Finding is the First Act: A Meditation on Matthew 13:44-46

I love to watch the Antiques Road Show on TV. Someone stumbles across an old dusty painting or piece of furniture in their grandparents' attic. They bring it to the appraisers at the road show. The appraiser points out a signature, a stamp, or a claw leg which makes the item unique. "This painting is the work of F.M. Evans from 1880’s in England," reports the appraiser rather matter-of-factly. The person who brought in the item says, "Hmmm. That's interesting." Then, I can't wait for the moment when the crucial question is asked; "Do you know how much it's worth?" The befuddled owner says, "No, not really." The appraiser says something like, "This painting would probably bring around fifteen thousand dollars at an auction!" And with eyes bugging out and jaw banging on the table the owner gasps, "O my Goodness, I had no idea it was worth that much!"

We’re fascinated with stories of people coming across unexpected or hidden treasures. These stories can be found in the folklore of every culture. For centuries people have told and listened to trove tales, stories of finding treasures. We’re no different today. We love tales of finding treasures or coming across unexpected riches. A man picks up a lottery ticket in the parking lot of a mini-market, takes it home, turns on the TV, sees the numbers fall in place one by one, and wham!~~~~ an instant millionaire! Someone is digging a pool in their back yard and the shovel hits something hard. It's a box. The lid is pried open and…. Ahoy, me hardies…. a buried treasure! A knock on the door. Knock. Knock. Knock. Still in hair curlers and bath robe the woman slowly turns the knob. Surprise! Publisher's Clearinghouse!

Part of the thrill of these stories is imagining what we would do if we came across hidden treasure or unexpected riches. It's like the game some of us used to play when we were kids, and some of us still play as adults. It's called What-would-I-do-if-I-had-a-million-dollars. Some of us, with guilty pleasure watch Deal or No Deal or Who Wants Want to Be a Millionaire? and imagine ourselves as the winner. We think to ourselves: What would it feel like to win a million smackeroos? How would I spend all that money? Would I give any away to charity or keep it all for myself? Would I quit my job? Would my life change? Would I be the same person I've always been? Maybe filthy rich, but still a humble, everyday kind of person? Stories of finding hidden treasure or coming upon unexpected riches cause us not only to imagine wondrous possibilities, but also cause us to examine our values.

Jesus' parable of the hidden treasure is one such story. Jesus compared the kingdom of heaven to a treasure hidden in a field. It had probably been buried there long ago. In ancient times there were no First National Banks or safety deposit boxes. Valuables were often stored in pottery jars and buried in the ground for safekeeping from bandits or invading enemies. Archaeologists jump for joy when in their digging they come across jars filled with ancient coins or valuables. In 1947 two Bedouin shepherd boys were searching for a lost sheep at Qumran near the hills alongside the Dead Sea. One of the boys threw a rock into a cave and heard a sound like the shattering of pottery. The two boys went inside the cave and saw some elongated jars with ancient scrolls inside. The scrolls were put in the cave to protect them from the invading Romans. The scrolls turned out to be one of the most valuable archaeological finds of the century.

I once watched a story of finding hidden treasure on National Geographic's Explorer. A man was riding his donkey in the desert near the town of Bawiti in Bahria. The donkey's foot broke through a hole in the dirt. Archaeological excavations uncovered 105 mummies, many gilded in gold, along with pottery, jewelry, coins, and artifacts. There may be two miles of treasures and possibly 10,000 mummies buried at this site! Someone just happened to stumble upon hidden treasure.

The hidden treasure in Jesus' parable lies beneath the surface of a common field. Maybe the peasant farmer is tilling the soil with an ox-drawn plow. He meanders down crooked rows when all of a sudden the iron plow blade hits something hard. The farmer wipes the sweat from his brow with his forearm and walks over to see what he’s dug up. Probably another rock. The Palestinian soil was filled with rocks. Someone once said that the angel carrying all the rocks of the world was flying over Palestine when the bag broke. A third of the rocks meant for the world fell on Palestine. The farmer bends over and brushes the dirt off the rock, or what he thinks is a rock. It turns out to be a pottery jar. Slowly he removes the broken pieces. His heart quickens and palms perspire. He works the jar loose from the soil to better see what’s inside. Standing in the open field his jaw drops and he swallows air. What's inside? A treasure! By God, it's a treasure!

The farmer bounces around the field as if on a pogo stick, shouting and laughing and holding the jar above his head. He acts like a madman gone bonkers from the heat of the sun. He yelps some choice Hebrew words that sound like, "Finders keepers..." Then, he catches himself and stops. He quickly pulls the jar under his cloak glancing from side to side. "Hold on, now. Calm down. Someone might see me and figure out what I have found," he murmurs to himself. One raised eyebrow is the only hint of a scheme. Strangely enough, he places the jar back into the hole and covers it with dirt. Grabbing the plow handle the farmer snaps the reins of the ox. A whistle from his puckered lips greets the oxen's ears. The lumbering oxen moves forward cutting another crooked furrow in the field. The farmer sings a joyful tune to the sky in Hebrew, which sounds something like, "If I were a rich man, deedle, deedle, deedle, deedle, deedle, deedle, deedle, dum."

That's not the end of the story. I could tell you about the plot twist. Being a tenant farmer, the land on which he found the treasure was not his. So, legally neither was the treasure. The farmer isn't about to tell the owner he found a treasure on his land. But then, you might begin to wonder about the questionable and sneaky character of this farmer. He's a rogue, a rascal! I could tell you how the farmer ran home at the end of the day. While his wife and children watch dumfounded, the man grabs everything they own----chickens and geese, pots and pans, savings and security, everything, including the kitchen sink. He sells it all to buy that dusty ol' patch of earth with weeds, beetles, mice and all. This farmer was an ignoramus. According to Jewish law, if you find treasure in a field you’ve bought, it reverts to the original owner. I could tell you about all that. Instead, I would like to rewind the tape and freeze frame that moment when the farmer bumped into the hidden treasure. It's like...like stumbling upon the realm of God.

