Is This How You Come To Us, Jesus?

A few years ago, lying in bed, sleep subsiding and yet not quite awake, a simple tune began burrowing into my consciousness. It played.... and it played again. And again. 

Next day and the next, same thing. Strange! And it persisted. 

After a time, I could hum the tune when I woke up. I decided to see if I could hum it and add some guitar chords. The chords presented themselves in a matter of minutes. 

Eventually, in my waking slumber, I began putting words to the tune. They rolled out quickly as well. 

Christmas was coming. An invitation was extended for Christmas Eve special music numbers at St John/St Paul Church. Christmas words were beginning to align themselves with my slumber tune.

So the song emerged. I sang it that Christmas Eve.

I've decided to post a recording of it I made with my daughter Amanda. A little scary to post a home made song when you're not a song writer, and it's not hard to see where the presentation could improve, but I must say, I do like the message. The words connect what happened in Bethlehem with what happens with us. It talks about Jesus intertwining his life with ours. It testifies that we often see Jesus most clearly in the dark moments and in the humble moments in our lives. And it affirms that Christmas is all about God's love for us!

We have been through some very dark and humbling moments this year, just the kinds of times when we can expect to see Jesus and his surprising love for us. 

https://youtu.be/jNSNSATv6-0

"Is This How You Come To Us, Jesus?"

Words and music by Pastor Tim Keeler

Stable light,

Glowing light,

Darkest night

Angel flight

Manger bed,

Cows were fed,

Cradled head,

Love was said.

In a stable musty

A child, a shepherd must see,

Joseph came, he did not flee,

Mary answered, "Let it be."

Is this how you come to us, Jesus?

Is this how our lives intertwine?

In dark and humble moments

Your love begins to shine.

Shepherds doing what they do,

Passing time without a clue,

Soon to learn that all is new,

Angels grace the scruffy few.

Now we sense this gleaning:

Our God, who gives all meaning,

From heav'n to earth is leaning,

In flesh, intervening.

Is this how you come to us, Jesus?

Is this how our lives intertwine?

In dark and humble moments

Your love begins to shine.

We welcome you here blessed Jesus.

We welcome you into our lives.

Like shepherds and Joseph and Mary,

We welcome your surprise.

Gloria in excelsis!

Make A Leaf?

Could you make a leaf for me?

One leaf.  That’s all I ask.

Just one green or yellow or red leaf.  Let’s say...a maple leaf.

I don’t mean that I want you to draw a leaf for me.  I don’t want you to make one out of clay or fabric or wood.  Don’t bother tracing one on construction paper.

I wonder if you could make just one of those feathery, manufacturing dynamos that are falling in the billions around us right now.  It shouldn’t be hard.  There are bushels full of them just outside your door for you to study.

If you feel up to it, try making one that: 

-has a giant sun collector panel on it, one that can automatically turn itself towards the sun,

-has a big bunch of little tubes --microscopic tubes-- running through it in an intricate branching system

-can appear all by itself at just the right time in spring,

-can attach itself to a limb on a tree,

-is strong enough to withstand pelting rain, windstorms and droughts,

-can spend 6 or 7 months cooking up good food to send to the tree,

-is equipped with little breather holes to take bad things out of the air and replace those bad things with purified, oxygen laden air.

And if you don’t mind,  when this single leaf has weathered wind, hail, rain and scorching sun through spring and summer and has come to the end of its life, could you make it have one last hurrah?  Could you send it off in a blaze of colorful glory intense enough and beautiful enough to inspire poets and photographers and even little children?

God must have a hearty laugh every fall when the leaves let loose and take flight. We can’t make even 1 leaf.  One single leaf outstrips all of our technology. But God makes zillions of them every year----and then lets the work of his hands rain down upon  us in a blizzard of color.  These intricate machines --- manufacturing plants that give the tree what it needs to soar scores of feet into the air, and to build trunks and branches that can live hundreds of years --- are tossed to the ground to give all their intricacies back to the earth.

The creator jettisons every last one of these miracles of his hand,  tossing them to the wind,  knowing that he can do it all over again come spring.

Yes, there are terrorists, snipers, disease, hurricanes and war around these days..

They seem very powerful, but if you’ll pick up a leaf, you’ll know who is really in control and that, in the end, all will be well. 

