Chaplain’s Corner: CLXXX

“Touch Matters”

Some of you may have wondered where your “Chaplain’s Corner” has been the past six weeks. Well, the reason you have missed them is because I have been recovering from a total knee operation. It has been quite an experience from beginning until now. But what has been so meaningful to me are your prayers and the many cards and notes reminding me of my many friendships here at Westminster Village. Knowing someone cares is a healing factor in and of itself. That kind of “touch” is what I want to focus on today.

Laura Guerrero, co-author of Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships, cites recent studies that even a seemingly insignificant touch from a restaurant server often yields a bigger tip. People shop longer and make more purchases if they are touched by a store greeter. She notes that human beings are incurably social. “Lots of times in these studies people don’t even remember being touched. They just feel that they like that person more.”

Whenever we’ve plunged into grief or distress, physical contact is more than just comforting. It helps provide deep healing for our souls. But the most compelling confirmation of the power of touch is what happens when physical contact is taken away. During Bible Times, one category of individuals in particular was forced to live without the blessing of touch. That was the leper. Leprosy (or Hansen’s Disease), as it is commonly known today) cast its victims into a living hell. Progressive neurological damage slowly rendered one’s extremities, then limbs, and finally major organs non-functional. A leper might linger for as long as 30 years after diagnosis. But in the Biblical Community lepers were cast outs. Lepers were considered cursed by God. They were spiritually unclean.

Scottish Bible Scholar William Barclay notes they were required to stay at least six feet away from other people but if the wind was blowing from behind them, that distance had to be 150 feet. If a leper put his head inside a house, the entire house became unclean. It was illegal even to offer a word of greeting to a leprous man or woman. For all intents and purposes, lepers were already dead.

Imagine what it was like to be the leper Jesus encounters in Matthew 8:1-4. In verse two, the leper kneels before Jesus, “Lord, if you are willing you can make me clean.” Note, he calls Jesus “Lord.” Second, there is respect: “If you are willing.” There are no demands of entitlement. Faith does not honestly know if the Lord in every case intends to heal. And third, there is confidence in Jesus’ competence: “You can make me clean.” What will Jesus do?

Jesus steps forward and breeches the societal walls that have been erected to keep lepers in their place–a place beyond human touch. When he touches the leper his ulcerations vanish. He is restored. Cleansing, healing, and hope are flowing from Jesus to the leper. The curse has been removed. His life can begin again.

Maybe you’ve concluded that you’re infected with an incurable spiritual disease. Because of the affair. Or the divorce. Or the discovery of some shame that is keeping you from being the person you know you ought to be.

But perhaps you can imagine going to Jesus. You are not beyond his touch. The one who broke all the rules in order to bring wholeness to lepers is still in the business of touching the untouchable. EVEN YOU AND ME.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

Chaplain’s Corner: CLXVIII

“That’s How Love Is”

What is God’s greatest miracle? Is it the parting of the Red Sea? Feeding thousands of hungry people with a few loaves and fish? Raising Jesus from the dead? Interestingly, we can make the case that the most compelling of all God’s miracles is the miracle of restraint.

Why doesn’t God heal every disease? Or thwart the tornado that’s approaching a subdivision? Or incapacitate missiles that are headed toward helpless non-combatants in a war zone? God has plenty of such opportunities to reveal himself to a fearful, spiritually famished world. Likewise, God is roasted on social media every day. God could wipe out all those social media posts with a wave of the hand. Why doesn’t He do it?

Cambridge biologist Richard Dawkins who wears atheism as a badge of honor unloads on the Almighty in his book The God Delusion: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a racist, malevolent bully.”

Many assume three things: If God is really there and really cares, and really has the power in the universe, He would always intercede to help us according to our hopes and prayers. Likewise many of us assume that if we can’t think of a good reason why God doesn’t intercede every time we suffer, there must be good reasons

Actually, it’s easy to see that choosing not to intercede-as dreadful as that may seem to be in the moment-is often the ultimate way that genuine love can be expressed.

Why does God allow us to experience so much pain and loss, when at any time he could silence his critics, devise supernatural shortcuts, and set everything right? The answer seems to be that God’s love is always persuasive never coercive. Think of Jesus on the cross. Although He acknowledged that at any moment He could snap his fingers and summon a cadre of angels..that would have been utterly contrary to his mission. His call was to suffer and die; to pray his opponents might be forgiven. Thus most of the time, God remains silent.

