Day1 Weekly Radio Broadcast - Day1 Feeds

It was, and perhaps still is, the most perfect prayer I have ever heard. And it came out of the mouth of a six year-old boy. His mother told me about it soon after it happened. They were at a local swimming pool and her son was standing at the deep end, his toes curled over the edge. Still unsure of himself in the water, he stood there for what seemed to her like a very long time. Hesitating. Meditating. Palpitating. And just when it seemed that he was going to back away from the edge, he looked up to the sky, put his hands together, and said: "O Lord, give me skills or GIVE ME GILLS!" And he jumped. Give me skills or give me gills. That pretty much covers all the bases, doesn't it? O Lord, give me what I need to overcome what I'm facing; but if you won't do that, give me what I need to endure it. Give me skills or give me gills. I have kept that prayer handy over these years, and it's surprising how often I have used it. But maybe it shouldn't be. In his book Hustling God, Craig Barnes, now the new president of Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote this about the Christian life: "...your calling is not primarily to accomplish something, but to serve God who will always lead you to places where you are in way over your head."[i] Barnes is reminding us that God has a habit of tossing us into the "deep end" of life. O Lord, give me skills or give me gills. Our reading from Second Kings finds Solomon in way over his head. His father is dead. He is now the head of his family. He is grieving. He is afraid. He is carrying a heavy load. He's no longer swimming in the safety of the shallow end of his childhood. With one swift toss, Solomon is headed into the deep end of adulthood.

  We stood in Mrs. Trieschmann's kitchen. Martha was in charge of seasoning the chicken. I was on green bean duty. It was the spring of our junior year of high school, and we decided to throw a dinner party. All of our friends were invited and we were giddy with anticipation. The table was set with Mrs. Trieschmann's finest china and delicate crystal. Flowers from the yard, in beautiful Georgia bloom, had been arranged; and we had even employed Martha's younger sister, Catherine, to be our server for the night. All that remained was the guests' arrival and the plating of the meal. Guiding us along the way, helping us and teaching us as we went, was Martha's mom, Mrs. Trieschmann, who was and forever will be in my mind a cross between Martha Stewart and Donna Reed. Mrs. Trieschmann helped us, not hovering, but rather offering guidance and direction when we needed it, making space for us to learn and giving us a map for how to make this meal something other than every day, how to make it extraordinary. I think back to that time in her kitchen. Mrs. Trieschmann was teaching us about how generous hospitality, both given and received, is one of life's greatest gifts. Over the years I've come to understand that generous hospitality, that dinner parties, are also at the core of our Christian faith. Sharing food, sharing bread, sharing with one another, all of this is at the heart of what Jesus taught and how we, as a Church, have been charged to respond.

Patrick wasn't his usual self. From the moment he walked into the room, I could tell something was off. He didn't want to read, he wasn't interested in drawing, he didn't care about playing checkers. He wasn't his usual chipper and curious self. Instead he acted more like the ogre Shrek. He was irritable, grumpy and complained that nobody cared about him. Between his complaints, I could hear a low groan from deep within his stomach, and I knew that he hadn't had breakfast. He told me that he hadn't had a good breakfast since his grandmother died a couple of weeks ago.  After our difficult mentor meeting was over, I met with the school counselor. I learned that Patrick had been moved into a foster care home, and he was having a hard time adjusting. Patrick didn't get breakfast at his foster home, so he couldn't raise his blood sugar. This made him feel anxious, hungry, and grumpy. He was having a hunger-induced meltdown--starving from physical hunger and heart hunger. Patrick could've used a Snickers candy bar that morning. He just wasn't himself when he was hungry. You might remember that during Super Bowl 44, Snickers candy bar began their "You're Not You When You're Hungry" campaign where grumpy people in troublesome situations are portrayed by celebrity actors. When eating a Snickers candy bar provided by a concerned friend, the character is transformed back into themselves and indicates that they are "better." Unlike being satisfied by eating a candy bar, the people of Israel were not satisfied with the side effects of their newfound freedom from slavery in Egypt. It had been two months since their great escape from Egypt, and the people were irritable and complained: "What is next? What are we going to eat? How are we going to make it?"