This time you’re the poor farmer with hands clutching the plow handle. But, the scene is a bit different. You’re going about your business working at the office, taking a coffee break, paying bills, raising kids, studying for your class, watching TV, sitting in the pew, plowing one more crooked furrow through your life. It's another ordinary day, just like the last one. The same old story. Then....wham! Your plow hits a rock---- a painful moment of truth, a snag in a relationship, a major loss, an unexpected visitor. It wakes you from your mindless plowing. It stops you in your tracks. Maybe it's a rock or a hard place in your life. Maybe not. Maybe you've come upon a treasure, a gift, hidden beneath the dusty surface of your life. The realm of God is like that, you know.

You go through the routine of your daily life without noticing much of anything, taking everything for granted. Yesterday was like today is like tomorrow. Ho, hum. Then...wham! Something comes unto your path and you have to stop and take a closer look. You come across a letter from an old friend, a word of comfort in a time of distress, a talent you've allowed to collect dust on the shelf.

On the surface it may look like just a plain old rock. You dig deeper...and find... a hidden treasure. The common becomes uncommon. Something hidden beneath the dust of your days turns out to be a priceless treasure. And your heart breaks out in joy. It's as if something deeper, a hidden realm of life pokes through to the surface. There are treasures hidden in common clay jars, and sometimes we stumble upon them.

The realm of God is like treasures hidden beneath the crust of life. Often we don't see them until we run into them unexpectedly and they break through the surface. We stumble upon God's priceless gifts and a rock becomes a treasure. A sudden song takes you back to forgotten days of your youth, when life pulsed hot through your veins. An interruption in your hectic schedule turns into a new adventure. A gaze into the face of your child, that can sometimes be a pain in the… turns into a realization of the treasure that you have been given. You stumble upon the rock of Christ and find riches untold. Or an old clay sermon suddenly cracks open and inside are gems just for you.

These gifts intrude into the moments of our humdrum and ho-hum lives like a treasure from heaven. You dive beneath the surface of things or open the shell of your life and discover the realm of God like a priceless pearl. And nothing's quite the same afterwards. There comes this tantalizing twist in the plot of your life.
Frederick Buechner has come to a rich realization through his writing of novels. He has come to sense that perhaps life itself has a plot, “that the events of our lives, random and witless as they generally seem, have a shape and direction of their own, are seeking to show us something, lead us somewhere...” Buechner says, "I choose to believe that...a saving mystery breaks into our time at odd and unforeseeable moments." The realm of God is like that. It’s like a saving mystery that changes our lives, re-plots our story, again and again. It's like a treasure hidden beneath the dusty surface of life. It's like finding a pearl of great price. At unforeseeable moments we run into these treasures, not made of the stuff of gold or silver, but made of heavenly stuff. They break through the surface of our lives and we are the richer. The realm of God is like that, you know.

The kingdom of heaven is like a peasant who still believed in dreams, a place where you can touch the stuff of another realm. The peasant went by the name of Isaac, son of Aaron. He lived in the Polish city of Krakow. Isaac spent long strenuous hours working to support his family. At night he flopped down on his bed exhausted. One night Isaac dreamed he was walking over a bridge in the far off city of Prague, when a voice told him to look in the water for a valuable treasure. The dream was so realistic he could see the treasure box in the crystal clear water. Night after night he dreamed the same dream.

After two weeks and weary from lack of sleep, Isaac walked the three days journey to Prague. He easily located the bridge in his dreams and had begun to look underneath the bridge, when suddenly…. a policeman grabbed him by the arm and hauled him off to the city jail for questioning. In the interrogation room three large men demanded, "What is a Jew doing under a bridge in a Gentile section of the city?" In desperation he blurted out the truth, telling his interrogators he was trying to find a treasure he had seen in his dreams. "You stupid imbecile," the arresting officer shouted, “do you believe in dreams? I am too smart for such nonsense. Why, for the last two weeks I myself have dreamed that in the city of Krakow, in the house of a peasant named Isaac, son of Aaron, there is a treasure hidden under the floor in his kitchen. Yet, you do not see me wasting time looking for something and someone who does not exist!"

Roaring with laughter, the other two policemen grabbed the peasant by the coat and threw him out into the street. “Go home, foolish dreamer," they laughed. Isaac, son of Aaron, dusted himself off. With heart wildly pounding he ran back to his home in Krakow. Board by board he removed the floor of his kitchen. And there beneath his own home was to his great surprise....

Hidden beneath the floorboard of our common lives are treasures. The priceless treasure of new life in Christ. The riches of the Anabaptist peace tradition. Your diamond-in-the-rough church. The rubies of faith, hope, and love. The family and friends that you take for granted. We may not always see these treasures, but on occasion we stumble over them unexpectedly and recognize them as the pricless gifts that they are. The realm of God is like that.

It first comes as a gift. The farmer plowing the field didn't earn nor did he own the treasure he plowed up. It was out of the joy of finding such a treasure that he sold everything he had to buy the field. And since the field wasn't legally his, the gift came outside the law. It was an unearned, lawless gift. Only after stumbling upon this treasure did he make any sacrifice. The finding of the treasure was what came first. Grace before works. The gift of God before our acts of faith. Or as poet Emily Dickinson put it in a poem about treasures: Finding is the first act/second, the loss. First the gift, then the sacrifice. The realm of God is like that, you know.

