Since You're Awake

picture - Before the plunge at the February Freeze - Feb. 13, 2010 - Cape Charles Beach

Since it is Valentine’s Day, I have been thinking about romantic comedies. It seems like there are only two types of movies in the theaters these days – big budget action thrillers featuring comic book heroes or blue cat people and romantic comedies. We love them. Or at least a lot of us seem to – many of them female, if I can make a broad generalization.

One of the oldest tropes in romantic movies is the discovery that your soulmate is the person who has been there next to you all along. You think you’re searching for the woman or guy of your dreams and all of it sudden it dawns on that she or he has been their waiting for you to discover it. The scales fall from your eyes, there’s a big, sloppy kiss, cue the music to swell and it’s a wrap.

I think about a movie like Roxanne, which is now over twenty years old but which is based on a much older story – the tale of Cyrano de Bergerac. In the movie version Steve Martin plays a fire chief named C.D. ‘Charlie’ Bales who is infatuated with a beautiful astronomer named Roxanne, played by Darryl Hannah. What keeps him from expressing his love for Roxanne directly is his nose, which is huge, and which he can’t get surgically altered because of an allergy to anesthetic.

Roxanne is taken with Chris – a dim-witted fireman who works with Charlie. Chris is extremely nervous around women – he has a bad habit of throwing up when he’s around them – so he asks Charlie to write him love letters he can give to Roxanne. Charlie does – writing three letters a day – even though he knows Roxanne will believe that Chris has written them.

You know how this story has to end, right? Eventually it all comes out that Charlie has written the letters. Roxanne, though initially mad at the deception, sees something in Charlie that she had never seen before and is awakened to the possibility of love and romance. She tells Charlie:

“You know, I've been thinking about what attracted me to Chris. It wasn't the way he looked. Well, that's not true, at first it was the way he looked. But it was how he made me feel. He made me feel romantic, intelligent, feminine. But it wasn't him doing that, was it? It was you. You and your nose, Charlie. You have a big nose! You have a beautiful, great big, flesh-and-bone nose! I love your nose! I love your nose, Charlie. I love you, Charlie.”[i]

This is where you go, “Awww.”

Awakening to something that has always been there but you have never quite seen. It’s a big part of our human experience. A big part of the Christian experience, because when you think about it, entering into a relationship with Jesus can do the same thing for you – it can help you to see the wonder and magic of the world in ways you never could before. Suddenly life is filled with the glory of God.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I need to talk about the disciples and to ask the questions: Why is it so hard for us to stay awake? And when are we going to learn that being a Christian is an unnatural act? Are you interested in coming along with me to discover answers to these and more of life’s persistent questions? Come on and join me in the broken world of Jesus’ disciples.

We have talked before about the struggles Jesus’ disciples went through. Their failure to understand or comprehend what Jesus is talking about is well-documented throughout the gospels. Last year we followed the gospel of Mark and saw that that was one of his consistent themes and this year we are looking at it in the gospel of Luke.

In Luke…our gospel for today…we have plenty of instances where the disciples don’t get it.. Jesus tells them to humble themselves and be servants…they argue about which of them is the greatest. Jesus tells a parable about seeds and a sower…they don’t get it. Jesus tells them he must suffer and be rejected and die and three days later be raised from the dead…and they really don’t get it.

By the middle of Luke’s gospel, the disciples were getting pretty good at following Jesus physically. He even starts to entrust them with missions of their own to heal and to release people kept captive by dark powers. But they still can’t understand what Jesus has come to do. They have a story in their minds about how the world ought to work and in their story the Promised Liberator will come and claim power, use power, and reveal power. The disciples will rise up as agents of victory. They just don’t realize that their story doesn’t work. It can’t handle brokenness. It can’t handle the truth.