From cover to cover, the Bible is filled with miracle stories. Choose a book. Ezekiel? Bones that lie dry and lifeless in the middle of a valley are knit back together. How about Exodus? Moses stretches out his hand, and the waters of the Red Sea part. The Psalms? "O Lord, I have cried out to you, and you have healed me." The New Testament is overflowing with miracles as well. Water is turned into wine. Lame people walk. Blind people see. Demons disappear. In the 6th chapter of John, we encounter not one, but two miracle stories. First, Jesus feeds the 5,000 with five loaves of bread and two fish; then he walks across the Sea of Galilee. Sometimes our modern minds have a hard time believing in the miraculous as it comes to us from the ancient texts of Scripture, which were written, after all, by and for people who had no trouble believing in the miraculous. We likely lean more in the direction of incredulity. We cook up rational explanations to explain them away. Maybe there was a big stash of fish and bread hidden behind a tree or a bush, which Jesus used to feed all those people. Maybe the disciples in the boat only dreamed that Jesus was walking towards them across the water. Do you believe in miracles? I am helped by my own response to that question by something Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote, "The common impression," he said, "is that it is the unintelligent who believe in miracles, but the fact is that it is the great minds who believe most fervently in unforeseen possibilities."

Come, Holy Spirit, come. Come as the fire and enkindle in our hearts the love of the Lord Jesus. Come as the dove and bring to our lives the peace of God. Come as the wind and blow away those clouds of doubt and uncertainty which would keep us from following Jesus Christ as Lord as Savior. The scene is this: The Gospel writer Mark tells us the Apostles have been out on a mission trip, teaching and healing, and they return worn out physically and spiritually. Jesus suggests a quiet respite away from the crowd, but the crowd follows them. Seeing the great throng, Jesus has compassion on them and begins to feed their hunger. Ah, we think, we know what is coming. In our minds we jump in anticipation to the five loaves and two fish. But Jesus is aware of a deeper hunger than growling stomachs. Before Jesus gives them the fish and bread, he first begins to "teach them many things." The Word of God, in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth, feeds their soul's hunger with the good news of God's love, mercy, and grace. Now, don't get me wrong, bodily hunger is real and present among us even in America which seems to be flowing with milk and honey. For the last ten years I have served on the Board of the Harvest Hope Food Bank which strives to meet the hunger needs of almost one-third of the state of South Carolina. We collect and distribute hundreds of thousands of pounds of food--some donated, some surplus, some purchased--to begin to meet the hunger of the body. I see it as a Christian imperative. Hunger of the body is real. Jesus knows this and later in this chapter of Mark we see Him feeding the crowd the five loaves and two fish. It is clear that Jesus' compassion touches the hunger of the body as well as the soul.

This is a story we don't want to hear. But we heard it because the lectionary handed it to us. Don't worry if you've never heard of the lectionary. It's enough to know that in many churches, the Sunday readings follow a three-year cycle. So the last time we heard this story was in 2012. We didn't want to hear the story then either, but this year it sounds even more ominous. When we last heard this story, beheading someone seemed a thing of the past. But now the past is present. We've seen pictures of men in orange jumpsuits, kneeling before they were beheaded. We have felt the anguish of families whose sons were beheaded--aid workers, journalists, 21 Coptic Christians. And there are other people whose names we'll never know, including Iraqi Muslims. Their stories are not in our news. John's brutal death did make the news--at least, the biblical news. Mark gives a lot of space to this gruesome story. That's quite remarkable because Mark usually doesn't elaborate. Jesus' temptation in the wilderness gets only two verses in chapter one. Immediately after that story Mark tells us this, "Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying 'The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.'" Jesus' ministry began after John's arrest. Mark wants us to see that John and Jesus are deeply connected.

