Thoughts on recent events

We've recently been overwhelmed with the stories and reactions to the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and other stories of police aggression.  The debate has raged between those who have come to the defense of police officers for the difficult and dangerous work they do, and those who have seen in these deaths systematic violence of police against minorities permitted with impunity.  I've seen very little understanding between those who hold these dichotomous views on these events.

That's unfortunate.  Because each side has an important point that the other needs to hear and their views are not, in my view, as different as it may seem.

We pastors have a high view of the work of the police.  We are pastors to police officers.  We work with law enforcement closely, especially at times of death.  We work together when tragedy strikes.  Clergy often ride with police officers as chaplains to police departments and have seen the difficult job that our friends do, the risk they take on to serve us, the care and sensitivity nearly all police officers demonstrate in daily interactions with the public acting in their worst moments.  Nearly all cops are good cops and good cops are some of the world's very best people.

At the same time, we are sensitive to all people being treated with compassion and dignity.  We preach the Gospel from a Bible that warns us of the dangers of power being abused by those who are not held accountable.  We have been tasked with speaking up for justice whenever anyone is mistreated, especially those who have a limited ability to speak up for themselves.  The killing of unarmed young people is something we feel we must speak against.  

The more I've thought about it, the clearer it has become to me that holding police accountable for the failures of the worst among them (whose actions are not typical) is in no way anti-law enforcement.  To remind the law enforcement community of their calling is in their best interest.

Any self-regulating community called to serve a constituency is in constant danger of protecting its own at any cost.  I see it among clergy.  Especially in my Methodist system, we preachers are tempted to think that our self-regulating bodies exist to protect and nurture the preachers themselves.  Sometimes they certainly should.  When one of our pastors is struggling, we should support him or her and do what we can to restore him or her to fruitful service to the church.  But we fail when we forget that we exist to serve the church, and the church is the people, not the clergy.  If we shuffle ineffective or immoral pastors, we destroy our reason for existing and we diminish the high calling we share.  

Practically speaking, we pastors need people to respect us not for ourselves, but because a certain degree of respect is necessary in order for us to accomplish our jobs.  If people come to believe that the actions of the worst among us are characteristic of us all, then the best among us will become frustrated and leave, and the rest of us will be unable to garner the support we need to serve our congregations well.  If we were wise, we would understand that we need to provide discipline among our own for our own sake, and certainly for the sake of our mission.

Law enforcement is in the same situation.  The question is not whether or not most law enforcement are honorable, dedicated, and self-sacrificial public servants.  They most certainly are.

But if law enforcement close ranks around those who fail to live up to the high calling and enormous responsibility placed in their hands, then they risk the respect of the public.  Being a police officer is dangerous enough as it is.  The last thing the police need is for a significant portion of the population to develop a sense that the police as a whole can act with impunity when they misuse their authority, or that if they break the law themselves they will not be held accountable for committing crimes in the exercise of their duties.

Police should support each other.  But they should support each other because we need to be a society ordered by law and justice.  Law enforcement are on the front lines of our justice system, on the front lines of seeing that laws are followed for the sake of public peace and order.  If communities have reason to believe that standards are unfair, that police use a double standard based on race or anything else, then the good ones will have a much harder time doing their jobs well.  Their lives will be in even greater risk in the performance of their duties.

I live in a community in which I have great confidence in the law enforcement officials I encounter every day.  I feel very badly for them that their good work might be perceived to be diminished in any way by actions of officers in the other end of the country that were, at best, grossly negligent, and, at worst, criminal.  

I know they would never say it, but I wonder if they feel anything of what I felt during the clergy sex abuse scandals several years ago.  I remember being angry and hurt, of course, for the victims.  But I was also angry because the sacred trust those few had violated diminished all good clergy who would never harm anyone in our work.  And I was angry with superiors who refused to remove the bad apples and covered up their crimes, creating a culture in which further victimization was tolerated and indirectly encouraged.  It took public outrage for church officials to recognize that it was in their best interest to put those it served ahead of protecting their own.

