a BLOG by Pastor Ken Rickett

Just a few days ago I started a 3,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. When I opened the box and put all the pieces in 5 separate containers, my task was to bring order to the chaos.

First, I searched all the boxes for the straight edges that formed the perimeter. Then I studied the picture of the puzzle, and decided my next project was to find the pieces of the windows in two houses and put the windows together…since the two houses were different colors, I then searched for the pieces showing these dwellings and put them together. Then I did the same for a barn. The puzzle was a fall scene, so I found the pieces and put together the pumpkins, etc. Mind you, I haven’t yet finished a complete house, barn, or all the pumpkins. I haven’t even started putting the sunset sky nor the trees in the yard. It is that big of a chaos, and it will take a while to bring order to this awesome chaos. The family has no idea how long they will be without a dining room table as this massive puzzle awaits completion.

When God created everything, God brought order out of the existing chaos, first creating the heavens and the earth, then all living things. Primitive Hebrew language has no past tense, but a past perfect tense which implies ongoing action. The first verse of Genesis 1:1, in most Bibles, reads “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” but the better translation would be “From the beginning God was creating the heavens and the earth.” Creation continues. Actually, God brings order out of chaos. And bringing order is a basic function of everyday life.

Bringing order out of chaos is messy. If you don’t believe it, just look at my dining room table where I am attempting to put together that 3,000-piece puzzle. I literally have hundreds of pieces lying all around the few bits that I have already put together–let alone what is in the boxes. As I look at many of those pieces I laid out, thinking it might fit into that section of the puzzle (houses, barn, pumpkins), I now wonder what in the world I was thinking to lay some of those pieces out. You see, part of the chaos is that pieces that fit elsewhere in the puzzle can look incredibly like the pieces I really needed. Not all orange colors are pumpkins—have you ever seen a sunset scene that didn’t glow orange in paintings and color photos?

Bringing order out of that chaos is not only messy, but also slow and patient. A teenager dreams of becoming a medical doctor. What a huge puzzle that must be put together! College, med school, residency, and finally a medical practice. Throw in the financing of many years of schooling, obtaining dorms or housing, and putting food on the table. Talk about a slow process that needs a ton of patience to put such a puzzle together! Yet, invisible in this puzzle will be those moments of joy and celebration as well as disappointment and anguish, but bringing order out of chaos has those mental, emotional, and psychological highs and lows.

Life is about bringing order out of chaos. Not only in choosing a career path (a puzzle requiring much work and sacrifice), but also in marriage there is chaos seeking order. About the time a couple get a bit of order established, children come! Rearing them requires a constant, patient, and slow ordering of chaos if the children are to become mature adults. I like to think of the story of Job in the Old Testament as a glimpse into everyday life for all of us. There are times that we “lose” much that may be dear to us, bringing chaos and a need for re-ordering life. The three counselors of Job, faced with the task of helping Job re-establish order, were basically ineffective because they could not help envisioning a new picture of life (i.e., a new puzzle to be put in order). But eventually, with God’s help, order was restored but not “back to the same family and circumstance.” The task of putting life’s chaos in order is never about “going back”, it is about creating anew.

Ministry makes a huge difference in life, but sometimes ministry is “messy, chaotic!” You see, good intentions do not always have a good result. I once took a person to a facility that would feed, clothe, and help find a job. I thought, “Boy, this is ministry at its best!” Imagine my plunging “good feelings” when, just three weeks later, this person apparently decided that his unstructured life was not to be shaped by “providers of food, clothing, and jobs.” For some people, a re-ordering of life is “going back.” I learned that painful mental, emotional, and psychological scars can and will block all “helpfulness” and ministry. On the other hand, I once went on a mission trip to help re-build after a tornado. One lady who lived alone had some damage to her house, but it was salvageable. Her house had been built around an old log cabin that had been in her family for generations. While we had to cut and re-shape some of those old hand-hewn logs, we did not re-create what had been, but we re-created her house, including the part that was not the old cabin, with modern wiring, roofing, and even some appliances.

Bringing order out of chaos is always an act of creation.

So, what will happen to my 3,000-piece puzzle once I complete it? Well, I can congratulate myself and then take the puzzle apart piece by piece and put it back in the box, returning it to a state of chaos (maybe permanently if no one puts it together again). Or I can glue it, build a frame, and place a stiff backing on the backside so that the oversized puzzle will hold together, and then hang it on the wall (or give it away). BUT will my family let me “hog” the dining room table for a few more weeks so that I can do all these things–otherwise, I can’t even get the puzzle off the table without creating chaos (taking the puzzle apart)! And above all, I must decide if I really want to keep a 3,000-piece puzzle that will require that I remove from one entire wall all pictures and re-arrange furniture just to accommodate this monster! To put that thing on the wall is chaotic in itself! AND WHAT IF. . .once I hang this big puzzle on the wall, no one likes it! Even more chaos comes!

CHAOS! IT IS A PART OF LIFE! And so is creating anew!

