In God We Trust?

This penny appeared in the offering basket at Operation Nightwatch last Sunday night.

It reminds me of something Mr. Behrens said perhaps 55 years ago. Mr. Behrens was principal of St. Paul's Lutheran school in rural Nebraska, my school for the first eight years of my education. All our U.S. coins and currency bear the words In God We Trust. Mr. Behrens pointed out how the more of them we have in our pockets, the less we seem to trust in God.

That was before sports stars and rock stars and Wall Street stars made millions and billions.

Lately, I wonder whom we trust and how much.

Consider what we can't do because we don't have the money (bear in mind, that "we don't have the money" often comes across as "it might hurt the economy"):

1. Be the leading innovator and global example for renewable energy, all sorts of new technologies and replacing throw-away lifestyles with sustainable ones.

2. Provide universal health care cheaper than we do it now non-universally.

3. Provide ourselves with transportation and infrastructure that doesn't increasingly make us look like a thrid-world nation.

4. Begin planning for the implications of global climate change (even if it's 100% non-human caused, climate change will require nearly everything about our lives to change in some way; the sooner we plan and prepare, the less disruptive and costly it will be).

5. Work increasingly toward non-military responses to terrorism, poverty and ignorance. I'm dead certain that they would be far cheaper and far more effective, both in the near-term and long-term, than what we are doing now--which, by the way, we can't afford.

We seem to be approaching the world from one perspective only, that of scarcity. We are afraid there won't be enough so we withdraw from embracing the world of possibilities. Our actions seem to say that we trust our dollars and not our God. Are we more motivated by fear than love?

I'd love to be wrong about this.

What do you think?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Roger

Five Barley Bagels

Five barley bagels. No, the next lines don't lead to "And a partridge in a pear tree."

Jesus once fed 5K people with five barley bagels. And two cans of tuna. When all was said and fed, his students policed up 12 bushels of leftovers from the picnic grounds. They were so blown away by this incredible multiplication of gifts that they didn't even notice the 14 black plastic bags. The bags were huge, some 50-gallon size. And stuffed. The rabbi's students walked right past 'em, left 'em lying out there on the grass.

But the people from Cornerstone Church went gleaning on the picnic grounds. They found those 14 bags and delivered 'em to where they belonged. Bags were stuffed with coats, sweatshirts and blankets.

My friend Kevin delivered 'em to Operation Nightwatch last night. Filled up the whole bed of his F250 pickup. Some were a challenge to carry up the two flights of stairs leading to the third floor storage area.

In one fell swoop, Cornerstone Church just out-donated dozens if not hundreds of other churches. No committee proposal or big debate. Somebody just went ahead and did it: asked people to go through their closets.

Pastor Barry was pretty modest about it. He says it says something when this much warm clothing can be found just lying around unused in our closets and garages. Some folks for sure went out and spent money to buy things for other people, either new or from thrift stores and garage sales. But Pastor Barry says even his generous folks still have some way to go before reaching the level of Philippians 4: giving until they themselves have "need".

Maybe. But his people are far ahead of most of us. Makes a person wonder what we might do here if we gave as the folks in Philippi did. Even the folks at Cornerstone Church.

Why, we could be walking around lucky and not even know it.

We could be walking around wildly wealthy. And not even know it.

Give thanks in peace!

Pastor Roger

Christmas According to Mark

When Jean and I lived in Turkey, we would occasionally visit Istanbul. I remember walking past the Consulate of the Soviet Union several times. It had a heavy steel gate around it. At the gate was a guard shack and a room about the size of this garage. A bronze plaque near the entrance to the room proclaimed Zal Ozhidaniya ("Hall of Waiting").

I often joked, "Yeah, I'll bet there's ozhidaniye going on in there alright. Hour after hour after hour. . . Waiting is something modern folks don't do well, especially with the advent of online shopping, a 24-hour news cycle and instant messaging.

OK, a few days back I asked people to read the Christmas story in the Gospel According to Mark. By now, everybody must think, "Well, he must have meant Matthew, not Mark. There is no Christmas story in Mark."

Exactly my point.

But there is really a Christmas story in Mark. It just looks different. Consider this. In Mark, there is :

1. No genealogy.

2. No annunciation to Mary.

3. No magnificat.

4. No angel Gabriel telling Joseph to take Mary (with child) as his wife.

5. No stable and manger.

6. No shepherds abiding in the fields.

7. No Magi from the East. So that means no star seen in the East. No gifts.

8. No slaughter of the innocents by Herod.

9. No flight of the Holy Family into Egypt.

10. No presentation in the temple and Nunc Dimittis by Simeon.

11. No boy Jesus at the age of 12 staying behind in the temple in deep discussions of the Torah while his parents walked a whole day's journey.

