Night-Light 12/24/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

For those of you who thought you’d never get from the waiting room to the birthing room, welcome home. You’ve come to the right place. The stores are closed now. The traffic has thinned now. The mood has mellowed now. And, as Ed Ames once sang: “There’s a kind of hush, all over the world.” I only hope that you feel as settled on the inside as you look on the outside.

“Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight,” wrote the poet. And I suspect ‘tis true. Certainly in Traverse City, where one church has widely circulated its intention to hold Christmas Eve services in a barn. “Dress warmly and bring lawn chairs,” the advertisement reads. But also in the major cities of Indonesia, where services will also be held, but where Christians are warned to be wary in attending them, given that large numbers make attractive targets….in a nation where 25% of the polled population recently voiced sympathy for those who express ideological conviction through suicidal terrorism.

Clearly, the baby is not the only thing we must be watchful for tonight. For were I to say the words “on stand-by alert,” virtually all of you think “military,” while almost none of you think “maternity.”

But such has been the case more often than not. The biblical vision of the Peaceable Kingdom is still more “vision” than “peaceable.” Do you remember the Russian exhibit at the last great World’s Fair? Where, in the interest of world peace, the Russians put a lion and a lamb in the same cage….and the people oohed and aahed, until someone finally said to the keeper: “Tell me, how do you do it? How do you manage to have a lion and a lamb share the same cage?” “Oh, it’s very simple,” said the keeper. “We change the lamb every morning.”

Sadly, we live in a world where lambs get carried out….frequently, if not daily. For, as someone said: “The meek may inherit the earth, but that’s not the popular way to bet.” To those of us living in the north, Christmas comes when it is both dark and cold. Which may be a good thing. Because, quite apart from how the weather is, that’s often how life feels.

Except it needn’t be that way. It can be other than it is. It can also be better than it is. For Christmas is the ultimate rebuttal to the pragmatist….the verbal “yes, but” which interrupts the argument of the realist.

While certainly not a Christmas movie, one of my all-time favorite scenes occurs in a rather dark film entitled Grand Canyon. In it, a hotshot attorney, driving a sleek and expensive car, finds himself in a humongous traffic jam on an L.A. freeway. Spotting an exit ramp, he impulsively takes it in hopes of advancing his progress. Hey, I’ve done it. You’ve done it. Nothing to it. Except, he gets lost in the effort and his route takes him along streets that grow progressively darker and more deserted. Then the nightmare happens. His expensive car stalls on one of those alarming streets where teenage gang members favor expensive guns and even more expensive sneakers. Locking himself in the car, the attorney does manage to phone for a tow truck. But before it arrives, five young street toughs surround his disabled car and threaten him with considerable bodily harm.

Just in time, the tow truck shows up and its driver….an earnest, genial man who answers to the name of Mac….begins to hook up the disabled car. The gang members protest that the truck driver is interrupting their meal. So the driver takes the leader of the group aside and gives him a five-sentence introduction to theology.

Man (he says), the world ain’t supposed to work like this. Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without askin’ you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you rippin’ him off. Everything’s supposed to be different than what it is here.

I’ve gotta tell you, I like that. And I’ve gotta tell you why I like that. I like it because while (for purposes of Hollywood) Mac may be a mythical truck driver, for purposes of organized religion, Mac is a biblical prophet. For what is a prophet, if not someone who….for better or worse….and in situations ranging from hell to high water….stands in for God, saying: “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

Well, the cynic counters, it’s been this way for as long as any of us can remember. Back in the neighborhood (and the neighborhood church) of my childhood, there was a woman whose sins were sufficiently known, so that people whispered to each other about her “having a past.” But the painful truth is that all of us have….had a past, I mean.

But while that weighs us down, it need not tie us down, don’t you see. Evil rolls across the stage. But so does good. And to speak of what has gone wrong….is going wrong….will go wrong….is to forget the resolve of God, who wants peace around us, peace among us, peace within us, and will pay any price to get it. To concentrate solely on our depression and defection is to say to the world: “I have some bad news….and I have some more bad news. Which do you want first?”

But this news is good news, given that it’s God’s news….“as God imparts to human hearts, the blessings of his heaven.” For years, I sang that line wrong….singing not “the blessings of his heaven,” but “the message of his heaven.” But either way, it works, don’t you see. Because the message is the blessing. A child is born. And with it, comes the light….whether it be the light of a great star whose path has been aligned in the highest of the heavens, or the light of a 40-watt bulb whose chain has been pulled in the brains of humans. To be sure, Christmas is about light, as in “I see it.” But Christmas is also about light, as in “I get it.” It really doesn’t have to be this way. There is more to life than meets the naked eye.

The light still shines, dear friends. Trust me, the light still shines.

