Love and Courage

The scriptures referred to are Acts 2:1-11 and 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13.

As they were driving home from church, a mother asked her son, “What did they teach you in Sunday school today?”

He thought for a moment and said, “I'll ask Dad and he will get you another quilt.”

“Really?” said the mother, none the wiser. “OK. But what Bible verse did you learn?”

“That's the verse,” insisted her son. “I'll ask Dad and he will get you another quilt.”

It was a little thing but it bothered the mother. She couldn't remember any verse like that in the Bible. So early that evening, she decided to call the Sunday school teacher and ask her what Bible verse said, “I'll ask Dad and he will get you another quilt.”

There was a puzzled silence on the other end of the call and then the teacher began to laugh. When she regained her composure the teacher said, “The verse is John 14:16: 'I will ask the Father and he will send you another Comforter.'”

Mark Twain said that the difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. And part of the confusion about the Holy Spirit concerns this title, Comforter. It makes him seem all warm and fuzzy. But that's not what the Greek says, nor the original English either. The Greek word is parakletos, and it had a wide variety of meanings. As William Barclay pointed out, its basic use was legal. A parakletos was someone who would defend you in court, either as a lawyer, a character witness, or an expert witness. That's why some translations render it “Advocate” or “Counselor.” The Holy Spirit is someone who takes your side when you are facing judgment. Paul tells us that when we pray, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in groaning or sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:26) It is comforting to know that the Spirit pleads our case before the Father.

Another meaning for parakletos is someone who rallies soldiers when they are dispirited. That's why Wycliffe translated it using the word Comforter. The English word comes from 2 Latin words: com meaning “with” and fortis meaning “courage.” Comforter originally meant “someone who instills others with courage.” I think that's a very good description of what the Spirit does in the second chapter of Acts. Everyone focuses on the miracle of the disciples speaking in tongues. But this is really the first time they proclaim the gospel of the risen Christ to anyone outside their circle.

Ever since Jesus' death the disciples have been holed up in the upper room. Even Jesus' resurrection didn't make them get out to spread the good news. But filled with the Spirit they are emboldened and speak out. It's only after they start that they realize that they are able to communicate with anyone, regardless of their language. Their audience was an assortment of Jews from the Diaspora, the Jewish communities spread throughout the Roman empire, who grew up speaking whatever the native language in their area was.

They had come for Passover and stayed for Pentecost, the harvest festival that falls 50 days after Passover. It is also called the Feast of the First Fruits, when farmers presented the first of their ripened grain to God. So it's appropriate that we see the first fruits of those who hear the gospel. We are told that 3000 converts were made that day.

Every good action begins with courage. Taking the first step to befriend someone takes a bit of courage. Telling others about Jesus takes courage. Refusing to go along with the crowd takes courage. Confronting evil takes courage. Facing up to the evil in yourself takes courage. Changing your life takes courage.

Courage is what separates heroes from those who merely have good intentions. Courage is what turns dreams into reality and dreamers into explorers and inventors and reformers. Courage is what turned a tiny Jewish sect into a faith embraced by people of every language and culture and race and nation. And the Holy Spirit was and is the source of that courage.

That's important because evil people can be courageous, too. But their courage is fueled by arrogance or hatred or greed or rage or, paradoxically, by fear. Ultimately it was the fear of an imagined worldwide Jewish conspiracy that drove the Nazis to genocide. You don't try to wipe out those you have no fear of but those you fear deeply. It was fear of the corrupting influence of the decadent Western culture that drove the Al Qaeda pilots to fly into the World Trade Center.

The courage that comes from the Holy Spirit is rooted in love. Perfect love, as 1^st John says, casts out fear. (1 John 4:18) It is love that gives a mother the courage to defend her kids from a male larger than she. It is love that gives a doctor the courage to enter a plague-infested area and treat the sick. It is love that gives a teacher the courage to educate children in a school disrupted by violence, drugs and despair. It is love that gives us the courage to marry.

Our passage from 1^st Corinthians tells us that we all have gifts from the Spirit. The gifts are varied but they all come from one Spirit and they all serve the body of Christ. And yet fear keeps people from discovering their gifts or, if they know them, from fully exploring and using them.

We might fear being different. Even though our culture glorifies individuality, we don't want to be perceived by our friends and family as being too different from them. We mistake uniformity for unity. And yet, as Paul points out, the oneness of the body is based on quite different parts of the body working together in harmony.

We might neglect our gifts because we fear failure. A coach once said that winning isn't the most important thing; it's the only thing. To which our culture says, “Amen.” It isn't even important what you succeed at. Our society lauds successful gangsters, like Al Capone, successful pornographers, like Hugh Hefner, and even successful cheaters like athletes who use steroids. And the biggest insult in our culture is to be called a loser. So many think “If I don't try, I can't lose.” We forget that one form of failure is the failure to act, especially when inaction allows others to come to harm.

We might even neglect to discover and develop our gifts because we fear success itself. Maybe we shun the spotlight. Or maybe we fear the changes that come with success. We're not sure we can handle all of that. Or maybe we fear that we cannot sustain our success. The only thing worse than being seen as a loser is being seen as a has been., someone who succeeded and then blew it. The internet is flooded with articles with headlines that say, “The reason that Hollywood won't cast_____ anymore.” People love to praise people on the way up and then turn around and disparage them on the way down.

