Looking for a Church That Loves God with Heart, Mind and Soul

He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment.” 
--Matthew 22:38-39 NRSV

“Our tradition has done a good job loving God with our hearts but it has done a poor job of loving God with our minds.” I clearly recall the moment Dr. Bill Rogers said those words to me as I sat in his office during seminary. He articulated what I had already known all my life growing up in the Southern Baptist/evangelical culture. My father a Southern Baptist pastor valued higher education and a historical critical approach to faith, and my mother who had been my Sunday school teacher as far back as I could remember passed on her cynicism of preachers who relied on emotion to cover up their bad theology. I had benefited from mentors, teachers and professors who had taught me to use my mind when I approached my faith, but I had lived in a religious culture suspicious of the mind as a place for Satanic deception. I had absorbed who knows how many messages I had internalized that said unless you “invite Jesus into your HEART’ then you were not a true Christian. I needed Dr. Rogers to make his declaration, because even as a seminary student I still deep down mistrusted the idea of loving God with my mind.

I had grown up going to youth camps and attending revival meetings where emotional appeals were used to get those present to “walk the aisle.” The only statistics that mattered were the ones saying how many people got “saved,” so no amount of emotional manipulation was off limits, the ends justified any means to save souls from eternal damnation. Never mind that religious commitments made in the heat of emotion never seemed to last. In youth group, we were warned about the “mountaintop experience” of having an intense spiritual experience at camp that would all be for naught if we didn’t guard ourselves against temptation when we “came back down the mountain” and our spiritual high wore off. Emotion was the gauge of spiritual authenticity, and the question of whether one “felt close to God” had eternal consequences. The ever-present bromide, “If you don’t feel close to God, guess who moved?” ensured that we would keep searching for the next moment when we felt Jesus in our hearts once more.

While attending a Baptist college, I saw the emotional side of Christianity cause not just shame but also abuse. I attended college meetings where speakers would declare any who didn’t end up crying by the end of the worship service to be false Christians. Friends of mine tried attending a charismatic church the next town over from our campus where they experienced intense emotional harm, because they didn’t have  the same kind emotional breakdowns that drove other attendees to lay on the floor weeping. It was not uncommon to see guys (it always seemed to be guys) breaking up with their girlfriends and blaming God for the decision. “I just feel led by God to not be in this relationship anymore.” Who could question the God who spoke to us through our feelings?

When I left the Baptist world I was raised in, I sought out more progressive/liberal congregations in the United Church of Christ and Disciples of Christ. Those churches would regularly describe themselves as the kind of churches “where you don’t have to check your mind at the door.” Indeed, I can remember countless stimulating conversations and intellectual debates in these congregations. I reveled in the intellectual freedom I hadn’t known in the churches I grew up in. Nobody was called a heretic or condemned to hell for expressing doubts or raising questions. Finally, I learned what it was to be in churches where people loved God with their minds!

I discovered, however, that these more cerebral churches had their own issues. I expected that our stimulating intellectual conversations about social justice would lead to faithful Christian social action, but to my dismay I found out that white liberals feel like they’ve done something if they have had a good discussion about it. I would wonder why I would invite church members to a protest and they would look at me confused, as if to say, “Well, we talked about racial reconciliation (or poverty, or LGBTQ rights, or equality in education, etc.). What more is there to do?”

In the same way, I found out that for many folks in these churches their faith was about an intellectual assent to an idea rather than any sort of commitment that shaped how they lived. Talking about God replaced having an experience of God. Talking about the Bible replaced actually reading it. Discussing an ethical issue in society or even in the church included little thought to what God might actually ask them to sacrifice or do differently. Loving God was more of an idea in the mind than anything that touched the heart of one’s being. I learned that just as emotion could be taken to an extreme that neglected the mind, the reverse was also true.

On my spiritual journey, I’ve struggled to find communities of faith that strike the balance Jesus asks for in the Greatest Commandment: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Loving God seems like a never-ending process where we work on opening ourselves up to God, and during that process we discover that we always seem to emphasize one part of ourselves over another. We must constantly seek to recalibrate a balance. God doesn’t seem to want just a part of us but all of who we are to be caught up in love with the Divine.
More than mind and hart, Jesus says we must also love God with our soul. “Soul” is a mysterious sort of term that meant a bunch of different things even in Jesus’ time, but I think the word “soul” always contains the sense of an unquantifiable wholeness of our true selves. Whatever isn’t contained under the category of “mind” or “heart” falls into the “soul” category. In the end, these terms are just human ways of describing how the love of God seeks purchase in every fiber of our being.

The medieval mystic Hildegaard of Bingen said this about the soul:

The soul is a breath of living spirit,
that with excellent sensitivity,
permeates the entire body to give it life.
Just so,
the breath of the air makes the earth fruitful.
Thus the air is the soul of the earth,
moistening it,
greening it.

If you’ve discovered part of yourself that you’ve neglected to cultivate in your spiritual journey—your mind, your heart, your soul—perhaps a good place to start to do so is a place inside you that is in need of spiritual moisture and greening. May the parts of yourself that have not been fruitful begin to blossom.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Why I Say the Same Benediction Each Sunda

[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 
--Colossians 1:15-17 NRSV

As you go from this place, hear these words:

May the strength of Christ go before you to prepare your way.
May the grace of Christ come behind you to finish what you must leave undone.
May the peace of Christ surround you in the present moment.
And may the love of Christ guide your every thought, word and deed.
Amen.

