He was an Episcopalian priest. But to leave it at that is a little like saying a Lamborghini is a car.

I struggle to find the right word to describe Fred. Not raconteur. Not provocateur. Not curmudgeon. He was a critic, but a lover. He had a cynical streak, but deeply loved people. He was one of the most incisive critics of the church and yet deeply loved the church.

Above all, Fred loved conversation. He was a philosopher at heart that wore the garb of a priest and theologian. He was an Okie by birth, a Sooner by education and an undergrad philosophy major, I think. Not much strong church connection as a youth. But somehow he found his way to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church and spent most of his ministry at a parish just north of New York City. I didn’t know him there, but I do know that the Okie in the tony suburbs of New York was not to be ignored.

He was a politician in the best sense of the word. While serving as rector of an Episcopalian parish in a heavily Republican district, he was also deeply interested in politics and ran for Congress several times as a Democrat. He told me the story of how he got involved in Democratic precinct politics, payed his dues, and was finally given the go ahead to run for Congress. He never had any pretensions that he would win, but he counted it as a victory when he did better than anyone expected and even made the Republican incumbent sweat a couple of times. He was bound and determined that the word get out about how we have the responsibility communally to care for one another — even in a district where it was anathema to speak such nonsense.

That we would have become friends is so unlikely. I was a conservative Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod pastor in my 30’s. Fred was a liberal, retired Episcopalian priest in his 70‘s. I was about as boring as they come. Moved to Florida from Missouri, had a stay at home wife, two small children, and drove an ancient Volvo 245 tank. He was a retired Episcopalian priest, as liberal as anyone I’d ever met, was divorced after 40 years of marriage, remarried, lived in the Naples Tennis Club and drove a royal blue Corvette.

So, just how did it happen? He had started a weekly bible study for clergy. I was not part of the original invitation. One of my Lutheran pastoral colleagues was a part of the original group.  Steve was ELCA, and I was still in the much more conservative Missouri Synod denomination. Steve mentioned to Fred that he thought I might be interested in this group, a weekly discussion and study group that valued serious theological discussion. Fred called and asked if I wanted to join. I can hardly imagine the consternation of whether he really wanted to invite an LCMS pastor to join the group!

I did become part of the group, and it stretched me unbelievably. Fred articulated theological positions that I had only known by caricature. And the more I got to know him, the more my mind became open to the possibility that I didn’t have all the answers.

The thing about Fred was that he was always thinking critically. Not in a mean or demeaning way, but in a way that wanted us always to peel away the layers to get closer to the truth. I’d talk about my position and he’d push back. He’d lay out his position and challenge me to offer critique. He was just never, ever satisfied with easy answers or with the status quo. He always believed that more dialogue, more critical thought could get us closer to the truth.

Strangely enough, we didn’t maintain very close contact after I moved away. I’m not good at maintaining long distance friendships, and apparently Fred wasn’t either. Shortly before I moved away, his second wife, whom I had known, died of brain cancer. Fred had the good fortune to fall in love again and asked me to come down and officiate at his wedding. I visited Naples a couple of times after that. When I visited, Fred was the only person I really wanted to see. And though we didn’t stay in very close contact by phone or email, when I visited it was like we were picking up where we had left off yesterday.

About 8 years ago, he was diagnosed with cirrhosis of the liver. It wasn’t due to the overuse of alcohol, but a genetic condition, as I understood it. (But have no illusions; he was an Episcopalian priest; happy hour was a sacrament.) He gave up alcohol. Then a few years later he was diagnosed with cancer. The treatments for his cancer were limited because of his compromised liver. In the end, the cancer went into remission and the cirrhosis got him.

Fred was a friend. A true friend. A deep friend. It’s my experience that the pastoral vocation is a lonely one. We are around people all the time, but cultivate few deep friendships. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of those friendships I’ve had, and I wouldn’t need my thumb or all of the fingers. Fred was a friend. A true friend. A deep friend. And my heart grieves for the loss.

