Josephs

The following sermon was given Sunday, December 11 in the Wheatland Parish.  The scripture was Matthew 1:18-25.

            We talked last week about how busy the angel Gabriel was two thousand years ago.  First, Gabriel appears to Zechariah to tell him he’s going to have a son who will prepare the way for the Savior.  Then, Gabriel appears to Mary to tell her she’s going to have a son who will actually be the Savior.  Today, here’s Gabriel again, talking to Joseph, telling him the child Mary is going to have is from the Holy Spirit and will be the Savior.

            When we hear about the story of Jesus’ birth, Joseph is kind of the forgotten man.  We hear a lot about Mary and Jesus, and the shepherds and the wise men and the angel, but never much about Joseph.  It seems like Joseph is kind of the odd man out of the Christmas story.  It’s like he’s just sort of there.  But, of course, that’s not true.  Joseph was a really important figure in the life of Jesus.

            You know, the gospels don’t tell us how Joseph found out Mary was going to have a baby.  Matthew just says Mary “was found to be with child.”  I suppose, at some point, Mary must have told him.  Imagine you’re Joseph, at that point.  The woman you’re engaged to tells you she’s going to have a baby.  You know it cannot be yours.  And yet, she swears she has never been unfaithful to you, that this is some sort of miracle from God, that this child she’s carrying is going to be the savior of the world.

            How do you think you’d react to that, if you were Joseph?  I mean, you’d want to believe it.  We’re not told for sure, but the scriptures make it sound like Joseph really did love Mary.  He’d want to believe she was telling the truth.  But how could he?  A baby born without a human father?  The savior of the world being born like a human baby, born to an ordinary, single, poor woman?  No matter how much Joseph wanted to believe that, there’s no way he could have, any more than you or I could.  It just would’ve seemed impossible.  It would not have made any sense to him, any more than it’d make sense to you or me if it happened today.

            What would you feel, if you were Joseph?  Hurt, betrayed, angry, sad.  I’m sure Joseph felt all those things, too. 

            Then, we hear that an angel came to Joseph in a dream to tell Joseph that Mary was telling the truth.  Even so, it seems like the story gives Joseph kind of short shrift.  I mean, when Gabriel came to Zechariah, we got a whole big conversation between them.  When Gabriel came to Mary, we’re told about all of Mary’s questions, and we’re given all of Gabriel’s answers.  Then we’re told everything that was going on in Mary’s mind, how she felt about all this.

            We don’t get any of that about Joseph.  From what we can tell in Matthew, Joseph never got to ask any questions at all.  The angel just did a monologue.  The angel told Joseph what Joseph needed to know, and Joseph did what the angel told him to do.  It’s the same every time in scripture that an angel appears to Joseph—the angel tells Joseph to do something, and he does it.  It’s like what Joseph might have felt or thought did not matter at all.

            But of course, it did matter.  Joseph mattered.  Joseph was chosen by God to be the earthly father of Jesus, just as much as Mary was chosen to be Jesus’ mother.  God chose Joseph because, as our scripture says, he was a righteous man.

            You know, after the story of Jesus’ birth, we never hear about Joseph again.  There’s one more reference to him in the Bible, in the story about when Jesus is twelve and stays behind to talk with the rabbis after Passover, but look what happens.  Joseph is not even mentioned by name.  We’re just told that Jesus’ parents went to look for him, and we’re left to assume that includes Joseph.  Again, it’s like Joseph is just sort of there, like he’s not really very important.

            But think about it:  Joseph would’ve had a lot of responsibility for raising Jesus.  Not only was Joseph responsible for providing Jesus with food and shelter and love, he was responsible for Jesus’ education.  After all, there were no schools for kids to go to back then.  At that time, a boy would stay home with his mother until about age seven, and then go to work with his dad.  This was not just a work time, either.  It was a time for education, and the education would’ve been mostly religious education.

