Work-in-Progress

My daughters are happy tonight.  My husband is happy tonight.  I am happy tonight.

Tomorrow I’m preaching on the parable known as “Wheat & Weeds” from Matthew 13.  A parable is a particular kind of short story, so here’s the plot set-up: It is discovered that someone (the Evil One) has sown weed seeds among a farmer’s wheat crop. 

The plot question (aka the preaching point): What will the farmer do now?

I know this isn’t exactly a hot topic, when everybody is busy seeing the new Batman movie and waiting for Mamma Mia.  But last night my husband and I watched Transamerica.  My daughter who is active in the transgender community didn’t have a great opinion, so I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it.  But the thing my daughter didn’t like was what I did like: the character’s relationship with a son. 

The plot involves an MTF (male to female) transgendered person who discovers, a week before her scheduled “bottom surgery” that she fathered a son 17 years previously.  The movie then lives up to its name with a cross-country road trip.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching the relationships unfold.  They were believable, and showed movement.  A brief appearance by Graham Greene was just icing on the cake.  The movie did a good job of portraying a transgendered person as “just a person” who managed life as successfully (or more so) than the other characters who appeared.  Bottom line: I cared about the character.  Enough said.

Maybe I shouldn’t have added the “aging” tag to my list, because now I get to use it again.

Since I’m a generally healthy person, last year I skipped my annual checkup.  (Mainly to avoid the mammogram, can I admit that on a blog?)  This year I turned 50, and was reminded many times that I had crossed some kind of magical threshold.  Various baselines are needed, and I’m supposed to take care of my health in a more pro-active way.  So I let six more months pass then dutifully made an appt with my doctor.

I totally understand why people don’t do this.

As a healthy person, I left that hour-long appt with not 1 or 2 – but 5 – follow-up items.  Each item meant I needed to research a specialist and make an appointment, then go through elaborate layers of phone menus to procure a referral from my insurance provider.  All of this paperwork so I could either abstain from eating for a time, be poked with needles, drink a whole lot of water and then not pee, or lay my soft tissue in places so it could be smashed between glass plates. 

The best is yet to come, a “baseline” colonoscopy.  Goody gumdrops.

Oh, and I need to get more calcium.  Those aging bones, you see . . . .

Actually, I’m incredibly grateful for the level of health care I enjoy, I’m just grumping a bit.  And between the pokes and prods — not to mention new bifocal contacts — just feeling the changes!

I’ve made six 3-year laps around the lectionary so you think I’d be used to it.  But this year I’m really Noticing! how many parables there are in the gospel of Matthew.  I aim to preach every one, this time.  I find myself newly captivated by this unique teaching strategy of our Lord and Friend.

Yesterday was the Parable of the Sower.  I didn’t have as polished a manuscript as usual, and wonder if that was apparent to anybody but me.  The lack of polish was due to the fact that I’m still wrestling this parable down.  I have unfinished business stirred up by this Sower.  His generosity!  His wastefulness!

I talked for longer than usual, almost 20 minutes, but did not cover everything that I have learned about/prayed about/thought about.  Yes, the parable is still doing it’s work in me, and I feel it twist in my heart.  I’m on the cusp of learning something that God has been trying to teach me about generosity and grace, and about being wildly inefficient, and at peace with that.

You’d think motherhood would have taught me those things.

I am so grateful for this preaching job.

I think the parable began to do its work in other people too, since I heard a comment that showed discomfort.  That’s the good stuff.

This morning, as usual, one of our elders read the scripture.  Before he read the Romans 8 passage (there is therefore now no condemnation), Jorge commented that he was very familiar with this chapter, in fact had memorized it as a child.  But he was having a problem with it this morning since he had memorized it in Spanish.  Reading it in English proved to be very challenging.  Jorge is Panamanian and has lived in this country for decades.  His English is flawless.

I was so grateful for his spontaneous comment!  He reminded us of two things:   1) the scripture we learn in our youth makes an imprint on us, not easily written over; 2) the Word is powerful, and the words that convey the Word are uniquely shaping.

I’m imagining the neural pathways that connect various gospel and epistle texts together.  Yes, they would short out if I had to switch languages, I’m sure of that.

Think how people get upset over someone using the “wrong” translation.  This is why, isn’t it?  It’s not just resistance, crotchetiness, or legitimate arguments over translational differences.  It’s neural pathways, which are not always that flexible.

Thank you, Jorge.

What a good day for Shakespeare!  First there was exciting news about the finding of a missing First Folio of the bard’s work.  Then this evening we saw a production of Richard III. 

As the program said, “This production explores the ways in which a society built around insecurity and self-involvement lends itself to the rise of a tyrant, a decrepit and evil man.”  This is what I love about Shakespeare: it never becomes obsolete.  I think of the things I’ve read about Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe, or Uganda and Idi Amin.  I suppose other names could fit, as there is no shortage of despicable rulers, unfortunately.  Great harm flows from their sins.