·         In the eyes of those who go the second mile,

·         In the home fires awaiting one who has gone the longest mile,

·         On the porch of a parent whose child has wandered the deviant mile,

·         In the confidence of a saint who is walking life’s final mile,

·         Atop the candles of a cake, being cut by a couple who have logged 50 years’ worth of miles,

·         In the warming shelter at Cass, where there are toddlers who have to be carried a mile,

·         And in tonight’s manger in Bethlehem where God’s child has yet to walk his first mile.

Christmas Eve, 2002.

As for me, presently jogging my 38th lap around the oval called “ministry”….and my 62nd lap around the bigger oval called “life”….I pray that there are yet miles to go before I quit, and even more before I sleep. In the midst of so much about Christmas Eve that (mercifully) stays the same, life’s circumstances do change (not always mercifully) from year to year.

Following her death at the end of August, this is the first Christmas without my mother. But come Saturday….along about 4:30….Miss Becky Mayhew will have said “yes” to Mr. Trevor Wilson (right there in the middle of the aisle), and our family will be able to call the year a draw. One lost. One gained. And come March, we may even be one to the good, when Juli (the niece) delivers herself of a child….recalling Sister Mary Corita’s wonderful line that each newborn infant is God’s way of announcing that life will go on.

Meanwhile, Julie (the daughter) has a new job that really challenges, while Kris (the wife) has a new job that really blesses. As for me, I am the lucky one, given that I have a job that does both, along with two women in my life who do it all. Meanwhile, a building goes up in the east….the same direction (I have noticed) when whence the kings come. Next year, they can come early and play basketball.

Tonight, the three of us will wend our way home about a quarter to one….light the fire….turn up the volume under the Three Tenors….zap the crab cakes (the gift of one of the best chefs inMichigan, who just happens to worship here at First Church)….while Kris ladles up three bowls of bisque made from some of the ocean’s most delectable crustaceans.

Then we will lift a glass to Bill (who has inherited the Kingdom)….offer a prayer to God (who owns the Kingdom)….and give thanks for you (who constitute the fruits of the Kingdom).

So from us and ours to you and yours, Merry Christmas.

Like a Mighty Army 11/17/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scripture: I Timothy 6:11-19

Once upon a time….or in the early 1860’s for those who prize precision….there was a British clergyman with a hyphenated last name (Baring-Gould) and a somewhat unusual first name (Sabine). That’s right, Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould. And one of the things that was said of him was that he actually performed his own wedding ceremony. It must have been a tad amusing to hear him ask himself: “Wilt thou, Sabine, take this woman (Grace) to be thy lawful wedded wife?” But it must have been a real hoot to hear him reply to himself: “I will.”

Which, of course, meant that when the bride kissed the groom, she was also kissing the minister. Whereupon, I am certain that he took the fee for performing the ceremony out of his left pocket, and deposited it in his right.

While serving as curate of St. John’s Church, Horbury Bridge, Yorkshire, he planned a special sermon on missions one Sunday evening. And failing to find a suitable hymn with which to conclude the service, he wrote one entitled “An Evening Hymn for Missions,” the first stanza of which contained these sublimely beautiful lines:

            Now the day is over,

            Night is drawing nigh,

            Shadows of the evening

            Steal across the sky.

The tune, he remembered from a bicycle trip he had taken through Germany, several summers previous.

Over the course of his ministry, Rev. Baring-Gould was to write many things, including biographies of saints and (get this) books about ghosts, alleged to be haunting nearby British castles.

Which brings me (or rather, him) to Pentecost in the year 1865. In England, Pentecost (which is celebrated on the Sunday nearest the 50th day after Easter) was known as Whitsunday….a linguistic aberration of White Sunday (given that while we wear red on that day, the Brits wear white). The day following Whitsunday was known as Whitmonday, and was a legal, as well as an ecclesiastical, holiday. Since children did not go to school on Whitmonday, the good reverend thought: “Let’s have an outing for the parish children, including a hike to a nearby village (the better to join forces with the children of that parish for an afternoon of songs and games).” But worried that his children might spread out and get lost on the trail, he hit upon the idea of having them march rather than stroll. Alas, none of his Sunday school teachers knew a good marching hymn. Yet knowing his skill with texts and tunes, they said: “Why don’t you write one?” So he did, completing the lyrics in a single evening. In fact, he wrote the hymn in such haste that he never did like some of its rhymes. But others did. And still do. Including me. And many of you. We sang his words, mere moments ago. For you know them as the hymn “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

Although he lived to the age of 90 and wrote over 85 books before his death in 1924, the only reasons we have to remember Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould are a pair of hymns….one, a quiet missionary hymn of the evening….the other, a rousing marching hymn of the morning. Incidentally, the tune to which we now sing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” is not the one his Sunday school kids would have learned on their Whitmonday march from village to village. They would have sung it to a tune by Haydn, while we sing it to a tune by Sullivan (as in Gilbert and Sullivan). So now you know.

