Posts

Posted on

Risky Living

Preached on September 12, 2021, at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Podcast linked below. Archived recording of live stream available:

Archived live stream, starting at the beginning of the sermon

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Do you remember where you were? I sure do. At the time, I was working for Baldor and living in Fort Smith, Arkansas. The day before, Rhonda’s 6-year-old nephew, Zach, stopped breathing when he went in for a tonsillectomy. It turned out he had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. So the morning of 9/11, I took Rhonda and Sam, who was just over a year old, to the airport. Their plan was to fly to St. Louis via Dallas. On the way to Baldor from the airport, I heard the news about the attack. Rhonda didn’t hear until she went to the gate for her connecting flight and found everything shut down.

That was a turning point for my family. I wasn’t terribly happy with my work; we had few friends in Arkansas; and we were an 8-hour drive from the nearest family. I started looking for opportunities to move closer to family. What I found was a job at the University of Illinois as a research engineer. On paper, it made no sense to take the job. As I recall, it was about a 15% pay cut, with little hope of direct advancement. However, Champaign is much closer to where Rhonda’s family lives, and there were other opportunities for me. I went on to get my Ph.D. and wound up here. If I hadn’t taken that chance on the job at Illinois, who knows where life might have taken me?

Professors are generally pretty conservative. Not politically or socially, but in the sense that we don’t like change. I think the reason is that we are expected to take a lot of risks in our research, and so we “use up” all of our risk tolerance. We become reluctant to make any changes to the curriculum because there may be unforeseen side effects. We become hoarders, keeping old papers and journals and equipment that have long outlived their usefulness. We’re even reluctant to move to a better office or lab because it would mean changing our routines.

At some level, I think everyone is a bit like that. Everyone finds the things that make their life comfortable, and hold onto them long after they should. Eventually, though, life circumstances force a change. This pandemic has certainly caused a lot of people to consider changes that they wouldn’t consider otherwise.

Sometimes, our desire for change is brought on by an awareness of injustice, an awareness of the general brokenness of the world becoming particularly acute in a way that touches us personally. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a promising German academic and theologian. He studied in America at Union Theological Seminary under Reinhold Niebuhr, then returned to Germany in 1931 to become a lecturer at the University of Berlin. His career took a dramatic turn after Hitler was installed as Chancellor in 1933. He could not keep silent: he gave a radio address that warned against Germany become an idolatrous Nazi cult. Over the following decade, he worked with other leaders of the Confessing Church, which resisted Nazi efforts to impose their will on the Christian church in Germany. He traveled internationally and developed connections with the German resistance movement. He wrote The Cost of Discipleship, a meditation on the Sermon on the Mount that teaches the difference between “cheap grace” and “costly grace.” Eventually, he was arrested, sentenced to death, and hanged at a concentration camp.

Bonhoeffer’s life was changed because of his faith in God. He began his career as a theologian, an academic, someone like me who lived his faith in head space. After encountering the Social Gospel in his studies and starting ecumenical work to connect with other Christians, his faith moved to heart space. Rather than talking about God in the abstract, he was moved to live out Jesus’s calling to help the poor, the oppressed, the victims of our sinful world power structures.

In today’s passage, Jesus teaches his disciples that they must be willing to take risks for the sake of the gospel. What is the gospel, the good news that he taught? “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.” Jesus taught that it was time for the power structures of the world to be overturned so that everyone would live as part of God’s family. In God’s realm, nobody has power over anyone else. Only God’s authority matters.

Jesus knew that this was a dangerous path, though. Throughout the Gospel of Mark, a key theme is the “Messianic secret.” Jesus confirms that he is the Messiah, but then tells everyone to keep it a secret. He knows that openly challenging the secular and religious power structures of his day would lead to the “prophet’s reward”—that is, they will suffer as Jesus did, as Isaiah did, as so many of God’s messengers have throughout history. Like Bonhoeffer, challenging the authorities led most of the apostles to martyrdom.

