Rancor

Rancor

Every once in a while, on the daily dog walk, a particular word pops into my head. This has happened enough that I now pay attention. Although each word is distinct, some are familiar, some are old Latin words from my seminary training, and some I barely recognize. The title of this blog fits into the last category.

Looking up the word rancor in the dictionary, I found this definition: bitter, deep seated ill will. This English word is derived from the Latin meaning: rank smell or taste. The word rancid comes from the same root. Its synonyms aren’t much better: bad blood, bitterness, hostility and enmity.

Watching the news and logging on to social media, I sense that rancor is seeping into the fabric of our culture. No longer is it acceptable to express diverse points of view without sharp and vulgar responses bordering on blatant name calling and personal attack. Rancor is on the increase.

As a pastor I get thrown into family and church dynamics where strong opinions and intense personalities weigh heavy on relationships. Not being one to shy away from conflict, I have participated in familial and ecclesiastical battles that have taken emotional and spiritual tolls on my life. I have also seen collateral damage to families and churches that, in the heat of battle, ignored civility and common decency to win a battle.

It must be age and experience that has taught me to be a better listener as well as more sensitive to convictions of others. I confess that it is a difficult discipline to learn but the rewards are far better. I have learned that listening with respect is not necessarily agreeing. It validates the person expressing a view that I may not share.

Here are some words of Jesus: “You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.”

No place for rancor in God’s family!

Laundry

Laundry

Recently, I overheard a conversation at a coffee shop that surprised me. One gentleman boasted that every Monday morning his washed and folded clothes magically appeared at the foot of his bed. To the amazement of his coffee drinking buddies, he sang praises of his wife who lovingly served him in this way. That is not the normal coffee klatch conversation I hear.

That started me thinking about how I thought about my wife who washes all my dirty clothes. Usually it is me complaining about what happened to my new golf shirt that got tossed into the laundry basket last week. Or how about that nice pair of wash and wear slacks that the dog is using as a blanket in the laundry room. Why is it that I have more and more unmatched socks coming out of the dryer?

The few times I had to wash my own clothes I was at a loss as how to run that washing machine. I look at those dials and they make no sense to me. I know a little about the dryer but that is only because I have to dive in there every once in a while to find some apparel. And why are there tennis balls in the dryer?

When our kids were small, there were piles and piles of dirty clothes on the laundry room floor. The machines were running 24 – 7 but the piles never got any smaller. By now you can see that I have little appreciation for all the work my wife does in the laundry room. I am like the guy in the coffee shop who is constantly amazed that his clean clothes show up on Monday morning.

Before my readers start writing nasty comments in response to this blog, I want to confess my sin.  Here in print, I repent of my chauvinistic attitude and thankfully sing the praises of my wife for her faithful and undying service of love to me. I have never gone without clean clothes. She has always found a match for my socks and made sure that I don’t leave the house wrinkled.

Ok guys, let’s give a big “shout out” for the ladies in our lives who serve us in so many ways that we take for granted. And Lord can you design a washing machine that is easier for a man like myself to operate?

Gravely Tractor

Gravely Tractor

I started my lawn mowing career at an early age. My father felt that the best way for me to use my idle time was to work. When I was strong enough to push a hand mower (that’s a mower that operates on muscle and sweat), my summer chore was cutting grass. Eventually I was deemed mature enough to operate a gas-powered push mower; a giant step forward in lawn maintenance.

One day my father came home with a Gravely Tractor. At the time, this was the Cadillac of lawn mowers. Actually, it was a tractor that came with many attachments. You could attach a sickle bar on it to cut brush; an auger to throw snow and in my case a 36-inch mower blade to cut grass. According to my father this was the ideal tool for our two acres of lawn. It wasn’t long before I discovered it was my worst nightmare.

First of all, it was too big and too clumsy for an adolescent boy to operate. Walking behind this tractor, using all my muscle to keep it on track was a task I wasn’t up to. Trying to explain this to my father was useless. He insisted I could do it; it was character and muscle building. It wasn’t until I took out part of my mother’s flower garden that he started having second thoughts.

Just to get the gas engine started was a Herculean task. No electric start here. You had to wind a leather strap around the fly wheel and pull with all your might. With my feeble strength I could barely get a chug out of the engine. Thinking a little more gas would help, I flooded it. I think this is when I started swearing.

I gave that Gravely Tractor my best effort, but it was too much of a machine for me. The last straw came when I just couldn’t muscle it any more. In one final desperate move, I drove that d…. tractor over a four-foot retaining wall! Unfortunately, the mower survived but for me less so after a trip to the woodshed with dad.

All these years later, I am mowing our small patio lawn with a new hand mower that is powered by muscle and sweat. It is hard to improve on that!

Metaphors

Metaphors

Metaphors I like. A metaphor is a figure of speech where a word or a phrase is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or an analogy between them. The Bible uses lots of metaphors and Jesus was an expert in using common things like a seed, wind, leaven, a tree or wheat to describe what the Kingdom of God is like.

Here are a few other metaphors about life. It was Forrest Gump who said: “my mom always said life was like a box of chocolates, you never knew what you were going to get.” Albert Einstein said: “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” And Allen Saunders, author and poet, said: “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” We hear and use metaphors every day.

You can find metaphors in gospel music as well. You may remember reading a blog I wrote some time ago about an old hymn “Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life.” Sounds a little strange for a church hymn. Well, it is a metaphor put to country western music and sung with a straight face.