The Old Testament history of the Jewish people had so many strange twists and turns that it is nothing short of a miracle that it survived to the birth of Jesus. And things haven't been straightforward for the Jewish people since either. The Jewish road from obscurity to political, social and religious power was filled with breathtaking events of danger and destruction. In the time leading up to the birth of Jesus, the Jewish people became so fragmented, lost and hopelessly endangered that they realized that their condition was beyond human help. They were holding on to the hope of divine intervention into human affairs in the form of a Messiah. And this growing expectation was not casual. It was their only hope for deliverance from the burgeoning power of personal and political enemies. Crises came and crises went and still no messiah, but the Jews held on to the hope of divine intervention and they survived. Then in the "fullness of time"--at the "right time" a child was born--the promised Messiah. No one expected him to come as he did, a child of peasant parentage. We know essentially nothing of his childhood until age 12 when he shows up briefly in Jerusalem with his parents. Then Jesus disappears from public life until, once again, in the "fullness of time" at age 30, he shows up publically and begins a three-year ministry of teaching and healing during which time he proclaims himself as the one who "is to come"--the long awaited Messiah. He is still a puzzle to those who see and hear him and to both the well-heeled and main stream his claim of "Messiahship" is an unforgivable heresy which eventually leads to his death at age 33.

Paul, in the presence of Christ, was moved to ask a revealing question. The struggle and the yielding of that great soul are rolled up into it. As I look at the printed page, it seems to stand out in bold relief. When I think on the story, it seems to shout itself at me, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Peter Wallace: That's Bishop J. C. Harrell from a Protestant Hour broadcast in 1946. Today the Reverend Dr. Skip Schueddig joins us to celebrate 70 years of faithful weekly broadcasts. I'm Peter Wallace...this is Day1. Sherrie Miller: Welcome to Day 1, the weekly program that brings you outstanding preachers from America's mainline Protestant churches, sharing insight and inspiration from God's Word for your life. Now to introduce this special program, here's our host Peter Wallace. Peter: Thank you, Sherrie. Today we launch a special series of programs celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Protestant Hour and Day1. In the following four weeks you'll hear new sermons from some of the most popular Protestant Hour speakers of years past--Barbara Lundblad, Thomas Lane Butts, Charles Duvall, and Joanna Adams. But today we'll take a special look at the history of the Protestant Hour and actually hear some of the outstanding preachers of the 20th century. To help us do that, we're honored to have with us the Rev. Dr. Louis Schueddig, who for 30 years served as president and executive director of the Episcopal Media Center and our parent organization, the Alliance for Christian Media, before retiring in 2012. An Episcopal priest, Skip was for many years the Episcopal producer of the Protestant Hour and served as the program's host for an interim period in 2000. Skip, thank you for helping us celebrate this ministry milestone!

Jesus calms the storm. With a simple phrase, "Peace, be still," Jesus puts whatever is raging around us to rest. When oceans rise and the thunder roars, we can trust the captain of the boat to not only see us through the squall, but also ensure smooth sailing. That's the point of the story, right? That's why there are songs and paintings and sermons around three simple words: "Peace, be still." Right? Except the captain is at the back of the boat asleep. Except he accuses the disciples of having little faith after they wake him. They obviously trust in his power enough to go to him when the sea is too much. When the storms of life are raging, we stand by Jesus. Isn't that faith? So why does Jesus ask, "Have you still no faith?" Jesus says it's time to go to the other side. The other side is almost always a scary or undesirable place, or at least we think it is. The "other side" of the tracks, the "other side" of the aisle, the "other side" of the sea. There's always a boundary we're taught not to cross. We're taught the boundary is there for a reason: for our protection, for our privilege, for our purity. It's a wall, a fence, a law, an attitude, or a demonic sea. In Mark, the sea is a metaphor for demonic and chaotic forces that stand against the Kingdom of God that is even now at hand, and it's a boundary, literal and metaphorical, between Jew and Gentile. Though this sea, with devils filled, threatens to undo them, Jesus wants to cross it because the Good News of the Gospel is never for those on just one side of the sea.

