What I learned from Poppi

A couple of weeks ago, Laurie and I returned from vacation.  Vacation, for us, and probably for everyone, means different things at different stages in life.  Like many young folk with children, vacation for us means driving... and lots of it!  We drove to Virginia and stopped for the night on the long car ride to Pennsylvania.  We visited Maryland and got to see Laurie's parents new Bed and Breakfast.  We went to the Baltimore aquarium and visited some of our best friends Ben and Rachel Israel.  We got to see some family: Laurie's home clan, my grandmother, and Carl and Carol.  We also got to see someone for the last time: Laurie's Poppi.  We visited Laurie's great grand parents in Conneticut, her Nonni and Poppi, and had a wonderful time.  Over the past couple of years, Poppi survived a few different forms of cancer and when we were up he had just been told he was ok from the latest bought.  He didn't look like he used to... he'd lost some weight and a little bit of energy.  But, when they saw us and when they saw Charlotte, you could tell that there was just so much life left in him.  He'd only met Charlotte once before, and she was a bit of a priss and that point... she would not let anyone hold her!  But this time around, Poppi took her in his arms and she rested her head on his shoulder.  It was just about the only thing that Nonni and Poppi could talk about the whole time we were there.   When we getting ready to leave, Laurie said to her mom and I, "I really don't want to go."  We made plans for them to come and visit on Christmas, and said our goodbyes.  On Thursday, we were all heading to a Presbytery meeting, and Laurie got a phone call.  Poppi was very sick, again.  Half an hour later, while the Presbytery meeting was in session, Laurie was standing on the front porch of the Church saying her final goodbyes to her Poppi.  We don't know if Poppi heard Laurie telling her how much she loved him or Charlotte's laughs right in the midst of the moment.  But God heard, and God met us there.  

I've only known Poppi for a little while.  I came to visit on Christmas the first year Laurie and I were dating, and he and Nonni made sure to buy me a gift, a silver cross pen, because they wanted to make us feel at home.  Nonni and Poppi have always wanted nothing more than to make you feel like you were part of the family.  They always made more food than anyone could eat (they're 100% italian after all!) and they always had more room at the table.  When Laurie's mom was growing up, she talks about how there were always, ALWAYS people in the house, laughing, joking, and eating.  When we were up, Poppi had made a new friend who he was letting do some choirs around the house because he could not find work.  He came over, and Poppi bought Charlotte right up to him... it was like he was a part of the family.  

There's something sacred, and I think something we can really learn from, in a life like that.  Family has always been a struggle for me.  My mother died when I was one, and I never knew my father.  I was raised by my grandmother... but something i've always wanted was a place to belong.  I'm the kid who never really fit in, who never really felt like he had a home.  But yet, somehow, God has always provided.  God has given me amazing friends... friends who I would not hesitate to call sister or brother.  God gave me Carl and his wife Carol, who has always been more than just a pastor to me: he's like my father.  God gave me Laurie's family, who has shown me such amazing grace and love.  God has shown me grace through Poppi: you might not always feel like you have a place to belong... but when a Giordano is around you know you're at home.

There's a passage in the Bible that Presbyterians love, it's found in Ephesians 1:4-5.  It says, "In love, God Predestined us for adoption to sonship, through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will."  The word "predestined" is a combination of the words "pro," which means "before," and "horitzo," which is where we get "horizon."  In this passage, predestine literally means "before the horizon."  A horizon is a type of a gap, or a beginning point, or a point in time.  This word is used to describe the "adoption" of the children of God as "sons."  I say sons, and not sons and daughters, not because women are not included in this idea, but because the word son carries theological connotation in ancient Israel.  Sons were worthy of a father's inheritance... a son was the highest position one could hold in the family.  What this passage is saying is that, before the dawn of our lives, God's love for us was always there, and has always been offering us the gift of being his blessed children.  