            In other words, Joseph was the one responsible for raising Jesus as a religious man.  That’s why God chose Joseph, a righteous man, to raise Jesus.  Now obviously Jesus, as the divine Son of God, knew God in a way the rest of us never will.  But still, Jesus was raised as a human being.  Joseph was the one who gave him a background in the scriptures and in the religious teachings of the rabbis.  Think of all the times Jesus quoted scripture to people.  How do you think he knew it so well?  He learned it from Joseph.

            Think of the strength of character Jesus had.  Now again, Jesus was not just a human being, but he did have a human side to him, and it was important that the human side be strong.  Again, Jesus got that from Joseph.  When he was helping Joseph, Joseph was showing him how a good, righteous man is supposed to behave. 

After all, Joseph never had an easy life.  He and Mary did not have a lot of money.  They moved around a lot—scripture tells us that they moved a couple of times when Jesus was still very young.  Joseph had to deal with lots of problems.  The way he dealt with those problems was a model for Jesus to follow.

            We know Joseph was a carpenter.  That meant Joseph was always dealing with the public, and back then, just like today, there are times when the public is not all that easy to deal with.  Sometimes business was slow, and Joseph wondered how he’d have enough to pay the bills.  Sometimes a whole lot of business came in at once, and everyone demanded their project be done first.  Sometimes something Joseph made would break and the customer would be mad at Joseph and demand he fix it for free, whether it was his fault or not.  Sometimes, Joseph would make something for someone and they’d refuse to pay him, or claim that he’d done it wrong, even if Joseph had done exactly what they’d told him to do.  Joseph had to deal with all this and more, every day.

            Now, think of all the times Jesus had to deal with difficult people.  How do you think he learned how to do that?  From Joseph.  From watching his earthly father deal with difficult people, and seeing him handle them in the way a righteous man does.

            Joseph was obviously so important in the life of Jesus.  Yet, as I said, he’s kind of the forgotten man.  He’s just sort of there.  In fact, when I was picking hymns this week, I could not find a hymn about Joseph.  There are none.  Mary, the shepherds, the wise men, the angels, the baby, they all have hymns.  But Joseph?  Nothing. 

We never really think about Joseph in this story.  He neither asks for nor receives any attention.  He just very quietly obeys God.  He does what God expects him to do.  A very quiet, humble, righteous man.

            How many Josephs have you known in your life?  I’ve known quite a few.  We have some in this church.  Men and women who never look for any attention, and who don’t get or even want any glory.  People who just quietly serve the Lord and do whatever needs to be done.

            Most Josephs have no idea that they are Josephs.  They have no idea how important they are.  That’s the thing about Josephs—they don’t think they’re anybody special.  They think they’re just doing what a person is supposed to do.  They don’t think they’re any different from anybody else.  They think, well, anybody else in my position would do the same thing.  They think they’re just common, ordinary, everyday people.

            It never occurs to Josephs that they are important people.  Yet, when you think about it, Josephs are the most important people in the world.  They’re the ones who do the things that everyone else just takes for granted.  They’re the ones who do the things in our lives that just automatically happen, the things we never even think about, the things that are just done.  They do them quietly, humbly.  Josephs don’t expect or even want any thank you for what they do.  They don’t want anybody to make any big fuss over them.  When you do try to thank them, they tell you it was no big deal and change the subject.  Yet, without Josephs, nothing of any importance would ever get done.

            God specifically chose Joseph.  God knew that Jesus’ earthly father could not be someone who would demand a lot of attention.  God knew Jesus’ earthly father could not be someone who wanted glory for himself.  God knew Jesus’ earthly father had to be someone who did not want the spotlight, someone who would quietly do what needed to be done, and then step out of the way.  A good, humble, quiet, righteous man.

            Joseph was chosen by God.  All Josephs are chosen by God.  We would not have the Christmas story, and we would not have the savior we have, if not for Joseph.  This Christmas season, let’s thank God for Joseph.  Let’s then think of all the Josephs in our lives, take some time to pray for them, and thank God for putting them in our lives.  Let’s make sure we thank them for all they do to make our lives and the world what they are.  Then, let’s try to think of a way we can be a Joseph, too.

