Trees Are for the Woods

         I have heard many special names for Christmas Trees over the years. Most are adjective names that precede the official name of “Christmas Tree,” a variety of colorful adjectives that I do not care to say much about in this venue. Let it suffice to say that these preceding “adjective names” mainly come from men around the first week of Advent, soon after Thanksgiving as the trees are just being bought, transported, erected, made vertical, lighted, made vertical, ornamented, made vertical, starred on top, and finally made vertical once again.

         I believe it is now far enough away from the first week of Advent to speak of the demonic conniptions that are the silent residents of the innocent looking trees. If you find that you are not far enough distant in time from the eruptions and vocal namings of this past season then stop reading now and save this to read on down the road in March or April once the memory is not so painful.
       Anne and I keep certain books on our bookshelf for no other reason than to have them handy for placing under the legs of the tree stand to make the vertical tree as plumb as a Masonic Rite. The books are various thicknesses to add or subtract in an exacting way. This past year I found that if I turned “Wesley’s Commentary on the New Testament” to page 324 and placed it under the back leg, the tree leaned a little bit too forward…but, on page 323 the tree was leaning a smidgen toward the back. I finally had to add a piece of waxed paper on top of 323 to make the exact adjustment required.
       Of course, just after this perfecting and the adjective naming ceremony the cat discovered the tree and immediately thought, “Recreation!” I finally retrieved the cat from a lofty spot way up where the star belongs, only to find that the previous fine adjustments by microns were ruined, and the next ceremony of adjusting and adjective naming was begun all over again.
       Soon, Bullwinkle, the dog, saw the tree and immediately thought, “Indoor plumbing!” Immediately following this “dog thought” is the place where I entered the advanced level of adjective naming that then preceded the generic name of “dog.”
       Then, there was the time that a nest of praying mantises decided to pack up all their children and hang them in a little kinder-sack for the final period of gestation of the recently deposited ootheca so that the little pups could learn to pray on our tree and all over our house. I like a praying mantis as much as the next gardener, but having a thousand of the little ones hanging from every lampshade or crawling across my face at night was a little more than I could tolerate. I did not take joy in sending them to the heaven where all good praying mantises go, but I at least gained some little peace at the hand of a vacuum cleaner as I sent these otherwise wonderful and prayerful critters to the aphid laden bushes in God’s Kingdom.
       Christmas tree hole drillers are funny people. They laugh a lot. They have fond dreams of patrons who have purchased a tree, who get back home and try to adjust the tree using a crooked hole that has been drilled in the bottom. Tree hole drillers do not have adjective names that precede the words “Christmas tree.” They drill straight holes for their personal tree.
I once had a tree with a split trunk which I held together with pipe clamps, that would not stand up after a complete library of books were adjusted under the legs of the tree stand. I am sorry to report that I have evidence that the Dewey Decimal System will let you down. That year I nailed the stand to the floor and held the tree straight with a wire attached to a homemade winch system and three turnbuckles, all of this system suspended through a hole in the ceiling from the attic. I hid the wire with a star.
       Oh, the ways we expect and try to orchestrate perfection and order in our lives. The natural order should be simple and wonderful, should not include imperfection, and should be as “expectable” and usual as air. But every time we assume order we will stumble over disorder within one stride. I am of the belief that the smoke rising from the temple did not always ascend to heaven in a nice straight line. Sometimes the smoke hovered inside the temple and made everyone cough and sneeze. I suspect the building of the ark was a bit more involved and problematic than the one verse given to the construction in Genesis 4. Surely, at least one board was warped and one thumb was hit with a hammer.
       All of the great things of life require extra energy and problematic efforts. No worthy thing is synonymous with ease. Even faithful and righteous living is filled with little warts and blisters. However, just like a perfect, lighted and decorated Christmas tree, all the expenditure of our purposeful ordering is worth the effort and is certainly blessed by God.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

There Are Also-Rans

        I recently watched a well-known sports drink commercial advocating that those who drink a company’s particular product will be successful, winning, and victorious people.  Teams would win with this company’s drink.  Individuals would perform better with this specific and amazing drink.  And so, when a team drinking its drink won any competition, the performance drink company was quick to place its commercial logo in front of the cameras and all over the winning teams’ logo.    

The unfortunate problem is that actually, in most instances, both teams are drinking the exact same performance-enhancing drink, resulting in only a 50/50 success rate at powering a team to victory.  The ads never mention that just as many teams lose with the promoting company’s sports product as those that win. 

       So this is the great truth of success in the wonderful world of sports, where only 50% of the contests end with a successful victory: in individual sporting events, such as track and field, swimming, golf, and tennis, there are always many more losers than winners, making the percentage of winners much, much lower than the percentage of losers.  Life is often a team event but is, most of the time, ultimately an individual event.  For this reason, there are always many “also-rans” in our scope of existence.  There are always many more people who have lived with defeat than the few who have been perfectly successful in life.   

We live in a pressure cooker, a perfection-seeking and success-oriented world.  We thrive on competition.  We expect that we will reach the tape first in every race, achieve a 100% percentile in every course, and never be an “also-ran” individual in any aspect of our lives.  But regardless of our expectations, we know that we are not always excellent, perfect, or winners.  We easily find ourselves left behind, lagging, and wanting what we cannot have.

       Unless you think that this is a despicable place to be and that you are unique in your situation, try and know that no matter how much we win in this life, how high we soar, how great the successes we amass, at the end, the increased elevation is always only slight.  In the end, we usually find that we are actually on the same playing field, and the greatness and victories are of little consequence.  It is pathetic when the May Queen never gets over that momentary accolade, or the sports star never remembers his or her humanity, or the big dog forgets his or her mortality.  It is sorrowful when we believe in our greatness above all else. 
       It is said in the biography of William Randolph Hearst, that he would never allow anyone to mention the word “death” in his presence.  He could not handle the idea of mortality, defeat, or tragedy.  He could only believe in the lie of his greatness.   Mr. Hearst, (along with a few of us, even today), found comfort, or more accurately, discomfort in, “As for man, his days are as grass.  As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.  When the wind passeth over it and it is gone, the place thereof shall know it no more.”  These words are as infinitely true as they are infinitely unpopular.   

      As Christians, our hope is not in our abilities, perfections, or successes.  As Christians, hope is in the dreadfully tragic Cross of Jesus Christ.  Only in our facing our mortality can we finally know that we will not be asked, “Did you win?” or “Were you successful?” The ultimate question now and always, will continue to be, “Are you faithful?”   

     I find comfort in knowing that I am called to “love” and not to “win”.  I find great hope in knowing that “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”   It goes against our grain, but a proper attitude in life would be to adopt nonchalance about our successes and perfections and a God-given serenity with regard to our tragic failures.    

    Lord, grant us, by your grace, the wisdom to know the differences between the eternal and the temporal, the treasures of heaven and the treasures of earth, and strengthen within us the ability to seek first the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, so that we may learn to possess the peace that the world can neither give nor take away. 
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

January 13, 2010 - Who Owns Our Time?

     We are a people who are connected to time. We cannot get away from time. It is a part of our biological fiber to the very core of our existence. We live in a cyclical world of days governed by the earth’s rotation on its axis, a cyclical world of years governed by the earth’s annual rotation around the sun, and a cyclical world of seasons governed by the tilt of the earth’s axis with regard to the earth's rotation around the sun. It just comes around and goes around and has always been a part of the pattern of life.
     Many dedicated and smart people have taken time to understand all of these natural activities that so order our lives and put us into patterns of living that are healthy, flowing, and sacred. It is our pattern to sleep long and quietly retreat in the dark months of winter, to anticipate and move actively into the spring as life returns, to work hard into the summer to pile up and stock pile for darker cold months, to celebrate and be festive in the fall after the harvest and to enter the dark months to fix harnesses, mend tired bones, and live on stored root vegetables with hearty stews.
     But industrious as we are, it is our continuous quest to conquer and defeat time, so it will have no effect on our daily lives and actually be owned by us, controlled by us, manipulated by us. We spend much energy and activity on trying to cheat the harvest season, both early in spring and late in fall. We dedicate our lives to industry that moves from the natural rhythm of sleeping when it is dark and working when it is light to working before the sun comes up and quitting long past the sun going down. We so fill our daily lives that to be held up 20 seconds at a “stop light” upsets the entire day and we frantically and fleetingly believe we must work extra hard to gather those 20 seconds back regardless of the stressful costs and emotional toll. We even gather up an hour in one season to give us longer light at one end of the day, so we can mold time around our organized cycles of life.
It seems natural to politicize time and to make it a commercial commodity so that people with means are able to transport quickly from one place to another, with easy and timely access, while others must use public transit with long walks and many delays, often foiling lives due to late arrivals and lack of an ability to keep a strict schedule: which this world demands. All modern conveniences, medical breakthroughs, gadgets and gimmicks are based on time control. The reward is always more free time, less time spent sick, more productivity with our time, more quality time in leisure, and therefore a quality of life that has not been known in previous time.
     Even the Church of Jesus Christ was formed, divided, and cyclically organized to tell the story of faith. Easter therefore would always fall on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This date was not of a sacred nature but was a solely political decision at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. to avoid the use of a Jewish lunar calendar and the insistence that Easter never fall at the beginning of Passover. Therefore the most sacred day of the church was decided by a political criteria, rather than a sacred and holy revelation.
     But one form of time that is seldom revered or saluted, in our modern days of time control, is the holy moments known as “sacred time.” Sacred time is neither cyclical nor linear and would be considered an “anti-time” when compared with the modern ideas of time. Sacred time is time with God. This time is not based on a clock, a designed period, a beginning or an ending but is so designed to hold up God’s perfection, eternity, and timeless nature.
     Other people of faith have drawn this distinction by referring to the measured time of our life as “chronos” time and the sacred time as “kairos” time. We live the vast majority of our life in chronos time (clocks, calendars, 30-minute TV segments, and routine). Kairos time is that time that goes against everything we know and salute in decent society. Kairos time can hardly be accurately scheduled, laughs in the face of routine, and is an inbetween time when something special happens. Chronos is about quantity and kairos is about quality. Kairos is God’s time in our lives.
Too little of our lives are given over to kairos moments and our lives are otherwise afforded to the ownership of schedules, and the servitude to the system. Learn to surrender more of your time to God moments in the company of the timeless living God.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