History is filled with examples of people who took risks on behalf of the oppressed. Gandhi worked his whole life for the freedom of India, eventually succeeding at the age of 78. Martin Luther King, Jr., led the Black civil rights movement until he was assassinated at the age of 39. The 14th Dalai Lama has been working for the independence of Tibet throughout seven decades of exile. Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela worked for years to end the apartheid regime in South Africa, succeeding in 1990.

But rarely are there single events that change the world. The reality is that India’s independence was followed by years of struggle, the partition into India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, and strife between religious and ethnic groups that continues today. The civil rights movement of the 1960s ended legal segregation, but the struggle for equality continues today, as evidenced by the Black Lives Matter protests of the past few years.

As you know, my personal calling is to reconciliation with and ministry to the LGBTQ+ community. The major turning point in the fight for gay rights was the Stonewall Uprising, a response to police harassment at gay bars in New York City. On June 27, 1969, there was a police raid at the Stonewall Inn. After midnight, tensions boiled over and a riot began. This wasn’t the beginning of the gay rights movement, and certainly wasn’t the end, but it was a turning point: a time when LGBTQ+ individuals refused to submit to persecution. Over the next several nights, there were continuing skirmishes between gay activists and the police. A year later, the first Pride parade was held in New York. Gay activists had decided that the risks brought on by open demonstration were preferable to the risks of living in the shadows.

It was another 45 years, though, before gay marriage became legal, and there are still ongoing legal battles over gay and transgender rights. For example, did you know that it is still legal in Missouri to refuse employment or housing because of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity? Every year, the Missouri legislature considers the Missouri Nondiscrimination Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to Missouri’s Human Rights Act. MONA, as it is known, was first introduced in 1998, and every year it inches a little closer to passing but has never broken through.

Some people that I deeply respect have commended me for the little that I do to support the LGBTQ+ community. As a middle-class, cisgender, heterosexual, white man, I have choices. Should I work for women’s rights, or do anti-racism work, or work for gay and transgender rights? Or help the poor or homeless? Or none of the above? America’s systems and power structures have been built by and for people like me, so I could just live my life and let someone else worry about all of the injustices in the world. But the Holy Spirit is nudging me to act.

My decision to help the LGBTQ+ community wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing, though. Susan started laying groundwork almost ten years ago. Then I educated myself. I went to Pride STL. I read books and articles. I met with gay individuals to learn about their experiences. I attended lobbying days with PROMO to work towards passage of MONA. Eventually, I took a leap and created LGBTQ+ Rolla as a nonprofit organization and attracted some others who had similar interests to get things going.

Now, I have a vision of what this organization could become, but I am trying to stay aware of two basic facts. One, it’s not for me, it’s for the queer community, and they probably don’t need what I think they need. Two, it will only succeed if we grow in the way God intends. The Holy Spirit blows where it will, and like sailboats on the sea, we reach our destination faster if we let the wind take us than if we fight against it to go our own way.

There are risks to creating and helping to lead an LGBTQ+ organization in a town like Rolla. Before our Pride event, I worried a lot about hecklers or protesters or worse. I would like to see us have an LGBTQ+ center, that is, a place where people can go for resources and a sense of community, but such a place could also become a target of hate. I don’t have any serious risk of losing my job, but there is a risk to my reputation. I suppose someday, you all could tell me to stop talking and preaching about it, which would be unfortunate but not the end of the world. One thing I do encounter is people assuming that I’m gay because I wear rainbow jewelry. Well, that just gives me the tiniest glimpse into the world of discrimination that gay and transgender individuals face.

Life is full of risks, though. Our choice, as individuals and as a congregation, is which risks we are willing to take for the sake of growth. John A. Shedd once said, “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” We can stay safe where we are—physically and spiritually—or live into God’s call.

You know what, though? A ship in harbor is not necessarily safe. One danger is that when the storms come, the wind and the surge will drive it into the docks and pilings. Boats are made to survive their encounters with water, not land. Another danger is slow decay. When I was sailing with my dad, each time we came into a harbor, we would see boats tied to moorings that had clearly been there a long time—too long, long enough that they probably couldn’t ever leave.