What if a huge part of our spiritual journey is not seeking a higher spirituality, but what if our higher spirituality comes from our lifelong effort to bring order out of chaos and transforming life for ourselves and others into God’s kingdom on earth? After all, isn’t that what Jesus taught us to pray. . . and seek?

24601: That is the number the prison gives to identify the man known as Jean Valjean, the protagonist in the book and musical, LES MISERABLES. 24601.  The number is not only given for identification, but also is thrown in the face of a man who carries a name, a family, a history…so that the penal system can remind him that he is “less than a man”…he is only a number.

That is what is what “the world” does best…it reduces humanity.  The world takes the fullness of life and reminds all of us that we are only a statistic, just a number in a vast sea of like numbers.

Depending on which circle one walks in, they are either one voice-type in a choir, a checking account number, an address, a blonde, a catholic, a poor person, a wacko.  The world will constantly reduce us to the least common denominator.  The world will do what is easiest, most efficient…and most degrading.

I remember the day I flew to Washington State with a medium-sized wooden box containing the ashes of my father.  Those ashes were all that was left of his body, after the world had its way…that, and a series of forms, two bags of odds and ends, and a few clothes.  This is what the world thought of him.  That is what the world thinks of you and me.  We may bask in greatness and popularity, or sulk in our inability to gain what we think we are worth…but either way, the world doesn’t care.  Don’t kid yourself, the world, as God Himself has said, is a prostitute who may flatter and tempt…but in the end you’re nothing more to her than a loaf of bread…if even that.

That’s what the world, with its popularity contests, worship of youthful beauty, and elevation of wealth and power above all things does to us.  However, the world does not define what LIFE is.  God defines LIFE.  And HE does the opposite of what the world does; instead of reducing humanity, God elevates, enhances, and fills humanity.

The scripture reminds us that God has elevated us, crowned us, claims us as children, and pronounces us heirs to the universe.  “Life” is not defined by the things that are left when our breath takes flight.  “Life” IS that breath, the very breath that was given us the day we first cried.  “Life” as God sees it, is something that not only lives forever, but is MORE real after we rid ourselves of these bodies and this world.  God does not see my father or mother as “ashes in a box”, but as individual, golden, perennial diamonds.  He knows them as Marge & Tom, the children for whom He would do anything, reach any depth, and fly across the universe to rescue.

We who Believe & Follow The Way are the bearers of THIS torch: that the world will flatter us, tempt us, beat us and try to kill us…but God is “not of this world” and this Age will be cleaned to make way for the next; an Age with homes for each of His children.  An Age ruled by the King who put on our skin so that we might trust Him, believe Him and follow Him…from the manger to the cross and through the tomb back to the Garden.

The only things from this Age that we will see in the next are each other.  Don’t let the world reduce you and define you…and more importantly, don’t be a part of the world’s conspiracy by reducing another person to something less than they are – our relationship to one another is the only true currency we take with us to The-Age-To-Come.  How we love them here and now, in this age, defines our love for God. So, let’s do for each other what God does for us: ELEVATE each other with words of praise, ENHANCE each other by sharing their gifts and giving them of ours, and FILL each other with acts of love that are unconditional.

“To love another person is to see the face of God.”
VICTOR HUGO, author of LES MISERABLES 

“Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God,
and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”
I JOHN 4:7

I tell this story regularly, so I apologize, but I DO love this story.  I’m telling it again now because we all need to tell our stories and pass them down.  The things we know, the family history we have, needs to be shared so that we continue to learn and grow.  I am also now one of the few who knows THIS particular story and I would like to “give honor where honor is due” by telling it.

The tiny little girl was called “Lizzy”, her full name was “Elizabeth”.  She belonged to a mother and father who, for reasons unknown, found themselves in terrible debt to another family.  In the days when Lizzy was born debts were settled privately, out of court, in ways that many of us today would find unenlightened and repulsive.  It was, however, the way things were done, in certain days and times, and in certain regions in this country.  Some debts were paid through servitude.  As it was, little Lizzy was given up by her parents as payment to a debt owed to the family to which they were indebted.  She was, before she was one year old, a bond-slave (although that term was probably not used); given to serve out her life as a servant to a family that was not her own so the debt of her parents could be paid.

The Moore family, who received Lizzy, were (thankfully) gracious and kind, beneficent, and practical.  Lizzy grew up on hard farm work, but so did the Moore children.  All indications were that she was treated well, not poorly, and that the family loved her.  However, she wasn’t the same as the children she was raised alongside, SHE was an outsider.  The Moores were not her parents, and in fact nothing was ever known of her biological parents after they gave Lizzy to the Moore family.  She was, at that point, not the member of any family.

But Lizzy discovered someone who DID think she belonged…if to no one else, to him and his heart.  He fell in love with the teenaged girl who worked for the Moore family and lived in their home.  Before she came of age, he asked for her hand in marriage.