January 6, 2010 - A Little Souvenir?

     For some reason, this time of the year makes me think about Florida. Maybe it is the weather, or the warm ocean, or the Key Lime Pie, but the look of leafless trees, brown grass and cold clear skies makes me dream of the Sunshine State.
     I remember one of my favorite trips to Florida. It was the summer of 1966, when Marineland was the place to see and Sea World had not been invented. Being rather young and not knowing what I know now, I spent much of my time looking for exotic things I could bring home to show my friends. In 1966, Florida was another country from North Carolina. Any exotic artifact that would prove I had visited this tropical paradise would be just the ticket.
     I fell in love with a little alligator in Ocala, but my mom said, “No!” I had a beach bag filled with Spanish moss before my father reported that it would give me chiggers. I even had a little porcelain statue picked out until my mother whispered to my father that the inscription was actually a dirty limerick. His eyes got big, and we left it for someone whose mother was not so wise.
     I found a 35-pound piece of rubber off of a racing tire in Daytona. (I was sure it was from Curtis Turner’s car.) Dad just shook his head and said, “Not enough room.” I found a 3-pound dead barracuda in Miami. Even I decided against this souvenir, since this rotting fish smelled worse than my sister.
     Finally, I found The Souvenir. It was a Venus Fly Trap that I could grow myself. I brought it home, watered it “good,” put it in a sealed plastic bowl with the lid on and put it in the sun. I called my friends to come and gawk at this flesh-eating plant. We began rounding up flies around the neighborhood but found them to be pretty quick and evasive. We did come up with a tobacco worm, some ants, and a dead roach. We watered the fly trap again, put these critters in the mouths of the flytrap, put the lid back on, burped it, and put the whole thing back in the sun.
     For four days we kept the sealed plastic bowl containing the flytrap in the sunshine, fed it a wide selection of critters and varmints, gave it upwards of 4 gallons of water and spent most of our waking hours watching it. And on the fourth day, we officially pronounced it dead. We had successfully loved it to death. It had been smothered, drowned, overfed with bugs it had never thought about eating, and sufficiently cooked in the sun. So much for my exotic Florida souvenir.
     Such is often the plight of the Christian faith. We can hold it, love it, and keep it to ourselves until it is sufficiently a dead faith. We attend sunday school for years but never do anything with the learned knowledge. We talk about love, but we never this love outside of our church family. We are fed and nourished by the Holy Spirit, but we never use the spiritual energy. The Christian faith is nothing until we give it away, use it, and do something with it.
     I fear that the Christian faith may simply become an empty souvenir of a place we once visited.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

December 30, 2009 - The Smell of the Very Creation

     Often, I will smell a smell and it will remind me of something. Do smells do that to you, also?
     The smell of potpourri reminds me of Christmas. This is a fond and faux smell. It is not real. It is just a memory thing to set the mood of a time when such things mulled on the stove and were later drunk with great satisfaction. My father was once fooled by some potpourri on the stove and poured himself a mug only to soon find that this is not something that should be drunk. The fragrant oils and dried botanical matter only serve to give off scent and are not digestible. My father claims that one swig of that libation turned his blood type from positive to negative, made his ears ring, and took 3 years off of his life. That was the last potpourri in my parents’ home.
     A clever church member once gave me a little frankincense and myrrh kit that she thought would make a nifty children’s sermon. I announced this special children’s sermon in advance, and I believe a few extra people showed up that Sunday just for the curiosity of those fragrant botanical items. The children came to the front of the church eagerly. The adults leaned forward with anticipation of the fragrant smells of the botanical items offered as a special gift to Jesus. Everyone felt rather special and a little warm in their bellies. I read of these items from the Bible and proceeded to light them (that is what you do with these items, by the way.) The smoke rose up into the air, and with progressive unison deep breaths, as the aromas wafted to the nether regions of the church sanctuary, the posture of the anticipating congregants changed from leaning forward to lunging backwards into the back of the pew with constricted breathing and deep coughs. Many people left the church, probably going either to the ER, or to a good litigation lawyer to begin to make arrangements to sue the church. Some members later confided in me that one breath of that gift suited for a king turned their blood type from positive to negative, made their ears ring, and took 3 years off of their lives.
     When fixing collard greens, it is always advisable to add a little vinegar to the water. This unlikely ingredient cuts the stench of the cooking of the greens. Of course, many people think the cooking of collards, even with a little vinegar added to the water, should be performed from the home of an enemy who lives at least two counties away. I, on the other hand, have grown accustomed to the smell of collards boiling in a pot on the stove. The smell is a moot point to me. However, I usually keep a few messes of collards around to put on the stove in the event of situations arising when I need to encourage visitors to head home after a lengthy stay.
     The smell of collards boiling reminds me that soon I will have a good meal of greens with some cornbread and chow-chow. This combination is the perfect healthy meal for a cold night when the wind blows. (If you would like some chow-chow, please give me a call since I am down to my last 8 dozen pints after cutting back this year, only canning a total of 22 dozen pints.) However, one group of longevity visitors, who were satisfied to become homesteaders in “my” home, to this day claim that the few breaths they inhaled from the cooking of this green botanical defoliant, (before they packed up and headed back down the road to their own home) turned their blood type from positive to negative, made their ears ring, and took 3 years off of their lives.
     All during Christmas, I have been privy to well-meaning individuals, who over and over again express their deep sorrow that the sweet little Jesus boy had to be born in a barn where the smells were so bad. Good modern Christians go on and on about how the barn is a nasty place with nasty odors. It is unfortunate that good and modern Christians have, from absence of such places, grown to believe that fermentation, composting, and animal life are bad smells. People who work in these environs are quick to know that the sweet smell of a barn is not a bad smell but is really the natural smell of the earth.
     I would like to add to this belief that the smell of a barn is the very smell of the Creation of God. A barn has a godly smell where fermentation is creating the resources needed for the very firmament of God. This firm creation in which we live would soon come to an end without the active bacterial agents that work with other idle botanical materials to produce nutrients needed for agri-business. Surely, as the Lord molded the heavens and the earth, the smell throughout was that of composting and fermentation. In short, the smell of the nativity barn was the very smell of life.
     I cannot imagine the Savior of the world, the very creator of life, the Lord God almighty, being born in any other place than a barn where the rich aromas of the very creation are so pungent. That barn on that night was home to the originator of everything that is and the hope of the kingdom that was to come. The smells were the smells of the work of the “Word” where “in the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God and the Word was God.”
     Most every type of Holy Bible has already been published. However, the one that I would most like to have would be a “Scratch and Sniff Bible.” Much like those perfume ads in the magazines, a Bible student could scratch certain pages and get a whiff of the damp air around the Nile as Moses floated along in a pitch and bulrush bassinette; a scent of the great Cedars of Lebanon as Solomon used them to build his various condominiums around the Temple Mount: an odiferous breeze from a herd of camels as they prepare to lead the caravan back to Esau, as Jacob, (now Israel), fights with an angel at the Jabok; or the wheezy dry air of the wilderness as Moses and the Children of Israel made their way to the Promised Land
     The other day, I was sitting with a group of good church people in a wonderful worship service. A good Christian man sat down in front of me and was wearing some sort of cologne that reminded me of a combination of High Karate, Brut, Old Spice, Cargo, and the pot liquor from a collard cook-off. Everyone around me, myself included, began to gasp, breathing like a guppy in syrup. As we individually evacuated the area, upwind, I heard one individual exclaim that they felt like their blood type had turned from positive to negative, that their ears were ringing, and they felt like 3 years had been taken off of their life. I, on the other hand, was personally glad that Jesus was born in a barn with natural smells rather than being born in such an olfactory cesspool. In the beginning, before a potpourri of sticky artificial aromas, there was the Word, fermenting, organic, the very scent of Heaven wafting on the earth.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