As individuals and as a church, we can stay safely where we are. We can choose to ignore the needs of the world. We can slowly rot away on our moorings, waiting for the next storm to destroy us. Or, we can invest time and energy into maintaining our spiritual lives, making sure we are ship shape. We can study God’s word, and then put it to work in the world. We can go where the wind of the Holy Spirit takes us. When the storms of life come along, we will find ourselves tested, but ready.

No reward comes without some risk. We may be uncomfortable with necessary changes. We may lose friends who aren’t willing to grow along with us. We may need to let go of ideas, attitudes, activities, and commitments that we thought were serving us well but that are blocking us from going where God is leading. But in exchange, we will experience deeper connections to each other and to all of God’s people. We will become fuller participants in God’s family. We will exchange contentment and comfort for a deep joy in doing God’s will.

Are you ready? The challenge before us is to embrace God’s call, to let go of our past and even our present in order to fully live into the future that God has in mind for us. May we all work together towards that future where this church is a place of renewal and refueling to go do God’s work, to go out into our community showing our love of God by our love of our neighbors, enabling each person to see that they are a beloved child of a God who cares about their whole being: mind, body, and spirit.

We turn now to the Table of our Lord. Work requires energy, and spiritual work requires spiritual energy. At our Lord’s Table, we are renewed and refueled. As we have been nourished by the reading and preaching of God’s Word, let’s now be nourished by a greater awareness of God’s presence, strengthened and energized to follow where the Holy Spirit is leading us, to put the Word to work in the world.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

A Message To My Students

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.

My Old Viewpoint

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.

Posted on

Dwelling in Christ

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on Ephesians 5:15-20; John 6:47-58; Proverbs 9:1-6.

Worship Service Video Bookmarked at Gospel Lesson

Dan Brown wrote a series of books about Robert Langdon, a fictional Harvard University professor of religious iconology and symbology. In The Lost Symbol, Langdon tells his class, “Don’t tell anyone, but on the pagan day of the sun god Ra, I kneel at the foot of an ancient instrument of torture and consume ritualistic symbols of blood and flesh.” Of course the students are horrified. He continues, “And if any of you care to join me, come to the Harvard chapel on Sunday, kneel beneath the crucifix, and take Holy Communion.”

I imagine that Jesus’s audience responded something like those students. We can connect this passage to communion, where the bread symbolizes Jesus’s flesh and the wine or juice symbolizes Jesus’s blood—just symbols. But if we imagine ourselves as Jesus’s followers, we would probably be disgusted at the thought of eating our leader. It’s just a strange passage.

The Gospel of John is heavy on symbolism, though. So let’s go ahead and make that connection to communion. In John’s rendering of the Last Supper, there is no explicit Eucharistic verse, so this is it.

Communion is a time when we eat bread and drink wine or juice as a way of becoming more Christ-like. That is, it allows us to connect to God in a more tangible and tactile way. It allows us to get out of our heads and into our hearts and our bodies. It reminds us that our spiritual lives need nourishment just as our bodies need nourishment.

By consuming the elements, we get a little more Christ in us. We become a little more aligned with God’s purpose and will. It’s a little bit like the way my friend Wayne prepares for elk season. In these last few months before the hunt, he makes sure to eat some of the elk meat in his freezer, so he has more elk molecules in him. That way he’s more elk-like, so he can think like an elk. As we consume the communion elements, we become more Christ-like. And we are reminded that Jesus was not only God, but also human, flesh and blood just like us.

The Gospel of John, or at least parts of it, were popular with the Gnostics. Gnosticism asserted a dualism in which things of the spirit were superior to things of the flesh. They believed that human beings contain a divine spark within themselves, but that all physical matter is subject to decay, rotting, and death. The material world was created by an inferior being and is evil. Here, though, Jesus is elevating the status of his body, and by extension the material world. He is affirming the importance of the material world, our life in the present age, as a way of becoming more Christ-like and more aligned with God’s will for us.

