Month: January 2019

Prayer for Shutdown Relief

by Steve Harsh, posted in Faith and Politics, prayer

O Gracious God of the poor and the rich, of the privileged and the marginalized, the powerful and the furloughed, please hear our prayers. The uncertainty of the government shutdown is fraying our nerves and the fabric of our democracy. Working Americans are hungry and stressed by lack of pay to provide for their families. Critical services for inspecting food, conducting law enforcement activities and air travel safety are increasingly unstable. We are feeling anxious and insecure; our faith in our system of government to perform essential services is strained to the breaking point.

Out of this crisis, O God, inspire compassion for government workers that is stronger than political posturing on either side of the aisle. Melt the hearts of those who are afraid to cross political boundaries so true leadership and wisdom will prevail. In times of crisis we are not Republicans or Democrats; we are not identified by race, gender, social class or any other artificial label. We are all human beings with basic needs for food, shelter and security.

Send your Holy Spirit, we implore you, to Congress and the White House; send it to airports and food pantries. Our human efforts to resolve this conflict have failed for 34 long days; so in faithful desperation we ask that in your power you will transform the weary and fearful leaders of our nation into agents of your compassion and wisdom.

In your mercy, Lord, hear the prayers of your people. Amen

A Tribute to Bishop Judy Craig

by Steve Harsh, posted in Faith and Politics, Faith and Values, Faith Development, spiritual discipline

The world is a little colder today and not just because the weather outside is frightful. With thousands of people around the world I am mourning today the death of Bishop Judy Craig. When my mother and mother-in-law both died within 3 months of each other Bishop Craig went out of her way to inquire how I was doing when I saw her at a meeting. She was the most pastoral and yet genuinely prophetic human being I have ever known. 15 years later when we were colleagues at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio – I was the director of the Doctor of Ministry program and Judy was Bishop in Residence. She was scheduled to teach a course in that program one weekend and got news on Thursday that her brother had died out of state. I was also out of town and very concerned about who would teach that course, but when I reached Judy on the phone there was not one question about it. She was at peace with human mortality and knew there was a time for mourning, but it would be after she taught that course.

The last time I saw Judy was at a special dinner in her honor at the seminary where a scholarship was established in her honor. She had her portable oxygen with her, her physical being was failing; but it was oh so very well with her soul. When I waited my turn in line to greet her after the dinner I bent down to speak to her and in true Judy Craig style she complained about our making all this fuss over her. But then she did something I’ll never forget. She pulled me down close to her and kissed me on the cheek; and now I will always know what the kiss of peace is.

She was a rebel and a trailblazer for any and all who were marginalized, but she also had spent many years in local church ministry where she learned the art and necessity of balancing pastoral and prophetic ministry. When she gave the best commencement address I’ve ever heard at MTSO in May 2008 she told this story that captures the very essence of her spirit which lives on in all of us who were blessed to be touched by her life.

“I’m reminded of the story of a farmer who hired a builder to come and use the finest materials and build a beautiful barn. Then the farmer went out and got on his tractor and bulldozed down the old barn.

And the next day there was a storm threatening, but the farmer went into town anyway. And the storm hit, and the sleet was going sideways, and as he drove home, he was smiling to himself because he thought of his cattle in that nice, warm barn. He’d left the doors open so they could get in.

But when the farmer got home, he found the new barn empty. He went back out in the sleet and the wind, leaned into it as he walked toward where the old barn had been. And there, huddled in the wind and the sleet, were the cattle – inside the foundation of the old barn.

Recognize that? You’ll encounter people like that. Just then, dig out your patience and your modeling and your best invitational self. Pull out those great biblical illustrations about God’s future and the wonderful stories of church history. And then go and stand with those miserable cattle in that wind and love them anyway until they will finally begin to follow you into the new barn.”

Judy, you will always give us compassion to love because you so loved us.

Walls?

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

“There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” – Robert Frost

When I was a young child some people in our neighborhood built a fence on the property line between their house and their next door neighbors. That was unusual in those days before subdivisions where almost every yard is fenced. This fence was also unusual for several other reasons. It was 8 feet high but only about 16 feet long, leaving easy access around either end between the neighbors’ yards. You see it wasn’t a practical fence at all since it could not keep anyone or any animal from easily just going around it.

I overheard my parents discussing this fence one day and thought they were calling it a “spike” fence which made no sense because it was completely flat on top. There was nothing spikey about it! When I inquired about the fence my parents told me it was not “spike” but a “spite” fence because the neighbors who built the fence were angry with the folks next door. I don’t know if we ever knew what they were angry about, but I realize now the fence was a symbol of their animosity about something. It wasn’t really made of plywood but of anger.

