So, what do you call a bibliophile whose obsession with books borders on the unhealthy?

No, it’s not a joke. I’m really wondering.  Because that’s what I think I am.

I have an office full of books. I have shelves and shelves of books at home. I have stacks of books that I have bought recently (recently, as in the last 5 years), always, of course, thinking that I would read them, that I was interested in them. It’s true — I do intend to read them; I am interested in them.  But I also have a life apart from books, and my proverbial reader’s eyes are consistently bigger than my schedule’s stomach.

So, back to the shelves of books in my office. All of them I thought I would use. Some of them I use. And many of them are there taking up space. Maybe they aren’t what I thought they were. Or I have changed and my sensibilities no longer fit the particular slant of the book that is on my shelf. I’m not sure who has betrayed whom, but I have lately realized that there are many books in my office library that I have no good reason for keeping.

So, I’ve decided I’m going to purge. I haven’t exactly decided the criteria. No longer reflect my theology? Haven’t taken the book down in 5 years? 10 years? The theology is outdated? The topic is outdated?

Stay tuned. This should be interesting.

“I mean no disrespect. But how can we get that message out of the university and onto the streets where it needs to be?”

He asked the question in a sparsely furnished and worn room that the pre-event publicity labelled a conference room. It reminded me more of an old church basement than a conference room even though we sat at street level. The speaker was an African-American man, 60, give or take, blue jeans, long sleeved t-shirt and outdoorsy vest, a traditional Muslim head-covering. The event was the book signing for Three Testaments, a single volume that includes English translations of the Torah, the Gospel (Christian New Testament), and the Koran. Interspersed is a collection of historical, hermeneutical, and contextual essays.

A panel of experts, two professors, a rabbi who also was a part-time seminary professor, and a Muslim translator, had each given their take on the project. The event intended to market the book; each panelist gave his or her own positive spin, though each managed to point out the ambitious nature of the project and the inherent limitations. And each pointed to the importance of the three religions understanding each other and dialoguing about both their differences and their similarities.

That’s the context for the question. “How can we get that message out of the university and onto the streets where it needs to be?”

I thought it was not only a poignant question, but a real-life question. It’s a question I ask a lot, especially given the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, the level of religious misunderstanding in our own country, and the increasingly uncivil character of our civil exchanges. I, too, mean no disrespect, but the particular “experts” really had no idea how to answer the question. While they acknowledged the importance of getting the dialogue into the streets, they had no substantive answer for how to do it.

I do. Not because I’m smart or particularly capable, but because I’ve had the good fortune of being involved in broad-based community organizing. Organizing grows out of the fundamental assumption of the importance of relationships. I meet with you one-one-one and hear what’s important to you, what makes you tick. You hear the same from me. Because we live in the same community, we discover that we have common interests and concerns. You and me, my organization and your organization, we discover that we can get some things done together that we could never do individually. And in the growth of the relationship and the mutual work, we come to a mutual respect.   And we find opportunities to have dialogue about our deepest beliefs, even though we confess very different religions.

In the congregation I serve, we have developed good relationships with several Muslim congregations and a Jewish synagogue (the one in the western suburbs of Chicago). We have worked together on projects of mutual benefit to our institutions and our community. When we decided to fill a semi-trailer with food to send to the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, the local Muslim school contributed the most to the project. When we began an ESL class on Monday nights, the high school students from the Muslim congregation swelled the ranks of the tutors.

Because of the relationship, and the trust developed in working together, we’ve had several opportunities to dialogue our our religious beliefs, both the similarities and differences. And the conversation happened in the context of trust rather than suspicion. And that makes a world of difference.

It’s always about relationships, isn’t it?

Here’s the short version: I hired a pastor to be the part-time custodian at our church.

I’ll spare you the administrative details; it’s part-time evening work so that there’s a staff person here in the evening when the building is heavily used by both church groups and community organizations. And then there’s always someone to lock up when it’s time to go home. Mostly normal cleaning stuff: emptying trash, vacuuming floors and cleaning bathrooms. Occasionally, there’s a tables and chairs set-up that needs to happen in preparation for the next morning.

