I was conned in church

This past Sunday I got conned in church….and I was the preacher!

If you already think pastor-types are con-artists who exaggerate stories, hype the Christian message or are questionable in character, I’d probably agree, then sigh and wish I could tell people I do something else for a living.  This past Sunday, I GOT conned, so smile if you wish or consider it payback though I honestly do try to tell the truth when I speak.  Anyway, at church a first time guest who “needed to talk to the pastor about finding God” got to me about ten minutes before we began worship in a most modest sized gathering of 18 folks.  Said guest stayed through worship, then Betty and I invited him to lunch which he accepted.  Humorously, the whole church decided to descend on the same restaurant, sitting at two tables nearby with my bride while I confidentially listened to this man’s plea.

It turns out his plea was for….yep, money.  Lots.  Nearly $600 for rent.  By 5 PM THAT DAY in a cashier’s check to the landlord (whom he named) or he was out (who throws people out on a SUNDAY?!).  Anyway, this guy was GOOD, very convincing, sharply dressed, articulate, and I wound up handing him my honorarium check (nowhere near the $600) to at least “help out.”  (Hold your gasps, please.) After trying to buy his lunch (church folk quietly paid for his lunch and mine….like Christians?!), we took him back to church to let him out, his choice, and Betty and I headed home.

Two hours later I see emails from a couple of the church folk pointing me to two articles in local papers naming this guy and his “landlord” accomplice in a city-wide scamming going on for months.  Color me gullible, dumb, naive, etc., etc.

Church folk had ALSO been hit upon that day, when a few returned to church, to give him the balance of hi$ need$!  They’d also, upon discovery, quickly stopped payment on both checks when an alert member “remembered” the stories, and word spread quickly.

My point here?  After nearly 42 years of pastoring, helping folks in emergencies, I STILL cannot spot a con!  I thought I was smarter than that.  Worse, at this moment, I now trust nobody on the street, cardboard signs or not.   So before I turn into a complete poverty cynic or get written off by every social agency around, please know….in a few days….I will reread some biblical texts that remind me to CARE for those IN NEED.

Right now I am wondering afresh how did Jesus deal with con-artists?  Okay, how does He KNOW the DIFFERENCE between the authentic tale of need and the “I gotta have gas money to see my dying mother in Missouri” story?  Am I supposed to believe and accept every tale and just say “Okay, it’s Your money, God, so you sort out the fools from the genuine here”?  Or am I just to ignore need and consign everyone to the Salvation Army, local mission or next sucker?

How do you feel when you help someone?  And how do you then feel when you find the person never DID go to Missouri with your gas money?

Check with me next week.  But if you need help this week, be aware I’m in recovery from “tall tale theology.”

And I need to have the heart of Jesus Christ.

And believe someone’s story of need once again.

What I cannot see

Frequently, I find my eyesight smeared.  A quick fix, it only takes soap, water and a few careful moments with my trifocals delicately wiped….and, ah, all is well once again.

This Sunday I find once again smeared eyesight.  Palm Sunday, if you know even a bit of the story, has Jesus riding a donkey/colt, the subject of adoring crowds and children waving those memorable palm branches.  Great, since everyone loves a victory party, particularly with children around.  You also know the setting changes with each day, more teaching by Jesus, finally ending on a Thursday night in an upper room with what we call the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper (or Eucharist, Communion, Holy Communion, the Mass).  Betrayal quickly follows, a kangaroo court trial, and too soon, it seems, a carpenter-teacher is spiked to a cross, dies and a movement seems ended.

One saying has always come blurting out to me that Jesus Himself speaks: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  Well, a couple millenia later I SURE DO.  Hindsight is so easy.  For me.  Especially when I look at others.  The mystery I have to face during what most Christ-followers dub “Holy Week” is that I can’t seem to easily “know not what [I] do,” particularly when I’m about to do it!  Why?  Jeremiah (not the bullfrog) the Prophet broadcast a stunning announcement to an audience a few hundred years before God’s Daily Show when Jere had the gall to say (Jer. 17:9), “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it?“  Didn’t he know about education, political reform, better medicine, therapeutic insights or just even reading a few other verses (in the temple, of course, to get all the benefits)?  Sorry, but no lasting, durable cure in any nor all those worthy pursuits.

In fact, my heart, your heart, your momma’s heart, your child’s heart, your grandbaby’s heart (“no, no, not MY grandbaby’s heart….my grandbaby is perfect!”  Hmmm.  Just you wait) is deceived.  Not dishonest.  You know dishonest people, sometimes right when you meet them, and you want to say, “You’re lying.  That’s not the real reason for why you did that.”  No, Jere says “deceitful”, and I know this, because I’m still amazed at the stuff I have talked myself into.  The toys, the bad purchases, the stupid decisions, the bad advice…I look back on and think, “WHAT was I THINKIN’?”