This is a painful time for our country.  But my hope and prayer is that good things might come out of tragedy.  If police departments become more likely to understand that removing bad apples is good for the law enforcement community, that would be a good thing.  If law enforcement culture reaffirmed its brotherhood's mission to serve all the public (which includes all the people of Ferguson, inner-city Cleveland, and Staten Island) that would be a good thing.  Such a culture shift would include the protection of whistle blowers, it would include police support of prosecution of wayward policemen, it would include police brass taking a harder line on removing officers with a history of bad behavior, for the sake of the honor of the badge and for the sake of the public they serve.  That would be a good thing.  That would mean that we would have all learned something and maybe all this heartache wouldn't have been for nothing.  

Predatory Lending and People of Faith

I am increasingly convinced that predatory lending is a pressing and timely issue for people of faith, especially in the state of Alabama.  The Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church nearly unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the Alabama legislature to reduce interest rate caps from 456% to 36% and provide a system to prevent borrowers from taking out multiple payday and title loans.  My town's local newspaper, the Millbrook Independent, recently published an article I wrote on the subject.  Below is the text of that article:

"Predatory lending is loaning money at exorbitant interest rates.  It’s called predatory lending because those loaning the money intentionally take advantage of people who are unlikely to repay so that they can lock them into slavery to indebtedness.  The goal of these loan sharks is not to get the principal returned while making a reasonable profit.  The goal is to squeeze as much as possible for as long as possible from a person in a desperate situation.

This is not primarily an economic or political issue.  It’s a Christian issue.  The practice of charging high interest in order to take advantage of the poor has a biblical name: usury.  Usury is condemned throughout the Bible, particularly in books of the Law such as Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and wisdom books like Proverbs.  The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, and Amos, among others, warn that usury would be a primary cause of God’s judgment against Israel/Judah and would lead them into bondage.  God loves all people, including poor people, and he is outraged when people crush the poor through high interest rates.

Usury is a significant issue in our state right now.  Once upon a time, Alabama’s recognition of the biblical prohibition against usury caused us to limit interest rates through “usury laws.”  For more than fifty years, Alabama capped interest rates at 36%.  

This changed in 2003, when, under pressure from lobbyists, the legislature modified interest rate caps to make an exception for title and payday loans and other quick-cash borrowing schemes.  The current cap for interest rates on these loans in Alabama is 456%!!

None of these crooked institutions existed in our state just over a decade ago, and now we see them up and down our busy streets, even in Millbrook.  They offer the lie of a short term solution to crushing exigency, while they deliver a long-term financial ruin with a business plan of squeezing the little that the poor have from them by taking advantage of their desperation.

Last year, the Alabama legislature considered returning our state’s interest rate cap to 2003 level, 36%.  It also considered setting up a shared online system to limit the number of predatory loans an individual could take out.  Despite broad bi-partisan support (24 sponsors were Republicans, 24 were Democrats) these measures died.

I will not let moneyed interests influence our politics without raising my voice for the victims of these greedy schemes this year.  Jesus told of the punishment of Lazarus, who hard-heartedly stepped over the poor man at his gate.  I will not be that man.  He told of the sheep and the goats, and condemned those who refused to care for the poor as those who never knew him.  Jesus proclaimed good news to the poor, liberty to the oppressed, release for the captives.

I invite every Christian who believes the Bible is true to write our Alabama legislators and ask them to end the unbiblical and heartless practice of predatory lending in our state in the coming year."   

40

I turn forty in about three weeks.  I'm not one for milestones.  It shouldn't affect me at all.

But it has gotten me thinking about seasons of life.  When I was a young adult starting out, I was very idealistic.  I was idealistic about myself, about God, about marriage and family, about the church, about what could be done to make the world better.

Life will not conform to my ideals.  I can't conform to my ideals.  Everything fails.  I have always failed to be who I wanted to be.  God failed me--God did not fail himself, of course.  And God did not fail me, truly, because what I expected of God was not what God truly promised. But God certainly failed to be what I thought God would be for me.

The disappointment of unrealistic expectations failing to be met is the source of cynicism.  It's the root of all the belly-aching about the church, about the denomination, sideways cracks about spouses and children, putting on a happy face when something inside is cracked like an unseen broken foundation.  I think, for many of us, our thirties is a cynical decade.  My generation is certainly a cynical generation.  We kinda knew all along we were being lied to.

What comes next?