A lot of Christians I've met, especially a lot of pastors, have had some pretty big struggles in their family lives.  I think a lot of people in the Church have experienced the same feelings I have felt of not feeling like we really had a place to belong.  But, in Christ, there is a place for us.  We are called sons and daughters of God from the very beginning... God's love is there for us even before we were born.  What if... what if we realized that the context was love?  It's easy for us to say in our minds... God can't love, there's so much crap that happens in the world.  But believing in the love of God is subversive... it's under the surface.  Sometimes it feels like a hope against all hope, but if it's truly there... it means everything.  Love, grace, healing, and redemption can shatter our very foundations.  It can transform our entire being.  

Think about this: God calls us sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters.  He welcomes us all into his home.  People like Poppi, in some small way, they get what the Church is.  They might not even know that they get it, they might not even realize that they get it.  But sometimes they get it more than the people who can put words to it.  Being a child of God isn't about understanding a theological proof... it's about being in the midst of God's family.  It's about being welcome, being whole, and being healed.  It's about eating and laughing and loving.  It's about being real, carnal, humans with one another who love and hurt and lie and forgive and heal.  It's about living in a space where we acknowledge that we're not perfect, but that there is grace.  

Poppi's life makes me want to live.  It makes me not want to be selfish... to give and show love to people.  It makes me want to forget about the things that hold me back... and strive forward to what is ahead.  It makes me want to pull people alongside, and show them how deep the well of grace really is.

Reflections on my first year as a pastor

This coming Sunday will mark one year since I was called to be pastor of Lavonia Presbyterian Church.  A year ago, I was just graduating seminary.  Laurie was pregnant and was finishing up her job at the Pittsburgh Presbytery.  We were moving to the south for the first time… in fact in was our first time living outside of Pennsylvania.  It’s been challenging trying to learn so much at much: what does it mean to be a pastor?  What does it mean to be a father?  What does it mean to be a husband in this context?  What does it mean to be Presbyterian in the south?  All these questions are still circling around in my mind all the time.

I think things are going relatively well on most fronts.  Charlotte has changed me in ways I had never imagined… but it’s so incredible watching her grow and experience life!  Laurie is adjusting… even though I think she misses her family.  We’re making friends and growing into the people who we were meant to be.  Our relationship with the Church is great.  We love the people there… they are supportive and generous, giving and hopeful.  We’ve started some fun new programs, we’ve challenged everyone with new kinds of music and activities, we’ve gotten to have an impact on people’s lives!  I feel like I can really see God moving in this place… there’s a spirit of hope that’s really coming alive.

I still struggle though.  I struggle, firstly, because of who I am as a person.  I have expectations, hopes, and dreams that don’t always match up with reality!  There are a lot of things that I want in my own life that I realize I just can’t have.  I struggle because I’m a human being, with my own unique strengths and flaws, and I often feel like I wish I could be someone I’m not or do things I’m built to do.  In my relationship with my wife, often I can be highly pessimistic and Laurie is almost optimistic to a fault!  I struggle with myself.  I struggle with my denomination.  There’s so much fighting and tension going on right now… I don’t know what’s going to happen.  It seems worse than it’s ever been.   I sometimes feel that what the Church really needs right now is young people with skills… skills that are much deeper than mine. 

Yet, even with all of this, I’m proud of who I am.  I’m proud because I believe that God has called me to be proud… that he’s spoken grace into my life and forgiven all my faults.  He’s created a community for me to live and grow into, where I don’t have to be everything to everyone.  He’s created grace so that we can be broken together.  He’s bonded the Church together, so that even when I feel like I’ve fallen flat on my face, God is there and God is bigger.  I think in the end, what the Church, and probably all of the world, needs right now is a faithful, humble, enduring hope.  We need hope, because always need to remember to look to what is to come.  Hope needs to have faith in God and in one another.  It needs to be humble, putting one another before ourselves.  Most of all, hope must endure all of the difficulties that we encounter.