The actors did an incredible job tonight, really throwing heart and soul into their work.  The show was entirely produced by a student-run theater company called Empty Chair Theatre Company.  Clara worked with some of these students during the past two summers at “Shakespeare Camp” (which is more properly called YCTC at the American Shakespeare Company in Staunton, Virginia), and she was asked to be Costume Mistress for this production.  Students did absolutely everything for this show, which they pulled together in just 12 days of rehearsal.  It was fun to identify various dresses, pieces of dresses, suitcoats, jewelry, and even a garment made from a familiar shower curtain.  (Ah, that explains the sudden rush on the sewing machine. . . .)

The theater was too warm, and I couldn’t imagine being under lights, in costume, for three hours.  Much less to say: that was their second performance of the day, following a matinee.  I am impressed by the students’ talent, dedication, and energy.  Most of all, I salute their ability to make Shakespeare make sense.

Let me leave you with the two most famous lines from the play, both uttered by Richard:

Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York.

A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!

At the Festival of Faith & Writing last April, one of the presenters was Eric Jager.  He looked familiar, and I realized that he had been a classmate of mine at Calvin College (sometime in the last millenium) where we were both English majors.  I added his title to my To Read list: The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat in Medieval France. 

In the Middle Ages, duels were considered “trial by combat,” a way to let God decide who was guilty and who innocent.  Both plaintiff and defendant relied on “proof by one’s body,” and the church sanctioned these trials, which took place on horseback with lances and swords.  In 1386 a duel between a knight and a squire was meant to settle, in the sight of God, whether or not the squire was guilty of raping the knight’s wife.  

The two protagonists (who are of course antagonists) are both presented as exceedingly flawed humans, so the reader is not rooting for either one, entirely.  The book is told very factually, and the author does a great job of feeding detailed information on a need-to-know basis.  Some might complain that the information is tangential, or a bit dry, but I enjoyed learning historical facts that helped me better appreciate the story.

The story struck me as age-old.  Of course, it’s about medieval times, so that might seem to be an obvious comment.  The relationship between the two characters is shaped by age-old customs –like acquiring fiefdoms and serving in battle– which is outside our post-modern purview.  We don’t spend most of our time plotting ways to get more land or acquire more power. 

Oh wait, Yes we do!  I did read the newspaper this morning, something about a falling stock market, arms threats from Iran, and a still-crashing real estate market. . . .

Which brings me to the other age-old component of the story: it concerns the oldest of human emotions – rivalry and greed. 

Now that Eric Jager has done all the footwork, I’d love to read a fully-novelized account of this story.  I’m glad that someone has optioned movie rights, I think the story would translate well to the screen.  Perhaps I’m used to having my historical reading rather more embroidered.

I loved reading about this period — the wars between England and France, the succession of kings, the Last Crusade.  The fact that the crime at issue was a rape raised some difficulties for me, as I am very sensitive to the reality of this particular crime.  I don’t like to think about men using such an event to exert a more powerful sense of their “manliness” — here to the death!  Yet, I was able to appreciate the book, as it treated the crime with some sensitivity.

Another difficulty with the book will require more thought on my part: I am always saddened to see the interplay between the church, the powers-that-be, and the notion that God avenges wrongdoing with blood.  Again, this interplay is age-old, but it still trips me up. 

I have at times been uncomfortable offering an opening prayer at the beginning of a town council meeting.  Imagine how it would feel to “do the honors” on the field prepared for a duel?

This non-fiction title was not on my “church reading” for the summer, but as usual, a well-written work stirs up thoughts that eventually work themselves into sermons.  Thanks for your book, Eric.  I hope you are energized to write another, and to enjoy seeing this one come to life on the screen.

A sower went out to sow. . . .   

To me, these words have nearly the same magic as Once upon a time.  Sit down, and prepare to hear a story.  Suspend disbelief. 

Living with that text (from Matthew 13) all week, I’ve been wrapped up in seeds and soil and crop yields.  Inevitably these thoughts lead me back to my farmer-friends in central Illinois, where I used to serve at Rock Creek Presbyterian Church.  That church was such a great place to preach the agricultural parables!  Those texts gave me an excuse to ask a lot of questions, and to be the student as well as preacher.

How I’d love to chat with Edwin about the price of corn!  Soaring gas prices have impacted the farmers in a dozen different ways, I’m sure.  And aren’t we all increasingly aware of the global nature of farming, as people around the world face food shortages?  I’d like to ask a corn-belt farmer: What’s happening with the politics of ethanol?

Today I pulled some images to use in Sunday’s sermon, and the one of a John Deere harvester made me nostalgic.  I rode in more than one piece of equipment — vastly different vintages – and got something of an education.  I’d love to ride across a cornfield again.

Speaking of seeds sown, I can’t help but wonder how “my old church” is doing, almost a decade after I left.  Right on the heels of my departure they undertook a massive building project, which turned out beautifully.  How are things now?  If anybody in that neck of the woods is reading, could you drop me a line?

Each day, we’re given many opportunities to open up or shut down.  The most precious opportunity presents itself when we come to the place where we think we can’t handle whatever is happening.  It’s too much.  It’s gone too far.  We feel bad about ourselves.  There’s no way we can manipulate the situation to make ourselves come out looking good.  No matter how hard we try, it just won’t work.  Basically, life has just nailed us.

According to the author, Pema Chodron, the above is good news.  (From When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times.)