We stumble upon the treasures of life, like the realm of God. They come to us unearned and unexpected. It's like when Dan Wakefield was going through a year of extreme stress. He lost his parents, his job, his money, and an important relationship. He relied upon alcohol to get him through. Dan says, "One day I just happened to grab an old Bible..., and with a desperate instinct turned to the Twenty~third Psalm." Reading the psalm didn't result in a miraculous breakthrough. It was an isolated moment of solace and calm. It was like the steel edge of a plow smacking up against a rock in the crooked furrow he had been digging through his life.

That experience, a word from a Christmas Eve sermon, and some other unexpected events plowed up the presence of another realm within Dan's life. He found a treasure, which opened up a new future for him, re-ploted his life. He found a priceless community of faith. His thirst for alcohol was replaced with a thirst for God. He just happened to stumble across a treasure that made all things new. Dan said, "The only concept I know to describe such an experience is that of 'grace' and the accompanying adjective of 'amazing' comes to mind with it."

That's the best word to describe the experience of the farmer who unexpectedly struck something while plowing the field. Grace. Before the selling and the sacrifice, there was grace. We cannot buy or possess the riches of God's realm. We gracefully, or sometimes ungracefully, stumble upon these treasures as we go through life. We find the treasure of God's realm, or more often, it finds us. Finding is the first act. That finding is called grace. It's the word that best describes our experience of suddenly tripping upon God's realm hidden in the dust of our days. Grace. Unexpected, unearned grace. The realm of God is like that, you know.

M.C. Escher's Creation Series

Last week I visited the Portland Art Museum to see the M.C. Escher exhibit Virtual Worlds: M.C. Escher and Paradox. As I entered the exhibit the first woodcut prints I saw were of the Genesis creation story. I was unaware of this series of Escher's drawings. Like most people I was aware of his prints of transforming images from one figure to another using foreground and background, a hand drawing a hand, stairs ascending and descending from different angles and perspectives, and other optical illusions created by this mathemetician turned artist. But, I had never seen these depictions of the various days of creation.

The Days of Creation woodcut series was created in 1926-27 in Rome after his brother was killed in a mountaineering accident. Each of the six days is a unique creation. Pun intended. The artist as creator reflects the Artist as Creator. The First Day of Creation is an intricately drawn bird flying over a patterned circle of the earth. The waves in his Second Day of Creation (above drawing)become a repeating pattern of lines that reflect his later passion for interweaving patterns. The Third Day of Creation is a garden of plants against a wavey lined pattern of sky. The Fourth Day of Creation is a mirrored design of day and night side by side with each half reflecting the other like photo and negative. The Fifth Day of Creation is split in half with the top a sky with dark images of birds against a light sky and the bottom light images of fish swimming in a dark sea. In the Sixth Day of Creation Adam and Eve stand with arms around each other gazing over the goodness of creation next to an overarching palm tree. In Escher's Fall of Man Eve hold out a bitten apple to Adam, who sits on the ground with a hand on his head. The serpent looks like a giant striped lizard climbing down a large tree. It almost has the look of an Aubrey Beardsley print.

The Escher exhibit, which was a collection of works from the Portland Art Museum and other surrounding galleries, was a nice presentation of his traditional print images, but the creation series provided a new set of drawings from Escher I had never seen.

Up, Up and Away

Last night I had a dream of freedom. I can't remember the images, but the soundtrack of my dream was the Fifth Dimension's song Up, Up and Away. The opening lyric is "Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon?" The song was released in 1967, the year of my graduation from high school. It was written by Jimmy Webb, won 4 Grammys, was the record and song of the year.

Up, Up and Away is connected to a joyful time of my life. It symbolizes for me the freedom of hot air ballooning, floating free, without a care. I am now at a transition in my life without a job, floating free, almost done packing my house, ready to head off to Portland, Oregon, soaring to new places, looking down on my life as if from a balloon, looking up to new possibilities that lie ahead. Music has a special way of capturing moments and feelings of your life like nothing else.

* On the morning I was ready to drive to Portland from Albany, Oregon to my new house I looked up and saw a hot air balloon floating overhead.

God is Our Everpresent Help: Psalm 46; Preached this morning at St. Andrew's United Church of Christ, Lancaster, PA

Ein feste burg is unser Gott. A Mighty Fortress is our God. In 1529, when the Protestant cause of the Reformation was wavering in the balance, Martin Luther wrote the hymn A Mighty Fortress is our God. His song was based upon Psalm 46, a hymn of God's enduring power. This psalm has provided assurance and comfort for many from generation to generation who have faced crises and struggles. It is a psalm I have often read to people when they are in the hospital enduring sickness or facing death. In powerful poetic images the psalm extols confidence in God, our refuge and strength in times of trouble. Luther captured well the psalm's image of God as a mighty fortress.

Psalm 46 is a psalm of Zion, the city where it was believed that God dwelt and from where God ruled. It was the place of the temple and Israel's military stronghold. But, this Psalm of Zion does not extol the security and strength of the city itself. The psalm reminds us that it is God in the city and not the king in the palace, nor the priests in the temple, who brings security, order, and peace to the world. Neither church nor state are our refuge and strength. God alone is our ever present help.

The psalm is structured in three parts. Verses 1-3 assure us not to fear, even when all of creation is collapsing around us. Verses 4-7 proclaim God's presence in Zion's midst, even when surrounded by conflict and catastrophe.
In verses 8-11 God calls for peace among the nations. Each section of the psalm contains a confession of confidence in God, a reassuring refrain reminding us that God is with us and is our refuge and our strength.

