Category: General

A meditation on Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

Wheat is a grass species with large grains around their seeds. Humans have cultivated wheat for thousands of years. The grain itself has three parts: endosperm (used for white flour), bran, and germ (the part that sprouts). As it grows, though, special leaf-like structures surround the grain. These structures, called chaff, are inedible and must be removed. A major development in agriculture was the cultivation of free-threshing wheat, in which the chaff can be easily removed by beating (threshing) the harvested sheaves. After threshing, the chaff is no longer attached to the grain, but everything is all mixed together. “Winnowing” involves throwing the mixture up in the air with a light wind (possibly provided by a fan). The grain falls while the chaff blows away.

John the Baptist was a firebrand of a preacher. He held nothing back when he was teaching his followers. And yet, he said that worse was to come: “I baptize you with water, but … [the Messiah] will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” Pretty strong words! Hearing them, I’m not sure I would really look forward to the coming of the Messiah.

What is chaff? One common interpretation of this verse, and many similar verses of judgment, interprets the wheat and chaff as people: righteous people are the wheat, wicked people are the chaff. Yet Solzhenitsyn had a brilliant insight:

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Nobody is perfect. Nobody is righteous in themselves. Everybody falls short of the glory of God. Everybody can point to ways they have hurt other people.

Yet we often feel compelled to hurt people, by action or inaction, as a way to protect ourselves. We know that we should welcome the stranger and help the poor, but when confronted with an actual poor stranger, our fear prevents us from welcoming and helping them. We know that we should put God first in our lives, but spend most of our time chasing money so that we can have a comfortable life.

Plus, we are all connected to various social structures: our family, community, workplace, church, other organizations, state, and nation. I may be willing to follow God’s call in a certain way, but I have to work within the rules of these social structures. When I have to choose between my urge to do the right thing and my desire to belong to a certain organization or community, I may choose belonging as the easier, more comfortable path.

This is the chaff. These are the things that protect us in this world as we grow into the people God desires, but do not serve us in God’s kin-dom. Our fears, our attachments, our covetous yearnings, our anger, our anxiety—they all separate us from each other and from God, yet they are necessary to function in this broken world.

I am currently on my second reading of Resisting Happiness by Matthew Kelly, on the recommendation of my dear friend Ashley Brooks. (It’s one of the things that led her to become the executive director of the Rolla Mission.) It is written from deep in the Roman Catholic tradition, so there are some things that just don’t apply outside of that context. One valuable part of Roman Catholicism, though, is the ritual of confession. Repentance is a critical part of the Christian tradition, one that we include in Presbyterian worship each Sunday. There are three main parts of confession: self-examination to prayerfully consider the ways in which you have failed to meet God’s standard; the actual confession in which you put words to your sins (either speaking to a priest or, in my tradition, directly to God through prayer) and express contrition; and the joyful response in which you celebrate knowing that God has forgiven you, so you share God’s mercy with others.

There is also a need for restitution. As we confess, God forgives us, but that doesn’t necessarily resolve any pain we caused someone else. I’m reminded of the confession scene in Moonstruck. (I can’t find a better video, sorry.) Loretta, Cher’s character, confesses that “once I slept with the brother of my fiancé.” The priest absolves her, but her life is still a mess. She still has to deal with the disruptions in her relationships, but she can do so with the confidence that God loves her.

In the same way, we each need to reflect on the ways in which we have fallen short of God’s calling—the people we have hurt through action or inaction, the barriers we have erected between ourselves and our neighbors or between ourselves and God. Self-examination and confession are essential, but so is the response: work towards restitution and reconciliation.

Jesus’s message throughout the Gospels was, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!” Then he told people what that meant in their lives. For each person, there was a different answer, but in every case, Jesus told them to set aside anything that was preventing them from fully entering fellowship with God and all of God’s people.

John the Baptist taught a baptism of repentance. All four Gospels report, though, that Jesus was baptized. We believe Jesus was the only human who was sinless. So why was he baptized?

In other passages that describe John’s teachings, he emphasized social issues like generosity and fairness. Jesus was not himself sinful, but he was a part of sinful social structures. That’s unavoidable in this world. If Jesus wanted to worship with his fellow Jews, he had to visit the Temple, which excluded people that he would have included (women, Gentiles, lepers, the disabled). He was able to connect with all of these people individually, but could not overcome the sinful exclusionary practices of the religious establishment. He was part of a sinful economic system governed by an occupying army.

So Jesus was baptized to proclaim his participation in the reconciliation of the world. By himself, Jesus of Nazareth could not change the social, political, and religious structures of Judea, but he could start a movement that would. Through his death and resurrection, and through the action of the Holy Spirit, he could continue to work through people everywhere, in every age, to reconcile us to each other and to God. Even today, he is working through me, through you, through each person who hears his message or feels the Holy Spirit’s nudges to create a more connected, inclusive, just, and righteous world.

