Fear of God? Or fear of our friends?

Last week, I attended a meeting at church (and those who were present will remember this). At the beginning of the meeting, it was appropriate that we would have a prayer. There was one problem: no one would volunteer to lead the prayer. I'm as guilty of this as anyone else; after all, I was there, and I failed to step up, at least for the opening prayer. But something occurred to me later during the meeting: This is not the first such instance I've witnessed (and thus, been a part of).

So why is it that we don't step up to lead a prayer? Now, I'm not asking why we all don't enter ordained ministry and lead a congregation, since ordination is a different issue entirely. Why don't we want to be the person to pray in public, or not even in a small group of close friends?

Now, clearly I was multitasking during this meeting, since I was taking notes at the same time as I was examining myself about this. Here's what I came up with, at least for my own experiences:

• I'm an introvert. Say what you will about small group vs. large group, but being put on the spot for extemporaneous prayer is a tough one for an introvert, regardless of group size.
• I'm not accustomed to extemporaneous prayer. As an Episcopalian (even a non-cradle one), I've grown into the Book of Common Prayer and away from the prayer for the moment (or further so). While I can pray from memory a number of the prayers in the BCP, I'm not as good at letting the Spirit move me in prayer. It's certainly a failing, because, to some extent, I'm not surrendering myself to God in prayer.
• To some extent, I'm more afraid of people than of God. A scary thought, and certainly a failing, but it's not to say I'm not a 'God-fearer.' What it does say is that I have always feared the judgment of other people.

Ultimately, though, there is hope. There is room in the introvert for change, and there is room for the acknowledgement that no matter how much our friends love us, God loves us more.

Re-integration by parts

My name is Bob, and I've been a bad blogger. (Hi, Bob.)

I've finished what the Air Force calls "reintegration time," a period of downtime in which I'm supposed to "reintegrate" with my normal life. Now that I'm "reintegrated," I returned to work yesterday to a mountain of obsolete emails--stuff that was relevant months ago but has since expired. My job yesterday was to sift through all that to find the correspondence that actually remains relevant. If you've ever returned to an office job after a time away, you know this process.

An additional task was to sort out my calendar for the next eight months. Ordinarily, an end-of-year task like that would be to sort out the next year, but I know one thing is both set and fluid at the same time (gotta love those quantum metaphors!)--my upcoming physics PhD program, which starts in the fall. I know that I'm starting that, but the course schedule is not yet set.

One item on my calendar--and one of the "parts" of my "re-integration by parts" (a bad but favorite math joke) is a much-needed trip to visit my godparents. It seems I only get to see them about once a year--a reality of living so far from them.

I'm still taking classes at United toward a Master of Theological Studies--in fact, I'm taking a heavier load in the spring semester than I have taken in past semesters, just so I have enough done that I can conceivably finish that degree part-time while I begin work on my physics PhD. Yes, I've already been called crazy for that call...

Back from Baghdad...

I returned to Dayton yesterday afternoon, after a four-day trip from Baghdad.

I've noticed a few differences in Dayton:

• What's with all the white stuff falling from the sky?
• I didn't drive a vehicle during my deployment, so I was a little leery about getting out today. But I managed.
  
• It seems strange to see all the bright colors people are wearing. For the last four months, I've seen little more than bland earthtones, whether in clothing or in the environment.
• And it's quite nice to be able to wear regular clothing again.

Now to (re)build a life for myself...

Happy Thanksgiving from Baghdad!

As I close in toward the end of my deployment, I have quite a bit for which to be thankful. In addition my previous personal inventory (see “The Golden Ticket,” below), I’m thankful for the outpouring of support I’ve received from back home. You all really have made this experience a better one.

Anyway, lest you think this is all about being mushy, I’ll try to answer the question: So what is Thanksgiving like for a staff officer in Baghdad? Well, it was actually pretty good, or maybe I’m going a little insane—it’s a short trip. There’s still a little work, but I got to get a little of a late start—a little breakfast, then a run that turned into more of a leisurely walk. I really should take a leisurely walk more often.

