Piercing the Darkness

The light shines in the darkness, 

and the darkness has not overcome it.

With many of you I continue to shed tears of disbelief, of grief, of dismay for our sisters and brothers in Newtown, Connecticut.  How do we even begin to extend compassion to those whom we may never meet, and on whom we would never imagine such a profound grief?  What words do we offer to our friends, our families, our children who try to fathom the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School?

Let us begin by admitting that the irrational acts of fallen and broken people cannot be rationally explained.

Sin, by its very nature and practice, is self-destructive and destructive to all those around.  It defies all logical explanation.  But that provides little solace to the parents of 20 children who lost their lives on what was to be an otherwise “normal” morning, 10 days before Christmas.  Nor does it comfort those families of the adults who loved those children and died while doing all they could to protect them.

So where do we begin to engage in such a dialogue?  2,000 years ago, something similar happened.  Matthew 2 records the slaughter of the innocents:  All the boys under 2 years of age in and around Bethlehem were killed by Herod’s soldiers.  The Magi told Herod that they heard the King of the Jews had been born.  This paranoid, demented leader wanted to take no chances in losing power and had all the Hebrew male children killed.   Blood filled the streets of Bethlehem and the surrounding villages.  The cries of the mother’s weeping must have been haunting.  Matthew recalls the words of the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
    weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
    she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”

The prophet was recalling a time when the children of Israel were taken away by their Babylonian captors.  Mothers had lost their children at the hands of the cruel and inhumane.

Our sisters and brothers are weeping again at the hands of the irrational and inhumane.

But what are we going to do about it?  That’s a question many seem to now ask.  Let us not rush off to beat the drum of certain piece of legislation, regulation, or policy that will, seemingly, make things right overnight.  The answer is not that simple nor made of human hands.   The heart of the matter is a matter of the human heart.  The lasting change that must come will be a matter not just of the outside.  Outside changes will not change the inside.  Only a change on the inside will bring a change on both the inside AND the outside.  The answer begins when the Church rises up to do her part. 

We must take the time to mourn with the families of the children and adults in this most grievous of times.  Losing someone in such a manner in terrible enough.  But no parent should have to bury a child.  So grieve with these families.  And grieve deeply.  But grieve as a people with hope.

Such hope is the message of the coming of God in the person Jesus Christ, a baby born in a manger.  The story does not end in darkness.  The Light was born into the darkness and the darkness has not, and cannot, overcome it.  It is the message of Christmas.  It is the Gospel message.  And it is a message worth telling.  

In a small community in Connecticut now sits 20 little bedrooms filled with the toys of innocence: dolls, trucks, crayons, and the like.  Now robbed of their innocence, the bedrooms sit empty and parents long for one more chance to hold the little ones to them, just one more time.  How will things ever be right again?  The families of the teachers, administrators and others who gave their lives struggle with the pangs of loss.  An entire school and community huddles together looking for solace.

Where can anyone find peace in such a world?  When the Bible speaks of Peace, it does so not in the sense of a mere cessation of hostilities.  It means instead that, despite the circumstances, there a sense of God’s presence, of His comfort, of His assurance.

Many of us have seen the pictures from Connecticut of men, women, and children holding candles in vigil.  The soft glow the flame shining a piercing light into an otherwise dark night.  How appropriate.  A deep darkness fell over Newtown, and the entire country.  But the darkness never prevails against the light.  The Light always overcomes.  The people of the Church, Christians everywhere, are again called to shine a light of hope into the darkness.

So what do we do now?  Hug those near to you a little tighter.  Give our teachers and school officials and extra measure of support.  Show your appreciation to our first responders.  And rise up and be the Church.  Please join me as we pray earnestly for those affected.  For the people of Newtown.  For teachers everywhere who look at a classroom of beautiful faces everyday.  For the leaders of our schools and our communities.  Pray for a new movement in the Church, a movement of Christians who will rise up and be the light, the peace to a dark and distraught World.  A world that longs and cries for what, it knows not.  And only Christ is the answer.  May He be your Peace now and forever more.  May He pierce our darkness anew this Christmas time.

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  --Jesus.  John 16:33

Together at the Lights

Photo from Press-Register

One of my favorite events of the year in Fairhope is the Lighting of the Trees.  If you're new to the community (as many people in our church are each week), you are welcome to come to the event with me.  I'll be the guy with the big, goofy grin on his face.  Here's the way it works.  On the Thursday before Thanksgiving, the city closes the downtown streets.  Large crowds congregate at "The Clock" at the intersection of Fairhope Avenue and Section Street.  The school bands play and the mayor makes a speech.  As the clock strikes 6:00 p.m., he flips a switch and the darkened streets are illuminated in a moment.  A million Christmas lights, which have been carefully placed in the trees alongside the streets, warm the night.  A loud cheer goes up from the crowd and the music begins again.