I’ve been saying the benediction I offer each Sunday for at least fifteen years. I’m not exactly sure when I came up with it. I’m fairly sure it is original to me, insofar as it came to me as some kind of mild epiphany once upon a time. I’m also pretty sure it was influenced by benedictions affirming God’s presence that I must have heard along the way. Probably its ultimate source lies in a prayer of St. Patrick:

Lord, be with us this day,
Within us to purify us;
Above us to draw us up;
Beneath us to sustain us;
Before us to lead us;
Behind us to restrain us;
Around us to protect us.

Who knows when or where I first came across Patrick’s words.

Whatever mysterious mixture of inspiration prompted me to come up with the benediction I offer, I stick with it, because with all my doubts and questions regarding God’s presence in my life, in the seconds it takes me to say it, I believe with certainty that the words of the benediction are true. As I look out on the faces of church members I know well and strangers who have wandered in, all of whom are looking back at me, I do believe that Christ is all around us—before, behind, surrounding and guiding every one of us.

There is a spectrum of awareness of Christ’s presence that each person who hears the words of benediction fall on. Week to week people may fall at different places along it. One week a person may be keenly aware Christ is present in their lives, and another week they may feel Christ has been absent. Some people move up and down that spectrum, while others hardly move and stay largely fixed at their particular level of awareness no matter their circumstances.

When I reflect upon my own awareness of Christ’s presence, I feel more like the indicator of an old-fashioned car radio that moves up and down the dial as someone rapidly turns the knob. Yet, somehow it is easier for me to be certain when I look into others’ eyes at the end of a church service—some wide open and awake, others bleary from a late Saturday night, still others already focused far away on what brunch or lunch spot they are headed to after the service—that Christ is ever-present all around us, within us, always accessible to us even if we don’t realize Christ is there.

I suppose I was attracted to the belief of Christ surrounding us, because I grew up conceiving of God as God the Father with Christ seated at his right hand located far above me in the throne room of heaven. The world was a hierarchy with God and Christ at the top and me somewhere near the bottom. Christ was only accessible in certain sacred locations or among certain sacred circumstances. It was up to me to struggle to find where Christ was hidden, and if I wasn’t successful it was my fault for not searching long and hard enough. Wherever Christ was, Christ was not near to me. If and when Christ showed up, he must surely be disappointed by the long list of my sins he discovered.

Along my journey, I did meet Christians who believed Christ was close at hand. These Christians spoke of God like a cosmic vending machine or Aladdin’s genie. Jesus controlled the stop lights to help them on their way to work. Jesus enabled them to find a two-for-one deal at their favorite restaurant. Jesus blessed them with all kinds of things which seemed more like coincidences to me. Surely Jesus had better things to do than respond to selfish wish fulfillment.

It was only when I discovered so called “feminist” theologians who pointed out where scriptures reveal God’s presence in all creation that I began to question the concept of God being always separate from us. Those feminist theologians didn’t come across to me like radicals on the fringe but in many ways they seemed quite conservative as they pointed out what was plain to read in scripture but which had never been pointed out to me. “[Christ] himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” In other words, Christ is in and all around everything, even me.

I’m sure about the same time I read feminist theologians I was also discovering Celtic Christianity and the likes of Saints Patrick, Columba, Cuthbert and others. Thanks to a seminary class on classics in Christian spirituality I read Theresa of Avila, Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen. These ancient writers showed me the deep well of Christian tradition which understood God as not way “up there” apart from us worthless sinners but “down here” among us, around us and always present with us. This wasn’t a new fad but an ancient tradition which had been there all along in Christianity.

What a relief and a comfort it was to find out Christ was all around me, not as some imaginary friend or divine butler but rather present in the miracle of each breath, the beauty of each rain drop and ray of sun, and most mysteriously in the presence of friends and the mercy of strangers. Since this discovery of Christ’s presence all around me, I’ve experienced a never-ending process of trying to live out of this truth. I’m neither very disciplined nor programmatic in my spirituality, so I’m grateful Christ is gracious and never standing by with a clipboard checking off my sins as I had imagined in younger days.

Despite my questions, doubts and lack of awareness the rest of the week, on Sunday mornings when I offer the benediction, at least for a moment or two, I am utterly confident of the truth of Christ’s presence in our lives. I hope that at least for a moment those who hear these words share the same confidence.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Your Anger is Killing You

Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. --Colossians 3:13 NRSV

There’s a lot to be angry about these days. Some of that anger is legitimate, because it is anger about genuine injustice faced by immigrants, Black people and Latinx people, low-income people and so on. Some of the anger is based on mass delusion fed by a media more interested in profits than telling the truth. This type of anger is based on conspiracy theories, misguided victimhood and even racism. Anger also comes when we experience loss, and we are experiencing losses of all kinds during the COVID-19 pandemic, from loss of mobility and activity to loss of health and even life. 2000,000 people dead is a significant loss. Whatever the source of the anger and resentment, however justified or misguided, the cost on our spiritual, emotional and physical health is high.

