Sleep tight, Big Man

It's been a couple of weeks since the death of Clarence Clemons, also known as "Nick" or simply "The Big Man." It was my joy to have seen the E-Street Band at Kemper Arena in Kansas City during "The River Tour" on February 5, 1981.

First, it was a great show. Bruce was in jeans and a plaid shirt. The band wore blue suits and fedoras. It was great. For the second act, The Big Man came out in a blue leisure suit with cowboy boots and hat. It started close to an hour late, had a short intermission, three encores-the last one starting with Wilbert Harrison's "Kansas City," and lasted a total of four hours.

Yeah, Bruce and the band played for four hours.

I wondered what they would open with, was soon happy to hear the opening strains of "Prove It All Night" from "Darkness on the Edge of Town." What a great choice, great guitar solo, great sax solo and the night was off with a bang. The next song was "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out" and Bruce crowd surfed into the house. Finally people were just tossing him up and down chanting "Tenth" until it sounded like 14,000 people grunting through their noses.

During the second act, they did "Fire" and blew the roof off of Kemper Arena. They absolutely killed it.

The question has become "can the E-Street Band" go on? Well, at the Super Bowl the Tower of Power Horn Section played with the band, and it rocked. Of course, using six horns to replace one is just the mark of The Big Man's musical contribution. But his addition to the stage show is probably irreplaceable.

So sleep tight, Big Man. Rest well.

June Newsletter Article

This is the article that I wrote for the June edition of the Church newsletter.


Dear Friends in Christ,

It’s said there are two kinds of people in this world, those who split groups in two and those who don’t. Well, I’m about to split this relatively complicated issue into two: Problem solving.

Last Fall, Harriette, Lisa and I attended the training for Elders at the First Church in Tyler. The presenter at the program was the Rev. Dr. N. Graham Standish, the Head f Staff at Calvin Presbyterian Church in Zelienople, Pennsylvania. To cut to the chase, he says that there are two kinds of solutions to problems in this life, functional and formational.

The easy way to describe functional solutions is “band-aid.” If you have a problem, just fix it. The windows are rotting, use sealer and filler and make them look new again. Formational fixes are more complicated. Formational fixes begin by looking at why the windows are rotting. Is it water damage? Termites? Neither? Both? More? Have the windows just finally reached the end of their life expectancy?

As you can see, the functional fix will make everything fine again… until the water, termites, age, or whatever runs roughshod over the caulk and it’s shot too. But the formational fix takes longer and involves much more.

So which is better, I say it’s better to do the right things the right way the first time. Quick fixes lead to quick failures. Band-aids aren’t meant to stop bleeding forever, and depending on the size of the wound can be completely useless. They can even cause more harm than good if the band-aid causes you lose sight of the wound.

I say this because we are in the midst of a growth spurt here at First-Marshall. Praise be to God! But with any growth little issues arise, some are little issues and some are indicators of things to come. When ignored they get worse. When covered with a band-aid they get hidden. It is only when we seek the issues at the heart that we make foundational changes.

The only problem with that is often foundational changes lead to more change. There’s a reason for this, it’s the Holy Spirit at work. Yes, that Holy Spirit. By the power of the Spirit, God created the world and all that is in it. By the power of the Spirit, God continues to create the world and all that is in it. Hear the words of the Prophet Isaiah:

Do not remember the former things,
or consider the things of old.
I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.

God continues to create, to do a new thing. We are responsible for seeking to follow God even as God continues to do new things. God makes fertile valleys out of dry wilderness riverbeds. As is often the case, new creation causes some of the old to disappear. This is difficult. This is unsettling.

What is important is the one thing that will never disappear, that is the wonder and the glory of the eternal Triune God. God who doesn’t change changes everything else. God leaves it up to us to decide whether to put a band-aid on it, or seek the glory too.

We’ve seen the beginnings of it not being easy. The question is “What comes next?”

May God’s peace be with us all, Paul

Blogging While Upset

Today I have been brought back to a phrase Presbyterians have bandied about, "the essentials of the faith." The problem with it is that what someone says is essential others say is not.

I get worked up about this, but I shouldn't. Christians have been dealing with "the essentials" since Jesus began his ministry. The first time the church really got together to try getting it right, defining true essentials of the faith, came in about the year 50 AD at the Council of Jerusalem. This council's actions are reported in Acts 15.

In short, the council decided that the new Gentile Christians were not obligated to keep most of the Mosaic law, including the rules concerning circumcision of males. The Council did find Jewish dietary restrictions, commonly known as Kosher laws, to be essential. They also found prohibitions against against fornication and idolatry to be essential.

So this compromise means boys don't have to be circumcised, though the vast majority today are; and the Kosher laws were to be kept, which we don't. We have a funny way of following the essentials of the faith. I wonder if it means I can be disciplined by the Presbytery for having a ham sandwich at next week's meeting? Is it too late to ask for turkey?

Oh, by the way, for those who know their scripture, Peter receives a command to eat with a Centurion of the Italian Cohort named Cornelius. He is also commanded by God to eat what is put before him whether it meet dietary restrictions or not and does as he is told. Peter receives this command in Acts 10, five whole chapters before he sides with the Kosher crowd at the Council of Jerusalem. This is what happens when we follow the words and not the Word.

We talk about following Scripture, the explicit Word of God, without noting that we must follow the example of the life of Jesus Christ who is the Word Incarnate. We have become so legalistic that if we extrapolate law from the Acts of the Lord we can find ourselves out of the will of the church, but we can take text out of literary and historical context to make a point and that's fine.

Hearing people say "They are not fit to serve God's Kingdom" bothers me. It reminds me of the Pharisee who thanks God he's not the Tax Collector, when we are called to be more like the tax collector who says "forgive me for I am a sinner."

I like what Jan Karon attributes to "Anonymous" in her Mitford companion book "A Continual Feast: Words of Comfort."

The next time you think you have an excuse why God can't use you, consider the following. 

Noah was a drunkard, Abraham was too old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly, Joseph was abused, Moses was a murderer, Gideon was afraid, Samson had long hair, Rahab was a prostitute, Timothy was too young, David had an illicit affair, Elijah was suicidal, Isaiah preached naked, Job was bankrupt, John the Baptist ran around in a loincloth and ate locusts, Peter was hot tempered, John was self-righteous. The disciples fell asleep while praying, Martha fretted about everything, Mary Magdalene was demon-possessed, the boy with the fish and five loaves of bread was too obscure, the Samaritan woman was divorced more than once, Zacchaeus was too small, Paul was too religious, and Lazarus was dead. No more excuses.

My point is "the next time we think God can't use someone, we should consider those God has used in the past." This is where I believe we should all hear God saying "You aren't so different from these. Go and do likewise."

We would all be better off if we decided the greatest essential is that God is sovereign above all, and it's up to us to seek to follow faithfully, especially when it takes us to places with people that are outside of our comfort zones.

This is what you get when I blog while upset.