Symbolic walls are much harder to tear down than physical ones, and I believe that is the reason for the stalemate and government shut down just now. President Trump has correctly pointed out that in the past Democrats have voted in favor of parts of a wall on our southern border; so the problem is not about a physical wall or about needing better border security, it is about what this wall has come to symbolize.

From the day he launched his campaign for president with remarks about Mexicans being “murderers and rapists” to racist comments about “s***hole” countries, to his refusal to condemn white supremacists in Charlottesville this President has demonstrated over and over that he is a racist. His father was a racist landlord in New York, and son Donald has not evolved from those roots.

Racism is an expression of fear, in this case fear of losing power and privilege that wealthy white males have controlled in this country since the first illegal immigrants landed at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock. And the wall stalemate/debate is grounded in that fear, and that is why it is so hard to resolve.

I have reread several artistic reflections on walls as I enjoy my own privileged status to sit in comfort with a cup of coffee and ruminate about what are life and death issues for unpaid government workers and desperate refugees. My thoughts have ranged from the account of the walls of Jericho in Joshua 6, to a play about an imaginary wall (“Aria da Capo” by Edna St. Vincent Millay), to Robert Frost’s poem “The Mending Wall,” to my own climbing up on a part of the Great Wall of China a few years ago.

All of those walls are the result of fear and somewhat based on reality. The citizens of Jericho were wiped out by Joshua and his men when “the walls came tumbling down.” The two shepherds in “Aria da Capo” kill each other because each of them has what the other wants on his side of the wall, but as they die and collapse on where the wall “is” they discover it does not exist except in their own imaginations.

I don’t know my Chinese history well enough to know how well the Great Wall worked at keeping their enemies out, but the sheer magnitude and effort and cost it took to build that wall speaks volumes about how great their fear was.

Frost’s poem cuts to the chase by asking hard questions about the need for walls. Do fences make good neighbors? Are walls needed if we follow the advice of the Great Commandment in both Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospels to “love our neighbors as ourselves?” Maybe that’s naïve, but on the other hand maybe it’s the only way, truth and life?

Put in Our Place

by Steve Harsh, posted in Aging to Sageing, Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values, Self-Help

One of my goals for the New Year was to cope better with my chronic aches and pains. Now the phrase “be careful what you ask for” has new meaning for me. I injured my right shoulder a few months ago and was diagnosed with a torn rotator cuff, 50-50 chance that physical therapy would help me avoid surgery. I think those odds have gone down. I have reinjured it twice in last couple of weeks lifting things the wrong way. This is not the way I wanted to practice dealing better with pain.

My theologizing about pain seems to come around on a two year cycle. (cf. my post on 3/25/17 “Rejoicing When God says No,” and 5/19/15 “Encouraged and Inspired.”) As in both of those instances I keep coming back to St. Paul’s verses (II Corinthians 12:7-10) where he describes his repeated requests for God to remove an unidentified “thorn in the flesh.” I don’t know if this is an actual physical ailment, a metaphor for another kind of suffering, or both. Here’s what those verses say in the NRSV:

“Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

If this was just about physical weakness I should be getting stronger by the minute, but of course it isn’t. The repetition of “not being too elated” indicates that’s important. The “slings and arrows” of life can serve to keep us humble, and when dealing with God’s power that’s the only realistic stance to take.

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase of these verses in “The Message” helps reinforce that point:
“So I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’”

I don’t like the word choice of “handicap” by Peterson. In no way do I want to tell anyone with a disability or handicap that it is a gift from God. But we all have challenges to cope with be they physical, emotional, or relational, and accepting those humbly as just the way things are is much better than either being resentful or conceited.

God is not a super being that we can call upon to intervene and pull out our thorns. That’s like complaining that roses come with thorns instead of rejoicing that thorns come with roses. For reasons that are above our pay grade to understand the human condition comes with pain. I am inclined to agree with Buddhism’s diagnosis of that pain as being caused by our “attachment” to things that are temporary. My physical limitations remind me constantly that aging is about letting go – letting go of things I can no longer do and humbly finding and celebrating things I can do, I hope with more wisdom gained through experience. Letting go is important practice for that inevitable letting go that comes with mortality.

And ultimately the feeling of being at home in the universe, my favorite definition of “Faith,” comes from letting go of our need to control or understand everything. As mere beings our humility/weakness makes room for the true majesty and mystery of Being itself, which we call God.

I don’t claim to have achieved Paul’s contentment with “with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities,” and no, Lord, I am not asking for those so I can learn to deal better with them!! But I do recognize that state of “being content with whatever I have” which Paul describes in Philippians 4:11 as the goal of faith.

Paul describes that feeling in different words that are very familiar: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13) But I also like the way Peterson paraphrases that verse because it emphasizes the Creator/creature nature of our relationship with God which is the reason humility is our ultimate reality.

Peterson says, “Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am.” That puts things in their proper perspective.

