The Killer in the Night

Growing up at Mack Morris Scout Camp and Lakeshore United Methodist Assembly, I spent a lot of time swatting mosquitoes.  They made me itch, and calamine lotion was the order of the day.

However, across the continent of Africa, and other underdeveloped countries, the buzzing sound of the mosquito brings harbingers of death - a death that is preventable.

It takes more than a net.  It takes a whole system of health care delivery with clear guidelines and compassionate workers to protect these children.

This week, I was given the opportunity to gather in Washington, D.C. with 100 other United Methodists at the Board of Church and Society to learn how we are killing this killer of children.  We were blessed to be given time in the busy schedules of our congressional leaders.  Gerry Campbell and I had the opportunity to meet with Senators Alexander and Corker and their staff.  They listened carefully, and gave us the time to make our points:

1.       Over 5 years ago, Bill Gates partnered with the United Methodist Church, the United Nations, and other faith-based organizations to create a network to lower the death rate of children from malaria.

2.       In the first year, a child died every 15 seconds from malaria,

3.       By the middle of the work, one child died every 30 seconds,

4.       Currently, one child dies every 60 seconds.

5.       We have created accountable clinics to provide nets for children’s beds which are treated with a powerful, yet safe, insecticide.  Education of families to the threat of the mosquito’s bite, coupled with medications to fight those cases which have already begun has started a revolution in world health care.

Your church is taking the lead in this battle to save children.

Please pray for this ministry.  To learn more, visit http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.5303261/.  Each of us can do something to stop this epidemic which is robbing hope from families and nations.

If your heart hasn’t been touched by saving children, think about this:

When hope fails, there is always someone there to blame the powerful countries for doing nothing.  Older children are drawn to groups who want to take revenge.  If you need a case in point, watch the children carrying AK47 weapons giving allegiance to Al Qaida.   The $10 net is much more effective in stopping the process of violence than drones and military action.

We have the opportunity to answer the biblical call to beat our swords into plowshares.  For us, it looks like a web tent that protects from the silent killer in the night.  Join me in providing ways to grow this ministry.

·         Brother Simeon

Silos and Shadows

I keep hearing that we, as a church, need to get out of our silos.

I agree that we do need to reach beyond ourselves and meaningfully connect with others.

BUT – I would like to suggest a different metaphor – it is one as old as Plato.

I believe that our problem is more that we live in our caves, observe the shadows on the walls, allow the “shamans” to interpret them for us, and believe that the shadows are reality.

So far, I’ve experienced a few wonderful events this week that have drawn me out of my own cave.

At Junaluska, we gathered to reach across cultural and ethnic barriers to experience God’s grace.  From the opening “smudging ceremony” from the Native American tradition to the Eucharist celebrated in both English and Korean, we felt the presence of the Word – the reality that is behind the reality which only see as shadows.

This morning, I walked the streets of Washington while awaiting the gathering of Church and Society delegates to learn more about “Imagine No More Malaria.”  We will also advocate with our congressional representatives to protect funding for world health initiatives.

As I walked, I was drawn to a church that had candles burning inside the doorway, with a sound of celebration coming from within.  As I entered, I left my own cave and entered into the reality of the world-wide community of believers. 

I was welcomed into a Christian worship service.  I was offered the sacrament expressed by holy water served in a paper cup to every participant, (after being told that the participants took off their shoes as we approached the altar.  There, I received a blessing from the pastor and greetings from those who had assisted in the celebration.

I did not understand one word that the liturgist nor preacher said.  But, I clearly heard the WORD of God expressed in the hospitality and spirituality coming from fellow Christians in worship.  After the service, I was invited to share coffee and bread with the congregation.  As the only Caucasian in the room, I stood out.  It was at the fellowship time that I was warmly welcomed and told that this was a Coptic Church with members from Ethiopia - one of the countries where our No More Malaria efforts will be focused.   

 

Their question of me:  “Are you a part of the Christian family?”  This United Methodist pastor was being evangelized by people whom I had just met!

