Saint Matthew's

Do you know the last time I took a real vacation was a week between my vicarage ending and the start of my final year of seminary?

That’s right – way back in August 2004 was the last time I took an extended break away from it all. Since starting here in July 2005, I’ve missed a grand total of one Sunday in the pulpit. One Sunday!

And I’ve never complained once.

Plus, you have to remember that we have additional worship services during the week, including Morning Prayer at 7:15, a Wednesday Midweek service, and a Saturday evening Divine Service. Yes, I’ve missed a couple of these, but the vast majority have been held (and checking my calendar, we’ve held approximately 97 percent of these services over the past two years). Sometimes, I was the only person here at church.

And I’ve never complained once.

There is one thing about all these services here at Saint Matthew’s – there is preparation needed for each one of them. Sermons, homilies, prayers, bulletins, studying, writing, reading, re-reading, preparing for each part of the service, making sure the movement is proper, etc. There is an endless stream of preparation that goes into each of these services, even though, at times, it doesn’t seem like it. But there is a lot of work. And I am the only one who can do it since I am the pastor. If I “mailed it in” on any of the services, then I need to be called on the carpet for not being preparing. To make sure that this is not done, I prepare for hours and hours each week, on top of visits, office work, and other assorted “stuff” that needs to get done.

On those sermons, they don’t just write themselves. It takes hours and hours of study, writing, re-writing, memorizing, and more re-writing to get a sermon or a homily in “preach-able” form.

And I’ve never complained once.

During this unending streak of service, I’ve had a major concussion. Last year in 2008, during Holy Week, no less, I could barely stand and walk, yet nearly every one of our scheduled services was held. Oh, and when I write “scheduled services,” I mean not only Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Saturday, and Easter Sunday – also Morning Prayer @ 7:15, special Midday prayer at noon, and Evening Prayer. My neurologist told me I was insane – I needed bed rest. He was going to put me in the hospital if I didn’t rest. Did I listen? No.

And I’ve never complained once.

When I visit people at home, these usually last 90 minutes; many times, they go longer. At hospitals, I spend an average of thirty minutes with non-members, more than a hour with members. When I make three hospital calls in a day – and if they are in one hospital – my afternoon is shot.

And I’ve never complained once.

There are times when I get a phone call at night and I have to rush out to a hospital, nursing home, a private home, you name it. It doesn’t matter if I am tired — I go. Even when the situation can be solved with a simple phone discussion, I drag myself downstairs to make coffee in a travel mug so I can get out of the house at outlandish times.

And I’ve never complained once.

I’ve missed holidays, birthdays, and celebrations with family and friends because I’ve been “on the job” – I’ve sat at hospital bedsides and in living rooms on the most important holidays on our calendar. I’ve met with friends of members of Saint Matthew’s on Easter Sunday, July 4th, and Christmas Day.

And I’ve never complained once.

On the day my father had colon cancer surgery, we had a meeting with New Jersey District officials here at church. I left the hospital in the middle of my father’s surgery moments after the doctor came out to tell us that they were unable to re-attach my father’s colon and would have to remove it and perform a permanent colostomy. Yet I drove from Yonkers back to New Milford for a meeting with district officials.

And I’ve never complained once.

And I don’t complain about any of those things because that is my calling – I am a pastor. I work to serve our Lord, and by serving the people here at Saint Matthew’s, I serve Him.

Do I work too much without taking time off for myself? Yes. I don’t readily admit that, but the fact is I have worked too hard and too long without a break. Do I wish for a day where the telephone lines get cut and the cell tower goes down so I wouldn’t have to answer the phone? I wish for this more times than I would care to admit. As I sit here typing this, I am feeling tired – and this can’t be good since it is only 9am.

Yet, I battle through feeling sluggish because that is who I am — and I am not talking about the title of “pastor,” but who I am as a person. I’ve always worked hard. As a pastor, it is my obligation to be there when members need me, regardless of how tired I feel or where I want to be.

While I’ve moaned and whined about being tired or sick, it has never stopped me from fulfilling my obligations here at Saint Matthew’s.

After a long day yesterday, including two home visits, a hospital run to Valley, and our Midweek service and Bible class, I arrived back home at around 9:15pm. A little tired and hungry, I ended up pouring a glass of Crystal Light raspberry ice and heading upstairs to the bedroom. I got ready for bed, sat down in the chair, and turned on the television. I may have watched 10 minutes of the Yankees game when the telephone rang.