So after telling the disciples exactly what’s going to happen to him in Jerusalem…after telling them that some of those listening will not taste death before seeing the Reign of God revealed…8 days after this…he took three likely candidates to “get it”…Peter, James and John…up a mountain to pray. You can feel a sense of expectation in the air, can’t you? In the Bible, when you go up on a mountain something special is going to happen…something life changing. Bushes may burn and not be consumed…Stone tablets etched with commandments will be given out…Prophets will compete for God’s attention…Promised lands will be revealed…temptations will come…God will speak in a cloud with thunder or in a still, small voice. When you go up on a mountain, something’s going to happen, and I know you feel the tension and the expectation, don’t you?

Sure enough…something amazing happens. Jesus is praying and the appearance of his face starts to change…his clothes flash with the brilliance of lightning…Moses and Elijah, who know a thing or two about mountaintop experiences, appear to talk with Jesus about what is about to happen in Jerusalem. It’s an amazing event…a transfiguration other gospels call it. And what are the disciples doing…Peter, James and John…who are given front-row seats for the show…whom Jesus hand-picked for this revelation…what are they doing?

They’re falling asleep. Well, you know, it’s hard hiking to the top of a mountain. They’d been busy preaching and healing down below. They had the crowds to deal with, the travel arrangements to make, the book promotion tour to plan. They were busy guys and Luke says they were just pretty sleepy and were barely able to keep their eyes open for all of this.

But, NO, you know there are no excuses! These disciples were not sleepy for any of those reasons. They’re sleepy because that’s how they are throughout the whole gospel. They aren’t awake enough to see the fish Jesus calls them to catch. They aren’t awake enough to understand the parables Jesus is telling them. They aren’t awake enough to comprehend Jesus’ predictions of his imminent death or the conversation about his ‘departure’ that he is having with Moses and Elijah. When the end comes and Jesus takes them up on another mountain to pray before his arrest, is it any surprise that these same disciples fall asleep again? They just can’t grasp it.

What’s it going to take for them to get it? A voice from heaven saying, “Listen to Jesus”? Well, that’s exactly what they get. Peter makes a silly suggestion, (because he doesn’t know what to say), that they have a campout with Moses and Elijah and just as he’s beginning to talk a cloud comes and overshadows them. The disciples are awake now. In fact, they’re terrified. And a voice which can only be God’s voice says, “This is the Chosen One; listen to him.” The cloud leaves. Jesus is standing there alone.

The disciples are speechless. In fact they don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. They still don’t “get it”. They’ve still got to walk to Jerusalem. They’ve still got to go to the Garden. They’ve still got to fall asleep, and betray him, and deny him, and abandon him. They’ve still got to disbelieve the outrageous reports of the women who claim the tomb is empty. They’re still waiting for him to die and waiting to live. But maybe now they’re beginning to see that something they didn’t expect is happening. Maybe they are seeing in Jesus something they hadn’t seen before. The new story isn’t yet clear, but the old story is beginning to fall apart.

Meanwhile, at the bottom of the mountain, it’s starting to unravel for the other disciples, too. A man who has an only child has come to the disciples to get them to cast out the spirit that seizes the child and convulses him. The man is grieved because his son is hurting. In fact, he says, “My son is broken by this spirit.” But the disciples, who had so recently been healing up and down the land, are powerless here. They can’t handle brokenness. They can’t restore a son to his father. Only Jesus can handle the brokenness. Only Jesus can reconcile the child to his parent. Only Jesus knows the frustration of having so short a time to reveal so much. Only Jesus sees in this healing a foreshadowing of great things yet to come, of his own resurrection. But it has its effect. The disciples, and everyone else, are astounded, Luke says, “at the greatness of God.” The old story is starting to unravel.

It’s really not fair to pick on the disciples for being sleepy, dopey, and all the rest of the seven dwarves, because they could be stand-ins for us. They ARE stand-ins for us. It’s not just the disciples who get too comfortable with their own expectations…WE get too comfortable. I get too comfortable.