One morning last week while I was exercising, I decided to listen to a podcast program of On Being, the weekly radio program on spirituality hosted by Krista Tippet. The one that popped up at the top of the list had the word “abortion” in the title. I was in no mood to listen to anything that had anything to do with that endless debate. I have heard enough shouting from both sides of the abortion issue to last for several lifetimes. So, I pressed the title of another program and waited for it to come on.

It came on, all right. But something went wrong (Ok, I did something wrong!) By the time I figured out that precisely the program I didn’t want to listen to was playing, I had already I gotten on the elliptical machine, worked through all the menu choices, and started my workout. I didn’t want to start all of that over, so with a big sigh, I just decided to listen to it. Am I glad I did. One of the best I’ve ever heard.

The program was part of Tippet’s Civil Conversations Project, a series of public discussions offering ideas and tools for healing our fractured civic spaces. In this particular program, she invited two persons, one from each side of the abortion issue and they simply sat on stage and had conversation.  On the pro-life side was David P. Gushee, the Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics and Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. On the pro-choice side was Frances Kissling, a Roman Catholic religious and president of the Center for Health and Social Policy. She was President of Catholics for Choice from 1982 until 2007. I highly recommend listening to the program. You can access it at http://www.onbeing.org/program/pro-life-pro-choice-pro-dialogue/4863

It was fascinating to listen to the conversation unfold. Both participants had come to the place of realizing the futility of trying to change someone’s mind. So, they entered into this conversation and into other kinds of hard conversations having given up the need to be right. Sr. Kissling at one point talked about how she used to believe that certitude was a virtue. Now she believes that doubt is the virtue. She didn’t say it, but the implication is that the sense of absolute certitude is the vice, the sin, the evil. Here’s what really captured my imagination. Near the end of the conversation Tippet asked her, “If you have given up the need to change someone’s mind about an issue that you care so deeply about, then why do you enter into these hard conversations?” She said that she enters these hard conversations for the possibility of being changed herself.

So, to create the space for doubt is to create the space for learning and growth. To enter into a hard conversation with someone different that me is to create the space for learning and growth. To enter into a conversation from the place of absolute certitude is to be dead to the possibility of growing.

I happened to be listening to this program in the last few days of the partial government shutdown. I thought of so many of our politicians who have staked their claim and they are right.

I think that dogmatism and ideology are anathema to real conversation and the possibility of real growth.  I wish there was space for conversation and for the possibility of learning and growing!

As a culture, we have stacked the deck against real conversation and being open to growth.  We are taught to take a position and stand there come hell or high water. How many presidential candidates have had their hopes dashed because they changed their mind on some issue? We are taught that there are winners and losers, and you’d better not be a loser. We are taught to affiliate only with people with whom we agree.

I don’t think these are the values of the kingdom. I think the values of the kingdom invite us to listen, to relate, and to create the space for learning and growth. So, if that isn’t happening in the culture, where can it happen?

I’m hoping the church can be a place for that? Can we create space for conversation about meaningful things and talk about those things even when we disagree?

I’m challenging each of you to find someone and have that conversation. Find a friend, a neighbor, an acquaintance and an issue you disagree about. Invite them into a conversation. The invitation might go something like this: You know, Bob, we disagree about _______________. But I’d like to have a conversation about that. Here are the ground rules: I won’t try to change your mind and you won’t try to change mine. I just want to understand your point of view and how you got there and why you believe it so strongly. And I hope you will do the same for me.  See how it goes. I bet if all of us could practice such conversations, the world just might be a better place.

I’m going to try it myself. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I had the amazing honor of preaching today at the Chapel of the Resurrection at Valparaiso University.  I got to help kick off year two of The Walter Wangerin, Jr. Celebration Preaching Series, a preaching series to honor Walt’s ministry and legacy of preaching. Thanks to the entire chapel staff, but especially Brian Johnson, Lorraine Brugh, Char Cox, and Jim Wetzstein for the invitation and the gracious hospitality. I preached on both the First Lesson and the Gospel, Genesis 32 and Luke 18 respectively. Here is the text of the sermon I preached. It just so happened to be Family Weekend at Valpo, so there were lots of parents in the room.