He waits as our trust grows. He watches as we take baby steps toward a deeper maturity. He keeps performing the miracle of divine restraint. Because that’s how love is.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

Chaplain’s Corner: CLXVII

“When Tragedy Turns to Triumph”

What swept the dinosaurs from the face of the earth?  That question has puzzled
paleontologists for a very long time. At least 700 species of dinosaurs have been identified.
The geological record suggests that these extraordinary creatures dominated our planet for as
long as 175 million years.  Then about 66 million years ago, they suddenly vanished.  What
happened?  Perhaps dinosaurs ate all the available food.   Or they succumbed to disease.
Perhaps small mammals developed a fondness for dinosaur eggs.  One British geologist,
Charles Lyell believed that virtually everything that had ever happened in natural history had
happened slowly.  Lyell had no time for “catastrophism,” the idea that sudden dramatic events
could change everything.

Then in 1980, a startling discovery changed the conversation.

A geological research team led by Nobel Prize-winner Luis Alvarez proposed the earth had
been struck by a gigantic cosmic object.  In short, this event was a dinosaur apocalypse.

Almost overnight, the uniformitarians were out of business.

It’s all too common to imagine the average American life as a predictable series of events. Our
worlds are almost certainly will be rocked by catastrophes that no one will see coming.  The
drunk driver.  The heart-stopping CT-scan.  The special needs child.  The addiction.  The
“reduction in force” at work.  The divorce. The tsunamis of anger, loneliness, and depression.
The accident that changes everything.  One day, seemingly out of a clear blue sky, their worlds
will implode.  And they will wonder if they can ever go on.

It’s often in such moments, however, that we discover the true source of our hope.  The next
most interesting thing that will happen to us spiritually turns out not to be when we die–when
we finally see Jesus face to face–but when we discover that God actually keeps his promises
to us right here and now.  Sometimes the good disaster, the life-threatening moment is what
gives us life instead.  The health crisis brings us to our knees.  The job loss opens unexpected
doors.  The special child teaches us to love in ways we never could have imagined.

In the Old Testament, the worst thing that ever happened to Joseph became the best thing that
could ever have happened to the rest of the family.  In the New Testament the worst thing that
happened to Jesus became the best thing that could ever have happened to the rest of the
world.  Tragedy turns to triumph.  Weakness becomes strength.  Unimaginable loss becomes
unexpected gain.

Through it all we are never alone.  Jesus assures us:  “Surely I am with you always, to the end
of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

God is always with us, and is always at work.  Which means that whatever might seem like the
end of your world in 2024 may turn out to be one of God’s most surprising gifts.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

Chaplain’s Corner: CLXVI

“Finding Direction in the New Year”

“Do you want to know the secret of a long life?”  That’s the question Michael Gartner’s 95 year
old father asked him one day, seemingly out of the blue, while he was driving his parents.  “I
guess so,” replied Gartner, former president of NBC News, who recalled the conversation in a
2006 memoir.  “No left turns,” said his father. “What?” Gartner replied.  “No left turns,” his dad
repeated.

The elder Gartner went on to report that he and his wife, who was then 88 years old, had read
an article that most car accidents involving senior citizens happened because they made ill-
advised left turns in front of oncoming traffic.  Aging often diminishes depth perception.  “So
your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.”

Gartner’s dad had long since given up driving.  He acted as navigator while his wife sat behind
the wheel.  Neither had a very keen sense of direction. When you think about it, three
consecutive right turns will indeed point you in the same direction as a single left turn.
If you get behind the wheel of your car today, you probably make your own share of right turns.
And left ones too.  But that doesn’t guarantee that at any given moment you’ll know exactly
where you’re going.

Guidance is one of the central concerns of walking with God.  How do we know that we’re
heading in the right direction?  Can anyone be sure they’re pursuing the goals, and investing
their time and energy in the right pursuits?  The way we find our way through this world is by
relying on the Holy Spirit.  The prophet Isaiah points out that God’s people have been gifted
with an extraordinary onboard navigation system.

“Whether you turn right or left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, “This is the way,
walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)  The inner voice of the Spirit, that whisper that helps us discern where
God wants us to be headed, is better than GPS.  Guidance happens when we’re moving.  And
sometimes it comes one turn at a time. As Isaiah points out, it’s when we’re turning to the right or to the left that we hear God’s voice.