Do you ever think it’s comfortable to be a Christians? If you grew up in the Church you could start to think that it’s a natural thing to be a Christian. Because so much of our culture is built around the assumption that most Americans are Christian, it’s not that difficult to be Christian. Though your friends may shake their heads in wonder at you, most of them are not going to scorn you because you go to church on Sunday or a Bible Study on Wednesday night.

There might even be some strokes in going to Church. When people see you in the congregation on Sunday morning the cockles of their hearts are warmed and they will tell you how much your being there means to them. And the fact that I’m still asked to write recommendations for folks going on to jobs or grad school tells me that it’s still a positive thing for religious professionals to weigh in on these signs of cultural advancement.

I know it doesn’t always SEEM easy to be Christian, and it’s not always, but the fact is that Christians are still pretty acceptable figures in the United States and that’s dangerous because it is not natural to be a Christian. Christians are made not born. They trace their transformation to baptismal waters that represent death to old ways and rebirth to new ones. Christians are important to the world, not because they are good citizens of the nation, strong pillars of the community, or all-around nice people. Christians are important because they know that Jesus changes everything.

Christians aren’t trying to make the world more humane, they’re trying to tell the truth about it…that it’s not humane, but it’s still God’s. Christians aren’t trying to look good…they’re trying out what it means to BE good and they discover that by living on the edge every day. Christians don’t ignore the brokenness of the world…they celebrate the good news with broken bread to remember a broken body that means broken people like you and me can be made whole. And we put ourselves in places where we would not be if we did not believe that the words we say are trustworthy and true.

Another season of the Church year ends this week. This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and we begin the 40-day journey of Lent. It’s good to stop on this mountaintop before we take that journey. It’s good to be reminded of how strange and unnatural this Christian thing is. Because if we get too comfortable with what we’re doing, we might just start building tents and forget that we don’t live on the mountain. We live down below where God is still at work, turning the world upside down and inviting us to join in. But that may seem hard because, you see, to join in this work, we have to be awake and see the world through the eyes of love. God’s love for every living thing. Thanks be to God.

Luke 9:28-43

Now about eight days after these saying, Jesus took Peter and John and James with him and went up on the mountain to pray. He was in the midst of prayer when the appearance of his face changed and his clothes flashed with the whiteness of lightning. And, look, two men were talking with him--Moses and Elijah. These, who appeared in glory, were speaking about his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

Now Peter and those with him were weighed down with sleep, but having kept awake, they saw his glory and the two men standing with him. As they were leaving from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Teacher, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents -- one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah,” not knowing what he said.

While he was saying this, a cloud came and covered them and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud saying, “This is my Son, the chosen one; listen to him!” When the voice began, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one anything about what they had seen.

On the next day, having come down from the mountain, a great crowd surrounded him. Look, a man from the crowd shouted, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, because he is my only child. Look, a spirit takes him and all at once he cries out and it convulses him so that he foams and it scarcely leaves him--it breaks him. I begged your disciples to cast it out, but they weren’t able to.”

Jesus answered, “O you faithless and perverse generation, how much longer will I be with you to put up with you? Bring your son here.”

While they were bringing him, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy and restored him to his father. And everyone was astounded at the greatness of God.

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[i] The Internet Movie Database, Memorable Quotes from Roxanne (1987), http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093886/quotes.

Put Down the Nets and Step Away from the Boat

Tonight’s message is very simple. The thing I want to say is this: “You can’t grab hold of Jesus if you don’t have empty hands.” Which sounds like a very old-fashioned preacher thing to say. You can’t grab hold of Jesus if you don’t have empty hands. Let’s see if we can make some sense of that.

Last year I was invited down to the high school to be a part of a career fair. There were folks there from Purdue and NASA and the military – all there to talk about what they do and what sorts of things they look for in new recruits. These job fairs are a strange combination of exciting and overwhelming. I remember them from my campus ministry days, too, and I remember the way students came away from them with very mixed feelings.