And here we are at the crossroads of this story. Mr. Moore needed to agree upon the marriage, as he had every right…not as Lizzy’s father, but as her owner.  If he didn’t believe the original debt had been sufficiently paid, he would not let her go.  Up to this point, the date of her 18th birthday, she had no life but what she lived vicariously through the family who raised her.  She didn’t even have a last name, she was only Elizabeth Idella; “Lizzy”.  She had no property, owned nothing…but here was a chance.

The beautiful part of the story is that the Moores agreed to the marriage, finding the boy agreeable and a suitable match.  On Lizzy’s 18th birthday the Moore family gave her 3 wonderful gifts:

a bedroom suite of furniture,
her freedom,
and their name…
…a home, wings, and a name.

No longer would she be known as the “girl who worked for the Moores”, she left for her wedding as Elizabeth Idella…Moore.

I love this story for two reasons.

FIRST: it is a true story which reflects what happens to any of us who accept the gift of life and redemption of debt.  We are all in debt, but God sets us free, He gives us a home to take care of…and then He gives us His name.  He does this not because of who WE are but because of who HE is.  He gives to us because it is in His nature to give, to love, to set free and to embrace us.  How can we walk away from that and not be thankful every day?

SECOND: I love this story is because Lizzy and her husband had a daughter, Mary Elizabeth (so to carry the name of her mother, the freed “bond-slave”).  Mary Elizabeth eventually married and had a daughter named, Routh Elizabeth…also named after the bond-slave grandmother.  Routh Elizabeth grew up and eventually married.  She and her husband Troy had a daughter, and they named her Margery Elizabeth, once again never forgetting the story of the now great-grand-mother who was a “bond-slave set free.”  And, as you’ve probably guessed, or remembered from my telling of this story before, Margery Elizabeth married a young soldier named Tom Vale…and they had a son named Rick.

 I am thankful today for my great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Idella Moore, who lived her childhood out paying a debt she herself did not incur. She was set free and was given a home, wings and a name…so that I could have the same.  I am also thankful that even though we’ve never met, she has taught be about our Heavenly Father…who also give me A Home, Wings & A Name…He paid my debt and so, I belong, I am free, and I am His.

 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” – REVELATION 2:17

“I don’t believe in God anymore,” I overheard her say to a friend on the phone, while we were both in line at KROGER, “I just know too many hypocrites.” 

I was so happy to have a theme for my BLOG that I didn’t turn around and say, “So if you saw a man walking on the streets of Anderson with bad hair, would you stop believing in barbers, too?” 

Seriously, when John Hinckley tried to assassinate President Reagan, in an effort to appease the actress Jodi Foster, did anyone blame JODI FOSTER?  I know it’s difficult, because for many people Christians are the only reflection of God they see – but please, let’s not blame God for some (not all) of His followers.

This overheard conversation was on the heels of another that I was a part of, just days before, where an acquaintance stated that they had stopped going to their church, after 2019/2020, because they don’t like the new Pastor.  That all may be true, and his Pastor may indeed be a moron…but is worship/faith/congregational life about the Pastor…or the sanctuary…or the hypocrites…or the worship style?

On the other hand, is WORSHIP/CHURCH-GOING and BELIEF something we sigh and shoulder, like medicine, or in-laws, or spin class?  Absolutely not.  Belief/ Worship should unlock doors, unclip wings, open windows…and, in short, set us free!

Unfortunately, Belief and Worship are so strongly tied to individual paradigms, preferences, history and deep-seated emotion that it is difficult to separate all of that from what Worship actually requires.

You and I have songs which suddenly stir up memories and cause us to feel secure, safe, loved…and we want to hear that song in worship (for some it’s AMAZING GRACE and others, LORD, I LIFT YOUR NAME ON HIGH)…it’s what makes worship wonderful for us.  However, does my pew-mate, who doesn’t have MY history or sentiment, feel the same way?  Of course not.  My world does not necessarily define THEIR world.

One congregation, where I ministered, had an extraordinarily-great Sacred Dance team; professional and beautiful.  Sitting on the same pew, experiencing the same worship moment of dance, one parishioner said that she had a problem with dance in the sanctuary because dance was “of the devil”, as she had been taught.  In the same pew was a deaf worshipper who said that she was always thrilled when we had dance because it was the ONE part of worship that didn’t need to be “interpreted” for her.  

The woman who didn’t enjoy the dance realized the truth that dance isn’t “of the devil”, but her paradigm and history with dance colored her perception of it in worship, it was generational and based on childhood experience and teaching.  The non-hearing worshiper, who had no other experience in church, had no such preconceptions.  The first lady wasn’t going to leave the church or stop worshiping because she didn’t enjoy the dance, and the second wasn’t defining ALL of worship by her emotional tie to dance, and limited personal experience of worship…I think BOTH were wise in their decisions. 

I like hamburgers (I get that from my Dad), and I mourn that red meat no longer likes me.  But, in the day, I preferred BURGER KING over McDONALDS, when it came to burger prep.  On the other hand, McDONALDS had BURGER KING beat when it came to milk shakes and fries (in MY opinion).  BOTH franchises sell burgers but the rest is up to personal preference, or what “speaks to me” (shakes and fries DO speak to me).