Last week, we heard from Tonya Johnson about the ways Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services is impacting broken families. As she said, research shows that children of abuse have the best lives when their past is acknowledged honestly, rather than pushed down and “forgotten.” Jesus’s body mattered. Our bodies matter. Each of us has a story that brought us to where we are today, and that affects our relationships with each other and with God. Jesus’s message of love and reconciliation was about healing the brokenness of our world, not abandoning the material world in favor of a purely spiritual existence.

There was a recent column in The Christian Century titled, “Where is my love to go?” It relates the author’s interaction with a Christian ed class in which he shared the “big reveal” about Christianity: When God settled on the single most significant thing of all, it turned out that thing was being with us as a human being just like us. Not to change us, but simply to be with us. This teaches us that relationship is not just the way God does or communicates something more important, but is what God is. This didn’t sit well with one group member. He became increasingly agitated as he described a life of broken relationships. He had lost his partner, his family, even his dog. “Where is my love to go?” The author took a chance and responded:

Imagine eternity from God’s point of view. Imagine God having all that love pent up like you have right now. But the difference is, God’s got that love all pent up potentially forever. God’s like you. God’s thinking, ‘Where’s my love to go?’ So God creates the universe. But God’s got still more love to give. So God creates life, and makes humanity, and calls a special people. But that’s still not enough. God’s got yet more love to give. So God comes among us as a tiny baby. God’s question ‘Where is my love to go?’ is perhaps the most important one of all time. Half the answer is the creation of the universe. The other half is the incarnation. On Christmas Day we find out why the universe was created. It was created for us to be the place where God’s love could go. So when you ask yourself, ‘Where’s my love to go?’ you’re getting an insight into the very heart of God.

Samuel Wells

Jesus came to dwell among us so that he could truly experience that loving relationship with humanity. God does not just dwell in the highest heavens, removed from the messiness of life. God is here, among us by the Holy Spirit. God came down as a human to love us in a personal way, so that we could all learn just what it is to love God and love one another.

Paul describes the church as the body of Christ. That is, Jesus was killed, then rose and ascended, leaving his disciples behind to continue his work. We are the inheritors of that legacy, charged with continuing to be Christ’s body in the world. Jesus circulated throughout Galilee, Judea, and adjacent regions, meeting people of varying backgrounds, preaching a message of reconciliation, forgiveness of sins, and social transformation. So also we are called to be like Jesus, going forth to share this same message. Two millennia have not achieved the social transformation set forth in the Gospels, because every step forward towards equality before God has been met with resistance by those who are perfectly happy with the status quo. So we must continue to learn from Jesus and work towards the peaceable kingdom he described. We must continue to spread the good news of God’s kin-dom and work towards uniting all of God’s people. I read a great quote from Kat Armas on Clergy Coaching Network:

Jesus didn’t ask to be let into people’s hearts; he told them to follow him—dedicating his life to the most vulnerable in society. Following Jesus wasn’t a call to a private piety disconnected from society. Following Jesus was relational, social, and it involved justice.

Kat Armas on Clergy Coaching Network

This is incarnational ministry. That’s kind of a buzzword these days. The goal of incarnational ministry is to live as Christ’s body. This is a part of the PC(USA) Vital Congregations initiative. The core of incarnational ministry is an outward focus: understanding that we live in a world where people are hurting, due to poverty, racism, discrimination, and isolation. The COVID-19 pandemic didn’t create disparities in society, but it exacerbated them. The world is hurting. The time we have together is an opportunity to be fed by Christ, so that we have the spiritual energy, wisdom, and love that are needed to go out and help in the work God is doing.

One danger in incarnational ministry is to rely too much on our own ideas. I think that’s a particular danger for me, personally, thinking back on some of the ministries I have tried that didn’t work out. Perhaps they were good ideas, but they weren’t God’s ideas. It is essential that Christ is in us, but also that we are in Christ. That means going where God is leading us, not where we imagine that God would probably want us to go. We are right now working through a process that may lead to new ministries or new ways to be the church. Many of us are reading a book that was recommended by Greg Emery called Neighborhood Church, which contains many examples of churches deciding to do something new as they adopted an outward, incarnational focus. But it’s not an instruction book. We cannot simply read about something another church is doing, then say, “Hey, we can do that. Let’s go!”

