Dismissals

What he told me went something like this: “For a long time I was understanding it all wrong, about when Jesus said, ‘Take up your cross and follow me.’ I had it that Jesus was carrying his cross to Calvary and there was all these other crosses set out, and I was supposed to take my cross and follow Jesus. But my cross is not like Jesus’ cross. My cross isn’t made of wood. My cross is the work I’ve been given to make the world a better place. This work’s not easy, but it’s what I’m called to do.”

My sons’ pleadings were relentless. I was adamant. Just because every other boy in grade school watches Freddy Krueger’s Nightmare on Elm Street every weekend, not my sons. But they wore me down. I said “OK” but we would watch together. I made popcorn, put the tape in the machine and, with remote in hand, we settled in. Freddy did his thing. After twenty minutes, Freddy and I were all alone. I hit the remote and found the boys in their room, contentedly playing with their race cars. “What about Freddy?” I asked. The answer: “That’s OK. We’ve seen him.”

As I venture into the world to minister to prisoners and homeless men, I am frequently ministering to men who are not all that lovable. They have their own beliefs and opinions. I dispense the alms … they receive the alms … why can they not see the world as I see it? Alas, I learn every day that God has not arranged the world for my personal tranquility. From time to time … more now than before … I see a little of these men in myself … and a little of me in them … and a healthy dose of God in us all.

A young man, I landed a job in a big machine shop. I swept, cleaned and did odd jobs. An old machinist named Buddy befriended me. He worked at a steady pace but always had a few minutes to talk. Buddy sometimes let me run his lathe and no one said a word. Buddy had some sway in the shop but I didn’t know what it was until my last day. Buddy was the first machinist in the company. From day one, he took half his wages in stock. By the time I showed up, Buddy owned half the company.

I’m the greeter at the Food Pantry. I stand at the entryway and welcome each person. There’s always a line. Even children wait patiently. I bought a few bags of small, sweet oranges, took up my position at the door and, as each child came in, I gave them an orange. It is a small gift … it is only an orange … but I believe it will please God to see to it that one of those oranges makes a difference in the life of one of those children. Which child or which orange, I do not know. But I believe.

I heard Bach’s Goldberg Variations on the radio, then received the recordings as a gift: Glenn Gould’s “A State of Wonder – The Complete Goldberg Variations.” Gould (1932-1982) was a celebrated classical pianists and best known as an interpreter of Bach’s keyboard works. At age 23, Gould recorded Bach’s Goldberg Variations with dazzling speed and unparalleled virtuosity. At age 49, in the last year of his life, Gould again recorded Bach’s Goldberg Variations and they are measured, graceful, unhurried, as if there was nothing more to prove. Gould plays … I listen … and marvel at the changing pace of my own life.

Alone, I find God oddly silent. Adam and Eve “…heard the sound of the LORD God walking the garden at the time of the evening breeze,” and God spoke to them, “Where are you?” God told Moses to say, “I AM has sent me.” And Elijah, hiding in cave, did not hear God in the wind, the earthquake or in the fire but in the “sound of sheer silence.” I step into the evening breeze and there, wherever I turn, I hear God … the woman with pearls … the man with a cane … the child, a few steps from her mother.

One morning, in the neighborhood hardware store, I was set to buy a screwdriver, just right for a chore that day. A woman at the checkout was talking on her phone. I waited. The storekeep held out his hand, “One key, dollar seventy-eight.” Still talking, she lifted a shoulder to squeeze the phone to her ear, dug deep in her handbag and placed a wadded bill on the counter. The storekeep eyed her and lay her change on the counter. A coin rolled to the floor. She glared. The storekeep came from behind the counter and gave her what I would call a gentle, arm’s length push out the door. They had words. When he returned, I looked at him. He…

I don’t know if he was a packrat but somehow an awful lot of stuff got saved … old letters, Christmas cards (“I paste over the writin’ and send ‘em out again!”) and enough ornaments for the Washington Mall. There was a stack of shoeboxes full of yellowing photographs and a half dozen busted lawnmowers in the garage. One day, I chanced to drive by his house. The curb was piled high. I stopped and asked. He said, “I heard the preacher say how you will never see a U-Haul trailer behind a hearse and that got me to thinkin’.”

“What is saving you today?” That may be the best question ever asked, a question that, once in mind, is never far from your lips. Barbara Brown Taylor, a fine preacher in the Episcopal tradition, was once in a quandary … a sermon was due, it was Saturday evening, and inspiration was in short supply. She chanced to speak to an elderly preacher who said, “The question is: ‘What is saving you today?’” Barbara’s sermon came easily with that question hovering over her typewriter. It is a profound question and the answers to it are as varied and consequential as any you might imagine. In the best of times, in the difficult times …. “What is saving you today?”

I’ve been a preacher for some years but I’m still tempted by books with tips and techniques on preaching, thick commentaries that elucidate, expound and explicate scripture, books that unpack the original Hebrew and Greek. Now, more than then, I’m with Huckleberry Finn. Huck knew a few things about getting the words just right: “I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting to providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come: for I’d noticed that providence always did put the right words in my mouth, if I left it alone.” [Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain]

After church, we gathered for a Prayer Walk, a walkabout in our church neighborhood. We walked and paused to pray and greet our neighbors. The prayer that started us on our Prayer Walk began something like this: “We can never know what or whom we will encounter or what will happen once we are beyond the church’s door. There is no script, no strategy. It is said that we, as Christians, are to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. That may be, but we are, as well, to be the heart and the mind of Christ …”