Thanksgiving dinner (or ‘linner,’ as we were calling it, since it was at lunchtime) was pretty good, if crowded. There were all the normal Thanksgiving foods; I had the Cornish game hen for the first time in several years. I must have missed the cranberry sauce in another crowded line, but I also didn’t notice its absence until well after dinner. I’d had the pumpkin pie several times in the last week, so my friends teased me for having gotten the same dessert again.

After ‘linner,’ it was back to the office for a bit, then outside to play dominoes under a marvelous sunset. I didn’t get to call home, though—all the phone circuits were busy, indicating that I had chosen to call home at about the same time as everyone else on the base.

All in all, it was a pretty good Thanksgiving, and much better than too many people get, especially in these hard times. Too many people are going to have trouble making ends meet, and too many people will lose their lives. Thanksgiving should be about giving thanks, especially for having the ability to celebrate a nice Thanksgiving.

Thanks be to God for all the blessings of this life.

Amen.

The Golden Ticket

A few days ago, I got what deployers call the ‘Golden Ticket’.

The Golden Ticket is the letter that releases one from the deployed position and starts the ball rolling to go home. I got mine, in its final form, a couple of days ago, so I’m going home sometime in the near future, and about eight months ahead of schedule. As it turns out, my position was identified as one of those to be cut when President Bush announced troop reductions in September.

Well, it’s not quite Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. But it will be good to go home.

Anyway, what does this mean for me?

What have I lost from the time I’ve been in Iraq?

• Well, I’ll have been here about four months. Actually, that’s not such a big deal, since I’ve served with a lot of people who are serving in twelve- to fifteen-month deployments—and, in fact, my own deployment was originally set for a year.

What have I gained for the four months in Iraq?

• I’ve gained several great friends whom I never would have met otherwise.
• I’ve gained a little perspective on some of the luxuries I take for granted in the U.S.. For example, fast internet service.
• The time away from my normal commitments has been—as someone put it—a sabbatical. It has given me the chance to figure out my own path, with less influence from what I think others might think. (Here, I’m reminded of the late physicist, Richard Feynman, “What do you care what other people think?”)
• That sabbatical has given me the opportunity to explore my call in more detail, as you’ve seen in previous posts. I’ve decided to pursue a Master of Theological Studies degree, rather than the M.Div., and later on go for a Ph.D. in theology. The initial call I felt toward the priesthood, I think, was a little push from God to explore theological education.
• And, for a couple of purely practical gains, I’ve managed to sock away a little money from not paying for stuff in the U.S.. I’ll also have a few more awards to wear on my service dress, including my first individual military decoration.

I’ve definitely come out of this deployment in the ‘plus’ column.

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!

Back in June, I sent out my application for a PhD program in physics at the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT). I found out last week that I got picked up for that program, and I’ve been puzzling through the ramifications since then. The current outlook is that I’ll start probably in Fall 2009 and study at AFIT—at Wright-Patterson AFB—for three years. I’m then committed to stay in the Air Force for five years after that, at least four years of which will be as a professor at the US Air Force Academy. So I’ll be an Air Force physicist until 2017, which puts me at 12 years of service, more than halfway to retirement (assuming I at least make Major).

I say try again because I attempted a PhD program once before. Although I had some really good people supporting me in that program, I really felt the need to get out and stem the tide of rising student loan balances. Now, the Air Force wants to pay me and send me back to school at the same time, in a program that is extremely focused toward quickly and efficiently shaping students into researchers. (That’s not to say that civilian institutions are good or bad; they just function differently as far as funding and carrying out research programs, which translates into a significant difference in the normal time required for a student to complete a PhD degree.)

Where does that leave me with respect to a call to ordained ministry? And where does that leave me in my attempt to discern what God wants for me? Well, as I’ve said before, God is more subtle than many of us would like. There’s plenty of room to be indecisive in life, especially if one stands around waiting for God’s purpose to become clear. Meanwhile, life (and God!) keeps going on. In the end, I can wait around, beating my head against a wall (figuratively, of course, though I sometimes have the appropriate headache…) as I continue to ponder my purpose in a place where I probably won’t be ordained anyway. Or I can make a decision, take a leap of faith, and pray that God has placed me where I can do some good.