Our 25 year old son has been living at home the past 6 months while on an unpaid internship in Chicago. I do not say this to frighten you parents. I do not say this to frighten you students. It’s good. He will only be here until December when he returns to school in North Carolina. Apparently, Tim has begun the task of organizing his stuff in preparation for leaving. Earlier this week, he came down to the kitchen with a couple of items in his hand and asked, “Anyone want any of these? If not, I’m going to throw them away.”  One of them was this little tube of an over the counter medication called Mederma.  “What’s that for?” I ask. “It’s a cream that removes scars.” “Sure, I’ll take that,” I said, thinking you can never have too much scar remover.

Later I grabbed the tube to take upstairs to the bathroom to store away in the medicine cabinet, and only then did it strike me as a little odd. Really? You can remove scars? Who knew? But really, does it work?  Do the marks of our struggles ever really go away?  I’m getting ahead of myself.

Jacob and a wrestling match. It’s not like this guy had never been in a fight before. In fact, as he was born, he was grabbing the heel of his twin brother. He and Esau must have been a  handful for their mother; Esau the burlier, stronger one would grow up to be a man’s man; Jacob was the smaller, scrappier, smart like a fox little brother. After the boys had become young men, the sibling rivalry got ugly when Jacob stole the inheritance out from under Esau with a cunning plan to trick old Isaac. Jacob fled for his life to live with his mother’s brother, Uncle Laban.

Laban was a schemer in his own right, tricking Jacob into marrying the older daughter before he could take the one he loved. But Jacob showed him a thing or two. For years, Jacob bred Laban’s flocks in such a way that he, Jacob, grew quite wealthy at his father-in-law’s expense. Now, after 22 years, two wives, a horde of servants and livestock, Jacob leaves to go back home.

But what will he find? Despite the old cliche that time heals all wounds, Jacob is not so sure. As he approaches home, he is worried, nervous, anxious, and downright afraid Has Esau has held the grudge for all these years? He gets word that his brother is coming out to meet him — with an army of 400. So, the scrappy, smart like a fox little brother divides his party into two groups to minimize the potential losses. Then he sends a gift of livestock ahead to meet his brother, even dividing the gift into several groups with time and space between them.

But you can only delay so long. He sends the entire entourage over the River Jabbok for the reunion.  But Jacob himself stays on the far side, one more night, all by himself. I’d love to know why. Wants to rehearse the speech where he asks his bro for mercy? He’s still afraid? An act of cowardice that will give him one last chance to escape if things get ugly?  We’ll never know.

What we do know is that a mysterious visitor comes to Jacob by night. The scrappy, smart like a fox little brother, now a middle aged man, wrestles all night. This marathon match does not take place in the daylight realm of plain sight, but in the dark. While the identity of Jacob’s fellow combatant is shrouded in mystery, there are enough clues in the text to know that it’s God that Jacob is really struggling with. And wrestling is the right image. For his entire life, Jacob has been conniving and tricking and scheming and winning. But you don’t trick God. You don’t scheme with God. And you don’t hit God with a right hook that knocks God to the mat. The best you can hope for is to wrestle.  And in wrestling with God, Jacob will not let go. He persists; in fact, all night long he grapples and will not let go until God gives a blessing. Whatever else you might want to say Jacob was persistent in the struggle.  But it left a mark. He got up the next morning with a permanent limp. And no amount of Mederma would bring relief.

In the gospel lesson we have another story, a parable, to be precise.  Luke even gives us an introduction so that we know what to look for. It’s about the need to pray and to not lose heart. A judge who was foolish and contemptibly obnoxious. A widow who was relentless. The judge had no regard for God nor respect for people. The widow didn’t care. She was bound and determined to get justice. She would not take “no” for an answer, and so she kept hounding, harassing, and haranguing the judge until he finally gave in. Not because he had even a shred of decency, but because she simply wore him down. One more character on a Sunday morning who is persistent in the struggle. So, Jesus says, will not God — who is not at all like that judge — bring justice, and bring it quickly?