The problem is that we are buying into the world's definition of success. To God, a successful person is one who simply follows him. God judges us on the motives for our actions (Matthew 6:1) and the nature of our actions (Isaiah 1:15-17), not the results. Those we may leave to him.

Although perfect love casts out fear, we are not perfect. A person can't free their self from all fears. But courage isn't the absence of fear; it's the overcoming of it. As poet Piet Hein wrote, “To be brave is to behave/ bravely when your heart is faint./ So you can be really brave/ only when you really ain't.” Ask almost anyone who did something courageous and, if they are honest, they'll probably tell you they were shaking with fright the whole time. Or else that they were so focused on what they felt had to be done that it never occurred to them that what they were doing was dangerous. Hacksaw Ridge is a movie based on the amazing true story of Desmond T. Doss, an army medic in World War 2 who was a devout Christian and a pacifist. In boot camp his fellow enlisted men took his pacifism for cowardice and harassed him. At the brutal Battle of Okinawa, he saved 75 men who were wounded, dragging them to the edge of the ridge while under Japanese fire and lowering them to doctors who could operate on them. He was the first man in American history to be awarded the Medal of Honor despite never firing a shot and the only medic to win both that and a purple heart.

At Pentecost the disciples were so filled with the Holy Spirit that they just had to proclaim the gospel, regardless of the cost. And there were costs. Almost all of the original 12 died as martyrs, mostly in distant lands. They did it out of love—love of God and love for humanity. They couldn't bear letting people perish in moral darkness when they had the light of God's love to share. Everywhere they went, people thought they were mad, bad or dangerous to know. But others listened to them and then to their hearts and said, “This is what we were looking for. This is what we were lacking.”

To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, if you are looking for a comfortable religion, I certainly wouldn't recommend Christianity. But if you are looking for something that challenges you, that inspires and excites and sometimes even scares you, if you are looking for something worth giving your life to and giving up your life for, then take up your cross and follow Jesus. He who dares wins. Pray that the Spirit fills you with the courage that comes from the love of God in Jesus Christ, who risked more than we can imagine to win us back to himself. 

Vine

The scriptures referred to are John 15:1-8.

In an episode of the Star Trek series Enterprise, the crew encounters an alien that for once doesn't look like a human with odd bumps on his forehead. Instead it looks rather like a web except that it grabs and wraps itself around anyone who gets close. The crew who are still free try to figure out how to fight the creature but hurting it hurts the crew members trapped by it. The doctor then tells them that the alien is not merely enveloping people but integrating them into the organism itself. When they finally figure out how to communicate with the creature, they discover it is only part of a much larger organism. It releases the humans it was incorporating into itself and the crew returns it to its home planet where the rest of it is awaiting reunion with it.

The first part of this episode, where people are being absorbed in the alien, is a nightmare. And the reason I bring it up is when we discuss Jesus' metaphor of the vine and the branches, those of us raised in the Western hemisphere with its emphasis on individualism often get uneasy. This is worse than being compared to sheep. Here we are reduced to plant life. Worse, we are compared to parts of a vine, a clinging, creeping thing.

Not so in ancient Israel, where viticulture was both familiar and important. In fact it was so important that a man who planted a vineyard was exempt from military service! (Deuteronomy 20:16) Vineyards were protected from thieves and hungry animals by stone walls and even watchtowers. There were laws concerning vineyards. They had to lie fallow every 7 years. (Leviticus 25:3-4) The owners couldn't pick all of the grapes at harvest time; some were to be left for the poor, like the fatherless, the widow and resident alien. (Leviticus 19:10; Deuteronomy 24:21) So central is the vine that the symbol of Israel's Ministry of Tourism is the giant bunch of grapes brought back by the spies Moses sent to check out the promised land. (Numbers 13:23)

The vine was often used by the prophets as a symbol of Israel. (Isaiah 5:1-7) But they lamented that the choice vine God had planted had become a wild vine yielding sour grapes. (Jeremiah 2:21) That's why Jesus calls himself the true vine. We, as the people of God, are his branches. We are the part that bears fruit. And the fruit is the whole point of the vine.

The reason the ancient peoples so valued vines was that the grapes could be eaten fresh and juicy. Or they could be dried to make raisins, a food that was not only portable but which lasted because they had no refrigeration. And of course, grapes could be made into wine. In a world where there were no other drinks than water, milk and beer, wine was treasured. And wine, taken in moderation, was seen as healthy. They didn't know about flavonoids but they did know wine had medicinal uses. It was the only painkiller and disinfectant around. Plus there were no ads telling them that drinking is cool. Wine was part of everyday life, used by all, abused by a few.

In order to produce good fruit, care must be taken. It is especially important to prune the vine of non-productive branches, so all of the nourishment is directed to the fruitful branches. The lopped-off branches are too thin and flexible to be used for building so they become cheap fuel and are burned.

This is the metaphor Jesus uses to picture our lives in him. We are not free agents, answering only to ourselves. We are connected to him. Our spiritual health, our fruitfulness is directly related to our being in him and him being in us. This language is mystical and hard to understand, so let's look at it through the lens of other things drawn from nature.

Inside each of us, in fact inside every cell in our body, is a lifeform. It has its own DNA, distinct from our own. These lifeforms are mitochondria. They regulate the life and the energy of our cells. Without them we would die. So you could say that we are environments for colonies of mitochondria; we are all worlds inhabited by them. But they are also dependent on us. They do not reproduce by themselves. They are passed on to us from our mothers. Men get their DNA from their mothers but do not pass them on to their children. They are passed instead from mother to daughter. And by taking samples of the mitochondrial DNA of ethnic groups from all over the world, scientists have discovered that we are all related. All of the human beings on earth are descended from the same woman, who lived in southern Africa 150,000 years ago. She is our mitochondrial Eve. (We also have a Y-chromosome Adam, who passed it on to all men.)

