Philip for Our Time

I

If you are grief-stricken fans by the way Game of Thrones ended last Sunday night, you can get online counseling from Bark.com, for $50 an hour. I am not kidding… 

And lots of takers, apparently, for the ending satisfied no one—not athletes, not actors or aficionados. Average fans, some of them, said the entire last season was so hurried and simplistic that it ruined all that had gone before.

        More than a million people signed an online petition demanding, demanding, the entire last season be remade; which is what happens, I guess, when people forget that a TV show, however great it is, or a move, is just a TV show. Or a movie.

        Hank Stuever, writing this week in the Washington Post, said that sometimes, when we love our shows too much, it makes us look embarrassingly out of touch with reality. Which is why Mr. Stuever loved the coffee cup.

        For fans of the show, no explanation is needed.

        For those of you who are not—in one episode, somebody, a crew member or actor, left a coffee cup, complete with cardboard sleeve, in plain sight of the camera. Viewers pounced: proof of the sloppy carelessness of this season’s production.

The cup itself, of course, was immediately digitally scrubbed from subsequent airings of that episode. But Mr. Steuver thinks the cup deserves an Emmy… “because it reminds us,” he said, “that a TV show, no matter how absorbing, is a fake, a folly, a job that someone is hired to do, so that an HBO subscription can be sold to you…”

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/the-game-of-thrones-finale-while-lacking-goes-out-on-an-important-note-stories-matter/2019/05/20/ecb51076-7a62-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html?utm_term=.0dbcc88d8382)

        Cold truth, that.

But even with that in mind, the best line of the finale belonged to Tyrion, who said this:

“What unites people? Armies? Gold? Flags?

“Stories,” he said. “There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story. Nothing can stop it. No enemy can defeat it.”

Perhaps the reason Game of Thrones did not unite everyone, ultimately divided so many people, is that it was a fake, a folly, a job that lots of someone’s were hired to do.

The gospel, though. Now there’s the story that can unite us, I do believer. Nothing more powerful than the story of Jesus, his life, death and resurrection. Nothing more compelling than the stories of the disciples. And one of the things I love most about this gospel story… it does not scrub-out the coffee cups. It does not try to make the characters look anything but human. It is not fake, or phony. It is not a story for hire, but a story we are invited to join.

I give you, as exhibit A, the story of Philip. The fifth disciple. Let’s start there.

II

 You are no doubt familiar with the phrase, “I Am Third.”

“Jesus is first. Others are second. I am third.”

        One of our Sunday School classes here at Hawthorne Lane, back in the day, took the acronym, JOY, as their name.

        In any case, “I am Third” is a familiar phrase.

        “I am fifth,” not so much.

        Because I made it up, just this week. Last Monday, in fact. Thinking about Philip, the Apostle…

        Who is not to be confused with Philip the Evangelist. Philip the Evangelist was a second generation disciple: there are a couple of stories about him in Acts: helping with daily communal meals as the church in Jerusalem grew; baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch…

        Philip the Apostle, on the other hand, was among the very first disciples of Jesus, and always listed… can you guess… fifth in the various rosters of disciples.

Simon Peter and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee and his brother John: those four are always listed first;  Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, is always listed last.

        And Philip, from Bethsaida in Galilee—a cosmopolitan little town, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual—is always listed fifth.

Now, as Gary LaBrosse pointed-out on Monday night, if the Apostles were a basketball team, Philip is still a starter. But he is not a star. In fact, at least as Matthew, Mark and Luke tell it, Philip never sees any action. He’s in the box score, as it were, but plays zero minutes, never takes a shot.

        The Gospel of John, though, tells it differently. In John’s reporting there are no less than 4 times when Philip handles the ball.

Game summary: two assists; one turnover; one ugly personal foul.

        Let’s go to the replay.

III

        John, chapter 1.

Philip was a disciple of John the Baptist, until he heard John say of Jesus, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

And so Philip changes teams. Stops following John and begins following Jesus… which is a reminder to us that whoever has drawn our attention or devotion, whatever has demanded our energy and loyalty, there is time to change, to repent, to join ourselves to Jesus.

        Very next day, Philip finds Nathanael—who may have been a friend, or a relative—and Philip says to him, “We have found the Messiah, the one foretold by Moses in the law and the prophets: Jesus of Nazareth.”