Never in the good reverend’s mind was there any thought of armies or wars in conjunction with the hymn. Rather, it was written for children. And, for many years, “Onward, Christian Soldiers” was sung in but two places….children’s assemblies and outdoor communion services.

Twenty years ago, as denomination after denomination set out to purge and revise their hymnals, there arose a great brouhaha over the militaristic imagery of this hymn. Frequent were the suggestions that it no longer belonged in a proper Christian hymnal. “Take it out,” the purists said. “Kill it,” the pacifists said. “At the very least, rewrite it,” which several did. In fact, if you get bored with the sermon and start browsing through the hymnal, turn to number 555 where you will find the hymn “Forward Through the Ages,” which is simply “Onward, Christian Soldiers” with new verbiage. The controversy raged for months. But just when it seemed as if Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould’s hymn was doomed, the cards and letters started to come. First by trickle. Eventually by avalanche. They came from people, not who remembered the glories of war, but who remembered the glories of childhood. And “Onward, Christian Soldiers” was saved. Which is fine by me, given that I like the hymn almost as much as I hate war.

I like it for a lot of reasons (offered in no particular order).

• I like it because it has enthusiasm and adrenaline.
• I like it because it has action and motion.
• I like it because it takes sin seriously….takes sinners seriously….and takes the desire to fight sin seriously.
• I like it because it recognizes there are things that are oppositional to the gospel, and that laying down in the face of them makes a mockery of the gospel.
• I like it because it recognizes the solidarity we have with those who preceded us….the “saints who have trod,” I mean….and that in accessing the strength of present-day Christianity, we must never discount (as Colin Morris reminds us) those reinforcements camped over yonder hill.
• I like it because (as the letter of I Timothy suggests) there are “good fights,” and that those who fight them (hopefully, in good ways) are those who will know the sweetest sense of closure when their trophies at last they lay down. After all, didn’t Paul say (on the eve of dying): “I have finished the course, kept the faith, and fought the good fight.”
• And I like it because, as a hymn, it knows the true identity of our Commander in Chief (“With the cross of Jesus going on before”).

I suppose I also like it because of its suggestion that a servant church need not necessarily be a wussy church….which (I suppose) grows out of my hope that a servant preacher need not necessarily be a wussy preacher. There are distinctions worth contending for….people worth advocating for….a kingdom worth campaigning for. And we do not come to such battles without wonderful weapons in our arsenal (starting with truth….that two-edged sword….which can help both us and the world come clean, depending on which way we point it).

Alas, some would say that the words “mighty army” constitute a cruel parody of today’s churches. Indeed, fire up any search engine on the world wide web and you will come across this biting satire of Sabine Baring-Gould’s hymn (from which I quote verse three):

            Like a mighty tortoise,

            Moves the church of God.

            Brothers we are treading,

            Where we’ve often trod.

            We are much divided,

            Many bodies, we,

            Having different doctrines,

            Not much charity.

            Chorus:

            Backward, Christian soldiers,

            Fleeing from the fight,

            With the cross of Jesus,

            Nearly out of sight.

Ouch, that stings. But I can shake it off, not solely because of what I know about “church,” but because of what I know about “armies.” When an army drills, it looks magnificent. When an army stands inspection, it looks magnificent. When an army parades, postures or poses, it looks magnificent. But when an army does what armies are trained to do, things can get messy. Armies advance. But armies also retreat. They take prisoners and hold hills, even as they are sometimes taken prisoner and yield hills. What’s more, armies suffer casualties (with some of the most courageous work involving the retrieving of the wounded). To be sure, there are those in the army who perform heroically, even sacrificially. But there are others who perform cowardly, given that there has never been an army without its share of slackers and shirkers. Does that sound like any institution you know? Still, there are good armies with good discipline (usually having to do with good leadership). Hopefully, that also sounds like an institution you know. And then there’s this. Both armies and churches have a manual. So let me tell you a “manual” story.

It involves the Quakers (which has nothing to do with the people who make oats in Chicago or furniture in Ohio). Rather, when you think “Quakers,” I want you to think of the Religious Society of Friends….who are known not only for their principled opposition to aggression, but for their daring deeds of reconciliation and wound-binding in the face of great danger (under the auspices of the American Friends Service Committee).

Which brings me to Henry Cadbury of Harvard. Some know him as Luke’s primary translator. Others know him as one of the finest New Testament scholars of the twentieth century. What most people don’t know is that Henry Cadbury was a Quaker (a member of the Society of Friends). Which explains why he laid down his scholarly work at Harvard to roll bandages for the wounded of World War II. Accused by his professorial colleagues of abandoning his translating, he refused to quit his bandage rolling, saying to his critics: “I am translating the New Testament.”

Wow! If that won’t preach, ain’t nothin’ gonna preach. For if that isn’t high on the list of things we are called to do, what is? So let me put it to you. How are you translating the New Testament?