A Story We'll Never Forget

The following is my message at the communion service at Oahe Manor Thursday, December 8.  The scripture is Luke 2:1-20.

Our reading today is probably the most popular version of the Christmas story.  When you think about it, it’s easy to see why.  It’s got everything:  love, adventure, family, kings, commoners, even angels.  And, of course, the birth of a baby, who was the Son of God.

Did you ever wonder why God did it this way?  I mean, you read lots of things about why it was important for the Son to come to earth, and why it was important that he come by a virgin birth.  You also read a lot about why it was important that he was born to Mary and Joseph, to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah being a descendant of King David.  But I don’t know that I’ve ever read anything about why God would have the Son born in this precise way.

           

God could’ve had Jesus born in lots of ways, you know.  God could’ve had Jesus born with lots of advance publicity.  God could’ve had Jesus born to wealth and privilege—that’s what lots of people expected.  God could’ve had Jesus born with lots of people around.  God could’ve had Jesus born anonymously, so that there’d be no record of Jesus’ birth whatsoever.  God could’ve had Jesus born in any number of ways.  Why would God choose this particular way?

           

It seems like there must be a reason.  I don’t think God does anything just at random, and I certainly don’t think any of the details of something as important as the birth of the Son would be left to chance.  But what would the reason be?  Why would God have Jesus be born with such high drama?

Well, I’m not going to sit here tonight and tell you that I can read the mind of God.  But it seems to me that one of the reasons might be that God wanted this to be a very memorable story.  God wanted the story of the birth of the Son to be told over and over again.  God wanted it to be a compelling story, one that people would remember.

It’s important that people know that Jesus was both fully divine and fully human.  If the story of Jesus’ birth was not known, if all we knew about Jesus was his teaching and his miracles and his rising from the dead, it would be easy for the human side of Jesus to be lost.  It would be easy for us to see Jesus only as a powerful, divine figure.  If we only saw Jesus that way, we would still know he was great and important, but that’s all.  We would not know that Jesus knows exactly what it’s like to be human.  We would not know that Jesus knows exactly what we go through on earth, because he went through it himself.  Even Jesus’ resurrection would be suspect—we could not really say that Jesus had died, because we would not know that he had ever lived, the way we humans define living, in the first place.

It’s only because we know how Jesus was born—in the same way that all humans are born—that we can say that Jesus really was fully human, as well as fully divine.  It’s only because we know of Jesus’ humanity that we can know that Jesus understands how we feel, how we think, how we are.  It’s only because we know of Jesus’ humanity that we can truly say that Jesus died so that our sins would be forgiven.

You know, these days we have lots of Christmas stories.  We have Rudolph and Frosty and the Grinch; we have any number of stories about Santa Claus; we have all kinds of Christmas-themed movies and TV specials and all sorts of other stories that talk about Christmas.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with those stories.  The thing is, though, that because there are so many of them, they could very easily have crowded out the real Christmas story:  the story of Jesus’ birth.  If that had happened, the fact of Jesus’ humanity could have been lost.

By having Jesus born in such an unusual and dramatic way, God saw to it that would not happen.  The story of Jesus’ birth is so compelling that no matter how many stories are told about Christmas, the first Christmas story, the real Christmas story, is never going to be forgotten.  It has existed for over two thousand years, and we still tell it and listen to it and read it all over again every year.  The story of Jesus’ birth is a constant reminder to us that not only did Jesus live as one of us, Jesus was one of us.  Jesus lived, and Jesus died.  Then, Jesus was resurrected, through the great glory of God.  Because of that we know our sins are forgiven.

God wanted to make sure we knew that.  That’s one of the reasons the Christmas story happened in the way that it did. 

