CHiPs and Dukes of Hazard

As I was driving to pick up my daughter today, I happened to espy something I hadn't seen since, I think, the 1980's. Rushing past a major intersection, a police officer, driving a motorcycle, looked through his reflecting aviator glasses at me. I thought I could see myself in the lenses, but more likely I saw a reflection of my past hurrying, scurrying by me.

Twenty-five or so years ago, growing up in the country where the only entertainment was to either be outdoors or ... well, nothing (we only got three channels on the TV and two of them were CBS), my siblings and I used our imaginations to get us through the long summer hours. When we were done hunting grasshoppers with our bb guns or making a fort in some hewn logs in the back field, it was time to pretend we were someone else.

Two television shows which actually entered our airspace (right before bedtime at 8:00) were on separate nights of the week. CHiPs, which to my knowledge was an acronym for California Highway Patrol, and the Dukes of Hazard flowed from the set to our eyes. Because these two shows were so influential, my brother, sister and I always tried to pretend we were the characters of these shows. Sometimes my brother and I had to fight over who was going to be Ponch. Neither of us wanted to be Larry because it's not a cool name as Ponch - plus, Larry had a mustache, at times, and neither of us ten year olds could grow one (I did try once, but the grass made my nose itch.) My sister always had the part of Randi - I think that was her name. All that I really remember about Randi was her taking off her helmet and waving her hair around like she was in some kind of shampoo commercial.

As for the Dukes of Hazard you can probably guess Bo, Luke and Daisy. My parents had an old 1970's green Oldsmobile whose spirit had gone to heaven and whose body was rusting by the chicken house. Hour after hour we spent sliding across the hood, climbing through the windows and pretending to jump the green "General Lee" over the chicken coop. There was so much delight in being someone else - no worries that I didn't have a license or even an inkling how to drive a car - it was simply an opportunity to have a different name and occupation.

We, as Christians, created into new people - we are created to be different. "Therefore," Paul written in 2 Corinthians 5:17, "If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation; the old has gone and the new has come!" We have come to understand, and this is not even in the pretend world, that we have become different people. Because of the gift of God through Christ, we become different and set apart for a different kind of life - one lived to serve; to serve God and serve others.

In Paul's letter to the Galatians he goes so far as to even say that it is not even we who are living any more but Christ who is living in us. Gal 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me." When I take even a short step back from the confrontative reality of my life, what an incredible thought to realize that it is Christ, whose very breath, inhales and exhales in my existence. That is when I realize that pretending to be someone else is not really a necessity. I don't have to mask my existence portraying a reality that only lives in my imagination. The reality is, I move through God's grace.

That old green Oldsmobile exists only on the farthest banks of my memory, but the past inspires my future. Larry and Ponch, Bo and Luke - whatever. It is Christ's life who I live in and he in me.

Fishing in a Small Pond

Willard was a young boy growing so fast his pants couldn't catch up. His blond hair sprouted from the top of his head like the top of a dandelion. Covering his legs were ever dirty blue jeans and his eyes twinkled with increasing mischief. Willard was an Ozark boy; his parents lived in a trailer on his grandmothers acreage. His father, Kenny, worked a couple of small jobs here and there around the Booneville, AR area. His mother, Lois, was cashier at a local convenience store.

I didn't know Willard that well. His grandmother and I had become acquainted at church, a small country worship space in the back woods outside Booneville. I didn't know Willard, that is, until the lock-in. Twenty-four kids, second grade to eight grade, made the trek to the church on a Friday night. We played games, ate pizza, enjoyed fellowship and fun, but Willard showed up. Willard, it seemed, was prone to pranks and very competitive. Throughout the night I could see him watching me out of the corner of his eye and probably thinking, "who is this joker?"

Willard and I and two other kids played a game called four square where a ball is pushed back and forth until someone misses and then they are replaced by the next person in line. Willard wanted to win, and win at any cost. I also am painfully a bit competitive. As the evening progressed, Willard and I engaged in an all out battle to remove the other from the game. Willard, all of ten years old, his face scrunched up in concentration, freckles seeming to pop out of his face, finally missed a ball. His ears wrinkled in frustration and as he shook my hand he said, "Pastors aren't supposed to win." I laughed. Pastors aren't supposed to win, aren't supposed to compete, aren't supposed to fight.

Those words got me thinking. Are pastors supposed to be pushovers? Are we to be "nice" at all costs? Or, is the pastor, like a shepherd, one who will fight for his sheep? Like King David, an ex-shepherd, do pastors fight the lions and bears to keep sheep safe? Do we reach into the very jaws of death and bring salvation in Jesus Christ to those who feel as if they are being devoured?

I'm hedging your, the reader's, answer.

Willard came to church the next Sunday with his mother and grandmother. After the service, Willard shook my hand and said, "Pastor Reid," he said my name with two syllables in a sweetly southern accented way - Ree-yud - "I'd like to invite you to my house for a fishing contest. Nana says you like to fish." Bowing to young Master Willard I said, "Willard, I accept the challenge."

