During last week’s sermon preparation I came across a story that I liked, but didn’t use in my sermon.  It went something like this:  A young shoe salesman was assigned a territory in a rural area in the foothills of a mountain range.  After a few days, he sent a communication back to the home office.  He said, “I’m coming home.  No one here wears shoes.”  Shortly thereafter, another shoe company sent a sales person to the same community.  He also sent a message to his bosses back home.  “Send more product immediately.  No one here wears shoes!”

I guess this is the old “glass half full/glass half empty” routine.  If no one wears shoes, how could you sell them any shoes?  If no one wears shoes, the market is wide open and ripe for the picking.

So many churches today are dying a slow, agonizing death as times, culture, and neighborhoods change.  “We can’t do this.”  “If only we had more money/young people/time/you name it...” “Why can’t it be like days gone by when everyone came to church?”

Some churches are passionately alive today as times, culture, and neighborhoods change.  “What is God calling us to be and do in this place and in this time?”  “Our worship and study prepare and inspire us to minister in the name of Christ when we leave church each Sunday.”  “If the mission before us is big, beautiful, and impossible, it must be coming from God.  Let’s find a way to make it work.”

No one here wears shoes!

My entry yesterday got me thinking about the coach from my high school that I mentioned.  He won a few football championships during his tenure at the school and had a big-time reputation in the state of Virginia.  He was the coach of our team during the season that is portrayed in the film “Remember the Titans,” and though I cannot now recall for certain, our football game against the T.C. Williams team spotlighted in the movie might have been the only loss for our team that year.

As I mentioned, I didn’t play football, and I think he held a little grudge against me for that.  I know I developed some hard feelings toward him over time.  My complex relationship with him actually began when I was eight years old.  Our elementary school had a summer recreation program, and Coach was earning a few extra bucks by helping out with the sports.  One day they were getting ready to have a baseball game, and when I tried to get in the game, he told me I was too young. Only kids aged ten and older were allowed to play.

I went home in the middle of the program, I was so upset, and when I told my mother what happened, she actually went up to the school and confronted Coach about it.  Much to my amazement, he backed down and allowed me to play.  But, when I dropped a ball hit to me during the game, he made a taunting remark.

Fast forward six years, and I showed up for J.V. baseball.  The first two days of practice, all we did was run.  And then we ran some more.  We ran laps around the whole school property.  Of course, a number of guys quit right then, which I guess was the purpose of it all.

When we finally began actually working on baseball skills, I did pretty well.  Then he started nagging me about playing football, mocking the fact I was in the band.  But, when I ruptured a muscle during practice, he actually held open a place on the team for me until I recovered and rejoined the practices just before the games began.  We were pretty lousy, winning only one game, but I was the only one who played every inning of all the games.

The next year, I was invited to try out for the varsity, and sometimes the varsity and J.V. practiced together.  One day, Coach was hitting grounders to the infielders between pitches in batting practice.  He hit one to me that hopped up on me, and I turned my head.  He flew into a rage.  “Are you AFRAID of the BALL, Howell??”   Then he began hitting balls as hard as he could at me, but they all flew over my head.

Another time, he was pitching batting practice, and I ripped a line drive right back at him that almost took his head off.  So, he began throwing pitches directly at me.  Meanwhile, he made the occasional remark about how he wished I would “come out in the fall.”  And he would watch me run in P.E. class.

Some twenty years after the batting practice incident, during which time I saw him maybe once or twice, Coach mentioned to my brother that he had been thinking about throwing the ball at me, and felt bad about doing it. 

He never said it me.

So, while Coach seemed to promote my athletic ability on the one hand, he sometimes behaved like a madman on the other.  At the time, I was trying to do whatever I could to please him (except play football), but while I still laugh at some of the ridiculous things he said to me and others, I don’t hold him in the fondest of places in my heart.

I saw Coach about three years ago, and while I politely shook his hand and introduced him to my wife, the encounter was brief.

And empty.

There is a high school football coach in New Jersey who is at the center of a court case regarding prayer with the team prior to their games.  Apparently, he has had prayer with his team, one way or another, for twenty-three years.