So not only are we inhabited by organisms, we are all part of one human family tree. We are all the same species, able to mate with each other, able to donate blood or organs to each other, and able to communicate with each other. We are part of each other.

Similarly, as Christians, we are part of the body of Christ and Jesus is in each of us and in all of us. We are part of him and he is part of us. We depend on him for spiritual nourishment and only through him do we bear fruit. But what is meant by fruit?

In the New Testament, fruit, in the spiritual sense, usually means the qualities that come from leading a godly life. Paul lists the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace patience, generosity, faithfulness, humility and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) Most of these need no explanation. But I have always been intrigued by the inclusion of self-control. If a person is filled with the Spirit, if they are totally God's, how can they be in control of themselves?

In some religions, the person looks forward to the oblivion of the self. In Hinduism and Buddhism, reincarnation is not looked on as a good thing. Instead one longs for the peace of Nirvana, literally the “blowing out” or extinguishing of the individual self and the absorption into the world soul, as a drop of water becomes an indistinguishable part of the ocean. In Christianity, we believe that being one with God doesn't mean ceasing to be yourself. The individual is not a mistake nor an illusion. Personality is not a bad thing. God made us to be ourselves but since we are created in the image of God, then, paradoxically, the more we are like God, the more we are ourselves. (1 John 3:2)

This paradox is found in the very nature of God. God is one but also three. There is one God but it is not an arithmetical oneness. It is the oneness of unity. God is literally love. (1 John 4:8) From the eternal love of the Father for the Son and the Son for the Father flows the Spirit of that love, a communal and yet distinct personality. In the Godhead there is no contradiction between personhood and total unity. And that is true of our union with God. (John 17:20-21) We do not lose who we are as we become part of him but we find ourselves enhanced even as we are changed. We are not like drops lost in the ocean but like pieces of a mosaic, each distinct but each part of a larger image of the God who is love.

So we are capable of self-control and thought even though we are in union with Jesus. Because our union is a matter of choice; it is not like being taken over by a space vine. God does not coerce us; he waits for our consent. He wants us to willingly join ourselves to him. By abiding in him and he in us, we will bear the fruit of his nature.

Dr. Warren Wiersbe has broken down the process into a series of interlocking steps: the secret of living the Christian life is fruit-bearing. The secret of fruit-bearing is abiding in Christ. The secret of abiding in Christ is obeying him.

Again we moderns bristle at the idea of obedience. But it is a part of life. We obey our parents, our teachers, our laws. Even those who divorce themselves from society must obey their instincts and their natures. We are not as free as we imagine ourselves to be.

If athletes wish to excel they put themselves under a coach, whom they obey in just about every aspect of their life: their diet, their sleep, their exercise, their attitude. Only through obedience to their coach can they achieve extraordinary feats of strength, speed and agility. If you wish to learn a skill or a field of knowledge, you put yourself under a teacher or a mentor. In each case we call it a learning a discipline. And Jesus calls us to be his disciples.

So the secret of abiding or remaining in Christ is obeying him. And the secret of obeying him is loving him. It's hard to obey someone whom you do not love and trust. We can obey Jesus because he loves us and cares for us and wants what is best for us, even though our idea of what is best for us is sometimes at odds with his. Only love allows us to surrender our idea of what is good for us to his.

The secret of loving him is knowing him. We love him because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19) We love him because we know what he has done for us and what he is doing in us: creating, redeeming and transforming us. And so we obey him in order that we might learn from him and grow into him.

The process is not easy. There is pruning. That which is not fruitful needs to be cut away. Again the athlete must focus his efforts and energy. That which diverts him from his goal or which detracts from it is eliminated.

Examples of this can be seen in the PBS series Frontier House. In it 3 families volunteered to live as their ancestors, homesteaders, did in 1883. But one family becomes obsessed with eating the amount of food they are used to. They go into debt at the general store to buy more food. They even cheat on the project by walking off the homestead to trade with modern neighbors for meat. Still the family misses protein—and sweets. The average person today eats 150 pounds of sugar a year. That's 3 times what he would have eaten 140 years ago. This had led to a situation in which our kids eat a lot but are malnourished. Fast food is supersizing our kids. With increased obesity comes greater incidence of diabetes, arthritis and asthma. In the richest country on earth we are killing our kids—and ourselves—with surplus and unhealthy food.

At one point the father, concerned that he has lost 30 pounds, sees a doctor. The doctor tells him he used to be overweight. Now he is lean and fit from all his work. His weight is that of a typical man of the 1880s. He is healthier for having given up or pruned away his sedentary, overfed modern life.

Often we confuse what we desire with what we need. That makes it hard for us to jettison extraneous things from our lives. I once saw a poster that said, “I can go without necessities; it's the luxuries I can't do without.” And on Frontier House the women of one family smuggle shampoo and makeup into what is supposed to be a historical recreation. But eventually the children find that they don't miss TV. They find purpose in taking care of the animals and digging and planting. As one boy observes later, in the 21^st century he has a lot and it means very little to him; in a recreated 1883, he had very little but it was all precious. The pruning of unnecessary stuff was good for him.

