Sunday, June 24, 2018

My Final Four Sermons: "You Will Be Here"

My Final Four Sermons:  "You Will Be Here"
Acts 9:1-6

Back when I was in seminary, a psychologist friend of mine recommended I read a book he had picked up.  The title of the book is, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes.  Quite a title.  It was almost an intimidating enough title to keep me from picking it up and read it.

But I did.

One of the main ideas of the author has to do with the structure of the brain and how the brain works.  The brain is formed in two halves, or hemispheres.  The left, major, hemisphere controls logic and math and science, etc.  The right hemisphere controls language and art and music.

In between the two hemispheres is what's called the corpus colosseum.  That part of the brain controls how the two hemispheres communicate with each other, to either blend their strengths or over-power one or the the other.  That communication of the hemispheres is called consciousness.

Now here's Julian Jaynes theory.  Jaynes says that prior to 3 or 4 thousand years ago, humans had no working corpus colosseum—no fully developed individual consciousness.

So what? you say.  And so did I as I was reading this book.  I almost put it down.  Though I like reading about the brain function research, this was all a bit too much.

But then it got interesting.

According to Jaynes, prior to about 3 or 4 thousand years ago, because there was no constant connection between the brain's hemispheres, one side didn't know how to interpret when a rare message fired from one hemisphere to another.  People, according to Jaynes, interpreted this activity of the brain as hearing the Voice of God.

People thought God was talking to them, when in reality it was just the beginnings of the corpus colosseum firing messages back and forth between the hemispheres.  Once full communication between each half of the brain created a whole, there was no reason for God.  There really was no Voice of God anymore.

Thus the reason my psychologist friend asked me to read that book.  That we have misinterpreted basic brain function, the emergence of consciousness, for the Voice of God.

One reviewer of this book recently wrote, "(This book is) either a work of unparalleled genius, or completely out-to-lunch loopy."  Yeah.  But those are the kinds of reactions you get when you talk about the Voice of God, or hearing from God, or thinking about prayer.  Does God really talk to us, or are we just talking to ourselves?  Is this just the two hemispheres of our brain messing with us, or does God really speak to us?

Personally, I have to say ,"Yes", I believe—I know—God speaks to us, because God has spoken to me on several occasions.  None of those times has it been weird, or potentially destructive.  Like, "Take all your people out into the jungle and have them drink the koolaid."

Nothing like the guy I was talking to in a psyche ward one time.  He told me God spoke to him.  I asked, "How does God speak to you?"  I was genuinely interested.
He said, "God comes down into my dog.  Then my dog splits in half, and there's a good half and a bad half.  Sometimes God talks to me out of the good part of the dog, and sometimes God speaks to me out of the bad part, and tells me to do bad things."
The guy stared into my eyes without blinking, looking to see if I believed him.  He clearly believed it himself.  I didn't.

I'm happy to say God has never spoken to me like that.  Each time God's Voice has been affirming.  And brought me back to my original call, which was the first time God spoke to me.  At least the first time I was listening.

I've told the story before.  I was a 7th grader sitting in church with my mom.  Just me and her—the rest of my family was not really into going to church.  But I loved going to church with my mom—I felt like a grown up.

During the sermon, I felt God's Voice say, "Steve, this is what I want you to do."  That was it.  I say I "felt" God's Voice, because each time God has spoken to me, I felt it rather than heard it.  It was like feeling a beautiful piece of music that you hear for the very first time.  It has a way of reaching down into you, penetrating you.

I was so sure of what I heard, I looked around to see if anyone else in the congregation had heard, or felt that Voice.

I sometimes chuckle to myself when I think back to that day.  Because, that Sunday, a harpist was accompanying the church choir.  Hopefully, when God said, "This is what I want you to do," the Lord didn't mean for me to become a harpist.  If so, I severely missed my calling, misread God's Voice, and have wasted the last 40 years of my life.

That's what I've come to believe is one of the main things the Voice of God does—sets your direction, opens your eyes to your purpose, makes you become aware of your gifts and how to use them.  I believe God likes to set people on a journey—an adventure—that you don't entirely know where it's going to lead you.  But the Voice of God sets you out.
The apostle Paul is a great example of that.  Originally, Paul set himself out on his own journey—and was making a mess of it.  Paul had become a well-meaning destroyer.  As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."  That's the journey Paul had put himself on.