God is power when the world quakes. Psalm 46 opens with the assurance that God is our refuge and our strength, an everpresent help in times of trouble. There is no need to fear, even in the midst of cosmic cataclysm. The psalmist seems to paint a graphic picture of a catastrophic earthquake. Earthquakes are so powerful they would cause anyone to fear. I was scared out of my wits during the big earthquake in California in 1971. It measured 7.1 on the Richter scale. One morning I woke to a deep rumbling in the earth. My bed was bouncing across the wood floor. I could hear the house was creaking and moaning. Books were flying off the shelf. My mother was banging on my bedroom yelling at me to get out of the house. It was like waking to a nightmare. I prayed to God in fear. It literally felt like the end of the world.

There are times when the ground beneath us shakes and quakes and it feels like the end of our world. Figuratively speaking, the ground on which we stand may be understood as those things which provide us with what appears to be unshakeable "security," our impenetrable nation, our clean bill of health, our steady job, our home sweet home, our friends and family, our social security payments, our retirement fund. These things make us feel safe and secure in the world. Then, something happens unexpectedly, like September 11 and we feel the insecurity that so many nations have felt under our military power and our own terrorism through nuclear threat.

Or what happens to us to shake our security may not be something that can be measured on the Richter scale, but it may feel like a 7.1 quake in the soul. In a serious tone your child's teacher says, "I caught your child cheating on the exam." The boss calls you into the office and with eyes to the floor says, "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to lay you off." The letter reads, "Your Medicare benefits have been cut." The doctor walks into the room with a file and some x-rays and states rather stoically, "The test says it’s a malignant tumor." Dark clouds gather overhead and we shiver. Waves of mortality and breakers of insecurity crash on our shore and we tremble. The mountains of our strength rock and reel and we shake in fear.

Sometimes the shaking of our securities may occur through a loss or change which may on the surface seem common or insignificant. It doesn't always take a major crisis to cause the ground beneath us to quake. One of the earliest memories of renowned theologian Teilhard de Chardin was of his hair being cut by his mother in front of the fireplace. The young Teilhard watched in horror as a lock of his hair fell into the fire, blackened and burn ed. To him, a part of himself had turned into nothing. For the first time in his life he understood that he was not indestructible. His young mind needed something permanent and imperishable to provide him with a refuge from the transitoriness of life. So he fixed his attention on iron. He soon discovered iron would rust. So, he turned to rocks, something stable. As Teilhard matured he realized there was no imperishable substance which offered a refuge from a world which decays and crumbles. This was the beginning of a spiritual pilgrimage for Teilhard to search for that Rock and Refuge which stands strong in a world which shakes and falls apart.

The psalmist assures us that God is our refuge and our strength. God is everpresent when our bodies fail us, our years pass into nothingness, and the vibrancy of life fades into faint memories. God is a mighty fortress where we can flee when our faith is being attacked by the swords of doubt and spears of misfortune. God is the Rock upon which we stand when the quicksand of human troubles would pull us under. God is our strength when life has wrung from us the last drop of energy we need just to make It through another day. God is with us. God is our refuge and our strength, an everpresent help in times of trouble.

God is presence when cities and nations rage. The psalmist pictures the nations round about Zion as being in an uproar. Kingdoms totter. The earth melts like a wax candle. The world of politics and policies, of economics and ecology is teetering on the brink of disaster. You don't have to live in ancient land of Jerusalem to understand what this is like. Those of us old enough to have lived through a World War and the Depression know how nations and economies can stagger like drunken men.

We have seen rulers deposed and assassinated and allied countries in conflict. We have watched as the rule of presidents, congressional leaders, and even church leaders have stumbled and fallen. Many of us have watched the slow decay of our inner cities, white flight to the suburbs, segregation of races, unemployment, gangs, and violence flow like sewage through the streets and alleys. We have tasted the bitter waters of pollution from industry without conscience and smelled the fumes of a world burning up its resources without limits. Gazing at a world melting into oblivion we long for the city of God, whose foundations are sure.

It was St. Augustine who so eloquently wrote The City of God, in which he contrasted to the earthly city of humanity. For the psalmist the city of God is both the present earthly Jerusalem and the ideal, heavenly Jerusalem. In contrast to the world, where the "waters roar and foam," a peaceful river makes glad the city of God. God is in the midst of the city. It is God who makes its streets secure. When all we see are cuI de sacs of injustice and dead end streets of beaurocracy, the vision of the city of God opens our eyes to God's presence on the highways and byways of our earthly cities.

To look at our world, our nations, our cities, with an eye only on the earthly, human city is to overlook the presence of God in the world. It can only lead to despair. We can catch glimpses of the city of God within our earthly cities. The city of God is where justice weighs heavy in the scales, righteousness rules the city council, the weak are made strong, the wounded are healed, the hungry are given their just desserts, and persons are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. The city of God is governed by what Rabbi Michael Lerner calls the "politics of meaning,” a reconstruction of "the world in a way which takes seriously the uniqueness and preciousness of every human being and our connection to a higher ethical and spiritual purpose that gives meaning to our lives." A river of life flows in the midst of this city. It quenches the thirst of those panting for purpose and joy in living.

The spires of God's city reach into the heavens, while its foundation is rooted in the earth. God is its maker and builder. Each new day which dawns illuminates the presence of God within this city, who roams its streets with sleeves rolled up and is hard at work securing its unstable walls, filling in the potholes of inequity, and checking the flow of its lifegiving waters. God is working at building a new Jerusalem, a new Lancaster, even though the nations rage and the cities seem to be crumbling around us, God is with us. God is our refuge and our strength, an everpresent help in times of trouble.