Is the harvest going to be big enough? We need to do more, do something, because if we don't have a bumper crop this year we may have to sell the farm. My Facebook news feed is constantly filled with articles about how the church can't survive the current decline in worship, why millennials are leaving the church, the rise of the "Nones" who have no religious affiliation at all, and the church's waning influence. Mixed with these are letters to the dying church. We're afraid the community church is going the way of the family farm, so we better do something. It's not enough to scatter seed; we need to genetically alter the seed so it grows more easily in any kind of soil, so it produces more, so it is heartier and healthier and more resilient. We need a Gospel that will grow in today's world, so let's create a hybrid. We need a bit more prosperity to go with this Gospel to the poor, a bit more glitz and glam to graft onto this humble Gospel. Changing the seed isn't enough, though. We need to change the soil the seed grows in. Let's change the worship: more lights, more entertainment. The Gospel can't grow in thousand-year-old liturgies, after all! We need to till up the worship, break up the unplowed ground of these dusty old sanctuaries. We're afraid we aren't doing enough or aren't doing it well enough. Doing more, though, is usually a sign that you don't trust what you're doing. We don't trust that the seed will grow. We don't trust the power of the Gospel to grow of itself.

In Brian Doyle's family, you were allowed to take the train alone from Long Island into New York City only after your twelfth birthday.[i] Brian sought to make this pilgrimage to pay homage to his beloved basketball team, the Knicks, in that great cathedral known as Madison Square Garden. But before he could leave, he was compelled to wait, fidgeting in the threshold of his front door, impatiently shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as his mother fiddled with his jacket collar in a way most unlike her. Stalling, holding on, his mother reviewed details already covered, giving him last minute advice he already knew: "I can't believe you're twelve," she said in between checking and re-checking him for hat and mittens and an extra pair of eyeglasses. "One minute ago you were four and talking to the birds. Make us proud of your behavior. You need a new winter coat. Don't forget to call. Are you really twelve? You had better stop fiddling about and get to the station. I will assume that you have a clean handkerchief. Go." And she sighed, "Go." Decades later, Brian Doyle remembered this as the dividing line between being a boy and being something else on the way to becoming a man. My own son is about two and a half years old and he talks to the birds, wishing them a cheery, "Hi birdy, tweet, tweet," on our daily walks. On his own, he reaches up to grasp his mother's hand when journeying into new places; and he asks for "both hands, both hands" before careening down the big slide at our church's playground. But someday, probably sooner than I'm ready, he'll be poised to head off on his own, making a pilgrimage to his dream. When my son comes to me, bright eyed and hopeful, will I listen to the earnest desire of his great big God-given heart? I know there comes a point when every caregiver must say, "Go."

