This is Maundy Thursday. This is the night we commemorate the Last Supper and the giving of Holy Communion to the church. Jesus, on this night, took bread and blessed it as any Jew would – but he made a slight change to the prayer over the bread. He broke it and gave it to his disciples saying “Take this and eat it, this is my body, given for you.” When he did the traditional prayer over the wine, he again changed it “Take this and drink, this is my blood, the blood of the new covenant.”

Tonight we will hear those words again. Tonight we will break bread, we will take the cup. Tonight we will remember as He was turned over to the Roman authorities.

Tonight, as we take the bread and the cup, we will remember.

On Monday I sold my pickup truck. Now my daughter is upset because she really loved that truck. And in some way, I grieve a bit because I really liked my truck too. But it was time to move on.

The truck was actually a blessing when we bought it from our friends and neighbors. It was during a dark time in our lives. My wife’s “aunt” died and so we needed to empty her apartment. My mom fell, had a hip replacement, and we came to the realization that she could not live on her own anymore. So I had to empty her apartment and move her into a nursing home. And we still had a house that needed to be fixed up and sold. Having a pick up was a great help.

But its time had come. It was no longer beneficial to keep, and so we put it up for sale. And this got me thinking about how we view “stuff”. Often things are very expendable in this country. We think little about throwing something away and replacing it with the newest version. But that is not my upbringing. I grew up in a household that could not afford new things. Early on I learned how to repair small appliances and do plumbing work because we could not afford repairmen. I did basic car maintenance, painting, paneling and carpet laying. For me, repairing old came long before buying new.

And in addition, when something’s “time has come”, I appreciate the blessing that it was. Whether an old car or truck, or piece of furniture or appliance, I am thankful for its service to our family. That attitude is completely different from the general throw away culture in which we live. And my attitude comes from my relationship with God. Just as I believe that the old snow blower can be repaired, God believes that I can be repaired. Just as I am willing to work on the old dryer, God is willing to work on me. And when it is time to replace the dryer, I will thank God for the old one – kind of like I hope to hear God say to me “well done good and faithful servant” when my time here comes to completion.

So the next time you get rid of something, consider its value. Consider what it meant to you. And give God thanks.

Bill

At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him. Mark 1:12-14

I took a class in seminary about the temptations, and different theologians view points – reading such greats as Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther and John Calvin. I have both formally and informally studied human nature and sin. I have read and meditated on the three gospel versions of this story countless times and taught them almost as much.

And often all we ever hear from this gospel lesson is this message: “Jesus overcame the devil’s temptations, so you can too” in that great western viewpoint of “we can do anything by ourselves if we just pull up our bootstraps.” But we don’t. None of us are as successful as Jesus are we?

I know that I am not. That’s why so many observe the season of lent by giving up something – we are hoping to change a bad habit – hoping to change something about ourselves that we can’t seem to change without attaching it to a season. And even then we have difficulty, and we often fall prey to those temptations again. But instead of beating up ourselves, instead of giving up because we can’t do it, repent and BELIEVE the GOOD NEWS.

The incarnation was not so that Jesus would just say “look, here is how you live – just do it like me”, rather, Jesus entire life, ministry, death and resurrection was for one purpose – restoration. His ministry, his life, his suffering and crucifixion and His resurrection was to restore us to God –and this is His work – His not ours.
It is not about us being so perfect that we overcome Satan and the temptations, rather that Jesus’ work, Jesus’ merit, Jesus alone brings us salvation. And that is good because quite frankly, I cannot do it myself.

I have made many decisions in life. Some were good, some were bad. Some were God honoring, and some were not. But I’m in good company, for as the Apostle Paul said in Romans 7:15 “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”

And nobody is tougher on me than me. Nobody disappoints me more than me. Someone else does something wrong, and I’m willing to forgive them right away, but if I do something wrong, I carry it like a cross – letting it’s weight bear down on me and preventing me from achieving my God given potential. I let the weight of my sin drag me down. And I’d bet the same is for you – nobody is tougher on you than you. We seem to be willing to extend grace to others long before we extend grace to ourselves.

That is where Jesus comes in. He overcame the powers of darkness he overcame death he overcame temptations precisely because we cannot do it ourselves. The entire Lenten season reminds us that we are not perfect, we are not living in God’s light all the time, but not in a “beat us up way” rather Lent is about us rekindling our relationship with God. It is about us turning from our wrongful ways and following Christ, knowing that we rely fully on Him to reconcile with God.