My prayer is that we would be a people of hope.  No matter what our circumstance, context, or situation… may we be a people of hope.  

Some thoughts on Evangelism...

Someone I know was having a conversation recently with a gentleman who was actively sharing the Gospel in his community.  My friend had been taught how to share the Gospel from doing work with Campus Crusade.  While I have personally moved some distance away from certain aspects of Cru.’s methodology, I still hold a lot of respect for the movement and it’s awareness that people need to hear the life-giving message of Jesus Christ.  I also think that Bill Bright got something right when composing the four laws: the first law is “God loves you and created you to know him personally” (it used to be… “and has a wonderful plan for your life,” but that was later changed after the realization that the call to discipleship is not always a call to a “wonderful life” but it is always a call to a life giving relationship with God.)  I like the first for many of the same reasons that I identify with the “reformed” tribe of theology: it starts with God.  The Bible does the same thing… it begins in Genesis 1 with a creative God forming, shaping, and lovingly crafting humanity into his own image.  The second law goes on to say that there is a problem: sin has entered the world… and the third law says that Jesus came to save the world.  But before we speak about sin or redemption, we speak of the love of God.  The context is love… we don’t speak to someone of their problems and difficulties unless they realize that you care for them.  The context is also that God has created humanity with a purpose… your life means something.  I do believe that God has a wonderful plan for our lives: that we would worship God and enjoy him forever.  I think we do that through our lives.

So as my friend was dialoguing with this individual who was sharing his faith, she expressed all of these things to him.  He said that he “respectfully disagreed.”  Instead, he asked, “if you were in a building in 911 and you knew your lives were going to end… how would you share the Gospel?”  Obviously, (for him) the answer would be to call them to repent so they would be saved from hell!  I (also) respectfully disagree.

For me, the question is… “what is evangelism?”  If we are people who are called by Christ into the labor of Matthew 28, to invite people into relationship with Christ… what exactly are we doing.  I have a fundamental disagreement with this second, common, approach because of some key assumptions that it makes about life in general.  If the whole idea of evangelism is to announce that we’re saved from hell so we can go to heaven… what happens to our lives right now?  This might be controversial to some, but I’m not really that big on the classical conception of heaven and hell.  The Bible used different language for what happens after death: resurrection.  Resurrection involves our bodies, it’s carnal in nature.  In scripture, you don’t find many references to a disembodied existence. 

So what is evangelism?  In my opinion, it’s inviting people to a new way of life.  It’s joining people for coffee and conversation, it’s sharing lives and hearts together.  It’s calling people to join in community together.  It’s saying… I want you to come and see what this new life is like.  Ultimately, it’s showing people what it’s like to really be human.  It’s saying… look, Jesus calls us to live this way, and it’s so much better than anything else I’ve experienced.  It fills my soul with worshipping God, it meets my human needs of relationship, and it gives me a calling… to live my life to God in union with his spirit and experience and share true, holy joy.  Now, in the OT perception of death… you walk with God… and then you keep walking. In the NT Jesus speaks of heaven coming down to this world.  We don’t need to go to heaven, heaven comes here. What happens in DEATH is very closely related to what happens in life.  You’ll still have a body… you’ll still be doing the same types of things you do in this world… because you’re not whisked off to a different place!  You’re resurrected!

Over the past year or so… I’ve been trying to develop what I call a “carnal” theology.  People often think of carnality strickly in relation to sin (don’t drink, smoke, swear or chew, and don’t you hang out with the girls that do!)  But… what if we started our theology not with sin, but with the image of God.  What if we thought of the body not as bad, but as created good and whole… even though life is tainted with brokenness.  The Gospel, in my opinion, is not about escaping our bodies but living our lives to the fullest.  It’s about using our talents to the glory of God.  It’s not about getting out of here, but bringing heaven here… each and every day we have the chance to witness to the wonders of God in the way that we live our lives.