I think many of you are doing it in more ways than you know. Not that you’ve maxed out your potential. Far from it. There’s always room to improve. For unless God grades on a very soft curve, every last one of us is going to go home with a report card that reads: “Needs to improve.” But take heart. Improvement is happening. God knows it’s happening. What’s more, it’s making a difference.

As a case in point, I give you the lady from Gladstone. Not because I know her. I don’t. But because I love her story. Gladstone is in the Upper Peninsula, where (if newspapers can be believed) half the population is presently dwelling in a deer camp. They must kill a lot of deer in Gladstone. Because once a year, this lady from the Gladstone United Methodist Church brings a whole lot of venison down to the Cass Corridor for the feeding programs of Cass Church which serve several thousands of Detroit’s hungry, weekly. The other thing that people of the Gladstone church send down is winter coats. After all, who would have more winter coats than people who live in the Upper Peninsula?

So this lady from Gladstone wraps the coats around the venison, the better to provide insulation. And since she can’t get her hands on a refrigerated truck, she drives 406 miles from Gladstone to Detroit with her air conditioning running full blast (wearing a snowmobile suit to keep her from freezing).

One day that lady’s going to die….of pneumonia, no doubt. And somewhere, two or three miles inside heaven’s gate, Jesus is going to meet up with her and say: “Alice, it’s great to see you again. I’ll never forget that venison you used to bring me, just like clockwork, every December.” To which Alice will say: “Oh my Lordy, you must have me confused with some other Alice. Jesus, I never brought you any venison.”

Which is when she’ll remember Matthew 25:40 (“Inasmuch as….”, go ahead say it with me), not because she is good at memorization, but because she is wonderful at translation.

Like I said, I don’t know her. But we serve together in the army.

Making Room 12/22/2002

William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures: Luke 2:1-7, John 14:1-3

Long after I forgot the very bad joke it fits, I remembered the punch line: “Everybody’s gotta be some place.”

Well, truth be told, everybody does. We are space-taking people, although some of us take up more space than others. When I was researching the 50-year history of this sanctuary, I came across a notation suggesting that this wonderful worship space can seat in excess of 600 souls. Now as to whether Methodist “souls” have swelled, shrunk or stayed the same size over the last half century, I can’t rightly say. But if this place once held “in excess of 600 souls,” those souls came packaged in much smaller bodies.

Or maybe we haven’t changed size all that much. Maybe we just crave a bit more elbow room between me and thee….meaning that sanctuary seating limitations have more to do with greed than bloat. At the University of Michigan, where stadium seats are numbered in the belief that only midgets go to watch behemoths, there is constant talk of reconfiguration, so as to give all of us a few more inches. Thankfully, they tell me that at the Lions’ new playpen downtown, they’ve actually done it. I guess Ford really does have a better idea.

Several years ago, my daughter attended Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta. Which was how it came to pass that after years of her mother and I taking her to church, she returned the favor. One Sunday morning, while not exactly late, we did have to jostle the choir to get into the sanctuary, claiming three in the back row….the last three in the back row. But that didn’t deter people coming later than us. While the choir walked down the center aisle, they walked down the side aisles….clogging them….leaning against the outer walls….all in all, quite unseemly. Surely a fire hazard, I thought.

But you can imagine my surprise when, between the end of the hymn and the beginning of the Call to Worship, the liturgist (thank God it was the Associate) said: “Okay folks, you know the drill. Everybody in the pews, squeeze. Everybody in the aisles, sit.” And they did. Quietly. Passively. Agreeably. Like sheep.

Last week I quoted a couple of lines from West Side Story’s “Tonight” (my second favorite song from my all-time favorite musical). The whole cast sings it when the day is very much ripe….and their lives are very much in front of them. But my favorite song….introduced not by horns, violins or even castanets, but by a very lonely cello….is the song that closes the play. It is when Tony and Maria (the lovers) sing together one last time. “Last,” because he is dying….in her arms….of a bullet….from a rumble….during a gang war….over turf control on the streets of New York. I can hear them now:

            There’s a place for us,

            Somewhere a place for us.

            Peace and quiet and open air

            Wait for us, somewhere.

Everybody’s got to be some place. And woe unto those, this Christmas, who find themselves misplaced, displaced, replaced or (for any number of reasons) uncomfortably out of place. I am talking about the brown-shoe people in a black-shoe world….or maybe even the no-shoe people in an over-shoed world.

As many of you know, my wife now works at Cass Church and Community Center. She is the part-time coordinator of volunteers for the wonderful new Scott Building (into which a lot of us have poured money, sweat and love). They do it all at the Scott Center (with folks the Bible often refers to as “the least of these”).