Why is it that preparing for a career can be so exciting but actually getting one can sometimes seem so disappointing? In the abstract jobs can be places where dreams are fulfilled and where aspirations can be lived out. Often it’s the vision that moves us into careers. It’s not just that our careers will make us money…they are supposed to allow us to put our talents to work, contribute to the community, transform the way we work with one another, change the way we think, change the world. But moving from the thrill of those things to the realities of training, conforming, and paying the bills is a little less enticing.

You go to job fairs and what’s the first thing you ask yourself: Is this me? Could this be me giving my life to public interest work? Could this be me joining an accounting firm? Could this be me working for a Fortune 500 company? Could this be me joining the Navy? The Peace Corps? Could this be me doing full-time ministry in the Church? Is this me? That’s the question…isn’t it?

And a surprisingly large percentage of the time, the first response is…No…this is definitely NOT me. What I see in this new job, this new career, is something I don’t understand and am not sure I want to follow. What I see is an organization that doesn’t know me…that doesn’t really know what I can do. What I see is a future I’m not sure I want. I don’t think this is me. And so we rarely leap at the first opportunity that presents itself.

That’s what makes Jesus’ disciples so frustrating. Just who did they think they were dropping their nets, leaving their boats, and following Jesus at the first word of invitation? What kind of model is that? There is no deliberation. No questioning. No figuring out the cost. No reckoning on what this is going to do their Social Security earnings and their 401(k) plans. We know that at least Simon Peter was married. Don’t you know he heard about it when he finally went home?

What did they think they were doing? They were being downright irresponsible, dropping everything to follow a traveling teacher who could do a nifty trick with a boatful of fish. Didn’t they know they were setting a bad example for the rest of us? I mean, how are we going to say, “No, I can’t follow you like that, Jesus,” when they pick up and leave their boats at the first sign that the fishing in Galilee was really picking up? It’s something to think about when you’re wandering around the job fair. What does it take to follow a path you’ve never seen before?

It’s an interesting story that Luke tells us in the gospel reading. Jesus has begun to teach and heal around the Sea of Galilee and the word has started to spread. Folks are starting to claim some pretty amazing stuff for this young man. Some say he even preaches with the authority of one who knows the very word of God.

Then one day he shows up by the lake where several fishermen have pulled up on the shore to wash out their nets after a very unsuccessful night of fishing. A crowd is following him. They’re pressing in on him. They can’t get close enough. So Jesus gets into one of the two boats there and asks one of the fishermen, Simon, by name (though you might know him better by his later name of Peter)…he asks Simon to put out from the shore just a little bit so that he can have some room to reach. Simon obliges and Jesus sits down in the teaching position and teaches the crowds.

Some time later the crowds start to disperse and Jesus decides to provide a miracle for the fishing fleet. As miracles go, it’s not one of the most spectacular….Jesus just tells Simon where to go to find the fish. Now this was in the days before bass trackers and fish radar, so folks who made their living on the sea had to rely on their knowledge of the shoals below, the habits of the fish, and just plain luck. So when Jesus points them to fish after a night of fishing futility, well, that’s impressive, but it hardly ranks as the sort of thing that would cause a person to leave behind everything and follow.

What is impressive about the catch is the quantity of fish. This story tells us about straining nets and sinking boats all because of the great load of fish…more than any of them had ever seen in their lives. But would it really have been enough for you to follow…enough to make you send word back to the folks at home that you wouldn’t be home for dinner…ever?

Of course, I have a theory. I think this miracle took all the fun out of being a fisher. After this, could any of them ever told another story about “the one that got away”? No, it was over for them as soon as there was a catch in which none of them got away. The old story was broken. The old cycle of fishing the lake, with good days and bad, and always wondering what more could have happened, was not the most meaningful story in their lives anymore. A new story had begun. So when Jesus says, “From now on you will fish for people,” it was a new day beginning. The old way was done.