It took the Voice of God to knock Paul off the path of that self-guided and destructive journey.  Notice how Paul was knocked to the the ground by the Voice.  Paul didn't just hear the Voice of God.  He felt the Voice of God.  And it had the power to put him on the ground.

Then it's important to understand what the Voice said next, once Paul was on the ground:  "Now get up and go into the city.  There you will be told what you must do."  The Voice of God was about putting Paul on a new journey, a new mission, a new adventure.  That journey was a religious one, but totally different from the one Paul had chosen for himself.

That's what the Voice of God does.  Sometimes shakes up your world.  Sometimes affirms you to stay the course you are on.

One of the churches I served I both liked and hated at the same time.  There were times I didn't think I could last another day.  If that was what the ministry was all about, I was done.  My kids were similarly miserable.

I started looking into getting out.  I started looking into becoming a political or corporate speech writer.  One of the things you may not know is that I really enjoy writing sermons.  I just don't enjoy preaching them.

So, I thought if I could get a job writing speeches, that other people gave, I'd be happy.  I started making contacts with some political speech writers, and one guy in particular was very encouraging.  Through him I was making a lot of contacts with others in that profession.  I was about ready to make the jump.

But then the Voice of God came again.  I used to walk out this dirt road during lunch time.  I was walking and pondering.  The Voice came and I was suddenly put on my knees.  God said, "Steve, you will always be a pastor—and I need you here in this church."  That was all God said.  I broke down, overpowered and in tears.

Again, God's Voice affirmed my call, took me back to that time when I was set out on this adventure.  God again called me by name—God's Voice likes to use names.  God did the same with Paul.  With each of the disciples.  And with some of you, who have told me your stories.

God's Voice set me back on my original journey, and wouldn't let me veer away from that.  That day, that Voice surprised me, because I was thinking and planning to leave my journey.  Give up on my vocation given me by God.  You'd think God would have been angry about what I was planning.  Instead, God's Voice came at me with nothing but affirmation.  I felt affirmed by that Voice, not disciplined.

Paul's life and journey were not perfect by any means.  He struggled with something that grabbed him and wouldn't let go.  He called it "a thorn in the flesh."  No one knows what it was.  I think it was something emotional, like guilt or shame.  Maybe I'm just reading my own experience into it.  Just a hunch I have about Paul.

Prior to coming here, I had gotten myself into a hot mess in California.  I didn't handle a grief-filled event very well.  The presbytery there didn't think I was ready to get back into the ministry.  They dragged their feet about releasing me, and I was becoming more and more despondent.

I moved back out to Kansas and put myself in Charlie and Joan Ayers care out in Leoti.  Charlie did all he could, but the Committee on Ministry in the San Joaquin Presbytery wouldn't budge.

We got Don Owens involved, who was the presbytery Executive here in Southern Kansas.  Unbeknownst to me, at a General Assembly meeting, Don took the executive from the San Joaquin presbytery behind the woodshed and let him have it.

Whether the presbytery out there would release me or not, Don and the COM here wanted to force their hand by pushing ahead.  I was to meet with the COM here in Pratt.  I was sitting up in the tiny lounge waiting to be called down.  Angela was still here—I think in her last week.

So, I'm just sitting there, as nervous as a cat getting a bath.  Then came the Voice.  All the Voice said was, "Steve, you will be here."  That was it.  That was all the Voice said.  I had no sense of deserving to be anywhere, at that point.  I just wanted out from under the thumb of the California presbytery.  I was feeling guilty and ashamed.  Knowing I was going to have to tell the COM here my whole story.

To be told, by the Voice of God I would be here was beyond belief.  In fact, I didn't believe it.

I was beckoned downstairs.  I told my story.  I broke down a couple of times.  Then they spoke.  They said that from what I told them and what Don Owens found out, the COM out in California had totally mishandled my case.  And the people sitting around the table were angrier than I was about it.

Don Owens said his conversation with the exec out there worked.  They were releasing me into this presbytery's "custody," Don said with a smile.  My ordeal was over.

After the meeting was over, Don said to me, "I want you to think about being interim Pastor here in Pratt.  I'm going to give your name to the Session.  Which he did.

So, in one day, God's Voice spoke:  "You will be here."  I was released to this presbytery.  And I was going to be considered as interim of this church.  Again, a huge affirmation of my call, bringing me back to the journey God put me on starting way back as a 7th grader.  It was like the dark cloud over me evaporated, and I was suddenly affirmed and embraced by the Voice.