And in dealing with the homeless, they do so in multiple levels….from semi-permanent residents who enjoy two floors of very private, well-kept rooms, to people who sleep on mats on the floor. But even the latter group….the “floor folk”….do all kinds of amazing things to stake out their space….to define it, protect it, repel encroachment into it, or turn back trespass against it. Sometimes it’s hard to know where those invisible boundaries are until they have been breached. But they had better not be breached, lest the breachee come up swinging.

Faith Fowler has been at Cass since 1994. I worry that she is walking a tightrope between burnout and sainthood. But she perseveres with a little help from her friends. Which is why, on the day Jesus asks me to account for the space I took up on earth, I want to be able to say: “One good thing I did, Lord; I was Faith’s friend.”

And Faith’s favorite story of ministry at Cass (growing out of the day she turned to her dog and said, “Guess what, Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore”) was the day she was trying to do holy paperwork in her office, only to be interrupted by the incessant knocking of a very much under-dressed and over-painted lady. Who, upon entering, pointed to a 14-year-old girl she had dragged in by the arm, and said: “Rev. Fowler, tell her to get off my corner.”

Everybody’s got to be some place. Which is why even the hookers and the homeless resent intrusion. When Rev. Fowler sent the cowering 14-year-old with a social worker in search of some food to fill her belly and a coat to cover her body, the veteran prostitute calmed down a bit and said: “Rev. Fowler, it’s true. I don’t want her on my corner. But she’s too young to be on any corner. And if there’s any place that can save her, it’s Cass Church.”

Everybody’s got to be some place. Except Jesus. For when it came time for God’s beautifully-orchestrated coming out party for our Lord, would you believe there wasn’t a single ballroom available anywhere in Bethlehem. More to the point, there wasn’t a single birthing room available anywhere in Bethlehem. For they had stumbled into a strange town….late at night….with lots of people and no room.

“No room at the inn,” Luke says. My gosh, was there only one….inn, I mean? Luke doesn’t say. In reality, the text is incredibly spartan. Even the definitions are imprecise. “Inn” is probably not the best translation. “Lodge” is currently the word in favor. Although in 150 A.D., Justin made a good case for the birth of Jesus taking place in a cave. And there are those (well versed in first century living configurations) who figure that “cave” was what it was then, and what it should be now. The Greek word is katalyma….which is actually a pasted-together word, suggesting “a place where one lets down one’s harness (or baggage) for the night.” But in my research, I keep coming across the word caravansary….a public place where entire groups of travelers might spend a night together (not unlike the waiting room of a train station, with or without a roof).

Note, for purity of text’s sake, that there is no innkeeper….no innkeeper’s wife….no innkeeper’s scullery maids….no innkeeper’s servant boys….no Amahl and the night visitors….no little drummer boy….and no animals, except by inference. After all, if Jesus uttered his first cry from a feeding trough, something on four legs must have fed there. But if you want to be technical, you should probably forget about sheep, goats, cattle and camels. Instead, you might want to view the scene through the lens of an 800-year-old prophesy, where oxen and asses were the animals of choice (at least according to Isaiah 1:3).

As to why there is no room, don’t go looking for villains here. Let’s lay to rest, forever, Stephen Vincent Benet’s greedy innkeeper….who, in Benet’s words, “loved the sound of coin….loved it, in fact, more than life itself.”

Truth be told, the reason there is no room for this little trio (or, at the time of their arrival, this little two-thirds of a trio) is because other people got there first. Did that ever happen to you…. other people getting there first, I mean? Sure, that’s happened to you. The other guests got there first. The other diners got there first. The other applicants got there first. The other candidates got there first. The go-getters got there first. The fast-trackers got there first. The old boyfriend got there first.

Besides, they didn’t come by Cadillac or Caravan. And nothing about the sweatshirt Mary was wearing screamed “FUTURE KING,” with an arrow pointing down at her belly. So who was to know?

Still, everybody’s got to be some place. So, thank God (and I really mean, “thank God”), somebody created a place. “Prepared him room,” I mean. Which, whenever it happens still, causes “heaven and nature to sing”….does it not?

If there is a colossal error in my ministry (and there may be), it’s that, for 38 years, I have been guilty of drawing too few lines and opening too many doors. But, then, you know that about me. And you have grown to tolerate that in me.

About two weeks ago, I had a dream. I don’t usually tell you my dreams, for fear of what you may see in them and therefore think of me. In fact, I’ve only told you one other dream….in my first sermon….on my first Sunday….at our first meeting. On that occasion, I talked about “the unpreparedness dream” (which is common to a lot of us). In its most classic form, it is final exam day….in high school….but you haven’t read the book….haven’t been to class….can’t find the room….can’t find your pencil….or maybe your pants. You know that dream.

But this dream was different. I was at camp. It was clearly a Methodist camp. In fact, it looked remarkably like Judson Collins Camp out in the Irish Hills. I was there as the minister-in-charge of a group from this church. Many of you were there, too. I think most of you were young. But not all of you were young. Anyway, we were all together in the dining room, just prior to the evening meal. And they (the camp staff) were laying out a wonderful spread….a grand and glorious smorgasbord, really….quite unlike any food I ever ate at Judson Collins. I mean, the tables just went on and on.