God is peace when strife and warfare blares its noise. In the final section of the psalm the poet invites us to come and see the things God has done upon the earth while the nations rage and their cities crumble. Ashes as Ground zero in New York City, the flames of the L.A. riots, the smoldering ruins of Sarajevo, the bomb infested fields of Southeast Asia tell the tale of human folly. Our flood of handguns, stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and reliance upon military security bears witness to our insecurity and our trust in human power to save us. Across the silent fields of Vietnam, through the slaughtering fields of Darfur, beyond the sands of Kuwait, throughout the noisy halls of the Pentagon, God is shouting, "Be still and know that I am God! It is my reign of peace which shall rule the nations. I will be exalted above the earth and it is my kingdom which is to come on earth as in heaven."

We have often taken the words "Be still and know that I am God" out of context and used it as a call to quiet meditation. Rather, it is God's command to cease war, to stop the violence and destruction. "Stop the wars, then you will know I am God." To know God is to end our strife and warfare. For God is the one who makes wars to cease to the ends of the earth. God snaps the M-1 rifle in two. God smashes the scud missile. God sets fire to the armored tanks. "Be still," says God. "Stop your fighting and know I am God."

The cry for a world without war and violence is not just the yelling of some radical protesters with their signs waving or the whispering of a minority of Mennonites. It is the roar of God above the raging nations. Be still! Stop the war and violence! You have heard this voice crying out, haven’t you? You have heard it in the words of the prophets Isaiah and Micah, who proclaimed a day when swords will be beaten into plowshares, nation will not lift up sword against nation, nor will they learn war any more (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3).

God's voice echoed in words of Hosea who spoke of a day when weapons and war will be abolished from the land (Hosea 2: 18). The advent angels chime in at the birth of the Prince of Peace, "Peace on earth. Good will to all." You have heard this same cry in the voice of Jesus, who said, "Blessed are the peacemakers," and "Love your enemies." God's voice continued to ring in the words of Anabaptist Conrad Grebel, who reminded us that the sword and killing had ceased with the true Christian. The call for peace could be heard in the words of A.J. Muste when he said, "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way" or Mahatma Gandhi, who said, "My religion is based on truth and nonviolence. Truth is my God and non-violence is the means to reach God." God still cries out to a warring world, "Be still, stop the war and violence, and know that I am God. "

Even when creation trembles, foundations shake, nations rage, kingdoms totter, cities crumble, warfare blares, God is with us. God is our refuge and our strength, an everpresent help in times of trouble.

This truth is worth singing. The psalmist proclaimed this truth in a song. Martin Luther penned a hymn so the truth of this psalm would ring from the rafters. Let us sing with our lives the truth of God, a mighty fortress, our refuge and our strength, an everpresent help in times of trouble.




A New Psalm 46
written by Leo Hartshorn

We need not be afraid,
though oil spills blacken the seas
though volcanoes spit ash into the skies,
though the ground beneath our lives shakes and cracks,
though tornadoes of tragedy rip up the roots of our world,
though the seas of chaos engulf us beneath their waves.

God is our everpresent help.
God is our refuge and our strength.

The peaceful streams of God's presence
water the roots of our spirits
and flood the streets of our cities with joy.
God is always with us,
and comes to us in hours of darkness
as the dawning of a new day.
Presidents and kings may cause their petty skirmishes.
Dictators and regimes may topple to the ground.
But, when God speaks with hot breath the icy world melts.

God is our everpresent help.
God is our refuge and our strength.

Take a good look off into God's future
and see the new world made by divine hands.
That ol' Peacemaker has called a halt to all wars.
See, the rifles snap over God's knee.
Behold, God smashes stockpiles of nuclear weapons with a mighty fist
and puts the match to a fleet of stealth bombers.
God shouts over the noise of battle,
"Stop the fighting!”
When the world obeys, they will know me
as the God I am,
Lover of justice and peace.
When the world finally ceases its warring ways,
then they will know,
I am their refuge and their strength.
I will be exalted over all the earth.

God is our everpresent help.
God is our refuge and our strength.

P-I-N-K

P-I-N-K
Words by Leo Hartshorn
(to the tune of YMCA)

Mennos, tell me what do you think
about Mennos who make statements in pink
or those Mennos who watch Miami Ink
and who pierce their tender bodies

Mennos, they may be in your town
And they won’t be wearing gray or dark brown
They will love you when you put them all down
But they’ll do it all with color

It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K
It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K

We wonder if Felix Mantz
would have worn pink pants
and if George Blaurock’s coat looked gay

It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K
It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K

So wear your pink to your school,
Your church or office carpool
but only if you are out all day

Mennos, you should welcome us in
I said Mennos, would it be such a sin
to love Mennos who love women and men
when the Lord loved everybody?

Mennos, it is now the right time
to add colors like pink, fuchsia, and lime
to Christ’s body and stop performing mime
when it comes to conversation

It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K
It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K

Don’t take your welcome sign down
if we come to your town
or just happen to be your kin

It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K
It’s fun for Mennos to wear P-I-N-K

Bender may turn in his grave
Hershberger tell us “Behave!”
But we will wear pink with such a grin

The Journey of Faith: based on Genesis 12:1-4a; Hebrews 1:1-3,8-19. Preached at Blossom Hill Mennonite Church on Sunday July 19, 2009

Remember Willie Nelson's song On the Road Again? It is a traveling song that reminds me of the exhilaration of being on the road. The lyrics go like this:

On the road again
Just can't wait to get on the road again
The life I love is makin' music with my friends
And I can't wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Goin' places that I've never been
Seein' things that I may never see again,
And I can't wait to get on the road again.

As a musician I have known that feeling of the wind in your face as you move on down the road to unfamiliar and unseen places, meeting new people, and encountering new adventures along the way. It is the pioneer spirit. But, some of us, like my daughter Toni, are settlers. We like to stay put and enjoy the familiar and routine. The idea of journeying is unsettling. That's okay. But, journeying and pilgrimage are significant metaphors for our faith. As a matter of fact, the parents of our faith, Abraham and Sarah, set off on a literal journey that became an archetype of faith as journeying.