We were not created to hold grudges, stoke our anger and feed our resentments. Emotionally it makes us miserable and increases the misery of those around us. Psychologically it leads to loss of self worth, depression and self-medication via alcohol and drugs. Spiritually it takes us away from our center, which is God, and throws our whole life out of balance. Physically--well, the physical problems are perhaps easiest to track.

The Stanford Forgiveness Project occurred in 2001 and was the first university study that sought to intervene in people’s behavior when it comes to anger, resentment and forgiveness. The Stanford Forgiveness Project involved people with unresolved anger toward another person such as a cheating spouse or an overbearing parent. Participants rated their level of anger and stress. Half of the group took classes on forgiveness and learned relaxation techniques for managing anger. The other half did not. Following the classes those who had learned to forgive experienced less anger and stress than the control group. According to Dr. Frederic Luskin, who directed the project, “The study…found that by not harboring grudges the participants became less angry. Their level of hopefulness for the future…significantly increased, and they…felt more spiritual’”

Data from the Forgiveness Project and other studies indicates that learning to forgive results in lower levels of anxiety and depression. Whereas harboring anger increases the risk of heart attacks and impairs the immune system, forgiveness has the opposite effect. The Mayo Clinic shares the following about the health benefits of forgiveness:

Letting go of grudges and bitterness can make way for improved health and peace of mind. Forgiveness can lead to:

• Healthier relationships

• Improved mental health

• Less anxiety, stress and hostility

• Lower blood pressure

• Fewer symptoms of depression

• A stronger immune system

• Improved heart health

• Improved self-esteem

Science continues to show what all major world religions and philosophies have known for centuries: resentment, the desire for vengeance and continual anger are bad for us and forgiving, kindness and grace are good for us.  Jesus couldn’t have been any clearer about this truth, yet so many Christians walk around as if they breathed rage rather than oxygen. As Anne Lamott says in her memoir Traveling Mercies, “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die." Or as an unknown wise person once said, “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

You’ll probably hear me relate this very same information about forgiveness in a sermon sometime soon, because I believe all of us need to be reminded as often as possible of the benefits of letting go of our rage, resentment and desire to get even. We just can’t hear it enough. So as you cable TV news blares at you, notifications on your smartphone squawk at you, and your Facebook/Twitter feed presents a deluge of things to be outraged about, stop, take a step back, breath and spend time finding ways to turn your anger into actions that increase your well-being and that of people around you.

Grace and Peace,
Chase Peeples

Why am I Tearing Up Reading the Hunger Games?

Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his faithful ones.
--Psalm 116:15 NRSV

We’ve passed into autumn and my heart’s been tender lately. I keep thinking about my mother who died two year’s ago this November.  Two years ago on Labor Day weekend my mother fell and hit her head. The scans of her head revealed she had a brain tumor and two months later it killed her. The months of September and October 2018 were filled with frantic trips to see the oncologist to discuss the biopsy and radiation treatments just to give my mother a few more weeks or months. All of that was fruitless, because my mother didn’t have more time. She died slowly but painlessly under the care of the great people at KC Hospice’s Hospice House in south KC.

I know I’m not done grieving my mother, because I tear up at the strangest times. The Hunger Games young adult books keep making me cry. My younger son and I have been reading The Hunger Games series together. It’s a powerful series that raises questions about government manipulation, violence as entertainment and even compassion for one’s enemies. When death comes in these books, it often comes suddenly. Yet, the deaths in these books are not gratuitous and those who die are often mourned.  The main character and narrator finds time to grieve companions and loved ones in ways that are all the more tender because their context seems so uncaring. I keep choking up every time it happens, and I think of sitting by my mother’s bedside as she moved from this life into the next. If I’m crying while reading The Hunger Games something must really be going on inside of me!

I subscribe to a daily devotional that arrives in my email inbox each morning offered by The United Church of Christ. A recent onewritten by UCC minister Quinn Caldwell made me think about death in a completely different way. I haven’t seen the musical Hamilton but Caldwell describes what happens at its conclusion. (SPOILER ALERT—skip ahead if you don’t want to read what happens at the end of Hamilton)

At the very end of the musical Hamilton, the newly deceased Eliza Hamilton, having been reunited with her son and husband, faces the audience. Her eyes grow wide, she gasps loudly in delight, and the house goes dark. Curtain.

Much has been made of that gasp, especially in the days since those of us who couldn’t afford to see the show in person watched it streaming online. What did she see, or understand? Was it God? Did she break the fourth wall and see the audience sitting there and realize the work she’d done to preserve her husband’s legacy had come to new fruition? Something else? Lin Manuel Miranda’s not telling, and of course that’s part of the point.

I had never considered the moment of death resulting in a gasp of surprise by the one who has died. I’ve always thought about the light people report seeing who have had near-death experiences. I’ve thought of the one who dies experiencing peace or joy when they show up in heaven—whatever heaven is like. I have never thought that a surprise great enough to make one gasp was waiting for each of us.

Images that come to mind when I ponder that kind of surprise are the reaction of folks when the Publisher’s Clearinghouse people show up with a giant check or the reaction of the audience when Oprah gave each of them a new car or maybe one of those America’s Funniest Videos where the kids are told they are headed on a surprise trip to Disney World. Yet, since this is God we are talking about, the surprise waiting for us is even greater than any of those!

