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Doors Flung Open

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“Doors Flung Open”

April 24, 2016

By John Partridge*

 

Scripture: John 13:31-35                                Acts 11:1-18                           Revelation 21:1-6      

 

If I told you that I was going to attend a holiday celebration that included brass bands, John Phillip Sousa marches, parades, and fireworks, which holiday might you immediately think of?

I’m pretty sure that most of you guessed that was thinking about our nation’s July 4th Independence Day celebration.

If I talked about a day where we celebrated by gathering together, throwing a giant feast, and eating enormous quantities of turkey and ham, you would likely think of Thanksgiving.  And if I described a day when we exchanged gifts with our families and filled stockings by the fireplace, we would, of course, think of Christmas.

These days are days of remembrance like the Jewish feast of Passover and Pearl Harbor Day on December 7th. We remember the Alamo on February 23rd, VE Day on May 8th, and VJ Day on September 2nd, and September 11th. These are all days on which we remember specific events.  Some of these days we have deliberately set aside on our national calendars for that specific purpose.

To remember.

We set aside time every year to tell the same old stories and to pass them on to a new generation.  We do it every year so that we will not forget and so that our children and grandchildren will commit the stories to memory as well.

We want to remember, and we want future generations to remember, so that as families, as churches, as nations, and as we understand ourselves to belong to particular groups of people, we will never forget the stories that brought us to where we are and the stories that shaped us into becoming who we have become.

Although we do not have a particular date on the calendar to which we can point, our scriptures this morning describe a time that was, for us, just as momentous and just as transformational for us as a people as almost any of these other days.

We begin with the earliest of our scriptures.  It is a moment in which Jesus still lives but also one in which Jesus knows that his time is short.  In this moment, Jesus gives his disciples one of his final commands.  And, in this moment, Jesus intends to shape the character of his people for all time. (John 13:31-35)

31 When he [meaning Judas] was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

The one thing by which Jesus wants his followers to be known… is the love that they have for one another.

The hallmark of the Christian experience is supposed to be love.  If unbelievers know even one thing about the followers of Jesus, it’s supposed to be how loving we are.

This really is huge and it has incredible implications for all of us.  Every decision that we make, both internally and externally, should be measured by asking ourselves, “Is this loving?”

Wow!

That’s just not how the world works.  And so this one thing, if we can do it, sets the followers of Jesus apart from the world, and that is exactly what Jesus intended.

Next, we read this story in Acts 11:1-18 (you might recall that I made reference to this story just last week).

11:1 The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God. 2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him 3 and said, “You went into the house of uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

4 Starting from the beginning, Peter told them the whole story: 5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. 6 I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles and birds. 7 Then I heard a voice telling me, ‘Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.’

8 “I replied, ‘Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

9 “The voice spoke from heaven a second time, ‘Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’ 10 This happened three times, and then it was all pulled up to heaven again.

11 “Right then three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea stopped at the house where I was staying. 12 The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house. 13 He told us how he had seen an angel appear in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter.14 He will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved.’

15 “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. 16 Then I remembered what the Lord had said: ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’17 So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

18 When they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, “So then, even to Gentiles God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

Peter had preached to people who were not Jews and he had shared meals with, and slept in the home of, Simon the tanner.  And then he had done the same thing in the home of Cornelius the centurion, a man who was not even remotely Jewish.  When Peter returned to Jerusalem, the other believers, most likely including several of the disciples, criticized Peter for stooping so low as to defile himself by associating with “those people.”  Everyone knew that God loved the Jews and hated the Gentiles.  What was the point of wasting time with them?  But Peter tells them his story.  Peter tells them how God had spoken to him and sent him there to tell the Gentiles about Jesus.  Peter tells the believers in Jerusalem that not only did he preach to the Gentiles, but that the Holy Spirit, in the presence of Peter and six other Jewish witnesses, had come upon the Gentiles and they began to praise God and speak in tongues just as the believers had on the day of Pentecost.  And suddenly everyone began to understand that a gigantic, cosmic shift had occurred.  Suddenly, they understood that the world had changed, that God was doing something new, and that God really did accept people from every nation if they would follow him and do what was right.

This was a day that changed the world.