Our task, then, is to look at the world, see where there are problems that God is trying to solve, and try to be a part of the solution. There are so many problems, though. It can become overwhelming. In five minutes of doomscrolling, you can read about political struggles in the US and abroad, wars, famine, homelessness, climate disruptions, and more. There is too much for anyone to fix, so it’s easy to lose hope and just quit.

I’m taking the other approach. I can’t fix everything, but I CAN fix something. I can’t change the world, but maybe I can change one person’s world. I will continue to work at the Mission as my small contribution to resolving the issue of homelessness in America. But my true calling is to work for the reconciliation of the Christian church with the LGBTQ+ community.

There are some people who read that and think, Right, gay people need to repent of their sinful desires and become Christians. That’s not what I mean. I mean that the CHURCH needs to repent of its sins. For centuries, LGBTQ+ issues were completely in the closet—ignored, not even castigated, as the church pretended that concepts like sexual orientation and gender identity didn’t exist. Over the past century, Christianity at large has turned its attention on first sexual orientation and now gender identity as problems to be eliminated. Instead, we should be treating LGBTQ+ individuals as people to be loved and welcomed. Not to “pray the gay away,” but to learn from their different perspectives and to show them that life is better in Christian community. To teach them that God loves them, and then to show that we love them, too. A person’s sexual orientation and gender identity are deep within them—wheat, not chaff.

That’s my calling. What’s yours? Where do you see God at work? What is the chaff in your life that needs to be removed so that you can be the person God desires? What are the social structures that are preventing you from doing so, that need to be changed? Blessings as you discern your path through this world as a participant in building God’s eternal kin-dom.

All are welcome! Come on in, worship with us.

All are welcome! Wait—you’re gay? Well, you can still worship with us, but of course you can’t join our church.

All are welcome! We’d be happy to chat with you about why your sins are so much worse than our sins.

All are welcome! I guess you can join our church, but only if you remain celibate. We know it’s tough to go through life without a romantic partner, but that’s the price of admission here.

All are welcome! Oh, and of course you can’t serve in any leadership positions. I mean, we don’t even let women preach and teach, let alone gay people. And transgenders? (Or whatever they call themselves.) Of course not them.

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You are welcome! Straight, cis, white man? Great! None of the above? Great! We affirm your worth regardless of your race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity. We are all equal before God.

You are welcome! We value your different life experiences. They give us a better picture of the glory of God.

You are welcome! We are sorry that other churches have hurt you. Come, join us and heal.

You are welcome! Oh, and we’d love to have you as an officer, or Sunday school teacher. We even have the occasional opportunity to preach, if that’s how you are called. We have opportunities for each person to live out their calling, and believe that all people have gifts to offer God’s people.

You are welcome! You are a beloved child of God. Come join us in helping to exhibit God’s reign. Come be a part of Christ’s body. Come be a part of God’s family.

³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

As I write this, I am preparing to take Jesse back to college at the University of Pittsburgh. I thought I’d write a quick note for any of my students who happen upon my website.

I used to maintain a pretty strict detachment from my students, both graduate and undergraduate. Over the past few years, though, I have realized that my job as a professor is not simply to pour information into their brains. My job is to help them become better versions of themselves. It is essential not only that they learn whatever subject matter I’m teaching, but also that they develop as engineers, as members of a professional community, and as members of God’s family.

I believe that all people are beloved by God, no matter their age, race, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic. I believe that all people are drawn to God according to their understanding. I have a certain understanding of God’s relationship with humanity, which can be gleaned from my writings on this blog. But I may be wrong—in fact, I certainly am wrong about some things, but I don’t know which ones.

I believe in universal salvation: that all people will one day live in God’s realm. If we seek God, we can participate in God’s reign NOW. Jesus supremely taught us what it is to be a human made in God’s image. He taught us that there are only two rules: love God and love your neighbor. I seek each day to live both of these commandments. Some days I do better than others.

A few years ago, I became an advisor to Common Call Campus Ministry. We are a progressive Christian ministry co-sponsored by my church, First Presbyterian Church of Rolla; Christ Episcopal Church, where we meet (Thursdays at 5:30); and Hope Lutheran.

These days, though, I put more of my energy into other things. One is my church, where I preach somewhat regularly (approximately twice monthly). The other is LGBTQ+ Rolla, a nonprofit that is aimed at supporting the queer community in Rolla and Phelps County through education and social connections. I also volunteer regularly at The Rolla Mission.

Wherever you may be on your path, I hope that you finish this semester a little closer to your goal: a little closer to graduation, a better engineer, a better member of the community, a little closer to God. A little more like the person you want to be. Blessings to you.