It was someone complaining to me that they couldn’t get a hold of me on Wednesday. They claimed to have called the house and the church, but I didn’t answer the phone. Of course, on both extensions, they failed to leave a voice mail, and if they did, I would have received immediate notification on my mobile phone that they called.

“So where were you? I called you two times today and you never called me back. Don’t you know that you’re the pastor and when we need you, you are to be there for us? Maybe I should bring this up with the Voters to see if they can figure out what you do all day.”

At first, I thought it was a joke. But the person was serious.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

I was silent for a few seconds, not believing what I heard.

“What do you do all day that you can’t return one phone call.”

It was 48 hours.

Nothing too long.

I was just taking a couple of days to change the scenery a bit.

But…

Real life gets in the way of a good plan, again.

I am staying here in New Jersey.

The next time, I am not planning to go away. I’m just leaving and not telling any one.

Last night, a friend called me to complain.

Oh, not to complain about me, but about people in his congregation. Apparently, there are some within his flock who may not agree 100 percent with his preaching. They may like his style of sermonizing, but they take issue with some of his “Godly topics.”

During the past year, he told me last night, he’s preached about abortion, homosexuality, and living together before marriage. He took “Godly positions,” namely in opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and couples living together before marriage. Each time, he received notes from members complaining about his “politicizing” from the pulpit. During Easter week, he receiving a note from a member who explained that he and his girlfriend were leaving the congregation because they disagreed with his “opinion” on living together before marriage.

So last night, in a fit of pent up anger, he called me to vent.

In a nutshell, he was angry that people would completely disregard the Word of God in favor of themselves, or as I put it, “telling God to stick it.” He went on and on decrying a society that is trying to push the church into accepting society’s ideals as Godly while rejecting Godly ideals as being bigoted. When he was finished, I made one comment:

“So, what’s new about that?”

The fact is that sinful society has rejected God forever. Has there ever been a time when God “won over” the entirety of the population to accept, believe, and follow His way? If there was, then I haven’t heard about it. The church has a responsibility not to turn from God, but to proclaim Him crucified without waver. Part of this un-wavering is to stand in contrast to society that says the opposite of what God says.

The pastor is not supposed to make sinning easy for his flock. He is not supposed to water down what God says to make sinners feel comfortable in their skin. The Lutheran pastor is to condemn the sin and preach the forgiveness of sins. If people don’t want to hear that they are a sinner, then they’ve come to the wrong church. The pastor’s obligation is to express this, with the help of God, in ways everyone will understand.

At one time, I wasn’t very tactful. In fact, a previous pastor of mine would joke about my lack of tact, to which I laughed. But he had a major point — something I didn’t learn until I was in the parish here at Saint Matthew’s. There is a way to condemn sin, preach Christ crucified, and proclaim the forgiveness of sins without scaring them or pushing them away. At times, being more tactful — getting to know not only the congregation in which you were called by God to lead, but also the situations that members face on a daily basis — can help one explain the Word of God more deeply, more undestandingly, and especially, more impactfully, even if in their hearts reject parts of God’s Word.

One of the important aspects I’ve learned of parish life is that not everyone who comes to church is going to agree 100 percent with everything I preach or teach or what the church stands for — and it will never happen, no matter how many times I pray for it. My obligation is to defend the Word of God against a society that rejects Him, and to do it in a way that is clear and understandable for those who attend Saint Matthew’s. Again, not everyone who attends our church will accept everything God says.

If we did, then we wouldn’t be sinners, would we?

Our obligation as a church is not to change God’s Word to make sinners feel more comfortable in their collective skins. For those who left his congregation over his preaching, I gave him this advice — pray for them. Keep in contact with them. And most importantly, pray for them, again. I’ve made this mistake a couple of times here at Saint Matthew’s, and oh! have I beaten myself up over it. But we can only do what we can. Through our mistakes and errors, it is God who leads us through. Prayer helps a lot.

After all of my complaining about my time being crushed this week because of, a) an overwhelming schedule, and, b) taking hours out of my life dealing with personal issues, somehow my sermon and this weekend’s prayers are finished.

I do not remember when I had these two very critical pieces of our weekend services complete with time to spare. For some reason – probably laziness – I fell into a rut when it came to sermon writing. Pushing sermon writing off to the very last moment put pressure on me to deliver a good one; sometimes it worked; other times, I fumbled the ball. This wasn’t always the case. My old way of sermon writing was the following:

Monday, Tuesday – spend time reviewing the Original languages, studying the nuances and deep meaning of the words.
Wednesday – create a "brain dump board" — write down everything I think about the readings and my study; in no particular order, I throw everything down on paper that is running through my head.
Thursday - take some time to outline a general sermon.
Friday – finalize the manuscript; "memorize" the sermon; make minor changes.
Weekends – preach it.

