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.

What is Right and What is Easy

All of this is very fresh and this is my first take, but...

Today the Judicial Council handed-down their decisions related to the Traditional Plan legislation that was passed during the special session of the UMC's General Conference in St. Louis (February 23-26, 2019)--noting that the delegates passed it "... fully cognizant and in spite of its constitutional flaws.”

Seven portions of the legislation were declared, thankfully and expectedly, unconstitutional. We are spared a spiritual KGB and worldwide Magisterium.

However, several pieces were upheld, meaning they will be become church law as of January 1, 2020. With the "center of power and influence" shifting away from North America and Europe, these changes (to my limited way of thinking) are unlikely to be changed by the next regularly scheduled General Conference (May, 2020, in Minneapolis), though certain matters may again be referred to Judicial Council for further rulings.  

Among the matters declared legal, the rulings supporting The Traditional Plan:

1. Expand The Book of Discipline's "chargeable offenses" against clergy (already a long list in Par. 304.3) to include "living in same-sex marriage, domestic partnership, civil union, or public declaration of being gay." (Petition 90032)

2. Affirm an explicit ban on gay bishops, and the prohibition of other bishops consecrating a gay bishop, even if the bishop were elected by a Jurisdictional Conference. (Petition 90036)

3. Mandate that when charges are brought against clergy for matters related to #1 above, or for performing same-sex weddings, the charges cannot be dismissed unless they are unfactual, and strict enforcements are mandated (first offense: a year's suspension without pay; second offense: removal of ministerial credentials). Additionally, candidates for ministry must state their commitment to upholding all the provisions of the Discipline, and must agree that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching” and that “self-avowed practicing homosexuals” cannot be certified as candidates for ministry, ordained or appointed. (Petitions 90042, 90043 and 90044). Presumably, if they cannot or will not so agree, the candidates, too, will not be certified, ordained or appointed.

4. Allows appeals to past trial verdicts if the verdict demonstrated "egregious errors of church law or administration.”

Thus, there has been a tightening of church laws and the policing of said laws. Among many other collaterals (and the loss of young clergy could be significant), this ruling will further distance the UMC, as it is as of January 1, from our historic UM schools, colleges and universities--and other of our institutions which are pledged to full-inclusion.  The institutional turmoil is only beginning.

While this ruling was not unexpected, it is still disappointing. And, of course, all of it will be challenged again in 2020 by more moderating voices...even as other voices will advocate for yet more tightening of language and consequence. That to say, the next General Conference will in all likelihood see more of the same rancor we saw in St. Louis, more fighting and posturing and self-righteous pontification... unless...

One (or more) "side/s" or the other "disaffiliates." Another of the Judicial Council decisions relates to ways congregations can pull-out.

From the UM News article (the link is below):

In Decision 1379, the Judicial Council reviewed an amended version of Petition 90066, one of the petitions designed to provide “a gracious exit” for local churches that want to leave the denomination... such an exit must meet three minimum requirements:

• Approval of the disaffiliation resolution by a two-thirds majority of the professing members of the local church present and voting at the church conference.
• Establishment of the terms and conditions, including the effective date, of the agreement between the annual conference and the exiting local church by the conference board of trustees in accordance with applicable church law and civil laws.
• Ratification of the disaffiliation agreement by a simple majority of the members of the annual conference present and voting.

Only, it may not come to a piecemeal series of local decisions. There are discussion underway between Traditional Plan advocates (who are not wholly pleased with today's rulings, feeling they do not go far enough) and One Church Plan advocates (who have been nauseous since February) to determine plans of disaffiliation: that congregations, annual conferences, etc, might choose to form separate Methodist Churches, much as we did during the mid-1800's when the issue of slavery was before us. Then, the church split three ways, with two abolitionist wings (The Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Protestant Church), and one wing that--while other issues were certainly at stake--still at least tacitly supported the institution of slavery (The Methodist Episcopal Church, South).

There is talk of a one-to-two division (the two being: support/non-support for same sex marriage and ordination). But there is also talk of a one-to-three division, with the awareness that many current UMs may not be comfortable on either "wing" of advocacy, and want a place in the middle where everyone is welcome, where love and embrace is crucial, but where Christians can find their raison d'etre  in other matters related to Jesus and mission.