8 1/2 years later I'm at the end.  Not just the end of my ministry here in Pratt, but my ministry vocation.  I don't believe the Voice has stopped speaking.  With each transition, God kept speaking.  That Voice kept being felt.  The journey continued.  The journey still continues.  The adventure continues.

For both of us, you all and me.  There are many here who have felt that Voice—who feel it still.  Who are following that Voice and leading the church as God's Voice directs.  Follow them, as they follow the Voice.  Listen, as I continue to do, and see where God’s Voice leads.

Monday, June 18, 2018

My Final Four Sermons: What Is The Meaning Of Life?

"My Final Four Sermons:  What Is The Meaning Of Life?"
Matthew 6:33
John 3:1-8

I was working in my office—this was at another church.  I was engrossed in sermon writing.  My desk faced an outer wall with a window, and the door to the office was off to my left and a bit behind my peripheral vision.  Probably not the best feng shui.

I suddenly felt someone’s presence.  I turned towards the door and Grant was standing there leaning against the door frame.  I had no idea how long he was standing there—or, rather, leaning there.

He was drunk.  It was late morning.  He slurred out to me, “Steve, what’s the meaning of life?”

Grant was a well-respected banker in town.  An Executive Vice-President.  There are so many vice-presidents in banks, it’s hard to know what his position meant.

Grant’s wife was the President of the bank.  So, between them, they were doing very well.  They owned a gingerbread styled home in the older, stately part of town.  It was on a half block lot.  Lots of trees in the back with a nice pathway through the back yard.  There was a fountain here or there, and a gazebo.  Their two daughters weddings were in the back yard, and I had done them both.

By all outward appearances, they had a great, and more than comfortable life.

But that was evidently not so.  At least for Grant.  Outward appearances of a cushy life was hiding the fact that Grant was not happy.  And I had no idea he was a drinker, let alone an alcoholic, which I found out that day he was.

Grant’s question to me may seem trite or over worn.   In reality, his question is the number one question that is asked by people, both on the internet and in person.  I would guess, that for most, there is an addendum to that question, which is, “...for me.”  What is the meaning of life...for me?  Part of the reason we put the “for me” on the end is because American culture is basically narcissistic, and it is all about me.  We think, I don’t want to know your meaning of life.  I want to know mine.  I don’t want a general answer to the question that is good for everyone.  I want something that is particular to me—my answer.

If that is your sentiment, your outlook, I’m going to disappoint you this morning.

There are at least two sides of an anxiety coin to this most asked question.  First, is the anxiousness that you feel like there is this hole in your life that you haven’t been able to fill.  You think that if you could just discover life’s meaning, that hole would be filled.  Your emptiness would go away.  That’s part of what Grant was asking me that late morning in my office.

The second side of that coin of anxiety is similar.  It is the feeling there must be something more than this.  The difference between the two sides is the hole is felt in the individual self.  But here, the sense that there has to be something more has to do with life in general, life as you are living it.  There has to be more than the conclusion the writer of Ecclesiastes comes to:
All of life is far more boring
  Than words could ever say.
Our eyes and ears are never satisfied
  With what we see and hear.
Everything that happens
  Has happened before;
Nothing is new,
  Nothing under the sun.  (1:8-9, CEV)

What! You exclaim.  How can that be in the Bible!?  There’s got to be something new.  Something more.  Something different.  Something better than this!  There’s got to be something more than this boring, humdrum, repetitive life!

That’s the main thing Grant was asking me out of his stupor.  “There’s got to be something more to energize me, something more to give me purpose, something more that is new and gives me excitement about being alive!  What is the meaning of life?”

When you think about it, one of the best definitions of what it means to be human is we are meaning-making animals.  No other animal or entity on earth worries or even thinks about personal meaning, or the meaning of their life.  Wildebeest roaming in herds on the Serengeti plains of Africa aren’t standing around having existential conversations at the watering hole about what their life means.  Only humans struggle with those existential questions.

We even try to make meaning out of the rawest of life’s materials:  sickness, war, death, as well as everyday events.  What does it mean?  There’s got to be more than just the event itself.

Those are the two levels of everyday life.  There are the events themselves—the experiences we have.  Some of those experiences are big, life-altering, and even cataclysmic.  But most are everyday, common goings-on kinds of things that we all wade through.

The other level is the meanings we put on those cataclysmic or everyday experiences.  All of those meanings we give to our life experiences are highly individual.  Two people can go through the same or similar experience, but attach entirely different meanings to those events.