        Which, too, is a reminder, that when we are following Jesus, our discipleship is not really complete unless we are sharing with others what we have discovered. Not in an oppressive or manipulative way.

When Nathanael questions Philip’s word—“Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Philip has his best moment: he says, “Come and see.” It was the Play of the Day

        When people ask you, “Can anything good be happening in a UMC these days?”—you might be asked by friends or relatives—I suggest you take your cues from Philip. Just invite them here. Tell them to come to HLUM and see.

And if they do, you and Philip get credit for the assist.

IV

        John, chapter 6. The Feeding of the Five Thousand.

        A large crowd is fallowing Jesus. Jesus decides to feed them. He asks Philip, “Where are we to get enough bread to feed such a crowd?” Jesus was already clear what he was going to do: it was a test.

        Philip replies, “Six months of wages wouldn’t buy enough bread for everyone to get even a little bit.”

(Klaxon) Turnover. Unforced error. Even though he is a disciple, he shows little faith. He is more aware of what they don’t have than what they do.

        Which is like looking in the mirror: we, too, are often more perplexed than thankful, doubt more than we believe, shake our heads and do not lift up our hearts.

        One of the other disciples, Andrew, said, “A little boy has five barley loaves and a two fish…”

        Jesus takes them, gives thanks for what they do have; distributes the food and all are filled. More than filled. And even Philip, despite the turnover. A reminder to us to be thankful for what we do have, and to share it, even if it is not much. Jesus can do miracles with that kind of faith.

V

        John, chapter 14. Here comes the foul. Personal. Flagrant 1. Should have been Flagrant 2. Philip should have been ejected immediately.

        At the Last Supper, the night of Jesus’ arrest. Jesus has just given one of his most beautiful, one of his most memorable speeches: Let not your heart be troubled… I am the way, the truth and the life… If you know me, you know the Father… from now on you do know him and have seen him.”

        Philip says, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”

        Anyone in here have a whistle? Grief.

        Jesus is aghast. “Have you been with me so long, Philip and still you don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!”

        A cautionary reminder to us, who also, sometimes, want to see more than just Jesus.

        How it must break his heart when we, who have been with him so long, still ask for signs, for proofs, for demonstrations that we imagine will satisfy. If only we are healed, if only we are delivered, if only we get the job, if only we get the girl, the boy, the parking place…then we will be satisfied. Then we will believe—at least until next time—if Jesus just shows us something more.

        When he is already with us. In Word. Sacrament. When two or three are gathered together, and even more when all of us are gathered together, he is with us—loving, teaching, guiding, equipping: uniquely loving and gathering us together; uniquely equipping us and sending us to represent him in the world, to make a Jesus difference, a godly difference in the ungodly world…when he has been with us so many times.

        And still we ask for more proof.

        Which is a flagrant, technical, personal foul on our Lord. For Philip, and us.

VI

        But before we bench Philip, or ourselves… John 12. When some Greeks come to Philip as say, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

        Why did they ask him? Maybe because he spoke Greek, but even that is not absolutely clear. But how did they know him? We are not sure. Maybe they too were from that cosmopolitan little town.

One way or the other, there is this moment when Philip, for all of his limitations, all of his inconsistent play, is presented with a great opportunity: to be the go-between: to bring some people to Jesus. He gets help: he finds Andrew, and together they tell Jesus that these Greeks are looking for him.

        Which prompts Jesus to tell us a story that cannot be defeated, that can unite us all: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single grain. But if it dies, it produces a great harvest. And I, when I am lifted up (that is, crucified), I will draw all people unto myself: Greeks, Jews, black, white, brown; rich, poor, gay, straight”—nothing can stop this story of Jesus and his selfless love.

        And Philip, the Fifth Disciple, is a part of it.

        Just like you, and we are a part of it.

        Not stars, many of us. Maybe not even fifth. Maybe down the bench, most of us, most of the time. But you got to be ready to step up when someone says to you, one way of the other, “We want to see Jesus.”

        So many people wish, want, need, long to see Jesus… even if they can’t say it that way. But they look to us, and who knows why, exactly. Maybe because they think we speak their language. And they want to know if it’s true… they want to see something of Jesus in this godless world.

