The Pastor’s Pen – March 2010
On Sunday, the first of six Sabbath days that we will gather for worship during this Lenten tide, we heard the story of the Temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Luke writes, “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.” The wilderness, for many, represents a place of discomfort, of dis-ease – a place where our weaknesses become more apparent to ourselves and to others – a place of increased vulnerability. Most of us would not, given our choice of places to head off on retreat, choose to go willingly into the wilderness. And yet it is precisely the place where the Spirit leads this newly baptized beloved one of God. read more » »
The Pastor’s Pen – February 2010
An Invitation to a Holy Lent
It’s February! Ever since 1994 I have been unable to shake the memory of going out into that extraordinarily cold winter morning of February 18. It was snowing, the wind was blowing and the temperature was a brisk 48° below zero not counting wind chill. My three day sabbatical among the community of Benedictines at Blue Cloud Abbey came as a much needed respite from my internship parish was nearing its end. Many have asked what I could have done so terribly wrong or who I had gotten so angry at me as to warrant such a remote assignment as northeast South Dakota. Actually, though, isolated as it may sound or seem, read more » »
The Pastor’s Pen – January 2010
Living Healthy, Living Well
We are always living in “in between times.” As Christians we live “already but not yet,” meaning that while our justification has been fully accomplished in Christ, we long nonetheless for God to bring to completion the good work Christ first began in us. Martin Luther once penned these words about the Christian life:
“This life therefore is not righteousness, but growth in righteousness, not health, but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished, but it is going on, this is not the end, but it is the road. All does not yet gleam in glory, but all is being purified.”
The Pastor’s Pen – December 2009
Punctuated by Holy Presence
Once upon a time, actually more than once, it happened that I was chosen from amongst my peers to serve as chaplain of a particular group or organization. As I reflect on it I’m not sure that I had a whole host of competition for the job, but let me have my fantasy. The first time it happened to me it came as a huge surprise. I wasn’t sure what it meant – so I ran off to talk with my pastor. Then, so that I would have a second opinion, I wandered into a bookstore in the local mall where we liked to hang out. I pulled a book down from one of the shelves entitled, “Prayers,” since they told me that was what it meant to be chaplain – one who prays. read more » »
The Pastor’s Pen – November 2009
“Love Has Found A Way”
In one of his early books, author Robert Fulghum, shared a little story of the neighborhood children who were playing hide-n-seek in the yard around his house. He recalls the fun of joining in the game as a youth himself. He asked, “Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him?” He went on to tell about the one kid who insisted on hiding so well that the rest would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Eventually that one kid would show back up, mad at everyone else for not playing fair. He would say, “The game is called, ‘Hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP.’” read more » »
The Pastor’s Pen – October 2009
St. Jerome, in his commentary on Galatians (Jerome, Comm. in ep. ad. Gal., 6, 10), tells the well-loved story that John the Evangelist continued preaching in Ephesus even when he was in his 90s. John was so weakened by old age that the people had to carry him into the Church in Ephesus on a stretcher. When he was no longer able to preach or deliver a long discourse, his custom was to lean up on one elbow and say simply: “Little children, love one another.” Every week, even from his death bed, the same thing happened, again and again. Every week it was the same short sermon, the same sincere message: “Little children, love one another.” read more » »
The Pastor’s Pen – September 2009
During my undergraduate years, I took a semester course in Geology, partly because I couldn’t hack Biology, but also because it fit conveniently into my schedule. I remember the course, not so much because we learned lots about rocks, but because of the promised “field trip” listed on the course syllabus. As it turns out, that trip was little more than a narrated hike from the classroom down along the dike at the shore of Lake Hartwell. We walked along that huge earthen dam which holds the lake back from flooding the lowest parts of the Clemson campus near the football practice fields. We walked on until we came as I remember, to a fence which meant I figured we had either taken a wrong turn or a boat was about to come and fetch us. read more » »