December 16, 2009 - The True, Eternal Fraternal Order

     When a person joins a fraternal club there is always a point where the inductee has to recite a statement that pretty much demands eternal, loyal, and dedicated allegiance to that organization until everyone is snug as a bug, secure in God’s post-millennial Kingdom. I have joined several clubs with such requirements and even have several antiquated membership cards somewhere in my billfold to prove it.
     My first “eternal fraternal club” was organized and founded in the woods right behind my childhood home. My elementary-aged boy cousins and I got together and swore up and down that we would do this and not do that, hate this and not hate that, believe this and not believe that, and pretty much agree to be brothers until the world came to an end, or high school graduation, whichever came first.
The main motivation behind the formation of this secretly-named, (of which I am not able to reveal here), and eternal fraternal order, was the fear of an impending attack of our country by enemy atomic bombs. We were all concerned that the bombs were “hanging out” somewhere over our heads, looking for a good opportunity to fall on us, even as we organized our club.
     What precipitated the formation of our secretly-named club was that we had talked with our parents about building fallout shelters for the families, but they seemed less than interested. So our pact was for each of us to build a shelter for our family, keeping it all top secret, so that when the bombs began to drop we could invite our families into sure safety. We secured the pact with an induction ceremony by eating a hot pepper and fashioning a pig’s tooth as an amulet on a string necklace for each member to wear. We then began to dig our shelters on obscure locations on our respective land. The obscurity was to both surprise our families and to keep unwanted people from knowing about these shelters in the time of a terrific event.
     I doubt that very many people have ever dug a fallout shelter. This was my first attempt. I had no way of knowing “what all” was required to house four people for the months required for radioactive material to half life a few times. You, also, would be surprised that the hole seemed to create dirt, roots, and rocks. The more I dug the less of a hole it appeared to be. I was also bright to recognize that my 25 cent weekly allowance was not going to go far in purchasing the required food and paraphernalia required to fully outfit the shelter. After several days of digging I was reconciled to the belief that the atomic bombs were not so imposing as a threat.
     However, our secret eternal fraternal order still met regularly to give reports on our progress. Everyone else seemed to be digging out great quantities of dirt and progressing nicely. I falsely joined in the ratchet-jawing proclaiming my great successes. Today, I still have the pigs tooth necklace, but I have no fallout shelter. My eternal fraternal great intentions soon failed me and my brothers.
     That is the trouble with our eternal and faithful plans. Most of the time we fail and fall by the wayside. Even with the greatest of intentions and with some strenuous momentum our eternal promises are dated. Our level of involvement is limited.
     On the other hand we are in the Season of Advent where soon Jesus will again make the eternal commitment of intimacy, as God becomes a human being. Christmas is God’s joining the eternal fraternal order of mortal and foiled human beings, as God becomes a man. But the true scope of this deed is not limited to a brief, one time, temporary, and terse episode. Jesus did not only make a pro tempore appearance where he lived for a time and then died.
     As well as being born of a mother in the visible form of a man, he also grew up in that body eating, drinking, and sleeping in that body. He lived, died, rose, ascended, and is seated at the right hand of the Father in that body. He will come, judge the living and the dead, rule over heaven, and is our eternal Savior in that body. What is the eternal scope of God’s commitment to us at Christmas, as God becomes a man? It is total, timeless, and perpetual. God in Jesus will not fail or fall by the wayside. The commitment of the Lord is eternal and fraternal.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

December 9, 2009 - My Personal Government

     'Seems as though poor King Ahaz was having some real trouble at home with his kingdom. It was in a shambles. There was a huge threat from the north, the Assyrians; and a huge threat from within, citizens who were expecting great things; and a huge issue of a collapsing army at the very gates of Jerusalem. King Ahaz was at the point of grasping at straws, (and that was about all he had left).
You see, poor old King Ahaz had become king following his granddaddy, King Uzziah. King Ahaz had never been quite the king his granddaddy had been, and everybody knew the grandson was a bit weak when it came to spiritual matters and military matters. They also knew he was pretty good at keeping a stable of wives, enjoying fine festive parties, and taking regular ski vacations to Mt. Herman with his friends. But all ‘this aside, the king had tried to hold off Assyria all by himself, and now, he was a miserable failure all hunkered down in Jerusalem awaiting the final sword to fall.
     As a trembling mass of failed kingship, the fearful king invited Isaiah over to the “War Room” to get some assurance that God was still on his side. He wanted some big assurance in the form of a great sign, so all the people would know he was a “real” king and had some great power in an alliance between himself and God. So the prophet Isaiah gives him a sign and says: “A young woman will give birth to a child whose name will be called Immanuel, God with us.”
     King Ahaz must have scratched his head, "skewed-up" his face, twisted his neck side-ways, and responded with something like, “Huh?,” whereupon, I am sure, Isaiah repeated the "sign" to the probable response from King Ahaz of something akin to: “Baby? I don’t need 'no' stinking baby. I need some weapons, brave troops, a plan, some pestilence to fall upon the Assyrians, or a way out of Jerusalem to my house over at the Gaza Strip. I don’t need 'no' woman having 'no' baby!”
     It was then that Isaiah added gravy to the biscuits when he said: “And the government will be upon his shoulders.” This caused a thundering and great "guffaw" from King Ahaz, for even if he was trapped, defeated, weak, and woeful, the king still had sense enough to know that none of this prophetic offering was going to help him out of his corner of anxiety. He also knew that, if you placed the weight he was carrying on his shoulders onto the shoulders of a baby, the result would be “nothing," “emptiness," “futility," and “uselessness." He did not actually recognize that having a baby in charge would bring much of a different result as compared to what he was accomplishing on his own, minus the ski trips.
     King Ahaz did not see any of this prophetic word from Isaiah as being good news. This proffered Good News did not give him any wiggle room within this situation in which he found himself sorely needing to wiggle. This Good News did not give him any peace that, in fact, "it was all going to be okay." This Good News did not give him a reassurance that what he had done to this point would be overlooked, and he would be pronounced a victorious ruler. This Good News did not give him a way to save face and avoid the ridicule and shame of being a faithless leader.
     The only news this saying brought to King Ahaz is the same news it brings to all of us today. The prophetic word of Isaiah delivered the news that King Ahaz (and we), are not actually the kings of our lives after all. The good words were the news that this baby would not only be the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords but would, in reality, be the Lord of our lives in every way west of China. This Good News of a baby tells us that we are not in control, and there is no hope to be found in our good works and wisdom, and the only hope is in God.
     This Good News is that the Lord is going to take the burden of being in charge of our lives off our shoulders and put it squarely on the shoulders of the baby, called Immanuel. If we put ourselves in the place of King Ahaz, this bizarre promise makes no sense. The assuring prophecy may seem strange, sound unusual, may not appear to be an effective political solution, but nonetheless, the words foretell the work of God.
     I am personally thankful that “my personal government” is being borne on the shoulders of the Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