Philip didn’t always get it right or play error-free; nor have we. But he was the very one to bring those Greeks to Jesus. In your words, your action, your loving and giving, your mercy and compassion, you are the one, the very one, who can do the same.

Optimized

A bit of an update: According to my primary care doctor, I am now “optimized for surgery.”

I have never heard that term before, but I like it! I have been bragging to all my friends…and now I’m telling whoever happens across this blog: “Yo, everybody! I am optimized for surgery.”

When I read the term, in my head I could almost hear John Travolta say, “Why, this boy is automatic! (whump!) He’s systematic! (whumpuh!) He’s hy-dromatic! (Shoonk!) He’s…optimized! (Throw off your leather jacket, Zuko!) He’s greased lightning!”

Everyone starts dancing.

In short, I’m ready for take-off. The board reads green. We’re a go for the knife. Go!  

But when?

Which is why this post is only a bit of an update. I do not yet (as of Thursday afternoon, 5/23/29) know the date of my surgery… I am guessing it will be around the middle of July. You know, now that I am optimized.

What that means is that I have passed all my tests, though a few of them with C’s, as it were. My blood tests have revealed a few things to address after surgery (diminished protein, slightly elevated sugar, nagging anemia). My x-rays reveal compression fractures in my thoracic vertebrae with “resulting loss of height” (yeah, I didn’t think I was as statuesque as I used to be) …these to go with the simple compressions in my cervical vertebrae and curves in my lumbar.

For a sad truth, I look more like Kenickie’s jalopy than the dream car (or even the one they took to Thunder Road)! I hear Zuko again, “What a hunka junk!”  

Age-related some of it. OH, oh, oh… and, in a different set of tests, turns out I have “presbycusis”: age-related hearing loss, which just means that the older I get, the deafer I get. Yeah, like I needed a test or a term to describe that. My audiologist said, “You’re a Presbyterian pastor with presbycusis!” Uh, no. United Methodist…

Good news: got my hearing aids adjusted. And I am walking again, bad back and all.

AND, I’m optimized for surgery. Now, if they will just give me a date.

I have been nipping at my doctors’ heels the last couple of weeks, trying to get on the schedule. One of them wrote me and said, “Please don’t worry.” He had told me during my consultation that the kind of cancer I have is extremely slow-growing, that if I had another biopsy in four months I would be in the same clinical position as now, and there was every good reason a) not to hurry the surgery (he told me to take my two vacation weeks in June and July) and b) to believe that the margins would be good and the surgery would be the end of it for, say, 15 years or more. He took my eagerness for anxiety: that I was apprehensive, scared, whatever.

I wrote back to assure him I am not afraid at all. I have confidence in him. I have confidence in the process. I have greater, utmost confidence, in the Great Physician. I am just trying to get the summer organized, and I cannot do that—who will preach when, who will cover pastoral necessities—until I have a date from which to build.

But it is interesting: how many people imagine I am anxious or afraid or worried. How others are surprised I am not talking about it a lot—having cancer, anticipating cancer surgery—or letting it disrupt my days and nights.

One person said to a mutual friend, “Tom must really be a person of faith. He doesn’t seem to be bothered at all.”

Well, I surely hope I am a person of faith! And I am glad if people see my faith as the source of my serenity in the face of this diagnosis and process. But I would not say I am completely unbothered…in this regard: I am NOT looking forward to surgery. I have had more than my share of incisions, sticks, indignities. The phlebotomist said this last Monday, as she drew my blood, “You have a lot of scar tissue.” Yep, and not just at my inside elbows. I get terribly nauseated with anesthesia (if you come seem me the day or the day after surgery, be forewarned). I do not like the pain that rips your abdomen the first time you try to get up (two hernia surgeries taught me that. I hate, Hate, HATE IVs (I beg, “Please, not my hand!” The nurse says, “Man up!” “How about some Novocain?” I say. “Nope.” The needles starts toward my hand and I close my eyes, say the Creed, try to remember Jesus experienced far worse in his hands than needles. But I am a weenie, and I dread the IV even more than the catheter or removing the drainage tube—which Dr. Damani said would be the worst part of my hospitalization).

Surgery is no fun (I've had 9 already, ten counting my tonsils), and I am not eager for it. Only eager to have that part of it behind me.