What does it mean to be given a surprising diagnosis by your doctor?
What does it mean to lose your job?  Get a new job?
What does it mean to just have a bad day?  Have a good day?
What does it mean to retire?
What does it mean to hear the Voice of God?  (Next weeks sermon.)

Now here’s what happens.  We take all those little meanings of our life events, and they slowly become what we would call, “The Meaning of Life.”  What we normally do is allow our experiences, and the meanings we attach to them, to become our over-arching meaning of life.  We fashion what we come to know as the meaning of life from the bottom up.  It’s all based on us, our experiences, and our meanings.

What eventually happens with that is what happened to Grant in my office:  our meaning of life, that we fashioned based on our own experiences, collapses.  The meaning of life, built from the bottom up, based on us, doesn’t ultimately work out.  Our lives, our structure, our meaning, comes tumbling down like a house of cards.

When that happens, you’ll end up in my office, or someone’s office, asking, “What is the meaning of life?  Everything I built over the last so-many-years, just came crashing down around me.”

What I have learned over 40 years of ministry, and thousands of conversations with people about the meaning of life, is that true meaning of life has to be built from the top down, not the bottom up.

Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.  Basically, Nicodemus has come to Jesus and said, “My life’s not working.  It’s clear you’re a man of God.  I need to hear a clear word of God and get my life on track.”
And what does Jesus reply to Nicodemus?  “I tell you for certain that you must be born from above before you can see God’s kingdom” (John 3:3, CEV).

Jesus’ statement tells us two vital things about the meaning of life.  First, the meaning of life can only come from “above.”  It has to be something over you.  It has to be something bigger than you.  You can’t find true meaning in life based on you, your own experiences, and your own meanings.  You are not big enough to sustain true meaning of life.

That’s what Grant and Nicodemus had tried and failed doing.  Their meaning of life wasn’t over them, or bigger than themselves.  If your meaning in life is bigger than you—over you—then when you have a bad day, or get a negative diagnosis, or whatever, you determine the little meanings of those events by the larger meaning of life that is over you and covers you.  The true meaning of life is born from above—top down.

And the other thing we learn about the meaning of life from Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus is that it has to be about God’s kingdom.  It’s so important to hear this statement of Jesus:  “...before you can see God’s kingdom.”  The meaning of life ultimately has to do with seeing God’s kingdom—God’s activity—in your life.

So, when you experience an everyday or catastrophic event, the question is not, “What does this mean...to me?”  The better question is, “How am I seeing God and God’s kingdom at work in this event?”  The best, over-arching meaning of life has to do with the vision—the seeing—of God’s kingdom all around you and through you.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  In one sentence, there is the meaning of life.  It is one meaning of life for all people in all situations.  It is top down.  It is over-arching.  It has to do with that which is much bigger than ourselves.  It keeps our focus outward—looking for/seeing God’s kingdom and God’s activity, rather than inward on our selves.

Can you imagine what a huge world opens up when you start seeing the kingdom of God—the activity of God—all around you?  Can you imagine how your world changes if you seek the kingdom of God first?  Not just in your life, but in all that is happening.  Can you imagine the meaning in life that can be had when its absolutely about the kingdom of God, and not about your own puny, little kingdom?

if you seek first the kingdom—the activity—of God in and around your life, you won’t be leaning on your pastor’s office door asking about the meaning of life.

Monday, June 11, 2018

My Final Four Sermons: The Dirty Harry Gun

"My Four Last Sermons:  The Dirty Harry Gun"
Psalms 61:1-4

We are all pretty fragile.  It's one of the main lessons I've learned about people during 40 years of ministry.  No matter how tough we think we are, no matter how much of an "I've-got-it-all-together" exterior we show the world, no matter how much we play the rugged individual role in our relationships, there is something that will come along and shatter each one of us.  We will be broken.  It's part of what it means to truly be human—to recognize how fragile we really are.

I have seen, over and over again, that life is precious.  And it is precious because it is so precarious.  All's it takes is a moment—just one single moment—and our bone china lives teeter and fall to the floor, and we find what we thought to be our priceless lives in pieces.

And the main lesson I’ve learned is not only about our fragility and brokenness.  It’s mainly what we do when we are broken.  There are two kinds of broken people I’ve dealt with through 40 years of ministry: those who ask for help, and those who don’t.