When it was time for the interview, a well-dressed and articulate late middle-aged gentleman introduced himself with excellent English spoken with a heavy accent. I ushered him into a vacant office and introduced myself, “Hi, I’m Jim Honig. I’m one of the pastors on staff here.” I explained that in the absence of our Director of Parish Administration, I’d be conducting the interview, and invited him to call me Jim. He introduced himself, also inviting me to address him by his first name. And then immediately added, “I’m a pastor, too.”

Didn’t see that coming.

What I was thinking, but didn’t say out loud was, “Then why are you applying for this custodial position?” It didn’t take him long to get around to answering my question. He studied at a small seminary in Guatemala. He’s here on a visa that allows him to serve as a pastor. He serves a small hispanic congregation in one of the inner ring Chicago suburbs. His congregation rents space from another mainline congregation, and they can’t afford to pay him enough to support him. So he takes part-time jobs. Right now, he has a part-time job in the morning, does his pastor work in the middle of the day, and was looking for another part-time job for the evening. He likes to have the weekends open for his church work, especially a Friday evening men’s prayer meeting and Sunday worship.

When I described some of the cleaning he would be responsible for, he quipped, “This is no problem. I do the same thing in my church, except for free.”

I left that interview with strange swirl of humility, guilt, and gratitude. Is there such a thing as humuiltitude? I sometimes complain about some of the more frustrating aspects of my work, but overall, I recognize that I serve a wonderful congregation that is extraordinarily active and mission-minded. I work with a great group of people, both our professional staff and lay leaders. I am paid well for what I do, relatively speaking, and I don’t have to worry about finding an extra job to support my family. In fact, I enjoy a quality of life that I never thought I’d enjoy as a pastor. We live in our own home (ok, the bank still owns alot of it) in a very nice community. We can go out for dinner if we want, we take nice vacations, and were able to support our kids through college. We even have some savings and some money put away for retirement.

What’s more, I work in a place where the more mundane things (at least to me) are done by someone else, and I have the luxury of spending my time doing things that I am for the most part uniquely gifted to do. My grandfather was a pastor of a small congregation in rural Kansas. He didn’t have the kind of life or ministry that I enjoy. I think he loved what he did found his own reasons for joy and satisfaction in his vocation. And I also think that he had a harder life than I do. When we’d visit, I remember going over to church with him on Saturday afternoon when he’d run the bulletin on an ancient mimeograph and then Grandma and whatever grandkids happened to be around would help fold them all by hand.

I don’t have to fold bulletins. I don’t have to clean bathrooms or empty my own trash. I don’t mean to suggest that I’m above those kinds of tasks. It’s just that I have the luxury of being able to do other things.

So, I wonder if I would have the same dedication to my calling as my new colleague who will also be our new custodian. Do I love this work enough that I would do it even if I wasn’t paid and had to piece together part-time jobs to get by? Would I be willing to have another job and do this pastoring thing on the side, in the time leftover from another vocation? Honestly, I don’t know.

I know that around the world bi-vocational pastors are the rule, not the exception. I am the exception. And if the trends of attendance and membership in mainline denominations continue, there will likely be many more bi-vocational pastors right here.

Not infrequently, wonder, how it has happened that I am here doing what I do? I told a colleague recently that I’ve accidentally lived a good life. As with so much of life, there are no rational explanations. Yes, I acknowledge God’s goodness and guidance. My prayers are filled with gratitude. But my comfortable life is no particular sign of God’s goodness; my colleague’s God is just as good, even though my life is apparently much more comfortable. Like I said, no easy explanations. For now, I will do my work with an even greater sense of gratitude for where I am and what I get to do. And maybe, just maybe, we at Faith Church can somehow be a blessing and support for a pastoral colleague beyond providing a second job.

There was a time in my life when Memorial Day was just another nice day to have off from the office. I went for years without attending any kind of observance, and doing nothing more to remember than read the editorial in the morning newspaper that usually attempted some profound commentary on remembering those who have died in defense of country.