December 2, 2009 - Long in the Bud

     I know of a little girl who, when born, was only a smidgen over 4 pounds. This little girl was the 20th of 22 children in her family. They were from Tennessee, the mother was a domestic worker, the father picked up odd jobs, and it seemed like these children were everywhere. Our little girl spent the bulk of her childhood in bed suffering through double-pneumonia, scarlet fever, and, finally, polio. She was fitted with leg braces at the age of 6. If you had seen her as a child, you would have shaken your head, mumbling something like One of twenty-two...," "Poor thing...," or, "What will happen to that poor girl?"
     I know of a boy who was believed to have been born in North Carolina, (nobody can say for sure), who was pulled all over the place, from cabin to cabin, where he was raised helping to clear trees and expending great energy farming what little the struggling family could farm. The boy was never formally educated. At the age of 23, the largest town he had ever seen had a population of no more than 100 people. He was gangly, (some might say ugly), and had worked as a migrant farmer, printer, candle-maker, blacksmith, harness-maker, woodcutter, and tall tale storyteller. If you had met this boy in a crowd, you would have stared but quickly moved away from him, since he did not look like a decent person with whom you would want to hang around.
     I know of a boy who was thrown out of three schools, lived in a broken home where his mother and father had frequent “live-ins," where alcohol was a constant problem, and where STDs finally took the life of his father at an early age. This boy was short, overweight, had no athletic ability, had difficulty reading, had no friends, and was pestered by all of his peers. Even though his family had great means, any savings were soon squandered on pointless living. If you had met him, you would have assumed that he was destined to failure and a place of mediocrity in life.
     Everyday, we pass by young people who are poor, unattractive, limited, lackluster, misfits on the street. We see them walking the malls, hustling our groceries to the car, serving us some fast food item at a drive-thru, playing a video game, filling a desk at school, or appearing altogether mediocre in every way. These young people do not come from the right families, have no obvious talents, have no cheerleaders applauding their accomplishments, are not popular, are not members of the select clubs, and may not be able to look you in the eye when they speak.
     But there is one intangible factor of these children that cannot be noticed at a casual glance. That often invisible factor that no one knows is the formidable grit in the constitution of these young people, the dream that hides behind their shy darting glance, the promise that is growing deep roots within their soul, the determination to do something great in their life, and the gifts that no one has taken the time to see. How do I know this? I know this, because the little sickly girl mentioned above is Wilma Rudolph, who in 1960 was the fastest woman in the world, winning three gold medals at the Rome Olympics and, then, going on to do great things for the cause of equal rights, becoming a strong role model for other youth and a national treasure. The young lanky, ugly, and lackluster man from obscurity was Abraham Lincoln. The hapless and truant child of a broken family was Winston Churchill.
     These children did not rise to their greatness due to nepotism (favored treatment due to family ties), appearance, preferential treatment, coddling, or favoritism. Our obscure misfits who became heroes, after showing no obvious gifts as children, rose to their positions and places in history due to factors that we are too blind to see.
     We see a person's value on the surface. We weigh a person's potential by using insignificant factors. We value beauty and stature, letting movie or TV stars, athletes, or super fashion-models become the spokespersons for morality, greatness, and faith. We vote for candidates who have a name, wealth, and a quick wit, overlooking the unconnected leader and gifted patriot holding quiet wisdom. We call people who know how to take tests “smart” and tag those who are a little long in the bud as being “slow” or “average”. We quickly box up the culled children in categories that "label," (but in no way "define"). 
     How do I know all of this? I know all of this, because I worship a God who knows our gifts, our drives, our potential, and our future. I worship a God who does not play the game of nepotism and appearance, but who weighs a person by a rich spirit, a name that is recognized by righteousness, and wisdom that bows to no façade of wit and shallow popularity. I worship a God who reveres only depth of faith, truth over beauty, and hope beyond despair. Jesus Christ is the eternal source of freedom from the little labels that imprison us on earth and the freedom to our fulfillment. When the world labels and limits us, Jesus Christ frees us.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

November 18, 2009 - Turkey, Gravy and Kingdom

     As a deer panteth for water, so my soul panteth after thee! Psalm 42:1

     My favorite meal of the year is Thanksgiving Day. Not the typical lunch meal of the day only, but for the whole day, from “kin see to can’t see,” Thanksgiving is a great day of non-stop food. I will not go into elaborate details of all the treats, just because such images would likely make your soul “panteth” a little too much.
     And so I take this moment to flash back to a simpler time at the huge table of my grandmother, where it seemed hundreds of kinfolk filled their lunch plates with turkey, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, pinto beans, yeast rolls and butter and, then, sat awaiting the proper blessing of a self-designated and particularly pious uncle. The serving of the plates of food went systematically and with a lot of reaching over and under each other with the final outcome being that every individual had their perfect plate of food right in front of them, anxiously sitting with heads bowed awaiting the prayer.
     I will admit that I do not remember ever closing my eyes during the prayer, as I gave astute attention to the victuals on the plate just six inches from the end of the nose of my bowed head. This particularly pious uncle had clearly never heard Jesus talk bad about haughty and long prayers in the public places, for as much as Thanksgiving was a day of glorious flavors that melted together, for my uncle, it was a day of loquacious homily in prayer. His prayers were endless, and meanwhile, the turkey would be getting cold, the gravy would be running into the cranberry sauce, and the roll would be getting a little soggy.
     My uncle would “cross the bridge of compromise” from both directions. He would always pray for some family that traveled endlessly – a family only known as the “Mercies.” I do not know who those “traveling Mercies” were. I do not believe they ever arrived at a destination, but actually just migrated around from place to place. I always wanted to be one of them. I only hoped, wherever they were on any given Thanksgiving, that they were not looking down at a plate of food with their mouths watering, listening to an uncle go on and on about “Shadrach, Meshach and Tobedwego,” the “rose of Zion,” or the “road to heaven being so narrow with a wide gate.”
     I do not know where it is written, but I grew up believing that a Thanksgiving Day prayer had to include a prayer of thanksgiving, praise, adoration, intercession, confession, a period of pleading, a moment of silence, a slew of monster words that were reserved only for cooling off the dressing, and an all too-often insertion of the words “Lord,” “Jesus,” and “Father” wherever there was a gap in need of a word. I have always identified with Moses standing on Mount Nebo, not being able to enter the Promised Land, yet watching as the Children of Israel crossed the Jordan River at the foot of the mountain. He was right there at paradise but was prevented from entering. He could smell the cranberry sauce, but was prevented from eating due to some religious barricade.
     Then, there was a year when the “praying uncle” had arranged for an aunt, with a particularly flat sense of melody, to enter into a chorus of “The Lord’s Prayer” just after he had faithfully jumped into the dark chasm of trust, climbed to the top of the mountain of consternation, and navigated the treacherous river filled with the temptation of pride. I have never been one to think much about purgatory, but I almost became a believer as she reminded me of my need for “daily bread,” the likes of which I was pretty sure I would never get.
     I know the preacher regularly declared that we should hunger and thirst for righteousness' sake, (and I will confess that I don’t know much about this), but I do remember fully knowing what it was to hunger and thirst for a little piece of white meat, a fork full of beans, some dressing with gravy, or a little dot of cranberry sauce to alight on my tongue and slowly slide down my throat.
     Now, as an adult, I know that these lessons of longing for something that was just out of reach were a great training ground for a person who would long for God’s Kingdom and would look for signs of the Kingdom breaking forth in every little act of love, moment of hope, and episode of reconciliation. I sometimes believe that the Lord will come, and The Kingdom will be present in just the next moment, but the moment comes, and I am left wanting and waiting; unfulfilled, but having faith in fulfillment that is near.
     We are a Kingdom People, and we wait for the fulfillment. We long for light to come, for darkness to be destroyed, and for hope to fill our souls. We wait for a Messiah to order this earth and to make the roads level. Thanksgiving is the training ground of the banquet that is to come. With heads bowed, taste buds at the ready, and souls needing daily bread, we anticipate and wait.

Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

November 4, 2009 - Where Can I Find a Figgy?

     Everybody is talking about Christmas Traditions and how we have to have a “blown glass pickle” hidden in our tree ‘cause of some Spanish legend from the 18th century, a “Bohemian Coffee Cake” ‘cause of some legend of some Trinity angels’ encounter with a nut tree and Santa Claus’ sleigh in the 17th century, and a “yule log” smoldering in the fire place ‘cause of some pagan custom that predates Jesus Christ himself. I once helped a friend put together a yule log for his family. We soaked this oak log in water so it would burn slowly, drilled holes to stuff in herbs and spruce needles, and placed it just so in the fireplace so it would serve its purpose. 'Wound up having a wet log that would not burn, smelling for all the world like somebody had put pine tar in the cinnamon jar.
People go plum silly with Christmas traditions, which brings to mind the notion of a “sugar plum”: when was the last time you saw such a thing. Did you know that a sugar plum does not have a trace of a plum in it, but that it is really a bunch of sugar-coated seeds? And, there is a silly tradition of chestnuts roasting over an open fire. I once put some chestnuts in an open fire, only to get a burned lip and a mushy nut that tasted like a plaster dumplin’. This makes me think of “fruit cakes,” and this is most surely not a pleasant thought; or of “ginger bread," which, when topped with lemon custard, is actually one of the best Christmas traditions I can imagine. But then please tell me, from where did eggnog come? This spiced and creamy beverage tastes pretty good, but there is no mystery behind its seasonal popularity since you could put kitty litter in a mixture that was seventy-five percent cream, with lots of sugar and nutmeg, and that concoction would be a hit in any house.
     Christmas season is also the “beeswax” season. Everybody has to have beeswax: beeswax in this candle holder, in the menorah, in the figurine scene, or in the hand lotion. Beeswax measures the person. If you don’t have beeswax candles, don't you know, you just don’t measure up. Of course, all you have to do to remedy this lack of beeswax is go out and buy some beeswax candles. Having beeswax candles is as easy as pulling out a dollar. It does not mean you have bees or anything. And then there is that illusion of Christmas odor that reminds me of a Hallmark Christmas Card.           Potpourri is a bizarre mixture of organic matter and oils to make a person think you are cooking with cinnamon, apples, allspice, and other spices. Potpourri is simply a front that shamelessly tells all that we are not cooking with any of those things. The effect is to resemble the smell of mulled cider, which is a good thing, but which requires work to produce and is seldom found in any home. Potpourri points to a Christmas Tradition that we actually do not do.
     Christmas Tradition includes the hanging of artificial facsimile sleigh bells on the wall like we own a sleigh or something, or have fond memories of childhood sleigh rides we took in our snow-covered villages. The only sleigh I personally ever see is on a beer commercial. We see pictures in magazines of fire-lit toddies in beautiful glasses of “buttered rum,” which sounds good but in actuality tastes like a greasy medicine and will make you fat with a headache. We make plans for flaming brandy over figgy pudding, sadly forgetting that most of us would not know where to get a “figgy” and somehow denying the truth that flaming foods will burn our eyebrows off of our faces.
     The Moravians do Christmas Tradition better than anybody I know. Their “Love Feasts” are moments to be cherished, their music is to be relished, and their Moravian Cookies are to be eaten in great stacks with tea. But do not try to duplicate what the Moravians "have down" (to a fine art). No one else can pull off a proper “Love Feast." The Moravian Bands rehearse all year long, while other bands are just thrown together; and, if you try to make Moravian Cookies, you will have to go to the hospital for muscle strain, cartilage damage, and pulled ligaments. Visit the Moravians at Christmas, but do not believe you can "become one" for a season: you can’t, and attempting this feat will only frustrate you.
     I have never seen an elf. I will not spend time thinking about any critter that does not have a football team named after it. I will also not spend time pondering a reindeer. I would not mind eating one, but I will not have a replica of one in my front yard, since they do not live here. I will not, even for a moment, think about a partridge in a pear tree, the meaning of “lords a-leaping”, or “maids a-milking.”
     Traditions are things we do not buy at the store, believe are real because a magazine told us so, or are fed to us by a far-off country (unless that country is our country of origin). Traditions are the things we do with our families, in our communities, and in our churches, that pass down doctrine, custom, story, and belief from one generation to another. Traditions are not phony, artificial, or purchased. To have tradition, you must embrace “your” tradition.
     If you want Christmas Tradition, then consider joining a church family, attending worship regularly together, praying often, studying the Holy Bible, becoming involved in a mission, enlarging your family by including a “discarded” neighbor, and letting Christmas become more than a retail moment. Our traditions should reflect all that is good within us and all that we want our children to inherit.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

