Monthly Archives: January 2021

Some of us will say there is no good time to swear. It breaks the 4th Commandment (“Thou shall not take the LORD’s name in vain.”) It shows a lack of vocabulary. It’s lazy. I’ve heard all these comments.

It bothers me when people speak in a way that every other word is an F bomb. This seems to diminish the power of that word.

And I can’t take it when people actually do take God’s name in vain. When I hear “G-D (anything) I literally feel pain. My dad used to swear by spelling D-A-M-N long after his kids could spell but he never added the G– before it.

Last evening I was asked to write a prayer for the night of Epiphany on a day when a mob desecrated The People’s House, when thugs broke into the offices of members of Congress and staffers hid in closets and under desks. My prayer was called a “Prayer for Epiphany when there’s a ****show in our Nation’s Capitol.” I was asked if that title was okay and I said it was. I’m sorry if it offends you.

Sometimes there are no words that have the same impact as a colorful scatalogical word. We Christians are often shocked when pastors and other people of faith dare to express themselves with such words. I for one believe that sometimes they are the only words that capture the depth of what’s happening.

What happened in our nation’s Capitol yesterday was devastating. Arlington, VA was my home for over twenty years. My home. My children’s home. What I saw yesterday happened less than 10 miles from our former house and it was horrifying. It was swear-worthy.

And . . .

. . . and, we live in a nation that can do better. We are called to do better, to be better. Our nation was founded on noble principles but we have fallen short of those noble principles and we continue to fall short every time white men are allowed to storm a federal building and be asked to disperse peacefully while we all know that if that mob had been black or brown men, they would have been shot. We know this.

It makes me want to swear.

And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. Matthew 2:12

I’m moved by Shannon Weston’s post about Epiphany from a few years back. Her point is that it’s curious that the Wise Men – after bringing gifts to the baby Jesus and being warned in a dream not to report back to Herod  – chose to leave “for their own country by another road.”  James Taylor even wrote a song about this detail.

It’s curious because the Magi could have made other choices:

• They could have helped the Holy Family escape, perhaps to their own home countries.
• They could have gone to to Rome and reported the truth about Herod. Yes, he builds things, but he’s a bloodthirsty ruler.
• They could have returned to Herod but thrown him off track. “Your Majesty, they’ve headed north to Phoenicia!”

But instead they went home by another way.  In other words they took the easy way out.

What happened next?  The Holy Family became refugees in Egypt.  All Israelite boys under age two were slaughtered throughout Palestine.  This could have been avoided if the Magi had taken responsibility to serve their neighbors, if they had been brave.

As a theologian, I can make the case that God’s plan involved the escape to Egypt and the fulfillment of Jeremiah 31:15.  God clearly works even (and especially?) when human beings are on the wrong side of history.

But on Epiphany 2021 when there are still people fleeing for their lives, when there are still innocents being sacrificed, imagine what it might look like if we could be brave.  Instead of returning home after coming face to face with evil, after learning that people are in danger, imagine if we stepped up and helped them.  We don’t merely return to our homes and lock the doors.  We serve those in need as if they were the Holy Family.

Imagine.  Imagine being not only wise, but also being faithful in 2021.

Image is The Wise Men by JC Leyendecker (1874-1951)

We don’t know what’s going to happen this week, next week, or by this time next year.  Sometimes this is for the best because we couldn’t take it, or it would be distracting. Sometimes it feels terrible to imagine what could happen, and so we don’t think about it unless we are Walking Stress Storms.

In my first parish, the local funeral director made a habit of phoning me at the beginning of the new year and asking me to bet him on his predictions about who would die that year. You read that correctly.

He called and literally said, “Here’s the list of who I think will die this year. Are you in?”

I was not in.

This is the same funeral director who would call me after a member passed and say, “Guess who died?” I did not want to guess. “You won’t believe it,” he would continue. “Just guess.“

It must be hard to be a funeral director in a tiny town.

As a pastor to pastors in 2021, I am trying to imagine what this year will bring to our congregations, especially if the pandemic ends.  It’s quite possible that in January 2022 we will still be standing in line for vaccines.  Or maybe we will need new vaccines for new strains of COVID-21.  Assuming we will be able to meet face-to-face safely again, I’m venturing to guess that:

• Congregations will offer both in-person and virtual gatherings ffor the rest of our lives.
• About half of our pre-2020 in-person participants will “return” to worship and other events.
• Those who found community in other congregations besides their own during Covid will continue to engage with those other congregations while staying with their “home church.”
• Lots of churches will close, especially if they could not bring themselves to become 21st Century churches by 2020 (which is already 1/5 of the way through the 21st Century.)
• Churches will call pastors who look nothing like all the other pastors before them in appearances or skill sets.

I could be wrong here, of course.  

Stepping out in faith is scary.  But what if we embraced the adventure of it?  What if we ventured out – socially distanced, of course – expecting God to show us something we need to see?

In the meantime, please pray with me regarding what’s going to happen in our country this week and next week and this time next year.  There will surprises and I trust God that each surprise will bring something good, at least in the long run. 

I figured out long ago that resolutions do not work for me. (And neither do “Star Words.” Sorry – creative colleagues.)

Instead of writing resolutions, I write/re-write my funeral plans on the first couple days of each new year. It’s under “If I Die Today” on my computer. HH knows the password.

My plans change from year to year depending on what’s going on and what happened over the previous months, but I want to be ready. I am semi-obsessed with death having officiated at hundreds of funerals, memorial services, and graveside events and having experienced death in my own family. I am surprised that I am still alive, if you want to know the truth. I expected to die of cancer in my mid-50s or – if lucky – by 60. But here I am and life is sweet and I have a lot to be grateful for.

And so part of my funeral planning is writing The Last Thank You Note. It can be read at my memorial service, if someone wants to take that on, but it’s basically a brief thank you to God for my life. It’s only by grace that I’ve enjoyed the life I’ve had and I am especially cognizant of this when I look at the lives of those friends of mine who – from the get go – never had what I had from birth: attentive parents, a roof over my head, enough food to eat, good health, good education. Oh, and pale pigmentation.

Have you ever been to A Great Funeral that made you want to be a better person? Those testimonies of well-lived lives that were about serving others, having bravery in the face of danger, rising from the ashes of tragedy? I have been privileged to bury some of my favorite people and it’s made me want to be better myself. World War II heroes. Single parents who raised amazing kids in difficult circumstances. Farmers who kept everything going. Immigrants who took menial jobs so that their kids could go to college. Brave children. Brave teenagers. Brave young adults. I’ve buried at least one spy. (The government eulogist said, “He always made sure the women and children were safe” and I thought that guy had been a professor.)

Great funerals are inspiring. But the best are like thank you notes. They point not to the ives of the dead but to what made them truly alive.

This is how I start out 2021 in hopes that I live to see 2022 and 2023 and as many years as I’m given. Happy New Year. It is a gift from God.