When I was 14, my uncle bought me a 1967 Chevrolet Pick-Up (that’s what we called trucks in MS).  It had no seat belts, bad brakes, a metal dash board and a wobbly suspension. It had no airbags, no emission controls, ran on leaded gas and had a custom air conditioner (of the roll down the window variety).  I drove it everywhere (you could get your permit at 14, which was as good as a license back then).  And no one thought anything about it.  But times change. 

I have watched with interest the intergenerational squabble unfold between Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien over who will host The Tonight Show.  It is clear that NBC should not have messed with a good thing.  If it ain’t broke, don’t try and fix it.  But they tried something new, it did not work, and now it has turned into quite a melodrama.   

My mother-in-law sent me the following piece recently.  I resonated with it because I resemble it. 

 To Those Born 1920-1979~~~From Jay Leno

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s!!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.  

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. 

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking

As infants &children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren’t overweight because,
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD’s, no surround-sound or CD’s, no cell phones, no personal computer! s, no Internet or chat rooms…….

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good .

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn’t it?

How any of us over the age of thirty survived is beyond me.  How anyone under the age of thirty will survive also causes me to wonder.  This piece reminded me that age, experience and the social context in which we were born shape us in ways we don’t always realize – how we view the world, how we live our lives and how we express our faith. 

It’s a whole new world and we must find our place and way in it… in spite of the risks.

Paradox, n. 1.[a seeming contradiction] – Syn. mystery, enigma, ambiguity. 2. [an actual contradiction] – Syn.  absurdity, inconsistency, ambiguity.  A paradox is a statement or group of statements that leads to a contradiction or a situation which defies intuition.

There is a classical philosophical paradox known as the omnipotence paradox which asks “Can an omnipotent being create a rock too heavy for itself to lift?  Among other things, this paradox addresses the paradoxical limits of power – the stronger we are, the weaker we often seem. 

The earthquake in Haiti, as natural disasters tend to do, has highlighted the paradoxical nature of power, both human and divine.  An earthquake striking the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere renders the world almost powerless to respond.  We watch as the powerful struggle to help the powerless, wondering how in all our collective strength we can seem so weak.  We lament the abundant resources at our disposal and the limited resources at the disposal of those who need them the most.  Questions of God’s power and presence are inevitable.  A recent Newsweek article referenced the “Job like” characteristics of this situation.  There certainly are parallels.  Eternal questions about the power of God and the reality of human suffering have and will continue to defy human logic and intuition.  We do our best to lift the rock, but at times it seems too heavy for even the most powerful, God included, to lift.   We live constantly in the paradox of power.

I must confess a certain distaste for those who capitalize on natural disasters to promote their own religious or anti-religious agendas.  The Pat Robertson’s of the world cause my stomach to turn.  The Richard Dawkin’s of the world remind me of the hubris that denies the leaps of faith required in all rational endeavors.  Those who regularly co-opt God for their own personal gain and those ride the coat tails of natural disaster to sell more books proclaiming God’s punishment or God’s impotence frankly, disgust me. 

While I struggle myself to reconcile the power of love and the presence of hate, the gift of life and the reality of death, the abundance of resources and the scarcity of their availability for those who need them most, I repeatedly find myself  in the midst of the paradoxes of human existence.  

I believe in God, therefore I must struggle with the presence of suffering in the world and attempt to reconcile the seeming contridictions that arise. My Christian faith helps me in this endeavor.  As a Christian, I live the paradox of incarnation.  Divine presence revealed in human form(s).  God in the midst of the flesh and blood realities of human existence.  I  believe that the Christian faith offers a powerful counter narrative that embraces the paradox of incarnation captured in the words from the Gospel of John, “And the word became flesh and dwelled among us. ”  

I belive God is present in the midst of the suffering of the world, that God is the first to shed a tear when tragedy strikes or when disaster comes.  As I have watched the unfolding events in Haiti, seen the faces of the children, I have taken solace in the words of Russian philosopher, Nicolai Berdyaev,

“God is in the child which has shed tears, and not in the world order by which those tears are said to be justified.” 

In his highly theological and thoughtful Nobel acceptance speech, President Barack Obama acknowledged the paradoxical challenges we face in our world today.  He concluded: “We can acknowledge the oppression will always be with us and still strive for justice.  We can admit the intractability of deprivation and still strive for dignity.  We can understand that there will always be war and still strive for peace.”  We can live faithfully in the midst of paradox.

We live with many paradoxes in our lives.  But I have come to believe that incarnation offers a powerful counter narrative of hope in a world where suffering, cynicism and doubt so often prevail.  As a follower of Jesus, the word made flesh, the incarnation of God’s power and presence in the world, I believe that I am called to a life of paradoxical living, to be the flesh that becomes the Word, the person who strives to be a witness to the presence and the power of God in the world.  

The rocks may seem heavy, yet I still must strive to lift them. 

May it be so for us all.