What I don’t think is that the disciples need excuses from us to justify this wild and dangerous thing that they do. “Maybe,” some interpreters say, “Maybe there was something in Jesus’ teachings from the boat that caused them to recognize that Jesus was different. Maybe they had heard stories about his healings and were impressed by his credentials. Maybe Jesus had an aura around him like in the old painting of Jesus that hangs in so many old Sunday School classrooms. Maybe he had a glow.”

But if that were so, why didn’t everybody pick up and follow? What made the disciples different? The rich young ruler came to Jesus to follow him but couldn’t bring himself to leave his riches behind in the hands of the poor. Some people, maybe even most people, were able to resist the temptation to drop everything and follow this man.

So no, I don’t think we need to give the disciples an excuse. I think what made them follow was not anything outside of them, but something inside of them. I think these disciples were desperate people. When Jesus happened upon them in the midst of their everyday lives they saw an answer to a deep, gnawing need that they couldn’t hide from themselves any longer. Jesus called and they followed--not because they were foolish and irresponsible--but because they honestly could not see any other way of living except in the footsteps of Jesus. Like Roger Miller wrote and Janis Joplin sang in “Me and Bobby McGhee,” “Nothing’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” and these disciples had nothing left to lose.

So they let the nets fall to the ground. They didn’t go back to the village to tell the best fish story they ever had to tell. They even left the fish for somebody else to clean. And then they had the empty hands they needed to grab onto Jesus. That’s what this sermon is about in case you forgot. Empty hands for grabbing on to the one who brings new life.

But it doesn’t make it any easier to follow these disciples. They can tell us what they dropped, but it doesn’t help me to discover what I’m holding in my hands. Where is that place of quiet desperation in me that waits for the call of a fishing master? Where is the clear, compelling path that reveals itself as my path? Who am I and what is it that I have to give, that I have to give, that I need to give?

What is it that you’re holding onto? What is it that blocks your line of sight, that obscures your vision, that keeps you from listening to that still, small voice within or that loud, booming voice without that tells you to follow? Deep inside, we’re all desperate people, and that’s O.K. Desperation suits us. Or maybe it’s desire. Desire for a life that is more than just the same stories told endlessly. Desire that is more than just a repetitive cycle with nothing new. Desire for life and hope and God.

In his book The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes about this deep desire that motivates him, and he believes, many of us. He is writing about heaven and he says:

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven; but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else…Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it – tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest – if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself – you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say, ‘Here at last is the thing I was made for.’ We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.”[i]

It may not happen in the career fair. It may not happen in the classroom. It may not happen in our workplace or in the office with our financial planner. But somewhere in each of our lives, we are being called. To discover that place within us that responds to God. To leave behind the things that we clutch. To take a risk on a new story. And to take our empty hands and follow.

Put down the nets and step away from the boat. If your life is going to be different, it might as well start now. Thanks be to God.

Luke 5:1-11

Now it happened that the crowd pressed in on him to hear the Word of God as he was standing by the Lake of Genesserat. He saw two boats there by the lake, but the fishermen from them had gotten out and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out from the shore a little ways. Then he sat and taught the crowds from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Go out to the deep waters and let your nets down for a catch.”

Simon answered him, “Master, we labored through the whole night and caught nothing, but if you say so, I will let down my nets.”

When he did this, they caught a net full of fish, so much that their nets were breaking. So they nodded a signal to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They came and filled both boats so that they began to sink.

But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell at Jesus’ feet saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord!” He said this because fear surrounded him and all those with him at the sight of the catch of fish. So also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, the partners of Simon.

Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

And they brought the boats into shore and, leaving everything, they followed him.

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[i] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, [HarperCollins e-book, 1940], locations 1640-1659

Snowstorm Special: Moshe Rubenstein and the Blizzard of '88

A snowy, story sermon from the fictional town of Mattaponi Courthouse, Virginia for a snowy, Sunday morning:

This was a pretty rough week in Mattaponi. Leander Lovett, the town street sweeper was out trying to clear the sidewalk when a big VDOT snowplow came along and buried him and his freshly cleaned sidewalk under two feet of snow. Leander's not a real excitable fellow, but this really got to him. He had worked hard on that sidewalk, so he started running after the VDOT truck right down the middle of Main Street. People stopped and stared.