I prefer worship like ours at Central, with scripture, prayer, hymns from the hymnal, communion, pipe organ and some good tradition.  Somewhere in town, however, is a church that doesn’t own any hymnals, the Pastor might read one scripture and the songs go on, one after another, for 30-45 minutes…after that the Pastor preaches for an hour…and the congregation LOVES it.  Both congregations worship (that’s the burger), but one congregation prefers their worship (burger) with ketchup and the other with mayo.  Is one correct and the other wrong?  No.  If one is unhappy with their worship should they cease believing?  No.  Should they find a worship pattern that speaks to them?  Yes.  As long as they’re serving burgers¸ then it’s just a matter of finding the way one likes it prepared.

When a worshiper sits in worship unhappy and tense because they don’t like the songs, the pastor, the “style”…should they stop believing in worship?  Of course not…what they don’t like isn’t “worship”, it’s the peripherals.

When a person labeling themselves as “Christian” treats another human being in a manner that would make Jesus wanna slap ‘em upside the head…should we stop believing in God?  Of course not, the problem isn’t God, it’s the Follower.

At the heart of “Belief” AND “Worship” are the same elements: Spirit & Truth / Heart & Mind.  Everything else is flexible.  Everything else is commentary.  Everything else is a “condiment.”

JOHN 4:7-26
A woman of Samaria came to draw water.
“Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her, for His disciples had gone into town to buy food.
“How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? ” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.”
“Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are You? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”
Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again — ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well , of water springing up within him for eternal life.”
“Sir,” the woman said to Him, “give me this water so I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”
“Go call your husband,” He told her, “and come back here.”
“I don’t have a husband,” she answered.
“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said. “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
“Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”
Jesus told her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah, is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
“I am He,” Jesus told her, “the One speaking to you.”

On a recent trip there was a moment we were surrounded, on all sides, by families with children.  As I age, I have a “love/hate” relationship with crowds.  I like to watch people, especially from other cultures, all together, vacationing: multiple languages, ages…I find that entertaining.  On the other hand, especially the older I get, I am not a fan of crowds.  I still like to be around people, but more and more I like to be on the outside looking in, rather than the middle.

My favorite pastime is observing and learning from human nature, and so, as in any vacation, I found a spot where I could sit and observe.  I love watching people interact, I love multiple cultures together in one place (family and friend dynamics don’t seem to change with the culture or language) and I ALWAYS find: if you’re searching for God to speak to you, He will. 

I sat and watched, on a crowded boulevard, as literally hundreds of families, couples, singles passed by shops and cafes.  Some were families, some couples, some singles, some groups of teens or groups of men, groups of women.  I could hear English, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, some Russian, and some German (or Dutch?)…in any case it was a beautiful sight…from a distance.

The children are especially fun to watch, and parenting, even within one ethnic group and/or age, is always a source of conversation. In this case, there were lots of kids.  I began watching one small boy in particular.  He was small, maybe 4 or 5 years old.  He was Italian (I recognized, though could not translate, the language).  He was seemingly alone…that’s why I kept an eye on him – to see if any parent or sibling was nearby.  He had been distracted by a very colorful car and was looking in to see if he could get inside.

Suddenly, as if realizing he was in a sea of strangers, some 6 people deep, he stopped and looked around – turning quickly one way and then the other – as his face turned from joy to panic.  I could see from his face he was about to cry, feeling what HE wouldn’t have been able to label, but I could – abandonment.

He shouted at the top of his little lungs, “Papa!”  Again and again, turning, looking, eyes wide with a little fear.  It all happened in an instant, but probably seemed like ages to him.

Then, the tall young father, who had been standing some 2 feet away, his back turned, turned around and their eyes locked.  The little boy stepped to him, and the man easily lifted him up, kissed him and said one of the few Italian phrases I could translate: “Sono qui.” (“I am here.”).

In a flash, and with yet another thankful prayer to the Spirit, I saw a “life picture” of mine, which has played over and over:

I pull away.

I am surrounded by the crowd of strangers.

I feel danger.

I feel abandoned.

I cry out…

…only to find that God has never left my side.

He lifts me up, kisses me and says, “I am here.”

This season of life, both mine and ours (in this time and place) I need to remember that I may pull away, but HE never does.  As close as a hand, a hug…and a kiss…is my Jesus. 

A BLOG by PASTOR KEN RICKETT

Lately, I have watched cracks in the dry soil around my yard widen up to a half inch or more. Dry.

I have seen parts of my unshaded yard turn brown. I am in my 3rd week without mowing, in an effort to keep my yard green as long as I can. Dry.

I have labored daily to water flowers and a couple of tomato plants. Dry.

When I moved here 5 years ago, I set out 2 tiny peach trees about a foot high. Now they are about 12 to 15 feet high and for the first time, they have fruit. I “mist” the trees almost daily and cringe at the fact that the fruit is smaller than it should be as we enter July. Dry.