Cross Roads

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

crossroadsThe final scene of the excellent movie “Castaway” shows the star, Tom Hanks, in a barren landscape at the intersection of two deserted country roads.  Hanks plays a FedEx pilot who is the sole survivor of a crash in the Pacific.  He manages to stay alive on an island with no companionship except a volleyball he names Wilson.  When he miraculously is rescued and returns to his former home after several years he discovers that it is sometimes true that you can never go home again.  His wife having buried a symbolic empty casket after giving up hope of his survival has remarried and moved on with her life, leaving Hanks more adrift on land than he was at sea.

Then years behind schedule Hanks delivers the lone package that survived the crash to a rural address where a beautiful artist lives.  Leaving her home he comes to the aforementioned crossroads, and the film ends leaving the question hanging as to which way he will turn.

That metaphor came to my mind as 2019 began 12 days ago, perhaps because our nation and world seem to be a crossroads where the future shape and even survival of our planet depends on choices we as world citizens must make about climate change, international relations, our use of technology for better or worse, etc.  Perhaps the cross-roads image is even more vivid for me because the church denomination I’ve given 50 years of service to is coming up fast on an intersection in Indianapolis in less than a month.  A church conference will be held in February that will determine if the United Methodist Church survives and if so in what form.

Personally my 73rd New Year’s means I have accumulated many memories of different turning points and roads not taken in my own life. Professionally 2019 will mark the 50th anniversary of my ordination as a United Methodist pastor.  I made huge decisions to accept the responsibilities of ordination, and in those 50 years since I’ve made thousands of personal and professional decisions that brought me to where I am today.  Yes, there are many of those decisions for which I’d like to have do overs, but like the Hanks character I know I can’t go back and make a different choices as to which way to turn in my life.

But the past is prelude to my next chapter.  I can learn from the choices I made in the past to inform decisions I will make in the future.  The kinds of crossroads I will face in my 70’s and beyond are certainly different than those I encountered earlier in my life, but as long as I draw breath I will make decisions about how to live each day of my life and what goals or bucket list items I choose to pursue.  In retirement I actually face more decisions every day since my daily routine is not predetermined by job responsibilities.  There’s both freedom and anxiety in that situation.  It requires more energy to make so many decisions at a time in life when energy is at a premium.

Twice in this New Year I have seen something early in the morning on our bedroom floor that I have never noticed before.  I’m sure it must have been there before, but I am not a morning person and admit I am even less observant when I first roll out of bed than the rest of the day.  What I’ve noticed is that the light that slides out from under our bathroom door intersects with a white edge on our carpet to form a beautiful cross.  I’m still wondering why it is just now that I’ve recognized that symbol, but what it has helped me realize is that so many of the decisions that have determined my course in life revolve around the cross.

I was born into the church, baptized as an infant and taken regularly to church my entire childhood.  That decision for my early life in the shadow of the cross was made for me, as was one of the most significant turns in my life course when I was 11 years old.  Until that point in my life we had attended a small rural Congregational church in the community my father grew up in 5 miles from our home.  But when I was nearing my 11th birthday my parents made the decision to find a church in the town where we lived.  They wanted me and my sisters to go to church with the kids in our school and for me they wanted a good Boy Scout troop.  It so happened the Methodist church had the best Boy Scout troop in town, and as they say “the rest is history.”

Because of the sacrifice my parents made in giving up the congregation and friends they loved my life went down a totally different path than it would have otherwise.  My life for the next 7 years revolved around that church and that scout troop.  My values were shaped by the Sunday School teachers, youth group leaders, and scout leaders who went down that road with me.  All of my friends and most of the girls I dated were part of that congregation, and when I answered the call to ministry I chose to attend a liberal United Methodist seminary that transformed my faith and purpose not only for ministry but for my life.  As a United Methodist I was active in the leadership of the Wesley Foundation student ministry in college, lived in an intentional covenant community/rooming house sponsored by that ministry; and it was also on one of my first visits to the Wesley Foundaiton that I met my first wife who is the mother of my children, grandmother to my grandkids, and still a dear friend and colleague in ministry.

All because of a choice made for me to attend First Methodist Church.  And now 62 years later that denomination, which became the United Methodist Church in 1968, is facing a momentous decision about the acceptance or rejection of LGBTQ persons as full and equal sisters and brothers.  Which road our General Conference will choose to follow next month will have far-reaching consequences for this large denomination of Christians and will create a crossroads that will require many people, including me, to make difficult personal decisions about our own relationship to the church.  My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will empower faithful and courageous choices inspired by the one who chose to take the road to Jerusalem and face the cross waiting for him there.

I/We can do worse at the cross roads of 2019 than pondering the meaning of these words written for the 1905 Methodist Hymnal by Frank M. North:

“Where cross the crowded ways of life,  Where sound the cries of race and clan

Above the noise of selfish strife, We hear your voice, O Son of Man.”