I’ve been thinking a lot about life and worship lately. Reading the book Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations has caused me to think about the place and role of worship in our lives. I have come to believe that there is a recipricol relationship between life and worship. Worship is not an option for us. We will worship. The question is what, whom, how, when and where will we worship? Over the course of my life I have worshipped in cathedrals great and churches small. I’ve smelled incense burn, listened to monks chant and struggled to see through the shadows and I have been blinded by the bright lights of a fifteen thousand seat arena and listened as a band played and sang, “the devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal, he was in a bind ’cause he was way behind, he was willing to make a deal.” I’ve been in gatherings where I was one of the only white people there and in gatherings where I was one of the only straight people there, in gatherings where I did not understand the language or know when to sit, stand or kneel, and in gatherings where I was able to speak the liturgy almost from memory. I’ve gone forward and received wine from a common cup that was hundreds of years old and sat in my seat sipping grape juice from a small plastic disposable cup that was purchased the day before. I’ve heard great preaching in unexpected places that made the worship experience even better and poor preaching in unexpected places that took a bit of the shine off of a worship experience that otherwise sparkled. From each of these experiences I have learned that worship requires passion – “caring enough to offer our best, our utmost, our highest.” And so it is with life. Life requires passion, because “without passion, life becomes dry, routine, boring, predictable, having form but lacking spirit.” So it is with worship, so it is with life. Both require passion.

Easter means different things to different people. For some, it’s all about the candy – chocolate bunnies, cream-filled eggs, marshmallow peeps and multi-colored jelly beans – Easter baskets filled to the brim with all kinds of sugar coated, calorically insensitive, taste-bud tingling treats sure to satisfy the kids among us and the kids within us. For others, Easter is about new clothes – a new dress, a new suit, a new pair of shoes. For many, still, Easter is about going to church, the first leg of the “cultural christian trifecta” – Easter, Mother’s Day and Christmas Eve. For some, Easter is about claiming and proclaiming good news in and to and world where the news is often anything but good.

On the Saturday before Easter, I found myself outside. It was a gloriously beautiful day. I took a break from working in the yard and sat down to read the paper. Page after page, I read news that was anything but good – severe flooding in the Midwest, more dead soldiers in Iraq, the collapse of another investment bank, and a somber article claiming that we are on the verge of the deepest recession since World War II. I was reminded that we do indeed live in a Good Friday world. So often we lack sufficient understanding to make sense out of the unfolding events of our lives. Hopes and dreams are often met with disappointment. Changing economic realities either create or eliminate opportunities for us. Uncertain times foster fear. How easy it is to become overwhelmed by the natural emotions that result from loss, whether it is the loss of loved ones or friends, identity or incentive, the loss of jobs, health, mobility, mental or physical abilities. Pain and suffering affect us all, no matter who we are, where we’re from, or what path we choose in life. No amount of money or success, education or accomplishment can shield us from the Good Friday moments in life.How often have we lost hope, given up, let go of the promise and travelled down the path of despair? How often has cynicism dominated our thinking? How often has selfishness stolen our joy? How often has jealously soured our spirit? How often have each of us buried the alleluias without ever setting foot inside the church? As Hemingway once wrote, “Life breaks us all; some of us grow strong at the broken places.”

But, as the spiritual reminds us, “it’s Friday, but Sunday’s comin‘.” We claim an Easter faith in the midst of a Good Friday world, a faith that gives us a new perspective from which to view the world. In spite of the bad news that dominated the headlines of the day, it was as if the world around me began to testify to the hope and promise of Easter – buds awakening from the dormancy, leaves breaking through the bark of resistance, blooms beckoning me to witness their beauty, green grass chasing the dark of doubt away, inviting me to join in a song of the season, “I wanna’ soak up the sun, I want to tell everyone who lights my way.”

Easter procalims good news in a world filled with bad news. Easter reveals to us who lights the way by proclaiming to us that God stares death in the fact and says, “Not on my watch!” Easter reveals to us that God is in the business of rolling stones away, even from the tombs in our own lives, tombs dug by disillusionment and despair, hurt and heartache, loneliness and loss, and shares with us that God gives each of us a new song to sing when the same old sad songs just don’t seem to say it anymore.

And that is news worth remembering.