But in recent years, this day has meant more to me. I don’t know if it’s age or my own ambivalence about the wars that the U.S. has been engaged in for much of my adult life — the defense of Kuwait against Iraq, the Bosnia/Serbia action, Iraq 2, and Afghanistan. Or maybe it’s the fact that the majority of the young men and women who are coming home these days to be buried are the same age as my two sons. Or maybe it’s my own complicated struggle with why we fight wars in these times and whether there’s really an argument to be made that these actions are worth the cost.

For several years now, I have attended our town’s annual Monday morning memorial Day observance at one of the city parks. Today I went again. But before I did, I went for an hour-long bike ride that ended up being a long reflection on this day.

While I was pastor in Naples, Florida, I got to know several combat veterans of WWII. They weren’t anxious to talk about their experiences, but when they did, I heard powerful stories. Like the retired pastor who became a reluctant friend. He told me of fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, the horrible conditions, the pain of the cold, and of finding out later that unbeknownst to him, his twin brother was fighting in the same battle, maybe only a few hundred yards away, maybe a mile or two away. My pastor friend came home. His brother was killed in that battle.

I remember the family who told me of the grief of losing their son in the Vietnam war. They lived in a small town in Minnesota and attended a small Lutheran Church. Their son was drafted. He was supposed to take over their farm. He was killed in action. Of course, they were crushed, and I’m not sure they ever recovered. But what makes their story even worse was the alienation they felt in their church and community. It wasn’t that the people in their town were bad people. They just didn’t know what to do or what to say, so they stayed away. I remember Gladys telling me about people ducking into the next aisle at the grocery store so they wouldn’t have to say anything.

And I remember the kid (yes, kid) from our own church who was killed when his tank was blown up by an IED in Afghanistan. I didn’t know him, but I knew of him. He went to the same high school as my sons, and graduated in one of the years between them. I know from his parents how proud he was to be a Marine and how the military had given him a new confidence and a direction in his life that was missing before he enlisted. And I know his family’s deep pain when he was killed, grief that they may never recover from.

I wish we had better language for describing what our fallen men and women have done. We often use the language of sacrifice, as in “they have paid the ultimate sacrifice.” But I don’t think that’s what they’ve done. Sacrifice is the language of payment. The Meso-Americans (the Aztecs, for instance) practiced human sacrifice. They placed a young man on a stone altar, cut his heart out while it was still beating and threw it to the gods as payment to insure the success of crops and military endeavors. That’s not what we do. We don’t go to war with the understanding that we willingly give up the lives of our young men and women in payment for peace or land or whatever it is. Americans would never stand for that proposition.

Nor is their death always particularly heroic. The speaker at our Memorial Day service today was quick to remind us that a lot of military deaths occur in the grind of just doing their daily job. It’s a dangerous job and sometimes things go wrong.

So, what language shall we use? Perhaps we should simply acknowledge that they have died in service of their country. They entered that service for lots of different reasons, some of them practical, some of them altruistic, but regardless, they signed up for work for a cause larger than themselves. They do a job that we don’t want to do and on some level has to be done. And many of them have lost their lives in that service. I hate that it has to be this way. It’s unsettling to me that even one of our young men or women should die in this fashion.

So, today, I simply remember them, the few that I have known or whose families I have known, and the thousands upon thousands that I don’t. And I remember them with a sad, but deeply grateful heart.

The notion of blessing things is a prominent theme in virtually all religions, including Christianity. But what do we mean when we bless something? Though my hunch is that few would admit it, not far below the surface of our practice of blessing things is some primitive idea that speaking words and suspending hands over objects are like magic. Our actions and incantations infuse the thing with a certain mystical quality that will guarantee success and will serve as a forcefield in keeping evil away.

Over the course of my years as pastor, I’ve been asked to bless lots of things, some of them things that I have no qualms about speaking a word of blessing over, and some of them rather trivial. I’ve been asked to bless bibles and babies, dogs and dining rooms, Harleys and hams, and lots of things in between. So, what have I been doing? What do we mean when we set something aside to bless it?