In any case, as I’ve mentioned before, the first call I experienced was more of a long-term call, in which I would seek ordination after finishing my military career. In my current context, I feel like the more urgent call may have been what was needed to prod me toward what I needed. I enjoy the theological education I’ve had so far, and I find that it feeds both my mind and my soul. So I still intend to complete my Master of Divinity program. In the future, depending on where I am, relative to appropriate schools, I can pursue a Doctor of Theology degree. And there’s still plenty of life left for me to live—with God's grace, maybe I’ll answer the original call after all.

Lord, keep my eyes, heart, mind, and soul open to new possibilities!

Amen.

Other Plans: A Sermon on Matthew 22:1-14 (Proper 23A)

How many of us have been lonely on a Friday night, or just felt like having people over for dinner, or wanted to go out with friends to a show? How many of us have had those plans frustrated by the answers of our friends, “I have other plans.”?

How often that happens in today’s culture! With all the activities, with all the work, with all the possible things to plan to do, perhaps it’s more amazing that we can actually find time to invite others to spend time with us in the first place!

The king in Jesus’ parable must have felt a little like that. He’d gone to all this trouble, spared no expense, so that his son’s wedding banquet would be something worth remembering. But when he sent out the invitations, those invited had other plans. And some went so far as to seize and to kill the messengers.

What a terrible time to be a messenger!

God must have felt the same way. After all, God has gone to all the trouble of creating the world in which we live. God has spared no expense so that Jesus’ wedding banquet will be something to remember.

Of course, Jesus’ wedding banquet is not a wedding as we understand weddings, but another way of seeing the end times, what theologians call the eschaton, what we see in today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah, as the eschatological banquet. At this banquet, as Jesus says in John’s gospel, “I will draw all people to myself.” The eschaton, from the Greek for ‘ending’, is the final consummation of the community of God, so the parable from today’s gospel reading is especially appropriate.

At the time, God had prepared all this for the chosen people, and sent out messengers to invite them to the banquet. But they had other plans, and so they went off to those plans. But some stuck around, just to seize and kill the messengers—The prophets.

Like the king, God has sent out another call. This call has gone out to the whole of humanity, just as the king sent his messengers out to the thoroughfares and the main streets to invite everyone they found. God has invited us into the hall for the banquet.

God’s invitation is real enough, as we all probably know, at least somewhere in our hearts and souls. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in church early on a Sunday morning, when a nice warm bed tempts us to sleep in. But, although God’s invitation is real enough, God is a lot more subtle about inviting us in.

Or did I miss the engraved invitation?

The LORD our God invites you this day

To a celebration of the wedding of Jesus Christ,

The only Son of God,

To the one holy catholic and apostolic church.

Who among us, upon receiving such an invitation, could possibly ignore it?

Or would we drum up an excuse? Would we find that we have other plans, that something else is keeping us from going to the wedding banquet?

We also find that we have work to do, to prepare ourselves for the banquet. After all, we would prepare ourselves for an ordinary dinner party. We would probably shower, and we would dress appropriately, just as did most of the guests at the banquet of the king in Jesus’ parable.

Everyone except the one guy who was not wearing a wedding robe—that guy, who came as he was, with no thought about what might please the host who had gone to all the trouble to have a banquet. That must have been a grave insult, for the king ordered that guy to be bound and thrown out. In the Air Force, we have an expression that fits especially well here:

“Don’t be that guy!”

We generally do quite a bit to acknowledge the host of a dinner party in our culture today. We generally groom and dress appropriately, and we generally bring a gift, some small token of appreciation, or something to share with the rest of the party, like a nice bottle of wine.

If that’s a lot of preparation to attend an ordinary dinner party, how much more preparation do we owe to God, for the invitation—engraved or not—to share in the eschatological banquet? Answering God’s call requires much more than just saying, “Here am I,” more than just saying yes.

We have to commit ourselves to God’s call, we have to clear our calendars of other plans, we have to prepare ourselves for God’s call, and then we follow in the words of the prophet Isaiah, “Here am I; send me.”

Amen.