest also is celebrating 40 years this year.  That article caught my attention.

     In 1972, Gary Kelly—the current CEO of Southwest Airlines—was a student in high school in San Antonio, Texas.  He scheduled a flight to go to Houston in order to visit Rice University and chose to fly with this fledgling airline.  He recalls that flight, vividly.  “I was one of three—yes, three—passengers on that flight.  My first thought was, ‘there is no way this airline is going to make it.”

     Fast forward to 2011 and Southwest is the most profitable airline today and one of the world’s most admired companies.

     I remember when Southwest began and what I remember most was how “out of the box” they were.  Their flight attendants wore hot pants (anyone under 40 may need to consult with their parents on this) and they did crazy things on board—it was almost like they were marketing a party at 35,000 feet.  Southwest has grown up in the years since, but their core values remain the same: lower fares, high quality customer service, convenience, efficiency, and having fun.

     What does this have to do with the church??  No one I know of is under any delusions about the challenges facing the church these days.  60 years ago the church had been given an “untouchable” place within which we did our work.  A very high percentage of people attended one of about 5 mainline denominations.  Sundays were days that no one dared schedule any other activity before noon.  For goodness sakes, there was such a thing called a “Blue Law” where most all businesses were closed on Sunday mornings.

     The world has changed.  The church now competes with business, entertainment, and sporting enterprises on Sunday mornings.  Even our children must frequently choose between church and “travel teams.”  Organized religion is no longer untouchable.  We must now earn our respect and our allegiance like every other enterprise.

     We can either weep and gnash teeth over this, pining over the good old days and how things used to be.  Or we can get creative and entrepreneurial in our work.  I believe more today than ever before that the world in which we live needs the message of the Gospel.  But with so many competing claims on people today, there are too many who not only don’t attend church, they aren’t bothered by the fact that they don’t attend church.  We have our work cut out for us.  Maybe a good place to start is to recognize that there is a very rich mission field right in front of us.

     We collected “messages” from everyone Sunday in the form of birthday cards that will be kept and saved for the believers at Forest Hills UMC in the year 2051—40 years from now.  What will our legacy be?  What will they think of us?  Will they marvel at how we did some things “out of the box” that distinguished the people called Methodists?

     Here’s hoping and praying that they will remember us fondly as people who exercised genuine faith in the midst of hard times.  I hope they will remember us as deeply committed to missions and evangelism.  Are you ready to build that legacy??

 PEACE
JIM

     If the week of Thanksgiving does not present all of us with an occasion to remember how thankful we ought to be for the blessings we have received, we probably ought to have our “gratitude gene” checked.  A lot of us are fond, right now, of grousing about the economy and “how bad things are.”  And to be sure, there are way too many people out of work today and many of our senior adults are having to reconsider what “retirement” means.

     Having said that, how can we possibly ignore the fact that we live in a place and time of unimaginable plenty?  I will not attempt to lay it on thick, here, for the purpose of producing guilt among us.  I will simply remind us all that people who have been given what we have are “blessed to be a blessing” for others.

     The first step on that journey is gratitude.  So whatever else you do this week with family and friends and food and sharing memories or making new ones, be sure to remember to thank God.

     I need to tell you how thankful I am for you.  We have completed the bulk of our capital campaign.  This work began 6 months ago and a lot of people worked very hard to see it through.  For those who served on the capital campaign leadership team, please accept my thanks on behalf of all of us for the work you did.

     We announced Sunday night at our Thanksgiving dinner that we have received $500,000 in pledges up to this point and we know there are some outstanding pledges.  We have also received about $420,000 in pledges for the annual budget.  Again, there are more to come. 

     Allow me to tell you that you did great!  No, we didn’t reach our stated goal of $950,000.  We always knew that goal was a stretch.  But we also believed that small mountains aren’t worth climbing.  We will take what you have graciously given and we will use it wisely to accomplish as much as we possibly can.  If you have not yet turned in your pledge cards for the campaign or the annual budget, please do so as soon as you can.

