No room to grow?

We spent much of the weekend in the flowerbeds…that once-a-year chore of cleaning up the sticks and leaves, topping the daffodils and tulips, pulling the year’s first weeds, planting our “annuals,” trimming and mulching. Hard work (our bodies remind us!) but satisfying. There's a real sense of accomplishment when it's done.

This year the job was a bit bigger than usual. Eight bushes along the front had to go. They were likely planted too close together more than a dozen years ago (when they were new and small). And even with regular trimming since then, they’d simply gotten out of hand…to the point where they were crowding each other and the sidewalk. It was ugly.

But not now. Those eight bushes were replaced with just four. Some new breathing space was opened for the remaining plants and the added color of more flowers. It really looks nice…better, I think, than I had imagined it would.

So…is there any room to grow in your life? Or are things so out of hand that all the color has been crowded out? I realize this isn’t an issue for everyone. But more and more of the folks I talk too seem absolutely harassed by their own calendars…by schedules often of their own making. Sure, there’s work. Add in that the kids (and/or grandkids) are in baseball, gymnastics, soccer, 4-H and go-kart racing...all at the same time. Plus, you’ve got to take care of the house and the cars and whatever additional stuff has accumulated over the years. And it sure would be nice to take some time this weekend for stuff you like to do...to go to the races, and the concert and the zoo.

“Pastor, I just can’t keep up. We’d love to be more involved, but there just aren’t enough hours in a day.”

Or maybe it’s time to pull a few bushes…to open up some space for healthy growth and real color.

First vocation...

Do you remember your first real job? It probably didn't pay well, was an imposition on your social schedule, and generally beneath the level of both your skills and your dignity (something abundantly obvious to everyone but your boss). For me: it was the local Sohio station...a pump jockey...back before there was an oil crisis...all this raw talent for about a buck an hour.

But how about your first vocation? Do you remember that? This is a trickier question because we tend to get these two terms confused. Our jobs are not necessarily our vocations...although hopefully the jobs we do give us occasion to live out our vocation...our calling. Our jobs have to do with what we do. Our vocation has, in a deeper sense, to do with who we are...who God has called us to be.

I find myself drawn again and again to the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. Here we meet a loving, powerful and purposeful God who stoops to shape a companion creature after the divine image. This creature will name things...will co-create things...will manage on God's behalf all that has been made...and will praise God for such abundance. This, it seems, is our first vocation. To borrow a phrase from Aidan Kavanaugh: we are homo adorans. More than homo sapiens...the thinking man...we are the "praising man"...called to be priests in the temple that is the universe for the purpose of the praise of God's greatness.

We Lutherans like to talk about "the priesthood of all believers"...a notion that links our shared work as Christians into our common baptism into Christ. But we haven't often been so clear as to what that shared work looks like. Let me suggest this: we are called to live the liturgy of life...gathering, orchestrating and offering the continual sacrifice of thanksgiving which rises from the earth and her creatures to the God from whom all things flow.

So...what does that liturgy look like in your daily routine? As you go about your job (or your school work or your play or your retirement), how is your vocation as priest in God's house evident?

I'm pretty sure I never asked that question of myself back when I was pumping gas and wiping windshields. Vocation (if I even knew what the word meant) was something for preachers and other religious types. Turns out, however, we're all religious types. It's built into us by the very nature of our creation...by the very nature of our Creator.

Desperate to get in...

Story #1:

Remember a few weeks ago when I was complaining about the squirrels in the attic? Turns out those weren’t squirrels; it was (and still is) a raccoon. To complicate the issue, we think it’s a Momma raccoon who had her babies yesterday afternoon…on Mother’s Day. Isn’t that just sweet?

Maybe or maybe not. We can debate the merits of animals…birthing animals…in your attic. But that’s not really the point.

This past Friday evening, we held a stake-out party…also billed as a raccoon exorcism. With the vent cover off the attic, we gathered across the parking lot in our lawn chairs, armed with our mini-keg, our cheese and crackers and our binoculars in order to watch for the raccoon to leave the attic on its nightly foray. Our patience was rewarded; the beasty climbed out the opening, up the chimney, across the roof and scooted down the TV antenna and out into the woods. A few of us scrambled up onto the adjacent roof and quickly covered the opening with a nice heavy metal cover. Then we rejoiced at having (finally) gotten the animal out. Yippee!