As science fiction author Robert Heinlein so inelegantly put it, 90% of everything is crap. Whether you agree with him on the percentage or not, it is true that much of what makes up our lives is unimportant. Fashion, entertainment, gossip, and various conveniences often crowd out what is important.

What's worse is that even that which is important can be confused with what is essential. At the end of the Frontier House experiment, historians and experts evaluated which of the 3 families could survive the winter. The essential things were how much food they had put up by canning for themselves, how much hay they had harvested to feed the animals, how much wood they had cut to burn and keep themselves from freezing, and how well they worked together as a team. One family is judged to not be able to to make it physically. Another is judged to have enough supplies but the visible growing strain between the husband and wife make it doubtful that they would be able to survive being cooped up in a one room cabin during the long Montana winter. (Small wonder the rate of domestic violence went up during the pandemic lockdown!) Only one of the 3 families was judged to have been able to make it. And that agrees with the statistics of people's survival at that time.

One father on Frontier House finds something essential. He finds the time to work with and teach his kids and thereby discovers what he was missing while doing his very important and well-paying executive job. And in the end what is essential for us is our relationship with God. Do we know him, love him, obey him, abide in him, and bear the fruit of his Spirit? Are we in him and is he in us? It's our choice. Because only in him do we find life. And only his love makes our lives worth living.

Shepherd

Now that I've retired I will be going through my unpublished sermons and offering them, with some revisions. This one was first preached on April 21, 2002.

The scriptures referred to are Acts 6:1-9, 7:54-60; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10.

Every nation seems to have one period in the past that is particularly associated with it and one profession that is instantly identified as a symbol of that nation. For the British, it's the Victorian era when the sun never set on the empire. The universally recognized profession would be the British policeman called the bobby. For Italians, it might be the Roman empire with the Roman soldier the distinctive profession. For the United States, it's the frontier days of the 1800s and the profession: the cowboy, of course. For Israel, it would be the kingdom of David and the profession would definitely be the shepherd. The patriarchs were all shepherds as was their most popular king. Even though by David's time it was not as central to their economy as it was before, the shepherd held for them the romance and nostalgia that the cowboy does for us.

It was not an easy profession. The sheep didn't graze in fenced off areas. They would be scattered over the plains of Judea to get at the sparse grass. So the shepherd would be on constant watch that the sheep didn't wander off or fall into a ravine or get snatched by a wild animal. The shepherd was armed with his sling, a cudgel and his crook. He would use the sling to chase off predators, as well as to keep the sheep from straying. A good shepherd should be able to fling a stone just in front of a sheep's nose to keep it from getting too far from the rest of the flock. The cudgel or staff, which hung from his belt, was used to beat off wolves and chase away bandits who came to steal and eat the sheep. The crook or rod was used to fish errant sheep out of crevasses. He also would put it across the entrance to the sheepfold where they went at night. This forced the sheep to go in one at a time so he could check each for injuries. Those who were hurt had their wounds anointed with medicinal oil. Then the shepherd would lie across the gateway, so that no sheep could get out without stepping on the shepherd.

This is what we see in Psalm 23 and it's the picture Jesus uses when he refers to himself as the good shepherd. The shepherd is literally the gate; his body is their security. That's why the thief tries to enter by climbing the walls. He's trying not to alert the shepherd. Consequently the shepherd could never sleep too deeply. He would have to be sensitive to any sudden movement in the flock or to any worried bleating.

In the morning the shepherd would lead the sheep out of the gate. He would walk before them and look out for hazards as he led them to good pasture and water. The sheep were usually kept for their wool so the shepherd would have the same sheep for years and give them names by which he could call them. This helped because sometimes 2 shepherds would be forced to shelter their flocks from the elements using the same cave. When the storm passed, they would walk away from each other and call their flocks. The sheep would respond to their particular shepherd's voice and sort themselves.

So the idea of a shepherd spending his time snoozing under a tree is inaccurate. It was, in fact, a tough and demanding job. A shepherd was a guide, a provider of nourishment, a veterinarian, and a protector. He knew each sheep, named it and looked out for it. Which is why Jesus uses the title for himself. And it's why we use that title for those who take care of his followers. After all, pastor is simply the Latin word for shepherd.

There is another word used in today's readings for Jesus. In 1^st Peter he is called the guardian of our souls. In the Greek the word is episkopos. It's where we get the word “Episcopal.” It can be translated as “overseer, guardian, bishop.” But like many words in Greek it means much more.

William Barclay, to whom I am indebted for all of this, points out that, in Homer's Iliad, Hector was the episkopos of Troy. In other words he was the city's champion and defender. The people who supervised public games in Greece and saw that they were fair and honest were also called episkopoi. Governors, administrators, and the people who oversaw public education were called episkopoi as well. So an episkopos is one who guards, supervises, keeps order and administers things for the public good.

As the number of Christians in a city outgrew small house-churches, the need arose for an overseer, a local supervisor and administrator, to cover all the churches in a city and eventually in an entire region. We call them bishops. Other denominations that don't have bishops nevertheless have a similar administrative position. It's like a regional manager. Such a person is an organizational necessity. But the bishop was a later development. First came the deacon.

In Acts we have the story of how the office of deacon was created. A dispute arose between 2 segments of the church. The whole church was Jewish at this point. Some, however, were Hellenists, or Greek-speaking Jews, who had come to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost and were converted when hearing Peter's sermon. They felt they were being slighted by Palestinian Jewish Christians who spoke Aramaic, the common language of the land, which was related to Hebrew. The bone of contention was whether Greek widows were getting their fair share of the daily food distribution.