Because of the way Jesus was born, the Christmas story will be told every year.  It will never go away, and it will never grow old.  It will be told until that day when an even greater story comes along:  the story of when Jesus comes again.

Touchdowns, Not Field Goals

            As most of you know, my favorite sport is baseball.  Once the baseball season is over, though, I make some time for some of the lesser but still quite enjoyable sports.  The one I’ve been focusing on for the last month or so is football, particularly the NFL.

            One of the things I’ve noticed in watching pro football is that if you want to score touchdowns, you have to throw the ball down the field.  That may seem pretty basic, but let me explain. 

By this time of year, there are a number of teams who are using their backup quarterbacks, either because the main quarterback got hurt or they found out he just isn’t very good.  Because these guys are backups, though, the coach often does not trust them very much. The coach is afraid that if the quarterback starts taking chances, he’ll get intercepted and the team will lose.  So, the coach calls very conservative plays, mostly running plays or very short passes, things that are designed to just make small gains, rather than take a chance on a play that might make a big gain but might also turn out to be a big mistake. 

Those conservative plays will make work when you’re quite a ways from the goal line, because the defense has a lot of ground to defend.  As the offense gets closer to the goal, though, the defense has less ground to cover, so they start playing closer to the line of scrimmage.  When they do that, those runs and short passes don’t work any more.  That means that the offense ends up kicking a lot of field goals, rather than scoring touchdowns.  Field goals are nice, of course, but if you want to win the game, you usually have to score some touchdowns, and that means throwing the ball down the field.  Those “safe” plays may keep you from making big mistakes, but they also can keep you from doing the things you have to do to win.

I wonder if there’s an analogy to made there in regard to the churches of the Wheatland Parish.  We talk a lot about needing to reach out to people.  Too many times, though, all of us, including me, don’t trust ourselves, and don’t trust God, very much.  We’re afraid that if we take to many chances, we’ll make mistakes and things will go wrong.  So, we do very conservative things that are designed to just make small gains.  Those things may work, for a while, but they never quite manage to get us to the goal.  We may kick a few field goals, but we don’t score very many touchdowns.

The only way to score touchdowns is to take chances.  Yes, we’ll fail sometimes, but here’s the thing.  I looked up the list of NFL quarterbacks, and it’s a list of some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.  Brett Favre is number one on the list.  George Blanda is number two.  Fran Tarkenton is there.  So are Dan Marino and Johnny Unitas.  There are guys who either are in the Hall of Fame or eventually will be.  They understood that if you want to get to the goal, you have to take some chances.

We’re only a few weeks away from a new year.  So, I’d like to propose a New Years’ resolution for the churches of our parish.  Let’s resolve to take more chances in the coming year.  Let’s resolve to take some chances and throw the ball down the field.  Let’s resolve to stop settling for field goals, and instead try to score some touchdowns

Oh, Well

            Well, as the old song says, you can’t always get what you want.

            As many of you know, the Gettysburg church voted a few weeks ago to accept an offer to buy the Christian education building.  Last week, we heard from the buyer, and it decided to cancel the contract.

            The buyer had every right to do that, and we’re not mad at them, but it’s still disappointing.  We had thought selling that building and building a new addition onto the church would be a good thing for us, and now we have to change our plans.

            One of the surprising things to me, though, was my own personal reaction when I heard the news.  I’d have thought I might be upset, even angry.  In fact, I wasn’t.  My reaction was just, “Oh, well.  That’s the way it goes.  I guess we’ll just have to make a new plan now.”

            I think this is a positive thing for me.  I don’t think my reaction would have been that calm a few years ago.  I think, or at least I hope, that it means I am able to trust God more than I used to be able to do.  I have confidence that God will help us make a different plan, and that things will ultimately work out for the best.

            I’m not sure why this has happened.  Maybe it’s just that I’ve had so many times in my life when I didn’t get what I wanted, only to find out later that God had something better in mind for me.  Maybe it’s just that I’ve had a lot of times when God has come through for me, and so am more confident that I used to be that God will do so again.