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Ephesians 3:14-21, John 6:1-21.

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In most of the world throughout human history, “power” refers to political power, wealth, or both. It is the ability to do as you please, and to force others to do what you want them to do. For centuries now, Christian church structures have been caught up in secular power as well. In the time after the fall of the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church wielded power and influence throughout Europe, choosing and guiding rulers. The Reformation disrupted this arrangement, and a wider range of church leaders sought political power. Here in America, some traditions rejected involvement in politics, notably the Mennonites and similar Anabaptists, where others openly embraced theocracy, notably the Puritans. Early in the 20^th century, Christian fundamentalism arose in response to modernism. The Scopes Monkey Trial is perhaps the best-known example of fundamentalist striving for power. Fundamentalist William Jennings Bryant won the trial, but fundamentalism lost public support. Not long afterwards, the movement disavowed political ambitions, turning instead towards cultural institutions like colleges.

Then in the 1970s, a new generation of evangelical leaders built a political movement on the established fundamentalist cultural structures. The Christian Right emerged to support politicians who would enact the laws that aligned with their religious beliefs. This has been an amazingly successful strategy. Unfortunately, any striving after political power ultimately involves compromises, which have sullied the name of Christianity in the public consciousness. It is probably not coincidental that the white evangelical church has been in decline for a while now, with a rising average membership age due to a dearth of young adults.

Over the past few years, a new movement has emerged, the Christian Left. The reality is that there are a similar number of practicing Christians on both ends of the political spectrum, but they are better organized on the right. The Christian Left seeks to build coalitions to enact their vision of public Christianity. Unfortunately, this movement too is destined to run into the compromises and hypocrisies that arise when striving for worldly power. I have seen some Christian Left memes and Facebook posts that are clearly political but not so clearly Christian. So begins the road that leads to elevating worldly goals above our commitment to God.

Jesus lived in a time of great political turmoil. There were many Jewish leaders that were working to overturn the existing power structures, to expel the Roman occupiers, to establish a new nation devoted to worshipping God. Jesus was not that kind of Messiah, though. After the feeding of the five thousand, when the crowd sought to make him a king, he withdrew to place where he could be in private communion with God. Jesus preached and taught that the kingdom of God, or kin-dom of God, was already at hand, and is not of this world. The good news was and is the in-breaking of God’s power to all of us. What power did he mean? What gospel did Paul write about to his Gentile audience?

Let’s remember that Paul did much of his writing in prison. He knew worldly power from both sides. In his younger days, he persecuted Christians under authority from the Jewish leaders. After his conversion, he ended up as one persecuted, receiving floggings in synagogues, being cast out, being arrested by Roman authorities in cities around the empire. Yet he wrote about a greater power. God’s power didn’t free him from prison, but instead gave him the ability to endure prison and punishment. God’s power is love: love of your family, love of your friends, love of your enemies, love of those who persecute you and revile you. Paul experienced God’s love in a personal way, and it empowered him to spread the Gospel to Gentiles around the Near East.

God’s love is still at work today. It enables us to grow into the people that Christ desires as his body, which is the church. God’s love heals broken hearts, broken relationships, broken communities. God’s love is here today, and will go with us when we leave this sanctuary.

Paul prays that we will know the length, breadth, height, and depth of God’s love. Now, I’m an engineer, and I can see right away that there is redundancy in this list. We have three dimensions, X, Y, and Z. X and Y are the length and breadth. Why does Paul use two words for the Z dimension: height and depth? Well, let’s set aside our modern perspective and go back to an ancient worldview. In ancient Near Eastern cosmology, there was the surface of the land and sea where we live, the “waters above,” that is, the heavens, and the “waters below,” that is, the underworld. The “height” was the heavens where God resides. The “depth” was the underworld. In the Greek tradition, the underworld was Hades, where the dead were punished, I suppose just because they were dead. In the Jewish tradition, the underworld was Sheol, where the dead would rest. Some Jewish thought picked up the Greek perspective and imagined Sheol as the place where the wicked dead were punished. Paul is picking up a theme, though, from Psalm 139:

Where can I go from your spirit?

    Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

    if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

Psalm 139:7-8

God is everywhere. This is sometimes called “panentheism.” “Pantheism” is a belief that all things are God, but “panentheism” is a belief that God is in all things. Like the psalmist, Paul is saying that God is not only in the highest heavens, but also in the depths among the dead.

I believe in universal salvation. I believe that in Christ, God was reconciling all things. Not some people, not all people, but everything. God is in all. God is everywhere. What is missing in our lives is not God’s presence, but our awareness.

