Church:

Let us not give up meeting together.

(Hebrews 10:25)

I respect anyone who makes it to church on Sunday morning. For fifty years or so, I didn’t have a choice in the matter. If I didn’t show up for church on Sunday morning, I’d get fired. But now, in retirement, I don’t have to go to church. We are free to stay home and watch the football game.

It is work to go to church. You have to rally the whole family; or, in my case, there’s always some part of my physical body that’s malfunctioning enough to provide an excuse to forgo the task.

That is how we felt last Sunday. But we rallied. We put ourselves together. We made it to church. We did “not give up meeting together.”

Church was good. Church most always is. It’s just the getting there. There’s goodness in singing our songs of praise and in praying our prayers and in listening to the message and then participating in the Table; but last Sunday, I was reminded of the goodness of just being “together”. We lingered about so long after the service that we bumped into folks making their way to the second service. One couple we met, Kevin and Ellen Gray, we had not seen for a spell. Ellen, a poet, thanked me for a poem I had Kevin give her awhile back.

This encounter prompts Ellen to send me one of her poems: “Pilate’s Wife Listens for Crickets”. It was worth going to church on Sunday morning just for that—that poem. I’ll pass it on. It’s a reflection on a single sentence, one verse: “While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat, his wife sent him a message…” (Mt 27:19). The man with all the power gets it wrong. The woman, like Mary and Elizabeth and Mary of Bethany along with all those Galilean women; get it—or, sort of get it. These women somehow get that Jesus is more. Give the poem a few reads, and imagine Pilate’s wife:

            Pilate’s Wife Listens for Crickets, by Ellen Gray

The crucifixions come after Passover

the chant of Pharisees

the cry of thieves

and what about me?

when your days are a lie

and your mirages are true

you go a little bit mad

from the window I see hanging

dead bodies, I shiver in loneliness

pacing over palace floors

rolling my sins over and over and

over, into an obsessive stone

standing like a cruel idol

on the path to green pastures

how unfixable living is

the weakness of laws

the losing rebellions

the blind violence of driving

a rusty nail through a human hand

three nights on earth

can feel like an eternity

waiting at the window

waiting at the door

waiting at the gate

for something like good news

the little chirp of life

almost starts too late

the silent grip of the night broken

by a beating chorus

neither seraphim or cherubim

but the lyrics of crickets

singing in the dark garden

repeating and repeating,

notes like a heartbeat

the comfort of call

and answer, assurance

revealed in the song

of a humble creature's wings.

One other surprise, it just so happens that the pastor spoke from the Epistle to the Ephesians about how we are God’s “poem” (2:10), from the Greek word poiēma from which we get our English word “poem”. It speaks of God’s special, thoughtful, creative work. We are God’s poem, isn’t that something?

Friday Night Lights:

Run to win.

(First Corinthians 9:24)

Last Friday, Linda and I drove north a ways to watch Gary and Janice’s grandson play quarterback for Analy High School. I watched for Gary. He wouldn’t be there. That’s the saddest thing about leaving this old world.

That night, Analy competed against longtime rival El Molino High, which is a little further north in Forestville, up towards the Russian River. They call this big game the “Golden Apple Bowl” from the days when Sebastopol up through Forestville was known as the Apple Capital of the world. The apple orchards are mostly gone now, replaced by vineyards. I suppose they should change it to “The Grape Bowl,” But the big, tall trophy remains apple topped.

I sat with Ken, Gary’s younger brother, who played fullback next to Mel Grey during Montgomery High’s glory days. Mel Grey went on to play in the NFL with the St Louis Cardinals. Ken and I talked some of the old days and marveled how Friday night football still holds up: cheerleaders, band, teenagers roaming about, and the game played under the lights.

Same Friday night experience, though some things had changed like apple orchards into vineyards.  Now, the play on artificial turf, that’s not good. When the turf was real, one, like myself who didn’t get much playing time, could always find enough mud to dirty up. There’s nothing worse than ending the game with a clean uniform. And, now they spread the formation from sideline to sideline—that’s different. When I played “end” it meant that I lined up at the right or left end of the line, but now there’s positions stretching out beyond the “end” so the “end” is no longer the “end”. Or again, now they go no-huddle—how do they do that? I had a hard enough time trying to hold the play in my head between the call in the huddle and the snap. Nevertheless, it’s still football—blocking, tackling, running; and, the most beautiful play in sports, the forward pass.

And could Gavin ever pass. He threw the football for 355 yards and four touchdowns. He played his heart out. He competed. They lost. It hurts to lose. But he’ll rally. He’ll show up for practice Monday. Next Friday, he’ll take to the field against Piner High, and “play to win.” I’ll miss that game. I hope he gets a “W”.

“Compete” and “run to win” doesn’t sound properly pious or biblical, does it? But at its best, competition means we care and we have the courage to take our place on the field. When we do it right, we “feel His pleasure” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd5LCN53q9Y).

Honky Tonkin & Gospel:

I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me.

(Psalm 51:3)

Last night Linda and I watched Ken Burns’ History of Country Music. It was the third episode mainly about Hank Williams. At the tail end of one of his Honky Tonkin tours singing songs like…

When you are sad and lonely and have no place to go

Call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough

And we’ll go honky tonkin’…

Williams lies drunk in the back seat of his touring car when his mother says, “We’re coming home, I can see the light.” He woke from his drunken stupor and wrote:

I wandered so aimless life filled with sin

I wouldn’t let my dear savior in

Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night

Praise the Lord I saw the light.