We are a people on a journey of faith. Our faith is like a pilgrimage. God calls us to be on the road again. It is not always a literal movement in space and time. It can be a movement of the heart, a spiritual journey toward the territory of God's reign. Journeying is a fitting metaphor for a life of faith. We move across straight and crooked, rough and smooth pathways, treacherous mountains, lush and peaceful plains. Faith, understood as a journey, is dynamic, moving, changing, instead of static, settled, and sedentary. We move toward a destination.

As a metaphor, journeying or pilgrimage has been historically used to describe faith. St. Augustine spoke of faith as a journey toward the City of God, our heavenly abode. He said that as long as we are in our mortal bodies, we are "pilgrims in a foreign land, away from God." John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress is an extended allegory of the Christian life depicted as a pilgrimage toward the Celestial City. Journey stories like the Wizard of Oz and The Lord of the Rings vividly portray the hazards and hallelujahs of our human pilgrimage.

In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews are listed the heroes and heroines of our faith. The faith of Abraham and Sarah is connected to their journey to an unseen land. The father and mother of our faith were people on the move. God told them to pack up their house, hairdryers, hounds and head off to an unfamiliar place. They had to leave behind their old gods, their old friends, and their old ways and walk out onto the landscape with only the wind of God at their backs. Abraham and Sarah ventured off in obedience to the crazy call of God to become sojourners and pilgrims.

Our faith is grounded in a people on the move. Their journey becomes a symbol for our lives of faith. Hasn't your faith been challenged by twists and turns in the road and the steep hills? A doctor walks into the examination room with a chart and we may be at a turning point. The boss calls you on the phone and says, "We’re gonna have to terminate your position due to budget cuts" and you find yourself on a whole new adventure. Haven't we experienced forks in the road like when this church was called upon to make a decision concerning which way it would go? We have known those sunny rest stops along the way of life, those peaceful valleys, haven't we? A day away by a still lake. A quiet moment of reading. What about mountain top experiences? A church retreat energizes our faith. A meeting with a counselor or spiritual director sets everything in place. We move along life's journey in faith that, with God's guiding hand, we are heading in the right direction.

On the road of faith God calls us forward through sunshine and rain, rough paths and smooth, with companions and alone, toward an unseen destination. We are a people on a journey of faith, which means we are sojourners and pilgrims in this world. There is this kind of "holy unsettledness" a “sacred insecurity” about our lives. As pilgrims on a faith journey we live with a consciousness of the impermanence of our human existence. We dare not cling too tightly to the things of this earth. For this life passes by like the countryside seen through the window of a moving train.

Or a boat. Sufi mystic Jalaluddin Rumi wrote a poem that made me reflect on life as a journey that so quickly passes by. He put it this way:

In a boat down a fast-moving creek,
it feels like trees on the bank
are rushing by. What seems to be
changing around us is rather
the speed of our craft
leaving this world

I wrote a poetic reflection on Rumi’s verse on this blog that went like this:


O Life, slow down the speed of
passing trees and months and years.

In the wake of the boat I see
a child running with abandon in the lemon orchards,
a youth playing wildly on the drums,
a young adult studiously reading books,
a man seriously preaching in a small church,
a middle aged adult sadly packing to move,
an older man wistfully watching his grandson play.

O Life, slow the passing trees,
the speed of the boat
that is leaving this world.

Friends of our youth, with whom we laughed and cried, are now gone. The children we once held in our arms and pushed in the swings have grown up and moved out on their own, well, some of them. The years pass and nothing stays the same. Life is impermanent. We cannot cling to a world passing by. We must move on. This doesn't mean that as sojourners we despise our earthly home and think only of our heavenly abode. It does mean that in many ways we have to pull up those stakes embedded in the past or the way things have always been and move our tents to new plains.

We are sojourners and pilgrims. And like Abraham and Sarah we are foreigners in the land, or to use a phrase of Stanley Hauerwas, we are "resident aliens." We are never fully at home in this world, in our culture, in our nation, in our communities. We are citizens of the city of God, which lies ahead of us. A second century letter to Diognetus describes the lifestyle of early Christians in this manner:

For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, or by speech, or by dress. For they do not dwell in cities of their own, or use a different language, or practice a peculiar life....yet the citizenship which they exhibit is wonderful and admittedly strange. They live in countries of their own, but simply as sojourners; they share the life of citizens, they endure the lot of foreigners; every foreign land is to them a fatherland, and every fatherland a foreign land... They spend their existence upon earth, but their citizenship is in heaven.

Our call as God's people pulls us forward toward vistas beyond the limits of human allegiances and loyalties. Ties of family, country, culture, and ideology became relative when you are on the road toward an unseen county. We live footloose in this world.

This does not mean we always know exactly where we are headed or where our path will lead us in this world. Abraham and Sarah set off for an unseen land. They threw caution to the wind of God and set sail for God's promised land into an unknown future. And God went with them on the journey. When we follow this God-on-the-move, we don't always know the road ahead and where it will take us. We listen for the beckoning voice of God calling us forward and we follow in faith. The call may come as a still, small voice, a deep desire to follow our gifts and dreams, an open door of opportunity, a closing chapter of our life, or an inner movement that calls us to step out and risk doing something new as we reach fork in the road or a new untrodden path. And we go forward in faith not knowing exactly where the road leads.

Forty years ago, when I was in 20 years old, the road ahead of me seemed clear. I was going to be an illustrator or a Rock musician, dreams I had since childhood. After high school I had moved to LA to record an album with Bob Keane, producer for Ritchie Valens, at Del-Fi Records and majored in art at Los Angeles City College. I didn’t expect to meet Richard Gant and have him drag a young hippie Rock musician all over LA to monasteries, cloisters, Catholic masses, Jesus Freak meetings, Charismatic and Pentecostal services! Those were odd new road stands along the highway for me.