At Hawthorne Lane, we will soon need to meet to process what we have heard this week. Of course, we will have to be patient, too. Again, the discussions are just beginning. The terms are clearer now than they were previously. This series of rulings will cause more pain, of course, but at least we know the terms of the discussion.

We have lost a family in recent days that feels HLUMC is too open: they had planned to join, but have realized the UMC as a whole is too far to the "left" of their theological and social convictions (I told them that HLUMC is to the UMC, but they need to be where they need to be). Conversely, and ironically, I know of other families already in our church who are struggling with whether to stay because they feel our Church is too far to the "right," and our congregation playing it too safe: is not engaged enough in "resistance" to the decisions of General Conference. Pity the preachers who are trying to keep their people talking to and not just at/about each other!

And pity the many UMC congregations that have no idea AT ALL what is going on or what it is to come.

In any case, as Dumbledore said to Harry, "The time is coming when we may have to choose between what is right and what is easy." I am both thankful, and sorry, to have to lead us through these next months and years as we determine what is right for us when it comes to living-out "church" in the ways we believe Jesus calls us to at Hawthorne Lane.  

For the UM News report... https://www.umnews.org/en/news/court-oks-part-of-traditional-plan-exit-plan

Pray for the Judicial Council

Just a reminder that the Judicial Council of the UMC begins meeting tomorrow, and much will be decided by that group--perhaps including the future of the UMC as we know it. The Council itself will rule on the constitutionality of many portions of the Traditional Plan passed at the special session of General Conference. The rulings will set the stage for "next steps."

I will be monitoring the rulings as they are announced and will report as I see them.

I encourage you to go to www.umc.org to see for yourself news and commentary around these matters.

Prayers for Our Lady of Paris

Tonight, one of the members of my Monday night beer and Bible study group wondered aloud if it would naturally occur to United Methodists to remember Notre Dame, appropriate for us to pray for the people in Paris--and Catholic Christians around the world-- who are horror-struck and heartsick about the cathedral fire today...

He, like a couple of others in our group, self-identifies as Catholic, but attend our church every Sunday, just about. To a person they such important parts of our congregation.

Of course, it was appropriate. But I am glad he brought it up because, scattered as we are when we first gather, I am not sure it would have naturally occurred to us to mention it. That said, I think we all would have thought of it later...

So we prayed for all who are affected, and know that even as UMs we are affected in as much as we weep with all who weep and rejoice with all who rejoice. In as much as many of us have visited that great cathedral. In as much as when any place of worship is destroyed, it connects us to the Temple, the Jews, our Christian past and the deep spiritual impulses of all people to build to the glory of God and the spiritual (and practical ) truth that what is built with human hands cannot endure. Such weeping tarries for the night and leads us to hope for the Home that is eternal in the heavens.

Which led me to think about this being Holy Week: and the irony or tragedy or tragic irony or ironic tragedy of one of Christianity's most important and iconic cathedrals burning on the day we remember, liturgically, the cleansing of the Temple. In the week when we remember the death (and resurrection) of Jesus.

And the ironic conversion of the French government this "death" may occasion. If unofficially but historically and condescendingly, France is so secular and so anti-religious that, as I understand it, support for the cathedral has been virtually. Today, the French government has pledged to rebuild Notre Dame--and perhaps a part of the determination comes from seeing rank-and-file citizens weeping, wailing, gnashing their teeth as their holy place died. And not just in Paris.

Which is to say, I wonder if this death also gives way to a kind of resurrection? If this tragedy gives rise to a renewed awareness of what alone may last? It was when Jesus died, according to Mark, when the Centurion said, "Surely this man was the Son of God." Could this horrible incident in its own way proclaim the gospel: how for Jesus, and Notre Dame, and each of us and the world, Empire crushes Savior, despair consumes faith, nihilism swallows life... but by God's grace, the power of hope and the Resurrection of Jesus, death itself is swallowed-up in victory and soon, and very soon, death will be no more.

Resurrection comes, in spite of and no thanks to secularity, but on account of the prayers of the people (Philippians 1:19) to awaken even the cultural despisers of religion to the suffering wonder of faith and the beauty, even in death itself, of enduring faithfulness.

A Crisis of Interpretation

You will remember that Jesus once said to a lawyer, “What is written in the Law? How do you read?”