But beyond the surgery and the abasements of recovering from such surgery—I remember my father, after a similar surgery, once exclaiming…all but yelling… “Somebody has GOT to get me some Depends!”—I am not afraid. Or worried.  
I hope for more years of life and ministry. I hope for more years with Eleanor. I hope for more grandbabies with whom to spend time. I hope to enjoy retirement, to travel and maybe take up golf again, or renew my interest in water color and acrylics (did you know that, at one time, I planned to be an illustrator?). So much to do and see. So many sermons to preach and lessons to teach. So many days at the park to push my baby/babies in the swing.

But I know that my desire to be with my grandbabies is greater than Eleanor’s desire or need for me. Love is always stronger descending than ascending. And I’m chill with that.

I also know that death, for all of us, is inevitable. It is only a matter of time. And I do long to see Jesus.

So I am fine. More than fine… I am optimized in spirit, even more so than in body. All is well. And I believe I soon will be.

Please keep me in your prayers. For, much as Paul said to the Philippians, “I know that your prayers and the help that comes from the Spirit of Christ Jesus will keep me safe. I honestly expect and hope that I will never do anything to be ashamed of. Whether I live or die, I always want to be as brave as I am now and bring honor to Christ.  If I live, it will be for Christ, and if I die, I will gain even more.”

Either way, optimized.

UPDATE: I have heard: Monday, July 8, 2019

My Friend Doris

My friend Doris died last night. She was 100 years old…or maybe not quite, but pretty close. I think she was the same age as my mother, although she would never, ever tell. Nor did I ask. Like all great ladies, Doris had her secret ways (after Albert Finney in Skyfall).

I loved Doris. She loved me. She was not a surrogate mother to me or anything, but I counted her friendship one of the joys of my life. Not that we saw each other all that much. I wrote her about once-a-month, always included pictures of my granddaughter Eleanor. She wrote back in a tight cursive, her brief notes more disjointed and increasingly illegible in recent months.

Whenever I visited her in Highlands, which was a couple of times a year, I would go into her apartment and see some of the pictures I had sent to her, framed, set here and there.  Apparently, she considered me something of a surrogate son, and Eleanor her own—though, sadly, the two never had a chance to meet.

When first I met Doris she was a wealthy widow, a world traveler, and quite a catch. Her second husband and love of her life, Harry, was recently deceased and she told me of no less than three proposals she received in the years following. Once, she visited me to seek my approval. I had nothing good or bad to say, I told her. Later, she declined but told me my ambivalence had nothing to do with it. One proposal she honored, though that marriage was unhappy and the marriage was soon annulled.

Doris liked to tell of her around-the-world cruise, her travels here and there. And even later, when her strength and money began to evaporate (the Great Recession really hurt her, she said), she never quit traveling entirely. Her world may have contracted but her spirit never did. She went to Charleston, moved to Maine; took apartments in Brevard and Walhalla, bought or rented different houses in Highlands. She had a kind of wanderlust, for sure, but Highlands, once she found it, remained to the end her centering place. She was tethered there, and wherever she ventured, for however long, she always came back up the mountain to her beloved little town.

Not that “all things Highlands” pleased her. She often decried the changes she had seen over the years. She would watch from the Main Street-side porch of her last apartment, on the second floor of an office in Wright Square. She took note of the weather, the number of tourists, the general state of things in her little corner of the world.

Doris was a woman of strong opinions. She inveighed about various businesses and restaurants, the hospital, Chestnut Hill, her landlords and other townspeople. Had opinions about her preachers, too, of course, first at the Presbyterian Church and then at Highlands United Methodist where, in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I first came to know and treasure her.

We shared a love of English Bulldogs. She adored my family. We enjoyed occasional meals.  

At church, she made an unexpected and (at the time) rather large gift to our church’s building fund. A world-class artisan, she later led the committee that cross-stitched the first set of kneelers for the redesigned sanctuary. She was a fixture at worship for long years.

Eventually, though, time, various ailments and disaffections, and pain in her legs prevented her walking to church anymore--which she had done once she gave up her car. That was especially hard for her and her traveling spirit, and especially with her children living elsewhere.