For a long time, I’ve had some sense that what I was doing was setting something aside for a special purpose. But the more I think about it, the less that theory holds water. It’s really not about a special purpose.  In fact, quite the opposite. We as asking for something to happen in that very thing’s intended use. For instance, if I bless a bible, I am not asking that it be used efficaciously only for some special use, but for the common everyday use that bibles are intended for: to read and study God’s revelation to us. If I bless a car, I’m not asking that it be set aside only to take the youth group on retreat or to take the family back and forth to church; no, I am somehow saying something about that cars intended use, whether it’s getting back and forth to work, hauling groceries, or taking the family on vacation.

I recently attended a conference on the notion of Christian blessing, a conference that was tremendously helpful in pushing me to think and act with more clarity about blessing. Dr. Ben Stewart of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, opened the conference theme with a sermon in which he suggested that to bless something is to open up a space between that common thing and God, a space for awe and gratitude and for recognizing that thing as a gift. In the week or so since I returned home, I have had a chance to reflect on Stewart’s notion of blessing and it has the strong ring of truth for me. If it’s true, then when I bless something, I’m not asking for anything magical to happen with that thing’s use, but that I recognize it’s presence in my life as a gift from a gracious God. That sense of gratitude leads me to think of the stewardship of that thing, and its right use in my life. So, if I bless the car, I’m opening up a space where I acknowledge that car is not ultimately my own, but is a gift from God. I am recognizing the goodness of God in the advance of human technology that allows us to make machines that foster the ease of getting from one place to another and hauling things over a distance. I am giving thanks for the hands that have made it, and I am somehow pledging myself to the proper use of that car. If I bless a bible, I am pausing for a moment to give thanks for the gift of language, of this thing we call a book in which words on a page can communicate ideas, and of the mystery and gift of divine revelation. And I am pledge myself to the proper use of that gift to accomplish God’s purposes in my life and in the world.

I recently spent some time with a couple in our congregation who just moved from their single family home — the home in which they raised their children and spent the first 10 years or so of their retirement — to a condominium. As you might imagine, it was a difficult move to leave behind not only the spaciousness of their home, but the vast store of memories evoked by every space in that house. Yet as they took me on a tour of their new home, there was a clear sense that this was the right time to downsize into a space more manageable and easier to leave behind when they leave town to spend the summer in their lake home. However, I had gone their new home not just for a tour, but to bless their new home.

It’s a beautiful rite. Starting at the entrance to the home, the blessing rite walks us through the entire home, pausing in each room to acknowledge the human activities that take place there, to speak a brief word of scripture that connects to that activity and then to speak a prayer of blessing. With a newly clarified understanding of what it means to bless, I walked through the rooms of their home reading scripture and praying with a new confidence and passion about what we were doing. I spent a few minutes in the introduction to the rite talking about blessing and why we were doing this. It was truly a powerful time as this couple stopped in each room to think of the common activities that will take place in their new home, to thank God for those activities, to thank God for providing this beautiful place for those things to take place, and finally to recognize God’s presence in those very activities. For instance, as we paused in the kitchen, we spent a few brief moments giving thanks for the gift of food and the flavors that bring joy and satisfaction to our eating. As we paused in the living room, we thought of the friends and family who will sit in that room sharing the gift of fellowship and sharing the stories of lives and relationships. And that couple was able to ask God to consecrate this home for lives that will share in God’s purposes for them, for their neighbors, and for the whole world.

God would have been present in their home whether we performed that rite of blessing or not. But I’m confident that my friends now have a much sharper sense of that presence, of their deep gratitude for God’s gifts, and of their own calling to live as God’s children. That’s what I call blessing!

We need to think with more clarity about change.

The fuzzy thinking came up again, as it does quite often, in a bible class that I regularly teach on Thursday mornings. The participants are all retired and range in age from about 70 to 90-something. One of our 90-something men was an executive with Sears and Roebuck, and has kept up with trends in corporate excellence and success. He is fond of sharing sound-bite phrases and aphorismic wisdom, relating them somehow to the particular passage we are studying for the day.

This week, I introduced a study of Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Honestly, I can’t even remember now how it came up, but my beloved bible study partner (and I really do have a great deal of respect and affection for this man) interrupted and interjected, “It seems like it always comes down to “change” and how much we dislike change and how hard change is.”