            This is not to criticize you if you had a stronger reaction, nor is to say that your trust in God is less than mine.  We’re all different, and our emotions come out in different ways.  It’s also not to say that I can now accept everything this calmly.  Should I learn, say, that I or someone I love had a serious health problem, I don’t know that my reaction would be “Oh, well.”

            Still, I think it’s a good sign.  I think it’s a sign that my faith in God is stronger than it used to be.  I hope yours is, too.  After all, God promises to never leave us or forsake us.  If nothing else, I hope we can learn to trust God to keep that promise.

The World Turned Upside Down

This message was given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, December 4, 2011.  The scripture is Luke 1:26-56.

            It sounds like the angel Gabriel was pretty busy about this time two thousand years ago.  We talked last week about Gabriel’s visit to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptizer.  Now, six months later, Gabriel shows up again.  This time, Gabriel visits Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus.

            We don’t know all that much about Mary, really.  In fact, a lot of what we think we know is actually assumptions and guesses.  We know that she was a virgin, but that’s about it.  We assume that she had no particular status because the Bible says nothing about her having one, and usually the Bible does makes reference to a title or to wealth or something like that if they exist.  We assume that she was young, partly because women tended to marry young at that time and partly because she outlived Jesus.  On the other hand, she was a cousin of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptizer, whose husband had considered her too old to have children.

            The fact that the Bible gives us no particular information about Mary tells us that she was considered to be nobody special.  In fact, after Jesus started his ministry, one of the things his critics often said was, “Is this not Mary’s son?”  It’s as if Jesus could not possibly be anybody special if he was just Mary’s son.  Even the name “Mary” was pretty common.  The gospels alone give us several different women named Mary who played a part in Jesus’ life.

            We talked last week about how God comes to us as ordinary people on ordinary days and asks us to do things that take us out of our comfort zones.  To say Mary was being taken out of her comfort zone, though, is to really minimize what she was going through when Gabriel came to her.

            Think of all the things that had to be going through Mary’s mind when all this happened.  Think of the roller-coaster of emotions she must have felt.  Gabriel comes, and just like Zechariah, Mary is terrified.  We know that because the first thing Gabriel says after greeting her is “Do not be afraid.”  Even that greeting, though, is odd, because Gabriel says, “Greetings you who are highly favored!  The Lord is with you.”  We’re told Mary really had no idea what that meant.  She probably wondered, “Why would I be highly favored?  I’m nobody special.  What’s that all about?”  Then, though, Gabriel confirms it, saying “you have found favor with God.”

So far, so good.  Then, though, Gabriel hits her with what she’s going to do.  Gabriel says, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.  He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”

            Mary still does not understand.  In fact, she’s probably totally confused by now.  I think anyone would be.  Her mind was probably reeling.  She’s being told all this stuff that’s going to happen to her, stuff she cannot possibly understand.  The thing is, too, that Mary is not given a choice here.  Gabriel does not ask her whether she wants these things to happen to her.  Gabriel also does not ask how she feels about any of it.  Gabriel just says this is what’s going to happen.

            She’s not being given the chance to say no.  So, she says the only thing she can say.  She says, “How will this be?”  Maybe she was thinking she could get out of this on the ground that it was impossible, we don’t know.  Gabriel, though, says they’ve got that covered.  Gabriel says, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.  So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.”

            Listen to what Mary says in response to that.  This is the proof that God made the right choice in choosing Mary.  Mary says, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.”

            Think of the faith Mary had.  Think of the courage she had.  She’s being thrown into a situation that she had nothing to do with creating.  She really does not even have any clear idea of what’s going on here.  She’s told that she’s going to have a son.  How’s she going to explain that to Joseph?  I mean, yeah, she can tell him what the angel said, but how likely is he to believe that?  Would you?  Joseph might very well refuse to marry her, and who could blame him, really?  How’s her own family going to react?  They probably won’t believe her, either.  Will they support her?  Or will they throw her out?  If they do, how’s she going to take care of herself and the baby?  How’s she going to get enough money to survive?