Truly incarnational ministry is relational. It involves getting out and meeting people where they are, learning about their challenges, and seeing where God is at work. I had an excellent conversation the other day with a colleague who is doing anti-racism work. Like me, he is a straight, white, middle-class, educated man. He commented that his perspective has really changed by spending time with people who are not like him. Part of his challenge, though, is to get people in his circle to also get out and spend time with people who are different. If your only knowledge of Black people, or Hispanics or Muslims or Chinese nationals, is what you see on the news or on the internet, it’s easy to put up walls and stay within your little bubble, imagining that everything would be better if “they” would be more like “us.”

Truly incarnational ministry involves spending time with those outsiders so that we can see the world through their eyes. We are all beloved children of God, members of one family, but that doesn’t mean we all need the same things or have the same challenges. Our goal should not be to convince people that they should dress and act like us and come spend an hour on Sunday morning singing our hymns and reading our liturgy. Our goal should be to walk with people on their unique paths towards God, so that they can enter God’s kin-dom as equals, members of Christ’s body who add new perspectives and new ways of being Christ-like. In doing so, we will see ourselves through their eyes as well. We will see where we need to grow and change and become more of the people that God wants us to be. We will see what obstacles we are putting in our own way, walls we are building between ourselves and God.

Let me return to the Gospel text: Jesus said, “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.” How can we eat and drink Jesus? The Gospel of John opens with, “In the beginning was the Word.” Jesus embodied God’s wisdom, the bread of heaven revealed partially in the Hebrew scriptures. We “consume” Jesus by learning God’s wisdom. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, wisdom is personified as a woman calling to us, sometimes known by the Greek name of Sophia. In Proverbs, we read:

Wisdom has built her house,
she has hewn her seven pillars.
She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine,
she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls
from the highest places in the town,
“You that are simple, turn in here!”
To those without sense she says,
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”

Proverbs 9:1-6

To become more Christ-like, we need to ingest God’s wisdom. Jesus came to teach us God’s wisdom by example. He was supremely dedicated to obeying God’s will, but not always in the way that his peers understood it. He showed us that the Law and the Prophets, indeed the whole teaching of God to humanity, hangs on two principles: love of God and love of neighbor. Often, though, it is hard to see how those principles apply. It is especially hard to see how they apply in the abstract. That’s why Jesus did not simply expound on philosophical principles. No, he lived with God’s people and saw first-hand the challenges they confronted, so that he could viscerally feel and understand the ways in which they were not being loved and the ways in which he could show love to them.

Incarnational ministry is not just another program. It is a renewed way of being Christ’s body. Jesus taught those early disciples just as he teaches us today. Abide in Christ as Christ abides in us. Ingest God’s wisdom, the teachings of the whole Bible that reveals God’s relationship with humanity and the lessons the ancient Israelites and first-century Christians learned from their encounters with God. See the world through Christ’s eyes, filled with love. Go out and encounter God in the people we meet. Learn how we can enable each person to see God’s presence, to experience God’s love, and to experience our love for them. Go where God is at work and join in. And as we do, we too will know God’s love and will be transformed into citizens of God’s realm and members of God’s family. Amen.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Powered By Love

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

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 20th 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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

God’s Time, Not Ours

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
Posted on

Inheriting the Kin-dom of God

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla. Based on 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Ephesians 1:3-14.

For as long as humans have owned material goods, we have been concerned about passing them on to our children. We see the next generation as a continuation of the work we have done in the world and hope that what we have accomplished, what we have built, and what we have gathered will continue on.

Laws about inheritance are complicated. Each culture has its own practices and rules. Under Roman law, the priority was given to family continuity as a foundation for stability. When a man died, his children would inherit both his property and his debts. Although women required a legal guardian to perform legal transactions, they could own and inherit property if there was a will designating them for inheritance. Slaves, too, could be heirs, but that was a little tricky. If the will also gave them their freedom, then the slaves could take possession. If not, then the actual possession of the inheritance would go to the slave’s master.