So?  So, just this.  My deceitful heart needs, even at six and a half decades plus, a radical rescue, transformation, and honest confrontation (the opposite of deceit?).  I need forgiveness and recalibration.  When I say that out loud to myself, by myself, I drop palm branches quickly.

As much as I love crowds, celebrations, parties and good times, during this week I see that Jesus sees what I don’t, beyond the euphoria to what is desperately wrong in me, maybe you, in most everyone I know.

So don’t let the upcoming week slide by.  Seek out a Maundy Thursday or Good Friday service, even if you don’t know what those terms mean, and learn about you.  Show up for Easter service even if you blow $40 on a necktie or new heels, but amidst your glamour, admit, even if just to yourself for once, that you know the true you.  I will since, for once, I won’t be preaching on Easter Sunday.  I need authentic saving from the rationalized, justified behavior I get talked into, or worse, talk myself into.  I need to face an upper room, ask what it means to “wash one another’s feet”, to break bread, drink the cup, see a Savior set his own agenda aside to get spiked down, pulled up, and dropped with cross into a post pit.  So my heart could be different, forgiven, not merely remain deceived.

THEN Easter looks like the sobering day it truly is.  God the Son is raised, on the loose, and nothing is ever the same again.  Including me.  Including you.  Amazing, eh?

A joyous, heart-transformed Easter to you.

Seasonings

Retirement.

An era?  A mindset?  Better, a season, at least for now.  For me.

A year and a half into the “R” word, I’ve (hired out) finished repainting the outside trim of our house, (hired out) a new roof installed, gotten two new jobs, upgraded media to Mac-land, done a funeral or two, done a couple of weddings, preached in various churches most of the first two months of this year, avoided traffic tickets those same months (history here), and taken naps usually when I wanted to.  Oh, and mentored a few friends in the hobby of model railroading.

I’m trying to discern seasons these days, maybe “seasonings,” meaning what month, quarter of the year, time of life am I now in, and what makes it “zesty.” 

More to the point of your interest, what season are you in?  Adding to your resume or adding a challenging new work?  Trying to pack as much as you can in a day, or learning a better pace of work, worship and play?  Trying to impress people or impact people?

I’ve already had a couple of sizeable heartaches in 2012, one wonderful surprise, and I am asking a few fresh questions.

Like, how can I use my best hours of the day (morning) to do my most creative work?

How can I invest money, rather than merely spend, save or give what I now have?  Invest to me doesn’t mean stocks, land or banks, but people…six grandchildren, a few men I meet with, a new ministry setting that will last a bit over two months.

So, what or where are your seasonings for this season in which you now walk?  Who are your teachers, mentors or coaches?

What do you sense God is up to in your “seasonings?”

Therapy Revisited

Forgive the confessional moment, but I’ve been in therapy the past six weeks, and to borrow the inappropriate line from a gory scene from the camp movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” I’ll say “I got better.”

My therapy has been physical therapy due to what Xrays, a surgeon and my own pain feedback assess as the beginnings of an arthritic left hip that shows up when friends call me out saying, “Tom, you’re limping” which I HATE to hear.  I felt the pain over this past summer and only decided to do something after the pain would not quit hurting, and of course, hurt at the most inopportune times like speaking in front of a group.  Yes, I tried self-medicating, popping ibuprofen tablets like M&M’s (not a good idea over the long haul).

If you are the reluctant person or cringe when you hear “therapy” no matter what the type, at least listen a moment to what I’ve learned.  Oh, and being married to a marriage therapist probably makes me more resistant to getting help, thinking I know more than other people (dumb!).

Big insight: buyer beware!  I see lots of ads on late night tv for “exercise equipment.”  At 66 I wasn’t trying for “six pack abs”, just relief from pain.  So far, after reluctantly heading to physical therapy, I’ve bought no equipment, just used a pillow, a bathrobe sash, a belt and a doorway….all of which I already possessed.  While some therapies do cost (time, energy and yes, some money), beware the scam artists.  My biggest outlay?  Rearranging my time.

Second insight: therapy involves training rather than merely trying harder.  I needed new ways to exercise, “stretch and strengthen” muscles, so just walking more or jumping higher (ouch!) would not have relieved pain, no matter how noble my intentions.  A coach, a true physical therapist, helped immensely, and yes, all the exercises seemed simple: I just didn’t know WHAT they were.  Most of us get in trouble because we just make poor choices or “don’t know any better.”  Bad drivers, bad spouses, bad employees or bosses who will admit to needing help often require better training, not more assertive personalities!