     The last phase of our campaign will take place on Sunday, December 4^th.  I hope you will put this date on your calendar and plan on being with us in worship.  A lot is happening that day.  The 4^th will be the actual 40^th Anniversary of the Forest Hills UMC in the present location—and it is the 120^th anniversary of our church as begun at Waverly Place.  To celebrate that day, we have asked Dr. Joe Pennel, a retired Bishop of our church who currently teaches at Vanderbilt Divinity School, to be our guest preacher.

     We will also have our “First Fruits” Sunday.  This is to encourage as many of us as possible to make our first financial gift toward the campaign.  To accomplish this, we are making “birthday cards” available to everyone to bring that Sunday.  If you can make that first gift to the campaign, we are asking you to use the birthday card to do it.  But we are also asking everyone—regardless if you are making your first gift on that Sunday or not—to write a message in your birthday card to the congregation at Forest Hills in the year 2051—40 years from now.  Offer them a word of grace, a word of hope, or tell them about yourself—your message is personal.  We will collect all those during the service and either place them in a “capsule” or secure them with instructions not to open until 2051.

     We believe this is going to be a terrific Sunday.  Make plans to be there.

PEACE
JIM

     It is no secret that I am “computer-challenged.”  Just ask the church staff.  I somehow missed the boat on the new device-driven culture.  Don’t misunderstand; I don’t think computers are evil or anything like that.  I tend to believe that most everything in our world has a neutral value until we supply the value to various things.  And I am fully aware that computers have changed everything and they did so almost overnight.

     This will make you laugh, but when I got out of high school and was trying to figure out who and what I might be, I started my higher education at Nashville State Technical Institute where my plan, in 1973, was to get in on the ground floor of the brand new “computer age.”  The predictions even then were stunning as to how computers would change the world. 

     My very first class started with a man who looked more like a State Trooper than a professor—and he had a similar demeanor.  He marched into class and announced that the most exciting thing we would ever do would be to create our own computer program.  I was underwhelmed and couldn’t see myself spending a lifetime in front of a fairly large box, typing endless commands.  My call to ministry happened pretty soon after that.

     Fast forward 40 years and the advancements have been amazing.  Who could have ever guessed the power available to every human being on earth is in the palm of your hand?  Who could have guessed how much information could be stored in a microchip the size of a postage stamp?  And best of all, who can guess what might be next?

     Steve Jobs died a couple of weeks ago.  Jobs has been widely held as the Henry Ford of our era.  I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it is undeniable that Jobs and his company, Apple, pretty much made all of us want to own and master this technology.  They did it by making computers easy to use and affordable, and even attractive.

     What Steve Jobs did was move the bar.  He and others like him showed us a vision of what the world could be and dared us all not to pay attention.  He imagined a magical future and then set out to make it come true. 

     The church needs to learn from people like Steve Jobs.  Among the many things Jesus did in his lifetime was to move the bar—to create a vision for a place called The Kingdom of God.  This kingdom would be a magical place where people genuinely loved each other and cared for each other.  It would be a place where sinners and saints, alike, would live together in community.  It would be a place designed to show people how life could be lived at its best and highest.

     We come to the end of our stewardship and capital campaign seasons.  We started this journey back in the spring with lots of praying and planning.  We can’t thank you enough for your love and support for your church.  We know that everyone is going to give to this effort because it is the right thing to do.  I hope you are making plans to be with us this Sunday as we celebrate our Commitment Sunday and offer all our gifts and pledges to God’s Kingdom.

     So much energy has been devoted to this effort and it will be natural for us to need a breather.  The holidays provide a great time for that.  My prayer is that we will approach the new year with renewed vision and prepared to answer the question, “how are we going to raise the bar for Forest Hills UMC?  How are we going to transform the community in which we live?”  I believe there is nothing else worthy of our efforts.

PEACE
JIM

     Recently, The Dalai Lama was asked what surprised him most about humanity.  He replied, “Humans, because they sacrifice their health in order to make money.  Then they sacrifice their money to recuperate their health.  And then they are so anxious about the future that they don’t enjoy the present: the result being that they don’t live in the present or the future: they live as if they are never going to die, and then they die having never really lived.”