The walk back to the hotel was with a different gait and vision inthe bright morning sunlight!  Those I passed on the street became real children of God, not just the strangers that I had passed earlier in the day.

Does God work in unexpected ways?  Yes, but we have to be open to feel God’s “nudges” toward the light and drawing us out of our caves and shadows.

Pray that we, as a church as well as a nation, will continue to protect the children of the world from malaria.  May we offer hope for life and not the fear of death that flies on the wings of the mosquito?

Walk in the light as He is in the light. 

I received more than a crust of spiritual bread today.  Thanks be to God!

Brother Simeon

My Burning Bush

Moses had his burning bush while tending sheep in the wolderness of Sinai.  I had mine while recovering from two weeks in the wilderness of fear.

 

These past two weeks have been rather difficult.  Heart tests, catheterizations, possible stent or by-pass.  None of the results were as both I and my doctor feared.

I was truly blessed to have:

·         Wonderful friends and family who were praying for me

·         A fine doctor who knew what to look for

·         Relief from at least three years anxiety over my heart.

Now, what do I do with that blessing?

·         I could just pass it off as insufficient testing

·         I could just ignore the medical advice I’ve been given

·         I could go back to waiting for the next event that would trigger an “episode.”

I choose to do none of these!

I’ve been given the opportunity to deeply reflect on my life, my health, my behavior, my fears.  Why waste such a blessing as I’ve been given?

There is simply no way to ignore the presence of God in those around me over the last few weeks.

I will “pay forward” the blessing by praising God and asking God’s grace to be a blessing to those around me.

Please don’t wait until “you see the dragon in the pit” to make this kind of commitment.

I have this day – nothing else is promised, and the beauty of it has continued to remind me of God’s wondrous grace and love.

Brother Simeon
Finding spiritual bread where I didn’t know it existed.

The Children of Abraham Revisited

 

Recently, I was asked to reflect on the people in my life who had influenced me.

The normal folks came to mind:  grandparents, parents, wife, children, grandchildren, friends.

After spending more time reflecting on the question, my memory was flooded by thoughts of my call to ministry, and who all had shaped that call.

It began as early as 1952.  I was seven years old.

One person whose influence I remember cannot be identified for his own safety.  As you hear my story, I will leave out the name.  You will understand why as you read.  I am compelled to share the events, however, as memories have flooded my mind while I have been preparing to preach on this World Communion Sunday.

Lambuth Memorial Methodist Church (at that time) was my home church. It is still located one block from the Lambuth campus. At that time, there were no chapel services on Sunday, nor meals served in the cafeteria. Our pastor at the time created a visionary ministry with students. Families of the church "adopted" a student during their time at Lambuth. That is where the story begins.

During that year, Lambuth College had its first international student.  He was from India.  Dean Wood Whetstone had recruited him while a missionary in Lucknow, India.

Another new international student arrived later that year.  When he came to our church he stood out.  He was very dark-skinned.  He was also from Jordan.  For many reasons, one of which was that I was an only child, my parents took the courageous step and adopted him. 

In my later years, I understood why my father took that step.  He, himself, had been adopted from the Orphan Train of the early 1900’s.  He knew what it meant to be separated and not being chosen as he stopped at each whistle stop from New York to Hastings, Nebraska where he was “chosen” after his brother had been “chosen” 100 miles further east.  When my father was in his late 60's, he was able to find his brother.

My “brother” came home with us for lunch every Sunday.  Often, we would spend the whole day until he had to return to Epworth Hall.  I learned what it meant to have an older brother from him.  I also learned much more.

He was from the Muslim faith.  He was devout and stopped all activities for his regular prayers.  He often told me of his faith’s love of Jesus, and that he loved him as well.  I know that he prayed for me each day, and I prayed for him.  I still do, trusting God to connect us in prayer.