Love.  Love is about something real, not an ideal.  I've learned to love the local church for what it is, not what I want it to be.  I don't ever expect it to be the ideal.  I love it just like it is and do my best to help it be the best it can be for what it is.  My parents and siblings, same way.  Marriage and family, too, though that's harder.  I've got a long, long, way to go to have love for myself as I am.  God's in the same category.

It takes lots of years of going to God every day and being healed from our disappointment to learn to love.    

A Prayer Concerning Forgiveness (based on Matt. 18:15-35: "how many times should I forgive?")

Holy God:

We have come to your house to meet with you, to learn from you, to be your people together.  We have taken your name, we have accepted your call.

You have given us life, you have given us ourselves, and so we belong to you.  You have made us in your image and likeness, shed your blood for our redemption, and so your have given yourself to us.  Each of us is a carrier of your glory, though we often fail to see your refleciton in ourselves and each other.

For, we confess before you, we are broken.  We are broken by what we have done to ourselves. We are broken by what has been done to us.

Some of the actions that have broken us are exteme and horrific.  But most of them are petty and largely insignificant. We have made them significant because we have held on to them.  We have allowed the harm done to us to define us. We have held to offenses as if they were our best friends.  We have sometimes traded friendship for the love of a grudge.

Holy God, allow us to be recipients today of your amazing grace.  Allow us to receive the reality of your forgiveness.  Wash us from every stain, cleanse us from every memory of our brokenness begin expressed in behavior that makes us ashamed. Your steadfast love endures forever.  May we finally see your mercy outlive our unwillingness to accept your forgiveness.

As freely as we have received, may we freely give forgiveness and grace.  Those who have harmed us do not deserve to be forgiven.  No matter.  We do not deserve forgiveness either, but you freely forgive us.  Those who we have no desire to forgive do not understand the depth of the harm they have caused us.  No matter.  We do not understand the consequences of the harm we’ve caused, either.  And yet, you forgive us.  

So Lord, let today be a day of healing.  Help us, through the grace we have received, to finally let it go.  To finally be free.  To finally live in joy.  To finally live together as you intended.  To finally live in the peace that the death of your Son and the giving of the Spirit in the church promised.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer 21 August 2014

Holy God:

We come to you with hearts seeking your help and seeking your way.  In the midst of a world full of concerns, we cry out to you.  As we watch troubles spring up in Iraq, Syria, Israel/Palestine, and even in Ferguson MO, we wonder how we may find peace.  We have varying opinions about the issues that have caused violence and conflict in many places.  What we can agree about is our own inadequacy to bring peace and stability to our world.

Forgive us, Lord, for we easily take sides.  We easily assign blame.  We easily decide that the people we support are fighting for good and would establish good if they would prevail in the struggle.  We easily condemn the others, we easily close our hearts to their concerns and their trials.  We easily categorize people as the right people and the wrong people.

We forget that all people are in the same category in your eyes: Precious and beloved, made in your image and likeness, worthy of the sacrifice of your son.  And yet, all are fallen, sinful, deluded, and destructive to themselves and others.  We are all the problem and we are all the solution.  We are all the good guys and we are all the bad guys.  We are all the object of your compassion and of your judgement.  We are all desperately in need of your love and grace, especially those who don’t fully realize it.

Have mercy on US.  Have mercy on all of us and each of us.  Have mercy on our world.  Have mercy on me.  Hear our cries.  Set us free.  Set us free from ourselves.  Heal us and deliver us.

Amen 

Father, Forgive Us For We Know Not What We Do

God our only Hope:

You sent your Son to redeem us.  We killed Him.  As He died, He offered us grace: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

The religious authorities who asked for his death didn't know what they were doing.  They thought they were doing right.  They thought they were defending you, defending your honor, protecting your holy faith, protecting your holy place, protecting your people from a dangerous heretic.  In their own minds and hearts, they were making a difficult but necessary choice.  They were murdering their Messiah.  They didn't know.

The Romans who executed him didn't know what they were doing.  They thought they were serving their nation, the greatest nation on earth.  War is ugly, and insurgents on the other side of the globe needed to be contained to avoid compromising national security.  They thought they were serving faithfully, risking their lives as they left families and comfort a world apart in sacrificial service to an important cause.  But they were murdering the Son of God.  They didn't know.