As we continue down this Lenten journey, be kind to yourself. Try to live as you ought, spend some time with God in prayer, meditation and scripture reading, turn to Jesus Christ as your redeemer. Repent and believe the Good News.

Merry Christmas everyone!
Santa left me a very special present this year. It was an ornament of Santa kneeling before the Christ Child. And when I received it, a lot of emotions ran through me. You see, every Christmas season my Aunt Marie would put out her statue of this image – a larger version of Santa kneeling before Christ. And every year this would be a reminder to my younger self that Christmas was first and foremost about Jesus Christ coming into the world.
And yet, I love Santa. I have been an “Official Agent of Santa” for nearly 30 years. I’ve put on the iconic red costume and entertained both children and adults as the “right jolly old elf.” It is amazing how seeing Santa can bring people in all situations to a place of happiness.
For many years my wife and I have gone to nursing homes to visit hospice patients. I, donning the suit, my wife as Mrs. Clause and any assorted elves who accompanied us would sing carols and spend time with those who were about to leave this side of eternity. And Santa would always bring a smile.
For me, portraying Santa is a way to proclaim the good news. While everyone sees Santa, they are brought the Christmas message through the carols we would sing. While they enjoyed seeing Kris Kringle, they were assured of seeing Jesus.
In our celebration of Christmas, there is room for Santa, elves, reindeer and talking snowmen along side the truth of the Nativity with the shepherds and the Epiphany with the Wise men. Each brings something to the table. One, a fun secular holiday filled with Christmas magic, and the other a reminder that God loves so much that He sent His son to us.
Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians (2:9-19); Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And that includes Santa.
As we continue to celebrate this wonderful time of year, let us always keep in mind that we truly celebrate the birth of Jesus – God Incarnate.
May your Christmastide be wonderful and may God bless you abundantly in the New Year,

Bill

The Advent season is upon us. And as always, I am asking my congregation to journey through Advent, to spend some time with God preparing to again receive the Christ Child in our hearts. But this is a hard thing to do in a world of constant pressures. There are so many things to do to prepare for the “perfect” Christmas (as if that truly existed anyway). We all want to get the shopping done, the house decorated, the baking completed all before the 24th when we gather together to sing Silent Night with our lighted candles, which for some is the only “holy” thing done during the Advent season.
Now I am not saying our Christmas preparations are unimportant. We’ve already begun to decorate the house and have been purchasing gifts. We’ve even gotten the tree a week earlier than normal this year (although it is not yet fully decorated!). But we are also observing Advent. Each Sunday night we have dinner in the dining room and light the Advent wreath. We are striving to balance the busyness of the season with the needs of the family, and the needs of our own spiritual lives. We are taking time to be together doing fun things and we are taking time together to enrich our spiritual lives.
This morning my daughter got up early. She wanted to sit with me on the sofa before I began the morning duties of making breakfast and lunches. But that is my time for personal devotions. And so I asked her to join with me. We spent some time praying together and I told her some bible stories. We talked about John the Baptist and about Jesus. It was a special Advent moment, not because of a particular theme, but because it is a holy moment in anticipation of Jesus. It was a moment of preparing ourselves for the day – before the busyness set in. And it was wonderful.
As you journey through this month, journey with Advent. Spend more time waiting, watching and hoping. Open your hearts to God and see what happens.

And may the God of all hope bless you abundantly this season,

Bill

Healing. It is a word with many meanings. For some, healing is a cure to their disease – a cure for cancer, a cure for diabetes, etc. For others, it is coming to terms with or acceptance of the disease. And there are others who find healing with family and friends in the midst of the suffering. Healing can be many things for many people.

I believe in healing. I believe in all these aspects and more of healing. I believe that as the church we are called to heal. For some it might be praying for the healing or curing of the illness. I’ve prayed with many people for healing in this way. It is the most prayed prayer I say with others. But sometimes I am called to pray differently, and that call might come from the afflicted, or from the Holy Spirit.

When I was doing Clinical Pastoral Education, a part of my seminary training, I spent the summer at the Reading Hospital Chaplain Department and I prayed many prayers. One time I walked into a room and the patient was elated. “I was praying that someone would come in and pray for me and bring me Communion.” That sticks with a person. This patient knew in her heart that God would send someone else to intercede for her, and that she would find healing in the Lord’s Supper.