October 28, 2009 - The Kingdom Quilt

     I often sleep under a quilt that was planned and orchestrated by my grandmother. It is a patchwork quilt made of small pieces of fabric that she sewed together to make a larger piece of fabric. This is the ultimate frugal act of a person who lived through the Great Depression and who had a hard time ever throwing anything away. The act of wasting a product, or any material, was always a sin worse than gossiping, the latter, actually and often acceptable, since it was explained away as sharing only out of concern for the implicated individual's soul.
     The small pieces of the quilt fabric are recognizable to me even after 50 years. The original uses of the larger pieces of fabric were to make house dresses, bonnets, or aprons. I especially remember the house dresses. Maybe you can remember the house dresses. These were dresses with collars, a button up front, and a couple of large patch pockets that always contained a mint, a kerchief, Tube Rose snuff, and a pair of scissors. I do not know why these were the things in the pockets, but they were always there and regularly in use.
     The patchwork quilt feels like family. The two outsides were pieced together from little scraps with a foot-pumped sewing machine by my grandmother in her attempt to make a warm blanket for not much money. I remember sleeping at my grandmother’s house on cold winter nights. I always slept in the front room, a room reserved for guests. On those cold and dark winter nights, after the sun disappeared, the circulating oil furnace was turned down, and the wood stove was allowed to burn down to coals, it was not long before a wise person figured out that when the house got cold, the only warm place to go was beneath the quilts on the bed. Grandmother would turn down the quilts in the front room, and I would slide underneath them. Notice I refer to “quilts.” One quilt was never enough. Grandmother would turn each quilt back up, tucking the encasement around my neck, layer by layer, until weight would be noticeable. Finally, lying under three or four quilts, a child encased beneath this remarkable weight was prevented from moving even a fraction of an inch in any direction. The resultant effect of this tucking-in was a warm feeling of security against a dark and cold night.
     I remember quilts being made. Once the two sides of small pieces of material were transformed into a large piece of cloth after miles of seams, the actual quilting began. The batting was sandwiched between both sides of patchwork fabric and then the whole thing was rolled up on a large frame, so only about 18 inches of the middle section was visible. When the framed contraption was suspended from the porch ceiling, my grandmother and aunts would gather on both sides with chalk, needles, thread, scissors, Tube Rose snuff, and finger thimbles. With deft and artistic fingers, the gathered family would work in unison, using chalk to mark out scallop arches that would then be “quilted,” to secure the batting between the sides, unrolling the completed quilt a foot or so at a time. As the women worked, they would take full advantage of the snuff and scissors in their house dress pockets, they would talk about old things in the past, new gossip of sinful souls in the present, and their quilting would be a warm hope for the times to come.
     My quilt is old and a bit frayed. I am very careful with it. One part of one edge has been damaged and repaired, causing a couple of gaps in the side. I am not sure how it was damaged, but it appears that fire may have been the culprit. I can imagine this quilt getting too close to a woodstove or a fire resulting in a little charred edge that was later repaired, since you will remember nothing was thrown away. These events all happened long before I received the quilt. These are memories only to which the quilt can witness.
     When I lie under the quilt, I can imagine the hands that constructed it. I can remember the pieces of cloth that are the material of the construction. I still, to this day, benefit from the work of unseen hands of thrifty and generous souls, who in the past provided for all the unknown sleepers in the future. Sleeping under this quilt is cathartic and comforting. I do not know of the actual work and plan, but I benefit from the physical evidence on cold nights.
     Surely this quilt is not unlike the gift of the Creator for us. This physical cloth offering is not far from the cathartic evidence of God’s unseen hand in our lives and in God’s provision in the places where we live. How could it be possible for us to ever move far from the bounty of our Savior? Where could we go to be away from God’s mercy and grace?
Psalm 139:7-12 “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend to heaven, thou are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, thou art there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, ‘Let only darkness cover me, and the light about me is night,; even the darkness is not dark to thee, the night is bright as the day; for darkness is as light with thee.”
 Unseen hands, gracious provision, comfort and peace, and evidence of a source that is greater than our own workings: this gift is the great message today for a people who are prone to take such faithful provision for granted, and who too often believe that all that we have is due to our own wisdom and strength. Perhaps our accepting the patchwork gracious quilt of God as a true gift is the first step to knowing God’s kingdom in this life.   
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

October 14, 2009 - A Truth Worth Noticing

     Moses was on the run. He was tending sheep for his father-in-law in a wilderness area far from the notice of any official-minded person. He was alone, finishing his second cup of coffee for the morning. The sheep were beginning to wander away from their just-eaten patch of grass to a fresh patch a little ways away. Moses had lived with this daily routine for days, weeks, and years. He had done it all, seen it all, and been by this same non-distinct valley every year for who-knows-how-many-years. There was nothing special about this day.
     Then, in Exodus 3, we learn that the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a fire in a bush, and the bush was not consumed. Out of the regular and usual day, Moses met God. It would not be their only meeting, but it was the first. However, “The” most dramatic part of the story is neither the angel nor the flame in the non-consumed bush, but that we learn that “he looked.” We must not downplay these two little words that are the pivotal movement in the history of the Judeo-Christian world.
     I have to wonder how many other bushes the angel appeared in as a fire on days when Moses did not look. How many other ways did God appear to Moses in even more evident episodes when Moses was too busy, too consumed with other things, and too rutted in the day-to-day routine to ever notice? How many years did God pursue Moses before Moses took the opportunity to look beyond the world right in front of his nose to see something of a revelatory nature just off in the distance?
We live most of our lives sequestered away in our own little tightly-fitted, organized, and routined world. We accept the day as it comes, do the cycled chores in the proper sequence, always have clean socks, know what is in every drawer, and carry the flamed torch of the new day of God with the same zest that we roll the garbage bin to the road on pick-up day.
     I am convinced that a little noticing goes further to advance the world than all the directed intelligence we can organize. I am convinced that accidentally burned coffee beans resulted in French Roast Coffee only after the errant negligence of the roaster was percolated and noticed to have a rich and full-bodied flavor. This particular event was neither the first time coffee beans had been burned nor the first time the roaster had been negligent. This episode was, rather, the first time someone stopped to notice.
     How many times do you believe the Scottish-born doctor, Sir Alexander Fleming, had seen common bread mold in his everyday life? How many times did he pick around the green spots in a sandwich or throw out a loaf due to the bacterial growth? Only when he one day “noticed” the reaction of Staphylococcus aureus when in proximity to Penicillium notatum, did he notice the health benefits of true antibacterial medication that is commonly known in today’s world. He had not arisen that morning with the directed and ordered intent to discover this world changing medication, but due to his taking the time to notice, the world was forever, for the better, changed.
     All of the great gifts in life require time and notice. Education is nothing more than hanging around until you catch on. Love is the blind belief in something greater than yourself which overcomes all trivial and trite egotism and selfishness. Faith is belief in the quiet truth that we cannot see in the face of the blaring lie that we can see. Joy is the moment of peace we stumble upon in the darkness of a forlorn day.
     All of God’s great gifts must be noticed. None of God’s gifts can be planned, organized, and orchestrated. We are simply required to stop, take the time, and notice.
     Two young men were walking along a quiet road in Palestine hours after the rumors were circulating that Jesus was alive again after being crucified. As they walked, a third man walked with them. It was evident he had not heard the great news of the day, and they went to lengths to tell him all about the gossip. They finally came to a fork in the road and turned to go to their destination. The third man did not take the fork in the road and proceeded down the original road. The two men invited him to join them in the hospitality of a comfortable evening rather than spending the night on the long lonely road alone. The third man accepted their offer. It was only later that they learned that the very “Jesus” they had been talking about was the same risen man who walked with them. They had walked with Jesus and not noticed.
     How many days does Jesus come and walk with us without our ever noticing? Take a moment to see the miracle God has for you today.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