I don’t know the content of the prayers, whether he wants God to lead his team to victory, protect the players from injury, teach them the lessons of clean-living through knocking people on their hind ends, or all of the above.  But, official prayer at a school-sponsored activity is a controversial subject.  Hopefully, the courts will order him to cease and desist and prevent him from further imposing his religious views on his players.

To me, it’s amusing to imagine the football coach at my high school leading the team in prayer.  I don’t know whether he ever did, because, despite his urgings, I didn’t play football.  But, I know the school received numerous complaints from neighbors whose backyards ran up against the football field at our school.  The complaints were about the high volume profanity emanating from the coaches during practice sessions.

It was my good fortune to experience some of this first-hand, because the football coach also was the junior varsity baseball coach, and I played on that team during my freshman year.  (I probably would benefit from speaking to a therapist about THAT period of my life!)  He was proficient at stringing together crude images, epithets, and vulgarities that likely are not allowed today.  Actually, it was pretty funny, but the laughing had to wait until after practice.  None of us especially cared for the extra wind sprints. We already were a better track team than baseball team that year.

I can’t imagine anyone taking him seriously if he were to say, “Gentlemen, take a knee, and let us pray.”   Of course, in the violent, mixed-up world of football/militarism/patriotism non-compliance would have its consequences.

And that’s exactly why the coach in New Jersey needs to knock it off.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Louis said, in response to a question, that if presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, or any other candidate, “had been admonished” for violating church doctrine, he would turn that candidate away from communion.  In the case of Giuliani – and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) during the last presidential election cycle – the archbishop objects to his history of supporting abortion rights.  When asked about his response to a candidate’s support of the death penalty or pre-emptive war, the archbishop replied, “It’s a little more complicated in that case.”

Why is it more complicated?  Both run up against the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.”  Maybe it’s because those being killed “in that case” are “bad guys,” or “the enemy.”  Maybe the archbishop feels they deserve to be killed, despite Jesus’ teaching to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”   I guess the archbishop’s idea is to allow everyone to be born, and we’ll sort out later who we want to keep around.  I presume he has a vote in the decision.

Flippant characterizations aside, I’m not intent on criticizing the archbishop.  But the notion of denying access to communion doesn’t compute in my mind.  To me, communion is not a reward or something that people earn the right to deserve.  It’s not up to me, or anyone else, to turn someone away from the table to which Christ invited them.

My perception is that Jesus said, “Remember me when you eat and drink together” precisely because he knew we would falter, he knew we would be tempted to uncritically embrace the ways of the world.  Jesus knew spiritual strength is found when believers come together for communion, and that in remembering him we also remember who we are called to be.  It seems to me, we need to encourage people to share in communion rather than keep them away.

If we included only those who “deserved” to approach the table, there wouldn’t be much need for bread and grape juice -- just enough for those who make the rules.  The biblical image of a heavenly feast would become a sad, ironic joke.

Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) statement that he would prefer a Christian in the White House stirred a strong reaction.  His assertion that the United States was established as a Christian nation is addressed by Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance.  Many people, of course, make the same claim as McCain.  However, it is false.  Only Christians, of course, say it, but in doing so they reveal their misunderstanding of U.S. history and of the Christian faith itself.

Read what Welton has to say about this.

Great will be the day when religious faith no longer is used as a political strategy, tool, or deception.

I don't look for that day to arrive soon, however.

A couple in Portland, Oregon made plans to be married.  They weren’t church folks, apparently, because they found a minister on Craigslist.com who specialized in “last-minute weddings."  A friend of theirs offered to officiate at the ceremony, but the couple discovered that their friend’s credentials were questionable.

So, they hired the online last-minute specialist, and she led a brief ceremony in the couple’s home.  It turned into a disaster, because the “minister” stole the couple’s wedding gifts.  They were remodeling their kitchen, so they asked their guests for Home Depot gift cards in lieu of regular wedding presents.  At one point in the festivities the minister was alone in the house, and after she later took her leave, the couple noticed very few gift cards were left.  Not wanting to accuse the minister – the one they found online at the last minute – the couple explored other explanations of what might have happened.  Finally, the minister became a suspect, and a little detective work and a review of Home Depot surveillance cameras revealed the truth.