Which was when one of you whispered in my ear that someone else had come….actually two someone elses. Not that I remember who they were or why they weren’t there from the get-go. All I remember is that they weren’t in the count, don’t you see. “Could they stay and eat?” you pleaded. And I said: “I am sure they can. Why just look at all that food.”

So I went to the kitchen people and made my request. But they said no….no way….the count is what it is….sealed on the day I gave it….sacred from that point forward. So I offered to pay. Still, “no.” Then I said: “What if I don’t eat? Can one of them sit down to the table in my place?” Again, “no.” Still pleading, I tried everything I could think of. So at last they said: “We’ll call the camp manager.”

Figuring that I could count on there being sense and sensitivity in the supreme court of campdom, I confidently stated my case. Leading him to laugh in my face. So I said (and I am not proud of this….no, I am not proud of this at all): “See if you ever get even one apportionment dollar from First Church again.” Whereupon he said something unprintable, which included: “Who did I think I was, trying to play Big Bucks Billy?” Which is when I elevated an entire end of one table of salads so that they slid to the floor (a slow-motion waterfall of ambrosia and lettuce leaves).

Instantly, I recanted, repented and began cleaning up the mess. Which is when I woke in a sweat, not knowing whether I was more shocked by my conviction about all of us eating, or my anger upon discovering that all of us couldn’t.

But let me push this….and you….one step further. I can make an adequate sermon out of whether they made room for Jesus….whether we’ll make room for Jesus….or whether we’ll make room for each other (in the name of Jesus). But somehow, this sermon won’t seem complete unless I also remind you that the one for whom there was no room, promised to go ahead and make room for us. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you. And I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Leading me to close with a story, which (in my earlier days here) some of you heard me tell at funerals. But I have never told it on Sundays….until now. It concerns a time in my life when I was both young and invincible. I figured I could do virtually anything, including driving maximal distances on minimal rest. So one morning I started before sun-up….drove through snacking hours….lunching hours….nappy hours….happy hours….dinner hours….darkening hours….midnight hours….all the while, confident that if I could just keep at it, I had prearranged lodging at the end of it.

Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, I found my exit, parked my car, and entered the inn of prior choosing. There was still a desk clerk on duty, even though she was half asleep. So I announced my presence in a louder than usual voice. “Ritter,” I said. “I have a reservation.” When that generated no response, I repeated my name again, this time spelling it. “I am Mr. Ritter….R I T T E R….I have a reservation.” Still, she said nothing. But she did scan a small stack of 3 by 5 cards, slipping them much-too-quickly between her thumb and forefinger. It occurred to me that she already knew my name wasn’t on any of those cards. But she didn’t say so. Instead, she excused herself and went to the back room. I am not sure what she did there. But if there is a manual that trains desk clerks, I am sure on the middle of page seven it reads: “When confused and in doubt, excuse yourself and go to the back room for five minutes, thereby allowing yourself the opportunity to think of something.”

What she thought of was to come back and say: “I am terribly sorry, Mr. Ritter. There must be some mistake. For we have absolutely no record of your existence.” Weary as I was, I was still quite certain that I existed. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I said: “Not to worry, just give me any room you happen to have.” Which was when she told me that she didn’t happen to have any. So again I said: “Not to worry. I passed several of your competitors on my way into your parking lot. Point me in the direction of one of them and make a phone call on my behalf, alerting them to my imminent arrival.” Which, while a great plan, didn’t work either. For again she said: “I am sorry, Mr. Ritter, but we tried that half an hour ago for someone in your situation. Everybody’s full. There’s a convention in town.”

Now she had given me all the bad news she could possibly give me in a single evening. So, as her final word, she said: “But if you’re ever in our fair city again, please come back and give us a chance to make it right.” Which led me wearily to the car and the open road, knowing yet another meaning of Frost’s immortal line: “And miles to go before I sleep.”

Wrap the gospel around that one last time. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. Were it not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you?” Translated, I take that to mean that God knows we’re out here and has made more than adequate provision against the day of our dying.

* * * * *

Everybody’s got to be some place.

            Save for Jesus.

                  For whom there was no place.

                                    When he came to our place.

                                                But when we get to his place,

                                                            Ah….when we get to his place….

Kiss the Habit 2/3/2002

Dr. William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures: Proverbs 22:6, Colossians 3:1-10

When it comes right down to it, there are really only two kinds of people in Michigan….those who think that the best fried chicken in the world is served in Frankenmuth, and those who don’t.  And among the pro-Frankenmuth people, there are only two kinds of people….namely, those who eat their chicken at the Bavarian Inn, and those who go across the street to Zehnders. And at either of those places, there are really only two kinds of people….those who eat their chicken with a knife and fork, and those who pick it up with their fingers. The next time you go to Frankenmuth, take your own survey. Pay special attention to the way people eat the small pieces like wings and legs. Most people concede that chicken legs are finger food when pulled from a bucket and eaten on a blanket. But all bets are off when there is a tablecloth beneath you and a waitress beside you.