I was not expecting to be pulled off the road I was traveling by the US Army and end up filing for conscientious objector status. The military was, in my opinion, a rough road to be forced down. Then again, I wasn’t expecting to have trumpet player Terry Moretti to just happen to come in the back of the Army pharmacy where I worked in Augusta, Georgia and lead me down the road to Atlanta, where I would play drums in a soldier show and tour the South. And upon returning to my home in Southern California and in a Southern Baptist church I wasn’t expecting my path to be crossed by an independent young woman by the name of Iris Illeana De Leon, who played clarinet in the same high school band where I played…guess what. We have now traveled together on life’s journey for 37 years.

During that period of my life journey I had an experience I described as a persistent inner voice calling me to become a minister. I struggled with this call, wondering whether it was my own voice or God's. I still wonder about that. But, at the time I concluded that it must be God's voice. So, I let go of a vocation I wanted to pursue in art, packed my bags, and headed off onto an unknown landscape with Iris beside me. We did not know where we were going to end up, but we went out in faith. We lived on the Riverside campus of California Baptist College, where Purpose-driven Rick Warren was a fellow student, and later in a converted garage in Ontario behind the church where I was a youth pastor.

The next leg of our journey took us the San Francisco Bay area, where I went to Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, studied ancient languages and swept ancient floors. Our path fell on pleasant places, lush hills, and fertile valleys as we made many close friends and were part of an innovative, progressive congregation in San Francisco. Together Iris and I ministered to street people in the Lost and Found coffee house we started, where every Friday candlelight and Christian rock music burned the night away. My passion for theological study raised aspirations for pursuing a doctorate and teaching following my graduation from seminary in 1978. But timing and finances diverted my path. We ended up back at our home congregation, where I was co-pastor, minister of youth and education. There were rough roads ahead along this highway.

The questions seminary taught me to raise were not so welcome in my fundamentalist congregation. To question certain faith assumptions was enough to get you called into the lead pastor's office for an inquisitorial examination. I was forced into an ecclesiastical corner to resign. The road ahead soon covered over with a thick fog.

I had spent five long years of preparation for ministry only to find myself painting signs, changing car tires, and hanging out of helicopters over the ocean! This was not what I had been called by the god of Abraham and Sarah to do. I wandered in the wilderness for three years in a deep fog straining my eyes and my heart looking for a pathway back on to the roadway to church ministry. Where was this god who had called me to sacrifice my deep desire for a vocation in art or music in order to follow a call to ministry? I didn't understand why I was forced to travel that crooked road then and I still don’t understand why.

By the grace of God, sheer luck, or through having a Christian brother, I met a character actor, Greg Walcott, who performed in numerous TV shows and movies, including the infamous cult classic Plan Nine from Outerspace. Greg was also my brother’s pastor. He was creative spirit, who had lad the groundwork for church renewal of Southern Baptist congregation in Burbank, California. He sparked my dreams with his new vision for the church. With a call I was on the road again back to the Los Angeles area. When I got on the saddle in Burbank I brought into practice some of the new, creative ideas I was exploring about church. Within a year Greg’s and my dreams were squelched by congregational members who began to see that the changes necessary for church renewal were too much, too soon. So they began resisting the changes. Those who originally welcomed a new vision ended up wanting to keep things pretty much the same as they had been. The people were settlers at heart. Both Greg and I resigned at the same time and we moved on to new roads. The other day I watched Greg on TV in the movie Norma Rae and reflected on the grace of our paths have crossing once long ago.

I took a road leading to my first pastorate back to the San Francisco bay area in a small Southern Baptist congregation in Alameda, California, a city by the bay across from Oakland and Berkeley. Finally, after ten years I was where I felt I was called to be….in a lead pastoral role. Iris was always beside me, working in secular jobs, and coming alongside us was a daughter, Toni, and two adopted children, Andres and Isabel.

My path crossed that of Dr. James Wm. McClendon, Jr., a fortuitous meeting. Jim was a baptist theologian at Berkeley's Episcopal Divinity School and a member of my small congregation. While teaching a course on Anabaptist history he suggested I might find my spiritual roots in the 16th century Anabaptist movement. My study of the Anabaptists led me to take another unexpected road in my life.

In 1987 I became a Mennonite and was called to be pastor in Houston, Texas. Where would this new road lead me? Well, starting out on this new road was exhilarating and exasperating. The first year the congregation doubled in size. Around the same time we had a major conflict over peace. I had joined a peace church tradition and our congregation was fighting over peace! I didn’t get it then. I don’t get it now. There is not enough time to tell the road stories of many stormy Sundays and dark valleys, hilltops and hallelujahs on my ten year journey in Houston. But, it must have been the sheer grace of God, or simply my not wanting to give up on God and church that kept me in faith and pastoral work.

Another path opened up. This time it was Iris’ call. She was called to lead peace and justice work for Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Again we packed our bags and headed down the road again. This new road ended in Lancaster. After 8 months sitting along the roadside, unemployed, my seemingly dead end trail led to Bethel Mennonite Church, the best available option for a minister who had balanced himself along the edges of the church for so many years.

For five years I found myself in a congregation that not only was not the best fit for me, but had been traveling down a hill of decline. Bethel and Blossom Hill Mennonite Church even had conversations about merger for Bethel’s survival when I was their pastor. At the same time, new avenues opened up for me through my involvement at Lancaster Theological Seminary----doctoral work, ministry supervision, as pastor preceptor, adjunct teacher, resident drummer, and on and on. With Bethel coming to a dead end, as well as 29 years in pastoral ministry, I was ready to get off that road.