Third insight: therapy takes time.  Six weeks into this, last week my physical therapist “let me go,” but true results (lessening pain or learning to exercise, rest and readjust routines) will likely continue to take another couple of months.  Pain management involves gradual miracles, the biggest being I have to be patient.  As my therapist wife is fond of saying to couples who expect instant change, “it took awhile to get into this situation, and it will take awhile for you to get better.”

And my fourth insight: you just have to take a risk once in awhile.  A late mentor once confessed to me, “People prefer the pain of the familiar over the pain of changing or new choices.”  Hmmm.

All to say, I need to stop this and get to my exercises, and they only take about 15 minutes.  Off to get my pillow, sash, belt and lean into a good solid doorway as I do some new stretches.  I hope you find your therapist, coach, mentor, trainer or helper where you need therapy most.

Oh, and I hope you get better, too.  That’s how I see the grace of God today.

Reentering Churchdom

This Sunday, I reenter “traditional church” as I’ve been invited to preach at several modest sized churches (think 50-150 in one worship service) in the Nashville area over the next couple of months.

“Traditional” in my church culture usually means 1) wearing a pulpit robe, 2) marching down an aisle with the choir…also in robes, 3) using the bulletin to print most of the order, prayers, hymn numbers, and message title, 4) leading a “time for children” which is a brief teaching that often is more engaging to kids and adults than the sermon and (sigh, 5) making too many announcements that usually apply to very small segments of those attending.

This Sunday I’ll politely defy some of that by 1) wearing a suit and tie (yes, a son helped me buy current choices a year ago), 2) walking in to sit “on stage”, 3) trying to create more warmth “off the bulletin” in worship and 4) leading the “time for children”….okay, I can’t fight every tradition. Oh, and I will try desperately to hand off those announcements to a lay leader or just say “read this” while waving the paper bulletin at everyone.

Not having yet seen the locale of the church where I will be, here’s my short unrequested list to church leaders to welcome anyone daring enough to try a modest sized traditional church on a Sunday morning:

1. Vacuum, scrub, repaint, repair or replace anything that “still doesn’t work right” and visitors are likely to encounter.  You are cleaning house for guests, and toilets need to work, the bulletin be legible (and proofread!), and yes, lightbulbs actually turn on.  Extra credit: have quality microphones and a speaker system not made with parts from ToysRUs.

2. Put the local sheriff near the thermostat!  This is to fight every little old lady who seems to think “it’s too cold in here.” Alternative: install a dummy thermostat in a prominent place.  Sorry, that was more a semi-vindictive personal gripe, and I did not check the sheriff’s availabilty…

3. Put people “out front” to hand bulletins and welcome people who actually LIKE welcoming people.  A sour greeter, or ignoring new folk ruins “our great choir”, preaching or even the architecture for any visitors.

4. Give the nursery a second scrubbing, and staff it with a “pleasant nurse nazi” (ancient Tyndall churchese). Also have I.D. nametags, beepers or some way to notify worshipping parents of any child emergency.

5. Spend the extra money to have your bulletin/program printed or done on computer.  Bury the typewriter, that ante-bellum mimeograph machine and tacky church bulletins with decades-old “church art” (Not kidding here!). BTW, spend some bucks or draft an 8 year old and get a church website going that DOES NOT feature your building or sanctuary first, but give us people’s faces, maybe even a story or two about why they love attending that church.

6. Don’t give visitors a hard time about their choice of dress/clothing.  As a former everyone-wear-ties-or-pantyhose (not both!)-to-worship, I’ll admit I’m probably not yet ready to wear “what Jesus would wear to worship”: hold the sandals and toga, please.  While I frequently wear dress jeans to worship these days, I am not about to give other kids, teens, adults, or even retirees the GQ stare even if they missed raiding the Walmart racks just before showing up for worship.  And, now according to a very reliable source, there are still godly guys in East Texas who worship while sporting a mullet, so I hereby resign from the church fashion police.

7. (Ah, seven, that spiritual number) Pray for God to speak to you in such settings.   You, or someone you know, will likely attend a traditional church because of your parents, grandparents, a friend, spouse or significant other, from a latent curiosity, a nagging desperation to hear a good Word outside your circumstances, or even from boredom with your “normal Sunday routine.”  Welcome, and thanks for your effort, even if for just one Sunday.

Oh, and if we meet on Sunday, I’ll try not to act disengaged.  After all, that’s just not part of my own tradition.

A Prince for God

John R. W. Stott died this past week. 

Never heard of this 90 year old Anglican rector and author?  He’s influenced thousands of Christians over the past 5 decades.  Include me.  This British scholar priest wrote booklets, tomes, spoke on Scripture, discipled a lot of college students through his works, was Chaplain to the Queen of England, and cared both for individual faith and social justice.