October 7, 2009 - You Can Smell the Old Testament

     The fall of the year is an Old Testament time of the year. Fall is a time of remembering, conjuring up memories of past experiences, a time when musty old stories can be as easily smelled in their telling as they can be heard in their telling. Fall is when the past comes to life again.
     Just recently I was in a store where I happened by a bunch of plastic-covered cardboard notebooks. The new plastic was doing what new plastic does by giving off the pungent smell of new plastic. In that moment, I was caught by surprise and taken back to Miss Grogan’s third grade classroom. The classroom was a linear room with high ceilings, radiator heat, wood and metal desks in five straight rows of six chairs each, and two extra desks on each end of the teacher's desk for her two lowest students, 32 children per class, and huge slate blackboards right up in front. In that store on that day I had a “Nifty” notebook remembrance. Those new plastic notebooks in the store took me back some 50 years with only a casual smell.
     While driving near the foot of the Appalachians last week, I drove through a little valley where I was suddenly transported back to tobacco fields, flue-cured tobacco barns, and the dusty smell of thousands of strung-up leaves hanging in the heat. The wafting aroma was the smell of a flue-cured tobacco barn that someone had fired up. This sweet and thick smell is a smell that is only seldom smelled today, but is a long ago memory evidenced by early morning patches of low-lying smoke in calm-air valleys. Flue-curing was a process whereby the bright green leaves filled with moisture would be gently dried til' they turned a bright gold and hung brittle in the barn.
     The fall of the year is a time to remember, and remembering is what the Old Testament is all about. We too often read the Old Testament stories as a history book of how a group of people, back there, “lived” with their God, how their God “lived” with them. We make a mistake and read the Old Testament history as if it were written like a textbook, a term paper, or a dissertation for a degree. To us, it is possible that the Old Testament writings can become stagnant, in their black and white and recorded format.
     We think of history in the third person, as recollections occurred to “them.” When we think of history, we say things like, “’they’ lived in Canaan,” or “the enemy attacked ‘them.’” For us, history is a thing of the past. But for the Jew and the Old Testament, history exists in the present. A proper reading of the Old Testament should say, “Moses delivered ‘us’ from Egypt,” or “’we’ wandered in the wilderness,” for each Jew, and Christian, bears within herself or himself the results of the past. The books we call the Old Testament are living books of faith.
     Historians hate this kind of living history. Historians want events recorded in a pristine fashion, once and for all, with all current or popular interpretations stripped away. Historians like their history as dry and matter-of-fact like a valley of dried and scattered bones.
     But the Old Testament is not that kind of history. The Old Testament books are a history and wisdom of “us,” a compilation of memories that are continually inviting “us” to live in "them," to smell the smells, to walk the walk, to feel the presence of God, and to remember our generational walk through time with God.
      If, when you read a portion of the Old Testament, you find yourself being pulled into the story, feel free to go there. Our spiritual ancestors are continually inviting us back to experience the redemption, grace, deliverance, and creation of a God who remembers our covenants even if we refuse to do so. The Old Testament does not as much teach us, as the recollections call us to remember.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

September 30, 2009 - Truths of a Confirmation Class

     I would like to report some of the things I have learned in Confirmation Classes over the years. I don’t mean things I learned when I was “in” Confirmation Class. I am referring to the things I have learned while “teaching” Confirmation Class. I mostly believe “I” am the student, and “they” are the teachers.
     I have learned that if you use the letters in “Presbyterians” you can spell the name “Britney Spears.” This is obviously a Sunday-at-11 a.m. discovery made by a group of girls in a balcony, during some long and boring sermon, who after making the discovery, giggled out loud with their inspired and revelatory discovery and were soon punished by their parents. Aren’t all great and inspired revelations greeted with scorn and misunderstanding?
 This revelation somehow seems to give the “Presbyterians” an advantage over the “Methodists” with the 8-to-14 aged girls sect. I can only make out the name “Theo D. Smit” from the letters of “Methodist.” I doubt "Theo" will ever become as popular as Britney Spears, whoever he is.
     I had one sage student who pointed out that William Shakespeare wrote the King James Version of the Bible. He told the story of how King James liked Shakespeare, and they were great friends, and when it came time to translate his Bible, old KJ asked his friend, Shakespeare, if he could help out. Shakespeare said "Yes," and in “one fell swoop” (Macbeth) the rest is history. I was not convinced by this account until he showed me the proof in the Bible. He had found that Psalm 46 is the middle chapter in the Bible (if you equally work your way in from both ends), and the 46th word, from the beginning of the reading of Psalm 46, is the word “shake," and the 46th word into the reading from the end of Psalm 46 is “speare”. Are you convinced?
     This discovery is obviously a discovery made by an 11 a.m. Sunday group of boys sitting in a balcony during a boring sermon, close to some giggling girls, at some church where the KJV is the only Bible allowed.
     I even had one cosmological confirmation student who had discovered where hell was located. Supposedly, while waiting in a boring checkout line in the grocery store, the grandmother of this young confirmand looked up at one of the “reputable” newspapers that had the heading, “Researchers record the screams of the damned.” She bought the paper and, sure enough, there in black and white, with a picture of the drilling squad, was a story by Dr. Assacov who, while drilling a 14.4 kilometer hole in the Russian frozen north, broke through to hell, where he and his crew heard the screams of the damned. The story goes on to reveal that, unfortunately, the “microphone” located on the end of the drilling rig – fortunately and for some reason, the Russians seem to think it is important to place microphones at the end of their drilling rigs – only recorded 17 seconds of the screams before it melted in the 2,000 degree heat. The team is still trying to find a non-melting microphone that will allow some conversations with the “damned.”
     When I sloughed this off as nothing more than a myth, two other confirmands spoke up and said they had seen it documented on a local “Christian Broadcasting Network.” I soon lost control of that class session as the confirmation class got all excited and began planning to take a field trip to Russia where they could look down the hole. I offered them the exciting alternative of meeting the Bishop in the place of going to Hell in Russia, but it was too little too late. They were consumed with the joy of looking into hell rather than meeting a great leader of the church. (I have to admit that I kind of wanted to go with them.)
     I believe, if I continue to teach Confirmation Class, I will eventually become the most knowledgeable person in church. I have begun to believe that there is more revelation, even if it is skeptical and meaningless, that comes more from boredom than from instruction.
     I am a little upset that we think finding “Britney Spears” in an obscure letter shuffle is more important than finding “Jesus” spelled correctly, that we worry about who translated the Bible rather than receiving the message it brings, and that we are enthralled by a discovery of hell more than we are excited about a way to heaven. But take heart: these confirmands will grow up and become the adults of the church tomorrow and will be God’s inspired teachers and evangelists to pass on the faith to the next generation. “Inquiring minds want to know.”
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