She had helpers, though. Folks that would take her out, get her mail, make sure she made her doctor’s appointments. Her daughter Cheryl and her husband Floyd came to see her regularly; and Mark, her son, came by when he was on this side of the country. She had a granddaughter she loved hearing from.

But she was very much her own person. Getting a second-story apartment in her 90’s because climbing the stairs would be good for her, she said. Having her own table, as it were, at Wild Thyme, where she was always greeted by name when we went there. Wild Thyme was her favorite restaurant: gourmet without being uppity, like Doris herself. Every meal we took over the years, save one, was at Wild Thyme. Some of the other restaurants in town represented some of the changes that did not meet her approval.

The last time I saw her was the Tuesday after Easter, just a couple of weeks ago now. My friend Terrie was with us. We picked her up at her apartment, which was always meticulously and tastefully ordered. We looked at her current cross stitching projects, pictures of her bulldogs, pictures of Eleanor, of other people and places. Then we took her to lunch.

At Wild Thyme she had mushroom soup, a chicken wrap with avocado and fresh sweet potato chips. Now and then over the hour we acted as if we were having a conversation; but deaf as we both of us were, and loud as the restaurant always was, it was more a mime routine than actual interaction. And hilarious, it must have been, to any who caught sight of us leaning-in, moving our mouths slowly, each of us pretending we understood what the other was saying, smiling and nodding.

Even now it makes me chuckle, as in fact we did at the end of every one of those exchanges. As if we both realized it was futile, but no matter. It was good just to be in proximity. To celebrate a decades-long friendship that was deeper than mere words. We would laugh, pat each other’s hand, and go on with our meal.

After lunch, we made our way toward my car, more slowly than usual.

“We have a great parking place,” she said. “Whenever I come here, a place just opens up for me.” That is not my precise memory.

I saw Kilwin’s, the ice cream shop and—inspiration! “Doris, would you like a cone?”  

She thought for a second and said, “Sure!” Flavor? “Chocolate!” She later said it was the first ice cream cone she had had in years.  

She was dressed, as always, to the nines. Light blue wool suit, plaid; beautiful silk blouse; big, heavy ear rings, necklaces and bracelets. Flats. She had given up her pumps years before for the sake of her legs and for fear of falling. Her hair was in place, her make-up done—as it probably had been since early that morning. In all my life, even when she came to visit me and my family, which she did a couple of times, helping us move into a new place (she also made day trips to hear me preach), I never, ever saw her without make-up or in other than classic attire.

And others took note, too. Just before I retrieved the cones, a lady in running shorts and a tank top, her hair pulled-back and looking particularly casual, came up to us. She said to Doris, “It is so nice to see someone who still dresses for the day! I don’t myself, obviously, but it just gladdens my heart to see someone who is so beautiful and still takes care to dress-up!”

Then I got the cones.

We were sitting outside. Though it was a mild day we were in the sun and the ice cream began to melt. Terrie and I were busy with our own orders, though I had the foresight to get a cup. I looked over, and Doris had chocolate ice cream on her nose, her chin, and her hand. She looked down to see she had dripped chocolate on her wool skirt.

I laughed right out loud. “You have chocolate all over you!” I said.

She laughed too. A too-much-fun-to-feel-embarrassed, good-to-be-a-child-again-if-only-for-a-moment kind of laugh. 

I got more napkins and she cleaned up as best she could. I drove her around town too, which she said she was a rare treat anymore.

And, to jump to the end, when I heard this morning that she had died last night, I was sorry but somehow not shocked. As we parted, she told me what a wonderful time she’d had. But in the weeks since, I had not received a Thank You note for our little excursion. I certainly did not expect such, but that was her custom and in times past, I would have found it in my mailbox by the time I returned home. Today, looking back on the last few days, I realize I have had a misty sense that something was wrong.

We took her back to her apartment, but did not go back in. We hugged, gave each other a kiss on the cheek. She and Terrie did the same. She squeezed my hand, thanked me, asked when I was coming back.

“Soon,” I said, though I did not know exactly when.

My last image of her is going through the door to climb those stairs again, back to her needlepoint, her pictures, her little view of the street and world.

My first, last, best hope for her is that, today, she has found another room prepared for her, decorated by Jesus himself, where now can see so much more of the world than ever before.