Except, it seems like God doesn’t. While we all have our stories of prayers answered, it just plain doesn’t happen all the time. The great preacher Fleming Rutledge tells the story of a friend who suffered for years from a host of chronic and degenerative maladies. They prayed for her constantly, but to no avail.  Finally, the woman’s husband spoke the unbearable truth. “Every time we pray she gets worse.”

So right here and right now, we hear an ancient story of an ancient conniver who struggled with God. We listen to a story about a woman who struggled to get justice.  And we discover that in the hearing of the story, we have joined the crowd. Our own questions and doubts and struggles come flooding to the surface in the space between these words. Front and center now are the histories of our own struggles with who God is and what God is doing and where God might be in our own moments of anxiety or abandonment. We are wrestling: here on this campus wrestling with the reality of death, of too soon death, of too soon death that touches just a little too close for comfort; here on Parents’ weekend we realize that relationships change, and maybe there is grief for what is gone and uncertainty for what lies ahead; we yearn for clarity about decisions that affect our future; but how do you make decisions when there there seems to be so little to count; we yearn to be in relationship and we discover that they are hard, they end, and they are sometimes stifling; we are angered when we encounter institutions and bureaucracies and systems that care more about the bottom line or ideology than the people they are intended to serve. Yes, we struggle. Yes, we wrestle. And yes, they leave a mark. They always leave a mark.

But the mark of the struggle is never the last word. There was another who wrestled with God. The story was not read this morning, but the story is always at the center when Christians gather for worship. Hunched over a stone in a garden he prayed, “Father let this cup pass from me, but your will, not mine.”  And later, hanging from a cross, he cried out in the anguish of abandonment, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” The anguish left a mark. On the third day when he rose, he was scarred on his hands and feet and side, and he was fullly alive. He became the exclamation that God will not let struggle and death and despair have the final word. God brings life. There is wrestling, and there is blessing.

When Jacob woke up the next morning he still had to get up and cross that river and walk into the unknown, still uncertain of how his brother would receive him. From that perspective nothing had changed since yesterday. But he changed. Or should we say that he had been changed? In that encounter with God he had been blessed. So he walked into an uncertain future confident of God’s presence and confident that the universe was not some random collection of random events where he was simply a pawn in some cosmic chaos. For Jacob, God’s blessing brought a new name, a new identity, and a new beginning.

When we were baptized, we were blessed, given a new name, a new identity, and a new beginning. We were also given a mark, the sign of the cross on our foreheads, the mark of Jesus’ crucifixion. “You, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” You bear on your forehead the scar of the crucified one, and with him, your old self has died, and you have been given fullness of life.

It’s my experience that the wrestling never goes away. Neither do the questions, the doubts, and the staring into a foggy future. It’s also my experience that justice rarely comes quickly enough; in fact to appearances it is not coming at all.

Yet I stand before you this morning to proclaim good news. We are blessed. God has come. We have been made new. We have been graced; we have been mercied. We have been promised what we need to flourish even in the midst of doubts and questions and disappointments and drifting, knowing that we do not struggle alone. And indubitably, just as it happened with Jacob, such struggling and wrestling with God turns out to be transformative. We are changed. Though God is a strong combatant in our struggles, and though we sometimes walk away with a limp, God transforms us with a touch.