I knew the hospital well. I had gone there many times to stand with parishioners in times of distress and uncertainty. But never before had I been called there to be with a member of my own family. The drive from New Orleans to Baton Rouge was the longest drive of my life. Traffic was still backed up from the accident. I took every back road and side street I knew, but it still took far too long to get there. But, finally I arrived. After parking, I entered the ER and approached the desk with fear and trembling. “Stinson?” “Who are you?” “Her husband.” “209b. Through the double doors to the right.” I approached the room not knowing what to expect, and fearing what I would find. I found room 209. Two gurneys. Two people. One I knew was not her. One I hoped was not her. I walked over to the desk. “Stinson?” “Who are you? “Husband!” “209b. Right there on the gurney.” She was not moving. Her face and body covered in blood. Her neck in a brace. Her body trembling from trauma. Her eyes filled with fear. I kissed her and told her I loved her and that everything would be OK. “Don’t leave.” “I’m not going anywhere.” “The surgeon is on his way,” the nurse informed me. “We’ll need to move her to the trauma room. You’ll need to wait in the hall.” So there I stood for what seemed like hours. There were other people coming and going, but I paid little attention to them. At that moment, I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life. Many times I had gone to stand with people in there darkest hours and here I stood in mine, all alone. What a strange twist of fate. It was then that I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and saw a elderly woman standing there with me. “Hi. My name is Rosie,” she said in a gentle, upper Midwestern voice, “no one should ever be alone at a time like this. Can I pray with you?” I didn’t know what to say. “I’m a pastor,” I replied. “Even pastors need prayer,” was her response. Ironic, isn’t it? A pastor more comfortable being present with others than having others be present with him, far more comfortable praying for than being prayed for. She began to pray. Her hand never left my shoulder. Honestly, I don’t remember a word she said. But I do remember her hand on my shoulder. And I remember recalling the words of Psalm 23, the appointed Psalm for the week, a Psalm I was preparing to preach on the following Sunday, “even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not fear, for you are with me.” Rosie’s faith-full “Amen” validated the truth of that scripture and embodied the divine presence in my life in the midst of one of the darkest valleys I have ever travelled through. Rosie was a living reminder of the power and presence of God in my life. Her presence with me reassured me of God’s presence in that moment. “I will not leave you, nor forsake you.” Each day my wife gets better and better. Healing and wholeness will come. God is truly present with us. And it was Rosie, this dear woman from Wisconsin, a woman I will probably never see again in my life, who reminded me that Christ calls us to be living reminders of God’s presence in the lives of others, even pastors. Thank you, Rosie, for reminding me of this. Thank you, Rosie, for being present.

Last week, I attended the memorial service for the father of a close friend. It was, as most gathering such as this are, a time to renew relationships that had been allowed to go too long without contact. I saw people I had not seen in twenty years, and recalled shared experiences that molded and shaped me as a person. During the service, as the eulogy was being given, I learned some things about Tim’s father that I never knew, and as I participated in that sacred act of remembrance and thanksgiving, I experienced the renewal of my own faith as a disciple of Jesus Christ. Mr. Leonard only had a third grade education and was the son of share croppers. On the second day of his life, he was sitting at the end of a long row of cotton as his family worked to bring in the crop. He became a truck driver and, along with his wife, rasied four kids on a relatively meager income. He was a man of prayer, a man who studied the scriptures and taught Sunday School his whole life, doing his best to bring men into a relationship with Jesus Christ and a life of active discipleship. He was faithful to God, to his wife, his family and his church. He worked long and hard hours, but always made it to church on Sunday. And he was intentional about sharing his faith with others. His life was a lamp of discipleship. I was reminded of the passage from 2 Peter 1:19 “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.” As I left the church that morning, I was aware that a lamp had just burned out, but as I looked up, the sun broke through the morning sky, and on the faces of grandchildren and great-grandchildren, friends and family members gathered there, I could see the sparks of remembrance and thanksgiving igniting new flames of inspiration and commitment. And from those flames, new lamps will be lit. Lamps of discipleship will continue to burn, shining light into the dark places of life. I pray that my life will be one of those lamps.

The winter solstice is just around the corner. The longest night of the year. For many in my community and congregation, this season is one of the most difficult times of the year. Sappy seasonal songs do little to compensate for the loneliness and isolation that rub hard at the underbelly of holiday cheer. It is easy to get lost and fall hard, often with the faint echo of Joy to the World within hearing distance. Many songs saturate this season. And yet few of them speak to the hurting, helpless, lonely and lost. This song spoke to me when I first saw it performed. There is a wonderful Advent message contained in this song. One day at a time. May the one greater than all of us, the higher power of healing and wholeness, recovery and restoration be present and real in all of our lives this season. Sola Deo Gloria.