While I am on the subject of metaphors, I ran across another hymn you might like. I found it on You Tube and sung by the likes of Patti Cline, Willie Nelson and my favorite, Johnny Cash. The title “Life Is Like A Mountain Railway” was written in the 1890’s by Eliza R. Snow and M.E. Abby. Here is a taste of it:

Life is like a mountain railway, with an engineer that’s brave. We must make this run successful from the cradle to the grave.

Heed the curves and watch the tunnels. Never falter, never fail. Keep your hands upon the throttle and you eye upon the rail.

As you roll across the trestle spanning Jordan’s swelling tide, you will reach the Union Depot into which your train will ride.

There you’ll meet the superintendent: God the father, God the son with a happy joyous greeting, weary pilgrim, welcome home.

Blessed Saviour there to guide us till we reach that blissful shore and the angels there to join us in God’s grace forevermore.

That will preach.

Saints and Sinners

Saints and Sinners

I was brought up in a church that majored in saints and sinners. It was easy to identify who was who. The saints were the ones depicted in stain glass windows with halos on their heads, hands folded, and faces lifted to heaven. Plaster statues around the church were a constant reminder that some had attained a life of perfect holiness. The rest of us were sinners.

Growing up under a religious system that promoted a clear line of demarcation between saint and sinner, left little hope of seeing myself in stained glass. The saintly bar was so high that it was much easier to face reality, confess my sins, cross my fingers and hope someday to get to heaven. As an incentive, I was encouraged to pray to the saints to put in a good word for me.

The Bible has a whole different understanding of the saint – sinner issue. Saint in the Bible is one who’s heart is set on the Lord; one who calls oneself a Christian. Paul, writing letters to the early church always addresses them as saints, the ones without the halos. If you know anything about the early church, you realize that they were a mixed bag of converted Jews, converted pagan worshippers and a lot worse. Not a halo in the bunch.

The Bible sinner is a saint who miss the mark. The common New Testament word for sinner is an archery term and literally means one who misses the bull’s eye. Even though I am a disciple of Jesus, I make choices that miss the mark of God’s best for my life. That does not disqualify me from being a saint, but it does require a change of attitude. As I live life as a believer, my choices get more in line with God’s best for me.

The bottom line on sainthood is this: we are saints by virtue of the way that God looks on and treats us. The Bible tells us that God loves us no matter what. We can’t outrun the love of God. No matter what religion may teach to the contrary, we are saints who sin, and God forgives and restores. 

Now that’s Good News even without a halo!

Ekklesia

Ekklesia

It’s a Greek word! Translated into English it means a gathering of people, an assembly. If I were a first century high school student in Greece, along with my classmates I would periodically attend an “ekklesia,” a school assembly. This word, translated from the Greek New Testament is “church.”

I have spent all my life in church; from an infant baptized in one church to ordination in several. My life has been defined as a member of an “ekklesia,” a church family. And family it is. Church is often perceived as a weekly Sunday morning ritual. In reality, it is much more. God’s idea of church is quite different.

Where we have made it an obligation to be endured, God planned it for a family gathering to be enjoyed.

I confess that for many of us, if we go to church at all, Sunday service feels like a far cry from family time. Tradition, time and the ways of man have pretty much sucked all the fun and family out of Sunday morning. A fresh reading of the Book of Acts, where church is first mentioned, will refresh our appreciation of ekklesia.

While writing this blog, I made a list of the churches I have served. I thank all those who helped shape my life as a pastor. I am very grateful for all my church family experiences.

Here they are: St. Williams in Fridley, MN as a deacon; St. Peter’s in North St. Paul, MN as a priest; the Cathedral of St. Paul, MN as a priest; Christ the King in Minneapolis, MN as a priest; St. James in Bozeman, MT as a deacon; St. Peter’s Cathedral, Helena, MT as a priest; St. Andrew’s in Minneapolis, MN as a priest; the Ark Church, Havre, MT as a pastor; Way of The Cross, Blaine, MN as a pastor; and Foothills Fellowship in Bozeman, Mt as a pastor.

I love these words from the Bible: “The church you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.”

Bears Revisited

Bears Revisited

Nope not Pooh. Not Yogi, Teddy or Smoky Bear. I’m talking about the real kind of bears. The ones that roam in the wild and forage on berries, grass and carcasses of dead animals. The big black and brown ones that look tame and cuddly from a distance but would attack you if provoked. I am talking about Montana bears.

I once saw a grizzly up close. It was caged so I didn’t have to worry about being eaten. When it stood on all fours I could hardly see over it large, furry shoulder hump. Scary to say the least. Recently I saw a photo of a grizzly’s front paw. It was about the size of my head with claws that were at least four inches long. With one swipe of that paw, he could take my head off. No way I want to meet one in the wild.

Black bears are a little less intimidating, but they command my respect. I have a bone to pick with the black bear that frequents our neighborhood in early spring and late fall. I have never laid eyes on him, but he has more than once destroyed all my bird feeders to the extent of breaking my black rod iron holder and trampling on all the feeders. Adding insult to injury he left a big, stinky pile of digested berries and sunflower seeds on my patio deck.

While entertaining visitors from overseas, I take them on a tour of Yellowstone National Park, a two-hour drive south of our home. Inevitably I am asked about the possibility of seeing a grizzly. I respond by saying that I have never seen one, but a guaranteed way is to have you strip naked, tie you to a tree and cover you with peanut butter and honey. The last thing you will see is a smiling grizzly bear!

So much for the bear facts. When you come to Montana don’t forget to bring your bear bells and your bear spray just in case. You can leave the peanut butter and honey at home.