Apparently, the church was functioning like a synagogue and was following the custom of weekly and daily collections for the poor. 2 people from a synagogue would go around to the local shops and houses on Friday morning before sabbath began and they would collect money and goods for the poor in the congregation. Out of this collection varying amounts would go to needy people to help them through the week. A widow with no means of support would be given enough for 14 meals, or 2 meals a day for a week. This collection was called the kuppah or basket. In addition there was a daily collection for those with urgent needs. That was called the tamhui or tray.

The Greek-speaking Jew in the church felt their native brethren were not being fair to their widows. The apostles, who were called to spread the good news about the Messiah Jesus, didn't want to get bogged down in the daily mechanics of just one ministry. So they asked the whole church to put forward “7 men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom” to be appointed for this task. These came to be known as deacons, from the Greek for “servant, helper, minister.” They became assistants to church leaders. They tended to the poor and the sick, assisted in baptism and especially with the Eucharist or communion. In fact the related Greek verb “to serve” is often used of those who wait on tables. Women also served as deacons. In his letter to the Romans, Paul introduces and praises Phoebe, a deacon from the church at Cenchreae, a port of Corinth. (Romans 16:1) Deaconesses are mentioned prominently in early Christian writings.

So as the church evolved, first came deacons. Later as the apostles planted churches and moved on, they appointed bishops, who were like a synagogue's president of the congregation. Christian priests are not mentioned in the New Testament as such, probably because they didn't come about until after the apostles died. As the faith spread, the number of house-churches per city increased. Eventually the bishop could not visit every one of them every Sunday to preside over the Eucharist. So as the apostles had appointed bishops to lead the churches they left behind, the bishops chose from the elders of the individual churches and anointed one to lead each church and to stand in for them. They represented the bishop to the congregation and they represented the congregation to the bishop. The word for elder in Greek is presbuteros, which over time became the word priest. Thus by the second century AD, we had a three-fold ordained ministry of deacons, priests and bishops.

All of these ministers took on at least some of the functions of a shepherd. The deacons fed the poor and tended to the sick. The priests offered spiritual nourishment and guidance to the local congregation. The bishops oversaw and guarded the larger church.

Today we have seen betrayals by some pastors of the church. In the wave of scandals first exposed among our Roman brethren but now uncovered in Protestant churches as well, we have seen pastors turn from shepherds into predators. And we have seen bishops and other overseers more anxious to guard the institution of the church than those people who actually make up the church. We have seen priests and pastors and evangelists take advantage of their positions to get into sexual relationships with parishioners and people they are supposed to counsel. And they have made it hard for the rest of us clergy by sowing distrust and fear and besmirching the name of Christ.

What they have done in the cases involving children are crimes, and, along with those involving adults, sins as well. The sexual sin is compounded by the sin of abusing the position of trust they are granted as pastors and priests. Regarding those given the work of caring for those in the church, Jesus said, “To whomever much is given, of him much will be required.” (Luke 12:42-48) And in regards to children, he said, “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin. So watch yourselves.” (Luke 17:1-2)

Church leaders would often get offending clerics therapy. And then they would send them to a different parish but essentially the same situation in which they got in trouble. It's like taking an alcoholic just out of rehab and dropping him off at a bar.

Pastors are human but when they misuse their position to prey upon those they should be helping, they not only injure those in their immediate congregations but the church as a whole. And while we expect to see imperfection in others, we hold our clergy to higher standards. And so we should. Yet we should remember that they, like all of us, are fallible sinners. We need to support them as they do a more visible and in some ways harder ministry than most Christians have. But for their part, they need to be honest about themselves. As far as we can tell, pedophilia is not a choice but a disease. In many cases, pedophiles were themselves molested. But if they are not responsible for what they are, they are still responsible for what they do about it, much like alcoholics.

The Miami Herald ran a story about a priest who molested 8 teenage boys. In his case the therapy worked. He saw the pain he caused his victims and felt shame. He voluntarily quit the priesthood and went into another profession. But he says that, like a recovering alcoholic, he will never be cured. So he put himself in quarantine. Even now, retired and living by himself on a farm, he will not allow himself to be alone with a male under 22 years old. Priests are supposed to make sacrifices. This is one who truly knows the meaning of that word.

Saul was a persecutor of the church. He stood aside and watched the stoning of Stephen with approval. He was an accessory to murder. Later, when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, he became a changed man. Once a zealous, hate-filled ultra-observant Pharisee, he became Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles. He wrote the beautiful chapter in 1^st Corinthians about the nature of love. He was always conscious of his sinfulness but he knew that God loves sinners and Jesus died to redeem them. (1 Timothy 1:15) It's safe to say that Paul's motivation was his gratitude that God deigned to save him and use him to bring the good news of God's love and grace to others.

1^st Peter reminds us that we are all part of a priesthood. (1 Peter 2:5) We are all set aside by God to bring his love to others. So we must be aware of our lives and conduct. We must be honest with God and with ourselves. We must confess our sins. We must not flirt with temptations. But we must remember that God uses even sinners to build his kingdom. In fact, he only uses sinners...partly because there are no perfect people around and partly because this is our therapy: learning to love and serve his other lost sheep. He, not you or I, is the true shepherd. His is the voice we must obey. And he says “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13:34) It's a high calling. It's a tough task. But no harder than his. After all, the good shepherd laid down his life for the sheep. Can we not sacrifice a few parts of our lives for him?