As if I haven’t had enough unexpected tears lately, Quinn Caldwell goes on in his devotional to quote the hymn that always makes me cry when its sung in church.

There’s a line in the hymn “I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry” that regularly makes me weep. At the end, after the hymn has taken us through a human lifetime marked by God’s constant presence, it says,

“As the evening gently closes in
and you shut your weary eyes,
I’ll be there as I have always been,
with just one more surprise.”

It's good to know I’m not alone in crying over this hymn. I guess I’ve been too teary to ponder that final line “just one more surprise.’ Again, of all things I’ve considered dying would be like, I had never thought of the dying person receiving such a joyful surprise after their body exhales its last breath. What an amazing thought.

If you see me over the next few weeks, you might find me getting teary-eyed at strange moments. I keep marveling at whatever the latest weird thing is to make me cry and think of my mom. Now, I’m imagining my mother’s gasp at the surprise God had waiting for her. I wonder what amazing thing made her gasp so?

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Who are the Other People in Your Story?

Tell your children of it,
and let your children tell their children,
and their children another generation.
--Joel 1:3 NRSV

In their book Resident Aliens, Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon write the following about the stories of our lives that each of us gets to tell: 

By telling [our] stories, we come to see the significance and coherence of our lives as a gift, as something not of our own heroic creation, but as something that must be told to us, something we would not have known without the community of faith. The little story I call my life is given cosmic, eternal significance as it is caught up within God’s larger account of history…. The significance of our lives is frighteningly contingent on the story of another.

This past Sunday I preached on the parable of the workers in the vineyard (or what I think it should be called—the parable of the generous landowner). As I said in the sermon, it’s an offensive story about a landowner who pays his workers the same whether they worked one hour at the end of the day or twelve hours. It is meant to confront us with God’s grace which is offensive to our modern individualistic and capitalistic mindsets. We like to identify with the workers who complain about getting paid for a full day’s work unlike those who only worked an hour, but if we are at all self-aware, we must admit that we are the late-coming workers who only work an hour but receive a full day’s pay more often than we wish to admit.

The Japanese-American social activist Yuri Kochiyama wrote, “Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another. “ We may not wish to admit it, but our stories reveal that we did not do it on our own. We travelled our journey only with the influence and assistance of more people than we can count.

In my own story, my birth and survival were the result of many different people. I was born 3 months premature in 1972, a time when preemies had low survival rates. I survived because of the doctors and nurses who cared for me those weeks I remained in the hospital. I survived because of the inventors, researchers and engineers who designed the incubators I remained in. I survived because of the people who built a hospital in Florissnat, MO—the taxes paid, the donations given, the construction crews who built it, the architect who designed it, the people who worked there, all those who paid their bills to keep it in operation. I survived because my grandmother was in a prayer circle at her church in Arkansas who prayed for me to live. I survived because the church my father served as pastor prayed for me as well. I lived because of the hundreds and thousands of people whose actions directly and indirectly enabled me to live.

My entire life has been shaped by choices I did not make and people who directly and indirectly influenced me. I had no control over what family I or country I was born into or what skin color I possessed. Each of those and more determined the opportunities I would have and shaped the choices I have made. All along the way, teachers, ministers, church members, neighbors, friends, enemies, writers, thinkers, media personalities, journalists and politicians all rubbed off on me for better or worse and shaped who I am and what choices I have made. There is no way to count the number of people who have shaped me.

Our individual choices and actions matter—of course they do. Yet, even if our choices were to act differently than the values of our families or the context we were raised in, all those factors still influenced the choices we make in a negative or positive way. We have made our choices and actions not in some sterile lab environment apart from all other variables but the exact opposite. We have made our choices and actions influenced by millennia of culture and history that shape our perceptions in ways that we are conscious of and in even more ways we are not aware.

If you had to tell your story, who would you name as the people who shaped who you are? How long would your list be?

Somewhere in your story—maybe everywhere in your story—God peeks over the shoulder of a person who influenced you along the way and winks at you. In the midst of all these people and situations that shape us, God works weaving our stories together like a master weaver inserting beautiful pieces of thread into a pattern that becomes a masterpiece!

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Garage Sales Aren’t Much Fun Anymore

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be loyal to the one and have contempt for the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
--Matthew 6:24 CEB

I guess it was the combination of nice weather and being unable to have garage sales earlier in the pandemic, but my neighborhood was full of them this morning. This wasn’t a neighborhood-wide sale but rather a simultaneous spasm by people who all had the same idea. I got to the church later than normal this morning, because I stopped at a couple or ten of them. I’m a sucker for garage sales and I always have been. The possibility of getting something I want or need for a deal was bred into me by a father who missed his true calling as a horse trader.

At middle age, however, I’ve found I enjoy garage sales less than I used to. Just like this morning, most of the time I look over what people have and find nothing I want or need. I already have too much stuff. Between my wife and I, we have three sets of parents who have down-sized in their retirement. (Her parents divorced and are both remarried.) In our basement and in our closets, we have stuff they passed on to us, much of it we will never use. We accepted a lot of these parental castoffs, because our parents couldn’t bear to part with them and keeping them in the family eased their struggles with letting go. A time of purging looms in our future like a monster in a horror movie waiting to jump out at us.