Wrinkles

My first impression was that she was v-e-r-y wrinkled! 

She was unknown to me, but she was there at the funeral home with some of the other family members I had come to visit.  My eye gravitated to her as soon as I entered the room. She was an older woman who had a very expressive face.  Deep furrows mapped out lines in her cheeks and around her eyes.  She was, in a word, "wrinkly" ---- if that's a word.  

Now I don't mind wrinkles.  I think they are testimonies to a full life, the marks of wisdom and a well seasoned life.  Smooth faces are kind of like a new pair of jeans that haven't been broken in yet.  But wrinkled faces are one-of-a-kind treasures. They are like the rich patina on a piece of antique furniture that can't be duplicated on a piece of wood by a quick application of stain.  Wrinkles take time to make, like the slow changing of copper from its bright shiny glow to the greenish sheen it takes on over a period of years that says "this has stood the test of time." 

So, I noticed this woman's wrinkles, but something didn't seem right about them. Of course, it's not every day that I spend a great deal of time pondering someone else's wrinkles, especially when they belong to a person to whom I have just been introduced.  Still, there was no denying it.  Even to the recently introduced pastor, there was something peculiar about these wrinkles. But what was it?

Just then, my friend offered insight into this wrinkly faced woman:  "She really is a wonderful and happy person!"  With that, I saw that face completely rearrange itself.  The woman broke into a broad smile. Instant transformation! Then I knew what was wrong before: the woman wasn't smiling. That's what made those wrinkles seem unnatural.  When she smiled, every fold of skin, every grooved line, seemed to snap to attention.  Every surface line conformed itself perfectly with the muscles underneath. Every groove and muscle became one with the true spirit of that woman.  This is who she is.  She is a smiling person. That's what she spends most of her time doing.  Her wrinkles are marks of her happiness and her true nature.

In Advent, we spend a lot of time thinking about wrinkles and grooves and ruts and straight paths. John the Baptist steps onto the stage with words like, "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight." (Matthew 3:3)

This advent, I'm going to spend some time preparing by thinking of that woman and her wrinkly face.  When she grew into that smile, she aligned her face, her grooves, her muscles, and her spirit with God's purpose for her in life: to smile. She was doing what she does best.  The wrinkles got their kinks out and made straight paths in her face that seemed to go straight into the very heart of her being. 

It is a beautiful sight when our wrinkles get lined up with what God wants us to be. During Advent, may we be open to God's love and inspiration, and may our wrinkles be signs that the Christ child has made his home in our lives.

My Little Red Knife

I didn't know that I needed a little red knife when, more than a decade ago,
Martha's brother Frank presented one to me and one to all the family members
one Christmas.  I had been ignorantly sailing through life with a pocket that
was devoid of one of the most crucial items anyone could every carry.

And I didn't know it.

Now, if I reach down into my pocket and I don't feel that knife's familiar smooth side and ridges, panic sweeps over me.  Did I lose it?  Is it gone forever?  Where could it be?  Where did I have it last?

My little red knife is multi-faceted. There is, of course, a knife blade.
Then's there's the nail file which sometimes can double as a screw driver or
pry bar.  I particularly enjoy the mini-scissors.  When my wife is forcefully
asserting to me that someone stole her scissors (a rather uncomfortable
experience for me now that the kids are out of the house) I can at least whip
my little scissors out and offer them to her (while I'm trying to think where
I last had her scissors!).  My knife's tools are nicely rounded out with a
toothpick (cleanliness not guaranteed), and a small but effective pair of
tweezers.

Just in the last few months I have used my little red knife to open packages
and letters, cut my fishing line, peel an apple, cut pictures out of the
newspaper, dig splinters out of my finger, loosen a screw, saw through weeds
rapped around my rototiller, harvest broccoli in the garden and remove
something stuck between my teeth (it was an emergency--no time for
cleanliness!)

I even lent it to my brother one day recently when we ran out of minnows on
one of our crappie quests.  He used it to dissect a fish, the dissected parts
to be used for bait so that we would have something to present to the
especially ravenous crappies that day.  On the habitat trip, I performed
surgery on the hand of the local construction committee chairperson who's
finger had become home to what was supposed to be a part of the house.  My
tweezers grabbed that little sliver and restored his bliss.  They grabbed
several slivers that week as well as being used to reform ragged fingernails
torn in the construction process.