Bob was a student at a community college in a town where I was pastor.  Somehow he and I met, he introduced me to his girlfriend, who he had met at the college their freshman year.

Bob was an interesting kid.  He had a lot of musical talent.  One of which was being an Elvis impersonator.  And he was good at it.  He had the voice down.  And all the hip shimming moves.  He could really work it.  He entertained a lot of the kids at the community college in impromptu performances at the dorms or student union.

The only thing that was a bit odd about his Elvis impersonations was that Bob had rusty red hair and a face full of freckles.  He didn't use a black wig.  He just coiffed his own red hair in an Elvis fashion.  But he was still good.

He and his girlfriend started coming to the church where I was the pastor, and they were fairly regular their whole freshman year.  Which is odd, because most college kids pretty much ditch church once they go away to college.

The first year of college went by fast for Bob and his girlfriend.  They kept in touch with me during the summer, and even showed up at church once or twice, traveling the distance from their respective home towns to come see me and be at church.

Once their second year started, they showed back up at church, beaming and holding hands.  It looked like it was going to be another stellar year for the both of them.

But a couple of months into the semester something happened.  Bob's girlfriend found someone else.  As much as she thought she was attached to Bob, she was "totally in love" with the other guy.  She broke up with Bob.

I didn't know all this until Bob called me in the middle of the night one night.  It was after midnight.  I answered the phone.  Bob said, "You gotta come over and you gotta come now!  Please!  Come now!"

Bleary eyed, I got dressed and drove to the mobile home where Bob was living.  I knocked on the door.  He told me to come in.

When I walked in, Bob was sitting on the couch, and had a Dirty Harry gun to his head.  You know, one of those 44 magnum pistols.  I had seen one in a couple Clint Eastwood movies, but had no scope of how big of a pistol those things actually are until I saw Bob holding it to his head.  I was suddenly, fully awake.

He was crying.  Nay, sobbing.  And he was beside himself.  Which is a weird expression.  How can you be beside yourself?  If anybody could, Bob was, that night.  He first blurted out that his girlfriend, whom he thought he was going to marry, had broken up with him and told him about the other guy she was in love with.

In the instant of that conversation with his girlfriend, Bob was shattered.  Totally broken.  The number one reason teenagers and young adults commit suicide is because of boyfriend/girlfriend problems.

Bob felt his life was over.  The past year and a half with his girlfriend seemed, now, like a sham.  Everything had been useless, and all meaning for the present was gone.  Not only that, but the future Bob had created in his mind with his girlfriend was now totally wiped out.  In his mind, there was nothing left to live for.  Life was over, and he was ready to end it with a single blast to the head with his 44 magnum.

Needless to say, I was scared spitless.  All the training in the world doesn't prepare you for the power of emotion that is surging in a suicidal person, and in the person trying to stop the suicide from happening.

I started praying in my own head, begging God to give me wisdom and words to say that would diffuse Bob, and keep him alive.  I calmed all my nerves, so that my anxiety would not fuel Bob's over amped anxiety.  I tried to become a non-anxious presence.

Bob was a good kid.  As a college kid, he had let me into his world.  I cared for the kid.  I didn't want to see his head split open, and brains splattered up against the far wall of his tiny mobile home.

But after about a half hour of talking with Bob, the gun still to his head, he jumped into a fugue state.  If you don't know what that is, it's basically a psychotic break with reality.  Bob started moving in and out of three different personas.  He'd sit on the couch and talk with me for a couple of minutes, seemingly himself, but then suddenly jump up and he was Elvis singing one of Elvis' songs, gyrating his hips.
Are you lonesome tonight,
do you miss me tonight?
Then he'd just as quickly fall down on the couch, pull his knees up to his chest, start sucking his thumb saying in baby talk, "I want my mommy."  Then he'd jump up again as Elvis.
It's now or never,
Come hold me tight
Kiss me my darling,
Be mine tonight
Then sit back down and whine out, "What am I going to do without her, Steve?"  All the while he's also threatening to pull the trigger, and I'm trying to find ways to talk the gun away from him.

That went on for another 45 minutes.  It seemed like 45 hours.  It was one of the most bizarre things I've witnessed.

It takes a lot of energy to maintain a fugue state, and stay in a psychotic break.  Bob finally started tiring, after a couple of hours.  I was able to finally talk him into handing me over the gun.  I took it, pulled all the bullets out of it, and stuffed it down the back of my pants.  That was weird, having such a large gun aimed at my butt, but I was so relieved to get it out of Bob's hands, I didn't care.