Dry. We tend to think that dryness is always a bad omen. Dryness is the “mean side” of climate change, lowering fresh water availability and curtailing crop production or reducing meat supplies. Or we fear dryness is here to stay and annual rainfall will continue to slip downwards in coming years. Or dryness is Mother Nature’s reaction to humankind’s abuse of the planet. Granted, the worst can happen with continued dryness. But that is not my subject for today.

In simple definition, dryness is the lack of humidity in the air all around us and the lack of moisture in the soil.

I am amazed at the benefits of low humidity. I can walk my dog in 90 plus degree weather and not get drenched with sweat like I usually do. Dryness with low humidity. I am amazed that I can sit in my porch swing in low humidity and the sun’s heat is warming rather than uncomfortably hot. Dryness with low humidity is often a summertime respite.

Dry places are not always places of weakness and dying. Did not Jesus go into the desert for 40 days and nights (a biblical phrase that means “a long time”), and yet had the strength and fortitude to reject three temptations offered by the Adversary (Satan)?

Deserts are dry places with low humidity, yet places where insight into the Holy is lifesaving! And also the children of Israel, led by Moses, crossed the Red Sea into the Sinai Desert where they roamed for 40 years. There are no stories of thunderstorms in that narrative. A dry place with low humidity–where people have survived for a long, long time.

I am not ready to live in a real desert where it is dry with low humidity all the time. I want my green grass and tall, stately and leafy trees. I want to enjoy the coming harvests from trees–peaches, apples, walnuts and a few more delectable fruits. I want my flowers to flourish with greenness and blooms and my vegetables to grow large and tasty. I want nearby rivers to flow generously and streams to provide fishing. I want birds to flitter in the bird bath. I want to mow lawns again.

I am ready to welcome a few days of high humidity and soaking rains amidst these hot summer days.

Please, Lord, just send some rain.

Each June I think about my friend, Michael.  Michael was a conductor, chorus master, lecturer, author, musicologist, accompanist, and my vocal coach when I performed opera.  He was also, more importantly, my friend.

I first met him when, as a very young singer, was making my professional debut in opera and he was assigned to me, by the company, as my “coach”.  He lead me in the style of singing the small role that I had.  Despite our age difference, we immediately became fast friends.  He was much older than he looked, (we almost looked the same age) and so seemed like a “wunderkind”: a brilliant man with a quick wit and energy that made the rest of us look like slackers…and I’ve never been accused of being a “slacker”.

When he learned that I was getting my degree in Music Composition he insisted on hearing every piece I wrote and came to each performance of my new works at the college I attended.  He would analyze each piece, not to judge or criticize, but to ask questions about my choices of phrases, keys, motives, themes and construction…all without ever SEEING the music on paper…just from what he had heard, once.  He made me think about my own compositions in ways I had never thought…He listened.  

He introduced me to his musical love, Richard Wagner.  He knew more about the composer than anyone I had ever met and was writing a book on his favorite composer…a commissioned work (a publisher payed him an advance to write it…that’s how good he was).

Mike and I would get together regularly, maybe once or twice a month, to eat, drink, and talk about music…both his and mine.  He would always have his calendar handy so that he could write down when my next concert was.  We continued to work together at the Opera Company.  And when Seattle Opera commissioned ME to compose a small touring opera for their company, I dedicated it to him…and he accompanied the opera on one of the three Pacific Northwest tours.

One day I called and left a message for him.  He never returned the call.  I called a couple more times over the next few weeks…until at last a female voice answered.  It was a mutual theatre friend of ours.  As I was obviously startled at her voice on his phone, in his apartment, she said, “Rick, didn’t you hear?  Michael is very sick, you know…SICK. He’s been in the hospital for the past three weeks.”

The way she emphasized the word, “sick” was the code back in the ‘80’s, in Seattle, for someone who had AIDS.  I was stunned.  Frankly, I’d forgotten he was a part of the LGBTQ (or what we just used to call, “gay”, community there.  What stunned me was that he didn’t share his illness with me, and we were good friends.

As we continued to talk, she said that he was embarrassed.  He didn’t want me, a “Christian friend”, to know that he was “sick”.  He was afraid that I would judge, that I would condemn…and most importantly, that I would leave.  Ironic, since because of HIS choice to not share this information with me I, in effect, DID abandon him when I could’ve been there.

I attended his funeral a few weeks later.  It was a doubly-sad affair, for me, at least.  To this day I feel like I had no closure.  And I was angry.  Not at him, but at the notion that he believed any Christian would be filled with judgment and hate for him: one of the nicest, kindest, most generous people I had ever met…to this day.

I’m older now…maybe not wiser.  I am, in many ways, more cynical and bitter.  I understand that Jesus tells us, who Believe & Follow Him, that the world and sometimes the Church will “hate” us.  But what really hurts is to think the “world” would hate any “Christian” because many believe “Christians” themselves are filled with hate.  That’s not what Jesus teaches, on the contrary: we are to love our “brothers and sisters” (fellow followers) AND our enemies…I don’t do math, but I’m pretty sure that covers everyone.  So how could Michael think that I, whom he knew well, would judge him, would hate him, would abandon him?  Not because of anything I did, I hope, but perhaps because of what some other “Christian” had done to him, all in God’s name.