“If you can’t trust someone to officiate over your wedding, who can you trust in this world?” asked a detective involved in the case.

It’s a shame they had such a negative experience.  It’s too bad they don’t take seriously the church and clergy.  Hiring a minister to perform a religious service when there is no connection to the community of faith makes no sense to me.  My view is that a wedding is an outgrowth of life in the Christian community, and that a bride or groom, or both, nurtured in the church, comes with her or his partner in life to seek God’s blessing on their love and commitment to each other.  It’s all wrapped up in faith and faithfulness. 

It’s difficult for me to see all of that playing out when a minister is called in to “do the wedding.”  Sometimes when I hear about such an arrangement, I wonder, “Who’s using who?”

As one of my favorite professors in seminary used to say, “You pays your money and you takes your chances.”

In writing an article titled, “Logical Path From Religious Beliefs To Evil Deeds,” Richard Dawkins quotes Nobel Prize winner Steven Weinberg:  “With or without (religion) you’d have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things.  But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion.”

Dawkins’ article states that religion changes one’s perception of good, in effect, making it relative.  That is, while most religious people abhor violence, some religious folks justify its use if the situation requires it in order to fulfill some misguided sense of righteousness.  Dawkins refers to the Taliban, and to the 9/11 attackers, among others.

Religion has been used to justify oppression of various groups of people.  It is employed as a vehicle for judgment and repression.  Dawkins states, “It is easy for religious faith, even if it is irrational in itself, to lead a sane and decent person, by rational, logical steps, to do terrible things.”

It’s difficult to dispute Dawkins on this point.  The contention over abortion has led to some cases of people, considering themselves “pro-life,” to take the lives of those who differ in opinion.  When Terri Schiavo was in her final days, there were some religious folk threatening healthcare workers at the hospice in-patient unit where she was a resident.  On a smaller scale, sometimes when people say, “I’ll pray for you,” you realize they really are saying, “You’re wrong.  You’re no good.  Get ready for extreme heat and the smell of sulfur.”

While conceding Richard Dawkins his point, I want to add that another, related reality exists, as well.  That is, people who don’t take their religion seriously also contribute to the problem of evil in the world.  Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the “conspiracy of silence,” in relation to matters of social justice and peace.  So often, people of faith are silent because there is nothing they know to say; no insight derived from prayer and discernment; no prophetic word of hope for the transformation of human hearts; and, no reminder of the demands of peace.  The Source of these is minimized, compartmentalized, or just simply under-utilized.

Is selfishness the driving force in the ways religion is used or not used?  In both cases, God seems to be overlooked.  Who’s left?

Senator and presidential-candidate John McCain (R- AZ) recently stated that he would prefer to see a Christian as president of the United States.  In the same interview, McCain allowed that a Muslim could be president if “he or she was the candidate best able to lead the country and defend our political values.”  There was no mention in this report of his opinion of a potential Jewish president.

Sen. McCain grew up as an Episcopalian, but has been attending a Baptist church for a number of years.  He considered being immersed in the Baptist church, but so far has refrained.  He especially doesn’t want to be baptized during the presidential campaign, because “it might appear as if I was doing something I otherwise wouldn’t do.”

Choosing to be baptized in order to attract votes might be a new one.  People have submitted to baptism to satisfy a spouse.  I had one case in my experience where a woman wanted to be “re-baptized” when she was dealing with matters of parole and sentence reduction.  Didn’t happen.  Another person floated the idea of her firstborn baby being baptized, “just to be sure,” even though she knew we don’t practice infant baptism in our tradition.  I reminded her why we would not be doing it.   Many people in the Disciples tradition are baptized at an “age of accountability,” usually in the range of 10 – 12 years of age, with scant awareness of the biblical story or the meaning of salvation.