I asked Bob if he had any other guns in the home, or any other weapons.  He didn't.  After talking with him another hour, and his fugue state disappeared, I called his parents and took him to the hospital on a psychiatric admit, and had the nurses put him on suicide watch.  His parents came to town later that morning, and took him home.

I put Bob's 44 magnum in a cabinet in my office, on one of the tall upper shelves, way back in a corner, where hopefully no one could get at it.  You'd think I would have been exhausted and slept the next couple of days.  But all the emotions I had suppressed in order to get through that experience all came flooding out.  I went over and over and over again, every moment of that experience with Bob, thinking about everything I said.  I thanked God it ended like it did, and that God was with us, but wondered if I did everything right.  What would have happened if it ended badly?

And I thought about Bob and how fragile and broken he had become so quickly.  How quickly his world was shattered.

It wasn't the only time I talked someone down from a suicide attempt.  Those were rare instances, thank God.  But as rare as they were, there were many, many others, who, even though they never became suicidal, were nonetheless broken by life.  Meaning as they knew it had become shattered.  And hope only seemed like a word that had no connection with the real, disastrous world.  (I'll say more about finding the meaning of life next week.)

Finding the meaning of life is more of a long term question with a long term search for an answer.  With Bob, it was more about trauma.  How do you get through sudden, destructive, and unexpected trauma?  How do you face life that has suddenly demonstrated its fragility?  How do you keep standing when the foundation you thought you had laid in life starts shaking and shifting so violently?

I have been so thankful, privileged really, to all those who have asked me to walk with them through their trauma.  Through their very worst day.  Through that which has the power to evoke the most fear in us.

That fear is not about death.  The fear is about annihilation.  It is the fear that what is being experienced has the power to erase us totally, and make it like we didn't exist at all.

There is only one way to get through that kind of experience.  Anne Lamott wrote a book on prayer titled, Help.  Thanks.  Wow.  She says that those are the only three authentic prayers.

In her section on "Help," she wrote,
…when we finally stop trying to heal our own sick, stressed minds with our sick, stressed minds, when we are truly at the end of our rope and just done, we say the same prayer.  We say, "Help!"

Asking for help is what I have found to be the only way to get through the debilitating trauma of any crisis.  When I am talking with someone under the weight of this kind of trauma, one of the questions I ask is, "What are the resources you have to help you through this?"  And by resources, what I am hoping to hear in their answer is God and other people.  If I don't here anything like that, I know this is going to go badly.

That's one of the great things about being part of the community of a congregation.  It's certainly one of the great things about being a child of God.  That when we say, "Help," in the middle of some trauma we have a God, and we have God's people who come running.

The people I have felt so sorry for are those who do not have anything like a church, or have cut themselves off from God, and when they say, "Help," there is no one there.  They know no one's going to be there, so they might not even say, "Help."  And they stay broken and unhealed.  They stay in tiny fragments, and have no one to help put the pieces back together again.  They never recover because they don't have that one, little word (Help) as a resource.


About a year and a half or two years after my night with Bob and his Dirty Harry gun, he showed up in my office.  He had come just to visit me and tell me thanks for for being there for him.  He didn't remember hardly anything from that night.  But that day, two years later, he looked great.  Fresh.  New.  He told me about what he'd been up to, the therapy he had gotten, how much God meant to him, and that he was even starting a new relationship with a different girl.

And then he said, "I'm ready."
I said, "Ready for what?"
He said, "Ready to have my gun back.  Do you still have it?  I wouldn't be mad if you had gotten rid of it."
My stomach did a bit of a flip-flop, but he looked really good.  I prayed to God that I was doing the right thing.  So I got up, opened the cabinet door, reached back, and brought out the 44 Magnum.  No bullets, though.  The gun was empty.  I said, looking at the gun and then at Bob, "You're sure?"
Bob nodded.  I handed over the gun.

We talked a little more.  We prayed together, and Bob left.  I never saw him again, but I will always, always remember that night.  And will always remember that a person who was in pieces was now put back together, by the grace and power of God, because he was willing to cry out for help.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

My Final Four Sermons: Floyd

"My Last Four Sermons:  Floyd"
Acts 4:36; 9:26-27

Most of the people I've met over my 40 years of ministry, who had the most  Godly personalities, had no idea they had it.  Floyd was one of those people.