Today, our world is spiraling out of control.  We are taking it apart with our own hands in our effort to do what we think is right.  Forgive us.  We don't know what we are doing.

Iraqi Islamicists think they are serving you.  They think they are working for a day when your word will bring peace and stability to their culture.  They think they are driving false doctrine and heresy from the land.  They think they are creating a nation that needs no longer be rent apart by civil strife because they are making a land in which everyone agrees.  They know it will be ugly for a time, but it will be worth it eventually, they tell themselves.   So they murder Christians.  And Muslims who think differently than themselves.  They drive entire people groups into hiding in the mountains.  They draw blood and tears.  They destroy those who were made in your image and likeness.  They think they are serving you.  Forgive them, for they don't know what they do.

Palestinians have been pushed to the brink, huddled in encampments, starved and harassed.  They push for dignity.  They fight with desperation of one shoved into a corner.  Many are Christians, afraid that the faith of our Lord is being systematically driven out of the land of His birth, even as we, their brothers and sisters in Christ around the world, ignore their plight.  So they send rockets into general population  centers.  They see their effort as self-protection.  But they invite uneven reprisal.  They have no good answers, so they choose poorly.  They play into the cycle of escalating recrimination.  The tears of grieving Jewish mothers do not bring the end of the tears of grieving Palestinian mothers.  They think they are doing all that they can do.  Forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Israelis have lived in the shadow of violence as long as they can remember.  Their nation was borne from the world's horror over the genocide of the holocaust.  They have been threatened by their neighbors with extinction.  They have combatted terrorism in their neighborhoods. And so, they think they are defending themselves, and You, and their destiny, and the dream they believe was born from Your heart.  You have chosen them.  Yet you have not chosen them merely to survive.  You have chosen them to do justice, to treat the stranger as their brother.  They think they are doing your will, serving You, serving Your cause.  But they have forgotten that the Gentile, the Muslim Palestinian, the Christian Palestinian, was made in Your image, that Abraham's children were blessed so that they might bless every nation, even the hostile nation, even the enemy.  Jesus knew.  He said so.  They didn't understand.  They still don't.  Forgive them.  They don't know what they do.

Fearful young men in Missouri think they are doing what needs to be done.  They think they are showing courage, putting themselves in harm's way, showing strength to bring right in a world full of wrong.

Some of these fearful young men are police officers.  They see crime and the potential of crime in decayed neighborhoods.  They think that if they act tough, if they show no weakness, if they intimidate potential criminals, they will keep troublemakers in line.  They think that if they stop and frisk, if they follow suspicious looking kids around, if they check into sketchy situations, then the good kids will understand and the bad ones will be warned or even deterred.  They think they are protecting and serving.  They can't understand how it feels to be a suspect because of the accident of the situation of one's birth.  They can't see that each person they harass is made in the image and likeness of God, that treating them like criminals when they've done no wrong humiliates them, crushes their spirit, ignites a simmering rage, diminishes their sense that they are infinitely more precious in the sight of God than in the fearful eyes of our culture.  Those fearful angry young officers think they are serving the public.  They forget that young black men are the public.  Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

Some of these fearful young men are the ones clashing with police into the early hours of the morning, the few violent protestors among almost entirely peaceful demonstrators.  They think that mayhem and the expression of anger will draw attention to their cause.  They think that they will scare the world into bringing them justice.  They think that if the world sees the hate that they have learned through a lifetime of mistreatment, that the world will give them what they want and treat them differently.  They are wrong.  They do not know that the community they damage is their own, that their actions play into the very stereotypes that cause the world to see them not as precious human beings but as threats that need to be locked away.  Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.

Vladimir Putin knows not what he does.  Bashir Al-Assad knows not what he does.  Wall Street tycoons, corrupt politicians, angry fundamentalist preachers, white supremacists, pornographers, felons, abusive prison staff, over-aggressive prosecutors and ambulance chasers, lazy religious bureaucrats and relentless religious entrepreneurs.  All convinced they are the good guys.  All breeding chaos and crushing the human spirit.  All crucifying you again.  Father forgive them for they know not what they do.