Over the four years that we were together, another event occurred.  Our church’s boiler in the basement caught fire and destroyed our church’s sanctuary.  In our grief, we wondered where would we worship.  An invitation came from the Jewish synagogue down the street.  Gratefully, Lambuth Memorial accepted the gracious invitation.  We worshipped there on Sundays while the church made arrangements to rebuild.  My brother went with us to worship.  The "Children of Abraham" had connected.

As he came to graduation in 1956, his parents were unable to come to Lambuth.  He invited me to come and share that time of joy as his brother.  The war in the Middle East prevented his parents from leaving Jordan.  After the ceremony he told me that he would return when I graduated from Lambuth.  I had never considered the college even though it was only a block away and I was now only eleven years old.  He set in motion a spiritual path toward a call to ministry that began to grow as a student at Lambuth from 1963-1967.

We wrote each other often during those years.  When it came my time to graduate, June 5, 1967, students of history will know why he was unable to come.  Another Middle Eastern war.  After which, we lost contact.

My last attempt to contact him was just before the Gulf War when I discovered his address:  Kuwait.  The person I had asked to call - a Lambuth student from Saudi Arabia who was going home - was unable to do so because he discovered that my brother's telephone line sounded as if it were “tapped.”

Why do I tell you all this?

In short, my call to ministry has been shaped by not only my Christian family, but by my brothers and sisters of Abraham and the warfare that has separated us.

Perhaps, in the current chaos that is our world, we need to hear again our own calls to ministry to pray for God to break down the walls that divide us from each other.  This Sunday, Wold Communion Sunday, means more to me than many of our celebrations of the Eucharist because of these "shapings" of my life.

I am sure that my brother has gone “to the bosom of Abraham” by now.  I am equally sure that we will meet again someday.  His name is known to God, as is yours.

• Brother Simeon, remembering the crusts of spiritual bread that have been shared with me.

Lost in the Labyrinth

Our contemporary United Methodist Church has been described as  - "an enigma wrapped in a conundrum." We hear that the structure has become so overborne with bureaucratic "stuff", that it no longer resembles the vibrant movement begun by Wesley and others in the 1700's.

It is as if we are lost in a maze of our own making.

I heard one delegate say that they felt they were lost in the labyrinthine moves driven by political whim and power politics.  I believe that the delegate used the wrong adjective when describing the moves they experienced.

To be sure, what most of us heard (or saw) happening at the recent General Conference in Tampa, seemed to be anything but the intended "holy conversation" on a global scale.

Would you consider the following supposition?

We were not caught in a maze - with its twists, turns, and dark alleys leading to nowhere.

We were lost in a labyrinth.

A labyrinth, unlike a maze, has a beginning and an end.  You actually walk toward a goal, and then return to the beginning.  With its twists and turns, sometimes we walk alongside our fellow pilgrim, and at times we walk in opposing directions.  Often, we focus so much on the path that we fail to see our brothers or sisters who walk with us.  But, we are all pursuing the same goal.  Some walk faster than others.  Some take the intended meditation time to reflect on the moment and those walking the path with them.  Others seem to want to "get it over with" and move on toward some newer experience.

If we are lost, it is because we have forgotten that the path leads us in one direction, toward one goal, but at radically different paces.

Maybe it is time that we slowed down a bit on our walk and realized our fellow pilgrims on the path.  I believe that you will find in them a wondrous variety within its path.  I also believe that there is another walking with us who weeps when seeing our failure to recognize the gifts of other pilgrims travelling with us, or our willingness to point others outside the path because they are in our way.

On the intended labyrinth path, there are no dead ends - only the journey with God as we reach for the center, and return to the beginning to carry the lessons learned on the walk with us in our journey of faith.  Come, let us walk together, even in our disagreements, we can find God's purpose for our denomination - and hopefully the world as well.

  - Brother Simeon, still looking for someone to walk with me while we together search for bread.

Therefore. . .

While on Christmas break, I found myself watching the food channel late one night.