People depend upon me.  They depend upon me having my little red knife handy
at all times.  It has become a part of me.  My self image would suffer without
it.  And before it was given to me, I didn't even know I needed it.

My little red knife is a lot like faith.  A lot of people don't know they need
it, but when someone gives it to them, they soon can't figure out how they
ever got along without it.  They begin to carry Jesus' word's and promises
with them all the time.  They're continually reaching into their pocket or
their heart for it.  They find that they depend upon it, and others depend
upon them having it.

I want you to know that my little red knife, like my faith, is in my pocket,
giving me confidence, ready for action at all times.  I can't imagine how I
would get along without either one of them.

The Parson Ponders: Offering Plates

I've seen all kinds of them...brass, silver, aluminum, wooden.  I guess you can make an offering plate out of just about anything.  The fact is, I've discovered that when people want to give they can always find something in which to collect the offering.

Through the years, I have placed my offerings in hats, buckets, wicker baskets, china bowls, styrofoam cups, and paper bags.
I've seen five gallon water jugs fill with coins to support youth group trips.
It seems clear that if you give people opportunity to make an offering, they
will.  Something yearns within us until we share from our bounty.

As a child on a fishing vacation in Quebec, we attended a French speaking
Catholic church on a Sunday morning.  I couldn't understand the lessons nor
the sermon spoken in French; nor could I understand the liturgy sung in Latin.
But I did understand when the usher came around with what looked like my dad's
landing net.  He inserted that pole into our row, and passed the pouch on the
end of it to each one the row's occupants.  We may not have understood
anything else in the service, but we understood the offering.

At one mass worship service I attended, the offering was collected in Kentucky
Fried Chicken buckets.  There's something strange about having Colonel Sanders
smiling approvingly at you as you drop your money into the bucket.  But then,
maybe that's not such a bad idea.  Perhaps it would be good to have a smiling
Jesus on the side of our offering plates...or smiling children...or smiling
hungry people...or thankful senior citizens.

In the old testament people felt the urge to make offerings too.  They made
offerings for a variety of reasons.  Some felt guilty, and the offering helped
ease their conscience.  Some wished to honor another person, and they gave an
offering to God in tribute to the person.  Some gave an offering as they asked
for God's favor.

But mostly, they made offerings out of thanksgiving for the generosity of
their creator who gave them all that they had.  God created their world.  God
created them with all of their talents and abilities.  They offered their
"first fruits" as a sign that the first and the best of what they had belonged
to God.

In the New Testament, Jesus admired the widow who felt the urge to give to the
poor even though she herself was nearly penniless.  And since there was an
offering box for the poor outside the temple, this widow who felt blessed in
spite of her lack of funds dropped in her two coins, all that she had.

Even children understand the offering plates.  They love to bring their
offering and have the privilege of putting their quarter in the plate as it
goes by.  Sometimes Dad even lets them take hold of the plate and pass it
themselves in spite of the ever present danger of the slipped plate dropping
and banging to the floor and coins rolling to who knows where under the pew.
But then, as I have observed, even sure handed ushers occasionally lose
their grip on the full plate!

The offering plates aren't just about money.  They are about a deep seated
need within us to acknowledge the one who made us out of nothing.  Whether the
offering receptacles are made of fine polished brass or a cardboard chicken
holder, we will use whatever is at hand to offer up a portion of what has been
given to us.

The Back of the Head

October 11, 2015 -  I attended worship at David Lutheran Church in Canal Winchester last Sunday. I sat directly behind an older man. The back of his head captivated me. I couldn’t think who might be on the other side of that head, but that head posterior sure looked familiar. When he turned around during the passing of the peace, I instantly recognized him: “Hap!” Yes, it WAS a head I’d seen before: Pastor Hap Hasenhauer. I hadn’t seen him in over a decade, and that was when he served in Bucyrus and I in Galion, but once you’ve seen the back of a head, I guess it sticks with you. It reminded me of this Parson Ponders that I wrote in 2002.

I was sitting in my pew at a clergy conference.  We were at worship.  My thoughts were directed towards the goodness of God’s love and mercy.  But then I saw the back of  that head.  It was 3 or 4 rows ahead of me.  I said, “I’ve seen the back of that head before.  It looks like the head of that pastor who I used to know but haven’t seen for probably 20 years.”  I kept studying the back of the head of that pastor.  I’ll call him Pastor “Long-ago.”