I see the wrong in others.  I can identify how they crucify you again.  They can't.  So, maybe just maybe, it's me crucifying you again.  Maybe it's me who needs forgiveness, because maybe it's me who knows not what I do.  Maybe it's me whose efforts to stem the tide of suffering and chaos are only making matters worse.  Maybe it's my zeal that puts you on a cross.

Father, forgive me, for I know not what I do.  Father, forgive us, for we know not what we do.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer based on the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Matt. 13:31-33, July 27, 2014)

Holy God:

We thank you for your grandeur, your majesty.  We thank you for your great love, which is wider than the oceans, deeper than the seas, more vast than all of the universe.  You are God, Lord of all, knower of all that can be known, sovereign over all things, creator, sustainer, redeemer.  

We love to think of you as being a big God, for we like big things, and we love to think of a big God being our God.  We like to feel big, to be a part of a big country with lots of money and power.  We like to build big things, to drive big cars on big roads, to live in big houses, to feel as if our influence and our name are big.  We are impressed by big people, big stadiums, big lights, big events.  We have been taught to dream big dreams and to pursue big goals.  We shy away from things that seem small, or poor, or insignificant, or unambitious.  We have seen a lot and we are hard to impress. 

You are bigger than all we can imagine, and you certainly could choose to do things in big ways and to use the kinds of big things we so admire.  And yet, you chose small and insignificant things to show your heart.  You could have sent your son to be born into Rome with its great big empire and far reaching influence, and yet you chose for him to be born into tiny little Nazareth.  You could have chosen Egypt with its great big pyramids, and yet you chose Abraham and his little family.  You could have chosen the wisdom of the Greeks, yet you chose the folly of an incorrigible clan of wilderness wanderers.

You told us to have the faith of a mustard seed--small faith.  But we want to believe big. We want big faith.  We want to see miracles and dramatic changes.  We want to see the nations won to Christ, but we overlook the people in our house.  We want to have hearts purified to be completely given to you, but we don’t want to whisper a halting desperate prayer.  We want to build a great church, but we easily overlook our brother and sister before us.  We want big faith.  You have only offered us small faith.   

We mustard seed is easy to drop, easy to lose, easy to miss.  We miss it again and again.

Give us small faith.  Give us humble hearts.  Give us small vision, that what becomes may be great only because you have made it great because only you are truly grand.

Amen. 

Prayer for Pentecost On the Last Sunday in our Sanctuary

Holy God:

Our hearts are full today--a day that is bittersweet.  We have gathered once again in this sacred space, a place of worship in which you have met us again and again.  We have found your grace here.  We have been family together here.  We have mourned those who have died in the Lord, those now in your presence with whom we will be united, but we see no more.  We have made promises to you at these altars and you have made promises to us.  We have broken the bread and poured the wine, we have been nourished by your sacraments.  We have laughed and danced and cried and sung.  We have grown up here and grown old here.  This place has been a spiritual home to us--You are our only home, and yet we have found you here, and so it feels so very much like home to us.

We celebrate that we will soon have a new place where new disciples will be made and new prayers prayed, where children will learn to love Jesus and where the Gospel will be proclaimed.  A place where the scriptures will be read and understood and lived.  A place for which we have given and sacrificed and labored and dreamed and fought.  

But today, we remember.  And we thank you.  We thank you for our visionary forefathers and mothers who built this place so that we could be the people of God together here.  We thank you for all who prayed and sweated and struggled to bring this place in to being for us, those who fixed and renovated and scrubbed and vacuumed this house that we might know your love when we arrived.  We thank you for those who have walked the floor in prayer and worn out the kneeling cushions when no one was here, begging you that we might sense your touch and have our hearts transformed when we arrived for worship.

We thank you for all you will yet do in this place--For children and youth and adults who will first learn to love your name here.  For water that will be poured for baptism, for bread broken to feed hungry souls.  We ask you, Holy God, that you will do more in this room to draw your kingdom near in the next fifty years than you have done in the past fifty years.

Pour out your spirit today.  Pour out your spirit in this place. Pour out your grace.  Let us know your presence.  May your church be born afresh.  May we be empowered to go from this place with boldness, not in our own power, but powered by your spirit, to make disciples of all people.

Amen.