The lawyer had stood to ask Jesus’ which command was greatest in the law.

Not a bad question. Not a bad question at all. In point of fact, all of us at one time or the other, each of maybe now, might wonder the same thing. What is most important to God in how we live? What, among all other things, does God pay most attention to in terms of whether we obey, or do it or don’t?

At least let me say I would sometimes like to know.  

The lawyer was not asking Jesus for information, though. Not really. He was interrogating Jesus. Cross-examining. Trying to set Jesus up.

As would be the case later, though, when he stood before Pontius Pilate, Jesus turned the tables: proved the real Interrogator. He asked the lawyer two questions in turn:

”What is written? How do you read it?”

While we sometimes read the second as a reiteration, or paraphrase of the first, in truth they are very different questions. “What is written” can be stated clearly: is as plain as verses on a page. But how one reads what is written is a whole other matter.

The lawyer answered the first question rightly: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul, strength and mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Exactly, Jesus said. Do that and you will live.

But “Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asked. In other words, “How do I read—how am I supposed to understand—that second part?”

“That’s what I asked you,” Jesus as might have said, for that is the deeper question: not just what is written, but how do you read what is written?   

Jesus would have the lawyer not only quote, but interpret.

Look beyond the letter to the spirit; beyond the words on the page to the heart of the Inspirer.

For us, this challenge is this—call it a crisis of interpretation: trying to figure out how both to love God with all our hearts, soul, strength and mind, and simultaneously how to love our neighbors (and for the moment, especially, our LGBTQI+ neighbors) as we love ourselves (or, better, as Jesus loves them).

+ + +

Those two questions continue to interrogate me, and they interrogate us as United Methodists  as we continue to negotiate the aftershocks of the Special General Conference in St. Louis. The subtext seems to be that whoever rightly interprets what is written, they will find themselves near to the heart of God, and not far from the Kingdom of God.

For some, loving God, first and foremost means adhering to a traditional understanding of oft-cited biblical texts (Leviticus 18:22, for instance; or Romans 1, or even Acts 15 where “acts of immorality” are equated, one-for-one, with homosexual practice). And if allegiance to that historic interpretation of what is written means we can’t bless or welcome (or marry or ordain) LGBTQI+ folk, then we will sacrifice the second great commandment for the sake of the first.

That, or claim that to love the neighbor means they have to change or repent or forego.

For others, love of neighbor means embracing emerging understandings of persons and relationships, celebrating the non-traditional as a way of affirming the ongoing and creative work of the Holy Spirit. And if that means setting aside certain scriptures or overturning traditional positions of the church, then we will sacrifice legal and traditional renderings for the sake of neighbor-love.

The positions seem intractable: this way of loving neighbor has to discount allegiance to scripture; this way of interpreting scripture mitigates love of neighbor.

I sympathize. I do not want to offend God disregarding the Word. But I do not want to think the Word is defined, qualified, by an isolated verse, or even scattered verses offered staccato and understood discreetly according to our personal lexicon—a verse here or there to define God or what is most important to God.  

Increasingly, I think that to obey God’s first and greatest commandment is honor the sweep and scope of God’s gracious hospitality and welcome—the ever-widening circle of God’s desire for justice and mercy—and then apply that back to discreet situations and moments in our lives and ministries.

And it is odd, I think, how so many preachers latch onto one thing as if that is the only thing. How even the legalists and fundamentalists among us would decry the legalism and fundamentalism of the Rabbis and Priests and never seem to see the contradiction of their own position.

Odd, too, that even among traditionalists accommodation is made for divorce and even polygamy (about which Jesus spoke plainly), and for women preachers (which, according to traditional interpretation of isolated texts, are disallowed), and for the abolition of slavery (which scripture never advocates but just moves on, as if to say those old categories no longer apply)…  we might say that the church has invoked, formally or informally, the “binding and loosing” power granted to it in these matters; so why not with LGBTQI+ matters? In other words, why do people get stuck here?

Fr. Rohr says that it may relate to “shadow material”: that those who spend too much time and energy on any one thing  may be saying more about themselves than others.  (remember your Shakespeare? “Me thinketh thou protesteth too much”) I have no idea. Just wonder why this issue, unlike so many other relational, sexual, ethical issues, are such quicksand.