Table manners are hard to figure. Most of us know they’re important. Most of us make some attempt to practice them, especially in what is called “polite society.” And most of us have enough knowledge of mealtime “do’s and don’ts” so as to be able to pass a multiple-choice test on etiquette (provided that the test is graded on the curve). But most of us would have a hard time grading our own table manners without comparing ourselves to friends whose manners are more abysmal than our own. In short, we know “gross” when we see “gross.” Those of us who are men take great pains to call such crude displays to the attention of our wives, using them as justification for doing things as we’ve always done them. “You think I’m bad,” we say. “Look at him.” Thank God for the slobs of the world. They make the rest of us look good.

Children, of course, do not care about any of this. For them, food is pleasurable. Getting it into their mouths, by whatever means, is the pathway to pleasure. And manners are the “monkey wrench” by which pain is introduced into this pleasure-system. Kids associate food with fun and manners with rules. They get confused when too many rules get in the way of having fun. Which puts mothers in an awkward position. Because while mothers make the food which produces the fun, mothers also make the rules which get in the way of the fun. This means that fathers should either make more of the food or more of the rules, thereby taking mothers off the hot seat. This is especially true, given that the same fathers who let things slide at home are the most embarrassed (and become the angriest) when the kids screw up in public.

Manners, however, are hard to correct at home. This is especially true when kids become old enough to argue that they really do know the proper way to eat, but shouldn’t have to demonstrate it when it’s just parents and siblings at the table. “We’ll know what to do when we’re out,” they say. “Don’t worry about us. Do you think we’d eat this way and make these horrible noises if there were real people around?” Which always led me to wonder why Kris and I weren’t considered “real people.” Not that I ever got anywhere when I raised that question.

But I did wonder about their basic premise….that they would be able to turn it on in public if they hadn’t practiced it in private. Sometimes, I would ask Bill and Julie: “What if you suddenly found yourself at an elegant dinner party seated next to Walter or Wanda Wonderful? Would you know what to do?” They, of course, were absolutely certain they would know what to do. They were also certain that the parents of Walter and Wanda Wonderful probably worried about the same thing. Just as my parents worried over me. And just as your parents worried over you. It’s universal.

But don’t dismiss my concern too quickly. Because the world is full of people who don’t know how to eat, but who were certain they would be able to figure it out when the time came. Except they couldn’t. Or didn’t. And part of the problem lay in the fact that such things were not practiced (day in and day out) in a way that enabled them to become “second nature.” For while practice may not make one perfect, practice will (over time) make one comfortable. And that’s the goal, don’t you see? Just as the rules of grammar are not learned for the purpose of making you a grammar teacher, the rules of eating are not learned for the purpose of turning you into Emily Post. The rules of grammar are practiced so that you can eventually forget them and enjoy speaking, just as table manners are practiced so that you can eventually forget them and enjoy eating.

If it appears that mothers are (therefore) on to something, they are far from alone. For military commanders know the same thing mothers do. So do football coaches, drill instructors, and police academy trainers. You can almost hear the litany: “Practice things until they become second nature….until they become habitual….until they become comfortable….and until you are confident you can perform them under stress.” Which doesn’t mean that one-of-a-kind situations won’t arise….for which there will have been no practice, and for which fresh thought will have to be expended at the moment. But if most responses have been practiced to the point of becoming “natural,” it will be easier to do the “unnatural” when a problem presents itself, unlike any that has been seen before.

Over the past several years, I have become interested in the subject that is often referred to as “character development.” And while the subject is immense, to the point of being overwhelming, one thought is becoming clearer and clearer in my mind….that the development of character has less to do with the correctness of any particular decision we make, than with the consistency of the behaviors we practice. In short, character development has more to do with habits than choices.

Take truth-telling. That’s a practiced behavior, if ever there was one. How does one learn to tell the truth? One learns to tell the truth by telling it over and over again, until it becomes virtually impossible to lie or deceive. Unfortunately, the contrary is also true. The first lie makes the second one easier to tell. And the first lie may even make the second one necessary to tell, given the need to cover up the first one.

Or take cheek-turning. One kid accidentally bumps another kid in the hallway at the high school. In a flash, the bumpee lays the bumper flat on the floor with a punch. Good-bye consciousness. Hello concussion. The good news is that there is no gun. There often is, anymore. People get shot for a bump, a slur, or even a look. Violence is in. But not everywhere. Consider Amish children….Mennonite children….Quaker children….who, from day one, practice methods by which aggression can be met non-aggressively. Certainly, a rare occasion might arise which would evoke a physical response from even the most polished cheek-turner, just as the habitual truth-teller might lie to the Nazi at the door to protect the neighbor’s Jewish children hiding under the bed. But how many times do such exceptions occur, really?

