Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast.
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Friday, May 30, 2008
Carefree Faith
Psalm 131; Matthew 6:24-34
The bumper sticker says, "If you can keep your cool when people all around you are losing theirs, you obviously don't understand what's going on!" Wise words for worrisome times.
Right in the middle of his Sermon on the Mount -- his exposition of the core values of the Kingdom of God -- Jesus gives us the perfect antidote to worry. For the worst of times and the most humdrum of ordinary times.
Take a lesson, he says, from the birds of the air. Hmmm...
In the May 20, 2008 issue of The Christian Century, I found a beautiful meditation by Tom McGrath on that good advice. Here's what he said:
My wife and I have found a great remedy for those times when life seems overwhelmingly stressful, our worries mount, and our inner resources seem depleted. We consider the birds of the air.
Specifically, we pop in a DVD titled Winged Migration, Jacques Perrin's Oscar-nominated documentary that follows dozens of species of birds on their amazing migratory trek -- some covering more than 2,000 miles. On Friday nights or Sunday evenings when we are too spent to read but wary of the silly and gruesome fare on network television, we pull out this disk. As the opening credits roll, we may be anxious and worried about our lives. But within minutes we are mesmerized at the sight of gaggles of birds, large and small, elegant and comical, obeying the secret inner prompting that sets them to fly hundreds, even thousands of miles to serve the demands of life and survival. Perrin, working with five crews totaling 450 people, including 17 amazing cinematographers, makes you feel as though you're traveling with and among the flocks, close enough to see the determined looks on their faces and hear the relentless beating of their wings.
Know what? Wonderful as that is, all you really have to do is look out your window or sit on your deck a while. There's a robin doing the amazing worm trick. And here's a pair of mourning doves cooing away world without end. Oh look, a black crow ten times a dove's size is toe-dancing on that pine tree's topmost branch. And wow, catch the blur of that irridescent hummingbird's wings as he sucks a nasturtium almost dry.
And suddenly you realize that life has slowed down, your burden has lightened, your body and soul have relaxed. Because of birds.
That Jesus. Always way ahead of us.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:29 AM
Monday, May 19, 2008
God of Good Surprises
Psalm 8; Matthew 28:16-20
When Benjamin Braddock and Elaine Robinson jumped on the bus that wedding day back in 1967, they were exhilarated and filled with hope. After all, Ben had just rescued her from marrying the wrong man. Meaning -- the other guy. Now, all their way down that public transit aisle to the very last bench seat, they amused or puzzled or infuriated the other passengers. Who wouldn't wonder at them, she in her bridal gown, he all sweaty in khakis and a windbreaker jacket.
Then it happened. One or another Simon and Garfunkel song began playing as "The Graduate" came to its end. Ben and Elaine just sat there speechless, facing straight ahead, silently saying all that needed to be said, with shifting eyes and fleeting changes of expression. Thinking thoughts like...
"What in the world have we just done?"
"Who is this person next to me?"
"What will happen to us when we get to the end of the line?"
"How can I get off this [blessed] bus?!"
Not always so dramatically, life is filled with moments when you just have to step back, take a deep breath, and take stock of what's been going on. And what it might mean. And then, at last, what difference it really makes.
Yesterday was Trinity Sunday. A taking stock festival if there ever was one.
Unlike other liturgical red letter days, Trinity celebrates not an event or action in God's Plan Of Salvation, but a grand idea.
Consider... From the birth of Christ to the Wise Men's visit to Palm Sunday to the last supper to Calvary's cross to the empty tomb of Easter, all the way to Pentecost's 3-ring circus of Holy Spirit phenomena... It's one big event after another! You can't help visualizing how they happened, imagining what it felt like to be there when they happened.
And then comes Trinity. As if, exhilarated and amazed by all that's gone before, the church stepped back, breathed deep, and said, "Wow! Who'd have thought?"
What they thought so hard about was the surprising Doctrine of the Trinity. A word never found in even one verse of the Bible, by the way. But evidence, direct and otherwise, is scattered throughout the book.
The capper, of course, is Pentecost. All those dramatic manifestations of the Holy Spirit's presence and power -- gale force wind, flames of fire on the disciples' heads, and fervent speech in unknown languages. The upshot: 3,000 people became Christians in one day. Woo hoo and amen.
So, one week after Pentecost, we Christians pause to make some kind of sense of it. One God now revealed as three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Not three Gods. Not one God in three forms. Not --
Go figure.
And we do try to figure it out. Great minds go a bit mad now and then in the process. Lesser minds have tried simple analogies.
I remember Mom's 3 in 1 Oil, that she lubricated her sewing machine with when I was a kid. Aha, said my inner theologian, just like the Holy Trinity. Well, not quite, since those three oils were now blended into a whole new compound.