I stood on one side of that story long ago…now I stand in both worlds and see both sides.  There are those “Christians” whose FIRST response will always be reminding us of God’s judgment; careful to let us all know that as long as Jesus isn’t here in the flesh to judge the living and the dead, they will be happy to take up that job.  AND, there are “Christians” who believe Jesus’ command to love is “conditional”.

But thankfully, though it’s sometimes difficult to see, there are those who understand that to know a person’s heart, read a person’s mind, and judge a person’s story is something that God and God alone has the power, and the responsibility, to do.  Our job is simple: love them all, and let JESUS sort it out in the end.

I think about what would’ve happened with Michael had the reputation of “Christians” in the ‘80s been as the most caring and loving, the most compassionate and least-judgmental of all humanity.  I try to bring closure to his death by imagining him telling me everything and me just hugging him in response…because he was my friend, and because Jesus is my King.

Central Christian Church in Anderson, Indiana could, and should, be known as the people who love like no one else.  We are the people who choose to treat everyone with love: those with whom we agree, and those with whom we don’t agree.  Then we stand aside and let the Spirit do the work of the Spirit.

We can, and WILL, be those who others see and say, “If being a CHRISTIAN means being like those people at Central, then count me in…when I was hungry, they fed me, when I was thirsty they gave me something to drink…when I had AIDS and was dying, they cared for me, and loved me, without judgment or superiority.”

Each June (PRIDE MONTH) my heart remembers what my head may forget: that Michael is as unworthy as all of us to receive God’s love…and yet God loves Him as He loves us all. God loves us not because of who WE are, but because of who HE is.

If we belong to Jesus, how then should we live?

We are GOD’S people. Jesus is our KING. Our primary allegiance is to THE KINGDOM OF GOD.  With Jesus “breath of the Spirit” breathing through us, we can be people who love others as Jesus loves them – people who remember Jesus loved us, UNCONDITIONALLY, before we ever loved Him.

I have now sung with the Indianapolis Jazz Orchestra for 22 years.  It’s been a wonderful run.  We have played many “patriotic” gigs throughout the years, as we will this year.  We perform some Glenn Miller, some Cohan, some Sousa.  Many times the venue is a place where there is ice cream, grandkids, lemonade and fireworks.  And of course, one of the highlights is to play the Military Service songs and have any audience members who served to stand at their song.  It’s always a good time.

Once, as I was leaving one of those gigs, at a retirement center, while walking through the crowd, a man stopped me by touching my arm.  He was surrounded by his kids and grandkids.  He pulled me aside and thanked me for the music and asked if I had served in the military (my lack of hair).  I said that I hadn’t, but that I was the son of an Army Veteran.  Then he asked, “Where did he serve, and did he tell you what he did, and share stories?”
“Well, yes,” I said, “He was a peace-time Vet in Germany and Korea…and he told me quite a few things.”
Then he asked me a question that I wasn’t expecting:
“Have you told YOUR children?” He asked. “Because,” he said, “It’s important to keep telling the stories.”
He continued just for a short time, before his family led him away, obviously thinking that he had taken too much of my time.  But before he let me go, he said,
“We need to remember…and we need to tell our children…and they need to tell theirs.”
I walked to my car wrapping my head around this conversation that took less than a couple of minutes, probably…as it affected me.

“We need to remember, and we need to tell.”

In this time and place, with renewed questions about truth in the news media, and Truth in general, is it possible that families and generations become the care-takers of history…as it always used to be?  Is there, or should there be, a responsibility to tell our stories to each generation so that they remember?

Yesterday I listened to an historian on the radio.  He was saying how important it is to remember the story of the United States, because we are “losing our core”, as he put it.  He referenced a relatively new tradition in an African nation, where they get together in their neighborhoods, celebrating their National Day.  Along with the dancing, singing, fireworks, etc.  They “give their testimonies” (tell their stories). These are stories of their own personal survival through the genocide that rocked their people.  These are first-hand stories, and the people who tell them say they are afraid their children and grand-children will forget, grow apathetic and entitled.

A very wise tradition, in my opinion…because it’s true: generations forget.

The Spirit encourages the “telling of one’s story”.  It used to be that the Church carried that tradition out.  In MY home church, Sunday night was a time when the Pastor would regularly ask if anyone had a “testimony”, and someone would stand and tell about a recent “God Moment” they had.  Those times were far more effective on my young mind than reading the Bible…I KNEW these people, I trusted them.  Age and experience has taught me that everyone sees their stories through their own filters, much like today’s blurring of NEWS and COMMENTARY, but I’m not sure that’s all together a bad thing.

The power of someone’s story is evident at Central Christian, when some of our Elders tell THEIR stories, during LENT…it is one of our most moving seasons of the year.