There are challenges ahead of us in this church. No doubt about that. But churches have always struggled to live up to our calling. When we were persecuted, we struggled to remain faithful and true. When we were powerful, we struggled to resist the temptations of worldly wealth and often claimed credit for the work God was doing. Today, in this congregation, we need to be renewed and revitalized. The good news, the Gospel, is that the kingdom of God is at hand, and is indeed here, right here, today. The kingdom of God is a state of being where God’s love is flowing in us, through us, and among us.

Paul prays that we would “know” the love of Christ. The word he used is an experiential knowledge, not just intellectual. He prays that the Ephesians, and all of God’s people throughout history, would feel and experience the love of Christ. I mostly feel that love through God’s people. I feel it each Sunday morning when we gather for worship and when we gather afterwards for fellowship. I feel it in committee meetings, when we are trying to discern God’s will for our congregation and how each committee can help the congregation along the path God has laid out for us. I feel it at church picnics, at potlucks, on float trips. I feel it each time I am in the presence of God’s people.

But God’s people extend far beyond this congregation. All people are part of God’s family. Paul uses a little play on words as he prays to God the Father, Patera, from whom every family, patria, takes its name. God is not just working in this room this morning. God is at work all around our community, state, nation, and world. Where have you seen God at work? Where have you felt God’s love?

Let me tell you a few places I have experienced God’s love. The first is The Rolla Mission. Many of you have volunteered at the Mission and know what I’m talking about. It’s a wonderful place where everyone is striving to become a better person, and to help each other grow. Now, there are failures, of course, but plenty of successes as well. I feel so much love when I’m there, love from the patrons, love from the staff like Ashley and Brandy, love from the other volunteers.

I felt God’s love at our Pride Picnic last month. About a year ago, I started LGBTQ+ Rolla with a mission of providing visibility, education, and connections for LGBTQ+ individuals in Rolla. We sputtered along through the pandemic, and eventually had enough people engaged that we formed a board of directors, who then planned a social gathering. It was wildly successful. Not only did lots of people show up—83, by Jesse’s count—but also lots of people really engaged with each other, shared in fellowship. It definitely was not a religious gathering, but it definitely was alive with the Holy Spirit.

Here’s an odd way I experience God. I am the chair of a search committee seeking a founding director for a research center on campus. The position is a little bit unusual for academia, so instead of just advertising and hoping for the best, we are doing some outreach to identify good candidates. I started out with just some cold emails to people who seemed appropriate. One professor responded that he was not personally interested, but wanted to discuss the position anyway. We probably talked for close to an hour about the position, the university, and our future. He ultimately connected me with two good candidates and several more individuals who, like him, are not personally interested but are willing to chat with me and connect me with other candidates. These are people who have no special connection to Missouri S&T, no personal career interest, and plenty of other demands on their time. And yet, they are willing to give me some of their precious time to help me, to help my university, and to help their colleagues who are seeking growth.

Here’s another one. I have two students from India, one from near Hyderabad in the south and one from the eastern state of Assam. I was in the lab recently meeting with another student and heard them talking in a foreign language. As I walked over to them, they shifted to English. I asked them if they shared a language, and they explained that they both speak three languages: their mother tongues (which are different), Hindi, and English. They speak Hindi together because it feels more like “home.” They’re far from their birth culture, but they are able to connect to each other through this shared language. We had a great chat about languages, such as the relationships between their mother tongues, Hindi, and Sanskrit. It was a wonderful window into their lives, a lowering of barriers between us.

There are many other places I have experienced God’s love, and many other places where I see God at work. God is not just in this place during this time when we are together. God is out there, too. We never lack for God’s presence, only for awareness of it.

As I said, I believe in universal salvation. There are two extreme schools of thought. On the one end is universalism, the belief that all people will be saved. This can be de-motivating, since salvation is in God’s hands and there doesn’t seem to be anything for us to do. On the other end is the belief that only the elect, a select few, will be saved, only those who accept Jesus into their heart, who say the sinner’s prayer. Many people on that far end believe that’s all you have to do. Say the prayer, you’re saved. Job done. Don’t say the prayer, you’re damned. That’s wonderful motivation to spread the Gospel, but not to change the world. Universal salvation means, to me, that all people will reach God eventually. Our job, then, is not a one-off, please say this prayer, but neither is it to step away from the world and let God take care of it. No, our job is to walk with each other on our path towards God. God is in all things, but what is lacking is awareness. Our job is to help people to see God at work and to know, to feel, God’s love.

We all take different paths, different trails. Some of us need more help than others. Some of us feel like we are in the wilderness without a map, while others seem to have a GPS leading them straight to God. Regardless, we all need each other for guidance and encouragement. God is working through us, loving us individually and collectively. God is working throughout our community. Let’s open our eyes to God’s work in the world, joining in and helping to build God’s kingdom, welcoming everyone into God’s family, God’s kin-dom, and walking together towards a future where nothing is certain except for the length, the breadth, the height, and the depth of God’s love. Amen.

