Mothers and Fathers, Coaches Too

Last night was our last game of the baseball season, a season that ultimately started in April with Spring Baseball. After taking a month off, Fall Baseball began. We are done, ending our season last night with a victory. A couple of things I have learned this season:

1) Coaching my strong-willed son is more of a challenge than I would have imagined

2) Our children need coaches (well parents, teachers, and adults) who will be role models for them.

The second lesson I learned comes on the heals of an interesting situation that won't seem to go away. Our game on Monday (which we lost) unfortunately included a scene where the opposing coach yelled across the diamond at our coaching staff with sarcasm and anger. Keep in mind, our players were watching. His players were watching. His argument was not only out of line with the rules, but also included an anger and sarcasm that perhaps did not set a positive example for the young eyes and ears that were there. As is usual with such arguments, it didn't matter and they won and advanced in the winners bracket. But it wasn't over for the other coach. He came out to our last game last night (a meaningless game in the consolation bracket) to not only root against us, but to tell the opposing coach that we were cheaters.

I tend to be aggressive and let my testosterone get a hold of me in the spirit of competition, but never to the disadvantage of a child. As our game ended last night, I kept thinking about my interactions through the season and whether I was a positive role model for the players on our team. Did they learn the game? Yes. Did they learn sportsmanship and life skills? To be determined. Maybe that's why I didn't sleep last night.

How are we modeling and living in the way of Christ ( A Christian's goal). But also as parents and coaches, as teachers and adults in children's lives, how are we living in our children's eyes?

Old and New

On two different occasions in the Gospels, Jesus encounters fisherman (who he would become his disciples) who are having no luck out on the lake. In one encounter, he suggests they push out a little further and let their nets down in deeper water and the result is so many fish that their nets are busting. In the second encounter, Jesus suggests they put their nets down on the right side of the boat rather than on the left and again they have great success.

Studying the text offers different insights into this matter. Putting the nets down in deeper water may suggest that there are those at the depths of humanity who need to be caught up in Jesus love and brought into the kingdom. Putting the nets on the right side of the boat rather than the left may be a suggestion about left brain vs. right brain where our old way of calculating and managing (left brain) should give way to a more creative way and a revisioning of of how we do things. Either way, Jesus seems to step into an old world expressing a need for constant renewal.

Maybe a new job is what you desire OR a new way of doing the old one with a need of redefining your position, a re-envisioning of its contours. Maybe a new relationship OR some fresh ways of acting within the old one relationships, so that they get injected with passion again and you begin to laugh and sing and skip and look forward to being with the people in your life. Maybe a different approach to a spiritual side of life, so that everything looks different and throbs with beauty and meaning and vitality again.

Renewal at the hand of God, aren't all things possible within the life we have been given?

Where Were You?

I remember sitting in the bank drive-up with my mom when I was in elementary school. She was doing her banking business when a song came over the radio and my mother began to tear up. "Listen to this, Bradley." There we sat and listened to the song Abraham, Martin, and John. My mother grew nostalgic as she began to share about that very day was the anniversary of JFK's assassination and how she could remember where she was when the news was shared across the country.

We all have those moments. I remember sitting in fifth grade science when they told us over the intercom that the Challenger Space Shuttle exploded 73 seconds into take off; we are all interested as it carried the first public school teacher with them. For the children of the 80’s, it was the JFK shooting equivalent. It was an event that defined a whole generation: generation X.

And yet the same would happen – for the millennial generation. September 11, 2001 two hijacked planes would crash into the World Trade Center in New York City, a third into the Pentagon in Washington DC, and a fourth in Pennsylvania. Do you know where you were?
Again, we were horrified while watching the World Trade Center crashes over and over and over. With today’s media we got closer than we ever wanted to be. An event that defined a whole generation: the millennial generation.

There are moments for each generation that cause telephones to ring in schools across the nations, classes to be cancelled, shopping centers to closed, cause people stop working, clergy to open churches for prayer, for citizens to be in mourning. The sinking of the Titanic, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, the assassination of JFK, the Challenger explosion, Columbine High School, September 11. They are events that according to sociologist Carl Manheim that shape generations and affect the way they approach everyday life.