September 23, 2009 - Ree-Aah-Ree-Aah

     Some people believe, and I am one of them, that the State Bird of North Carolina should be the cicada. I have no dislike for the Cardinal and I certainly believe they are nice enough birds but the Cicada is more prevalent, has more of a song, is present for long periods of time even before you see or hear it, and when it is out and about is one of the most “in your face” critters I have ever known.
Cicadas are pretty common. You can find them in Greece, Australia, China, Korea, in desserts, tropical paradises, and the north woods. Cicadas are everywhere and they are everywhere loud. They are remarkable as possibly the longest living insect (out lived only by the termite queen) and they are the loudest animal, per pound, in the world.
     The Robin may be a harbinger of spring and when we see the Robin we know warm weather is coming. But when we see and hear the cicada we know that we had better grab all the summer we can, for autumn is just around the bend. One common variety of cicada is the “Dogday Harvestfly,” since they appear during the dog days of summer (when it is so hot you want to crawl under the car for some shade) and just at the beginning of harvest time (when farm life becomes the busiest).
And did I say they were loud. The chirp of the male cicada looking for a female mate has been described as a 12-inch chain saw cutting through a 24-inch dried oak stump Their squawk is a whine that rises and falls in pitch, a synchronized buzzing, and the model for the European police siren (reee-aaah-reee-aaah). Their abdominal cacophony of sounds repel birds, their natural enemies, and has caused a few humans to go insane. The cicadas’ constant chorus is the “boom, boom, boom car” of the insect world. Their whir is nothing more than a loud muffler on the car of an available young male. It takes the cicada most of their lifetime to get their songs all in tune and harmonized just in time for them to die after being an adult for no more than 14 days.
     Some call the cicadas the 14-year locust since some types live as an adolescent for 14 years while nursing underground on tree sap. Other species live in the ground for only a few years. But whether we agree or not, the cicada mimics the human being by acting like an adolescent the great majority of their life (up to 14 years) and becoming an adult only for a few moments (no more than 2 weeks).
     You hardly ever see a cicada, unless one is found dead on the ground. The adult cicadas spend most of their life atop trees, but you find evidence of them in the “pork rind”-like nymphal skins they leave affixed to the sides of trees as they emerge from adolescence to adults.
     I like cicadas. I cannot remember late summer life without them. They are a part of my seasonal ritual. But for all of us, the cicada reminds us of some pretty important lessons. They remind us that life is short and we had better be up and about while in it. They remind us that being a novice adolescent most of your life is OK and that it is all a learning episode with juvenile mistakes being expected. They remind us that making noise to get what you want is a part of life and we should speak up when we have something to say. Most of all the cicada reminds us that it is time to get up, get busy, and do whatever it is that we think is so important to do. Life is short. We get only one chance. Winter is coming. This is our time and our opportunity.
     The cicada reminds me that I must immediately prepare, order my life, take inventory of my failings, and weaknesses, stand up for causes I believe are important, and as Mark the Gospel writer would say “straightway” remember that there is more to life than what I can see and know now. The Cicada is John the Baptist singing a song declaring, “Prepare,” for the time is short!
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

September 16, 2009 - The Heat of Church

    It was the longest hour of the week. The vents of the stained glass windows were opened as far as they would swing in, which made an air hole about the size of a fourth of a sheet of newspaper. There were eight such holes in the whole sanctuary. That was the only outside air that God could use to bring a little relief to the faithful who were visiting God’s house. It was obvious we had not given God enough to work with.

    There were no air conditioners or electric fans, since that would take away from the full effect of church being a moist experience and clothes becoming increasingly ringing wet.
    Women wore hats and, in many cases, gloves. Men wore dark suits with short-sleeved shirts underneath. Some young men wore poplin or seersucker suits, (which was a mistake, since both choices of fabric wicked moisture showing growing rings of sweat under their arms, across their backs, and down their legs). Children wore the same clothes as the adults, only smaller. The preacher wore a heavy velvet robe. The choir members wore satin robes. Everyone was similarly dressed in order to collectively ignore the myth that it was 95 degrees outside, (and quickly rising), and that the humidity was at total saturation
    Men wiped their brow with a bandana. Women dotted their cheeks with a “kerchief.” Children slept with their hot heads on their mamas' laps.
    Hand-powered fans were stuck in the hymnal racks for the unprepared, men and children. These bent-eared and floppy cardboard on a tongue depressor fans had wonderful scenes of Jesus with the children, or Moses holding up the tablets, or David playing a harp with the sheep, or Vogler’s Funeral Home. The regular women had their “whip it out” fans in their purses with scenes of Niagara Falls and Rock City on the outspread sides. The rhythmically-moving fans were the only signs of life in the church, since any movement meant the burning of calories, which resulted in increased thermal units that would add degrees to the smothering and humid experience of worship. I remember wondering if this was what it must be like to have malaria.
    We never had enough hymnals. We had to share, which brought us closer together during hymn time and reading time, (such times were always preceded by the sound of the backs of little girls’ legs barking squelches as they scooted to the edge of the lacquered pews to stand with the adults.)
The only congregants who never seemed to mind the weather were the boys and girls who sat in the balcony, with minds on other things than worship, side by side, almost touching, writing notes to each other in the margins of the bulletin, while carving their names in the pews.
    Any wisp of air that found its way into the rectangular portals of the stained glass windows fell on the faithful like the cool springs of Gihon, the stormy winds of the Sea of Geneserat, or the snow capped peak of Mount Herman.
    We were the lost Children of Israel in the purposeful but makeshift temple in the parched wilderness of Sinai. We were the wandering Bedouin Arameans traveling with their goats, sheep, and families to where the grass was green. We were Ishmael lying on the hot sand with a searing stone for a pillow, dreaming of a cool place where he could be joined to a family. We were Jonah sitting on the hillside above Nineveh waiting for the broom tree to grow some shade. We knew what it was like to be a deer panting for water. We knew what it was to thirst for righteousness sake, and we hoped this "righteousness" was cool and refreshing.
    I do not remember what the preacher ever talked about, but I remember the back of the pew in front of our pew and every grain in the wood, nail hole in the offering envelope holder, page number in the Cokesbury Hymnal, pattern in the linoleum tile under my feet, and the joy I received at coloring in, with the provided little red putt-putt pencil, all the closed loops in the “Os,” “Ps,” “Ds,” “Bs,” “Rs,” “Qs,” and “As” in the bulletin.
    And when I was done checking out all the nuances of the pew in front of us and coloring in the loops, I would sit there with my hymnal opened to the last hymn, ready, willing, and able to get on with it as soon as the preacher gave the organist a chance to play it.
    This was called “church," and the activity was “worship,” and it was the longest hour of the week. No one ever complained. No one ever stayed home because of the weather. The sanctuary was always full. No one was ever embarrassed by the wet rings on their clothes, and it seemed like the wind always blew cool when we were past the preacher and out the door, with our coats off and hanging over our shoulder, talking with our worship family outside in the grass and parking lot.
This was just the way it was, and it was worth it, for it is always worth it when God’s family comes together to worship. It is the way a child is supposed to be raised – the way a community comes together. It is the way a family is made. It is how God knows we care. All of the most important things should also be the longest things.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

September 9, 2009 - The Inheritance of a Bunion

     Receiving an inheritance is a great thing. The Bible is full of individuals who received a great inheritance. The Prodigal Son comes to mind as the principle New Testament character who received, albeit before his time, a great inheritance. The Old Testament characters were often known as to whom their father was and what they received as an inheritance. A great inheritance is passed from Abraham to Isaac, Isaac to Jacob, who later became Israel, (who had 12 sons and was the father of the 12 Tribes of Israel, even though his son, Joseph, was sold into slavery by his brothers, causing Joseph to miss out on his inheritance; yet, Joseph then saved his family from starving while being a government official in Egypt, causing Israel to adopt Joseph’s two sons Manessah and Ephraim, who later inherited two shares of his father’s inheritance, and minus Levi’s family who never inherited any land since they were the priests and would live off of the various offerings in the temple, with no inheritance to the rightful heir, Esau). I guess you can see how complicated this whole inheritance thing can get.

     I have a genetic inheritance that has come to me from more generations than I care to remember. This inheritance is with me every day, and I never go anywhere without it. My great inheritance is my feet (are my feet?, is my dogs? Well, you get the picture.). I get my feet from a long line of genetic and orthopedic catastrophes. My feet are big, twisted, hoofed, gnarled, callused, and a little bit more than ugly. I once saw a set of 4,000 year-old-feet on a mummy that I envied. My feet have been stepped on by horses, broken by sports, and made flat by whatever it is that makes feet flat.
     My uncle has hobbled around barefooted for years. He ruined his knees trying to walk on feet that were not made for shoes. He has a closet full of shoes that were supposed to be comfortable. All attempts at finding a comfortable pair of shoes have resulted in a piled higher and deeper floor covering of unused leather, canvas, and rubber configurations mounding up close to his hanging shirt-tails. Recently, he accidently put a pair of shoes on the wrong feet, only to find them to be much more comfortable than when they were placed on the appropriate feet. Now he wears his shoes on the wrong feet and has shown such a recovery, that he is preparing to run in a marathon in October.
I recently visited a Nike store that boasted 24,000 pairs of shoes in inventory. I had looked for two years for a pair of shoes that would fit, and I told the Nike sales boys this fact when I entered and then exclaimed, “I am not leaving until I am able to find a pair of shoes that fit.” The salesmen smirked a haughty, condescending, and overconfident little “Hhhmmhhhhhm” and glanced at each other as if I was an unknowing bumpkin. Then I pulled off my shoes and showed them my feet, and you should have seen them run for cover. One brave soul, the little guy with the least seniority, gently ushered me to the loading dock by the dumpster while trying to convince me that this was some form of private fitting room with a scenic location. I know in my heart that they believed my feet would be a sales and marketing nightmare within a line of sight of the other patrons.
     Box after box of shoes came through that loading dock door, only to be sent back to inventory. Finally, an old dusty box was brought out. The shoes inside were a hideous color with duct tape for laces, no arch support, inserts that felt like delta mud, a heel cup that was cut from a plastic milk jug, and with adjustable bunion pads made out of gopher fur. The shoes were perfect. The little shoe salesperson was relieved. I bought them. They may look like a 1975 American Motor’s “Gremlin” after a demolition derby, dyed the color of old meat loaf, with ketchup, but the fit is heaven.
     Which brings me to the point of this story. Heaven is our inheritance from God. Heaven is what we get by being faithful and living as Jesus lived. Heaven may be called Kingdom, Mansion, Banquet, Glory Land, Zion, or New Jerusalem. Whatever you call it, the promise is that we will be with God and that we will be home. The one joy that means so much to me is that finally, and truthfully, I believe that “one size fits all.” It is a clean and sweet gift that God offers to everyone.
     Hebrews 9:15 refers to our inheritance as an “eternal promise” filled with “redemption.” Earthly inheritances are a mixed blessing. But God’s inheritance is a gift that is free and waiting for you. The fit is heavenly!
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

September 2, 2009 - Here Come the Freshpersons

     It is almost the time of the year when we will receive our annual dose of freshperson wisdom as our 18- and 19-year-old college students come home for their first visits after having spent a good two weeks getting all wise and profound. I cannot wait to hear all the important information they will have amassed in a few short hours under the tutelage of the masters. They left us with just enough wisdom to get themselves into a school, and they will come back with “like, you know, to us with, like, every problem in the, you know, world solved, having, like, met the most, you know, influential people in the, like, universe.”