Of course, the stories related to a nation’s history, such as the beginnings of the United States, need to be repeated.  God’s people in the Old Testament told their history and made each generation learn it LITERALLY word-for-word, so that it did not get changed or edited with every telling.  The oral tradition of the Jewish people is legendarily accurate.

EVERYONE has a story.  Have you ever believed you have a responsibility to pass it on?  Remember that as mundane as you may believe your own life is, it may have an impact on someone else that you could never imagine.

Central Christian Church and THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH (DISCIPLES OF CHRIST) have stories…and our histories, or “core” (the reason our church began), needs to be continually remembered.

The story of America is the story of how, who, and why, we were ever formed.  That needs to be remembered honestly and repeated loudly to everyone who will hear, the good AND the not so good of the story & history. And the story of God is the story of His people and their journey with (or without) Him…and it also needs to be repeated loudly and constantly to any of His children who will listen.

Your story; why you were created, your journey, with and without God, needs to be repeated…loudly…regularly…and given freely to each generation…we have a responsibility to remember and tell or we will forget, and repeat our mistakes.

During my college years, in Seattle, I played the piano and sang – somewhat frequently – to try and make a living while going to class.  I had some “regular gigs” (playing for some ballet classes and playing in the Executive Dining Room of the Rainier Tower every week) AND every-once-in-a-while a special party or wedding.  As payment for one event I did at the historic Olympic Four Seasons in downtown Seattle I went a little “above and beyond” and did some extra playing for the hotel itself on a night when I was there to play for a party – the hotel gave me a dinner for two at their famed Georgian Room.

Now keep in mind that I was barely 21, had only really experienced anything as elegant and elite as The Georgian Room because I was a sometime performer in places like that, meaning: I entered through the back door or kitchen, did my gig and left the same way – not mingling with the guests NOR eating the food NOR drinking the wine.  So this free dinner was not only going to be a new adventure, but also something that otherwise would’ve cost me the monetary equivalent of tuition for one semester at my school; a little out of my range.

I asked a girl friend (as opposed to a girlfriend) to join me.  She eagerly agreed.  She was a performer/student herself and shared the same world as I; dining mostly on ramen noodles, pizza, popcorn, etc.  This was going to be spectacular…we didn’t eat for two days, in preparation.

I picked her up and, being a girl, she looked perfect for the occasion: chic, but not TOO dressy.  I wore my best white button-down, nice linen khakis, freshly-shined brown oxfords…plus (did I say I was younger) I didn’t need AS MUCH HELP looking good as I do now.  I imagined we would turn heads as we, much like Eliza Doolittle at the ball, walked into the Georgian Room.

I admit, I had some expectations (based mostly on the movies and television shows I watched) about what I would experience in such a fancy place; snooty staff, food names I couldn’t pronounce, a lot of “raw” things I wouldn’t want in my stomach…etc.  But the one thing I wasn’t expecting happened at the door to the restaurant when I said we had reservations.

The Maitre d’, (and he really was THE perfect definition of a gentleman) smiled and asked if I had a jacket, since jackets were required in the room.  I had never heard of such a thing.  Shocked, embarrassed and thinking of some extravagant story I could tell about my jacket being stolen right outside as I saved myself and my date from certain death just before entering the restaurant…mostly I remember no response, except “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

The Maitre ‘d gave me a sincere and truly reassuring smile and said not to worry, several gentleman who dined there regularly kept jackets in the cloak room just off the Maitre d’s station.  He sized me up and brought out a green jacket which he helped me slip on.  First, it was perhaps the most comfortable jacket I’d ever worn…perfect fit, and whatever the cut and fabric were I now judge every jacket I’ve worn since by that one.  Second, from that time on we never were treated by him or the staff as if we didn’t belong in that place and time.

Although the jacket wasn’t mine, it fit better than anything I one at the time, and I felt oddly comfortable as we were seated by a large beautiful window, under a chandelier.  Our server couldn’t have been more engaging, welcoming and helpful…pointing out some things we would really like and encouraging us to try some new things…since our dinner was “on the house”.  It was that “night of the green jacket” that I found out crudité just means “raw veggies” and vichyssoise is just cold potato soup…among other things.

By the end of the evening we were laughing, comfortable, surprised, satisfied, …and filled with memories that I still have some 40 years later…I’m assuming it was probably less memorable for my “date”, but who knows?

When we left, the Maitre d, after asking how our evening was, removed my jacket and asked my name.  I told him, he took out a form and found a number on the page that corresponded with a discreetly-placed number sewn in the inside of the jacket, and wrote my name beside it – under the other few names beside that number.

“There”, he said, “when you return, your jacket will be here.”

I learned some things that night, as my Father (in His undeniably supernatural AND natural way) taught me not to make assumptions about anyone or anything, that trying new things (like new foods and new destinations) stretches and invigorates the mind and body.  He taught me that some people have a gift of making others feel good about themselves, and I wanted to find out how to cultivate that gift.

But most of what I learned had to do with “putting on” something I didn’t think of as “mine” and learning that most often, we don’t see ourselves as others see us, we don’t imagine that some experiences, gifts, blessings, are for us…when, in fact, they fit us perfectly.