Floyd was one of the members of the first church I served.  He was 82 when I arrived on the scene.  He was a little wisp of a man.  Maybe 5'8".  Probably 130 pounds dripping wet.  His clothes hung on him like they were hand-me-downs from an older, much bigger brother.  A 10 MPH wind would have blown him over.

Floyd's last name was Hogg—H o g g.  Floyd Hogg.  Floyd had a son, Dale, who lived in Rolla, Missouri.  Dale was embarrassed by that last name, and when he was old enough, he had Hogg legally changed to Hoge—H o g e.  Floyd was disappointed in his son for making the change.  Floyd had grown up with that name his whole life.  And, sure he had heard all the taunts as a kid.  But he was proud of it, nonetheless.  Floyd just kept that disappointment to himself.  I was the only one Floyd told about his disappointment in his son for changing his name.

One of Floyd's dreams was getting to see the Grand Canyon.  For his 83rd birthday, one of his sons took Floyd to fulfill that life long dream.  When Floyd got back, I asked, "So, Floyd, what did you think?"
Floyd said, "Steve, that's some ditch!  That's some ditch!"

Floyd was a retired mail man.  The stories told about Floyd were that he carried more candy and milkbones than he did mail in his mail bag.  He'd go up and down the streets of that small town like a parade leader, with kids and dogs in procession.  In fact, some dogs would wait at the mailbox for him everyday, as if they had a built-in Floyd clock for his delivery.  Once they got their milkbone, off they'd go about their dog-day's business, tail wagging.

Floyd, walking his mail route, was better than the ice cream man for the kids.  Floyd didn't even need to play any hurdy gurdy music to attract attention.  He just had to walk by and there were kids with eager hands for a piece of candy.  Then the kids would walk in step with Floyd a couple of blocks and Floyd would let them put the mail in the mail boxes.

Floyd sang in the church choir.  The only problem was, he was tone deaf.  And true to people who are tone deaf and don't realize it, he sang louder than anyone else.  You could definitely hear him, and pick out the ambling tune he was singing that had nothing to do with the song the choir was singing.

When I arrived, the choir director had evidently had enough with Floyd's tuneless bucket carrying.  She asked me to ask Floyd to not sing in the choir anymore.  One of the things I discovered about Floyd was that he was a man of the Bible.  He had been Bible reading and Bible studying his whole 82 years.  So in a stroke of pastoral genius—one of my only strokes of genius in 40 years of ministry—I told Floyd I needed him to teach the adult Sunday School class.  The only problem was, he'd have to give up the choir.  Without a second thought, he took me up on my offer.  Choir problem solved.  And I gained one of the best Bible teachers I've known.

One of the guilty pleasures Floyd and I shared was root beer floats.  He loved root beer floats.  So do I.  So Floyd and I would get together, often, and quaff our floats while we played Chinese Checkers.  He loved Chinese Checkers.  I'm not sure how many evenings we got together for that ritual of friendship.  And I’ll never forget the conversations Floyd and I had, and how much they meant to me, how much I learned from him, and he had no idea.

It's one of the reasons I have been teaching the CREW night kids how to play Chinese Checkers.  It brings back those great memories of Floyd and I sitting at either of our kitchen tables.  Maybe I'm hopefully passing a little bit of Floyd along to these current day kids.  It has also been a fun way to bring my ministry to a full circle—starting out playing Chinese Checkers with Floyd, and ending with playing that same game with the kids.

Towards the end of my second year in that church, I took a week of study leave in St. Louis.  During that week, Floyd suddenly came down with pneumonia, and they took him by ambulance to Asbury hospital in Salina.  I kept in touch with Dale, Floyd's son, who said Floyd was holding his own.  I stopped in Salina on my way back from study leave, anxious to see how Floyd was doing, and got to the hospital just in time before Floyd died.

Sunday morning, I could barely talk.  I didn't preach.  I didn't lead worship.  I just sat on the steps in the front of the sanctuary and talked and cried about Floyd and asked them to share memories of Floyd.  They all looked at me, as they usually did, with stupid expressions on their faces, not knowing why I was crying, and what the big deal was.

I left that worship service so angry.  Those stupid and blind and calloused people had no idea who Floyd was.  How powerful he was in his abject humility.  How he was like that congregation's guardian angel and they had no clue.  I wanted to strangle every one of their stiff necks.