12. No water turned into wine in Cana of Galilee.

None of the above. But here's what Mark does have in the first 15 verses:

1. Mark says it's a good news story and that Jesus is Messiah and Son of God.

2. There's a prophetic reference, actually from Malachi, not Isaiah.

3. John the baptizer is preaching a baptism of repentance.

4. John is wearing the attire of a true prophet like Elijah. (In the Passover seder ritual, a door is left open so that if Elijah returns he can enter the house; the return of Elijah will signal the arrival of Messiah and a new messianic age. If Elijah's here, so is the age.)

5. Jesus is baptized by John and the Spirit descends to identify him.

6. Jesus is immediately tempted in the wilderness w/o food and water--just like Elijah.

7. John is arrested.

8. Jesus takes up the prophetic mantle and returns to Galilee calling people to repentance and to believe in the good news that the kingdom of God has come near.

The kingdom of God is Mark's Christmas. The kingdom of God is what Jesus proclaimed. It was the hallmark of his ministry. Today it seems like a present that we have never unwrapped.

What are we waiting for?

I hear people on radio and TV talking about "the Christmas season". They universally refer to the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas when they talk about the Christmas season. But wait, doesn't the season of Christmas begin after Christmas?

What do we have before Christmas? We have Advent, a time of waiting, a time of preparing, a time of living in the kingdom of God. Followers of Christ in the time of Mark referred to their core beliefs and the life they led them to lead as "The Way".

Maybe we should wait to celebrate Christmas until we have actually experienced Advent. Maybe we should wait to celebrate Christmas or even speak the word until we have lived Advent, until we have figured out what The Way and the kingdom of God are.

Mark's gospel has no traditional birth narrative. But it does have Easter. It does have the kingdom of God. Should we have any trouble figuring out the implications of relative importance from that?

Happy journeying on The Way! Awesome Advent to you and yours! It won't be Christmas until we figure out what the kingdom of God is--another 34 days or as long as it takes in the Zal Ozhidaniya.

Shalom,

Roger

Uncle Sam Wants You

We often say that we owe our freedom to our soldiers. Some of our honored veterans of military service are in this picture of the recent Living History Day at Milwaukie, OR High School. Thanks, sisters and brothers!

We owe our freedom to our military?

That may be true of Gen. Washington's Continental Army which lost most battles but won the campaign by being an insurgency, not much of a military force. It may be true of WWII.

As a Cold War veteran during the Vietnam era, I think that our military--especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan today--contribute to our safety and security. That is, provided that the net result of these wars is not an overall increase of extremism and terrorism. The jury is still out on that.

But only we can keep ourselves free as a people. We do that by vigorously exercising the rights and responsibilities of citizenship: informing ourselves, educating ourselves, expressing ourselves, asking questions, seeking answers and solutions, and communicating regularly with our neighbors as well as our representatives and leaders in government. It also requires us to hold our sources of information every bit as accountable as we do our leaders and our own family members. There is no substitute for honesty. Anywhere.

That requires us to actually know something about what is going on. That requires us to invest some sweat equity to acquire actual information and to process that into some kind of knowledge. That requires us to do more than simply hold opinions which are plentiful and free-of-charge. How well are your fellow Americans doing that?

Take this little self-test as a starter. Then see how your friends and neighbors do.

Test your knowledge with 12 questions: http://pewresearch.org/politicalquiz/quiz/index.php

Still think we are a free people? Are terrorists the only ones who hate our freedoms? Do we deserve the service of the people in harm's way on our behalf today?

As Jesus said, "Watch and pray."

Pax,

Roger

Christmas in the Gospel According to Mark

It's here. It's been here for a while already. The True Value hardware store I frequent, mainly because it has a selection of fasteners I have never found on the shelf anywhere else in my life, had its Christmas lights and displays out in early October.

Yes, there's a life-size Santa Claus seated in a recliner. His motorized head scans slowly left and right. I say words to him each time I pass. I won't print them.

Every year as we enter this part of our culture--and modern Christmas is really about commercial culture, not about Christ--I encounter those rare individuals who seem to thrive on it. I'm always amazed by them and wonder, "If this didn't exist (tinsely decorations, advertising, etc.), would our lives be joyless? Or would we in fact discover a lasting source of 'Joy To The World'?"

Our modern celebration of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem does not coincide with the date of his birth. Long ago it got plopped onto a pagan festival of the winter solstice, which by definition is very different in the Northern Hemisphere from what's going on in the Southern Hemisphere. Snow and reindeer? Not in Australia, Argentina, Namibia.

Maybe we should lift up the layers of tradition to look at what lies beneath. So here's a challenge. Read the Christmas story in the Gospel According to Mark. Read it and meditate on it this week. Then get back to me. As you meditate, here's a little Northern Hemisphere poem for the season:

A Time Between

Christmas is a time between
It's not yet the New Year, nor really the old
It's pre-income tax, it's post-Halloween
It's long before springtime, it's winter, it's cold.

Christmas is a time for joy. And peace. And love.
We save these all for one brief day
For the time between designed to remove
The burden of failure, of losing our way.

"Give love for Christmas this year!"
by the sign in the store I am told.
How much it will cost, how long it will wear?
Am I too late? Am I too old?