In St. Louis, the pastor of a large UM church in LA would not even talk to me about these matters. He quoted Acts 15 as the final word. I wanted to talk about the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40) in light of Deuteronomy 23:1-3; Leviticus 21:18-20 and Isaiah 56:1-8.

There is more to the text than “acts of immorality” in Acts 15, and two of the three “prohibitions” we do not enforce; could call null in light of grace. So why the other?

That is the crisis of interpretation… not just what is written, for as Barbara Brown Taylor has long maintained, for every in scripture there is a not saying, an alternative reading or interpretation. The Spirit tells Philip to do what the Law did not allow: join a eunuch for spiritual conversation. AND BAPTIZE HIM—there was no reason to prevent the eunuch from being baptized, though there had been ample reason under the written words of the law to exclude him.

I could recall the story of Cornelius: Do not call unclean what God has called clean. I could mention Peter saying to the legalists in Jerusalem, “If therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:16-17, NKJV).  I could expound any of the texts cited above.

But as Tom Long said, long years ago, “It is not enough to know the words of Scripture. What is crucial is knowing the heart of the One who inspired it.” And the way to know God’s heart is to know Jesus’s heart—who always drew circles and never lines; who always welcomed in the other (and even the judgmental others!); whose harshest judgments were always upon those who “tithed the mint and the cumin, but ignored the greater matters of justice and mercy.”

He withered-up a tree!

A long time ago, now, when I was in seminary, there was a popular Christian singer, at least among Baptists in the south. And she is still around: her name is Cynthia Clawson.

Dove winner, multiple times, Grammy-nominated…  If you have ever watched any of the Gaither Homecoming shows or videos, chances are you have seen her. More of what she looks like now…

And she is still at it, but long past her best or most popular days.

This is my favorite picture of her: from one of her albums, called "The Way I Feel." Kind of angelic, a bit mysterious.

On that album she did the most beautiful arrangement I have ever heard of Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling—that old, Sunday night, come-to-Jesus, you sang it if you grew up Baptist hymn.

Here is a link to it, from the 1985 movie, The Trip to Bountiful (which is a great movie, if you have never seen it):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jq73glgQWps
 
The song is in our UM hymnal, too: number 368, I believe.  

If Billy Graham, Cliff Barrows and the Crusade choir made Just As I Am the most famous invitation hymn of all time, I came to Jesus, walked the aisle—and maybe some of you did too—while the choir and congregation Softly and Tenderly.

I will go so far as to say that that if our choir had sung Cynthia Clawson’s version of it—or if she had been there to sing it—I would have come to Jesus twice. I would have walked down, to shake the preacher’s hand, then hurried back to back to my pew so I could come down the aisle again.

Beautiful. Tears me up and tears me up every time I hear it: “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling. Calling for you and for me. See! On the portals, he is waiting and watching, watching for you and for me..." And so he is.

"Come home, come home. Ye who are weary come home.” And so I did. At age 8. Nor have I left home since... though there have been times I thought about it.

II

Another of Cynthia Clawson’s heart-rending, tear-evoking, soul-saving songs came to my mind this week, for the first time in decades. But tomorrow's morning’s scripture lesson--how Jesus turned over the money-changers’ tables--is bookended by another, stranger story: Jesus's cursing of the fig tree (Mark 11: 12-14, 20-21). That story of that poor fig tree brought to mind the lyric of I Heard About a Man. 

Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2BR2wBeK58 

It is about as simple and as beautiful a presentation of the gospel as I know…
 

              I heard about a man, who came to live in time…

he did amazing things with water and new wine

              He helped the cripple walk and

he made the blind to see…

And then you know what else he did?

                             He gave himself for me.

              He was a simple man, he really had no home…

He’d go and stay where he was at, next morning he’d be gone

              He made the leper whole,

and the he set the prisoners free.

And then you know what else he did?

                             He came to stay with me.

              Because I know this one who was man and yet divine                    

              Because I know what love can do in just a second’s time

              Because he made me fully whole… he gave me a song to sing…  

             

              He was a humble man, but always he was bold

              He would stop and talk a while, but he could see right through your soul

              He fed a hungry crowd, and he withered up a tree…

III

He withered-up a tree.  Do you remember? Can you imagine?