Another reason garage sales don’t thrill me like they used to is I’ve lived long enough now to understand more stuff doesn’t equal more happiness. Once you move out on your own and eventually fill your own living space with what you like/need, there reaches a point where having more is too much. A scale tips from buying what you need (or at least what a typical middle-class American believes they need) to mindless consumption. There’s a good reason why self-storage units are one of the most in demand businesses today. Possessions can become a trap where we serve them rather than them serving us.

Comedians and writers I enjoyed growing up pointed out the absurdity of allowing our things to control us rather than vice-a-versa. Stephen Wright said in his hilarious deadpan delivery, “You can’t have everything. Where would you put it?” Erma Bombeck quipped, “The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.”

Struggles with material consumption failing to meet spiritual needs aren’t new. Every religion and every philosophy has addressed our human propensity for ascribing ultimate meaning to finite things. Yet, the modern western economy is based upon consumer spending, and so literally many people’s jobs and retirement investments depend upon more people buying more stuff they do not need. The scale of the pressure to find our meaning and purpose in things is greater than ever before.  This leads to serious spiritual pitfalls. Arthur Simon, former president of Bread for the World, wrote in his classic book How Much is Enough?, “When things are valued too much, they lose their value because they nourish a never-satisfied craving for more. Conversely, when things are received as gifts from God and used obediently in service to God, they are enriched with gratitude. As sages have said, contentment lies not in obtaining things you want, but in giving thanks for what you have.” I don’t know about you but I haven’t seen many commercials by multi-national corporations urging me to be grateful for what I already have.

Our need to consume and possess more and more also comes with deep ethical considerations that if you’re like me, you’d rather not consider. Liberation theologian Jon Sobrino writes in his book The Good Life, “’What's wrong with wanting a good life?’ people may ask, taking it for granted as their manifest destiny. We have already hinted at the answer: the precipice of dehumanization. In our world, structurally speaking, "the good life" is only possible at the cost of a "bad life" and death for the poor.” I’m too busy ordering my next Frappuccino to consider whether the person who picked the coffee beans my expensive drink is made out of was fairly paid.

Of course, Jesus warned us about all of this, but we never seem to heed his teachings. We can’t serve two masters. We can’t serve God and wealth. In a society like ours where we are bombarded by messages saying we don’t have enough of this or that, it’s difficult to consider what wealth we do have. Wealth belongs to the 1% not to me. Yet, compared to most people on earth and most humans who have ever lived the average middle-class American is indeed wealthy. If we begin the difficult task of differentiating between our wants and needs, our wealth will be revealed. Then, perhaps, we can begin to grasp the truth that the most important things in life do not fit into our online shopping carts.

My wife has a bumper sticker on her car which says, “The best things in life aren’t things.” I haven’t put a similar bumper sticker on my own car, at least not yet. I’m still stopping at garage sales and still struggling with the deluded hope that the God-shaped hole inside me can be filled by something I buy.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Learn a Lesson From George Costanza

 Do not remember the former things,    or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing;     now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:18-19 NRSV

There is a classic episode of the 90’s TV show Seinfeld where the character George Costanza is insulted in a meeting. Refreshments have been served and George is chowing down on some  shrimp. From across the conference table a man named Riley says, “George, the ocean called. They’re running out of shrimp.” The room erupts in laughter and George is humiliated.

Driving home from work, George is running over the humiliation in his mind over and over when the perfect comeback occurs to him. He is furious that he couldn’t think of it at the moment  he was insulted and has to find a way to use his perfect comeback to get back at Riley. As it turns out, Riley has taken a new job at another company, but George just can’t let it go. So he arranges a fake meeting with Riley’s new company and flies all the way from New York to Akron, Ohio to get back at his nemesis.

In a new conference room in Akron, George brings in a huge amount of shrimp and begins stuffing them in his mouth. Once again Riley unleashes his zinger, “George, the ocean called. They’re running out of shrimp.” This time George looks triumphant as he stands up and unleashes his comeback. “Oh yeah? The jerk store called and they’re running out of you!” The conference room is quiet and the people around the table look, if anything, confused. Once again, Riley is too quick for George and has a comeback to the comeback, “What’s it matter? You’re they’re all-time best seller!” The room erupts in laughter.

The episode ends with George driving home from the airport reliving his humiliation again and again in his mind. Then another comeback occurs to him, so he turns his car around and heads back toward the airport presumably to fly back to Ohio.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had occasions where I felt humiliated or hurt, and like George, I couldn’t let them go. I replayed in my mind the painful moment and then fantasized about how things would have been different if I had been quicker on my feet or more capable in the moment. Those memories aren’t as bad as the ones of when I was the one doing the hurting. At times, I’ve replayed in my mind what things could have been like if I had just kept my mouth shut, said less instead of more. The sad thing about our pasts is that no matter how many times we replay painful scenes in our minds, the reality of what happened never changes.