I would agree with my friend if what he means is that change is constant and often uncomfortable. What I would disagree with is that change is the root issue. People love to change if they perceive that change is beneficial. When Bob and Mary take two weeks of vacation in January and escape the harsh Chicago winter to spend some time on the beach in Aruba, that’s change. But it’s not difficult. In fact, that’s why they go — because they deeply want a change from the cold, snow, and disagreeable weather of Chicago in the winter. Millions of people play the lottery in hope of experiencing a deep change in their lifestyle; if they win, they will quit their job, travel, pay off all their bills, and give away ginormous amounts of money. And for most players, those aspirations represent change.That’s not how they are currently living.

So, it’s not change per se that we don’t like. This light bulb came on for me again a few weeks ago reading an early section of The Practice of Adaptive Leadership by Ron Heifitz, et. al. He makes the strong case that change is not the problem, it’s fear of loss.

That rings true to me, both theologically and practically. While change may indeed be hard in some instances, change is not what causes anxiety deep down. It’s the fear of what we might be losing.

At a very root level of our personal and corporate faith, it’s one of the reasons repentance is so hard. To repent is to turn around from the way we’ve been living before God. To do that, some things need to change. And with that change comes the fear of giving up sovereignty of our lives in the call to follow Christ. We fear that God may call us to do something that requires risk and to give up something that brings pleasure or satisfaction.

At a more practical level, I see that fear of loss happening all over congregational life. As communities and culture change, congregations can’t stay the same. We have to be constantly seeking ways to share the love of Christ and forming people in their faith in a meaningful way. What played in 1970 doesn’t necessarily play today. So, change becomes a constant. And with change comes the fear of what might be lost.

A few years ago, at the recommendation of our Director of Family Ministry, we shut down a long-standing tradition of a midweek after school program for children. The reality was that participation had been dwindling for some time. In our community there is simply a lot going on; many (can I say most?) parents want their children to experience a wide range of activities. So in contrast to a day when an after school activity at church may have been the only game in town, there is now significant competition in that midweek after school time slot. With respect to our particular program, families were making other choices about where their kids would go after school on Wednesdays.

There was a lot of anxiety about that change and some fairly strong resistance. As I reflect on that change, the greatest reaction came from two places: those who had been involved in the leadership of that program in its early years, and members who had participated in that program and who were now parents themselves (or a corollary: those whose kids had participated and wanted the opportunity available for grandkids).

In one case, the fear was losing their connection to and personal identity with a program that had been meaningful for many children and families over the years, and I suppose the fear that we would no longer be doing meaningful ministry with kids. In the other case, the fear was that their children would not have meaningful experiences at church like they had. Thankfully the leaders have gone on to other ministries which are meaningful and allow them to use their gifts. And we have birthed other opportunities for children to be formed in the faith and to have meaningful experiences at church.

Part of the art of pastoral and congregational leadership is to think and act more clearly when it comes to change. Change is inevitable; growth is an option. And for growth to happen as things change, leaders would do well to think about and anticipate what people might be losing in the process of change. Leaders would also do well to discover ways to articulate the possibility of loss and to articulate the good that is also possible or even likely in the new. That articulation has to include conversations where what is lost and what might be gained can be talked about honestly and safely. Effective leaders will discover ways to draw out the fear that people are experiencing as they walk through change. We can’t fully eliminate people’s fear of loss. But we can minimize it and help alleviate it by anticipating it and helping people talk about it.

And we can keep pointing to the Constant in a sea of change. In the church of my childhood, evening services were common in the seasons of Advent and Lent. And I remember that nearly every one of those services included the hymn Abide with Me. Even now, as I recall my childhood from the vantage point of someone past middle age, I can sing several verses of that hymn from memory. And one of the lines that so often pops into my head is this:

. . .Change and decay in all around I see;

Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Several weeks ago, I attended our monthly denominational pastors’ meeting, a meeting which routinely begins with some kind of worship. The host pastor began by telling us how happy he was to be able to offer this worship experience for the other pastors because as those who lead worship, he suggested, we never get to “really” worship. We’re too busy and distracted with leading the worship of the rest of the congregation to actually worship ourselves. Or so the mantra goes.