            Then, on top of that, there’s this business of her son being a king and being the Son of God.  Do you think Mary really understood what that meant?  I doubt it.  We have a hard enough time understanding it now.  Even if she did understand it somewhat, think of the responsibility she was taking on.  Not only was she looking at quite possibly being an unwed mother and having to raise a baby on her own with no help and no clear way to make any money, this baby she was raising was supposed to grow up into some sort of king and was supposed to be the Son of God, whatever that meant. 

Think about it.  Those of you who are parents, think about the months before your first child was born.  I’ll bet you were pretty nervous.  You probably wondered about your ability to be a mother or a father.  You wondered if you’d be able to raise this child properly.  You worried that you might make mistakes.  Now imagine if that child you were going to raise was the Son of God.  What would be the consequences of messing that up?  Those consequences would not just affect you or your child; they could affect the whole future of the world.

Mary had to be tempted to wonder, “Why me?  Why did God have to choose me for this?  I was just minding my own business.  I was looking forward to getting married to Joseph, settling down, just living a normal life.  If this is what it means to be favored by God, I don’t want any part of it.  Why could God not have chosen someone else to give this great favor to?”

All this stuff and more had to be going through Mary’s mind.  She had to be scared to death.  If she asked “why me”, though, the scripture does not tell us so.  Listen again to what she said, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.”  Mary had enough courage to face whatever she had to face, and she had enough faith to trust that God would be with her through it.

Have you ever been faced with a situation that scared you?  I’ll bet you have.  I’ll bet almost all of us have.  Sometimes those situations are the result of something we’ve done, but sometimes they’re not.  Sometimes, we’re just like Mary was.  We’re by ourselves, minding our own business, thinking things are going okay, thinking our lives are fairly well planned out, thinking it’s going to be smooth sailing, at least for a while.

Then, all at once, something happens, or we find out about something, and suddenly our lives are completely upside down.  That plan we thought we had for our lives is out the window.  Nothing is going to happen the way we thought it was.  In fact, nothing is ever going to be the same again.  Our world has changed.  We have to find our way in a new world, a new situation.  We have to somehow, in some way, figure out how we’re going to cope with a situation we never expected or wanted. 

We’re not given a choice about it.  How we feel does not matter.  We think “this is impossible”, but we find out that it’s not impossible.  It is happening.  We wish it was not, we wish things could get back to normal, but we know things are never going to get back to normal.  Things will never be like they were ever again.

Some of you have been there.  I know you have.  If not, you probably will be at some point.  If you have been, and you got through it, there’s no guarantee that you won’t be back there again.  It’s the way life works.  We like to think everything happens for a reason, and maybe it does, but if so, there are a lot of times when the reasons are not ones we can see or understand.  A lot of times, it feels like stuff just happens.  We have no control over it, and we cannot see any reason for it, and all we can do is try to find our way through the best we can.

None of us knows how we’re going to respond in a situation like that until we’re actually in it.  Mary did not know how she would respond, either.  I’m sure the possibility of something like this happening had never occurred to her.  When it did, though, Mary came through.  Her faith in God was strong enough that she could handle it.  She did not ask “why me?”  She faced the situation and prepared to deal with it.  She said, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.”  She did not know what was going to happen.  There were all kinds of things that could go wrong.  Still, she trusted God enough to believe that God would see her through, even though the situation was something she probably neither wanted nor expected.

None of us knows how we’re going to respond in a situation like that until we’re actually 5in it.  If we have faith in God, though, we can handle it.  We don’t have to ask “why me?”  Instead, we can face the situation and prepare to deal with it.  We can say “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me according to your word.” 

We still don’t know what’s going to happen.  There still may be all kinds of things that can go wrong.  Still, we can trust God enough to believe that God will see us through, even when the situation is something we neither want nor expect.

That’s what Mary did.  Through our faith in God, we can do it, too.