Out of nowhere a new pathway opened through the dense forest into a totally new landscape. In 2002 I became Minister of Peace and Justice with Mennonite Mission Network. In that same year I started, with Heidi Beth Wert, Drumming for Peace, which has taken me across the US and to places I could never have imagined, even as a young musician. Frustration with the tough road of church ministry even led me down another path of rediscovering my passion for art, which has just started taking me to new vistas and possibilities.

It has been a long journey. Now, one long and winding road is coming to an end. At the same time my job is ending with Mennonite Mission Network Iris is taking a position as Executive Conference Minister for Pacific Northwest Conference. We will be on the road again to Portland, Oregon. After 36 years of church ministry I have my eyes set on taking an untraveled path, a side road I haven’t been able to take in all these years. I am hoping to explore my creative gifts more fully and pursue work outside the institutional church. This time intentionally.

In many ways it is a scary, unknown, unpredictable, risky adventure after having been on one winding road for so long. But, with the sunset drawing nearer there is this “off the beaten path” that I want to pursue. Who knows, I may end up back on the same old road I have tread for so long. But, a road less traveled has presented itself in my life as a strange new opportunity, an odd crossroad of grace. I want to step out on this new path that may take me further toward the margins of the institutional church. And maybe I will also find the divine Gypsy dancing beside me as a traveling companion.

I share with you these snapshots of my life journey to simply show you how life has twists and turns, unexpected crossroads, and new paths that open up out of nowhere as we try to find our way home. Along our life journey we can trust, even when the road ahead seems foggy or crooked, that our paths will always lead toward home, for our future is guided by an unseen Traveling Partner. The destination may not always be in sight. But, we move forward into an unknown future in faith that an unpredictable, sacred pathway unfolds before us, even when we do not see the hand of a Guide. We step out in risky faith, at times not even knowing where we are going.

We have a vision of an unseen city that looms on a far horizon and draws us ever forward. As a pilgrim people, like Abraham and Sarah, we are looking for that city. Every city, every human habitation will leave us longing for that place where we experience life in its fullness, where our gifts flower and flourish, where peace and justice dwell. We look for that city whose builder and maker is God.

Can you see that city looming up over the horizon? Does the sight lighten your step, quicken your pace, and renew your energy? The city beckons us all forward. We are all pilgrims and sojourners in this life. That is the nature of our spiritual journey. As St. Augustine once said:

This heavenly city, then, while it sojourns on earth, calls citizens out of all nations, and gathers together a society of pilgrims of all languages, not scrupling about diversities in manners, laws, and institutions whereby earthly peace is secured and maintained.

It is this vision of a new community, a new citizenship, a new city that keeps us moving forward, even though we may not see all the winding, wonderful and weary roads ahead. As a pilgrim people we allow the wind of the Spirit to blow us wherever it will in this transient world, trusting that our final destiny is an eternal city. As spiritual children of Abraham and Sarah, we are a people always on the road again.

Even as I pull up my tent pegs and head down a different road, I am reminded that we are all sojourners and pilgrims on a journey of faith. We are all called to step forward in faith, trusting that an unseen hand is guiding all our winding pathways to that city that lies just over that distant horizon.

Blues and Bikes: Gettysburg Bike Week

You meet the most interesting people in life

This morning I happened to come across the 1979 movie Norma Rae on TV and watched it again. I saw and old friend on the TV screen---Greg Walcott. Greg was a character actor for many years and had numerous roles on TV and in movies. His roles were often in westerns, like Bonanza, Maverick, Wagon Train, the Rifleman, and Rawhide, shows my dad loved to watch in my childhood years. Greg also played in a number of Clint Eastwood movies, like Thunderbolt and Lightfoot, Joe Kidd, and Any Which Way But Loose. He is probably best known for his role in the cult film Plan 9 from Outerspace and made a cameo appearance in the movie Ed Wood about the film's producer, starring Johhny Depp and directed by Tim Burton.

I know Greg from having worked with him as a co-pastor of Central Baptist Church in Burbank, California in 1983. Following seminary I ended up as a co-pastor of my home congregation, a bad idea. My "new fangled" ideas and theology got me in a heap of trouble until I was forced to resign. I had been looking for a church position after 3 years of painting signs, "busting tires," and hanging out of helicopters, when my brother mentioned my name to Greg, who was his pastor, as a possible co-pastor of a small Southern Baptist congregation he had been preparing to take in a new, creative direction. In the congregation were some young men trying to break into acting and several musicians, including the bass player and guitarist for rocker Rod Stewart's band. Being a creative person myself Greg and I hit it off right away and I was called to be part of the pastoral team in Burbank. My areas of responsibility were with the youth and education programs.

Feeling the freedom to be creative I probably went overboard when I was given an opportunity to design a series of creative services with contemporary music, illustrated bulletins, diverse liturgical styles. I think it was probably a bit much for those Southern Baptists who thought they were ready for something new. They weren't really ready for the new things that both Greg and I were offering. So, Greg ended up resigning about the time I was called to my first lead pastoral role in the Bay area. I have not seen Greg since then, except in an occasional movie.

Seeing Greg in Norma Rae in my livingroom this morning caused me to reflect on the many interesting, creative people I have encountered and been graced by in my life and 36 years of church ministry (see the short list of some friends on the side of this blog). I guess it's because I am winding up many years of church ministry and will be making another of the moves that have bounced me across California and the U.S. I have had the good fortune to have met many wonderful people in my life and ministry, along with a number of real *%$#!, some who I probably will never see again this side of eternity. So, I wonder what interesting people will cross my path as I move on to Portland, Oregon?