I’m not one to touch the hem of the garment of many well-knowns, but the man known as “Stotty” was one with whom I actually got a face-to-face breakfast about 30 years ago at a conference.  A friend, now seminary professor, Mark Labberton, served as one of Stott’s assistants while doing graduate work in Great Britain some years back, and he saw a winsome man whose passion for faith influenced friend Mark toward pastoring and now teaching other pastors.  Impressive.

Good pastor friend Ron Scates in Dallas, Texas now informs me that he will coordinate a memorial service for John Stott some time either August 27th or 28th.  I suspect there will also be a memorial “across the pond” in his native England as well.

Stott’s passing probably represents the closing of an era as well.  Campus Crusade late founder Bill Bright, late Senate Chaplain Richard C. Halverson and the now 92 year old Billy Graham in declining health all come from an era where “evangelical faith” emerged from the constrictions of a narrow, judgmental rigid faith to a Christianity that engaged thought, reflection, concern for those without resources, and John R.W. Stott often found himself the reluctant leader of much of that spiritual inertia.  Maybe it helped that Stott never married, setting him free to spend chunks of time writing, traveling and interacting with other leaders along with giving a sizeable influence through his books and conference speaking.

My takeaway from Stott’s life?  Go the distance.  Finish well in ministry and in life, and yes, lean on God regularly in every season.  Oh, yes, I’m glad I’m married, have grown children and grandchildren, and love the ministry I’ve enjoyed for better than four decades.  In a day when leaders, especially Christian leaders, often abuse resources, step over relational boundaries or just give up exhausted, whether single or married, solo Stott kept his integrity as his influence widened, then even as he quietly pulled back from worldwide influence as health issues increasingly confined him to his native England.

You and I may not live with such extremes to manage, and I doubt that Stott ever envisioned a worldwide stage on the horizon.

A biblical text comes to mind that yet another friend sent a few days ago: 2nd Samuel 3:38 “Do you not know that a prince and a great man has fallen this day in Israel?” I think I finally met a truly Godly prince one morning at a breakfast.  He did finish his reign well in life.  In death. And now he reigns over death due to a Savior he loved and served wisely.

Thanks be to God for His princely pastor Dr. John R. W. Stott.

Traffic School Graduate

I spent this past entire Saturday in traffic school.

It was my choice.  Yes, four tickets the first four months of this year shocked and jostled me to do this, not a court order.  Yes, I could try to easily rationalize each offense. I’ll spare you all that and the total costs, though my license quickly got [only] 8 points.  I even sought the advice of a police friend….who laughed at me and quipped, “I didn’t know that your retirement would lead you to a life of crime, Tom!”  Not funny, but sobering.  I knew it was time for me to reassess my driving skills, even after 50 years of near ticket-free “careful” driving.

I went dreading those unending, boring lectures, gory auto accident films, a cramped seat and a disinterested presenter.  Imagine being delightfully disappointed on all counts!  The videos were more about victims’ shake-us-up testimonies, including one “I don’t get it perp”, not gory accident pix.  We were given lots of potty breaks, thankfully.  I was by far the oldest one in my class of 30 folks and the only “volunteer” as the others, including a father and son combo, had all been court-ordered to show or face suspended driver’s licenses.  Not a happy crowd.

Takeaways?  One eye-opener was how to face a head-on collision, also finding that child car seats have an expiration date stamped on them and a shelf life of about six years, so my “grandpa chauffeur” status may get a car seat makeover.  I also realized afresh I get easily distracted while driving.  No, I don’t shave, anymore, but I do eat, drink, fiddle with my radio and a/c a bit too much while driving.  Or I did.

I also got reminded that driving is NOT competitive (except on race tracks) but more cooperative which means letting slow, distracted or raging drivers go by and creating a safe, undistracted atmosphere INSIDE my car for me and any passengers.

I hope I can drive at least another ten years.  I dread losing that….privilege (I almost wrote RIGHT.)  The cost?  Driving takes my full attention when I do it.  Like writing these words, I can’t have a phone ringing, loud music blaring or being doing other things while I do this.

I graduated, too.  Passed the final test, at least the one on paper.  I also drove home with a different, more cautious attitude.  So if you see me driving slower while I “scan” intersections,  know that I know a few things about driving I’d forgotten.  I’ll keep servicing my car, set the GPS and media before I get rolling, try to be a cooperative driver, and assume others are not fresh from traffic school even when I suspect they need to be.   And I’ll work more to enjoy the privilege of driving.

If driving is not your issue, what is?  Where are you fighting distractions, rage, bad equipment, or you are in a big hurry? 

I’ll risk saying that God blessed me as I volunteered to spend a day in school, learning afresh what I spend a lot of time doing.

For eight hours I got a good education, and no one was harmed in the making of my Saturday.