Prayer for Memorial Day

Holy God:

On this Memorial Day weekend, we confess that we have often turned the celebration of the day into a time of rest and recreation. While this is well and good, help is to avoid forgetting the meaning is the day.

As our nation begins to emerge from a time of protracted war, we take time to remember those who have paid the ultimate price for the sake of this nation, those who have given their lives on our behalf.

Our community has been touched by the loss of those who have died in battle. We ask that your healing balm would restore the broken hearts of their families. We ask also that you would touch with your mercy those who have been wounded in body and soul by the horror of war.  Directly or indirectly, we are all victims of the greatest of human evils, so we ask for your mercy that we might all be made whole.

We remember also that you have made your people into an army fighting evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. Many have given their lives and are currently dying on behalf of their testimony for the Prince of Peace.

So on this Memorial Day, help us to recommit to your fight, a battle in which our weapons are those our Lord employed, and the only weapons he offers us, the weapons of self-sacrificial love service and unshakeable allegiance to our humble king.

We recommit ourselves to your vision of a peaceable kingdom in which nation will not rise against nation and neither will they learn war anymore. We ask your grace for the conviction to fight for love, to battle against hatred and misunderstanding, to offer our lives for reconciliation and the conquest of the Gospel alone.

Above all, on this Memorial Day, we remember the one who died for us all, who fought for our redemption, who died that we might have abundant life, that the kingdoms of this world might become the kingdoms of our God and king.

Help us to remember. Help us to be true to the example he set. Help us to live and die for the purpose for which he gave his life.

Amen

The Healing of Combat Vets

About a year ago I noticed that it was more difficult for me to integrate vets into the life of the congregation as others.  Recent vets seemed uninterested in Sunday School, for example.  I began to think about ways to maybe connect them with each other.

About the same time I went to a clergy day at Maxwell.  The chaplain told us stuff that shocked me.  He talked about how his deployment nearly cost him his marriage and shared openly about the psychological damage war had done to him.  He asked the clergy to partner and figure out ways to help vets.  He told us that more Iraq and Afghanistan vets had died from suicide than combat.

Right then, I knew the church needed to do something to deal with a crisis.  I also knew that I knew absolutely nothing about how to help, and that combat vets were likely to feel as if a preacher could do not one thing to help them.

Around this time I worked a Kairos weekend at Staton prison.  I met a young man inside who had been damaged by war and gotten into drugs to self medicate his PTSD.  He was imprisoned on a drug charge.  He had given his life to Christ and held no bad feelings toward the military or the state.  He took responsibility for his actions and was full of joy.  I was ashamed that this young man had risked his life and had his soul broken on my behalf, and that the society of which I am a represented participant had locked him up for doing what he could for dealing the with price he had paid to serve us.  He deserved treatment and care and gratitude, not prison.

I began to talk to vets.  I quickly learned that combat vets understand that combat is something no one can understand without experiencing it.  Since then, I've found that if a vet broaches the subject of his or her service, if I will simply say, "I can't begin to imagine what that was like for you, and this is something I know has to be experienced to be understood," the vet will often open right up and share all kinds of things he or she wouldn't otherwise.

My dad served in Vietnam.  I grew up never hearing anything about it.  Last fall, we drove together to Pennsylvania to bring my grandmother home as the end of her life drew near.  I mentioned my concern to him and he talked for hours about his experience.  He shared all kinds of helpful thoughts about how churches could help vets.

In this same time frame I've dealt with at least a half dozen pastoral situations involving vets and their families that have opened my eyes to the nature and scope of this need.  It would be inappropriate for me to share details of any of them.  But I have come to know that people, families, and communities are suffering in often hidden and very hurtful ways because of the interior wounds of war and results of family separation.

I don't know how churches can help returning vets.  But I'm learning.  Here's are my hunches so far:

1. Vets are the best resource to help vets.  It's highly unlikely that a vet will go to a support group.  Pastors can't bridge the experience of combat unless they've been there.  I have a hunch that personal connections between Vietnam vets and new Iraq and Afghanistan returnees could provide a vehicle of healing for both.  Churches are full of vets who could serve as a ready and willing resource.