Four days later, on a Thursday afternoon, I traveled ten miles by gravel road into the foothills of the Oachita Mountains. The overcast day seemed to indicate rain, but as I turned into the driveway, Willard stood at the end, fishing pole and miniature tackle box in hand. Rolling down my window, I greeted Willard. "Hello, Willard, are you ready to see me out fish you?" Willard didn't even respond. His smirk said it all. His eyes glittered at the thought of a fishing contest. Lois came outside and told us to have fun. She would be coming down later with Willard's sister and some lunch.

Willard told me we would be fishing in the family pond. As we walked, I noted that Willard carried only a cane pole with a hook and bobber on the end. I came fully stocked with new pole, reel, tacklebox and all the accouterments of a fishing professional (I am not a fishing professional but you are what you use - or that's supposed to be true). As we reached the pond, if one could call it that, I laughed inwardly. The pond was maybe an acre large. Two large stumps of trees jutted from the middles. From the branches of the tree hung webs of fishing line. I pointed that out to Willard. "Those are lines from other people I bring here."

We began to fish. I, casting into the pond carefully avoiding the stumps, catching nothing. Willard, on the other hand, cane pole encased in his small fingers, knew every little feeding hole on the pond. Fish after fish was pulled from the water. Willard would make sure that I was looking at his fish and then he would once again smirk at me and then hurl his caught fish at my line. "Maybe you can catch the ones I already caught." It was my turn for ears to turn red. Finally, I caught a nice bass. Just as I was about to hold up my catch for Willard to see, just as I was about to gloat at my catch, just as I held up the squirming, shaking bass in my hands, I noticed that Willard was holding in his own arms a four pound bass.

I looked from his fish to mine and slowly released my fish back into the water. I had been beaten.

Willard walked over, fish in hand. I fully expected him to revel in the glory of his moment, but he surprised me with astounding grace. "Pastor Ree-yud, thank you for coming to my little pond. You're the first person from the church that has come to see me. I want you to have this fish, it's not the biggest one in the pond - I wouldn't give you that one. That one ways seven twelve pounds; I've caught her twice. But this one you can have. I want to give you my pole, too. I've got plenty. That way, when you come back, you can catch more fish too."

I have that pole in my office to this day. I keep it as a reminder of what pastors do. We are supposed to travel to the place where people live. We are supposed to take an interest in people's lives. We are supposed to go out into the hills and valleys and meet people where they are so that we might talk about all sorts of stories that are woven into people's lives.

Every Sunday from then on, Willard and family would sit in the back and join in the service. They would sing loudly and pray quietly. Even though I am not with them, I continue to pray for them, to fight for them that God would move mightily in their lives.

I pray that I am not the only one that goes fishing in that small pond.

What do pastors do?

Kids have different ideas about how the world works. Forgive me for being Captain Obvious for a few moments, but really, the world takes on a completely altered view for those who have fresh eyes. I try and recall, sometimes, what it was like to have young eyes. What were the colors like thirty years ago? Did the trees sway faster in the wind? Did the sun seem even a shade brighter, blinding me, but bringing such joy to a promising play day?

Children, it seems, experience life as a constant stream of exciting input. There is no such thing as an impossibility, only a challenge – even flying, if I remember my own pre-teen years. Jumping off the chicken house with strapped on paper wings was a hard challenge. The inability to fly that day did not defray my determination. Eventually I did fly off the chicken house, albeit on a sled. No impossibilities when young.

Young people also feel have an insatiable appetite for answers. Questions fly from their mouths – urgent, quick – the need for knowledge exceeds the need to restrain the vocabulary of the questions. Many of you have experienced the “Why’s” of youth or the “How come?” Young humans, in general, find old people (anyone above 25 years of age) as a menu for their appetites.
When ten years old (I still remember this) I asked the pastor at Zion Lutheran church in Rake, Iowa, “What do pastors do besides talk a lot? Do they ever get anything done?” Ah, sweet impudence.

Pastor Arlen, whom I still hold with great reverence to this day, although I’m not sure he discovered the same esteem for me, responded with great care. Squatting down, he looked me in the eye and spoke to me like an adult. “Reid, pastors are a different lot. We spend most of our time caring for people who are injured. Maybe not in a physical way, although some are. Most of the people we care for are people who are scared, or shocked, or even mystified (that’s my grown up word now) by the way the world responds to change. In the midst of every day change of life, pastors are shepherds leading sheep to still water to drink where the water never changes.”

I didn’t really get the analogy at that time, and I had a thousand questions mostly to the fact that I had never seen Pastor Arlen wear a shepherds robe except maybe that thing he wore on Sundays. How are pastors shepherds? What does that mean about everyone else? I didn’t feel like a sheep although I had really curly hair. My question was asked to a pastor, someone who held my great respect.

The question for the first few weeks of my blog I think well resonate with that young person’s question, “What exactly does a pastor do?” I won’t (and can’t) speak for all pastors in all denomination, but I can speak what it is for this pastor of Word and Sacrament. Next week, read again to see if pastors do anything but talk for 15 minutes (or longer if your name is Lee) on Sunday.