For the first couple of years of my ministry, that was my routine.

And then … I really don’t know what happened. I started pushing off the study to the middle of the week, thus making the all-important "brain dump" impossible. I would sketch out a basic outline for the sermon and then I would study and preach from this outline. When I fell into this rut, I was never confident about my sermon writing.

Last Sunday I vowed that this would end. Generally, I stuck to my old plan this week and, praise be to God, it worked! The sermon is done. Now all it needs is a little spit-shine and polish.

I already knew it was going to be "one of those days" when I woke up a little over an hour ago and my coffee pot wouldn’t work. It’s plugged in. It’s full of all coffee goodness and water. Yet, when I push the "on" button, nothing happens.

Oh, the cruelty of it all!

Otherwise, my Friday appears to be relatively normal, but busy.

Morning Prayer kicks off at 7:15. I then have to tackle my sermon for this weekend – that means I will lock myself either in the church office or at home to get it done. Considering that my coffee pot is not working at home, I am probably will be working in the church office this morning.

My coffee pots in my church office work.

Afterward, I will spend a few minutes at lunch (probably a salad) and then off on a visit. Following my afternoon visit, I have a "quick" meeting, and then back home to finish up the prayers for this weekend’s services. Sometime around 6, I will be done. The Rangers play tonight; maybe I will watch.

Last night, I was over a friend’s house — all day yesterday I was craving brocolli rabe with tofu pasta and steak. Don’t ask me why – it was on my mind all day. And I mean, ALL DAY. When I finished up my work (I love volunteering at pastoral care offices in hospitals, but I hate it when they ask me to do paperwork), I headed over to Yonkers and Stew Leonards and picked up all the items that would satisfy my cravings.

When I arrived at her house, I stood in her kitchen cooking while listening to the New Jersey Devils game on MSG-Plus. About a half hour later, everything was cooked. The steak was even cooked to a desired consistency (medium rare). And that alone is weird for me – I rarely (sorry for the pun) cook steak well. Then I  added a little freshly grated pecorino romano cheese on top and wow! It was actually terrific.

Low in carbs, high in satisfaction.

And the Devils won.

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One of the more interesting aspects of this calling is setting up dates and times for home visits.

Many times, the scheduling is easy. Within moments of raising the possibility of a visit, we can setting on a date and time. Once in a blue moon, the time may have to shift, but overall, when a date and time is scheduled, it is in stone. I like it when this plan comes together, to paraphrase an old TV character.

There are, however, times when I want to pull what is left of my hair out. An agreement can be reached as to a date, but never a time. On most occasions, I have to negoitate with my calendar staring at me in the face. I call these visits “squeezers” because I end up squeezing them between two other items on my schedule — they end up being shorter because of it.

Thankfully, today when I called for visits, everything went smoothly.

All that means is the next time I arrange a visit day, it will not go easy.

OK – don’t look at the ridiculous time I am writing this post (4:43am). I have trouble falling back asleep — when I sleep, have a nutty dream (I don’t have normal dreams), and am jarred awake because of the dream experience – if I fall back to sleep, then when I wake up, I feel like I ran a marathon. In a sense, I never “shake off the sleepiness” throughout the day.

To prevent the sleepiness today, after my latest dream that shook me awake at a little past 4am, I decided to get out of bed. I went downstairs, made a cup of coffee, read through the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times  on my iPhone, and now am back in the bedroom, XM radio blasting in the background as I type this entry.

Last night, we held our first 7pm service with Bible study. In a nutshell, it just works.

Our routine is to “chat” for about 30 minutes before we really kick things off. We talk about everything (last night, I yapped about the New Jersey Devils) and when we’re done, our service begins which is followed by Bible study. Yesterday’s service/bible study was no different.

We started talking around 7 and by 7:30, we were talked out and started our service. Twenty minutes or so later, I was passing out information sheets for our bible study. By 8:15, 8:20, my introduction to our study was complete. Everyone left by 8:30.

And this is a good thing.

Getting home before 9 is much better than dragging in at 9:30 or later after our Midweek festivities.

For me, I straightened up my office a bit and prepared somewhat for today. By 9, I was out of church and back home, watching the conclusion of a wonderful Rangers’ victory over the Washington Capitals.