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While Jesus understands the importance of a strategic withdrawal from work and the need to create a sacred space for a Sabbath rest, he also remains available and flexible to the pastoral care of God’s people. He models for the disciples what they themselves will have to learn as those “sent” by God and as future shepherds of God’s flock. There is never a convenient time for ministry. We should expect random interruptions. Whether as ordained clergy or lay leaders, we are called to suspend our immediate plans in order to care for those in need.

Max J. Lee, in Connections, Year B

As part of my spiritual journey, I am using the sermon-development process I learned last spring even on weeks when I don’t preach. This week’s Gospel passage is Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, which begins with the apostles being worn out from a mission trip and ends with Jesus swarmed by crowds seeking healing. The quote above is from a commentary on this passage.

I shared this commentary with my friend Ashley on Thursday. She told me a story with details I cannot divulge, but here it is in broad strokes. She had a lot going on this week, and particularly that day. Someone came to her in need, though. She realized that as important as her other tasks were, she had to deal with the crisis in front of her. Unfortunately, the interaction did not work out the way she had hoped. Such is the life of a case manager for the homeless. On a more positive note, a couple came in Friday to tell her that they had just signed a lease on a new apartment.

I am an engineer. My work revolves around a completely fabricated world. That is, we purposely design out complexity. We make sure that the things we want to ignore are actually too small to be relevant. Ashley’s work, though, is more organic. Life is complex. We all have visions that our lives will proceed gracefully in an essentially straight line towards our goals. Nobody actually lives like that, though. Life is less like walking up a staircase and more like climbing a mountain.

I hunt elk each fall near Durango, CO. First we have to hike in on a trail. The general trend is upwards (about 1000’ change in elevation), but unfortunately, the first quarter mile is downhill. We eventually reach the end of the trail and have to cross a wooded section to get to camp. There is no easy path through it, due to blowdown, only paths that are slightly less difficult. Then when we start hunting, we hike all around the mountainside. There are blowdowns to deal with, streams to cross, crevasses, and so forth. Often, the most direct route is not the easiest. Often, you reach a point where you cannot proceed and have to give up elevation that you’ve gained, go back, go down, go around the obstacle.

In the same way, life sometimes presents us with obstacles that we cannot overcome without first losing ground. Sometimes the right person can help us through them, though. I don’t know how things will work out with Ashley’s patron, but perhaps she was able to help them through a particularly tough bramble in life. Maybe the time wasn’t quite right for the ultimate solution to their problem, but her lovingkindness helped them get through one more day.

Seldom do we know how we impact the people around us. All we can do is show God’s love, even when it is inconvenient, and hope that God will use us to help each other through to our ultimate destination.

I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Etienne de Grellet

Recently, I heard the same concept in several places, so it must be important. I can’t remember them all, but I do remember two of them were in Queerology podcasts. There are two kinds of knowledge: head knowledge and heart knowledge. As an engineer and an academic, I spend most of my time on head knowledge. Facts and figures, abstract concepts, rules and procedures. This kind of knowledge is essential. It is necessary, but not sufficient.

The other kind is heart knowledge. Heart knowledge is experiential. When Paul wrote in Ephesians that he wished the readers would “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,” the Greek verb translated as “know” implies personal experience.

One context in which I heard this concept regarded the Biblical case for affirming gay and other queer individuals, welcoming them into full fellowship in the body of Christ. The Biblical case is sound and has been explained in many books more eloquently than I could explain it here. And yet, knowing that Paul coined a Greek word in order to reference Leviticus, which itself was arguing for strict monotheism and against idolatrous practices, is not sufficient to heal the damage done to gay people over the last century or more. It’s not enough to say, “Oh, sorry, we interpreted that wrong. Turns out you’re OK.”

No, what is needed is heart knowledge. People need to truly feel the love of God in Christ by the Holy Spirit. This is true whether you are LGBTQ+ or not. I have a book that was a gift from a good friend, Rob Heberer, called The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict. In it, the author, Josh McDowell, makes various technical arguments to convince people that God exists, that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, and so forth. I suppose there are some people for whom the apologetic approach is sufficient. Most people, though, could possibly get as far as intellectual assent but would not really have a changed life.

Another place I encountered this concept was in a column by David Brooks. He lays the blame for the unraveling of American politics and the wider society on an over-emphasis on head knowledge. It doesn’t matter what the laws, rules, and regulations are if you cannot trust the people who are supposed to enforce them. So much of our society runs on unwritten rules, too, which can only be built on trust that comes from heart knowledge.