It has been my privilege to officiate at many baptisms over the course of my ministry.  It is the part of my job that brings me the most joy and has offered some of the most lasting memories. 

Some years ago, I had the privilege of officiating at the funeral of a very prominent physician in our community.  Dr. Julius Mullins was one of the founding doctors of Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge.  He had a long and distinguished career and was a very respected member of the Baton Rouge community.  I was a young pastor who had been recently assigned to the staff of a large church and the senior minister was out of town.  What was I to do?  I met with the family, planned the service and prepared my remarks.  As I stood to speak, I began by saying, “Dr. Mullins died knowing he belonged.” 

You see, several weeks prior, Dr. Mullins had contacted the church wanting to be baptized.  Well up in age and at times very confused, he could not remember having been baptized.  So Dr. Mullins was baptized.  And afterward, in a moment of clarity that often escaped him, he said, “Now I know I belong.” 

Yes, Dr. Mullins belonged.  We all belong.  To God and to one another. 

Baptism is an outward witness to an inward truth that we all belong. 

James Autry has written:

There is something about putting people under the water

and raising them up in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,

something that makes people cry

That makes them want everything to be alright.

That makes them want to leave this place and be better,

to immerse themselves in their lives

And somehow be washed clean of all the things they should not have done

and still should not want to do.

That’s it.

Not the other things,

The star in the east,

The treasures in heaven

Or any of the old stories,

Not even life after death.

It’s only to be new again. 

The journey toward newness of life, beginning again, starting afresh, begins at the point of knowing we belong.  We belong to God and we belong to one another.  And that can knowledge can make all things new.

I once was appointed to a church where the choir had quit.  You laugh.  And I did to. I did so to keep from crying on the Monday morning after my first Sunday of struggling through a service with an empty choir loft, a divided church and recently hired Russian pianist who had taught herself how to play the organ and played every good ole Methodist hymn like a Tchaikovsky ballet.  That first Sunday we sang as our opening hymn the old Methodist standard, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and by the time we were done, the fount and the blessings had been had been drained off into Swan Lake.  We concluded the service with Marching to Zion.  After all, everybody can sing Marching to Zion, right?  Well, not to the tempo of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.  The entire service was like a pirated version of The Nutcracker and I was the Mouse King who had somehow survived getting stabbed near the end of act one.  I kept replaying over and over the conversation I had with the Superintendent who had failed to mention anything to me about the previous minister’s four year war with the previous choir director. He just kept saying how this church needed effective leadership and how confident he was in my abilities to have an effective ministry there. 

I mean the choir had quit…

They had quit!!!

They had gotten up in the middle of a service, left their robes in their pews and

walked out the door never to sing again!!!!!!!

And here I was trying to lead worship with an empty choir loft and the daughter of Boris Yeltsin’s third cousin twice removed at the keyboard.  Filled with tidings of comfort and joy I was not.  Now to some of you, this may seem like an insignificant detail easily overlooked and even more easily overcome.  After all, it’s just a choir.  It’s just singing a few hymns.   You still have the word.  You still have the sacraments.  You can still pray.  You can still preach.  Well, this is all true.  But, over the course of my ministry, I have learned how important the choir is to worship and how central worship is to being the church. We Protestants are by nature singing people, we Methodists, especially so.  Some of our best theology is contained in our hymns.  Some of our best Christian education and spiritual formation is done through teaching and learning hymns and songs of praise.   And with apologies to our Quaker brothers and sisters, I believe that I am on solid ground when I say that the church is never more truly the church than when our voices are joined together in an act of corporate worship, singing together our praises to God, giving witness to the work of the Spirit in our lives.  Saint Augustine said it best, “Those who sing once, pray twice.”

Well, by October of that first year, we were without an accompanist once again and facing Advent and Christmas without a choir.  We were in the midst of the arduous task of trying to find an organist/choirmaster, only to discover that they were few to be found.  We were just about to give up hope when we received a phone call the Director of Music at another church in town.  He had a man singing in his choir who might be just what we were looking for.  He was a trained organist, a talented musician and looking for a church job.  Now, have you ever forgotten to ask the question?  I forgot to ask the question.  I forgot to ask why such a gifted and talented musician was currently unemployed?  Pastoral words of advice…don’t forget to ask the question. 

We met.  He was a very talented and talkative musician.  He knew his way around the organ and he was very interested in the job. He especially liked the fact that the organ in this church had dual capabilities as a pipe organ and as a digital instrument.  More about that later.  I had some reservations about him, but when he met with the search committee, all they could think about was being able possibly to have a choir on Christmas Eve.    He was hired on the spot and word began to spread through the congregation and the community that there would indeed be a Christmas Eve Choir.   

The first hint of trouble on the horizon was when I saw the announcement for the bulletin on his first Sunday.  It read:  Choir members needed for Christmas Eve Choir. Must be able to both sing and read music.  Auditions begin on Wednesday night. Thankfully, I saw this before the bulletin went to print.  I immediately got him on the phone and helped him to rewrite his announcement.  When it went to print, it read:  Join our Christmas Eve Choir.  Open Auditions.  Everyone Invited.

