A Stranger's Letter

by Ken Kelley

I can’t remember a year when I’ve so anxiously awaited Advent. After spending the last couple of months taking solace in the expectation of the coming of The Prince of Peace, I can hardly wait for a liturgy in worship in which we respond together as a congregation, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come again” (or words to that effect).

One of our Good Shepherds gave me a copy of the following letter which was written by the son of a friend of hers. It’s reminiscent of many of the conversations I have with those I visit. They often share stories of memorable events in their lives which I usually enjoy, even when I can’t relate to them. Frequently, I learn something and have discovered that, if I pay attention until the end of our conversation, I often leave inspired. I hope you will have a similar experience reading a stranger’s letter:

The smell of his Old Spice cologne and cigars still lingers in my mind.  His pocket always had a Schaeffer ballpoint, the kind with an arrow for the pocket clip.  I remember noticing that my Granddaddy had a small hole on his upper lip, a large pore actually. I always wondered how he got the hole, so on Christmas I asked.  He told me an Indian shot him.  It was funny, and I laughed even though I knew it wasn’t true.

The world and everything else didn’t seem to matter when you were in your Granddaddy’s lap.  The room could be full of people, but it was just you and him --one on one.  I think that if I had to write a description of the perfect Granddaddy, it would be him.

Every year my brother, sister, and I would decide (usually Christmas Eve morning) to make Granddaddy a present.  He had a big desk in his butcher shop, and surely he would need a new pencil holder.  All it took was a Welch’s frozen grape juice can, some construction paper or colored felt, a few sequins or some glitter, and voila, instant pencil holder.  He always acted like it was the best present he’d ever received. I wonder what he did with all of those pencil holders. You came away feeling as if you had made his Christmas special.

I never really thought of someone as a gift.  I know now that the people God gives you in your family are a gift.  It takes years to realize what you were blessed with.  Those people may not be perfect, but they are what God wanted you to have, experience, learn from.  I learned much from my Granddaddy.  I hope someday I am as good a Granddaddy as he was to me.  I thank God for the gift of his life and for allowing me a time to know and love him.

Thinking back, I have seen the face of those who received a gift that they did not expect.  That what-cha-ma-call-it that you have no idea what it is for or why it is even under your tree, or that “what-on-earth were they thinking when they got me this” look.  I think that this has been a recurring event since the first Christmas.  The world was given a gift.  They had asked for this gift for centuries. They had been promised the gift would come.

But that first Christmas morning, the world said, “What is this?  This is not the gift we expected.  What good is a baby to us?  Why he is just a common child, the son of a carpenter.  What could he possibly do for us?” The gift came to the world unappreciated.  The Giver received few thank yous for His thoughtfulness, His generosity, His love.

The gift was a treasure -- a miraculous, unique gift.  But it would take thirty years after his birth to begin to understand God’s plan.  It would take centuries to spread the gift to the whole world.  It will take until His coming again for all of the world to understand and appreciate this gift and what it truly means.

As the season rushes to its climax, amidst the hustle and bustle, the rivers of memories which flood our hearts, don’t lose sight of the truth of Christmas.  Take time to appreciate the Gift, thank the Giver, and look to the future with the hope that is yours in Christ.

Come, Lord Jesus, come again.

Trudging the Road of Happy Destiny

One of the happy perks of being your pastor is being invited to all sorts of holiday events, and one of my favorites is the Thanksgiving dinner hosted by our Monday night Alcoholics Anonymous group.

This year’s extravaganza was no different — a rich smorgasbord of fantastic food, including all the season’s favorites, followed by an even richer time of testimony. The group leader read the following passage from the The Big Book:

Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the Fellowship of the Spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the Road of Happy Destiny.

Then we went around the room, and people shared their thoughts on the passage, as well as expressing their gratitude. The things they shared were humbling and powerful. More than one person expressed their thankfulness that they could remember holidays now; several admitted outright that they knew they would be dead if not for AA.

As I listened, I realized that this group is nothing less than a “church.” Here is a group of people who recognize, admit, and confess their sin, who submit their lives to a Higher Power, and meet weekly to hold each other accountable as they move forward in sanctification. Their fellowship is marked by openness, authenticity, genuineness, tolerance, and acceptance. They don’t wear masks with each other, or pretend to be somebody they aren’t. Their conversation is marked by a deep humility, and also a sparkling sense of hope.

This is exactly what I hope for Kessler Park UMC; this is the kind of fellowship I hope we become.

Isn’t it ironic that perhaps our best example of how to “be the church” has been meeting right here, on church property, every Monday night for the last 16 years?

As you celebrate Thanksgiving, please give a prayer of gratitude for these fellow members of the body of Christ, these fellow trudgers on the Road of Happy Destiny.

Risk Big

    I walked out of a church committee meeting recently with something weighing on my  mind. We had made some solid decisions, but something bothered me. I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.
    The dog woke me up early the next morning as she often does, and as I was trying to go back to sleep, in the fog of drowsiness, I had an epiphany. I suddenly realized what was wrong with our meeting: we had made our decisions out of anxiety and fear, out of a kind of fear of what might happen if, instead of from a sense of anticipation and hope.
    As I lay there in bed, I reviewed our decision-making. We had voiced concerns about “what to do”; we had discussed worst-case scenarios; we spent plenty of time talking about why we couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do something.
    That’s what committees do best, to be honest. Committees are inherently conservative; they exist to protect institutions, and safeguard what the institution does and owns.
    There’s nothing wrong with that, except that institutions have to also grow and adapt to change. Organizations must experiment and risk and dare. There have to be counterbalances to committees.
    This is especially true of a church. A church is supposed to represent the presence of Christ in the world, and so it must be quickly responsible and adaptable to the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit. And it must be resistant to anxiety.
    We are to be led by faith, not by fear; we are not supposed to act out of anxiety. As Paul put it in II Timothy 1:7, “God didn’t give us a spirit that is timid but one that is powerful, loving, and self-controlled.” The old King James Version put it like this: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”
    Sometimes I wonder if I act like I have a “spirit of fear” rather than the Holy Spirit. Sometimes I wonder if our church committees do the same.
    When we make decisions based on anxiety, we are too cautious for our own good. We start looking inward, we worry about things we can’t control, and we stop dreaming.
    I know that this is a dangerous world. This is a world in which there are too many guns, too many wounded and damaged people, too many addictions. This is a world where too many nations have nuclear weapons, and too many world leaders think only of their job security. This is a world where fewer and fewer people go to church, more and more activities compete with Sunday morning worship, and the public reputation of Christians has never been lower. This is a world where the United Methodist Church as a denomination is irreparably divided, and on the verge of a split.
    These things are all true, but they don’t mean that we should close our doors, fire all the staff, and go home. Not at all.
    The way forward is in the opposite direction. The world needs Jesus, and the world needs us. We’re needed now more than ever. And so, rather than being cautious, we ought to go bigger. Now is the time to find more resources, spend more money on kingdom work, become more active, do more mission, find more social justice causes to support, sing more songs, and preach more sermons!
    If this makes you nervous and anxious, just remember what I say every week in our benediction — “May God give you the grace to risk something big for something good.”
    It’s time to risk big.