I decided, that Sunday, that I couldn't make it in that church without Floyd.  The next day I started the process of getting the heck out of there.  I ended up moving out to California, to get as far away from that church in these United States as possible.  Three years later, the presbytery went in and closed that Godforsaken church.


I'm telling you about Floyd because I learned in that church, with Floyd by my side, I wasn't going to be able to do ministry alone.  I needed someone to lean on.  I needed a go-to person, who would tell me the truth, who would pat me on the back when I was down, who would kick me in the butt when I was too far down.  In a word, I the pastor needed a pastor.

Most ministers have a person like that, but they are more often than not another pastor.  I've had one person like that who is another pastor.  But mostly I would chose a person in my congregation to be my pastor.  A solidly planted, humble leaning post I needed to keep going on doing what I was trying to do in the ministry.

Floyd was my first pastor in the ministry.  He never knew it.  I never told him.  I did the same in every church I've served.  Someone has been my pastor, holding me up, keeping me going, even at times when I felt like giving up.  None of them have ever known what they meant and continue to mean to me.  The pivotal role I gave them in my life.

In another church it was Clara Stevens.  In another, Nan Swanson.  In another, Mabel Kuster.  In another, it was Byron Walker.  (The first time I drove to Wichita from here, and went by the Byron Walker Wildlife Refuge, I broke down crying.  The two Byron Walker's weren't the same person, of course, but just seeing his name, and remembering how the Byron Walker I knew tied on with me and kept my ship from going down in the darkest time of my ministry, was too much.  But that part of my story I will tell in the last sermon of these four.)


What I learned, in my short time with Floyd, was what I've already said.  I was going to need someone like Floyd in every church I served if I was going to make it out of the church business alive.  I was going to need a Floyd, a Mabel, a Byron.

But not just me.  All of you need a Floyd.  Not just a person.  Not just a friend.  A Floyd.  A powerfully Christian person, who has their head on straight, who knows God intimately, who, as the writer of the book of Hebrews says, is one of those angels we entertain unawares.  A humble person whose humility shields their eyes to their own greatness and power and Godliness.

A Barnabas.  Barnabas was that for the Apostle Paul.  Paul was a first class jerk.  A tormentor of Christians.  Anne Lammot wrote in one of her recent books, "The opposite of faith is not doubt.  The opposite of faith is surety."  She described what she meant was that it's the people who are so arrogantly sure of themselves, so sure they are right, so sure they carry the right opinions about everything—they are the ones who do most harm to the church and the rest of the faithful.

That's the kind of person Paul was.  One of those people who knew for sure his way was the right way, and everyone else needs to get on board with him.  People like the early Christian leader Stephen paid with his life at the hands of Paul's surety.

It wasn't until the risen Jesus literally knocked Paul off his high horse of surety, that he finally realized he had been totally wrong all along.  What a terrible realization to come to.  That you spent your whole life up to that point doing the exact wrong thing with your life.

But after Paul had given his life to Jesus, nobody trusted him.  Not the Christians he had been persecuting.  And not the Jewish leaders Paul had been serving and now turned his back upon.  The only thing Paul knew at that point in his life was that Jesus had given him a second chance.  But how was he going to take advantage of that if no one in the church was going to give him a chance?

Enter Barnabas.
Then Barnabas took Paul under his wing. He introduced Paul to the apostles and stood up for him, told them how Paul had seen and spoken to the Master on the Damascus Road and how in Damascus itself he had laid his life on the line with his bold preaching in Jesus’ name.

Without Barnabas, Paul would have never made it into the church and into the ministry.  It took someone who believed in Paul, who saw what God was doing, who was not just in tune with Paul but in tune with God to recognize what was needed.

Barnabas' name means, "son of encouragement."  That's what he was for Paul, and so many others in the early church.

And that's my point.  That's what I learned from God in my very first, but disastrous church as pastor.  I needed a Barnabas.  I needed Floyd.  And Mabel.  And Byron.  And all the others.  I needed a humbly strong person, and I needed to allow that person to shepherd me, to teach me, to lead me, to be my pastor.

Don't we all need a Barnabas?  A Floyd.  Some one who gets it.  Someone who has a life long relationship with the Lord.  Someone who sees with God's eyes.  Someone who feels with God's heart.  And they'll never know.  They'll never know what they mean to you, because you never tell them, because if you do it'll ruin it.  You just smile a thank you to God for putting them in your path and making them a part of your journey.

And who knows.  Maybe, unbeknownst to you, you are Floyd for someone else.