I kept wondering.  I said, “I don’t ever remember studying the back of Pastor Long-ago’s head, but when I see it, I instantly know, or think I know that it is him, even though I haven’t seen him for two decades.  How very strange.”

A little later in the service, it was time for the passing of the peace.  I saw him turn around to pass the peace with those around him.  I saw his face.  “Nope,” I said, “I was wrong.  It’s not Pastor Long-ago.  It doesn’t look like him.” 

Still when he sat down again, and I was again confronted with the back of that head, I was struck anew by its familiarity.  It wasn’t until we got done with worship and got to our coffee and cookies that the riddle was answered.  As I strolled along munching a chocolate chip delight, a voice called out, “Well, it’s Tim Keeler!”  You guessed it.  It was Pastor Long-ago.  A face can change quite a lot in 20 years, I discovered.  But the back of the head, that’s another story.

We often say, “I know this or that like the back of my hand,” but it must also be true that we know people like the back of their head. I've been studying the backs of heads ever since.  I find that I know lots of people by the back of their head.

There are some important faith things we know that we often don't realize we know.  When Jesus told the disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them, and that he would come back and take them to that place, he ended with these words:  "And you know the way to the place where I am going." (John 14:4)  Thomas didn't know that he knew the way to where Jesus was going.  He questioned: "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

I have a feeling that just like we know more about the backs of people's heads than we think we know, all of us know more about faith than we think we know. We trip ourselves up.  We forget that we know about these things.  We get bogged down with trivial questions that block us from seeing the important truth that we already know.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  We know that.  We may not know every single answer to every extraneous question, but we know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  We know that our hope lies not in what we know but whom we know. 

Take a look at the back of a few heads this week.  I'll bet you'll be surprised at how many times you will be able to identify folks by the back of their head.  You know more about them than you think you know.

And I'll bet you know more about your savior than you think you know.  Whatever you don't know about him, you know that he is the way, the truth and the life.

The Creaking Toe

     I have a problem.  It's my toe.  It creaks.  At least I think that's what
it does.  I mean, saying that it squeaks doesn't seem right, and saying that
it cracks sounds like I should be headed for the emergency room.  Whatever the
right word for it is, my toe still makes funny noises when I walk.  I don't
know why.  It just does.  Seems like it always has.

     Most of the time I never notice or remember that I have a creaking toe.
When I'm walking around in the garage sweeping or nailing boards together I
never hear my toe creak.  When I'm walking uptown amid the noise of cars and
the wind, it's like my toe is the quietest piece of machinery anyone could
hope to own.  It's primarily when I'm "working" that I hear the "creak,
creak."  Do you know how quiet it can be walking down a hospital corridor?  Do
you know how a creaking toe can sound like a screaming siren when you're
creaking away down a hallway? Inevitably, the person I am visiting is in the
last room off the hallway, and I must creak past dozens of patients, nurses
and doctors who all must be saying to themselves, "What's that creaking
noise?"

     There was a time when I was very embarrassed by this.  I tried walking
stiff legged.  I tried arching my toe inside my shoe while I walked.  I tried
taking short steps so that my toe wouldn't bend so far.  Nothing worked.  I
even thought this might be a sign from the Lord that I shouldn't be a pastor.
After all, if I were a contruction worker, no one would ever know about my
creaking toe; but as a pastor, with the quietest of things to walk into--like
worship and funerals and marriage services -- oh my, disaster.

But then I thought of Moses, whose speech problem made him suggest to God that
he would make a very poor spokesman for God.  What if he would have become a
construction worker?  And Paul wrote of the "thorn in his flesh" that
indicated a physical problem he had, possibly epilepsy.  In 2 Corinthians 12
Paul says:  "Three times I prayed to the Lord about this and asked him to take
it away.  But his answer was: 'My grace is all you need, for my power is
greatest when you are weak.'"

I don't feel embarrassed by my creaking toe any longer, for it is at those
times when I am feeling the weakest -- when I speak for God to a person who is
facing a serious illness or a group of people trying to cope with the loss of
a loved one--that I hear the creak of my toe.  That creak is a reminder from
God, "My grace is all you need, for my power is greatest when you are weak."