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Last week, I got a new shipment of books in to add to my holiday reading list, which includes several of the books that arrived via my summer reading list. (Busy book lovers will understand). One of those books is the recently published, just translated into English autobiography of Jurgen Moltmann entitled A Broad Place. Along with tracing many of the self-identified high points of his life, Moltmann writes about the unexpected and overwhelming success of his book, Theology of Hope, a theologian’s version of today’s best selling anecdotal theology of hopeful optimism, Joel Olsteen’s Your Best Life Now.

Several of Moltmann’s comments have been very helpful for me on my own Advent journey. I share them hopeful they will speak to you as well.

He writes,

“Hope alienates people from their native land, their friendships and their homes, and makes them ready to let these go and to seek something new. By this I mean that hope for an alternative future brings us into contradiction with the existing present and puts us against the people who cling to it.” (Moltmann, A Broad Place, 103)

Reflecting on this reminds me that Advent is counter intuitive and counter cultural. It invites us to wait, then moves us. It invites us to watch, then blinds us with light of love reborn. But most meaningful of all, Advent invites us, borrowing words from T.S. Eliot’s East Coker, No. 2 in his Four Quartets, to “be still and still moving into another intensity for a further union, a deeper communion…”

It is this deeper communion of Advent that I find myself longing for, hoping for these days.

And this is where Moltmann speaks to me most deeply.

He writes,

“The foundation of hope is not utopia and the exploration of unknown future possibilities; it is the new beginning and the beginning of the new, her and now, today: incipit vita nova – a new life is beginning.” “It is not for nothing that the First Epistle of Peter uses the phrase ‘born again to living hope.’ With birth, a new life comes into the world. That is reason for hope. With rebirth, a life that has become old becomes young again. That is a reason for still greater hope. And in the end what begins is eternal life. And that is the ultimate foundation for hope.” (Moltmann, A Broad Place, 105)

Reflecting on this, I am reminded that Advent hope is a hope for life reborn, your life, my life, our shared life together. It is also a hope for trust reborn, not only trust in the future, but also trust in our ability to be participants in God’s future, a future born in love, grounded in eternity and possible right now.

The invitation of Advent is Incipit vita nova – enter a new life now.

Maybe Joel Olsteen is on to something after all….

Last Saturday, my wife and I were sitting together talking. “I was thinking about my grandmother today. Do you remember how she used to laugh? Earlier today, I found myself recalling how she used to laugh. I loved hearing her laugh.” They seemed like innocent comments, the logical response to a moment of recollection that had unexpectedly invaded her consciousness. We shared a brief moment of recollection together, remembering the joyful spirit of her grandmother. Later that afternoon, she happened to share the same comments with her mother, and was met with silence. After a few moments, her mother replied, “You know that your grandmother died eight years ago today…” In the busyness of life, neither of us had remembered the significance of that day. But in that moment, both the day and the moment took on deeper significance. The Celtic tradition teaches that there are two dimensions of reality, the visible dimension of our ordinary experience and existence, and the spiritual dimension of the divine presence that is always present in and beyond our ordinary experience and existence. There are moments when those two dimensions of reality intersect and as Marcus Borg writes, “the boundary between the two levels becomes very soft, porous, permeable. Thin places are the places where the veil momentarily lifts, and we behold God, experience the one in whom we live, all around us and within us.”1 That day, that moment became a thin place where a grandmother’s laugh broke through and became a not so subtle reminder of the real divine presence. It made an ordinary moment in an ordinary day truly extraordinary. And, for the rest of the afternoon and evening, I found myself singing, with apologies to Neil Diamond, “Well she heard her laugh, now I’m a believer.”

For eight years now I have been struggling with going to prison. While on the staff at First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge, I was asked many times to join the men at Angola for a Kairos weekend. I always had a scheduling conflict, or some other valid reason for not committing. Truth is that I was afraid. After all, who really wants to go to prison?

When I was reappointed to First United Methodist Church in Covington, once again I was confronted with men who were asking me to consider participating in this ministry. And again, I resisted. I resisted until Ronnie Berg agreed to serve on Karios # 4 and came back from Kairos a changed man. And when Jules McCrory asked me to serve on Kairos # 5, I said I would, without really thinking about it. Sometimes leaders need to be led. And I am thankful for Jules and Ronnie leading me and our congregation to become more involved in this ministry. Jules, Ronnie, Nolan and Carol Barrios and I just returned from an exhausting, exillirating and enilghtening weekend that was both spirit led and spirit filled. I wanted to give you a brief report on what took place and share a story with you that touched me in a powerful way.

