Goin' Down to Mama's

Sunday Morning Serenity

I feel like we’re all living through a very big moment—not just in our own lives but in the lives of our communities, our country, our world, our planet. It’s a lot to take in. And lately I've worried as much about what the virus is making us do to each other as the damage it’s directly inflicting.

Here's the thing. We've got our political and ideological differences, but the virus doesn't. It couldn’t care less whether you lean to the left or the right, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, Socialist or Communist, prince or preacher. It doesn’t care what price you pay—financial, emotional, spiritual, or otherwise. Shelter in place to protect your family’s health and risk your business? Virus doesn’t care. Go back to work to save your business, and end up exposing yourself and infecting the people you love? Virus doesn’t care. It just wants to multiply. Plain and simple.

Our more optimistic inclinations tell us the pandemic can’t possibly be this bad, this serious. Maybe if we all just act normal and go back to work it will go away?

But it is this bad. It is this serious. And it won’t just go away. We have to fight it off. Together.

I just read an article about a new book by Timothy Keller and John Inazu called Uncommon Ground: Living Faithfully in a World of Difference. Here’s a quote from an interview with the authors, which I found on biblegateway.com:

“. . . we can tolerate each other—enduring the beliefs and practices we do not share—because of our gospel love. This doesn’t mean that we accept beliefs or practices that we don’t share. Instead, tolerance means distinguishing people from their ideas, and then seeking relationships with all who are made in God’s image. Our love of God overflows into love of neighbor. And this love of neighbor calls us to tolerance.”

Praying for tolerance, kindness, compassion, and understanding this Sunday morning. That's how we'll all "get over."

 

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

I’m thinking about my sister-friend Jane this morning. I think about her a lot, actually, and miss her as much today as I did when she went to heaven. I doubt the angels were ready for Jane, but by now, she’s probably taught them all that song about the circuit-riding preacher she used to make me play with her—Jane on organ, yours truly on keyboard, and when we were really lucky, our beloved Yvonne on the piano. Yvonne is the only person I ever saw who could make Jane mind.

Mama asked me the other day, “What you reckon Jane would’ve made of all this?”—'this' being the global pandemic that has changed all of our lives.

Jane would’ve turned to Scripture and studied passages that could guide her and give her the most strength. She would’ve prayed for protection for the people she loved and wisdom for those trying to lead us through this. She would’ve prayed for the whole world and all the people in it. And if she had encountered anyone trying get closer than 6 feet from her, she would’ve fixed them with a stare and said, “Are you new? Back up, cowboy.”

It was music that brought Jane and me so close together. I’ve been playing piano in church since I was nine years old. It has been a great blessing, but it has also been a tremendous responsibility, especially for a young person (which I was, at one time). There were times when I got TIRED of doing it and one period when I stopped altogether. Truthfully, there are still times when I get a little weary of it, times when I feel like stopping for a while (which this pandemic has, sadly, arranged). But usually, when that happens, someone special comes along to remind me of what my piano teacher, Jenny Glenn, taught me long before my feet could reach the pedals: “Music is a gift from God, and it’s meant to be shared.”

She was right. So was Jane when she’d get both terrified and excited about playing something really special—the two of us with Yvonne. Her excitement was contagious. It reminded me of why I was fascinated with keyboards long before I could read.

I miss my sister-friend. But I carry a little piece of her with me, especially when I’m at the piano. I look forward to sharing music with our church again. And I’m posting below a video of one of Jane’s favorites. I think she would’ve liked this version. But she would’ve told Bill Gaither he needed to pick it up a little. ("I mean!")

 

Sunday Morning Serenity

This Easter morning, I’m thinking about Passover—in part because I have a Jewish friend who has mightily missed observing it with her family, just as I am missing the Easter celebration at our church. She explained that, unlike Easter, where the emphasis is on celebrating and commemorating through a worship service, Passover is about coming together with your family. In other words, there’s no such thing as a Passover cantata:)

Passover was important enough to Jesus to share it with his disciples when he returned to Jerusalem for the last time.

And what exactly is it? If you grew up going to Sunday School, you know—the last of the 10 plagues that God visited on Egypt before the Pharaoh agreed to release Israel from bondage was the death of all Egyptians’ first-born children. The Israelites were to mark their doorways with the blood of a lamb and stay inside so that death would pass over their household.

Isn’t that what we’re all doing—staying home and praying for this sickness to pass over our households?

I keep hearing “when things get back to normal,” but I’m not sure I want them to. Of course, I want this virus to end and the sickness to stop and all the people on the front lines of it to get the rest they so desperately need. But I do hope we’re changed by it. I hope we appreciate each other more. I hope we stop and look up at the blue skies that have reappeared—in some countries, for the first time in years—because the pollution humans generate has dramatically dropped. I hope we remember that there are so many marginalized people in the world—those who need our help and our compassion. I hope we stop bickering. I hope we start listening to each other. I hope we all love more, care more, understand more. I hope we’re reborn.

Jesus said:

“As the Father has loved me, 
so have I loved you.
Now remain in my love.
If you keep my commands, 
you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commands
and remain in his love. 
I have told you this
so that my joy may be in you
and that your joy may be complete.
My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you.”

John 15: 9-12

Grace, peace, and a spirit of renewal to you this Easter morning.

Sunday Morning Serenity

This morning, I woke up trying to remember what day it was. While I wish I could attribute my memory lapse to self-isolation, the truth is . . . why did I come into this room again??

It took me a few minutes to realize that it’s not just Sunday but Palm Sunday. And it feels really, really strange to know I won’t be going to church today. But it’s the right thing to do, and our tight-knit congregation will get through it.

Before I started writing, I turned to the Gospel of John and reread the passage about Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, thinking about his ministry and the events leading up to the crucifixion.

Have you ever thought about all the references to “the world” in the New Testament? There are 201, according to biblegateway.com, 58 in the Gospel of John alone:

He was in the world,
and the world was made by him,
and the world knew him not.
John 1:10

For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.
John 3:16

For God sent not his Son
into the world to condemn the world;
but that the world through him might be saved.
John 3:17

In ancient times, “the world” was much smaller—at least the perceived world. People knew only what they had seen (without the benefit of satellite technology). They had no idea just how big the world actually was.

Now, we’re realizing that we might’ve erred in the opposite direction: We didn’t realize how small the world was—how interconnected we all are as a global community. (Well . . . Walt Disney saw it but I won’t put that song in your head for the rest of the day.) Then again, maybe we knew, but we just forgot.

I recently read a New York Times interview with retired astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent close to a year alone on the International Space Station. Here’s what he said:

“Seen from space, the Earth has no borders.
The spread of the coronavirus
is showing us that what we share
is much more powerful than what keeps us apart,
for better or for worse.
All people are inescapably interconnected,
and the more we can come together
to solve our problems, the better off we will all be.”

That quote reminded me of one of my own little rebellions. I grew up saying the pledge of allegiance to the Christian flag in Vacation Bible School. At some point—I can’t remember when or why or by whom—that pledge got edited, with one of the original lines changed to “uniting all Christians.” But I still say it the old way because Christ didn’t seek to unite only his followers. He reached out to The World. And so should we.

I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag
And to the Savior for Whose kingdom it stands,
One brotherhood, uniting all mankind,
In service and in love.

*And yes, it should be humanhood and humankind, but let’s face it, that just sounds funny:)

Love, grace, and peace to you this Palm Sunday.

[Image by Ed Gregor-Stokpic @ freerangestock.com]