And then, finally, in the Revelation of the Apostle, John heard Jesus say that he was making all things new. (Revelation 21:1-6)

21:1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”  Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Far too often, people ignore the book of Revelation because they think that everything in it happens in the future and that makes it irrelevant to the people of the present age.  But listen carefully to the tense of the verbs in this passage.  John says “I saw” past tense, and a voice from the throne said, “God’s dwelling place is now among the people” – present tense, “He will wipe away every tear” – future tense, and finally, “I am making everything new” – which is a little harder, but, this is the Present-Continuous tense, which means that it is now happening, and it continues to happen in the future.

And so, yes, some of what we read in Revelation is prophecy for the future, but much of it is vitally important to us in the here and now.  What this short passage tells us is that the future will be vastly different than the present, but also that God is, at this very moment, in the process of transforming the entire world.  God no longer lives far away, but even now, makes his home among human beings in the hearts of his followers.  It is no accident that these ideas are presented at the same time.  The presence of God, in the hearts of the followers of Jesus Christ, is intended to be an engine of transformation.  God intends of us to be a part of his plan to dramatically change the world that we live in.

And so, even though you won’t find a day on the calendar for it, these moments are times that we try to regularly remember because these were moments in which the entire world was changed, and these are moments that help us to define who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.

We must always remember that the followers of Jesus Christ, if they are known by anything at all, are to be remembered by how much they love.  Every decision that we make, both within the church and outside of it, should be measured by asking ourselves, “Is this loving?”

We must always remember that there was a time when we were the outsiders.  We were once the people that everybody hated.  We were once the people who everyone was sure would never amount to anything in the eyes of God.  All the good church people were absolutely certain that God hated us and that we were eternally unredeemable.

But God invited us in.

God’s plan was to throw open the gates of the city, and to fling open the doors of his temple so that people from every race, every tribe, every nation, and every language would be welcome.

And more than that, we must always remember that changing the world isn’t something that God intends to do some time in the distant future.  God is changing the world, one life at a time, at this very moment.  God has come down to earth and taken up residence in the hearts of those who love him and God intends for us to be a part of his plan to change to world.

God intends, not only to transform us, but to work through us, so that we become engines of transformation, working together, loving together, to change the world…

…One life at a time.

 

 

 

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* You have been reading a message presented at Trinity United Methodist Church on the date noted on the first page.  Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Trinity of Perry Heights in Massillon, Ohio.  Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you.  Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry may be sent to Trinity United Methodist Church, 3757 Lincoln Way E., Massillon, Ohio 44646.  These messages are available to anyone regardless of membership.  You may subscribe to these messages by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at subscribe@trinityperryheights.org.  To subscribe to the electronic version sign up at http://eepurl.com/vAlYn.   These messages can also be found online athttps://pastorpartridge.wordpress.com/. All Scripture references are from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

Reprogramming My Head

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    A week or so ago, I returned to my audiologist, John, who programs my cochlear implant.  It’s a little confusing when I describe it, because I still see Walt, the audiologist who takes care of the hearing aid in my other ear.  Anyway, we started out the way that the last couple sessions started.  John connected my implant to his computer and ran through a series of tones to see how my brain was adapting to the electrical impulses from my implant.
    But before we got very far, he took me down the hall to the soundproof booths that are used for hearing tests.  There, he re-ran the test that was required to be approved for surgery.  In that test, a voice reads random sentences and you have to repeat back any words (or whole sentences) that you can understand.  This test is run one ear at a time, so I took off my hearing aid and listened only with my implant.  I thought I did well, but John seemed excited.  We laughed because one of the sentences said something about the gecko that is on television commercials.  For some reason, John was very pleased that I had understood the word “gecko.”
    After he did the math and calculated the results of my test, I understood why he was so pleased.  In the same test, prior to my surgery, I had understood 7 percent of the words.  Now, four months post-implant, I understood 70 percent of the words.  No wonder people keep telling me that my hearing is noticeably better.
    After the testing, John tried some more programming.  Whatever he did was too much made everything sound like my head was inside a garbage can, so he tried some other things.  Along the way, we discovered that of the 12 electrodes that were inserted into my cochlea, two of them don’t seem to be doing much.  Ten of them I can “hear” but the last two, while I can “feel” them, I don’t really “hear” anything with them.  For each electrode, John turns up the volume until I say that it is “uncomfortably loud.”  But for those two electrodes, there really isn’t a “loud” and a “soft.”  I sort of hear something, but it doesn’t really get louder as he turns up the input.  What I notice, is that in one ear, instead of getting loud, I can feel the volume pounding in my head much like you can feel a loud bass thump from a big speaker at a rock concert.  I feel it more than hear it.  The other electrode is similar, I don’t hear it or feel it, but instead, at high “volumes” I can feel my head hurt.  It’s like I have a bad headache that pules with the beat, on, off, on, off, on, off.
    In the end, John turned off those two electrodes.  His thinking is that if these electrodes aren’t working by now, they aren’t going to.  Most likely, they are in a part of the cochlea that has more nerve damage and isn’t really “talking” to my brain anymore.  In any case, my implant can function with only four electrodes, so I should be just fine with ten.  Before I left, John finished reprogramming everything using the ten working electrodes, as well as some additional changes and enhancements that I now have to get used to.  It wasn’t as much as he had hoped to do, but we’re still moving forward.  John said that for being only four months after my surgery, he felt I was doing very well.
And so the adventure continues.   Not with giant leaps forward, but with baby steps.
But forward is still forward.
Onward.