As we remember this week a moment in time, where were you and how has it shaped you? Your faith? Your life?

Our Hands

If you think about what your hands are doing right now ... how would you describe their action? I have just been thinking about that a lot lately as I went from two hands to one hand to now a hand and a half. My hands are always busy typing, dialing, shuffling, pitching, holding, carrying, pushing, steering ... all in ways that serve myself, my job, my agenda.

Is that a reflection of our relationship with God? This past Sunday we talked about contentment. We use analogies like "keeping up with the Joneses" or "the grass is greener on the other side" to describe discontent in life or the pursuing of contentment. But in many ways we find our hands grabbing to obtain or achieve. Paul talks about contentment in Philippians 4, that as he concludes with "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," he leads into that text by suggesting he has learned to be content in all situations. "I know what it is to have plenty, and what it is to be in need," he writes, "but I have learned to be content."

Psalm 23, that favorite Psalm suggests that the Shepherd makes us lie down in green pastures ... to be at home where we are led. The Shepherd leads us beside still waters and refreshes our soul ... constant renewal of who we are. The Shepherd comforts us in times of trial ... giving comfort. We shall dwell in the Shepherd's house forever ... contentment that is eternal. The Shepherd provides.

So, back to those hands, are they grasping or are they open and ready to receive whatever it is God gives us?

Paul

It's been two years now since this herbal doctor from the Netherlands ended up on our church lawn. It may seem minor, but the few days he spent with us here at Faith UMC left a mark on my life and as this fall starts to unfold I certainly wish I saw his bike pulling into our lot.

While we were out dining as the reel faith small group, I received a phone call from another pastor who said he sent "this homeless man" to our church. For whatever reason, his church was not open to have a tent pitched in their yard. So at 9:30 at night, this pastor sent this man to Faith United Methodist Church, our church, our community - perhaps knowing that we would make room for this newcomer.

As we got back to the church, we drove around the building, trying to find the staked out tent but found nothing until almost everyone had left. And I saw a man, out under the trees with a flashlight attached to his head, making his arrangements for the night. His name was Paul; he was from the Netherlands and had been in the United States for 8 years. With an understanding of holistic medicine and a heart for Jesus, he had been across the United States 3 times on his bicycle. I called him over to the fence to get his story and it was apparent how frustrated he was with Champaign. How he was treated by city employees and the church left a rather negative mark of how he saw our community as a community of closed doors. I certainly heard more than I anticipated because I was only checking with him to make sure he was comfortable so I could get moving and continue my evening.

I didn’t think it was necessary to bring him in the building as he had set up his tent for the night and the phone call I received was not asking us to put him up for the night but just to provide some space in our yard for him. Knowing that we have a security system that I haven’t been able to figure out yet, it was easy to use the alarm as the excuse when he asked if he could sleep inside for the night. “I’m sorry, Paul,” I began, “but if I need to turn the security off at night, I need about 24 hours notice.” I was heading back to my van at that point and he, on his way back to his tent, looked out of the corner of his eye and said, “Jesus wouldn’t make you wait 24 hours.”

To make a long story short, we invited him into our building where he stayed five nights. But that made people uncomfortable as well. As open and serving as a church we are, fact is we live in an age where we are driven by fear and mistrust. Sure, you could point to 9/11 and our heightened concern for our own personal safety in daily life. But we are also led to question our leaders, looking at every election we gaze with speculation. There is also mistrust of church leadership (yes, we as a church have failed at times, leading people to question), but yet the mistrust also carries over to our peers and those who we know and those whom we don’t know.
We question peoples intentions and believe that their pursuit is purely for personal gain and believe that they will do us wrong in the process or even injure us. And yet, Jesus’ words to us are counter-testimonial to the way we live life in saying that if we can’t trust the intentions of our fellow Christians, if we can’t believe someone who bears the names of Christ on their hearts and is offering us a drink or seeking a drink, then we’ve got some real problems. And the future state of God’s kingdom on Earth is without hope.

I keep coming back to the fact that perhaps Paul came to Champaign to challenge us Christians as to our level of hospitality and to gauge how open our churches really are. Are we as open and serving as we are called to be? Paul's image in my mind keeps reminding me of that.