As concerns decision making, I don’t know whether I heard it on television or read it in some novel, but I love the line of the young lady who, trying to let her date down easy, smiled and said: “You know, I’m really not in the habit of unbuttoning my blouse in the backseats of automobiles.” What a splendid response.

Again, I submit: Character development has less to do with choices than with habits. We need to identify desirable behaviors and practice them until they become second nature. Because not all desirable behaviors are a part of our first nature. That’s what Paul says to the Colossians. He tells them that if they have really been raised with Christ, they should walk away from the way they formerly walked….putting behind them their old nature and its practices, while putting on their “new nature,” which (he goes on to suggest) is something one keeps working on, and working on, until it fits.

Which training begins young, says the collector of wisdom in the book known as Proverbs. “Train children in the way they should go, and they will not depart from it.” All of us have heard it. Most of us can sense the truth of it. Like seeds planted early, patterns practiced from our earliest years can produce a lovely foliage.

Which I can illustrate from my early days. I was eight or nine years old at the time when, on the sidewalk in front of the neighborhood grocery store, I found a $20 bill. That was a lot of money in 1948. Not just for me, but for anybody. Not knowing quite what to do with it, I pocketed it and took it home. When I told my folks, they didn’t say:

·         Gee, Billy, this is your lucky day.

·         How about splitting it with your old man?

·         See, just like we’ve tried to tell you, God rewards good little boys.

Nor, did they begin to sing:

·         Every time it rains, it rains twenties from heaven.

Instead, they said: “I wonder if somebody lost it who needs it more than you do?” Which, as it turned out, somebody had (lost it, I mean)….who did (need it more than I did, that is). Which I found out when I found him. Don’t ask me how I found him. That’s a good story, but not essential to my point. But, as a result of that experience, it has become my habit (across the years) to think about your loss first and my gain second….to the degree that it’s no longer something I have to think about. It has become my second nature….one that is more in keeping with the Gospel.

But I have an even better story for you. While at my recent seminar in Sea Island, Georgia, someone began talking about Frank and Nellie Baker. Who you don’t know. And there’s no reason you should know. But, in his heyday, nobody knew more about the history of Methodism (including the life of John Wesley) than Frank Baker. I only heard him once (ironically, in England at the rededication of Wesley’s Chapel on All Saints Day in 1978). But the man could think. And write. And remember. Especially, remember.

Which was why it was so tragic when his memory began to go. Frank was one of those people who suffered from Alzheimers for no small number of years before he died. Which is a bad enough disease for anybody. But for a scholar….a thinker….a chronicler of history….it was nothing short of tragedy. Fortunately, Frank was a relatively peaceful Alzheimers patient rather than a feisty one. Meaning that he was able to stay at home through most of his declining years. And meaning that Nellie was able to care for him with a minimal amount of help.

Shortly after Greg Jones came to be Duke Divinity School’s dean, he and Susan paid a courtesy call on the Bakers. Without apology, Nellie welcomed them in, gave them tea and cookies, introduced them to Frank, and included her husband in the circle of conversation as if he could still participate. Which he couldn’t, of course. There he was, all dressed up, sitting in his wheelchair, with friends in the living room, but there was “nobody home”….if you know what I mean. Which everybody overlooked, out of kindness….and respect. Although, on several occasions, Frank interrupted to say: “Now who did you say you were?”

At last, the pot was drained of tea and the conversation was drained of pleasantries. Leading to good-byes from all but one. That one being Frank. When suddenly he broke into the conversation, clear as a bell, to say: “By the way, if you ever need anything to eat, stop by and we’ll give you whatever we have cooking on the stove.” It was the most intelligent sentence he had said the entire hour. Heck, it was the only sentence he had said the entire hour. But it made wonderful sense. And it was warmly received.

Only later did Greg and Susan learn that Frank and Nellie Baker had opened their home….and their dinner room table…to scores of students across the years. Two and three nights a week, they had students over for dinner. And every Sunday they trolled the narthex of their Methodist church, finding strays who might like a warm and friendly place to have lunch. And every time volunteers were sought for a local soup kitchen or meal preparers were needed for the local homeless shelter, it was Frank who said: “I think Mother and I can do that.”

Long after most of his mind was gone….most of the wires had been cut….most of the connections had wafted away with the wind….Frank Baker knew enough to invite a stranger to partake at his table. It was the case of the practice becoming the person….and the habit taking over the man. When everything else was gone, that’s what was left.

All over this state, treatment centers are filled with people who have habits that need to be kicked. Would that churches could be filled with people who have habits that need to be kissed. Or blessed.