     If this sounds familiar, Jesus was saying the same thing to us 2000 years ago.  He talked a lot about serving God and serving “mammon” (money).  He also reminded us that it is God’s good pleasure to take care of us, just as God cares for the lilies of the field and how beautiful they are.  And he reminded us not to be anxious about tomorrow, but to let today’s troubles be sufficient for today.

     We’ve been talking a lot about giving, lately.  Most of this conversation has been about money.  Giving isn’t just about money.  Just this past Saturday, for instance, a hearty (and chilly) group of 25 of us ran or walked in support of finding a cure for breast cancer.  Not just our 25, but nearly 20,000 others gave their time and hearts.  The world needs these kind of gifts every bit as much as money.  The best part about Saturday was the great joy everyone felt in offering their gift.

     As we make our way toward the conclusion of our dual financial campaigns, allow me to weigh in on the wisdom spoken above.  We have done all we can to impress on everyone what our needs are.  The Stewardship Committee and the Big Fix Campaign committee have both done their jobs as well as they could possibly have been done and we are all deeply grateful.

     We have also made it clear that we need everyone to make their pledge in order for us to be successful and position ourselves for a great future.

     Having said all that, let me also make a pledge to you on behalf of the staff and leadership of the church.  Our deepest desire is for you to give whatever amount you give with joy.  Don’t be anxious about it.  We want everyone to celebrate our result as a gift from God.

     Second, we hope and pray that we reach our goal, but even if we don’t, we will not be disappointed and we won’t whine.  I promise we will take what has been given, offer it to God to be blessed, and will move into our future with great anticipation.  We will also be thankful for all of you.

     It is a privilege to serve you.  We feel your love for us and we share that feeling towards you.

PEACE
JIM

I was asked recently an interesting question that took me awhile to think through.  Someone asked me if there was a difference between religion and faith and, if so, what is it?

I thought about it a lot.  My best answer is that religion is what happens among the body of Christ.  With religion, people try to help you—or just flat out tell you—what you should believe. 

Faith, on the other hand, must be figured out on your own.  It is more personal.

Each has its place.  Religion provides a “common language” for talking about sacred things.  It is a good, orderly, starting point.  Faith very often starts in the midst of chaos—out in the “wilderness” of our lives in the midst of grief or crisis.  Faith demands a movement beyond religion.  Bumper stickers and platitudes may be nice sound bites, but they pale in the face of genuine trouble.

The desire of religion is to talk about and know God from a distance.  The desire of faith is to know God up close.  Religion is mostly about form and certainty.  Religion is about the creeds.  Faith is more likely to proceed in “fear and trembling” as Paul once said.  Faith often leads to a place of uncertainty where only God can bring comfort—even if there are no answers.

The Christian faith is somewhat unique in that it has become a matter of “beliefs.”  What matters most is whether you believe this doctrine or that doctrine.  These beliefs form the bases of our denominations.  Most other world religions are based on “practices.”  Islam, for instance, is about paying homage daily in prayer and making a spiritual pilgrimage to Mecca.  It has much less to do with what you say than with what you do.  Not surprisingly, it is this focus on beliefs that also lies at the heart of frequent tension and even animosity among Christian groups.  Things like immersion versus sprinkling or pouring.

Would it surprise you to learn that the early Christian faith was also “practice—heavy”?  Especially in the 4^th and 5^th centuries there were many pilgrimages Christians were expected to participate in each year.  Mostly they had to do with celebrating various high, holy days in different churches.  Even now in the Roman Catholic Church, the notion of religious practices seems to trump intellectual belief.  This is accomplished by attending Mass, doing confession, etc.

I suppose I tend to believe, like in many other things, that there must be a healthy balance between belief and practice.  Belief acts as the foundation of the spiritual house we inhabit.  Faith tends to be how we decorate our house and make it livable. 

 One of the spiritual practices all Christians must participate in is the giving of alms.  Our stewardship is not a matter of what we believe or don’t believe.  Stewardship is a spiritual practice. 

 As we continue in our dual financial campaigns, I urge you to remember how important the practice of our faith is for our own well-being.

PEACE
JIM