Some say we can take a lesson from water: one element that manifests its hydrogen/oxygen self sometimes as a liquid, other times a gas, yet again as a solid. Pretty cool, but not your Holy Trinity, whose three Persons are all God but always distinct and different from each other.
All things considered, my vote goes with the wag who warned against trying too hard to unscrew the Inscrutible!
Instead, I take delight in the many good surprises of God's grace tucked into this heady doctrine.
Take, for example, Jesus' last meeting with his disciples in Matthew 28:16-20. There he tells them -- and every disciple ever since -- to take his Good News into all the world, to teach people what he taught, and to baptize them in the (one) name of the (triune) Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In that context he assures them that he owns all authority on earth and in heaven -- because he has perfectly done God's will here on earth just the way it's done in heaven. Then he guarantees to be their constant companion on the journey -- because the Holy Spirit will be with them, and that's as good as having Christ himself there.
He doesn't guarantee smooth pavement on every road, or safety from pirates, thieves, and various kinds of catastrophe. The first generation of Christians faced ostracism, Collosseum lions, and the headsman's ax. This year Trinity Sunday comes while hundreds of thousands die and nearly die in earthquakes, cyclones, floods, and stupid wars.
Thoughtful minds want to know: Where is God when these things happen? Why is God letting them happen? When will God stand up and do something?
Last week "Prince Caspian" opened in theaters, the second installment in Hollywood's new Chronicles of Narnia series. C. S. Lewis' seven adventure tales for children are allegories of Christian discipleship, of spiritual warfare in a world at odds with God. In them four English children are transported into an enchanted land, the rightful realm of the lion king Aslan, but now ruled by one or another wicked pretender. This time it's a king who has no regard for the beauties and purposes of God's creation -- things like, oh, human dignity and faithful stewardship and harmony among all of life's creatures. So the children have to fight alongside good Prince Caspian if Aslan's claim to all authority will ever be fulfilled. And fight they do, and finally they prevail. And then -- at last -- they take stock and come to understand the Big Idea behind everything they've struggled through together.
It's not coincidental that Lewis wrote the Narnia stories while World War II raged on. In a real and important way, he was doing the Trinity Sunday reflection thing. Spiritual struggle is not a sign of God's absence or indifference. It's evidence that God is right here with us in the midst of life's bad, even horrible, news. Reminding us why we're here, what we're to do, who we're to be, whose side we're to choose again and again and again. Reassuring us that God's good plan will surely be fulfilled, in large part by people like you and me remembering all of the above, and acting on it as faithfully as we know how to do. "And, lo, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
Wow! Who'd have thought?
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:54 PM
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Hallelujah For Hea Jung
Our church family has been blessed this school year by Hea Jung Noh's leadership of our youth ministry. (She came our way last September immediately after finishing a chaplaincy internship at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley, to work part-time here while finishing her Master of Divinity program at San Francisco Theological Seminary.)
Of course, Hea Jung has blessed the families of our high school students. Her ministry to the youth includes their parents and siblings. As she spent time one on one with this young person or that one, she made it a point to get to know their families as well. Moms and dads appreciate both her personal warmth and her professional skill. They trust her with their kids, and with themselves.
All of us have benefited from her good work with the youth. I've observed our young people growing stronger in their fellowship and in their sense of Christ's daily presence. Their long-standing enthusiasm for volunteer service has a new spiritual resonance. So I look forward all the more to this year's Vacation Bible School and our All-Church Retreat, which are both famous for the youth group's mentoring ministry to our children.
Hea Jung fit right in to their annual snow trip to Tahoe. Then she led them into a new mission trip as well. They worked for a week in post-Katrina construction ministry in New Orleans. Daily blog entries kept us posted on their prayer requests and praises throughout their stay. Their testimonies upon return helped renew our compassion for the hurricane's thousands of victims, 2 1/2 years after the devastating storm tore through their hometown.
I can't thank Hea Jung enough for her contribution to our church's life and work. But this is the season for us to say one last "thank you," for she will be leaving us on May 25. She's returning to her family home in Korea to assist her parents for a year before entering the Ph.D. program in Berkeley's Graduate Theological Union. We will miss her, and we will pray God's best blessing on her as she steps out to follow God's lead from here.
Hea Jung will be our preacher on Pentecost Sunday, May 11. A week later we will honor her at the coffee hour on Sunday, May 18. I hope you can join us for both of these very special events in our life together as God's church -- one congregation right here in little Alameda and one small part of Christ's Body spread all across God's good earth.
posted by Jack Buckley at
8:35 PM
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