To some, that may sound like a rather silly thing for all those people to get excited about.  But I guess the thing that I like about it is just that: we all get excited about something together.  A divisive election season will be over.  It will be a few weeks before the Iron Bowl.  And for one evening, we can all come together to get excited about something--even though it may seem silly to some.  We put aside our differences and unite for a small celebration.  People cheer with wonder and awe about the same thing at the same moment.  I'll admit that I don't even look at the lights at first.  I look for the light to shine on our children's faces as they react to the spectacle.

As we head into the holiday season, I wonder if we could find more things like this to get excited about.  What if we came together in the Unity of Christ in the midst of Thanksgiving?  What if we shared that same wonder as we anticipate the coming of the Christ Child?  What if we put aside the competition of gifts and parties and instead celebrated the purity of the Hope of God?

The Lighting of the Trees kicks off the Holiday Season in Fairhope.  Maybe I'll see you downtown that night coming for the same reason I am. Then let's be in worship and study together throughout the Season as we pray that we will let God bring us all together for His purpose today and forevermore.

Hurricane Living

Inland friends sometimes ask what it is like to live on the coast, where we experience hurricanes.  I’ve lived in Kentucky and Illinois and seen floods, ice storms, tornadoes.  I’ve lived in northeast Ohio and seen blizzards.  Each area has its own unique challenges.   I’ve lived on the Gulf Coast for 21 years, over half my life.  Living in an area where hurricanes are a possibility leads us to prepare, much like living in other areas require you to prepare.  We don’t buy rock salt to cover the driveway and snowblowers.  We buy plywood to cover the windows and generators.

My family and I live at least ten miles inland.  We live near woods and fields of cattle and row crops.  Some of those living inland have said that we on the coast get what we deserve when we get a hurricane.  They say that only the wealthy have their second homes on the coast and that it is okay to let them blow away.  I haven’t always found that to the be the case.  Storms (hurricanes, ice storms, tornadoes) occur all over the country.  Our neighbors use their homes as their primary (almost exclusively ONLY) residence.  Our neighbors are firemen, teachers, WWII vets, farmers, and landscapers.  They are hardworking, caring, good people.  Hardly would we consider our homes expendable.  Living in a hurricane area is just a part of life for us.

Over the years you accumulate things.  One year you buy a generator.  Another year you buy some plywood to cover the windows.  Another year you actually cut them to fit the doors and windows.  You keep your stash of flashlights, lanterns, and batteries handy.

With each storm you accumulate stories.  You remember the places you rode out the storm, the times you evacuated, the times you WISHED you had evacuated and that times you wished you had stayed put.  You remember the storms by how old the children were or when Grandma came over to ride it out with you.  These events become a part of our family history.  

Hurricanes are often large and unpredictable.  Forecasting their landfall and intensity is difficult.  When one enters the Gulf of Mexico, those of us living on the hundreds of miles of coastline must be prepared.  Even small changes can mean a big difference.  Isaac had rain bands some 350 miles across.  We were on the outside edge of those bands.  If Isaac moved 25 miles to the east, it would mean that several more inches of rain fell upon our homes and land, not Mobile Bay.  So an adjustment of less than 10% can mean the difference between a drizzly, breezy day and downed trees, power lines, and significant flooding.

Therefore, we prepare.  For Isaac we were expecting a storm with winds of at least 115mph.  A week ago, the forecast was for it to go far to the east of us.  That would put us on the “good” side. When you’re on the west side of the storm, the rains and winds are much quieter.  As the week progressed, the forecast track moved west.  For a day or so, the forecast track put the eye of the storm passing over our home.  But the forecast track kept moving west.  That puts us on the “bad” side.  When you’re on the east side the rain, winds, and possibility for tornadoes all greatly increase.

At the church, we put our plan into action.  We secured the facility.  We called our “sensitive” populations.  The governor declared a state of emergency and ordered evacuations.  Schools closed for three days.  People move into a strange state of motion.  The stores are quickly emptied of bread, water, canned meat, peanut butter, paper products, batteries, and snack foods. (As a side note, our family always buys ice cream at this point.  That way if the power goes out, we have to eat the whole carton immediately, lest it should melt.)