As we surrender our deliberations and discussions as best we can to the Spirit’s oversight,
what emerges is something that honors God and our voice as well.
So put your life in drive in this New Year 2024.  Tell God you’re listening. And be sure that
whether you’re turning to the right or to the left, God’s Spirit will always be waiting for you at the
next intersection.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

Chaplain’s Corner: CLXV

“Jingle Bells”

If you can believe it, “Jingle Bells” used to be considered too racy to be connected to Christmas. James Lord Pierpont, the Savannah, Ga. Church choir director who composed it in 1857, seems to have had Thanksgiving in mind. He originally named it “One Horse Open Sleigh.” But after Mrs. Otis Waterman, one of his friends, declared that it was a “merry little jingle” the modern name got traction. It quickly became a drinking song, with partygoers jingling their ice in their glasses while singing.

What really raised eyebrows, however, was the very notion of a young man and young woman taking off together in a sleigh. The concept of dating didn’t arrive on the scene until the 1920’s, when single people were increasingly leaving their homes to seek work in large cities. Before that time, a young man would “court” a young woman by seeking permission to drop by her home. Family members would chaperone such callings.

A one-horse open sleigh was a different matter altogether. Beckoning a young lady to hop into a two seater sleigh was the 19th century equivalent of a hot guy pulling up to his girlfriend’s house in a Corvette. Chaperones are nowhere in sight.

Those associations are now long gone. “Jingle Bells” has become a seasonal favorite.

So how did couples date during the time of Mary and Joseph? The great majority of marriages in the ancient world happened by arrangement. When the potential spouses were still children, two families would come to an understanding about their respective futures. To modern Americans, this sounds like a nightmare. The last thing many of us are willing to surrender is our freedom-especially the freedom to choose a life partner. But for centuries, arranged marriages have had a consistently positive track record. In Western cultures, partners begin by falling in love and then get married. As many as half those marriages fail. In cultures where marriages are orchestrated for reasons other than love, partners begin by choosing to be committed to each other. Then they endeavor to fall in love.

Mary and Joseph would presumably have had a chance to ratify their parent’s decision. Engagements during the time of Jesus involved an important public ceremony. During that year, the engaged couple might live together, in close proximity to family sharing everything but the same bed. It was during this probationary period, however, that Mary began trying on maternity clothes. Joseph was no doubt devastated.

The story that God had supernaturally created a growing child in the womb of a peasant girl is still hard to fathom. “If you have never stood and looked at the Gospel and found it ridiculous, impossible, inconceivable,” writes author Tim Keller, “I don’t think you have really understood it.” The courage of an unmarried teenage peasant girl is why we will celebrate Christmas this week.

And it’s why “merry little jingle bells” have become associated with a joy that’s impossible to put into words.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

 

 

Chaplain’s Corner: CLXIV

“Christmas Bells”

Yesterday in my sermon at First Presbyterian Church in Anderson, I told the story of the history
behind the song, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”  It is a fascinating story so I thought I
would share it with you in “Chaplain’s Corner.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was sick with grief as Christmas approached in 1863.  He was
still mourning the death of his wife Frances, who had died in a house fire.  His oldest son,
Charles Appleton Longfellow, or Charlie, had enlisted to fight for the North in the Civil War–
against his father’s wishes.

On December 1, Longfellow got word that Charlie had been severely wounded at the Battle of
New Hope in Virginia.  While personally tending to Charlie in the days that followed, Longfellow
often heard church bells.  Conflicted and disillusioned about his faith-especially the seemingly
empty promises of a so called Prince of Peace, Longfellow wrote a poem called “Christmas
Bells.”

I heard the bells on Christmas Day,
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet their words
Repeat of peace on earth,
Goodwill to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken
Song of peace on earth,
Good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth, I said.
For hate is strong, and mocks the song

Of peace on earth,
Good-will to men!

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth,
Good-will to men!”

 

Longfellow goes from joy to despair to hope in just a few short stanzas, reflecting a universal
human longing:  Since God has promised to heal our broken world, why hasn’t he done so
already?

If you do a quick survey of friends, family and total strangers, it won’t take long to hear
exasperated sighs that 2023 can’t end soon enough-accompanied by the creeping suspicion
that 2024 may turn out to be even worse.  The world is a total mess and going downhill right?
Not so fast!  Data from scores of reliable sources suggest we are living in the healthiest, safest,
and most economically vibrant time in human history.  We are blessed with more technological
conveniences than ever before.

So why isn’t that the lead story every night on the national news?  Of course we have serious
problems out there.  Climate change, pollution, nuclear stockpiles, crime.
So why in light of so many positive storylines do our hearts so often feel so heavy?  It’s one of
the great paradoxes of our time:  almost everything is getting better, but we keep feeling
worse.  Like Longfellow, many feel disappointed with God.