Yolanda Perkins was in town scrounging for necessities and when she saw Leander running down the street waving his shovel at the big orange VDOT truck she was so shocked she dropped a box of Little Debbie Swiss Rolls and a six-pack of Diet Coke she was carrying.

Leander never caught the truck but he gave it a piece of his mind and he livened up the atmosphere in Mattaponi. Leander hadn't caused this much of a stir since last year's St. Patrick's Day parade when he leapt in front of a little orange Shriner's car to save a Dalmatian that fell off a fire truck. But that's another story. What we're talking about is snow. And there was plenty of it in Mattaponi, too.

In fact this was the most snow in Mattaponi since the blizzard of 1888. That was the greatest snowstorm of all time. It shut down the major cities on the East Coast like Washington and New York with drifts that were 5 and 6 feet deep. Over 200 sailors lost their lives, some of them just out on the Chesapeake Bay. They called it the White Hurricane. Incredible winds - over 45 miles an hour. And over 400 people died. Those kind of storms you don't forget.

It got me to thinking and I went back to find an old diary that I've got from a Methodist circuit riding preacher who lived back in those days. He was an interesting guy. Very dedicated to the Lord and a very powerful preacher. He used to hold camp meetings down on the Po River near Mattaponi that would last for two weeks or more and people would come from as far away as Richmond to hear him. Just a dynamic preacher. And he was the one who got a small group of folks meeting together regularly for spiritual enrichment in Mattaponi and they later became the Mattaponi Methodist Episcopal Church, South, which today is the Mattaponi United Methodist Church.

His name was Moshe Rubenstein. Now I grant you that that's not a very common name for a Methodist preacher. But Moshe didn't grow up in a Methodist home. He was a Jew who owned a tailor's shop in New York City, but one day a customer invited him over to a Methodist church on the Lower East Side. He was overwhelmed by it all, had an incredible encounter with Christ and that day answered the altar call and became a Methodist.

Later he moved his tailor shop to Washington. And then he decided that the call to preaching was too great and he gave it all up to become a circuit-riding preacher.

Circuit-riding was different in those days than it is now. Ministers still had six or seven churches over a widespread area and the preacher would often have to travel every week, spending the night with church families on the road and leading services in each church at best once a month. But hard as it was it was the life Moshe knew he was called to live. He had no family and so he thought of himself as one of Jesus' original disciples, wandering from place to place with no possessions and nothing to encumber him or to keep him from God .... except the people he served.

I just want to read you some of the passages he wrote during the period of the blizzard of 1888. It was a surprising blizzard because it came in March after one of the warmest winters in twenty years. And it caught Rev. Moshe Rubenstein at one of the low points in his ministry. He was very discouraged by his flocks - particularly the one in Mattaponi - and he was beginning to feel a bit like Paul - travelling from place to place putting out fires as people squabbled and fought and struggled with one another.

This is the entry from March 10, two days before the storm hit:

I am spending the night with the Strawbottom family in Fredericksburg. God is faithful. God is good. As I left Arlington two days ago I could see the new monument to Washington rising above the Potomac. They say it will be dedicated soon. How I wish we Methodists could erect something monumental and lasting through our work in Virginia.

Tomorrow I head for Mattaponi. Oh, how I dread going there! I am scheduled to stay with Hans and Gretchen Gurlock and the two hellions they call sons. Last time I was with them the younger boy spread apple butter all over my favorite Wesley hymn, 'And Are We Yet Alive', in my pocket hymnal so that I have to sing it from memory now. The older boy couldn't quit talking about his new muzzle loader and the father kept wanting me to go slaughter the hogs with him. Lord, grant me patience. Mercifully I only have to stay with this brood for one night!