Getting to Know You

            I don’t know if you heard about this.  According to a study in Canada, people believe atheists have about the same level of trustworthiness as rapists.  A report on this study can be found here.

            There are a lot of things that could be said of this study, including that it shows the danger of falling for false choices and that it shows the dangers of making judgments about people.  That’s not the most important thing about the study to me, though.  The most important thing about the study is that it shows the danger of viewing people as members of groups rather than individuals.

            Are there untrustworthy atheists?  I’m sure there are.  There are also untrustworthy Christians, untrustworthy Jewish people, untrustworthy Muslims, and untrustworthy people in any group you can think of.  There are also trustworthy people in all those groups.

            Looking at people as members of groups, rather than as individuals, leads us to all kinds of problems.  It’s what leads to stereotypes.  You see it in religion:  all Mormons are this, all Muslims are that.  You see it in politics:  all Tea Partiers are this, all Occupy Wall Streeters are that.  You see it with physical characteristics:  all blondes are this, all red-heads are that.  I could go on and on.

            None of these attitudes is helpful, and none of these attitudes strikes me as particularly Christian.  People simply cannot be classified that way.  People do not fit into nice, neat boxes.  God created each one of us to be a unique, special individual with a unique, special purpose.  The fact that we share certain beliefs or attitudes or characteristics does not mean that we are somehow all the same.

            We cannot understand people if we simply look at them as a member of a group.  The only way to understand someone is to get to know that person as an individual.  We need to talk to people.  We need to find out who they are and let them find out who we are.  We need to look beyond the classifications and the boxes and see each person as the unique, special individual God created him or her to be.

            When we do that, we can learn about each other.  When we do that, we can get to know each other.  In fact, when we do that, we can learn to trust each other.  Then, maybe we can actually have an exchange of ideas and learn from each other.  That just might bring us closer to having the world God wants us to have.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

            So, did you have a happy Thanksgiving?  I did.  I went to visit my parents in Armour, South Dakota, for a few days.  We left early Thursday morning and came back Saturday afternoon.

            What was different about this trip was that I made the conscious decision that I was going to do absolutely nothing that was work-related while I was gone.  In fact, my “no work” zone started Wednesday evening, as soon as I left the community Thanksgiving service in Onida.

            This is the first time in a long time I’ve gone that many consecutive days without doing anything that was related to my work.  Don’t get me wrong—I’ve taken time off in that time.  Most of the time, though, even during my time off, I do a little reading, or a little writing, or a little planning, or something.  If nothing else, I’m at least thinking about what I’m going to do when I get back.

            This time, I did none of that.  It helped that my parents have no computer, and so no internet access.  Still, I decided that I was not going to take my laptop, I was not going to take any books, I was not even going to take a notepad.  I did take my cell phone, but oddly enough, nobody called.  I went nearly three full days without doing anything that was even remotely connected to my work.

            As I was driving back Saturday, I suddenly realized something.  I was looking forward to getting back to work.  I enjoyed my time away, but I had missed my job.  I was eager to get back to it again.

            I’ve written before about how much I love my work as a pastor, and I do.  The thing is that you can’t miss something when you’re surrounded by it all the time.  When you’re surrounded by something all the time, even though you enjoy it, you can start to take it for granted.  You can only miss something when you get away from it for a little while.  In a way, the fact that I missed my job was confirmation of how lucky I am, and how much I really do love the work that I do.

            Whenever we take something we love for granted, we forget how special it is.  That’s true of people, too.  When we take the people we love for granted—our spouse, our children, our friends, our colleagues—we forget how special they are.

            I’m not advocating that we all shirk our responsibilities.  A little time away from what we love, however, can be a good thing.  A little time away from who we love can be a good thing, too.  That time can remind us of how important and special those things and people are, and how lucky we are to have them in our lives.  Once we’re reminded of that, we can then show our appreciation in a much more real way.  It’s a reminder we all need once in a while.