But then there was another patient. It was one of my last days at the hospital. Technically we were not supposed to visit patients, but were going around saying “goodbye” to the staff. One nurse asked me to visit a patient. And so I went into the room and asked how I could help. The patient, an older woman, looked to her husband and said “tell the priest I want to die.” At first I was stunned. I asked a few questions and found out she was suffering much pain, and there was little hope for a cure.

So I took a moment and started to pray. And in my prayer, I asked God to bring this woman the healing she required. I didn’t ask for her pain to abate. I did not ask for a cure. I asked God to heal her.

I have no idea what happened to this woman. I don’t know if God cured her, healed her, or if she suffered for years. I just do not know. What I do know is that I had to pray for her. And that is what I do today. I pray for people. And I ask for healing – God’s healing.

We have embarked on a healing journey. We have begun a healing service on the second Sunday of the month. At our first service we had three members of the community come for prayer (and Communion), and we prayed for them. This is our call. This is my call. If you need healing prayer, if you have a family member in need of healing prayer, please come to the service, or contact me. I would be happy to pray.

September is upon us, and that means the school year begins again. I was thinking about my elementary school days which included music lessons. I used to play clarinet. Some of you might remember a children’s sermon where I brought in my instrument and struggled through Amazing Grace. I was preaching on the Parable of the Talents and how we are gifted reminding the children that if we fail to use our gifts, we lose them. Since I stopped playing my clarinet in 5th grade, I lost the ability. Ask any musician or athlete or artist what is the most important aspect of getting better and they will respond “practice”. Our lives of faith are the same way. If we get out of the habit of weekly worship, we lose aspects of our faith. Yes God still loves us, yes Jesus is still our savior, but we lose living the life God calls us to live. Jesus came that we might have life abundant, but when we do not practice the spiritual disciplines; we do not have that life. By skipping church, we weaken one of the disciplines, and that only leads to weakening of the rest of our spiritual lives. Other than shut-ins, I rarely meet people who do not attend worship on a regular basis but continue to pray with others, read the word with others, sing praises to God with others, give part of their time, talent and treasure to God’s church, and go forth making disciples. The truth is church attendance is important for a well-rounded Christian life. Missing weekly worship means we miss the opportunity to stand together as a covenant community of faith. You are a part of the covenant and you are both wanted and needed. It’s not about money; it’s not about worship attendance numbers. It is about building up the body of Christ. You cannot build your muscles without some form of exercise and you cannot build your faith muscles without the church.
Worship attendance is an important step to firm up our faith. And September is a great time to return to church. Sunday’s will be busier as Sunday school begins for all ages. The choir and bell choir will return to the sanctuary and I am looking at some other ways to enhance our worship service. The healing service will begin in October, bringing us another outreach to the community. If you have fallen away recently, if you are trying to figure out your own faith, if you are seeking a greater relationship with God, then I urge you to start this Sunday and commit yourselves to weekly worship.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2

It began back in May. Some members who had been struggling with health began to worsen. Then there was a death and funeral. Then another. And two more after that. Plus emergency room visits, hospitalizations, nursing home placements and hospice care, and it is not over. My congregation is again in the cycle of multiple illnesses and funerals. It happened last year as well, beginning early in the spring and going through the summer.
And as I reflected on all this, as I looked over some notes from years past, I’ve come to realize just how much this congregation has faced. We are a heavy “pastoral care needs” congregation. This is in part to the aging of the church, we, like so many small congregations, are aging. We do have some young families, but we are older. On the other hand, we have also had health crisis with the younger members as well. To be truthful, most churches go through the same things. We just tend to do it in clumps.
And so as I looked over pages of notes, plans and ideas that never came to fruition because of crisis ministry, as I sat down thoroughly exhausted trying to put together the weekly bible study, as I discussed the situation with my best friend and guide – my wife, I realized just how much this church needs God. And yes I realize how silly that statement sounds, but hear me out. Churches so often go through the motions of ministry, tending to the needs of the institution. Yes we worship and pray but there is something missing.
So this past Wednesday instead of studying chapter 17 of Revelation like we were scheduled to do, we stopped. I looked around the room and saw people who were grieving the sudden loss of loved ones. I saw someone whose husband was facing surgery. I saw someone with an ongoing family situation. I saw someone missing from the group – due to illness in her family. And I’ve seen these things before, but on this day, I saw through the eyes of Jesus.
I said “you cannot bear your burdens alone. I cannot bear my burdens alone. So today we are going to bear each others burdens and lift them up to God.” And suddenly, every eye filled with tears. We began with silence, just experiencing God’s presence. Then we acknowledged those gifts from God for which we are thankful. We turned to the word, reading a psalm and a gospel lesson, and just sat listening for God to speak to us. And then we lifted up our prayer requests. I began to pray and just asked for names of those we need to remember. The list grew and grew. It expanded beyond our congregation, into our extended families, into our community and even the world. We prayed for the sick. We prayed for the grieving. We prayed for the lonely. We prayed for those who have no one else to pray for them. And we prayed some more.
After prayer, we talked. We told stories, we shared burdens, and we supported each other. We were bearing one another’s burdens. It was, without a doubt, one of the most powerful ministry experiences I have ever been a part of. We were surrounded by the Holy Spirit, we were looking into the eyes of Jesus, we were being held in the hands of the Father. It was the church at its best.
The great mystic Teresa of Avila said these words: “Christ has no body but yours, no hands, no feet on earth but yours, yours are the eyes with which he looks compassion on this world, yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.” And when this happens, the church is a beautiful thing indeed.