We entered the Rayburn Correctional Facility on Thursday afternoon, some of us not knowing what to expect. The inmate participants entered shortly after, also nervous and even more unsure about what Kairos was all about. Each of us sponsored two inmates and did our best to make them feel comfortable and ease their minds about what was going to happen. We shared a wonderful meal, the first “real” meal that most of them had eaten in a long time. We were divided into table families and spent the whole weekend relating to one another as a table family. We met our “brothers” and began getting to know one another. Eric, Corey, Barry, Rob and Jason joined Ronnie, Allen and me to make up the family of St. James. And for the rest of the weekend, we ate together, prayed together, got to know one another and learned together what it means to be a Chrisitan, both inside and outside of the gates. After just a few short days together, I witnessed the formation of new friendships, the healing of old hurts, forgiveness received and forgiveness given, and most importantly, I saw men overwhelmed by an experience of love and acceptance without expectation of anything in return. And for some of these men, I witnessed Christ coming into their lives for the first time as they made commitments to walk a different walk, even while still doing time. And I was reminded that people can change, but never by themselves. They need a community of support and accountability, just as we do, to remain faithful in their walk with Christ.

But most importantly, I needed to hear the story that Corey had to tell.

On Saturday afternoon, each of the inmate participants received an AGAPE bag. AGAPE is one of the Greek words for LOVE. It means LOVE GIVEN WITH NO EXPECTATION OF ANYTHING IN RETURN. In each AGAPE bag are letters personally addressed to the men, naming them by name (they are only known by their number in prison). Also included are pieces of children’s AGAPE, notes of encouragement and well wishes from children (some of the most powerful tools Kairos uses to reach these men). Corey shared with us that the first piece of paper he removed from his AGAPE bag was a note from a 3 year old girl. On this piece of paper she had drawn a picture of the earth and had written, “He’s got you and me in his hands, He’s got the whole world in his hands.” That piece of paper immediately brought tears to Corey’s eyes. It took him back six years to 2001. In 2001, Corey Alexander was pronounced dead. He had overdosed and was taken to Charity Hospital in New Orleans. He had been placed on life suppport with little chance of survival. Days passed and they began discussions about taking Corey off of life support. The decision was made to pull the plug. His mother was left in the room to say her “goodbyes.” Corey remembered hearing a voice, faint at first and seeing a bright light. The light kept getting brighter and the voice louder. Finally, he was able to make out the voice. It was his mother’s voice. She was singing to him. He opened his eyes and looked into his mother’s face. Her eyes were closed, tears were running down here cheeks, and as she gentlly wiped his forehead, she was singing these words to him, “He’s got you and me, Corey, in his hands, he’s got you and me, Corey, in his hands; he’s got you and me, Corey, in his hands; he’s got the whole world in his hands. ”

KAIROS means God’s special time. It refers to those moments when chronological time is interrupted, or set aside, and a special moment in time occurs where the power and presence of God is tangible and real. When Corey shared that story with us, I had a KAIROS moment. I was reminded that God is still at work in the world. And God is definitely at work in prison.

You see, hundreds of pieces of paper were randomly placed in AGAPE bags on Friday night. No two pieces of paper were alike. And for that piece of paper with those words to end up in that bag defies logic. But it did. Coincidence, you might say. Luck of the draw, some might think. KAIROS moment is what I believe.

I know now why I went to prison. I went there to catch a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew 25 we are told that to inherit the kingdom we must be willing to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, care for the sick AND visit those in prison. I went to prison to witness the power and presence of God. And in some ways, it feels strange to be back on the outside where God’s power and presence are much harder to see. Maybe the lesson for me is that I must do my part out here to make that same power and presence as readily visible as it was in there. And maybe there is a lesson in that for us all.

Recently, I ran in a 5K race. My good friend and fellow colleague in ministry, Chandler Willis, who pastors the Presbyterian Church two blocks away from my congregation got me into this. We run together each week, but running with a friend and competing in a race are two different things. But, he talked me into it. It turned out to be a lesson in grace, reminding me that all of life is a gift and grace surprises us at every turn. We got up early on a Saturday morning, met a member of his congregation, drove to a neighboring town and entered the Mill Town Classic sponsored by the Rotary Club. This annual event draws runners from far and wide, but never a very large group, so I am told. I filled out my form, got my number and began to prepare. We started in a group and early on it was clear who the real runners were and those of us who were there just hoping to finish. I ran hard, had to walk some, but finished the race in a respectable time, for me anyway. We stayed around after the race and shared some of the food and festivities. I was ready to leave when they began handing out trophies. Chan’s name was called and he got a trophy, placing third in his age group. Then they called my name… second place in my age group. Reluctantly, I went up and accepted the trophy. Second place. Wow! Makes me want to run farther and train harder. Second place. If only that other guy in my age group had decided to stay home… Second place…unmerited favor…a lesson in grace. God sure does have a sense of humor.