There is good reason why the movies are filled with people wishing to go back in time to change their pasts. From It’s a Wonderful Life to Back to the Future to The Avengers: Endgame. Who hasn’t wished they could go back in time and do things differently? To make the perfect comeback. To take back a word or action that hurts the ones we love.

I’ve learned from years in ministry that people can carry the pain of their past all the way to their deathbeds. I’ve been privileged to hear deathbed confessions from folks I’ve been with. What I’ve discovered is that rarely are such confessions scandalous or sensational. Most of the time they are run of the mill stuff that comes with living a life: not spending enough time with their children, not appreciating their parents enough, broken friendships and ordinary sins of selfishness and indifference. On most such occasions, I wondered why they had bothered to carry such trivial burdens all the way through their lives only to let them go at the last when they no longer had the opportunity to enjoy living without them?

There is not a human being alive who wouldn’t do things differently, at least a little, if they had the chance to do so. Yet, those I know who seem to live the best kind of lives are people who have accepted their mistakes and the pain inflicted by others and then learned from them. The key seems to be making peace with the past and then letting the past be the past. Those unable to do so are like George from Seinfeld doomed to relive a painful past and therefore they create a painful present with no future.

Maya Angelou writes, “We cannot change the past, but we can change our attitude toward it. Uproot guilt and plant forgiveness. Tear out arrogance and seed humility. Exchange love for hate --- thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.”

Sometimes uprooting the pain of the past is not easy. People who have experienced trauma are literally stuck in those moments of intense pain. Neurological studies have shown how the brain literally gets stuck like a broken record having been unable to store traumatic memories in the normal place in the brain memories are stored. Trauma leaves a person literally unable to move on without treatment and therapy. 

For most of us, however, we have the power to stop living in the past. Sometimes it may take talking it through with a counselor, minister or trusted friend, but the past can indeed become the past instead of a painful present. When we find ourselves reliving those painful moments, we can stop ourselves and intentionally learn to let them go. If we are intentional about it and open to God’s grace for ourselves and for others, we can “plant forgiveness” and “seed humility.”

Only when we allow the past to be the past, learning what God wishes to teach us from it and then moving on, can we live peacefully in the present and embrace the new things God has for us in the future.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples

A Prayer for the 196,000 and Counting

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your
Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted.  So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.
--Matthew 10: 29-31 NRSV

Most days I fail to keep up with the number of who has died from COVID-19 in the United States. Today, for some reason, I checked the total. My Google search said as of today, September 16, 196,000 people have died. Each one is a loss. Each one was created and loved by God. Each one leaves a family in mourning.

Maybe it was the recent anniversary of 9-11 and the collective mourning we shared as a nation that got me thinking about the number who have died from COVID-19. 2,977 people died on September 11, 2001. 65 times that number have died from COVID-19, yet there has been no collective mourning for the COVID-19, no ringing of bells, no solemn public services. It remains a number some of our leaders refuse to even acknowledge.

I don’t want to be misunderstood as if I am somehow minimizing the crimes of September 11 and the victims of those terrorist attacks. Far from it. I served in metro NYC immediately following the attacks in 2001 and came to know well widows and children of men who died in the World Trade Center. I know the depths of their pain, and I know our nation’s collective pain. I merely use it as a comparison to show how badly I believe our culture needs to mourn our dead.

The comparison only goes so far. 9-11 gave us a shared enemy to hate and someone clear to blame. COVID-19 remains mysterious in its causes and the bungling of the response is multi-faceted. 9-11 happened all at once on live television, but COVID-19 happens at a daily, unending pace that only frontline medical workers witness. Perhaps the true horror of this disease is how so many people must die alone separated from loved ones. If they are fortunate, a kind nurse holds up a phone to Zoom or Facetime with family. For most of us,however, the terrible cost of this pandemic remains out of sight and therefore out of mind.

I keep wondering if we had a way to collectively mourn the COVID-19 dead then would we stop wasting our breath fighting over the need for masks or other precautionary measures. The human brain just can’t comprehend large numbers of casualties. We literally remain numb to them. Yet, I believe if each life is sacred to God and hopefully to their loved ones, then we pay a collective cost by not mourning, lamenting, grieving these lives lost. Our common humanity is lessened by our inability and unwillingness to acknowledge this many deaths.

Jesus taught that God values each human being. God knows the name and life of each person who has died. God knows their worth. In the same way, God knows you and me. God knows the worth of our lives too.

I don’t have the power to call our nation to collectively mourn, but I can offer you dear readers a chance to stop, mourn and acknowledge the dead within our midst. I found the following prayer by Jewish writer Alden Solovy, which was shared on the Sojourners web site. It expresses what I feel all of us need to express to God as we continue to walk through this pandemic. 

I invite you to pause, read it silently or out loud, and make it your prayer.

God of consolation,
Surely you count in heaven,
Just as we count here on earth,
In shock and in sorrow,
The souls sent back to You,
One-by-one,
The dead from the COVID pandemic,
As the ones become tens,
The tens become hundreds,
The hundreds become thousands,
The thousands become ten-thousands
And then hundred-thousands,
Each soul, a heartbreak,
Each soul, a life denied.