"Sorry! We're all out of love this Christmas.
Come back next year when it's sold."
But it's long before springtime.
It's winter. I'm cold.

Happy exploring in the Word according to Mark.

Stay warm!

Roger

My little friends

I love little piggies. Of all the creatures we had on the farm when I was growing up (a few steers and heifers for beef, 500-600 laying hens, Muscovy ducks, a Guernsey milk cow, a tired Shetland pony, cats, dogs and hogs), the little oinkers we by far my favorite.

Contrary to popular urban myth, they don't like to be dirty. In hot weather they need to stay cool. But clean the pen and provide fresh straw for little feeder pigs, and you can find no more joyful and grateful creatures on earth.

As a group, they would agree on one corner of the pen to do their business in first. When that was thoroughly soiled, they would move to the next and the next. It was a sad day for them when they had to use their remaining sleeping quarters for their bathroom. And when the opportunity finally came for us to clean the whole thing, they would run and play like the happiest kids when school lets out. (That was before video games paralyzed our children.)

We Americans are chronic complainers, I think. And yet, we are the most empowered people on earth in so many ways. We get to choose where we spend our dollars. A week ago I needed some clear tape for shipping cartons and some strapping (filament) tape. I went to the local Fred Meyer grocery/variety. I had my choice between tape made in China, or clear tape from Canada and strapping tape made in the USA. I bought the North American products for several reasons:

1. They were shipped a far shorter distance.
2. They would have been manufactured to higher standards of quality.
3. They would have produced less industrial waste handled more responsibly.
4. They would have been made with cleaner electric power.
5. They would have given somebody on this side of the globe a job.
6. They were more expensive.

You get what you pay for.

Yeah, the label of these little piggy banks says, "Made in China". They are in the grocery store where we buy most of our food. Most of that still comes from here, fortunately.

If I'd gone to Wal Mart, I'm sure I would not have had a choice between North American or Chinese tape.

Save money. Live better. Wal Mart.

Not always. Every choice is a voice. Every dollar is a vote. We're staring a "jobless recovery" in the face. There's no secret trap door for our economy like there is in this Chinese piggy bank.

There will only be jobs for our neighbors nearby when we buy what our nearby neighbors make. When they buy what we make.

Every choice is a voice. Every dollar is a vote for what the world and our country will look like in the future. We have incredible power over those choices.

You get what you pay for.

Pax,
Roger

Veterans' Day

I'm married to the daughter of a World War II veteran. I wish my father-in-law Herb were here today for me to thank him again for his service and his daughter. My sister-in-law is married to a Vietnam vet. My two brothers served in the Army National Guard. My best male friend in life, Jack Moore, was a Cobra pilot in Vietnam and won his final battle with his last breath on March 29. My friend and schoomate of 12 years was KIA in Vietnam on 5 April 1968. My great uncle N.O. Wittmann was a WWII pilot and went on to a Navy career that eventually put him in charge of maintenance of U.S. Navy aicraft in the Pacific, including the one in which Sen. John McCain was shot down.

N.O. Wittmann, Jr., his son, was my second cousin and gave his life in Vietnam in August 1967.

I fought the Cold War, helping to keep it from becoming hot. I served three years, 11 months and 28 days. This portion of my life changed my life forever.

I've been to Washington, DC many times but only once on a Veterans' Day. That was in 1997 to take photos for the multi-media segment of the play I was writing and would stage 11 years ago this month. It was an incredibly moving three days. If I could be anywhere on this earth today besides my own house, it would be in Washington, DC for another Veterans' Day.

In 1997, my head and heart were so filled with hundreds of emotions and thousands of sights and images that I literally could not sleep. Finally, I gave in to the stirrings in my head and heart and got up at 4 AM to write. One of those pieces was the following, and I dedicate it today to Narvin (both of them), to Wes, to Jack, to Les, and to my college fraternity brother Lyle who served in U.S. Army Special Forces and was laid to rest today in Omaha:

A Time of Changing Leaves

In a time of changing leaves,

In a time of leaves that bleed the colors

of the seasons all

We pass and place our fingertips into

Familiar spellings on the Wall

Of those whose journey passed its outer marker

just a little sooner than our own

In a time of changing leaves.

In a time of changing leaves,

In a time of leaves that shed their passing quietly

Upon the earth once more,

We are again confronted

by the passing of ourselves

Even the passing of our passing...

Whose familar letters?

Whose the names well-worn into our hearts?

And whose the memories that rain again into the earth,

One by one

Day by day

Year by year,

Now in a time of changing leaves?

One day, no one shall come here

Who has ever heard the voice of any

Upon these sacred walls.

And yet, they shall keep coming

To pause, and to pray in passing

When all have taken their turn in passing quietly

Into a time of changing leaves.

Copyright 1997 by Roger D. Fuchs. All rights reserved.

Veterans, thank you! Welcome home. To those no longer with us, we know that you are receiving the best of care in the hands of the One who created you for us.

See you again one of these days. One of these fine days.

Pax,

Roger