 

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Why I Would Argue for the Earliest Definition of Life

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    In my last two blogs, “Abortion: Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Both Right?”and “Abortion: Why Both Sides Will Lose in the Supreme Court (Again)” I explained why the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was not a clear win for either pro-choice or for pro-life supporters and why I thought that both sides would once again be disappointed if a modern Supreme Court consented to review the case. 
    But while my reading of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, modern medicine, and our current political climate lead me to believe that a review of Roe would not be substantially different than it was in 1973, I do think that there are compelling reasons that argue for a dramatic change.  Instead of beginning with biblical, theological or doctrinal reasons (which I obviously have), let’s begin with reason and logic. 
    As I have explained, Roe v. Wade was a decision that attempted to find a balance between two rights guaranteed by the Constitution, a right to privacy on the part of the mother, and a right to life on the part of the infant.  In my reading of the court’s ruling, it seems that there was never a question that both rights existed and the both deserved to be protected.  The question was, if two rights are in conflict, which has a superior claim and when (or if) does that superiority change?  I have a right to privacy in my own home, but if I were to commit criminal acts, particularly those that harmed other human beings, my right to privacy is superseded by the other person’s right to life and liberty.  This delineation is well accepted as both moral and legal.  This same question, when brought into the realm of abortion, becomes a question of a) is a pre-born infant a human being, and if yes, b) when does it become one?  The Supreme Court answers to these questions in 1973 were a) yes, and b) at the earliest point at which the infant is viable (with medical intervention).
    In 1973 the womb was something of a “black box.”  We knew that an infant developed in the mother’s womb and developed from a fertilized egg, we had all sorts of microscope slides and fetuses in jars that had been aborted at various stages of development.  What we didn’t have were the spectacular images that we have today.  Today expectant parents can sit in the office of their OB/GYN and see live 3D images of their child.  They can see that preborn infant scratch its nose, cough, sneeze, and suck its thumb.  So real are these images, that 78% of women who were considering abortion changed their minds after they had seen them.
    I’m not saying we were ignorant in 1973 and we are now “enlightened,” but what we know and what we have learned, seem to make it much harder to draw a line in the sand and say that “this” is a person with Constitutional rights, and a moment earlier “that” was not a person.  Does an infant become a person because it’s larger than it was yesterday?  If so, do tall people have more rights than short people, or do adults have a stronger right to life than children?  Does it suddenly become a person because it is no longer in the womb?  The human rights of any other “person” do not change based on location.  A person in Detroit, Michigan has no more or less rights than a person in rural China.  Location cannot, logically, convey basic human rights or take them away.  Is a preborn infant not a person because it is dependent upon its mother?  If so, then do adults on life support surrender their right to life?  We are all, in one way or another, dependent upon others for our lives.  Simply because an infant needs its mother cannot imply that it somehow has fewer rights than an infant only days or weeks older.  At other times in history, groups of people were declared a separate “class” of human being so that their rights could be denied, Jews, Gypsies, Blacks, and others.  Can we, in good conscience, declare a group of human beings, with measurable human DNA, to be a separate “class” of humans that are not entitled to human rights? 
    Biblically speaking, we know that God loves all of his children equally.  All human beings are of sacred worth.  The redemption of every person on earth was purchased by Jesus Christ at the cost of his own life.  We cannot gamble that God cares more about an infant more today, simply because yesterday it was in the womb and today it is not, or because today it is one day older than yesterday.
    I have heard various arguments from the position that Old Testament references did not consider an infant to be a “person” under the law until after it was born.  While this is arguable on a number of points, it assumes that people who lived four thousand years ago could have known any differently.  Asking this question would seem to place an unfair moral burden on ancient cultures.  How would any culture with little understanding of fetal development, no ability to detect a fetal heartbeat, no ultrasound, and no modern medical understanding of neural development have fairly ruled that a preborn infant is equal to one who independently draws breath?  Their decision on personhood was, much as it was in 1973, based upon viability.
    Please understand that I value my privacy as much or more than anyone, but regardless of my feelings or personal opinion, privacy has always taken a backseat to more important rights, and the right to life is among these.   Legally, I understand that declaring an infant to be a person too early can create other difficulties, such as the potential for criminal investigations against women who have miscarriages and certainly I understand those who struggle with knowing at what point an infant ought to be considered to be a person, especially in the earliest stages of development.    For me, however, I have few such doubts.  I believe that morals, logic and scripture declare in chorus that an infant is a person, and if an infant is a person at any point, it must be one from the very beginning.
To me, these arguments seem reasonable and logically sound.  If you can find error in the logic, I am interested in hearing your viewpoint.
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Next: Problems with an Early Definition of Life