The news people tell you to fill your car with gas.  On your way to fill up you see several boats on trailers headed inland.  You may find stations out of gas.  When you find gas, you may wait in line behind someone filling up several cans.  Maybe it is for their generator or maybe it is for peace of mind.

Our family seeks to move with calm through the process.  We clear the yard and porch of lightweight items.  We help our neighbors and friends.  We get the animals settled.  As we work, a foreshadowing breeze creates a whisper through the surrounding pine trees, and we take one more look around before we head into the house.  Later we will poke our heads out between bands of rain coming on shore, when the wind the will howl through those same pines.

Despite all the ills of the storms, I love the family time the storm creates for us.  It is almost as if we are being pressed inward, from all sides, to be together.  We do those projects we’ve been meaning to get ‘round to for a while: we clean out a closet or two, I get that old reel cleaned and reassembled, we play games together, we watch classic movies, we go splash in the puddles.  The space of family time is our calm in the storm.  
We don’t really turn on the television very much.  The repetition and the hype seem to steal something from our solace.   This solace remains constant in the time between the bands when the winds and rain is calm or when the rain blows horizontally through those pine boughs.

Kevin Stokes and Tony Wood wrote a song that reminds us that sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes He calms His children.  No matter where we are, storms will rage around us.  I pray for one or the other for my neighbors and for all those affected.  Sometimes, late at night when I hear the winds blow from inside may warm and dry home, I close my eyes and I see the children I met in Haiti.  I see the tent and tarps they lived in and hear the winds blow around me.  This is the same storm they saw but a few days before I did.  Did they pray that God would calm them or calm the storm?

When the storm is over, like turtles poking our heads out of our shells, we take a look around.  We check on one another.  We see how we can help.  Storms are a part of life.  Jesus reminded us that troubles will come.  However, he never leaves us nor forsakes us before, during, or after those storms.  He calls us to be the arms of compassion to those affected: firemen and farmers on the Gulf Coast, or orphans in Haiti.  When we are affected by the same storm, it seems like the differences between us fade away a little more.  He calls us to remind them all of His promise, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Real Social Network

I am fascinated by the way people connect to one another.  We have dozens of options to attempt to connection through Social Media.  We live in a TGIF world: Twitter, Google Instagram, and Facebook.  YouTube is now the second largest search engine.  Millions us have our phones always on and always on us.  Technology drives a large portion of our lives.  I too use many of these technologies on a regular basis.  I’ve connected with friends, love ones, and new acquaintances.  So have millions of others.

But are we more connected than we ever have been? I mean TRULY connected.

On Sunday, August 19, we begin looking at the Real Social Network and power of community.  We are going to study Social Networking and Scripture’s call to live in community, the effects of the (Cloud?) Crowds on our lives, and power of a few faithful friends in our midst.  I invite you to be present each in worship as we look at these in The Gathering.  Remember, you can always find our sermons online at www.fairhopeumc.org or on iTunes.  And if you want to connect with me, you can find me www.facebook.com/rob.haynes or Twitter @rob_haynes. :->

In the August 19 message, I reference these videos.  I offer them to you here if you want to learn more:

Psychologist Sherry Turkle: Connected, but alone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7Xr3AsBEK4

The Marketing Revolution of Social Media:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aconjR6uH4

The (real) Social Network: The Power of Community

No doubt Social Networking has changed the world.  It has helped to bring down governments (remember the Arab Spring?), streamlined the distribution of important information (ever gotten message about breaking news or a coming storm?), reunited us with old friends (ever friended a high school flame?), and given us something else to amuse us (watched a cat video lately?).  Worldwide over 750 million people are on Facebook.  Twitter is not far behind with 500 million users.  We can communicate more information, to more people, over a broader distance, in a shorter time, than ever before.  We can catch up with old friends, make new friends, and keep them up on what we are doing.

But it forces us to ask the question: we may be more connected, but are building authentic, lasting community?  What is life was more than a status update, a 140 character Tweet, an Instagram photo, or an e-mail?  What if it were more than a simple interface on a screen in the palm of our hands?

Don’t get me wrong, I use all of these forms of communication--sometimes several times a day.  I am glad that we can stay in touch with so many people in such an easy manner.  But I hope that it doesn’t remain there.  Authentic and lasting community takes more that these types of interactions.  How do we move that direction?

Beginning August 19, we will take a look at the power of authentic community with a three-week series in The Gathering.  Be present each week for these times of teaching and study.  And oh, while you’re at it, feel free to follow me: I’m on Facebook: www.facebook.com/rob.haynes, Twitter: @rob_haynes, and Instagram: rob_haynes.    =:-)