A lama stood in the main wading pool on the creek and refused to move even when our vehicle splashed muddy water on his shaggy coat. So Janet and I took the four grandchildren downstream a hundred yards and turned them loose where no Peruvian beasts of burden stood guard.
The two wandering lamas should not have been on the farm this spring. They belong to a neighbor who bought them as a breeding pair when prices soared and left them mostly unattended when the market collapsed.
The lamas, together with a rattlesnake, two raccoons, a skunk, and a curious jack rabbit, were part of a menagerie that fascinated the grandkids between picnics in the creek bed and wagon rides through the pastures. The most frightening moment came, not with wild beasts, but with the herd of Dorper ewes and lambs who thought we were about to feed them. They surrounded the wagon, black faces bleating loudly for food, and scared the children half to death, especially Jackson, age 5.
Jackson’s rendition of John 3:16 should calm our nerves: “…whoever believes in him should not panic but have everlasting life.” Substituting “perish” with “panic” may not convey the same meaning, but it stays true to the intention of faith. Panic is generally the emotional response when we have lost control of a situation. Faith informs all situations with this truth: God is in control.
The birds, said Jesus, have a lesson to teach us. Failing to sow or reap or store their food in barns they still enjoy the provision of the Father in Heaven. Therefore, “do not be anxious” (Matthew 6:31). Believing is the cure for panic.
Next time your heart takes off without permission and your startled body starts to hyperventilate remember these words from Undine Zengel, a relatively new believer in our church:
It is an amazing gift to be in God's Kingdom here on earth and to feel like one belongs no matter what the physical circumstances. Clinging to the living Word shields from all of life's storms so that they do not destroy us even if they do some damage. There is a part they can never reach.
Whoever believes should not panic.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Fathers & Peace on the Playground
Thousands of children growing up in our community are fatherless. Many have experienced the death of their biological fathers, a very common situation in pockets of our population. One coach working in a high crime area of the Upper Ninth Ward was absent for two weeks while on vacation. A boy on the team asked the other coach, “Is Coach Jared dead?” For these young boys who have lost so many men in their lives, a two-week absence provokes such thinking.
The first pastor of the Jerusalem church, James, who is called the brother of Jesus, wrote that “pure religion” was “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27). Scholars think it very likely that Joseph, the husband of Mary, died when Jesus and James were still children. In such a case the offspring may suffer what James, who knew what it meant to lose your father, called an “affliction”—oppression and distress.
This condition is most poignantly illustrated by Hagar and her young son Ishmael, banished and abandoned by his father Abraham, weeping in the desert, full of fear and confusion, looking to die.
Children who struggle under the distress of fatherlessness are in crisis. They need the intervention and involvement of good men willing to help fill the gap. Opportunities abound on the playgrounds for such surrogate fatherhood.
A team of volunteers from our church tried to start some positive activity on one of the playgrounds in New Orleans. Local gang members looked on this activity disapprovingly and sabotaged the lights to discourage gatherings and cover with darkness their own crimes and misdemeanors.
These playgrounds, open and green, are strategic spaces in the battle for the streets of New Orleans. They represent all the common spaces we share as a community. At one time they were the hubs of healthy neighborhoods. Many adults cherish great memories created on those playgrounds. That was the intention behind their creation.
Historically the men of our community have claimed the playgrounds. They must now be reclaimed if their neighborhoods are ever again to foster the safe environments and healthy relationships that strike at the roots of violence and crime.
The playground that looks unkempt and abandoned may actually be occupied, but not by positive role models and healthy attitudes. A playground not utilized and energized by fathers and other men with good intentions may serve a purpose diametrically opposed to the original intent.
Fathers—and all those willing to stand in for absentees—must rise from their recliners, find their baseball gloves and basketballs, and foster fun and peace on the playgrounds. Instead of shaking our heads over the condition of youth in our community, let’s start shaking their hands, learning their names, and teaching them how to dribble, pitch, and hold their tempers.
Some day when they look back upon their childhood those fatherless among us will give thanks for the men with steady hands who addressed the wounded hearts they did not know they had and became like dads to them.
This Father’s Day we remember the men who held us with strong arms, taught us to throw a curve ball, helped with vocabulary and algebra, and provided for us when we were young. They were not perfect, but they are giants in our minds. All our lives we may return the favor by caring for kids. Now that is some pure religion.
The first pastor of the Jerusalem church, James, who is called the brother of Jesus, wrote that “pure religion” was “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction” (James 1:27). Scholars think it very likely that Joseph, the husband of Mary, died when Jesus and James were still children. In such a case the offspring may suffer what James, who knew what it meant to lose your father, called an “affliction”—oppression and distress.
This condition is most poignantly illustrated by Hagar and her young son Ishmael, banished and abandoned by his father Abraham, weeping in the desert, full of fear and confusion, looking to die.
Children who struggle under the distress of fatherlessness are in crisis. They need the intervention and involvement of good men willing to help fill the gap. Opportunities abound on the playgrounds for such surrogate fatherhood.