Ringing church bells became a reminder of what he saw as God’s unkept promises, “Peace on
earth and goodwill toward men,” Really?

It dawned on Longfellow that God often takes the “long way.”  It was a long time before the
prophets’ words about the Messiah were fulfilled.  The Christmas Story is Exhibit A that God
often takes the long way.  Longfellow would probably have been surprised to learn that his
private reflections in 1863 would one day become a Christmas card and song.  But his words of hope still ring true.

Faithfully,

Ron Naylor, Chaplain

Chaplain’s Corner: CLXIII

“The Season of Advent”

Advent is the “season” on the church calendar that annually encompasses four Sundays before Christmas. This year that would be December 3, 10, 17 and Christmas Eve.

Advent derives from the Latin word adventum which means “coming.” Every year followers of Jesus are encouraged to ponder the meaning of Jesus’ coming into the world at Bethlehem.

This is incredibly challenging when you think about it. That’s because Christmas has a lot of baggage associated with it. Black Friday shopping mayhem, Cyber Monday, colored lights, fruitcake, Elf on the Shelf, Hallmark Channel holiday movies, Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing The Little Drummer Boy, and a Lexus with a big red bow sitting in the driveway.

But what does all that have to do with Advent? Not very much.

Advent doesn’t have an advertising team working to come up with catchy slogans or characters. It isn’t brash or noisy. Its greatest asset, in fact is its silence. During Advent we quietly ponder the imponderable; that for our sakes God chose to become a human being.

That, in fact, is a simple and effective way to experience a different kind of Christmas this year. Each day this Advent season, stop for five minutes. Do nothing. Just be. If you’re reading the Gospels between now and the end of the year, you might make this part of your time alone with God. Gently and quietly, ask the Lord to remind you of who He is and what He has done.

By God’s grace we can let the quietness of each reflection drive some of December’s non-stop frenzy out of our lives.

And I would remind all of our residents to plan on joining us for a Christmas Eve Service at 7pm in the Legacy Commons Event Hall. Invite your family and friends to join you.

In the meantime, may this Advent season prepare you for the coming of Christmas!

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

Chaplain’s Corner: CLXI

“This Our Hymn of Grateful Praise”

Author Kurt Vonnegut in a presentation at the University of Wisconsin several years ago told the audience about his late uncle Alex. “He was my father’s kid brother, who was an honest insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well dressed and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they seldom noticed when they were happy. “So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

“Please notice when you are happy,” he told the Wisconsin students, “and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.” And then he asked the students if they ever had a teacher who made them happy to be alive, prouder to be alive, than they previously believed possible. Nearly every student raised a hand.

How very much there is for which to be grateful! How very much goodness and grace and happiness is given to us and how easy to hurry through the day of our lives, busy, preoccupied, overscheduled, overburdened, and so to miss it. And so Thanksgiving has always been my favorite. No gifts to buy, no parties, no holiday rush, no busy social schedule, a few cards maybe, a meal with loved ones, dear friends, and a simple reminder of how blessed we are to be alive.

Gratitude is the heart of our faith. “Now Thank We All Our God,” maybe is the best, all-purpose hymn, good for every occasion. Gratitude is the heart of the matter, and is expressed profoundly in the Psalms. Psalm 65 is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to the creator. God is celebrated for being God. God forgives, creates. Saves, does awesome deeds, provides rain that stimulates the earth’s productivity. God’s goodness and generosity is for everyone. It is a gorgeous picture of abundance, richness, fertility, and it is at the very heart of our faith.

When I come to Thanksgiving, I am drawn to the poets like Edna St. Vincent Millay whose poem “God’s World” has always been a favorite:

O world, I cannot hold thee
Close enough!
Thy winds,
thy wide grey skies!
Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day,
…I do fear
Thou’st made the world too
Beautiful this year.

Creation is God’s gift. God is Creator. You can see God in creation. And the Bible teaches—and Christians believe-creation is abundant, sufficient for our needs. There is enough for everyone. Unfortunately, we don’t trust the abundance. Instead we operate on the basis of scarcity. There isn’t enough so we have to make ourselves secure by getting more. We have so much we don’t even notice.

The world is filled with abundance. There is enough for all. The whole creation is full of the glory and goodness and generosity and love of God. I began by the story of Kurt Vonnegut’s uncle Alex, and with the students naming a teacher who made them feel alive. “If that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is,” uncle Alex said.