And this gathering of Christ's church in Mattaponi - it is far from perfect. Each person claims to be graced with the spiritual gifts God gives in Christ - and they are. But they argue incessantly over who is the greater leader. Brother Mossbacher is convinced that he has the gift of prophecy, but none of the others will let him speak because they accuse him of gossiping. Sister Victoria Tarback is a skilled healer, but she is shy and feels threatened by the noisy gongs and clashing cymbals of the congregation. What shall I do with my sheep?

Resolved: As a spiritual exercise this week I will end each entry with a note of thankfulness for the people God has sent me throughout the day, for Christ has told us that we shall meet him each day in the faces of our suffering brothers and sisters. And did not the Apostle Paul begin and end each letter that he wrote with words of thankfulness for the people in that congregation - even though he, too, was often cross and perturbed with them? Very well, Lord, this night I give thanks for Elijah, Elizabeth and Mephibosheth Strawbottom who have opened their home to me and who have welcomed me as Christ's own servant. God is faithful. God is good.

Sunday, March 11 - A few flakes of snow have begun to fall as I write this entry by the dwindling embers of the fire. A sudden chill has entered the air and the Gurlock children are excited by the possibility of sledding in the morrow's sun. Gretchen is finally putting the older child to bed and Hans is still talking to me as I write this. I told him that I must spend some time in reflection and journaling as the noble John Wesley did. I made a grand gesture of pulling this book from my saddlebag and stationing myself at the family table. But he is still talking to me about slaughtering the hogs if the weather stays chilled on the morrow. Lord, forgive me for ignoring him.

Today I preached twice for the saints of Mattaponi. Each time I spoke on the meaning of community. In the evening meeting I used Paul's text from 1 Corinthians 1:9 in which he reminds the divided Corinthian church that God has called them into a koinonia - a close relationship, a community, formed by God's son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. I discussed with them how sharing in this way meant bearing one another's burdens and mutually respecting one another's gifts. As soon as the meeting was over Jeremiah Colliflower loudly accused Brother Mossbacher of slighting him. A dispute broke out over the amount of money reported in the evening offering. And Sister Tarback broke down in tears which everyone ignored.

My spirit is deeply grieved for this church. I despair of binding them together. I search my soul to see if any hint of powerful preaching may be found there. Nevertheless I am grateful. It is what I am called to do. And so I close this entry with my prayers of thankfulness for the evening. Lord, thank you for your people in Mattaponi who I am called to shepherd. Thank you for Sister Victoria's gentleness, for Sister Hannah's devotion to serving the community, and for Brother Jeremiah Colliflower's [several things are written here and then scratched out] for Brother Colliflower's existence. Thank you for this family which has offered me shelter on this cold and blustery night. Thank you for young Frederick and Gunther who are teaching me patience. Thank you for Gretchen who is teaching me hospitality. And thank you for Brother Hans who is at this instant teaching me about something called chitterlings. (My mother is rolling over in her grave). God is faithful. God is good.

Monday, March 12 - A violent wind is howling outside the Gurlock home where I am staying for a second night. The snow outside is waist-deep now with some drifts approaching the roof of the outbuilding in the rear of the home. Though I had hoped to be in another place tonight (I had REALLY hoped to be in another place tonight) I am forced by the snow to endure…er…enjoy the hospitality of my brothers and sister for another night. Brother Wesley said to never stay in one place any longer than is absolutely necessary. Now I understand why - he knew about the Gurlocks.

But I am giving thanks once again. In our time together I was able to hear from Sister Gretchen about the troubles and illnesses in the families of our Methodists here. In the evening we shared in a fine meal together and by the fire after dinner we had a joyous time of worship and Bible study which was not dampened either by the weather or by Brother Hans' snoring. I only wish more of the koinonia had been able to share in it.