How can we build that heart knowledge? Through stories and encounters. I wrote last week about the LGBTQ+ Rolla Pride Picnic. When I wrote, I was hopeful but not optimistic. I would have been happy if 30 people showed up. As it turned out, we had 83! At least, that’s how many Jesse counted—there may have been others that left before or arrived after the counting, or were otherwise missed. It was an amazing event. Phelps County Focus published an excellent article about it and a slideshow of pictures.

I was surprised that so many people were willing to join us. I would say about half were allies (most of them there with queer family members or friends, some with distant friends or family). Now, head knowledge says that there are probably about 1000 LGBTQ individuals in Rolla. We have a population around 20,000 and national polling indicates that 5.6% of Americans identify as something other than straight, cisgender. Still, there is a difference between knowing that fact and encountering queer individuals.

Where do we go from here? We share our stories. The Focus article is a good start. Looking ahead, we plan to have other social events so that people can know each other, in the sense of personal experience. To know that they are not alone, that other people have been through some of the same stuff, that they can just BE without hiding any part of their true selves.

Yet another place I heard this concept was in a Queerology podcast interview of Tara Teng. Among other things, she is an embodiment coach. She writes,

If God had a body through the incarnation of Jesus, then what can our human experiences in the human body teach us about God? What does it mean to be “Imago Dei”? And how can we live out the fullness of our humanity – mind, body and soul?

Tara Teng

God did not have to become human to know, intellectually, what humanity was like. God created us in God’s image, after all, and spent millennia hearing our stories. And yet, something was still missing. So God became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus lived so that God the Trinity would know, from direct experience, what it is to be human.

Greek philosophers, Gnostics, and many others throughout history have believed in a mind-body dualism. Plato, for example, portrayed the body as a prison for the soul. Yet the Incarnation asserts that our bodies are good, our bodies are essential parts of the kingdom of God.

Indeed, we encounter the kingdom of God through our bodies. We feel—not intellectually, but in our whole beings—the joy, the love, the comfort, the connection that comes when we are truly present with another person. The Pride Picnic was just such an inbreaking of the kingdom of God—a time when I knew that God was present with me, was present in each person, was present in our gathering. It was a joyous time, and a holy time.

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A quick program note. My church, First Presbyterian Church of Rolla, is currently without an installed pastor. I will be preaching about twice a month. Right now, I have July 11, July 25, and August 15 on my calendar. On the weekends when I preach, I will most likely just post my sermon here as a blog post, as well as links to it as a podcast and video. Of course, you are more than welcome to join us in person! We worship at 9:45 am.

Tonight (June 26, 2021), LGBTQ+ Rolla is hosting our town’s first Pride event, a picnic at Schuman Park lower pavilion (6-8 pm). This has been in the works for a while. There is no agenda besides music and hanging out, but people may have the opportunity to tell their story. I thought I’d share something here as I gather my thoughts.

My path to tonight’s event started about eight years ago. Susan Murray, an elder at my church who is lesbian, wanted to do something for the LGBT community on campus. She enlisted me to spearhead it. That effort didn’t go very far but it started me on this path.

Apparently, God was getting me ready, because a year or so later, my daughter came out. That changed my perspective, but at least I was partially prepared. I had already educated myself on terms and concepts, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God loves her.

³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

Time passed. I got just a glimpse of the barriers that someone queer in small-town Missouri faces. Beyond reading books and articles, I talked with other queer individuals in an attempt to understand their perspective.

Ultimately, I concluded that what Rolla needs is a focal point, a place where someone who doesn’t fit society’s expectations about sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression can find someone else who is fighting the same stereotypes. As a straight, cisgender, white man, I will NEVER understand their challenges, and hope that I do not project an attitude that I’m some sort of savior for the queer community. However, I am driven to do whatever I can to help out.

Last summer, things started moving in the right direction. I connected with Onyx Russ, who is now the president of LGBTQ+ Rolla, and a few others with similar interests. We were moving towards a big event in October, but that just couldn’t happen. We fell back on Zoom gatherings and built a little momentum, so now we’re ready for a Pride event.

I hope this isn’t the end, but the beginning. I hope that someday, I can fade further into the background as LGBTQ+ individuals have the time and energy to take more leadership roles. I hope that someday, we have an LGBTQ+ center in Rolla to combat the negative stereotypes promulgated by so many organizations and individuals, a place where someone who is struggling with acceptance can come and be themselves. But for now, I just hope that we have a peaceful, joyful gathering where everyone can enjoy being who they are.

For more than a decade, I have been involved with the organizing committee of the IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference. I was general chair in 2017. We typically have around 5000 attendees; perhaps 1500 are paid attendees and the remainder attend the free exposition that has upwards of 200 companies exhibiting. Being general chair was one of the high points of my career and my life. The peak was the social event. It was held in a city park and had a wide variety of activities, from a dance floor to giant chess to cornhole to hand-rolled cigars. Engineers aren’t known as partiers, but the cops had to come at the end to tell us it was time to go.