What started as a grass roots effort became an incredible event – a Father Daughter dance was held in our community. The people who put it together worked very hard to make this a special night for the dads and daughters. Thank you so much to all of you who created this event. Thank you to all the sponsors for your commitment to our community. It was a wonderful evening. Thanks also to all the fathers who brought their daughters (and all the moms who helped with hair, dresses, ties and corsages – we would be lost without you).

Besides the great food and treats there was, of course, dancing. The D.J. knew his audience – and asked for their help singing a song he hoped they “knew”, and the room was filled with “Let It Go”. Then he asked the girls to go get their fathers, grandfathers, uncles or whatever man brought them to come onto the dance floor. He played one of those smaltzy songs usually reserved for the Father Daughter dance at the wedding reception and every dad looked into his daughter’s eyes with incredible love. I looked around and saw more than a few misty eyes, mine included.

As I looked around at all the beautiful young ladies and their fathers, and I felt my daughter hugging me, I was reminded of something. I love my daughter. I love her with an incredible love. I know that nothing can separate me from that love – that no matter what she does in the future, whatever mistakes she will make, whatever choices she may make against my wishes, I will always love her without question, for my daughter is a gift from my Loving Father, who loves me with the same kind of love.
Dads (and moms) – as you tuck your daughters (or sons) in tonight, look at them. Look at the precious miracles they are. And give God thanks.

Bill

This past Sunday I wore my clerical collar at worship.  I don’t usually do that, but was heading out to a hospital visit right after worship.  I like to wear my collar on hospital visits as it serves an important purpose – identifying me as clergy. 

Today this seems to be a controversial topic.  Many of my colleagues do not wear clericals, with the reason cited that we do not need to be identified as something special.  But that is not the reason I wear mine.  I wear it just as a security guard or nurse wears specific clothing to their profession.  It is about quick identification.

This started during my Clinical Pastoral Education in seminary.  For a summer I was stationed in a hospital setting learning pastoral care skills.  This hospital had a policy that every discipline had a specific uniform for identification purposes.  Chaplains wore a blue sweater.  It made total sense one night when I was called to the Emergency Room.   I walked in and even before identifying myself to the charge nurse, she said “Chaplain, room 5.  The man wants no treatment.”  I immediately knew what to do – go and pray as this man died.

Upon ordination and my call as pastor I began to wear the collar on hospital calls.  I can approach the desk at an emergency room and quickly get a lot of information on the sick congregation member.  Or when I am with a member, the staff gives me some time and space for prayer. 

But there is one more reason.  The collar gives strangers permission to approach me.  Because people recognize the collar as clergy, I have been asked to pray many times.  Most recent was this past Sunday when I was walking back to my car.  A couple exited their truck and asked me to pray for someone who just had an operation.  We stood there, hand in hand in the parking lot of the hospital praying.  It was one of those powerful Holy Spirit moments.  Had I been wearing an ordinary dress shirt and tie, nobody would have prayed with two people who really needed the peace of God which passes all understanding.

So yes I will continue to wear my collar.  And I will continue to get comments (some downright rude and nasty) from people, including my colleagues, because it announces to people that I serve Christ.  And that is far more important.

 Peace be with you,

 Bill