(I must admit, when I arrived home, I received a message from a friend who was at the Garden sitting in seats paid for by his company. His text message to me?

“Eating nachos at MSG. Rangers rock.”

This morning when I woke up, the only thing on my mind was my “to do” list. Why? It was a long one. I had a couple of meetings, a lunch, and lots of preparation for tonight’s Midweek Divine Service and Bible study to do. The last issue on my plate was my car.

In December 2005, I leased a Kia from Chrysler on Route 4. Kia shared space back then and I liked their Rio 5. So I leased it.

On Monday I received a letter from the Chrysler dealership that they were offering a special buy-back program for leased and previously purchased vehicles. Since my lease was coming due at the end of the year, I figured, “what the heck? Let me see what they have.” And off I went this morning, in between a visit and lunch meeting.

After all of a few minutes, the dealer outlined the program and what they offered, which was pretty darn nice. I wasn’t looking for anything big, something normal sized, as I call it. And the dealer had something right there in stock — the PT Cruiser Touring.

A nice looking car, a good size (bigger than my old Kia, but then again, anything is bigger than a Kia), has lots of bells and whistles that made it a very nice car. Talking about it for all of two sentences, the deal to purchase was much nicer than leasing, so I went ahead and bought it. After a few hours, tons of paperwork (when will they ever get to a paperless office?), I was driving off the lot with a 2008 PT Cruiser Touring (one of their leftover 2008 models that didn’t sell).

I am happy with the purchase – the cost is comparable to the lease (a few bucks more, getting a lot better deal than I received with the Kia). It drives nicely.

Sadly, it comes with satellite radio – Sirius. I have XM. I turned Sirius on since it came with the vehicle (only for a year). But I will keep my XM. One good thing that this car has the Kia didn’t — an auxilary jack for my satellite radio. Good-bye FM transmitter!! Amen!!

OK. Time for me work. Lots to do between now and 7pm (and if you didn’t get my email this morning, sign up in the newsletter box to the right).

A while back, I promised to write some about the proposed changes to the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod governance. There is no argument that the governance of the Synod needs a little fixing up. However, a Blue Ribbon Task Force empaneled by the Synod is proposing a lot of changes – A LOT OF CHANGES – that may not be for the better. I will be writing about these in the coming days both here and on my personal blog. To get a jump start, I have a link on my blog to a website that is outlining the proposed changes. You can take part in their survey, but I would caution you not to vote until you read everything.

Our Wednesday night Midweek Service moves to 7pm tomorrow night.

And don’t look at our church sign – I spelled Wednesday wrong…I’ll fix it tomorrow morning.

When I eventually get to writing that book, today is going to be one of those days for one of the characters.

Wow! Sometimes I just don’t get why things happen to me. It’s not like I’m going out there begging people to do something dumb against me. I’m just an ordinary pastor doing the work of the Lord.

Why can’t that be enough for people? No, they have to try and make my day a living heck.

Too bad for them.

I don’t take their garbage lying down.

Now I have to get to work … all the work I planned to do all day, but couldn’t because I was sidetracked in dealing with a dumb situation. I’ll be back-and-forth from the home and church offices the rest of the day.

Click here for the latest on my weight loss battle. Today, I write about carbs, my hips, and cattle prods.

I know, I know.

I shouldn’t be working on my day off.

Yet, that is what I am doing. Until about 1pm, I am in the home office; I have a visit after 2.

One of the issues I am dealing with — I am trying to get to the bottom of my email problems last week. It bothers me that someone lodged a complaint against me to Google. I really want to find out who accused me sending spam so I can "explain" my position to that "person." By the way, after an investigation, it turned out that my email address was not used to send spam to anyone. Thank you, Gmail!

Also, I am working on this weekend’s services. I have a mea culpa on yesterday’s service – more later.

In general, today has been a relatively normal day. A run to a hospital followed by a home visit and then back to church to get ready for tonight’s 5 o’clock service. Nothing out of the ordinary on my end.

I did stop off at Best Buy to pick up a new satellite radio receiver. My current receiver is facing a slow and painful death – and the death is to my ears. For the past several weeks, it hasn’t worked properly. As an example, while listening to the NHL Home Ice channel, right in the middle of an interview, the receiver loses the signal and proceeds to empty out its memory, and as such, it forgets that it is associated with my satellite radio account. This is not fun.

The big difference between my old receiver and the new one – this one has a color screen.

To me, this makes no difference. I only want one that works.

As for tonight, service begins at 5 – our Saturday night spoken Divine Service.