2. Vets go to the VA as a last resort, not as an initial place to deal with concerns, especially for mental and spiritual health.  One of the vets in my congregation has suggested that the church could offer a military family day of some kind that would have fun stuff for the kids and VA reps available to explain resources.  Screenings of various kinds could be made available, too.

3.  Vietnam taught us that failing to welcome vets home can create an entire generation of wounded people.  Their interior woundedness will not just subside over time.  It will spill out into their relationships with spouse, children, employers, church, and community.  I have come to believe that many Vietnam vets are still as wounded on the inside as if they had come home a few months ago.  Society is more aware of the need to welcome vets, but it's unaware of how to heal the wounds.  Thankfully, Iraq and Afghanistan returnees have not been called baby killers or been spit upon.  I've spoken to Vietnam vets who had this experience.  Even those who were most opposed to our recent wars have not acted similarly toward these vets, and for that we should be thankful.

Clergy, congregations, military, mental health professionals, medical professionals, chaplains, and society as a whole must enter into a constructive conversation on the challenges vets face and how to address them practically and holistically.  We cannot let these vets suffer on the inside without doing what we can to heal this generation's wounds.  We must create vehicles to share our learning and experiences.

I'm going to keep on learning all I can and talking to anyone who can teach me anything.  I will try to share what I discover and hope that it will help others in ministry with vets.  I especially invite conversation from churches and clergy who have had success in designing ministries that have helped vets.

Pastoral Prayer for Baptism of the Lord Sunday (12 January 2014)

Holy God:

We thank you for the love and grace, the power and majesty, the humility and mercy you have shown through your Son Jesus.  We thank you that you have made yourself known to us through becoming one of us, that you have shown us that you love us more deeply than we can ever imagine and that you never leave us or forsake us.

Today, as we remember that our Lord was baptized by John in the Jordan river so long ago, we are grateful also that we have been able to share in baptism.  You called Jesus by name.  You spoke of your love for him.  You poured out your spirit upon him. You said that you were pleased with him.

Give us eyes to see and a heart to understand the gift of baptism as the sign of your heart toward Jesus being extended toward us.  Help us to hear your voice today.  Help each of us to hear you call us by name.  Help us to know that you are our father and that we are your beloved children.  Help us to hear you bless us, to know you find pleasure in us, that you are pleased with us just because you love us and we are your family.

And, holy God, pour out your spirit afresh upon each of us.  Fill us with power.  Help us to go from this place with a mission, with your joy in our hearts and your word on our lips.  May the same spirit who filled Jesus with the power to proclaim repentance and the coming of the Kingdom, the same spirit that empowered Jesus to heal the sick and set free the captives, may that same spirit overwhelm and empower us to do even greater works and to see your kingdom established in our community and the works of darkness destroyed.

Amen.

Pastoral Prayer for Epiphany Sunday (January 5, 2014)

Holy God:

We thank you for another day.  On this Sunday, we thank you for another year.  We set aside the failures and disappointments of a year past.  we set aside, also, the victories and joys of the past.  We are grateful for both the good and the bad that has come, for how you have used it and for all we have learned.  We are grateful that you have brought us through even to this day.  You have been faithful.  We thank you for your faithfulness.

But we will not live in a past that has already ceased to exist.  We live in the present of this day.  This day and this year are full of concerns and anxieties, but they are also full of hope and opportunity.  A change in the calendar is a sign of what is always before us--an opportunity through your cross and your son and your spirit to experience a new beginning.  Open our hearts to see a new world of your grace, and new kingdom of love.

Above all, open our hearts to see your son, to see in him the perfect expression of your heart.  You have left the glory of heaven to become a frail and humble human being so that we might see just how much you desire to be with us.  You meet us in our homes, our families, our workplaces, and schools.  You are with us in our lives’ transitions--births, deaths, marriages, graduations, divorces, moves, promotions, retirements.  You are with us in our anxieties and our celebrations, our laughter and our tears.  The coming of your son shows us that you are with us and shows us who you are when you show up.

So open our eyes to see him afresh, to see him everywhere and always.  Let all of our lives be about him and for him. May we desire to know nothing but him, and to know everything else we know in the light of his glory and grace.  May our lives reflect him.  May the world, the community, each person we meet know the heart of God a little better because they have seen the face of Jesus in the way we have reflected his glory.

Amen.