3 Chapters!

Just got back but still no new sermon. So here are 3 chapters from the third book I'm writing. 

Special Delivery

The man in the brown shirt and shorts pulled up in a white van with the delivery service logo on the sides. He looked at the area around the door of house in question. He got out, pulled out a pad and looked at it and walked to the porch of the house. He looked left and right, not that you'd notice. He wore wrap-around sunglasses and didn't turn his head. To anyone not paying close attention, he was just doing his job.

He didn't carry a package. He wasn't dropping boxes off; he was picking them up. The one in front of the house's door was large enough to promise a good reward for his efforts. It was heavy too, surprisingly so. Well, then, not just full of those packing pillows to keep the contents from shifting. But when he tried to heft it into his arms, his back started to protest. It was one of the occupational hazards of his profession. He let the box down and thought. Leave it or get the hand truck? This time he swiveled his head from side to side to scan the street to see if anyone was noticing him. Returning to his van and coming back with the dolly might look suspicious. Delivery people were on a tight schedule and therefore efficient and quick.

Seeing no one else on the street, he went to the back of the van, extracted the hand truck, pushed it to the porch and pulled it up the stairs. It would have to be one of the more recent homes in Key West, he sighed to himself. Since the 1980s all houses in the Keys had to be built on stilts to prevent them being flooded during hurricanes, or just heavy rains. And he, like all native Key Westers, or Conchs, still thought of them as new, given that the old town portion of the city was filled with houses that were more than a century old. Of course, the even newer homes were the monstrosities that looked like storage containers on stilts, shoved by the dozen onto to lots that by rights should hold two houses at most. $6000 a month for 900 square feet. All for a piece of paradise. But, as Conchs who had seen their island change over the years would say, Key West is a rich man's paradise and a poor man's hell. It was criminal, he thought.

He got to the top of the stairs, shifted the package onto the hand truck and brought it down the stairs carefully. He still had to lift it into the van when he got it there. Ah, well, he hoped it was worth the trouble.

By the end of the day, the porch pirate pulled his van up to his trailer, and started offloading the fruits of his labors. Once they were inside and the van was parked around the side and the magnetic signs with the faux logo were stowed in the back of the van, he opened a beer and thought about what to open first. The big one was tempting but he thought he might save it for last. So he got out his utility knife and started opening the smaller ones. He netted an array of small electronics, fishing reels, jewelry (cheap stuff; no one orders the good stuff by mail), clothing, some toys (the Spiderman drone would make a good gift for his son), and a large pink, rather frightening sex toy with multiple projections and settings. He stared it at it, trying to imagine how exactly one used it or more realistically, how one would hold it in place if it was in fact doing its job properly. Should he dump it or present it to his girlfriend? Maybe as a joke. He laughed as he imagined her response. She might bludgeon him to death with it. Dump it: no pawn shop would take it.

Now the big box. He slit the packing tape, which he realized was doubled, though the two levels were so perfectly aligned that he hadn't noticed it at first. Why had it been made so secure?

He opened the flaps and saw a reason for the weight of it. Inside was a stryofoam cooler, a large one. Fish? Why would someone ship fish to the Keys? Could he sell them to his buddy Glenn? With his fishing business, he could slip them into his catch when he sells it to the fish market. Better see what kind of fish they are. Non-local fish would be hard to sell.

He lifted the lid and found a layer of packing peanuts and an envelope. Who uses packing peanuts these days? They used to be the bane of his existence. He still found the occasional one in a corner or under his bed.

The envelope on top of the layer of green packing peanuts had “A Gift For You” printed on it. Money? He hoped so. He flipped the envelope over, put his index finger under the flap, and ran it across the back of the envelope to open it.

'Shit!” he yelled. In slitting open the envelope, it had slit open his finger. It bled profusely for a paper cut. He put it in his mouth and then pulled it out and looked at it. It was a clean slice and it immediately oozed more blood that dripped all over everything. He walked to the cabinet over the trailer's kitchen sink and rummaged around for a bandaid. He found the box but it was empty. He grabbed a paper towel and wrapped it around his finger. It soaked through in seconds. “Damn!” He was bleeding all over the floor and his clothes. He went into the tiny bathroom and looked for something to staunch the bloodflow. He found a box with one small bandaid covered with cartoon characters that his girlfriend had picked up for when his son visited. It would have to do.

Now longer shedding blood, he returned to the big package. He gingerly picked up the envelope and then noticed that someone had taped a razor blade to the inside of the envelope. He swore at the joker who did that. But then he noticed the letter inside and the edge of a bill peeking out. Withdrawing the contents with the care of a bomb technician he carefully withdrew the sheet of paper and opened it. There were not one but two $100 bills inside. And a typed message: “Now it's your problem. Here's something for your trouble.”

He felt uneasy. He went to the sink and got a knife from the draining board and used it to flick aside the packing peanuts. When he uncovered the contents he stared in horror. The contents stared back. 

A Dip in the Water

The boat rose and fell with the swells. It was a choppy that night and the porch pirate turned actual seaman for a few hours remembered why, unlike everyone else in the Keys, he never liked going out on the water. He too often got seasick.