I write this coming off a Holy Week intense with worship. In our congregation, Holy Week is a big deal. It’s the pinnacle of the church year, at least as far as worship goes. We inaugurate the week with Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday worship that is rich in movement, ritual, and Word. We are one of the few Protestant congregations in the whole country, I suspect, that actually has services on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in Holy Week. Then, of course, there is the Great Three Days of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and The Holy Saturday Easter Vigil. While this one service that happens over three days is my favorite of the year, it requires a lot of my energy, time, and focus. What’s more, I also know that I have to gear up for Easter Sunday, the day in which our attendance swells to almost three times our average Sunday attendance. In short, as a worship leader and planner, this week is as intense, taxing, and exhausting as it gets. Not only is there a lot of effort that goes into planning and preparing for this week, there are simply a lot of details that have to be attended to in the moment of leading worship.

Yet, I cannot say that as a worship planner and leader that I find it difficult to actually worship. It is not a part of my experience that leading worship stands as an obstacle to worshiping myself. I find that my own experience of meeting God in word and sacrament, in prayer and fellowship, in the context of these rich services is profoundly meaningful.

No doubt, there are other places I worship. Even other places I appreciate worshiping  For instance, there are conferences I go to where I enjoy opportunities to worship with colleagues. But those occasions are not the only times during the year when I can truly worship. Nor are they the worship experiences that I prefer.

There is an image from our Good Friday Liturgy of the Cross that is engraved in my memory. At the end of the service, while we sing The Reproaches, we invite worshipers to come forward for some personal act of reverence at the foot of a large, rough-hewn cross that has just been brought into the sanctuary. Most kneel at the cross for a moment of prayer, some touch it, some even kiss it. Last Friday, a family of five came forward: Mom, Dad, young son and daughter, and Mom’s mom, aka Grandma. Grandma knelt at the altar railing, folding her hands in a moment of prayer without touching the cross. Mom and daughter (1st grade plus or minus) knelt at the opposite side of the cross. Dad and son (3rd grade plus or minus) knelt at the foot of the cross. Junior didn’t seem to know exactly what to do, but when Dad put his hand on the cross, the young boy imitated his father almost exactly. It would have been a touching, Norman Rockwell-like image to even the most casual observer.

And as pastor of the congregation, I saw what the casual observer could never have known. Six weeks earlier, we held the memorial service for Grandma’s husband in that very sanctuary. On Maundy Thursday afternoon, just one day before this veneration of the cross, I had visited with Grandma in her home just to check in about how she was doing in the aftermath of her beloved husband’s death. And I knew that all of them, even the young son and daughter knelt at the foot of that cross with a much more palpable experience of death than many of the worshipers at that service. And I also knew that the community of faith had embraced them and held them, literally, and figuratively in prayer. So, for them to come to the cross in a moment of profound reverence was more than just following the crowd to the front of the church. It was meeting God. How could that not be a moment of worship for me also as a pastoral leader of the congregation?

See, while there are other places that I appreciate worshiping, there are none that I’d rather be a part of than my own church family, even though I am also a leader of this family. This community where I am a pastoral leader is also my church home. These are the people that I have lashed myself to the mast with so that we are sailing on the seas together when the seas are calm, when they are rough, and when they are downright dangerous. We are in this together. These are the people who recognize my gifts and also my deficiencies. These are the people who complain about the hymn that I chose, but also express their deep gratitude when I have touched them deeply through something I have proclaimed in a sermon. These are the people whose insecurities and defensiveness sometimes drive me crazy and these are the people who also know my sometimes very ugly humanness. This is my church home, and these are the people I want to sing with, pray with, hear the Word with, share the meal with, and grow in faith and service with.

What I prefer is to worship with my tribe, the people that I have to live with day in and day out. And just because I am standing up front and trying to concentrate on my sermon and what comes next and why the lector isn’t coming to the ambo and why there is commotion in the balcony with the choir and what I should do as I discover that a hymn number is printed incorrectly in the bulletin — just because these are the realities of worshiping with a community comprised of fallible human beings, it doesn’t mean that I can’t worship with them. In fact, this is worship at its best.