Honky Tonkin on Saturday night and making it to church on Sunday morning seems the way of Country Music. I’ve always suspected something superficial and unduly sentimental about Country Music’s way of following Jesus. Like many, the light he saw, didn’t seem to change much. Nevertheless, there was always Sunday morning. Maybe we make Sunday morning church so distant from Saturday night that folks like Hank Williams would never dream of coming to church. I’m not so sure we would know what to do with somebody staggering in the church’s front door recovering from a Saturday night bender.

There’s something else… After the singing of I Saw the Light, we hear a contemporary singer/songwriter, who marvels over the song, comment: “When an artist gets it right for himself, it’s right for everyone.”

It caused me to think of the many Psalm telling, like country mucic, a Saturday night story. Psalms, like:

-I know my transgressions, my sin is ever before me. (Ps 51-David’s adultery)

            -I am weary with my crying, my throat is parched.

               -I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

               -Deliver me from deep waters. (Ps 69)

 And these Psalms were sung by the congregation—the song book of God’s gathered people. Somehow, the whole congregation gets it. And, so we sing about my sin and my crying and my deep waters. “When an artist gets it right for himself, it’s right for everyone”. Such Psalms, and there are many, may be closer to Hank Williams than Charles Wesley.

Sports:

Rejoice in the days of your youth.

(Ecclesiastes 11:9)

By one of those miracles of providence, I recently reconnected with one of my pro-athlete heroes. When his daughter discovered we were both at Lake Tahoe at the same time she arranged for us to rendezvous for breakfast. It had been near 50 years since he last played in the Big Leagues; and, some forty years since we last spent time together. Life, with all its vicissitudes, had separated us; but now, here we were, thanks to his daughter’s care, face to face.

One could recognize the face—the look, the smile, the laugh, the voice. It was him alright. Yet “time and chance” (Ecc 3—it’s all in Ecclesiastes) had taken its toll. Two old guys reminiscing the early days of church life when we gathered for worship in the multipurpose room of Amador High School. When we were young. That’s why the bible encourages us to “rejoice in our youth… before the days of trouble draw nigh when strong men are bent down” (Ecc 11&12).

At his major league debut, during the days of his youth with all his life before him, playing for the Oakland A’s, he hit a home run in Yankee Stadium. I remember him telling me about it—about how he couldn’t believe it, and how he looked in awe at Mickey Mantle as he passed first base. That’s something to rejoice about. Something like the one pass I caught playing High School football—or, maybe not.

I make too big a deal of sports—the Warriors or the 49ers or the A’s vying for a play-off slot. My only excuse is that the Apostle himself enjoyed sports. Seems he attended the Isthmian Games held just down the road from Corinth where he pastored for a year and a half. He tells us about the foot races: “Have you noticed how in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? … So do not run aimlessly” (1Cor 9). Paul noticed as well how these beautiful young athletes compete for a “perishable crown.” (9:25). It’s all so fleeting.

The Gospel tells us that in Christ we receive an “imperishable crown” fit for Glory. It’s a good thing. For the days of our youth are quickly gone. How was I to know, that within the month of our providential meeting, my pro-athlete hero would himself perish: “No one knows what is to happen” (Ecc 10). Who could have guessed? Maybe that’s why we spoke some about Jesus, and how it is that our Lord is preparing a place for us. He believed it was so.

Yes, but will we still play ball in heaven? I hope so. We will all be young and beautiful like that day Joe hit a home run over the right field fence in Yankee Stadium.

After Labor Day:

If you don’t work, you don’t eat.

(Second Thessalonians 3:10)

After Labor Day, we go back to work. This is never easy--“thorns and thistles” abound, always messing with our work. Nonetheless, God’s good creation needs our “cultivation and care”—our work. It’s our God given vocation to take our place of labor within God’s good creation.

It’s Luther who best teaches such things; never tires of honoring the work of the “maid who sweeps her kitchen” or the “cobbler working on shoes” or “haulers of manure, brewers of beer, and changers of diapers.” Work has to do with loving our neighbor in the place that God puts us. And, loving ones neighbor means doing right by them—to carry our load, and to treat others as we would like to be treated.

The Apostle reminds us, as well, that work has to do with putting food on the table. That’s a godly calling as well (1Tm 5:8). As the wisest of all mortals teaches us: “There is nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in your work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?” (Ecc 2:24-25)  That’s why we say Grace before meals.

Labor Day:

May the Lord delight in his works!

(Psalm 104:31)

We do well to honor labor. We get it from our Creator. We serve a working God—A God who not only Is but Does. We are part of God’s work—that unique creature that bears his Image: “Let us make them in our image …so in the Image of God he created them.” (Gn 1:26-27).

Like God, we have things to do:  1) To be fruitful in all our doings (2:28-31);  2) to cultivate and to care for God’s good creation—even Eden needed human attention (2:15).  3) to name all the animals. This naming is no small matter. Like God, out of our freedom, we speak. Even God seems interested in how we do: “The Lord God…looked on to see what he would call them.” There’s no second guessing. Whatever man comes up with “that was its name” (2:18-19). God doesn’t fuss with our freedom to name. This is our work of affirming every aspect of God’s good creation and making sure things are in order—they have a place and a name.

When we do our work well it turns into a vocation—even a calling. Our work plays its part in God’s good creation. Nobody taught this better than Martin Luther (16th cent.):

The maid who sweeps her kitchen is doing the will of God

                        just as much as the monk who prays

                        not because she may sing a Christian hymn as she sweeps

                        but because God loves clean floors.

The Christian shoemaker does his Christian duty

                        not by putting little crosses on the shoes,

                        but by making good shoes,

                        because God is interested in good craftsmanship.

When we do our work well we make things better and bring honor and glory to our Creator.