(Go back to the beginning – “Abortion: Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Both Right?”)

An Open Letter to Our Nation’s Leaders

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    As the dust begins to settle in this recent election, it is apparent that we remain a nation divided.  On the other hand, maybe not.  The news media is describing the mood of the country as having a great deal of “anti-democrat” sentiment or as having an “anti-incumbent” sentiment and while I suppose both of those exist, I think that there is a larger unifying theme that joins many of us regardless of our general political leanings.  As such, today’s blog is an open letter to all of our elected officials from our local city councilpersons and county commissioners, all the way up to the current resident of the White House.  Here, I want to say a few things that our leadership would hear from all of us over a long lunch, and a few things that I’ve learned from my family, my friends and from life in general.
To all of our elected officials of every kind,
    If you were recently elected (or re-elected) I would like to caution you not to get a big head.  There is a good chance that your election had little to do with you, personally, and a lot to do with the performance (or lack thereof) of your predecessor.  Lately, we voters are all kind of tired of what we are seeing and we’ve been in the mood to throw out leaders who are not living up to our expectations.  As you begin your new terms, here are a few things to watch out for:
1)      Keep your promises.  To you this may seem trite or even quaint but for a lot of us, honor is still important.  We understand that it’s common for politicians to promise the moon so that they can get elected, but be careful what you promise, because, despite the rumors to the contrary, we’re not stupid and we will remember what you said.  George Bush promised “No new taxes” but failed to keep his promise.  We remembered.  Barak Obama promised that his administration would never vote on legislation without having a minimum of seven days for the public to look it over.   That didn’t happen.  This week’s election is a hint that we haven’t forgotten your promises… even if you did.
2)      You can’t spend more than you make.  This is so simple it seems silly to have to point it out.  Every couple of weeks I get a paycheck and every month I get bills for stuff that I have to pay.  This happens to everyone that I know, for every business that I know and for the church where I work.  Once in a while I can spend more than I make.  I took a huge pay cut when I became a pastor and went to seminary.  Our pay cut was so large and the bills for seminary were so big that things didn’t even out.  To make up the difference, we spent some of the money we had from selling our house.  We knew it couldn’t last but we also knew that my time in seminary would only last for a few years.  When people spend more than they make, whether it’s because they bought a house or a car or a flat screen TV, sooner or later they need to pay for it.  For about fifty years now, our leaders have been spending more than our government takes in.  Lately, it has only gotten worse.  We can’t understand why you don’t think it’s a problem.  We know it’s a problem.  It worries us.  We expect you to fix it (or at least get started).  If you ignore this, again, we will replace you… again.
3)      People don’t like change regardless of how much they say they want it or need it.  This one is harder to understand but I’ve seen it enough times in my community and in my church that I know it’s true.  When my school system needed a new school building they had a hard time convincing people that we should build a new one.  Our old school was almost a hundred years old, had dozens of building code violations, wasn’t handicap accessible and was full of asbestos.  On top of that, the state of Ohio was willing to pay for more than half of a new building which mean that a new building would cost millions less than the cost of repairs to the old one.  Still, the school board took over a year, with dozens of special meetings to convince the community that it was necessary and the vote was still close.  I’ve known people with serious health problems who endured months of suffering before they were convinced to go see a doctor.  We get comfortable in our routine.  We want you to do your job, but you need to know that change is scary.  Before you make changes, you need to explain what you are doing, let us think about it for a while and then proceed slowly and carefully so we can see how things are going.  This is especially important because our trust in you is not particularly high right now.
4)      The bigger the project, the more support you need.  You will probably not find this anywhere in your history books but this is a place where our government has created division and animosity between its own citizens.  Last year, I was interviewing pastors who had been involved in merging churches or in church building projects.  These are two of the biggest changes ever experienced in the life of a church.  One of the rules that emerged from these interviews was that if there was not a minimum of 70 to 80 percent support for the change, then they would go back and start over.   In a church, failing to gain a super-majority of support for a big project will likely mean that people will be so angry that they leave the church.  In our nation, when you pass really big projects with only a slim majority, you create animosity and division instead of unity and cohesiveness.  You don’t need to wonder why our nation has become so polarized because you are the ones who did it, Republicans and Democrats alike.  
  