People responded. In fact, several of the former choir members who had abruptly walked out walked back in just as abruptly.  There was Dorothy (name changed), one of the matriarchs of the church, whose piety masked her pretentiousness.  There was James (name also changed), who had a marvelous tenor voice, but never felt fully appreciated by his family or his church.  And then there was Gerald (again, name changed), whose presence added more tension than talent.  But, after all, we did say open auditions.   Practices were well attended.  All voice parts were covered.  Every pitch was present.  Talent was slim, but spirits were high.  Choir robes were sent out to be dry-cleaned.   It began to look like we would have a choir on Christmas Eve after all. 

When we sat down to go over the service the week prior to Christmas, I knew we were in trouble.   The service was to be a modified Service of Lessons and Carols ending with candle lighting.  Because of the placement of the organ, the director could not direct from the organ.  But, because of the digital capabilities of the organ, the music could be played and the organ could digitally record itself and play what it had recorded with the flip of a switch and a push of a button.  It was the actual organ.  It sounded just like an organist was sitting at the bench.  It was technologically sophisticated, unique and for some, cutting edge.  But for me, it was a disaster waiting to happen.   What if it didn’t work?  What if a power surge made the night truly a silent night?  What if the remote failed?  What if it all fell apart? What if the wrong switch was flipped or the wrong button pushed? I was assured that all would go as planned.  I had my doubts.

Christmas Eve arrived.  The church was packed.  Anticipation was high. The choir loft filled up.  The acolytes entered.  The service began. 

O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem.

Come and behold him, born the king of angels, O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

We made it through the first hymn, and then through the first anthem.  We sang a few more carols and we listened as the lessons were read.  I was just about to believe that we could actually pull this off, when my worst fears were realized.   The final anthem before we were to light candles and sing Silent Night fell apart.  Someone pushed the wrong button and the organ took on a life of its own.  It began to play songs that were not even in the hymnal.  I will never forget the look on the choir director’s face and the speed with which he got from the choir loft to the organ bench.  I never knew you could move that fast in organ shoes.  He pushed buttons, pulled out stops and did his best to redeem the situation.  But to no avail.  The congregation sat there stunned. Members of the choir dropped their heads in shame.  And the pastor watched his greatest fears unfold right before his very eyes.  It was a liturgical disaster of the utmost proportion.

 I let it go on until the pain was almost unbearable and until I had finished writing out the ad for the new organist/choir director. I stood up and invited the ushers to come forward and instructed them to be prepared to carry the light throughout the congregation.  We would be singing Silent Night with piano accompaniment to conclude the service. Please stand.  And we stood.  The light began to make its way from the Christ Candle throughout the congregation and we began to sing, Silent Night, Holy Night, all is calm and all is bright.

It was almost painful to sing the words.  Calm, tender and mild in no way described this night.  Sleep in heavenly peace I would not. But something happened as we began to sing the second verse.  One of the men began to sing a bit louder than the rest of the choir.  In fact, he was singing louder than the rest of the congregation.  And not on key.  Not even in the ballpark.  I adjusted my stance so I could try and determine who it was.  And as fate would have it, it was Gerald.  Gerald was not the choir member you wanted to feel inspired, especially not on Christmas Eve.  Not only could Gerald not hold a tune in a bucket, Gerald could not find a note if it was gift wrapped with his name printed on it in all capital letters.  Oh how I regretted those open auditions.  We quaked along with the shepherds as Gerald gained confidence with each measure.  His voice stood out and was noticed by all.  But Gerald didn’t care who was listening.  Though off key and even further off pitch, Gerald sang his praises to the God of open auditions and we all followed his lead.  This mere shepherd had somehow heard the real message of Christmas through all the liturgical and technological chaos of the evening.   Gerald sang in the choir not because of his talent, but in spite of it.  And he knew, better than anyone else, that he would have not been there that night but for the fact that there had been open auditions. It was a moment of redemption for him and for us all.  That night, in spite of all that happened, God chose the one with the least talent and the biggest heart to remind us all that God chooses to dwell in us not for what we have to offer, but rather, because all we have to offer is ourselves.  

At Christmas, the God of open auditions comes among us again, asking only for hearts that are open and voices that are willing to join in the heavenly chorus and proclaim to the entire world that because of what happened on that first Christmas long ago, things can be different.  Light can shine into the dark places of our lives.  Hope can be reborn in the stables of our souls.  Forgiveness can find that there is indeed room to dwell. Love can heal the broken places and comfort the broken hearted.  Redemption can be found by both the deserving and the undeserving.  And peace, lasting peace can become not just a tune we hum once a year, but rather a canticle for what can be each day of our lives when God in Christ dwells within us.  Auditions are open.   Who among us is willing to join in and sing?