Hans is once again talking to me as I write this note. He seems very distraught about not being able to slaughter the hogs due to the snow. But I persist in my efforts to give thanks in all things and so I close my entry today with thankfulness for this family which has surrounded me with warmth. God is faithful. God is good.

Tuesday, March 13 - Good Lord, deliver me from Mattaponi! The snow has now blocked the door entirely. The wind continues to scream through the windows. To go outside would be to invite certain death and yet I feel I am ready to take that risk rather than spend one more hour in this chamber of horrors!

Never have I felt so trapped and alone! Young Frederick sings 'Yankee Doodle Dandy' incessantly while playing with an infernal train that boasts a clanging bell. He pretends that it is one of the new electric trolley cars which have only recently come to Richmond and he continually rolls it noisily across the wooden floor as if he were rolling down Church Hill to the Capitol yelling, "Look out Governor, here I come!" Gunther practices his fiddle in the corner with a skill that reminds one of a cat in heat. Gretchen has a pot boiling over on the stove and Hans sits at the kitchen table sharpening his 'pig-sticking' knife while muttering darkly about sausages and pickled pig's feet.

What is it that makes it so hard for me to accept the people that God has given me to lead? How can a congregation of saints be built from raw material such as this? What will hold us together in the koinonia community that the Apostle speaks of?

I look out the window tonight at the cold sky, still obscured by the clouds of snow as I continue the discipline of thankfulness. Thank you, God. Thank you even for the Gurlocks. God is faithful. God is good.

Wednesday, March 14 - Tonight I look up at stars as the snow has finally stopped. We cleared a path from the front door today and for the first time in several days saw a glimmer of sunlight strike the pristine landscape. What had been a muddy, cluttered yard is now blanketed by God's own covering. And everything looks new.

And so does my heart. For today we were visited by Sister Victoria who came through the drifts to see me. She shared with me the cause for her tears on Sunday last. She spoke of her pain at the church's divisions and struggles. But it was her gift of healing that I needed.

As she spoke she said, "I know that I need not despair. For we are not called to build the Church by relying on our own strengths and merits. It is Christ who calls us. It is Christ who strengthens us. It is Christ who will make us blameless on the day of his coming. God is faithful. God has made us one with Christ."

What a profound insight she has. In my black depression I had lost sight of the grace God gives to redeem us even when we fail to be what God wants us to be. It is a grace that comes through Jesus Christ who comes to make all things new. We are earthen vessels, destined to break and decay - but God has chosen us to bear this treasure. And we, sinful as we are, have been chosen to share with Christ in a koinonia - a sharing in his death so that we may share in his life.

I will not save this congregation in Mattaponi. I cannot do it. I cannot even save myself from the burdens of three days in the Gurlock household. But God is faithful. God will save through Christ. And God can make a house for himself even among the Methodists of Mattaponi, for they are Christ's own people.

And so tonight I give thanks to God once more. I give thanks to God for Sister Victoria who has the spiritual gift of healing. I give thanks to God for the Gurlocks and even for Hans who is telling me at this instant that he has cleared a path to the pigpen. And I give thanks to God for the grace that he has shown to me, for the strength he has given me, and for the power he has granted me to change. God is faithful. God is good.

Yes, it was a heck of a storm, that Blizzard of '88. And for Moshe Rubenstein it was a spiritual experience. It's truly amazing how your world can fall apart and be put back together again in the midst of cabin fever. But that's Christ's work - if you believe in that kind of thing. Which I do. Thanks be to God. God is faithful. God is good.

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Paul, called as an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes, the brother, to the Church of God which is in Corinth, to those made holy in Christ Jesus, to those called saints, together with all of those in every place who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God for you always because of the grace of God given to you in Jesus Christ, because in every way you have been enriched in him, with every word and all knowledge, just as the witness of Christ has been made fast within you, so that you do not want for any charism as you anticipate the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will strengthen you to the fulfillment, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful -- God, through whom you have been called into the close relationship of his son Jesus Christ, our Lord.