Early Sunday morning, about 1:30am…in the night before she was to apparently give birth…our masked friend returned. Upon finding access to her nest covered by metal, she starting tearing into things…including a couple of bedroom screens. (Good thing we had the windows closed!) I could hardly believe the ferocity of this little animal…so desperate was she to get back in. And wouldn’t you know: she succeeded. She tore a whole in the metal cover, ripping it away from the metal frame into which it had been securely screwed and left it hanging there in shreds and pieces.

Story #2:

Some folks recently let me know that they hadn’t been able to come to church for a few weeks because one Sunday they drove into the parking lot and couldn’t find a space. So they went home.

Follow-up Question:

What does the raccoon understand that we human beings don’t? Are there places worth fighting your way in to? What are we willing to give/spend/invest of ourselves in order to come into that most desirable of all human “nests”…the presence of the gracious and living God?

I’ll let you answer those for yourself. In the meantime: if you show up here and the lot is full, go ahead and park on the grass.

Help wanted...

This is a two-part posting.

Part One...a big thank you. Jen Pollard (along with husband Josh) has been our youth ministry coordinator for the past two-plus years. They have done wonderful work here...earning the love and trust of our young people, opening up some important conversations about faith and life, and energizing our ministry with and for the youth of this congregation as well as their friends. Thank you...no matter how big...doesn't cut it. "Thanks be to God" gets closer, but even that feels inadequate.

Jen and Josh, however, have new responsibilities. As they welcome Eden Suzanne into the world as their first child, the demands of parenthood must take precedence. We pray God's blessings upon all three of them as newly formed family, and are confident that they will continue to grow in love for God and each other.

Part Two...help wanted. Grace is now in need of a youth ministry coordinator. We've put out some feelers to folks in the community and via some neighboring universities who might have qualified folks heading towards our neck of the woods. But so far, no one has surfaced as a candidate. So, loyal readers, we turn to you for input and assistance. If you or someone you know might be right for this calling, give PD a call or email. And it is, by the way, a calling...not just a part-time job. Loving these young people means first being in loving relationship with God. Guiding and encouraging them requires someone who is likewise being guided and encouraged by God's own Spirit.

In the meantime, we're praying...confidently...that God will send us the person right for this place and our young people. We ask you to join in that prayer with us. Thanks!

Bridging the gap...

I worry sometimes about the distance between what we say is important and what we really believe is important as evidenced by our actions. For example:

There's not a person among us who doesn't want a better, safer, more just, equitable and peaceful world. Well...OK. Maybe there are a few really sick, twisted folks among us who don't want those things. But by and large, the desire for the world to be a better place isn't merely the aspiration of Miss America contestants. All of us want that.

As Christians, we confess that there is a way in which the world can be better. Not perfect, mind you. That won't happen until Christ himself returns to reign. But better nonetheless. And it begins with willing obedience to the not-so-new commandment which Jesus gave his disciples: Love the Lord your God; love your neighbor as you love yourself.

God first. Others second. Then me. It's a pretty easy formula to remember. It's a bit more difficult to live, however, because it gets in the way of so much of what the world promises. Awash in a celebrity culture that fawns over the self, we have a hard time fighting off the urge to draw attention to ourselves at the expense of God and others. The result is a narcissism that poisons human culture and makes real peace, justice and equity practically impossible.

And the really tough part is that it is so subtle. We get sucked in by the smallest of things...the praise of others at our successes (when we really should be thanking God for the ability to accomplish whatever we manage to do)...the desire to give our kids (or is it really ourselves?) so much of everything that there's no time left for regular worship or Christian nurture or real "family" time.

And as subtle as it is to fall into the trap, it's even harder to get out. Can you imagine the uproar if folks demanded that there be no more soccer games before 2:00pm on Sunday. Outrageous!

And yet, that kind of outrage may be just what is necessary. We need to re-assess...make some intentional decisions about what's important in our lives and the lives of our children. For some folks that will probably mean leaving the church and her faith even farther behind. I am sad for them. But hopefully for others it will mean a reclaiming of some control over their lives (something I'm guessing that most of us would like) based on a humble and grateful obedience to Christ...a re-prioritization (if there is such a word) that loves God first, that loves others second, and that is unafraid to love "me" third...knowing that God already holds us in love that is unfailing.

Such confidence in what Jesus promises...now there's the key to the world we all want.