     These freshpersons will come home all smug and sophisticated, reporting that their roommate’s father has a patent on latex paint, or their new best friend has a trust fund worth billions and is going to give our freshperson a few million just for being alive, (meaning that the freshperson does not need to find summer employment), and the person who sits beside them in freshman English has a third cousin, whose old boyfriend used to be a part-time hair stylist for Johnny Depp. In their high-nosed sort of way, they will look down at all of us common people as if we are only “ordinary” and know nothing of the sophisticated world of the elite.
     Freshpersons have discovered that all of those lessons in hard work, loyalty, careful lifestyle, and dues-paying, were just words in the wind. In a short time, our wise freshperson has bridged all the major gaps in personal finance, (even though they have bounced three checks in so many months); lifestyle, (using fake IDs); career, (a slight commitment that pays loads); and family values, (“Like, I want to, like, live in, like, Manhattan, and, like, have 5 children and, like, live in a big house with, like, a wrap-around porch, like, you know.”).
     A mother and father of a freshperson can expect irregular sleeping habits, (up at 11:30 a.m. and to bed at 2:30 a.m.), wise words on politics, morality, personal hygiene, and etiquette all learned from a fraternity brother named “Barfy," sorority sister named “Cotton Mouth,” or a suite-mate named “Buffy” or “Gnute.”
     Every now and then, a freshperson will come home in total admiration of the great wisdom and work ethic of their parents, but more times than not, the freshperson will bemoan any career that requires more than four hours a day (three days a week), any occasional weekend work, or any night worries of the upcoming day. After all, they have heard from good sources that the world suddenly needs thousands of video game inventors, who can work for five years at home while wearing PJs and eating “Fruity Pebbles, retiring at the age of 27 to play golf and shop the rest of their life. They have also heard that the burgeoning “car pimping” industry is just waiting for them to get two years of college, so they can quit and bring their expertise to California where they will make millions detailing the cars of the rich and famous, “Peace Out.”
     But the scariest scenario of all are those who have looked at all the careers in the world and have decided to become a “politician.” I was thinking just the other day, “We sure do need a few more ‘politicians’ in this world.”
     After their educated examination of more than a few decades of our living, learning, and paying our way in this world, a college freshperson, in just a few weeks, has discovered all the loopholes, fallacies, prejudices, inconsistencies, “isms,” and shallow futility of every chore and job we can imagine. Then, on top of our great fortune at their sudden clear vision, most have figured out the solutions to all the world’s great problems and every domestic issue.
We know how our freshperson will be at that first Fall break, because most of us can remember how it felt to officially come home for that first time. We remember our great freedom at having stretched our wings, making our first flight as an “adult.” We also remember reality setting in as, after a few years, we learned more of the world to add to our first brief glimpse.
     Through time, we came to know that some of the ideals we learned as freshpersons were worth holding on to, other ideals were worth building on, but many premature dreams were escape plans to avoid real life due to fear. Living independently as an adult in this big old place can be a scary thought. Freshpersons have just caught their first real view of the vast and deep pool where they are expected to swim. Many were raised to be big fish in a small pond, where everything from community and home was orchestrated with their well-being in mind, only to discover they have become a diatom in an ocean, where few care whether a person sinks or swims. This dawning realization is a rude awakening to real first-time fear.
     And even though they will never admit it, a freshperson has just learned exactly how much they do not know, and how it feels to seem like the most lonely and insignificant person in this big old world.
Our job is to listen to their “wisdom," nod our heads approvingly, and see in them the valuable and mature person they will become. Our job is to see the Child of God who has learned the value of taking risks and facing their fears head-on. It was freshperson Abraham, who claimed his wife was his sister; freshperson Moses, who misused his powers for the sake of a dare; freshperson Martin Luther, who worked himself into a gastronomical frenzy over the Pope; freshperson John Wesley, who came close to being tarred and feathered for the sake of a broken love interest; and a freshman future-preacher I know, who almost got caught in a few despicable behaviors due to what he assumed was great wisdom, but in reality was nothing more than childish idiocies.
     Freshpersons are so fresh, that they are like a persimmon hanging on a tree in early September, having no immediate use, but holding the promise of a great pudding in the near future.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com

August 26, 2009 - The Dog Done Licked My Pork Chop

     I have just finished doing an extensive study of Albert King, the blues musician, with an iPod, during an eight-hour drive. I can still hear the bass line run in my soul: Bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba bom. For eight hours, this strand of melancholy ran through my ears, the blues making me so depressed that I began to view the world as a hopeless place where my dog is gonna leave me and my wife is gonna bite me on the heel; where the credit union is gonna cut me off, and my boss is gonna marry my mama. “Oh, good Lord, have mercy on me,” is the plea.

     Keep that “bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba bom” bass rhythm in your head as you hear some of the blues I have learned. “Can’t you see what you are doing to me baby? They say you are going to leave darlin’, bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba bom. I ain’t got no time to play. Everybody wants to laugh, ain’t nobody want to cry, bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba bom, everybody want to hear the truth, but everybody just want to lie, bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba bom, everybody want to go to heaven, ain’t no body want to die.
     Albert taught me about “distrust” in a rainy night song, “Layin’ around home alone…on a rainy night like this…starving for your lovin’…longin’ for one kiss.” Or when Albert sang, “The sky is cryin’ baby…look at the tears roll down the street…I been looking for my baby…and I wonder where can she be…I saw my baby early one morning…and she was walking on down the street… You done hurt me so bad…it made my poor heart skip a beat.”
     Albert taught me about "bad fortune" with, “I went to work this morning…my foreman looked me in the eye…he said fellow I don’t know what is wrong with you…but you look sick enough to die. He sent me to the company doctor…and he examined me from head to toe…he said whatever is wrong with you young man…my x-rays just ain’t gonna show. Angel of mercy…won’t you look down on me…a little mercy is all I need. The finance company…they just garnered my check. They said they want a payment by Friday…or they just want all my money back. I went to the credit union to get myself a loan…they say I would let you have it young man but it says here you won’t be working here for long. Angel of mercy…won’t you please look down on me…a little mercy is all I need.”
     Are you inserting some of those “bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba boms” into some of these lyrics?
     I learned that I could feel so low that, “I’m going down baby…my nose is in the sand…
a cloud of dust just came over me…and I think I am drowning on dry land.”
     I love the blues, for they tell about the pains of this life. Blues singers would be nothing if it weren’t for bad luck, betraying women, lost jobs, broken hearts, and rainy nights. They surely frame life in this world as if there is no hope.
     It is for this reason that I have never heard a blues song about our relationship with God. Somehow, a blues song and a godly life just don’t go together. God is not a part of betrayal, bad fortune, bad blood, deals made with the devil at the crossroads, or broken hearts. If God were in a blues song, the song would be about glory, joy, peace, healing, deep hearts, and righteousness. A godly blues song would suddenly become a godly gospel song. A godly blues song would deal with the cure and not the wallowing around in the miry clay of despair. And so we sing for joy because God has brought joy to our broken hearts.
     So here is my godly joy song, “Bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba bom, My dog done licked my pork chop, ba bom ba ba bom, my sorry tails been a draggin’ all day, ba bom ba ba bom, I ain’t nothing but a hound dog, ba bom ba ba bom, and I don’t know the meaning of ‘stay.’ Bom…ba bom…ba bom…ba bom ba ba bom, Then Jesus laid his hands upon me, ba bom ba ba bom, and the nighttime turned to day, ba bom ba ba bom, it’s raining outside in buckets, ba bom ba ba bom, but the sun shines on me all the way.”
     The blues “don’t” have a chance when faced with the truth of the day.
Rev. Dan Martin is pastor of First UMC, Hendersonville. He can be reached at moose1953@hotmail.com