A few years ago, my husband was in a car accident. Fortunately, no one was hurt. In fact, he was hit while sitting idle at a stop light! But, as anyone who has been involved in an automobile accident can tell you, the experience leads to endless documentation and telephone calls with insurance agents and claims adjustors and body shops. And so it was with us. On one such conversation with the at-fault driver's insurance company about the damage to be repaired, the adjuster said, "This car has surely been in other accidents! At least two of the dents in the passenger door could not have been caused by this accident." We were surprised. The car, although relatively worn and old, had not been in other accidents and we did not remember any prior damage. After much discussion about this matter, it became clear that the insurance company would not pay for what they called "prior damage" and, therefore, would only approve a partial repair of the damage from the accident. I was the one who handled that particular conversation; and when I hung up and shared the result with my husband, I found myself frustrated but at the same time smiling, almost giggling, at the absurdity of the situation. Our car would return from the body shop partially repaired because a portion of the damage had not been deemed "worthy" of a remake. Reflecting theologically while humored by the situation, I felt a profound sense of gratitude toward our God who does not function like insurance companies. However, it did get me thinking about God's relationship to body shops.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you're driving in the car and listening to the radio--maybe it's an in-depth news story on NPR or some similar station--and you become so engrossed in the story that even though you have arrived at your destination, you can't leave the car until you've heard the whole story? I've heard some people call these "driveway" moments--stories that are so compelling and personally moving that they touch mind and heart in compelling, life transforming ways. Some people are brought to tears by these moments and others begin to look at their lives in new and unexpected ways. I had such a "driveway" moment a few months ago when I was listening to a Canadian Broadcasting Company program called Tapestry. Tapestry is a radio program on CBC Radio One, which airs on Sunday afternoons and features documentary and interview programming related to spirituality, faith, and religion. The program's current host, Mary Hynes, was interviewing former chef, secular intellectual, skeptic, and journalist Sara Miles, about her unexpected--and inconvenient--conversion to Christianity when she entered a church on impulse in San Francisco one Sunday. You see, Miles was raised as an atheist and she was happily living an "enthusiastically secular life" as a restaurant cook and journalist, indifferent to religion at best. As she says in the Prologue to her book, Take This Bread, "I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian.... Or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut."[1]

Some years ago, my children and I went to The Renaissance Festival being held not far from where we live. One of the friends in our group decided it would be fun to pay a whole slew of "wenches" to plant wet, slobbery, nasty lipstick kisses on my 13-year-old son all day long. Every time he turned around, there they were! He was mortified, and he spent a good share of the day hiding out in the men's restroom. PDA's--public displays of affection--we see them around us, between members of our families, on public transportation, or sometimes even at church youth gatherings. Once in a while they're directed towards me, from friends or acquaintances who are overly affectionate--and more often than not, these displays make me feel at least a little embarrassed and uncomfortable. For me, it just seems inappropriate to witness or even to receive these outward expressions of very private feelings, especially from those I don't know very well. I think we all have these boundaries. We have limits on how close others can come and on how much of ourselves we are willing to give away. We are uncomfortable and embarrassed and afraid to be vulnerable, and so we hide out in the restroom--or we protect ourselves by keeping a safe distance and by letting the "space invaders" know when they have come too close. Especially when meeting someone new, it is hard to get past the fear--here is almost always a shyness to overcome and a real hesitancy to engage. Whether we are on familiar ground or someplace that's strange or foreign to us, we don't want to emotionally expose ourselves--and we know there are certain things that are just meant to be private.

In my first rural parish in North Carolina, I was as a young whippersnapper of a pastor even more of a liturgical and theological and musical snob than I am now. I regularly used as my example of what we ought not to sing the hymn "In the Garden." Why would Christians, whose biblical faith values community far above individualism and who have heard Jesus' explicit command to deny self and live for others, why would we ever sing, "He walks with me, talks with me, tells me I am his own"? Some years later, a Baptist clergy friend of mine helped knock me off my high horse when he heard my rant about that hymn and quoted some familiar words: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters," and so on. Touché! Of course, we have a personal relationship with God, but still, I think "private" is rarely a helpful word in communities of faith. As an aside, that reasoning is why "In the Garden" still has never appeared in a Lutheran hymnal. Anyway, one night in that first parish, that know-it-all young pastor was called to the hospital by the family of an elderly parishioner who was struggling in his last hours. I rushed to the hospital, and we waited for all of his children to arrive; and when all of them were there, we all held hands around his bed and commended him to Jesus and prayed for his peaceful passing. This dear old salt-of-the-earth farmer looked up and smiled, and then he spoke. He spoke last words. Sacred, Holy ground. "I love every one of you. I'm ready to go. And I love Pastor Tim, too, and I love his voice and I know he'll sing "In the Garden" for you at my funeral. Whereupon in that very instant he flat-lined on the monitor and died. Through tears, the oldest son looked at me and said, "Thank you, Pastor. Daddy always loved that song!"