I know that’s true with Gifts of the Spirit.  I know that it is much easier to see another person’s giftedness than our own.  That’s why I’ve always thought “Spiritual Gift Assessment” tests should not be taken by the person trying to discover their own gifts but by someone else, who knows them well. I know that some people would never see themselves in a certain “jacket” because it is so out of their usual or out of their self-defined comfort zone…only then to have a friend, mentor, or someone they love, tell them the “jacket” truly fits…they should wear it, even if only for a short time and place.

The lessons of THE GREEN JACKET have stayed with me.  There are times  I’ve found myself in a place or time where I’m sure I don’t fit…then, remarkably, comfortingly, someone speaks with the inspiration of the Spirit and says, “Why don’t you just try it on.”

The “green jacket” may represent a change in life, a place in your congregation or family, or what some call a “special anointing” for a specific time or place.  Whatever your jacket is, I say to you: “Why don’t you just try it on.”

You might be surprised what God has tailored for you.

She was as colorful a person as you would like to meet; my first piano teacher, Mrs. Beardsley.  With a smoker’s cough, low voice, and a pink living room (I especially remember the AMAZING aluminum Christmas tree with pink ornaments and rotating color wheel…this was the ’60’s) and a love for music, piano and her students that was unsurpassed.

When I first began taking lessons, the summer of my Kindergarten year, she would sit at a chair beside the piano bench.  Her manner never frightened or intimidated me, as she exhibited a free-spirited kind of love toward me and all her students in her manner.  Although I’m probably still suffering the effects of second-hand smoke, and scarred by the tales she told of motorcycle-riding through California, and tales of she and her husband when they were young (which was, I have to admit, difficult to imagine…seeing the arthritically-crippled fingers and joints as I sat beside her at the piano) what has followed me through the years is her love, and the type of wisdom that a good teacher passes on; wisdom that goes deeper than the specifics of the lesson itself.

Although there are many stories and illustrations of care, teaching, music and love that I could tell (and have told), for the sake of today I am remembering the times I was learning specific pieces that she herself had played.  There was one, particular, Mozart piano piece that I was learning.  There was a certain passage which was exceptionally difficult, it seemed that week after week it never got any better.  Mrs. Beardsley, frustrated by her crooked, arthritic fingers and inability to adequately show me the fingering and technique used to play the passage, rose from her rose-pink Lazy-Boy (where she had moved in later years) and made her way to a hall closet where there were piles and piles of music, HER music books, from HER lessons as a child.  All the music was catalogued by composer, and she quickly found “our” piece and brought it over.  She sat now beside me and placed her old copy of the piece at the piano.  Written in two hands, one; the fine pencil marks of HER teacher, and one the more childish writing of HER, as a child pianist, were notes, remarks, fingerings and exercises used for this piece.

And then she spoke the lesson I speak to you: “After playing this for so long, I’d forgotten how difficult it had been to learn.  A good teacher needs to remember being a student.”

The Spirit teaches us, through the Scripture and life, that Jesus isn’t interested in remembering our sins.  (And just as a side-note here, remember that in English we have the one word, “sin”, but the Greeks had seven; everything from “forgetting”, “aiming-but-missing” to “out-and-out rebellion against God”…and all those different words are translated into our one word, “sin”).  Once we recognize, and ask forgiveness for, our debts, our mistakes, our defiance…Jesus is good to forgive AND forget.  But my belief is that WE should NEVER forget our mistakes, our bad choices, our sin.

Why?  Because, as Mrs. Beardsley taught me, and is now teaching you, “A good teacher needs to remember being a student.”  A forgiven Believer & Follower needs to remember when they weren’t a Believer and/or a Follower…or else they forget to feel for others and start down the slippery slope of “us and them” mentality.

If a care-giver forgets what it is like to be sick or incapacitated, their care becomes theoretical and academic.  If a minister forgets that he or she wasn’t always a minister, they cease being relevant, to say nothing of empathetic.  All of us who Believe & Follow have the tendency to become narrow in our acceptance, and judgmental in our attitudes…that is obvious in everything we read and observe. Our narrow and judgmental attitudes come when we forget where our journey began.

When we, as Believers & Followers, forget that we used to NOT be Believers & Followers and the only reason we are now is because of who GOD is, and not because of who WE are…then we have no hope of ever reaching any other heart, of sharing any other burden, of holding any other hand in love.  When we lose EMPATHY we cannot give SYMPATHY…when we forget our own struggle, we lose to tools needed to help anyone else in theirs.

And then we cease loving God…because the way we love HIM is by loving each other.  We could all afford to repeat again and again…”remember that you are dust”…not so much to remind us of our mortality, but to remind us that we were are ARE all “students” as well as “teachers”…the journey that someone else is on may be one we have already travelled, or visa versa.

My thanks, again, to Mrs. Beardsley and her legacy…none of us may ever know the wide circles our influence will travel.  Let us continue to learn, to love, to feel the pain and longing of others as if it were our own.