God of wisdom,
Surely in the halls of divine justice
You are assembling the courts,
Calling witnesses to testify,
To proclaim
The compassion of some
And the callousness of others
As we’ve struggled to cope.
The souls taken too soon,
Whose funerals were lonely,
Who didn’t need to die,
Who died alone,
Will tell their stories
When You judge
Our triumphs
And our failures
In these hours of need.

God of healing, an end to this pandemic,
And all illness and disease.
Bless those who stand in service to humanity.
Bless those who grieve.
Bless the dead,
So that their souls are bound up in the bond of life eternal.
And grant those still afflicted
With disease or trauma
A completed and lasting healing,
One-by-one,
Until suffering ceases,
And we can stop counting the dead,
In heaven And on earth.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples

The KC Chiefs Were Booed Last Night Before the Game Began

“I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” --Revelation 3:15-16 NRSV

I’m a die-hard Kansas City Chiefs fan, and I should be over the moon today. 2020 has been a dumpster fire of a year and pro football is back! Before this year, the Chiefs hadn't won a Super Bowl in fifty years, and it feels like fifty years since this year’s Super Bowl parade due to this pandemic. I am thrilled the Chiefs stomped the Texans last night, but all I can think about are the boos before the game.

Stop and consider for a moment that KC Chiefs fans in Arrowhead stadium last night mere minutes after the Super Bowl Champions banner was unveiled booed their own team before the game even started. The Chiefs haven’t won a Super Bowl in fifty years, and they haven’t had a quarterback this good since Lem Dawson, yet their fans booed them before they even played a down. Why?

The boos began after Grammy award-winning musician Alica Keys sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing” before the game. The song is often called “the Black national anthem” and has been a standard in the Civil Rights Movement. Here is the final verse of this amazing hymn:

God of our weary years,

God of our silent tears,

Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;

Thou who has by Thy might

Led us into the light,

Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,

Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;

Shadowed beneath Thy hand,

May we forever stand,

True to our God,

True to our native land.

Just think about it. These words were booed on national TV last night! 

After the national anthem, players from both teams came out to the middle of the field where many locked arms for “a moment of unity.” On the scoreboard seven messages picked by the players appeared:

We support equality. 

We must end racism. 

We believe in justice for all. 

We must end police brutality. 

We choose unconditional love. 

It takes all of us. 

We believe Black lives matter.

Just think about it. These words were booed on national TV last night! 

Not all of the approximately sixteen thousand fans in attendance booed, but enough did to be heard loud and clear on the broadcast. After the game, players said they couldn’t hear it on the field, but you have to wonder if that was true or a careful PR move. The announcers failed to mention the boos and continued throughout the broadcast to speak of the players’ work for “social justice” and “charity” never once using the word “racism” that I heard. Nonetheless, the boos happened and everyone heard them.

Some perhaps will say they booed because the NFL protests are unpatriotic and disrespectful to the American flag. Yet, last night only one player kneeled during the anthem and you couldn’t hear the boos then. (The player who kneeled was Alex Okafor. Read his eloquent reasons for doing so in his guest editorial in the KC Star.) You could hear the boos loud and clear after “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and the “moment of unity” when the national anthem was not playing and the American flag was not the focus. Besides, NFL players have clearly stated that when they take a knee during the anthem they are doing so for the same reason they take a knee during the game--because a teammate is down and hurting. They have expanded the idea of who a team mate is to include black men and women unfairly treated by our legal system. Yet, that explanation has never mattered to their critics. Last night, the boos didn’t even come during the national anthem. It was only about race.

Some will perhaps say they booed, because “Black Lives Matter” is anti-police. Yet BLM protesters and leaders--all but the few who are most extreme--have been clear they are against police policies and only certain police who treat Black people worse than white people. Those explanations have not mattered to their critics. I believe these explanations are ignored because of racism.

Some will perhaps say they booed, because “Black Lives Matter” is a Marxist movement. Yet BLM protesters have overwhelmingly not identified as Marxist--again only a few who are most extreme take that label. It’s a slanderous accusation, but critics of BLM say it anyway. I believe they do so because of racism.

Some will perhaps say they booed, because “Black Lives Matter” causes riots. Overwhelmingly BLM protests have been peaceful, without violence and without property damage. It’s a normal practice of media to treat looting and burning as news while ignoring peaceful protests. BLM leaders have denounced violence and property damage--again only a few who are most extreme justify such actions. Yet, those denunciations don’t matter to critics of BLM. I believe that is because of racism.

Some will perhaps say they booed because “All Lives Matter” not just “Black Lives Matter.” From its beginning, BLM has made clear they are not saying Black lives matter more than white lives, rather continuing white supremacy and white privilege values Black lives as less than white ones. The message they hear from white America is “Black lives do not matter.” I like the message some BLM supporters use which says, “All lives can’t matter until Black lives matter too.” Misunderstanding this message at this point in 2020 amounts to willful ignorance. Critics of BLM continue to ignore this clear message. I believe the reason for this ignorance is racism.

In sum, any who wish to deny the reality of systemic racism in America must explain the boos by Kansas City Chiefs fans broadcast to the world last night. There is no good explanation other than racism.

Perhaps you dear reader are wondering why I, a white minister, would write these words to a majority white church where I am only the interim minister. Why would I send it out in an email? Why would I post it online on social media? Here’s why.