APEC was pretty good in 2018 and 2019, too. Then 2020 came. APEC is held in March; we had to cancel the in-person event about a week before the conference. Dealing with the ensuing mess took months. In the midst of the aftermath, Conor Quinn, the general chair for 2021, asked if I would look into virtual and hybrid aspects “just in case.” Last summer, it was all very hypothetical. Surely, we thought, we will be able to hold an in-person event in 2021. Ha!

We postponed from the original March date to June, but we still had to pivot to virtual. Although the local conditions at the original conference site (Phoenix) were OK, APEC draws an international audience; when we had to make the decision, there was NO WAY we would get international attendees.

Well, the virtual conference just ended. On the one hand, it was a pale shadow of a “real” APEC. On the other hand, it far exceeded my expectations. We had good paid and free registration, good attendance at the live/Zoom events, and good engagement on the conference platform (Social27). Many people said it was the best virtual conference they had attended.

What makes APEC so wonderful every year is the people. Yes, I come away every year with pages of notes that have new ideas to pursue, new products to consider, etc. But really, what I value is engaging with “my people.” APEC draws a unique blend of academics and industry practitioners that gives it a different flavor than most conferences in my field. I had a chance to reconnect with a colleague who worked at Baldor with me 20 years ago. In the somewhat informal technical sessions, I was able to interact with people I only see once a year, renewing our relationships that are built on both mutual respect and a shared worldview.

The organizing committee and steering committee (on both of which I serve) are composed of people with both academic and industry roots and a shared love for APEC. While the conference sponsors are concerned primarily about the financial impact of our decisions, the committee is concerned first and foremost with the choices that will keep APEC the amazing experience it is. We recognize that maintaining the quality of the technical program, the exposition, and all of the other activities, along with opportunities for researchers and practitioners to create and nurture relationships, is essential to the long-term health of the conference.

I think there’s a message in that for all organizations, whether a business, a university, or a church. An organization needs people in leadership whose highest priority is the health of the organization, not their own glory. Leaders need to value both the programs and the people. If you have bad programs, you might as well close up shop; if you do not develop deep relationships between people, the programs will never be enough to keep people engaged.

I have seen that process at Missouri S&T. Some people develop deep ties with the community and across campus, like I have. They tend to be lifers. Every university goes through down cycles; we had a time a few years ago when practically all of the campus administrators were interim appointments. The people who stayed were those who valued the network of relationships they had developed. On the other hand, some faculty come, build a research program in their own lab, and do not seriously engage with other faculty. They use their time here to strengthen their resume, and then they move on. The task before each leader is to figure out how to encourage these rising stars to develop networks across campus so that (a) they contribute more to the campus mission and (b) they realize the value in staying.

Zoom is a wonderful technology. It enables meetings that otherwise cannot occur, whether due to social distancing requirements, travel restrictions, or limited time. Zoom meetings are sufficient for sustaining progress on projects and maintaining existing relationships. But Zoom is terrible for developing new relationships, personal or professional. It is my hope that as we emerge from pandemic conditions, I remember, and we all remember, how important it is to forge new relationships. In this way, we build a society that is truly a community, not just a collection of individuals.

Over the past week, I have been blessed with opportunities to talk with old friends and new. Last weekend, I attended my wife’s nephew’s wedding. I’m not normally a big fan of wedding receptions—too noisy, too crowded, too much sitting around waiting for something to happen—but this time was different for some reason. I was really touched by both the wedding itself and the time I spent with my wife’s family, including its newest member. I was reminded how wonderful it is to spend your life with the person you love.

Families are strange things. They are a combination of people you chose—your spouse, your kids—and those that were not optional—your parents, cousins, in-laws, etc. At an event like a wedding, everyone is united in purpose: blessing the new couple’s life. Beyond that, there are some shared experiences and perspectives, and then some wildly different ones. Even if you disagree with or dislike each other, though, you are all bound together.

One good thing about a wedding is that it brings people together who maybe haven’t seen each other in a while. That is especially true now, after more than a year of pandemic-related separation. There were people at the wedding that I would normally see at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or deer season, but didn’t. It was great to re-connect.

I also had lunch twice with a dear friend of mine, once just the two of us and once to introduce me to one of his friends. He is someone I trust and respect immensely. He is a colleague from campus, so he can help me navigate the complex life of an academic. As I told him, I am transitioning now from being a highly-accomplished junior faculty member to one of the least accomplished senior faculty members, so I’m trying to figure out what’s next in my career. More importantly, though, I treasure his spiritual counseling.