This was the legal environment in which Paul and his readers were living. They understood inheritance as an essential building block for a stable society. That stability also permeates the Old Testament laws, where land was designated for a particular family. That is, if someone was poor and sold their land, the purchaser was obligated to allow them to redeem it later. The rules around redemption are hard for us to understand from a modern perspective, but if you read the story of Ruth the Moabite and her mother-in-law Naomi, you will see that property redemption and inheritance was an essential part of the story that ultimately led to David’s birth.

The Bible can be read as a collection of individual perspectives, but also as a single unified story of humanity’s relationship with God. In Genesis, God promises to bless the world through Abraham. In Exodus, God enters a covenant with Israel that blesses them so that they might be a blessing to the world. As the story progresses, though, through the peak of David and Solomon to the nadir of the exile, we see that the Israelites forsake their inheritance. At the peak, they enjoyed the blessings of God, the divine favor that made David & Solomon’s Israel a wealthy and respected regional power. They inherited God’s special blessing specifically so that they can bless one another and the world, but they turn their backs on the covenant. Inheritance comes with both blessings and obligations, but Israel failed to meet those obligations. As a result, God rescinds their inheritance. Throughout the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, the message is clear: “Observe and search out all the commandments of the LORD your God; that you may possess this good land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children after you forever.” But in 2 Kings 21, which is near the end of Judah’s existence as an independent kingdom, God says, “I will cast off the remnant of my heritage, and give them into the hand of their enemies.”

Paul knew this story, knew all about the heritage that Israel had forsaken. This story of lost greatness was an essential part of Jewish identity. But as Paul encountered God through Christ, he realized that their spiritual exile was over. The inheritance was given to us all once again because we have been redeemed. But this inheritance was not about the land of ancient Canaan that was promised to Abraham. It was about the spiritual blessing that God promised to the whole world through Abraham and his children.

In the early days of the covenant, the inheritance was understood in material terms. Even today, the so-called prosperity Gospel promises that people who follow Jesus, who “accept Him into their heart,” will be blessed with health and wealth. If you are not healthy and wealthy, well, I guess you don’t believe strongly enough. This way of thinking also arose in the context of predestination. This particular passage is pretty strongly in support of Calvinist predestination: in the New International Version of the Bible, verse 5 is translated, “In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will.” The Puritans and other strong Calvinists of that era looked for outward signs of their predestination. If you were among those chosen for salvation, then obviously God would bless you with material abundance in this life.

But I don’t think that’s what Paul meant at all. In antiquity, people generally believed that wealth was finite. The only way for one person to be rich was for other people to be poor. Rather than teaching that God would transfer wealth from the powerful to the weak, Paul seems to be teaching instead that God would honor the lowly. Everyone would receive spiritual abundance.

Elsewhere, Paul writes that the fruit of the Spirit is “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” These are perhaps English translations of Greek words that circle around the meaning of hesed, a Hebrew word often translated as lovingkindness. Hesed is the special love that God has for humanity and the way in which we respond to that love. When we receive God’s grace, we respond with love, joy, and peace. As God works through us, we share that lovingkindness with our family, our friends, our community, and the world. These are riches that know no bounds. Love is not finite. Anyone who has truly loved one person—a parent, a spouse, a child, or a sibling—knows the joy that love can bring, and the way that one loving relationship fuels our ability to love others. I am able to serve my church and my community in part because the love Rhonda and I share renews me, refreshes me, and empowers me to keep on going. But the root, the source of that love is God. As we tap into God’s love, we may all be continually refreshed, renewed, and empowered to love our community.

The church is working through a process that includes reading Neighborhood Church, by Krin van Tatenhove and Rob Mueller. One of the first concepts is transforming your perspective from one of scarcity to one of abundance. We read this passage in Ephesians and hear of spiritual abundance, but what does that really mean? How does that translate into this congregation, this collection of individuals in this community?