And surely one of the most surprising, if not the most surprising episodes in all the gospel stories of Jesus.

Feeding hungry crowds? Helping cripples walk? Making new wine from water, and the blind to see?

Amazing as those things are, they are not surprising, given what we know of Jesus.

Making lepers whole and setting prisoners free? Absolutely in keeping with the loving, gracious, compassionate character of Jesus…

But withering up a tree? When it wasn’t even the season for figs?

I can only imagine it, think of it as a kind of displacement.

Do you know that term? You are mad at your spouse, but throw something at the TV. You are mad at your boss, but you snap at your children.

Displacement. When you are mad at one thing and take it out on another thing.

I can only imagine Jesus was angry at what he saw the day before, when he entered the Temple precincts… and took it out on the poor fig tree.

IV

The day before, Jesus and the disciples had come into Jerusalem. Jesus was on a donkey. The crowds were excited. The religious and political and maybe even the military officials were a little nervous. But when Jesus arrived, after he looked around at everything, he left and went to Bethany.

I wonder what he thought, what he felt, being in the Temple again. Mark does not tell the story, but Luke says that when Jesus was a little boy, he had come to Jerusalem, to the Temple, had had good discussions with the Teachers of the Law. They were amazed at his understanding. For their part, Mary and Joseph were terrified. At least when they finally realized he was not with them. They went and searched for him… remember what he said? “I must be about my Father’s business.”

That was what the Temple was for. Even the boy Jesus could see that: discussing the scriptures, prayer and worship. 

Years have passed since last time Jesus saw the Temple. And now, what did Jesus see?

Not the Temple’s business. But the business of the Temple. The buying and selling and unholy pandemonium of what had the appearance of worship. Pretty. Lush. Prosperous.

The Temple area was huge: 32 acres, the size of 34 soccer fields, and on special occasions it could hold 400,000 people. The Temple and its associated businesses were the main employer and economic engine of Jerusalem…and every day, just humming, like the great machine it was.  
Jesus and the boys looked around at everything, then headed to Bethany. Next morning, they started back into Jerusalem.

On the way, Jesus saw a fig tree, lush and green.

Jesus went to it, to get a fig. Only it was not the season for figs.

Did you get that? It was not the season for figs!

So, no real surprise, there were no figs. But, for some reason it ran all over Jesus. And he cursed the tree: “May you never bring forth figs again!” And next day, it was withered to its roots.

Why?

We might also ask why Jesus was so upset at the Temple mount. At the buying and selling. What the buyers and sellers and money-changers were doing was perfectly legal, and even necessary.

If you were coming from Nazareth, say… like that time when Jesus was 12… Mary and Joseph and the others were going to Jerusalem to sacrifice. But that was a journey of 65 miles. Can you imagine leading a cow, herding sheep, for 65 miles to the place of sacrifice?

So, instead, you sold your cow, or sheep, and took the money—mostly likely Roman money, most likely with an image of Tiberius on it—and came to Jerusalem with it, there to launder your money, to change the pagan currency into currency acceptable in the Temple. You bought a sheep or a cow, doves or a goat to complete the sacrifice.  

There had to be money-changers. There had to be animal sellers. Thieves? Maybe. They did charge interest. Maybe some of them charged too much. Maybe the "business of the Temple" has supplanted the "Temple's business."

Which is to say, maybe there was a different kind of theft going on… not that the people were being robbed by the money-changers, but God was being robbed of the prayers of the people by the exclusionary practices of the religious establishment.

A house of prayer for all people that did not allow all the people close, and even determined who could and could not worship in the prescribed way. If you did not have enough money to buy even the doves, which were the poorests' offering, one had to walk away.

IV

And perhaps that is what we are angry about too, some of us. In this battle of interpretation raging across the church, it is not just "what is written in the law" but "how we read." And Jesus' anger seems to indicate, at least in Mark, that if our churches are excluding anyone, we are robbing God of God's rightful due--praise from all God's children.

That said, Jesus' anger is not merely anger. It is rooted in love for God, for God's house, for all the people of God.

The end of I Heard About a Man is this:

          He fed a hungry crowd and he withered up a tree.

          And then you know what else he did? He blossomed forth in me.  

Without love, all our anger and cursing reveals is how our spirit is already withered to the roots.