A team of volunteers from our church tried to start some positive activity on one of the playgrounds in New Orleans. Local gang members looked on this activity disapprovingly and sabotaged the lights to discourage gatherings and cover with darkness their own crimes and misdemeanors.
These playgrounds, open and green, are strategic spaces in the battle for the streets of New Orleans. They represent all the common spaces we share as a community. At one time they were the hubs of healthy neighborhoods. Many adults cherish great memories created on those playgrounds. That was the intention behind their creation.
Historically the men of our community have claimed the playgrounds. They must now be reclaimed if their neighborhoods are ever again to foster the safe environments and healthy relationships that strike at the roots of violence and crime.
The playground that looks unkempt and abandoned may actually be occupied, but not by positive role models and healthy attitudes. A playground not utilized and energized by fathers and other men with good intentions may serve a purpose diametrically opposed to the original intent.
Fathers—and all those willing to stand in for absentees—must rise from their recliners, find their baseball gloves and basketballs, and foster fun and peace on the playgrounds. Instead of shaking our heads over the condition of youth in our community, let’s start shaking their hands, learning their names, and teaching them how to dribble, pitch, and hold their tempers.
Some day when they look back upon their childhood those fatherless among us will give thanks for the men with steady hands who addressed the wounded hearts they did not know they had and became like dads to them.
This Father’s Day we remember the men who held us with strong arms, taught us to throw a curve ball, helped with vocabulary and algebra, and provided for us when we were young. They were not perfect, but they are giants in our minds. All our lives we may return the favor by caring for kids. Now that is some pure religion.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Thoughts on my 15th anniversary in New Orleans
First Baptist New Orleans moved into the current church facility seven years ago this coming Sunday. The only place I ever worshiped longer than I have worshiped in our new facility is down at the old church on St. Charles and Napoleon. Together these two houses of worship have been my preaching point and pastoral assignment for 15 years.
These 15 years have been exhilarating and tumultuous. Relocation was itself a tremendous undertaking that required enormous financial and human resources. The emotional cost of relocation was perhaps its greatest price tag.
We had scarcely settled into the new facility—less than 15 months of occupancy—when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and our city, including our church neighborhood, was flooded and plunged into darkness. We returned to worship at the new facility seven weeks after the storm. We used a large generator to run the lights and fans until electrical power was restored to our facility three months later. We often worked from our kitchen tables until telephone and internet services were restored almost one year after the storm.
The annual hurricane season stirs up for many of us a host of unsettling memories. We lost our friends, our businesses, our homes, and our way of life in that terrible flood. We choked on the dust from ten thousand demolitions and gagged on the rancor of rotten meat from every freezer at the curb. We sank exhausted into borrowed beds week after week, commuted a hundred miles to work and school, and led and fed waves of volunteers who donned hazmat suits and helped us clean up the awful mess.
We set up structures and initiatives in the wake of Katrina that endured for the years of clean-up but are rendered obsolete by progress. We transitioned from normal to chaos to disaster relief to clean-up to rebuild. And now we are transitioning again to an emerging new normal.
This emerging era in New Orleans is what I want to talk about today. I want to do so using a metaphor that I often used after the storm—the open door. Before Katrina all the doors were closed. After Katrina, all the doors were open.
The crisis opened all doors. Some of those doors are closed now that the emergency is past and life is returning to normal.
Rev. 3:7-13: “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
These 15 years have been exhilarating and tumultuous. Relocation was itself a tremendous undertaking that required enormous financial and human resources. The emotional cost of relocation was perhaps its greatest price tag.
We had scarcely settled into the new facility—less than 15 months of occupancy—when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, and our city, including our church neighborhood, was flooded and plunged into darkness. We returned to worship at the new facility seven weeks after the storm. We used a large generator to run the lights and fans until electrical power was restored to our facility three months later. We often worked from our kitchen tables until telephone and internet services were restored almost one year after the storm.
The annual hurricane season stirs up for many of us a host of unsettling memories. We lost our friends, our businesses, our homes, and our way of life in that terrible flood. We choked on the dust from ten thousand demolitions and gagged on the rancor of rotten meat from every freezer at the curb. We sank exhausted into borrowed beds week after week, commuted a hundred miles to work and school, and led and fed waves of volunteers who donned hazmat suits and helped us clean up the awful mess.
We set up structures and initiatives in the wake of Katrina that endured for the years of clean-up but are rendered obsolete by progress. We transitioned from normal to chaos to disaster relief to clean-up to rebuild. And now we are transitioning again to an emerging new normal.
This emerging era in New Orleans is what I want to talk about today. I want to do so using a metaphor that I often used after the storm—the open door. Before Katrina all the doors were closed. After Katrina, all the doors were open.
The crisis opened all doors. Some of those doors are closed now that the emergency is past and life is returning to normal.
Rev. 3:7-13: “To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write:
These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open. 8 I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.
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