So as we come close to Thanksgiving Day, I challenge each of you my readers to write down one thing for which you are grateful.

Growing up in the church, we sang lots of hymns. One of my favorites begins: “For the beauty of the earth, For the glory of the skies, For the love which from our birth, Over and around us lies.”

If that isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

Faithfully, Ron Naylor, Chaplain

 

Chaplain’s Corner: CLX

“Transformation”

How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? One, but only if the light bulb wants to change. How many plumbers does it take to change a light bulb? One, but that’s just my estimate. How many Marxists does it take to change a light bulb? The light bulb contains the seeds of its own revolution. How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb? One. He holds the bulb while the world revolves around him.

How many persons does it take to change YOU?

The New Testament answer to that is four: The first three persons are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Here is where the biblical spotlight shines on prepositions. We pray to the Father through Jesus, by the Spirit. The Father is before us, Christ is beside us and the Spirit is within us. Our transformation is thus an inside-outside-alongside job. The three persons of the Trinity are always at work as a team.

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the indwelling of the Spirit. Ancient people knew they seriously thought that a God could or would even want actual addresses of the Gods and Goddesses they worshiped. Myriads of temples dotted the landscape of the Mediterranean world. Deities regularly visited earth through portals of those edifices, which were thought to be sacred spaces where the invisible world intersected the visible.

No one seriously thought that a God could or would even want to take up permanent residence inside a human being–no one except those upstart followers of Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Corinth (a hotbed of Greek religious devotion), “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own.” (I Corinthians 6:19)

You and I are temples of the Holy Spirit. Look in the mirror. You have become a place where heaven intersects earth. When God calls us to follow him, he is actually sounding out that call from within our own hearts where the Spirit dwells.

If Father, Son, and the Spirit are the first three persons necessary to change our lives, who is the fourth?

You are.

May God bless you with a changed heart today–so you can light the way for others.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain

Chaplain’s Corner: CLVIII

“God’s Exchange Policy”

In the summer of 1995, a 26 year old Cheryl Strayed solo hiked 1,100 miles of the Pacific Coast Trail. The PCT traverses some of America’s most daunting wilderness areas. Cheryl strode from the Mohave Desert through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest.

Her adventures are documented in her best-selling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Coast Trail. A film was later produced in 2014 entitled “Wild.” Reese Witherspoon was nominated for her portrayal of Strayed for Best Actress.

By her own admission, Strayed’s life was a mess. She felt crushed by the cancer death of her mother two years earlier. Within the previous 12 months she had essentially sabotaged her marriage. “I broke my own heart,” she wrote. Her divorce papers included this question: What name do you plan to use in the future? Up to that moment her name had been Cheryl Nyland. “That blank line stuck in my heart. I would choose a new name for myself.” Ultimately she felt drawn to “strayed.”

The layered definitions spoke directly to my life: To wander from the proper path, to deviate from the direct course, to be lost, to become wild, to be without mother or father, to be without a home, to move about aimlessly in search of something, to diverge or digress. She felt like a stray. A stray who had strayed. So she would be Cheryl Strayed.

She was woefully unprepared to tackle one of the world’s toughest trails. She had no training and little understanding of the perils she would be facing. She began her hike in California with so much stuff that she could barely lift her pack. Her brand new boots were a size too small. Halfway through her trek her feet hurt so badly she could barely walk. Another PCT hiker glanced at her shoes and observed they were from the Recreational Equipment Superstore. “Why don’t you exchange them?” he suggested.

Right. As if that could happen in the middle of nowhere. Strayed didn’t even have the money to cover shipping. “Just call them,” the other hiker persisted. With no expectations, Strayed dialed REI’s number from a pay phone at a rest area. “We’d be delighted to send you a new pair of boots, one size larger,” said the REI rep. No questions asked. No need to beg or plead. No need to turn in the old ones. Free of charge. Free shipping. “Look for them in the mailroom at the next PCT rest stop. Her new boots did indeed arrive just as promised. And they carried Strayed and her sore feet all the way to the state of Washington.

God’s exchange policy is a bit like REI’s. We may be going through life crippled. Self-crippled, for that matter. We’re spiritual strays who may have no clue that amazing grace has always been available.

“Now that we know what we have-Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God- let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all-all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.” (Hebrews 4:14-16, The Message)

It’s free. Just call.

Faithfully,
Ron Naylor, Chaplain