Early this summer, I listened an NPR radio interview with Dame Stephanie Shirley, a pioneer in British software development.  Dame Shirley is now in her 70’s, no longer involved in the company, and is using her considerable talent and wealth to do philanthropic work. She was one of the first in the software business whose model was based on selling software; at that point, companies gave the software away with the purchase of the hardware. She also was one of the first to give women a family friendly place to work, allowing them to work at home if they wanted.
She spoke of a time when she was going through her own personal and family crisis: the business was consuming her and her two boys were going through puberty. When she realized that she was at the very edge of holding things together, she decided to take a three-month sabbatical. Everyone predicted the worst: friends and colleagues inside the company and out, not to mention so-called industry experts, all were convinced that everything would fall apart in her absence. Instead, the company thrived. She talked at some length about how her job was not to create a company or a philanthropic foundations dependent on her, but to grow organizations that do good work and make a difference in the world.
That same weekend, I attended the Eagle River (Wisconsin) Congregational Church. I could tell when I walked in the door that this was going to be good. By appearance alone, nothing stood out. It was a typical brick building from the early 20th century, a fairly typical sanctuary with old pews facing forward, the typical UCC chancel with sparse, simple furnishings. What was different was intangible; there was a vitality and life to the room. People were talking, the congregation was streaming in, and there was a palpable sense that people wanted to be there.
Just before the service, one of the ushers made a quick round of the entire sanctuary greeting folks, calling them by name, welcoming one back who apparently had been traveling and was attending that morning with her granddaughter. A deacon made announcements, and then that same welcoming usher stepped to the podium. “You might wonder why I’m here now and not Mary Ann. . .” he began. Mary Ann, it became clear, was the pastor; he went on to tell how Mary Ann would not be there. She had become ill during the week and though she was improving, was still not feeling well enough to lead worship. So, the lay folks stepped in and led, including reading the sermon that the pastor had written (quite a good sermon, by the way, and delivered quite effectively) and a children’s sermon that closely related to the themes of the sermon and lessons. Later in the service, new members were received, and all of it without the resident pastor present. It’s not just that the lay members limped along in leading the service. They seemed to embrace the task enthusiastically, as if it were their community and this was their work.
I don’t know Pastor Mary Ann Biggs, and she doesn’t know me from Adam (although I did stop in later that week and tell her about my experience). But good for you, Mary Ann Biggs. You and the people of Eagle River Congregational Church are doing good work. You have created genuine community and together you are leading a congregation in multiplying gifts and making sure that good, vital, life-giving ministry is happening.
It’s purely coincidental that I encountered both the interview and the worship service on same day. As different as they are, they are yet related. Both leaders have created vibrant, energetic organizations in which they as leader are important, yet which are not dependent on the leader to thrive.
That’s what good leaders do. They help create organizations where those within the organization people take responsibility and are accountable for the organization’s thriving. Pastoral leaders at their best help create congregational cultures where the members take responsibility and are accountable for the work that God has called the congregation to do, and even more so, move out from the congregation where they are empowered to do the work that God has called them to do in the world.
Our culture is infatuated with leadership. Just look at all the books available to help us become better leaders. Too much leadership theory apparently thinks that if the leader gets more competent, then the organization will do better. But that hasn’t really worked very well for us.
I don’t intend here to make this a long explication of leadership, but this much is true about being a leader. Good leadership is not programmatic nor is it reducible to universal principles. It’s organic, contextual, and above all, relational. Leaders have to engage people on more than the technical, informational level. They have to care about the people around them, discovering in conversation what people care about and are concerned about. Leaders build webs of relationship within their organization and the community around them and nurture and mentor others to do the same.
See, as these two women who lead very different organizations have demonstrated, good relational leadership empowers people, and where people are empowered, good things happen.

I’m not very good at waiting. I don’t like it.

When my wife and I are going going out for dinner, if there’s a line for a table, we’ll find a different restaurant. I start getting crabby if I’m officiating at a wedding and it doesn’t begin at the appointed hour.  I go to some trouble to find the best time to go to the Department of Motor Vehicles so I don’t have to wait in line.

I don’t like waiting.

And then I come across passages like these:

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
    and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,
    more than watchmen wait for the morning.  (Psalm 130:5-6, ESV)

or

they who wait for the Lord
    shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary
    they shall walk and not faint.  (Isaiah 40:31)

For nearly three months, I’ve been on sabbatical, and while I haven’t really had to wait much — thank God! — I have had more slow time than normal. My rhythms have become different. And I think I just might be coming to a different perspective about this waiting thing.

When there is no down time, the progression of events is from one thing to the next. I do this one thing — write an essay, for instance. And then I do the next thing. Let’s say it’s going out for dinner. And if there is time between those two things that I did not account for, it feels like an unneeded obstacle between the two things. An irritation. An annoyance. A waste of time when I should be doing something else.

Though I admit I’m not very good at this, I am working at seeing the interludes between things as ways to slow down, opportunities to rest my mind, nuggets of time to pay attention to relationships, unexpected occasions to find some joy (rather than frustration!) in the moment.