He had considered enlisting the help of his friend in the fishing business, Glenn, but he didn't want to involve him. Well, not knowingly. Which is why he “borrowed” his friend's personal boat to take care of the problem that had been dropped on his doorstep. Well, not his doorstep. He considered taping the package back up and returning to the porch where he'd found it it but with people back home from work, it didn't seem to be worth the risk.

He knew where Glenn left his keys and he knew his friend was probably at his favorite bar that night. Or one of the 200 odd bars on the 2 by 4 mile island. He used the key to Glenn's door, grabbed the keys to the boat off the hook next to the door and drove to the place where it was docked. He got the package out of the van, put it in the boat, closed and locked the van. Untying the ropes and getting back in the boat, he shoved off. When he drifted far enough from the shore he turned on the engine and headed out to sea.

He was a competent sailor which made the frequent and sudden seasickness he suffered from the more frustrating. His father had been a fisherman. He was supposed to take over the business. But he couldn't manage the nausea. Dramamine just knocked him out. Gutting the fish made him squeamish too. So he turned to other ways to make a living.

Which made him fume at the sadistic joker who pulled that nasty surprise on him with the package. How could he know he would take it? Porch piracy was not his only gig. Key West was not that big a city and he was known to the cops for other things but not for this. He tended to do this mostly in season, when the population of the Keys swelled with snowbirds. They came down to their second or third homes for the winter months and, given the limited selection of stores here, ordered tons of stuff to be delivered. Especially now with the Sears and the K-Mart, the only “department stores” this far from the mainland, closed. He'd read they were done in by a hedge fund, as had Payless Shoes. Now there was a racket! Anyway, on his days off from his other jobs (you needed at least 2 to afford to live in the Keys) he made the rounds in his van with the fake logos.

Had the maniac behind the package spotted him? But how would he know his schedule? He gave up thinking about it and started on making the problem disappear.

He turned off the engine, figuring he was far enough out that the contents of the package wouldn't be float back to shore. At least not till the fish had feasted on them.

Which brought up a nasty thought. The contents were wrapped in plastic bags. He would have to unwrap each one before throwing it over the side. He should have brought gloves. He searched the boat for some his friend's gloves. He didn't find any but he did find some lead sinkers. Which brought up another nasty thought. Would the contents float? Did he need to weigh them down? Should just dump the whole cooler? But styrofoam floats. Were the contents enough to pull it down to the bottom of the sea?

Shit! He should have thought this out. He was so proud of how he had worked out his porch pirate gig. But this had put him into a panic. And worse. If fish guts make him want to puke, the contents the packages held were much worse. Which is why he kept thinking of them as “contents” rather than getting more specific.

He'd just have to do an experiment. He opened the lid. Trying not to look at the contents that seemed to look back, he fished around for something else, settling on a part of the contents that was long but heavy. Fighting back nausea he withdrew it and trying not to focus on what was inside, tried to tear the bag open. It was thick. He couldn't do it with just his hands. He pulled out his utility knife and cut a slit in the bag and pulled it open with some difficulty. It wasn't open enough for the contents to slide out. He cut the end off the bag and then took it to the side of the boat and upended it. It was tightly wrapped and he had to shake it to make it slide out. Then it stopped. He shook the bag harder. It didn't budge. Taking a deep breath, he looked at what was obstructing it. One of the content's fingers was caught in a fold in the bag. And the minute he recognized it as a finger, he began to puke.

He dropped the bag and its contents in the water and leaned over the side. So it was not surprising that he missed the approach of the other boat.

“This is Florida Fish and Wildlife. Please prepare for an inspection,” the voice from the megaphone announced.

Shit!

Not the Good News

He looked with dismay at the contents of his closet. He was going to jail today and he wanted to look his best. But he couldn't find anything clean.

“Clare,” he called out. “Have I any clean clericals?”

“In the laundry room,” she shouted back.

The old man waddled into the laundry room and there were his clerical shirts, hanging on the back of the door. He selected one and put it on and then waddled back to the bed room to finish getting dressed. He inserted the white plastic tab in the front of the shirt's collar and looked at himself in the mirror. The balding bearded clergyman looking back tried to look sharp but his beard, no matter how much he trimmed it, sprouted hairs in all directions. His sparse white hair refused to lie down, giving his scalp the look of an unweeded vacant lot. He smiled crookedly at himself anyway. He was never a looker. His charms lay elsewhere.

Father Renard came into the kitchen just in time to see his wife picking up her purse and checking for her keys. “You want me to drop you off on my way?” she asked. She worked for 911 and would be passing by where he was headed.

“I really should get some exercise. I think I'll take my bike,” he said.

“And stop for a bagel sandwich on the way?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Doesn't that undo what your exercise is supposed to do?”

“Yes, I know what the doctor said: If it tastes good, spit it out! But as the scripture tells us, God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.”

“I doubt Paul meant Timothy should have a bagel sandwich with bacon, egg and cheese.”

“But he did recommend he have some wine for his stomach.”

“Medicinally. That's not what your stomach needs.”

“All I need is a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou.”

She came over and hugged him. “You silver-tongued liar.” He bent over and kissed her. “See you tonight,” she said.

“See you, child bride of my misspent youth.”

She snorted and opened the door. “I made your tea.”

“Thank you.” He went to the table and picked up his travel mug. He flipped the flap that kept it from spilling and sniffed. As usual, he smelled almost nothing. He tipped it slowly and gingerly took a sip. All he could tell was that it was hot. Ah well. It would cool on the way to the jail.