    Don’t think that because you’ve won the election, that you can do whatever you want.  Don’t think that because you have a majority, that you can do whatever you want.  In recent decades we’ve seen several major shifts from Democrat to Republican and back again.  Please remember that it isn’t about what you call yourself, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or whatever, it’s much more important that you do the things that we sent you to do.

Feel free to ignore us…
…but then again…
…your predecessors did…
…and they’re not here anymore.

You Can Change the World

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As I noted in an earlier post, I recently attended a surprise retirement party for my high school band director, Mr. John Rodgers. During that event we were given the opportunity to make a few remarks or to share our remembrances from our days in the Kenmore High School marching band. I remember many things. I remember the insane shaving cream fights that we had at band camp (and I still remember how to modify a can of shaving cream to shoot 20 feet). I remember selling oranges to earn enough money to go to Disney World for their tenth anniversary (though I honestly recall very little of the trip itself). I remember many events but I also remember that the band room was like a home away from home for a lot of us. We showed up as soon as we could convince someone to unlock the place and were often there in the afternoons well after school was over as well as many hours of class in-between.

For me, John Rodgers and our choir director Georgia Thomas were trusted adults who modeled leadership, passion for music, respect, humility and many other things. At our party, I noted that though there were perhaps a hundred of us gathered that evening, our numbers are indeed far more than that, we are indeed legion. Each year that I was in band we had something close to one hundred musicians carrying instruments along with many more majorettes, rifle girls, and flags (and Bill Dobbs, fellow Baritone player, as our Cardinal mascot). Over the years that John Rodgers was at Kenmore he invested himself in the lives of many hundreds of students, perhaps thousands. As we gathered that evening it was apparent that time had not stood still, we are all older, many of us have married and have children and now many of our children are inheriting our love of music.

As I shared, I concluded that in his own humble way, John Rodgers accomplished what people in science and politics and every other discipline dream of doing, he changed the world. John Rodgers changed the world but so did Georgia Thomas and so do teachers around the world every single day. We all remember these people because they changed us, they modeled life for us, they inspired us and they ignited a passion within us whether it was for music, or literature, or history or whatever.

I cannot ever thank John Rodgers or Georgia Thomas or Bill Muse, or any of my teachers enough for the gifts that they gave me…

…but there is something that I can do.

In the lives of every human being we are given the opportunity to invest in the lives of others. We are all given the chance to invest in something that reaches beyond the boundaries of today or this week’s paycheck. If we are to honor the people that invested their lives in us then we must answer the call to invest in others.