And I’ve also been thinking about whether there’s something more theological here as well, something more related to the life of the Spirit. In a culture that has little time for waiting, we (read: I) want everything now. Instant gratification is the way of the world, at least the North American world.

Yet waiting and faith seem to be somehow closely related. By faith we wait for the fulfillment of promises that we have not yet seen. By faith, we know that God is at work in the world and that God’s vision for the kingdom has not yet come to fruition. As the community of the graced, who have been given faith, we do not yet have it all, we do not yet see it all, we do not yet know it all, we are not able yet to hold on to it all. We live by faith. It’s part of our condition that we live with longing for what we know is possible, what we know is coming, and what we do not yet hold in our hands. There is no instant gratification when it comes to the purposes of God. We pray for peace, and we wait for peace. We pray for healing, and we wait for healing. We pray for the redemption of all creation, and we wait for the redemption of all creation.

I don’t mean to suggest that waiting is the same thing as passivity, that we just wait for our lives to pass by in a kind of unholy determinism. We work, it’s true. For most of us, the work part is not the problem. We do know how to work. What I need to be reminded of is that while I work, there are things that are are not up to me, that are up to the breath of the Spirit at work in the world. We do live by faith. Which just may be another way of saying, we wait. On the Lord.

How about this: a secular novel from post WWII Germany that does a pretty good job of articulating the vocation of Christians living under the Theology of the Cross?

Hans Fallada wrote Every Man Dies Alone in 1947 on the basis of a commission from a friend working with the Russians in post-war Germany. He wrote it in 24 days (My reaction as an author,? That’s just not fair!), and later wrote to a family member that this was the book he would be remembered for.

It languished in relative obscurity until the past few years, when the English translation has experienced a revival of sorts here in the US.

And well-deserved, I might add. Every Man Dies Alone is a powerful story of what it was like for the common citizen of Berlin at the height of Nazi power in Europe. It is the story of incredible brutality. We know well the brutality against the Jews. We hear less about the brutality against hundreds of thousands of ordinary German citizens. It is the story of fear and how a brutal regime succeeded in creating a climate where everyone lived in fear of retaliation and of being turned in to the regime by a neighbor for some trumped up charge.

And it is also the story of common, ordinary people taking up resistance to evil in a fashion that to the logical mind makes absolutely no difference.

The story is based on the true account of a couple in Berlin who wrote postcards critical of the Nazi regime and placed them randomly around Berlin. In the novel, the couple plays a cat and mouse game with the SS and succeeds for a frustratingly long time before finally getting caught and enduring the consequences of their so-called treason.

What they do — and you catch glimpses of the resistance of others are doing throughout the novel — seems do be innocuous and of no consequence. But in resisting the forces of evil, they are doing what they can, and in the meantime, they preserve their dignity and humanity, even as they seek to lift of the dignity and the humanity of those around them, all in the face of unspeakable brutality and evil. Even some of those who are the perpetrators of the brutality, the pawns of the evil system and the evil structure occasionally catch glimpses of the good that is being done, even if it seems to have no effect.

And isn’t this what we are called to do as God’s people? According to Luther’s Theology of the Cross, we live in the world for the sake of being part of the work that God is doing in the world. God is always working against the evil structures and systems of the world. While it often looks like evil is winning (see the Psalms for poetic articulation of the seeming victory of evil), in faith, we trust that God is at work in the contrary dismantling evil and working towards that redemptive kingdom of peace and justice. Each of us is called, in our own stations of life, to do what we can to work towards those ends. And even when what we do seems small and insignificant, we trust that what is done for the sake of God’s big work is not done in vain.

Fallada’s novel is powerful. It is well-written. It is moving. And it is, in spite of the fact that it makes no pretensions of being a religions novel, a powerful illustration of the calling of God’s people to go about our work for God’s sake.

P. S. — I have been tempted to tell you to read the translator’s Afterword before reading the novel. But I resist. He gives too much of the story away. But don’t skip it. The biographical information about the author and his comments about the story will enrich your appreciation of this fine novel.