As with everything else we do – in the church and beyond – there is imperfection in our practice of baptism.  I think something significant to note, though, is that whenever there is a baptism in a Disciples church, it is a happy occasion.  Not just because baptisms often are few and far between in many of our congregations, but because the faith of the community is present and at work on such an occasion.

Sure, people rejoicing at the baptisms would be hard-pressed to explain the classical theories of atonement.  Some might not be able specifically to recall everything that went into their own decision to confess faith in Jesus as their Savior and submit to baptism.  But, Christians see hope in someone being baptized.  Christians have faith that God is present in the person’s life and in the moment of baptism.  Christians understand on a “soul-level” that God’s reign is expanding at least another few inches when a baptism occurs, because the Holy Spirit is a participant in the act.

Sometimes, I think, good can happen, and God can work miracles, even when our own motivations are subject to scrutiny.

A radio program I listened to years ago on the way to work during morning rush hour did a bit called “The Kevin Bacon Game.”   The game was based on the “Six Degrees of Separation” idea, where people always can connect themselves to someone else in six steps. 

In the game on the radio, callers named an actor, and the DJ had to connect that person back to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less.  Someone might call and say, “Elizabeth Taylor,” and the DJ would say “She was in Such and Such movie with So and So, who was in The Next Movie with Whoozits, who was in Yet Another Flick with Kevin Bacon.  You get the idea.

A few days ago I mentioned my acquaintance with some major league baseball players, and they were the only people who stood between me and such players as Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron.  I was two steps from Babe Ruth.  It’s kind of amazing to think about.

You can think of examples from your own life, where one person you know, knows another, who knows another, and before long, you have a link to a president, a television actor, an author, or someone else.

I guess it all shows the connectedness of the human family, and that despite the barriers we place between ourselves and others, it would not take long to close the gaps created by those barriers.

The text for this coming Sunday is the story of the rich man and Lazarus.  It is a story of gaps, barriers, and separation.  The effects of the separation are devastating, and in telling this parable, Jesus sounds pretty resigned to the fact that we will do little to overcome it.

The first step in doing so is bridging the gap between ourselves and Jesus himself, who shows us what it means to be loving and compassionate toward others, regardless of who they are.  We get to know Jesus better by spending time in worship, prayer, study, service and other spiritual disciplines.  As we grow closer to him, we re-discover our connection to other people.

The ironic thing is, the only ones standing between us and Jesus usually is ourselves.

At a meeting today about homelessness in our county, the 10 of us in attendance looked at statistics, recent events, projected needs, and plans to try and meet those needs.  It is a daunting challenge, and one for which the churches in the community are being recruited.  Options for their help include providing shelter in church buildings at various times, especially on cold weather nights; assisting other congregations that provide shelter; contributing funds to support the work; cook meals; and make in-kind contributions such as toiletries, clothes and other necessities.

One of the pastors in attendance seemed somewhat skeptical about the efforts to help homeless people in our community.  If we help them too much, we “enable” their lifestyle, he suggested.  Some lifestyle.  He twice quoted what he described as a biblical principle:  “Those who don’t work don’t eat.”  This is 2 Thessalonians 3:10.  I think it says “won’t work,” instead of “don’t work.”  I’d hate to be sick, a child, or otherwise physically unable to work in his little world.  I guess I would go hungry, because that’s in the Bible.  All righteousness would be fulfilled!

There are other biblical principles, too.  For instance, in Matthew 25, Jesus says, “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink,” and it goes on from there.  The followers of Jesus ask, “When did we do that?”  “Whenever you did it to the least of there, who are members of my family, you did it to me.”  There don’t seem to be qualifications attached.

Are all biblical “principles” equally weighted?  Do context, culture, language, and other factors make a difference?  Do the words of Paul or another writer carry the same importance as the teachings of Jesus?

These questions complicate our attempts to be faithful followers of Jesus.  It seems to me, though, if we’re unsure we can always go back to Jesus’ answer when he was asked, “Which is the greatest of the commandments?”  He made a principled response.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and your neighbor as yourself.”