For me, I was compelled, over time, to teach others about the unimaginable gift of Jesus Christ and to expend my energies helping others spiritually as well as in other ways. For you it may not be John Rodgers, but today I ask that you remember who it was that influenced and inspired you. Maybe it was a teacher, a pastor, a coach, a university professor or it could be a parent, a grandparent, a police officer or even a janitor. Whoever it was for you, I hope that you will use that memory to drive you to invest in another generation.

If you’re a teacher, you can allow that memory to reinvigorate you and to rekindle your passion, but even if you’re not in a career where this is easy there are still lots of options. Choose someone who can benefit from your accumulated knowledge and experience and offer to mentor them. Instead of criticizing their youth and inexperience, take the time to teach them a better way (and listen for what they have to offer you as well). Volunteer in your community. Every ball field needs volunteer coaches and referees. Every scout troop that I’ve ever seen can always use anyone with a spare hour or two. Churches and synagogues and schools and soup kitchens everywhere need compassionate volunteers with a heart to serve others. Whatever it is, find a way to give back (or pay forward) the amazing gifts that you’ve been given. You can make a difference. You can make the world a better place.

Get out there and change the world.

I Am Not The Person I Once Was

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I am not the person I once was.

Recently I attended a surprise retirement party for my high school band director, John Rodgers. Mr. Rodgers had a profound impact on an untold number of lives but that’s a subject for another day. I graduated from high school 28 years ago and, not surprisingly, my classmates looked remarkably different than they did way back when. The physical changes in my classmates did not surprise me because, over time, I have watched the man in my mirror change as well. I’m thicker around the middle, my hair is thinning on top and I‘ve had a beard for well over a decade. The changes in my own appearance were obvious indications that my classmates were likewise not immortal.

As I moved around the room and engaged in conversation I was profoundly surprised by one thing, me. More accurately, I was surprised by how others in the room reacted to me. Years ago, we spent time together, a lot of it. Once upon a time, many of us knew each other very well. We met before school, often before the sun was up; we played music together between one and three hours every day and sometimes four or five. We often spent more time together than we spent with our parents. I tell you all this to say that when we met again after nearly three decades apart, in many ways we were able to simply pick up where we left off and enjoy each other’s company… and we did. I for one had a wonderful time remembering old times and renewing old friendships. Even better, with the advent of Facebook and email some of us will do a better job of staying in touch this time.

Still, as I mentioned, I was surprised by something. Long ago we were upperclassmen and underclassmen, freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. Now we’re pastors, business executives, truck drivers, teachers, doctors and other things. In many ways, we are now our parents. Many of us have kids in high school and college. Looking at how we’ve changed in that way is fascinating but still, that wasn’t the surprise. What surprised me were several of the people who I had once looked up to. Not the majorettes or the flag girls with whom I’d only ever had a passing acquaintance, but my friends, or more often, friends of friends, those friends who travelled in the same circles but really weren’t close thirty years ago. These folks played instruments with my inner circle of friends or played in the jazz band where I worked on the tech crew. We knew each other fairly well, but not well enough to ever visit at home or be invited to birthday parties. Many of these folks were upperclassmen and graduated a year or two before I did. These were the people that I looked up to, who were older, smarter, better looking and more talented than I was, or at least it seemed that way. As I went about the room I was surprised because several of these friends not only remembered me, but they sought me out. They found value in who I was and what I did. Several people indicated that they’d hoped that I would come and they had looked forward to seeing me. Frankly, I was surprised that some of them even noticed me.

As many of us were, I was an awkward teenager. I didn’t get my growth spurt until I was a senior in high school and there were times that I didn’t like myself a whole lot. Somewhere along the line, about the time I was in high school, I had decided that if I didn’t like who I was, it was my job to become who I wanted to be. I wanted to be bigger and so for several years during college I went to the gym. I thought SCUBA diving looked cool (at least when Jacques Cousteau did it) and so I took classes and got certified. I’m not saying that working out in the gym and taking SCUBA lessons made me cool (because my children will tell you that I’m still not) but somewhere in the process I became comfortable with who I am. I am a different person than I was in high school. I’m taller and have a beard, but I also walk taller and straighter from ten years in the Army Reserve, I have a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a master’s degree in divinity and, simply put, I am both confident and comfortable with who I have become.

I was surprised that the people I’d known so many years ago reacted differently to our meeting than I expected. In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.

I am not the person I once was.