In Lou Ellen’s farewell sermon, she described her time here as a time of healing, a concept echoed in Brett’s remarks during the reception afterwards. Our church has been through some stuff in the time I have been a member. Ten years ago, we were not healthy. Relationships were fraying or contentious, and worship was not always a time to encounter God. John Oerter came to us and helped us on the path to healing. He helped us to see the good in each other and to recognize the gifts we have within us, individually and as a group. He left before the work was complete, in truth because the work is never complete. The nature of sanctification is that we are always approaching God, always approaching wholeness and holiness, but we can never get there until we meet God face to face. Bob Morrison also helped us to see that we can do God’s work, individually and together. By the time Lou Ellen joined us, we were ready to share God’s love with her. We had learned the power of God’s grace to connect us with each other, to support one another, to become a part of God’s family.

We are once again in a time of transition, but stronger and healthier now. We have been abundantly blessed by God through Lou Ellen’s leadership over the past six years, but perhaps have become complacent about doing God’s work.

Paul writes of the “fullness of time.” The word we translate as “time” is kairos, which is more like “timely” or “opportune time.” It is the responsibility of each person who calls on Christ to recognize this kairos, this timeliness.

We have been blessed with spiritual abundance. We are devoted to God. We are generous with our time, talent, and treasure. We are loving towards each other and take care of each other when someone is suffering, whether due to illness, grief, or spiritual pain. We are accepting of differences and welcoming of all people. We are one of the few churches in town where someone who is gay, transgender, or of any other sexual orientation or gender identity can be welcomed into full membership. We have become a place of healing and wholeness, a place where those who have been hurt, those who feel far from God, can come to encounter God’s love and enter into full communion with Christ’s body.

It is time. Time to share our spiritual riches with our community. As we do so, we will be continually renewed by the infinite depth of God’s grace. You know, growing up in Pittsburgh, I always assumed that communities everywhere got their drinking water from rivers. Years later, I learned that most communities in this part of the country get their drinking water from municipal wells. The aquifer is recharged by the rain that falls. In the same way, God rains grace down upon us to recharge our spiritual reserves, which we can then draw upon to share with the community. But while the water on Earth is finite, God’s grace is infinite. In spending our spiritual riches, we are replenished.

There’s another place of healing in Rolla that I encounter weekly: The Mission. The patrons at The Mission are all hurting in some way and are striving to improve their lives, to become full participants in the community, and to achieve independence and wholeness. Why do I keep going back? Because in serving them, I am served. I encounter God through each person I meet. In the same way, I encounter God each Sunday, not only through our worship service, but also through the people in this congregation.

We are the family of God. In the Gospels, there are frequent references to the “Kingdom of God.” There are two problems with that metaphor. First, living in a democracy means that we no longer have direct experience with a monarchy in the way that the original New Testament audience did. Second, “kingdom” is a patriarchal term that has a lot of baggage from the centuries of oppression, destruction, and exploitation throughout the world. A few decades ago, Georgene Wilson, a Catholic nun, introduced a new term that her friend Ada Maria Isasí-Díaz popularized: the “kin-dom of God.” This is a new term that brings the original concept into the modern age. Ancient society was based on family, clan, and tribe. Kingdoms were built upon this kinship structure, basically putting the king’s family above all others and, in a sense, uniting all of the tribes into the king’s family. In the same way, we have been predestined for membership in God’s family, through Christ our king, or rather, our kin—our brother. With Christ as our brother, we become part of the Christian family, the Christian tribe. Paul says God is gathering all things into Christ’s family. Let us live into our inheritance, receiving the abundant spiritual gifts God rains down upon us, and sharing God’s grace so that all people, everyone in our community, can join us in the kin-dom of God. Amen.

Watch a video of the worship service:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Posted on

Embodying Heart Knowledge

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.

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.

Posted on

Why I Go to Pride

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.

Posted on

The Best Virtual APEC Ever!

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.

Posted on

Old Friends, New Friends

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.

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!

Skip to content