Like a family member, he and I don’t always agree with each other. However, we both have Christ as our centers. We are both also humble enough to acknowledge that we may be wrong. We’re just trying to figure things out, and as academics, we recognize that learning happens over time. If you meet someone who is 100% confident that they know exactly what God wants for them (and for you), what God’s nature is, and what the Bible means, RUN. That path leads to a cult, not to God.

We are all on different paths. I believe that all of us are on a path that ultimately leads to God. We cannot get there on this side of death, and many people need some time on the far side of death to fully accept the grace that God has given us through Christ. And yet, all of us can approach the kingdom of God.

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, ¹⁵ and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Mark 1:14-15

Jesus preached that the kingdom of God is at hand, so we can access it now. Those two lunches I had—that was a glimpse of the kingdom of God. The wedding and reception—that was a glimpse.

What does it mean to repent? There are many opinions; here’s mine. To fully enter the kingdom of God, a person must be 100% aligned with God’s will. We must love one another as God does, as Jesus demonstrated. That is impossible for us on our own, but possible if we allow God to change us and guide us. We can never reach 100%, but repentance is a turning towards God’s will, aligning some small part of ourselves with God’s love. We all take different paths, determined by our life experiences. I may be “ahead” of you in some aspects and “behind” you in others. When we encounter each other with an openness, a vulnerability, a willingness to be changed, we can each turn a portion of ourselves towards God.

I have often heard it said that a prophet’s role is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Both tasks are necessary to encourage everyone to reach their full potential as a child of God. People who are hurting are people who God loves, and so should I. People who accept the way that the world is, because it serves them well, need to see the pain, the grief, the poverty, and the struggles of their fellow travelers, to know that the whole creation is groaning in labor pains, yearning for the fulfillment of God’s kingdom. May God bless you with comfort where you are hurting and remove from me the blindness I have to the needs of this world.

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Program note: I am the secretary of LGBTQ+ Rolla. We are hosting Rolla Pride on June 26, 6-8 pm, in Schuman Lower Pavilion. Hope you can join us!

When I run, I listen to audiobooks. Recently, for the third time, I listened to The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, by Father James Martin, SJ. The basic principle is that the Ignatian way, that is, the path laid out by Ignatius Loyola for the Society of Jesus, is useful for everyone who seeks a deeper spiritual life. The book covers a wide range of topics, including a few chapters on the basic vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

Loyola’s original writings in the 16^th century give chastity short shrift, but Martin brings a modern perspective on relationships to bear on this concept. He goes beyond the simplistic mapping of chastity to celibacy. Instead, he talks about chaste love as the root of almost all relationships, such as friendship.

Chaste love is a love without possession. It is a recognition that you and the other person have a connection, but it is not exclusive and not controlling. As I read Martin’s insights on friendship, I recognized some mistakes I have made in the past. Every relationship needs balance; there have certainly been times when I have asked more of my friends than was reasonable. I have been a taker more than a giver. I have ignored my friends’ other commitments, relationships, interests, and desires, prioritizing my own needs instead. I would like to think that I’m a better friend now than I have been in the past, partly due to improved mental and spiritual health, but it is always a work in progress.

God has a way of speaking to me through books and life experiences, in ways that are not so obvious at the time. As I listened to this section of the book, I figured it was God’s way of gently chiding me for my past deficiencies and encouraging me on a path to better, healthier friendships.

Then a close friend told me she was moving away. I am still working towards accepting the reality of the situation. But the concept to which I’m clinging as hard as I can is love without possession. Friends must be free to grow and change. They must be free to live and to love as they are able, not as I would want them to. God places a claim on each person’s life; that claim is higher than any claim I might make.

Francis Xavier was one of the founders of the Society of Jesus. He and Loyola were extremely close friends. Still, there came a time when they both recognized the need for Xavier to leave on a missionary journey to the Far East. Loyola, as the head of the order, had the authority to send Xavier or not, according to his discernment and will. He knew that if Xavier departed, they may never see each other again. Still, he knew that God’s claim on Xavier was higher than his own. Sadly, after Xavier departed, he never returned, dying on an island near China and being buried in India.

I’m sure that Loyola had regrets. I’m sure that he missed his friend. Still, he allowed Xavier to follow his calling, to live and grow as he thought best. In the same way, I need to accept the call God has placed on my friend and allow her to follow it confidently.

Life is full of these separations. Both of my kids are in college now; it’s only a matter of time before they establish their own independent lives. Some of my colleagues on campus are essentially permanent Rolla residents, but many others have departed over the past decade or have shown that they are likely to leave in the near future. (In fact, this is the time of year when I expect to hear about resignations and retirements.) Each person that leaves takes a little part of me with them, I hope, and leaves a little part of themselves behind with me. I pray that I can accept what I cannot change, living in the confidence that one day, we will all be gathered together in God’s eternal kingdom.