March 30th, 2010
Remember when you were a child and you made your first friend in school? Our earliest memories remind us of the importance of friendships. Everyone needs a friend and so good friends are a gift. Amy and are blessed to call on several as our dear friends. Each summer we vacation together and catch up on one another’s lives. For the rest of the year we are busy raising children, working our jobs and from time to time going to funerals. You see we are at that age where many our parents are also at that age. I just returned from one such funeral of the father of one of our friends. We all sat on a pew together and thought about our own fathers, some living and some that have passed on. Of course, that is what friends are for – sharing together in one another’s lives.
The interesting thing about our friends is that we are in many respects quite different. We live in different cities: Birmingham, Atlanta and Augusta. We work different jobs ranging from sales to homemaking. In our group are Baptists, Episcopalians, and non-denominational. We have different political views, effectively canceling out one another’s votes each election. What holds us together is common love and respect for each other.
“Friends” was how Jesus referred to his followers. “You are my friends,” Jesus says to those who would be called later to lay down their lives for one another. The Greek word for “friend” in the Gospel is philos, a word that theologian Raymond Brown translates as beloved. In the Gospel of John the two Greek verbs for love (agape and phileo) are used interchangeably. Friend and love is the same thing, although the English language cannot fully convey this relationship. One commentary writes, “The mark of the faithful community is how it loves, not who are its members.” (New Interpreters Bible)
The point? Easter is the common coming together in the aftermath of a death only to be dazzled by life. On this earth we come to the funerals of our friends dabbing our eyes with tissues and thoughtlessly eating and thoughtfully reminiscing. As friends of Jesus we gather too in the memory of Good Friday nourished by Easter’s abundance. We are “marked” not by external categories but by a common love.
That’s what friends are for…to practice resurrection waiting for the Resurrected One to call us together again.
March 18th, 2010
Now that the days are getting longer and the weather is getting warmer (well, slightly warmer anyway), my mind has been wandering to the back yard. Specifically I have been glancing towards my raised vegetable bed. Currently I still have a mess or two of collards left from the fall planting. Soon I will be picking the last of the collards and preparing the ground for tomatoes and peppers. The problem I have, however, is that I do not have enough room for all the things I want to plant.
Sooooo….I have built another raised bed. The biggest challenge in building another bed is hauling the lumber from the store to my house. I do not own a pick-up and I am too cheap to rent one. Of course this is not a problem if you do not mind hauling lumber on top of the car – and I did not have a problem. My kayak straps secured down all my planks and 4x4s on the top of my MINI just fine. Who needs a pick-up? My next challenge will be getting fresh manure transported for fertilizer. Is it any wonder that Rodger Murchison does not want to ride in my car?
The season is about investing in the future. When the garden is planted, I then dream of fresh tomatoes and basil. We all do this in one way or another. Some go and buy new clothes (remember Easter outfits?) and in wearing them feel themselves renewed. People charge into spring cleaning their homes to cast off the old and refresh all things as new. I believe that some of our patterns of consumerism is a desire to find meaning through shopping: the new appliance, the new shoes, etc.
We even do this as a church by rehearsing the old story of God’s newness. Lent is this period where the ground is fallow, waiting for life to blossum evermore.
What is it in your soul waiting, simply waiting, to break forth in new song and glory and wonder?
March 2nd, 2010
As you can imagine, meal times are pretty important around the DeLoach Ranch. I am certain has been true for many generations. My grandfather’s favorite table blessing went something like this: “Bless the Meat, even the bones/Got anymore, bring it on.” While we giggled my grandmother glared disapprovingly in his direction. We DeLoaches love eating and we love eating as a family. Mealtimes were not a picture from the canvas of Norman Rockwell. My grandmother’s house did not have a dining room, or china, or linen napkins. We (seven of us) all ate in the kitchen crammed around a table fighting over the last biscuit and working our way in and out of the unfolding flow of conversation.
We discussed politics, religion, grades, feed prices and milk prices, but mostly we laughed, fussed, and teased. In other words, we were a family and the table centered us. One by one we grew up, some of us moved away and all of us married. Both my grandparents are now deceased and my father has since remarried. Still, from time to time, we come back home bringing our own children and our own stories and find a place at the table. In fact, we need several tables when we all show up.
As a husband and father meal times are just as important for me as they were in my childhood. True, we are busy with church, sports and school, but we strive hard to prioritize eating together for breakfast and supper. Soon both of my sons will be driving and it will not be long before they too will move away and into their life waiting to be discovered. I hope they will look back and remember not only the biscuits and gravy but the conversations and love centered by our battered table in the kitchen (we do not have a dining room either).
The most important thing about a meal time is not the menu, or the place setting, or even the place. It is to simply show up. Making the time to be present and knowing that when we cannot make it we are missed is essential to a healthy family.
It is no wonder we call church family. As a family we come in all shapes and sizes: single, married with or without children, foster children and grandchildren. Young and old, we are all part of a family of faith. Every Sunday we are invited to just show up; to be counted and loved; to be missed and cared for; to nourish and be nourished.
I hope to see you this Sunday, to be counted with you that we may laugh, weep, or just simply be together as a family. It is where we love God together and love our neighbor as ourselves.
Peace be with you,
Greg