Since I couldn't get to sleep - or so I thought - I was listening to the announcer describe why a certain recipe was going to win:

• It is succulent with a hint of pepper;
• But it is not harshly bold with the heat;
• Therefore. . .

Honestly, that was the last word I remember from the description!  I fell asleep and dreamed of "therefore."

What if we don't finish all the tasks that we set before ourselves, describing them in fine detail, rich in colorful language, and bristling with hope and then get to the "therefore" and everyone else turns us off.

I'm sure that the dish prepared that night tasted good to someone. It gave someone the nourishmnet that they needed.  But, I didn't!  I turned it off right after the completion of the description when the chef said "therefore."  My imagination did not fill in the blank.

I believe that we do that in the church as we listen to plans, hopes, dreams, and fiascos. We put our own "therefore" before those who are engaged in the work of ministry have a completed effect to show or share.

I really missed that chocolate shrimp mousse with a hint of curry that night.  Actually, I'm glad I did miss that one; but I have also missed the sublime creations of culinery artists that make your mouth water when you even see them.  Glad I don't have "smell-a-vision."

In our hunger to get where we're going (my case to sleep) do we let the "therefore" be the final word and miss the rest of the creation unfolding around us?

I think I'll listen a little more carefully when things are "mixing up."  The results could be interesting.  I know the ingredients were, but what about the outcome?

I wonder where these crumbs came from? 
 Must have been a hurried up cook getting
ahead of those who wouldn't let him/her finish.

Brother Simeon

Fourth Quarter, fourth down, inches to go!

I love football.  There is something about this time of year that brings out the high school kid in me.

The last game that I attended in person was a game between my Vanderbilt Commodores and the Kentucky Wildcats about 10 years ago.  As expected, we lost.  Maybe this year will be different.  Said that for a few years now.  "Hope springs eternal..."

This blog, however, is not about football, but about one of football's interesting moments:  the fourth quarter. 

What I like about football's fourth quarter is the excitement as the clock winds down to the final seconds. I've seen games lost by two touchdowns in the final four minutes of play.  Fans get more excited.  Players sharpen their skills.  Coaches send in more fantastic plays.  The announcer gets more animated and searches for statistics to predict what could happen.  Have you noticed on television more timeouts so that more ads can run for the sponsors.  It is just part of the essence of the game to pay more attention as the clock winds down.

Some might say that I am in my "fourth quarter" of ministry.  After all, when you are 66 moving toward 67, some would say that you've had your day and now it's time to move aside.  In terms of leadership that is probably true.  However, life and ministry aren't counted by seconds, minutes, hours nor years. Ministry is counted by moments.  There are younger, more agile players.  Unfortunately, our team has not done the best job of recruiting many younger players.  We missed almost a whole generation according to some and I respect their opinion. 

I look forward to this next moment as I, like many my age, have been shown the value in coaching some newcomers to the game.  Many will spend a lot of time fumbling around - just like I did.  Others will not keep up their spiritual "wind sprints" - just like I didn't.  Some will try to follow a different play book - just like I did.  A few may even leave the field - just like I did.  But ministry continues to happen beyond even our own experience and presence "on the field."

Ministry is not about a single person, nor even about a single team.  It is about the whole exciting experience of following Christ.  Some would even call it a game.  But in this game, there are only winners - no one loses!

Our world-wide church may be facing its own "final quarter."  But, we should not go to the sidelines. We are not driven by the wild plays to catch the crowds attention. Nor are we particularly interested in the announcer's stack of statistics that seem to prove that we should not even be on the field, and certainly no where near victory.

The only play in our play book is the play of service to those who have not yet begun to catch the excitement of ministry for and with Christ. 

Don't look now, but the trainer may be sent in to be the quarterback.  Those options are up to our coach - the God of Creation!  I'm sure that our coach has many plays left before the clock winds down.

Whenever that is, of one thing I am certain:  It's not the score that counts, it's how you played the game.

Still watching from my flagpole.  It's getting interesting.