He stepped out of the old house and looked at the stone church across the narrow street. St. Wilgefortis, or St. Wigglesfoot as locals called it, looked old, a bit worse for wear but solid, like the faith it represented. He crossed the street to do his morning circuit of the grounds and see that nobody had broken in or made a mess. Then he stopped. Standing at the red door was a lean tan little man of his own age, with a much longer and more impressive beard. He was dressed in the official uniform of the Keys: T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. Renard recognized the shirt. It had been one of his. Everything the man wore came from the church thrift shop, next to the rectory where the priest lived.

“Mornin', Rev,” the man said. His voice sounded like an old car trying to start on a cold day, somewhere between a rumble and a rasp.

“Mornin', Humph. Time for your morning ablutions?”

“Just need to pee.”

“Nature's alarm clock,” Renard said. He unclipped his keys from the carabiner on his belt loop and unlocked the church. Humphrey was in the door like a shot and made straight for the bathroom on the right to the side of the Mary chapel. Renard went to the sacristy on the other side of the main church to the left of the pulpit. He grabbed a mug, filled it with water from the piscina, and then crossed the altar to his office. He opened a drawer in his desk, pulled out a packet of instant coffee, poured it into the cup and put it in the microwave atop the mini-fridge. He checked his calendar while waiting for the ding. A few seconds later Humphrey appeared at the office door, as if he were trained by Pavlov. The homeless man waited till the priest had pulled out the half-and-half and the sugar container from the fridge, and put them on top of the microwave. Then Humphrey sidled into the small room to fix his coffee as he liked it.

“What news do you bring, O sojourner?”

Stirring into his coffee an inordinate amount of sugar, Humphrey quirked a smile. “Why do you talk like a damned actor doing Shakespeare, Rev?”

“I am besotted by the Queen's English,” the cleric said in stentorian tones.

“You mean, the King's English, don't you?”

“Alas, 'tis true,” Renard said, cocking an eye at the faded color portrait of the Queen as she was nearly 3 quarters of a century ago. It was hung on the wall by a previous rector of the church God knows how long ago. “So what's going on?” he said in a normal voice. He sipped his tea which had gone from scalding to slightly scalding.

“There was a murder last night!” This was news indeed, because they didn't get many murders in the Keys. There were plenty of fights, typically over women or drugs, and usually fueled by alcohol. But murders, not so much. The Miami Herald once did a year- long series on gun deaths in South Florida. They displayed above the fold a daily total of gun deaths in Broward, Miami and Monroe County. But they dropped the last of the 3 before the year was out because it didn't help make their point. Murders in South Florida were numerous but murders in the Florida Keys were rare. Well, before the pandemic, at least.

“Anyone we know?”

“The folks at the Iguana didn't know.” The Green Iguana Bar was to locals what Sloppy Joe's was to tourists. “Just that the Marine Patrol found some guy on a boat last night, trying to drop body parts in the Straits.”

That was out of the ordinary, thought Renard.

“Weird thing was they were in a Fed-Ex box,” said Humphrey. “Individually wrapped.”

“Like cheese slices?” said Renard.

Humphrey gave him a strange look. “Chicken parts would be more like it. But why go to all that trouble if you're going to drop them in the ocean?”

“Good question,” said Renard.

“You're going to the jail today, right? Maybe you can talk to the guy and find out.”

“Humph, you know I can't disclose what people tell me in confidence.”

“You told me that the 'seal of the confessional' didn't apply in jail.”

“Well, there's no expectation of privacy in the dorms. Plus if someone confesses to a crime, as a contractor at the jail, I have to report it to the staff. Which is why I stopped you that time.” Renard knew that if he ever was called to testify for the prosecution in a trial his usefulness as a chaplain would be over. No one would talk to him. So he cut people off if their confessions strayed from sins to crimes or got too specific on details.

“You could report it to me.”

“And have it instantly on the Keys grapevine? No, thanks. Besides you're not staff.”

“Speaking of which, do you have any work I can do around here?”

Homeless people were always asking if they could do work around the church. And those released from jail often needed community service hours. But church members volunteered to keep the place up. And the more serious things, like repairs, required contractors. Still, Renard hated to say no.

“Ask Ms. Denise,” he said. Denise Washington was the Junior Warden, responsible for the physical plant of the church. “Humph, I gotta go.”

Humphrey quickly downed the rest of his drink of mostly milk and sugar, with a hint of coffee. He left the office and headed to the door of the church as Renard took the mug to the piscina to rinse. The Altar Guild would kill him if they knew. That sink, which went directly into the ground, was for cleaning cruets and vessels used in the Eucharist. But while not a sacrament, wasn't his morning coffee with Humphrey following the injunction to show hospitality to strangers and perhaps entertaining angels?

“Oh, Humph: can you check the church grounds for me?” Humphrey nodded. Often homeless people often slept around the back of the church in the narrow space between its back wall and the fence. That's how he and the Rev met. And any who spent last night there may also have left bottles he could redeem or smokes he could finish.

“For your trouble, my good man!” Renard pulled a 5 dollar bill from his wallet.

“You don't need to do that,” Humphrey said. Shrugging, Renard made a show of opening his wallet to receive back the five. “But I don't want you to be offended,” said Humphrey, extending his palm.

“Proprieties must be observed.”

Humphrey pocketed the bill, exited and turned left to check out the grounds. Renard locked the church, walked half-way across the street, stopped and said, “Damn!” He returned to the church to retrieve his mug of tea from his office.