Over fifty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. was accused by white critics of being Marxist, of causing violence and riots, of breaking “law and order,” of disrespecting America and its flag, of disparaging law enforcement, and so on. One of his most eloquent writings is “A Letter From a Birmingham Jail” in which MLK, Jr. responds to white moderate clergy who say he is causing too much trouble. His response is a resounding criticism of white people who say they support equality for all people but do not want protests. In one of his most damning paragraphs, he writes the following:

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

He wrote those words 57 years ago and they resound today. Every white Christian in America who claims to love her or his neighbor should be outraged at the boos at last night’s Chiefs game. Yet, most will merely shrug and many will be glad they occurred.

The only difference between our time and MLK, Jr.’s time is that the white church still had cultural influence. Today our children and grandchildren have left the churches they were raised in en masse.  One of the leading reasons for this exodus is the recognition of hypocrisy on the part of the church when it comes to race. They see it for what it is--one cannot claim to love one’s neighbor and remain moderate when it comes to racism, much less remain racist. So they have left.

As a white male clergyman, I confess having done far too little to combat racism. My learning curve has been steep and painful when it comes to racism inhabiting all areas of our culture. What drives me to do more and not keep my mouth shut is that I must face my children and my future grandchildren. As they learn the extent of racism in America, they have already begun asking, “What have you done to change things for the better?” My prayer is that MLK, Jr.’s ever-relevant words will not apply to me: “Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”

Grace and Peace,
Chase

When a TV Show Knocks on Your Church Door

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
--Hebrews 13:2 NRSV

I am a big fan of the TV show The Office, the American version that aired on NBC 2005-2013, about employees at a paper company in Scranton, PA. (I enjoy the earlier British version too.) I watched it occasionally when it originally aired, but I really got into it when it came to Netflix and I could binge watch it in a relatively short amount of time. Apparently, I’m not alone, because it has become popular again with younger generations who also stream it online. Its recent popularity has given rise to a podcast where Jenna Fischer (who played Pam the receptionist) and Angela Kinsey (who played the accountant Angela) re-watch the series and tell behind the scenes stories about what it was like making the TV show.

In a recent podcast episode, the former stars of The Office shared about a TV show episode from the third season when a character named Phyllis married Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration (you have to watch the show to get the joke). They shared that the church where the wedding took place is First Christian Church of North Hollywood Disciples of Christ. If you pay attention during the wedding reception filmed in the church’s social hall, you can see a banner with the Disciples of Christ red chalice on it. This congregation is located near many TV and film studios and is often a filming location for a traditional-looking church with colonial architecture. The church web site reveals FCC North Hollywood was the family church on the TV show 7^th Heaven and has appeared in dozens of TV shows, movies and commercials.

While listening to the podcast and hearing what it was like to film at the church, at first I thought, “What a cool bit of trivia that an episode of The Office was filmed at a Disciples of Christ church!” Then my ears really perked up when I heard the TV stars talk about their own experiences of the congregation. One of the production staff on the TV show was married at FCC North Hollywood. Angela Kinsey who is one of the hosts of the podcast and an actor on the TV show described how she was looking for a church to attend on Easter Sunday and she chose to attend FCC North Hollywood because she had driven by it on her way to work. She reported having a great Easter morning experience. Kinsey went on to share that she took her children to preschool there as well. (Co-host Jenna Fischer is Roman Catholic and didn’t have any experience with the Disciples congregation.)

In a nutshell, what was described on the podcast is how most people relate to a church—if they connect to a church at all. Perhaps they were raised going to church and when the big holidays of Christmas and Easter roll around they randomly pick a church to attend with their family. Maybe they wish to be married in an attractive church sanctuary. Perhaps they have a need that a church can fill such as childcare or in this case an attractive location to film a TV show. Most churches don’t have much demand for that last one, but they knows\ what it’s like to have weddings in their building because it has an attractive sanctuary, etc. In sum, most people encounter a church because either they were raised in the church and return for a major holiday (or a wedding, funeral, etc.) or they have a specific need the church can meet.

As demographics continue to change, fewer and fewer people will be raised being a part of a religious community. They will not have memories from childhood to draw them back in later years. More likely, if they ever encounter a church it will be when they have a need such as childcare, a group like AA or a community group that meets in a church building. This means that if church folks want to meet people who actually know their church exists, they must show hospitality. People who enter their sacred space must be treated as honored guests rather than interlopers. Each interaction is an opportunity to demonstrate the love of Christ. Any time a non-church member enters the church building and is met by suspicion or a lack of welcome that is a lost opportunity to show Christ’s love.

Any church that wishes to have a future in a culture which does not value church attendance and church membership must take every opportunity to demonstrate bold hospitality. The church building must be seen as a tool to demonstrate the love of Christ and not an idol to be worshiped or a treasure to be hoarded for a select few. When those blessed interactions occur, community members who encounter the church and its people have seeds of welcome planted in them. Later on, when the inevitable struggles of life occur, the Holy Spirit will remind these folks that there is a place they have experienced where they would be welcome and accepted.

Most churches do not have film crews knocking on their door but they have plenty of other people who are and will. God expects us to open the door and offer welcome.

Grace and Peace,
Rev. Chase Peeples