Saint Matthew's

The doorbell rang at 11:15pm last night. I was upstairs in the bedroom reading and listening to music. Grudgingly, I put on my walk-around slippers and went to answer the door.

Upon opening the door, the woman standing on the other side didn’t look very well. She looked rather, how can I put this nicely, completely trashed.

I’ve know this woman and her soon-to-be-ex husband for about a decade. To be honest, I was wrong about these two – I thought they were a terrific couple. Only problem was that he was a closet cocaine user and she a non-social drinker, meaning she regularly got sloshed at home when no one was looking. In public, they appeared wonderful together. Behind the doors of their home, apparently the demons of life got the best of them.

In early 2008, they decide to divorce.

He cleaned himself up and got help for his closet addiction. Last April, he told me that he checked himself into a rehab center and got clean. He’s been seeing a psychologist to help him deal with issues that led him to cocaine abuse. Just a few weeks ago, he announced that he was offered a rather comfortable job in Los Angeles, one that he decided to accept. His new job begins on February 2nd. Until then, he hoped to reach some conclusion to his divorce and move on with his life.

She has been in a downward spiral. Her once quiet drinking issues are now public. Last night, she drunkenly told me that she passed out at a bar in White Plains on New Year’s Eve and woke up in the hospital with vomit covering her blouse. On Christmas Eve, she got so drunk at her parents house, her father threw her out (though I don’t know if that was the best thing to do). And on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, a day she had off of work, she got so inebriated she forgot to pick her children up at school.

Her children are in kindergarten and second grade.

As you could guess, her soon-to-be-ex was obviously furious at her for this one. On the Monday following Thanksgiving, he amended his divorce petition to include sole custody of their two children.

This past Tuesday, her attorney informed her that the judge most likely will rule in favor of her husband on his amended petition. There are several reasons why, but the major one you can probably already guess. That means her children will most likely be moving to California with her husband in a few short weeks if the judge rules before then.

All of this was too much for her, so her past few days have been filled with alcohol, sedatives, and vomit.

Last night, she found herself at a bar in Hackensack with a friend from work. At around 10 o’clock and after five glasses of scotch, she found herself in her car driving around, looking for Route 4. She pulled into the Target parking lot and searched her Blackberry for directions. Instead, she decided to come here.

At 11:15pm, she pulled into the church parking lot and stumbled her way to my front door. Surprised to see her, I invited her in. While making a pot of coffee, she let all her sadness and pain come out. For the next couple of hours, all she did was talk and drink a boat load of black coffee (she usually takes it with milk and sugar, but I drink skim milk and use Splenda, both of which she sees as “bad for you”).

By around 2:30am, she was quite sober again. “I haven’t felt normal in a long time,” she said to me as we sat at the kitchen table. For another half hour or so, we chatted about what she was going to do with her life.

“I only have one choice.”

At 8:30ish this morning, the phone rang. The Caller ID showed her name, so I picked it up.

“I’ve decided to clean myself up,” she said. Instead of going home, she ended up going to a hospital to find out about how she could get help for her drinking. Being that it was early in the morning, there wasn’t much help at the hospital. One of the nurses gave her a number of an AA director in the area.

This morning at 6am, she met this gentleman at a diner. He explained what she had to do, but that by her making the first step, she showed she wanted to get clean.

When she called me this morning, she was at home just finishing up dumping all her alcohol down the toilet. She had a long list of bottles. The one number that still surprises me is that she had 29 bottles of vodka in her house.

29!!

But not now. From the side of her house, she dragged a garbage can inside and began breaking the empty glass bottles. She said this was her symbolic way of breaking with her past.

I told her that I wanted to write about this episode because it was a good one. For a while I’ve been writing about the bad things that have happened to me or to others. It has been rare when I can write about something good.

She gave me the OK, with the caveat that I keep her name out of it. That was a given, I told her.

Of course, today was her first step. The next step, and the other after that, will be the challenge. But I hope she is on the right path.

Not a bad way to start a Saturday, huh?

Sometimes, I can’t hold it in.

The Supreme Court ruled today that people who rape children are not eligible for the death penalty.

This Court has lost all touch with reality.

Now, as a clergy man, being in favor of the death penalty may not put me in the vein with other clergy people. I don’t care.

It is not for vengence that I support the death penalty.

But sometimes a crime is so revolting, so sickening, society as a whole must show it’s revulsion by taking the life of those who commit such crimes.

When someone rapes a child, that person should face the loss of his or her life. They show themselves unable to live among the rest of society. It’s a child. Whether or not a jury or a judge imposes that sentence, they should be given that option.

I know, it doesn’t sound so good to favor putting someone to death for their crime, especially someone who is in the “forgiveness” business.

But where talking about someone raping a child.

Reading this morning’s NY Post, I ran across a story dealing with a MTA bus driver who is up in arms over the agency ordering her to wear pants instead of a skirt. But it is the driver’s reason as to why she wants to wear a skirt instead of pants: It’s against her religion.

Tahita Jenkins told her supervisors that wearing a skirt is against her Pentecostalist faith. She even brought in a letter from her pastor explaining the prohibition of women wearing pants. But the MTA is standing firm; they claim it is for safety reasons that she must wear pants.

When I read stories like this, I think Lutherans should be happy that they are Lutherans.  

I don’t know if you caught it, but the Daily Mail newspaper of England had a terrific photo of lightning hitting the Empire State Building this week. It is just a magnificent picture that really has no theological meaning.

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Funny story in today’s NY Post – an atheist is all up in arms that the New York Times rejected his proposed log-on name of “Anti-Christ.” The Times said it was offensive.

(Ann Marie) Ciarcia, wife of former Yorktown Town Engineer Dan Ciarcia, was returning from a night of clubbing with her daughter, Alexa, 15, and Emily Cornish on Sept. 18 (2006) when she drove the wrong way on the (Saw Mill River) parkway and crashed head-on into another car shortly before 5 a.m.

She admitted that she had been drinking and had taken the girls to a Lower Manhattan night club for a punk rock tribute to the defunct band The Ramones.

Why is a mom going out “clubbing” with her teenage daughter and her daughter’s friend? Why is a mom keeping her daughter and her friend out till 5AM? Does anyone else see something wrong here?

Oh, there is more to this story … it isn’t good news. The daughter’s friend died in this crash. Mom was sentenced Friday to 1 1/3 years in jail.

Horrible story.

I know, the title of this post isn’t very “pastoral,” but the issues raised in this article in this morning’s Bergen Record lead me to that conclusion.

A 16-year old Kearny, New Jersey high school student is suing his school district because a teacher brought religion into the classroom. No one will defend the teacher’s actions – he preached Christianity in the classroom and attacked those who don’t believe in Jesus as people who will be going to hell. Public school classrooms are not for religious proselytizing. This student taped his teacher making the comments and he brought it to the attention of the district who reacted accordingly. Teachers will receive additional training on the proper role of religion in the classroom. They even acted to switch out the students who received the heavy dose of Christian religious talk from this teacher.

But this angered these students. They didn’t want to switch teachers in midyear and they let their classmate and rabblerouser, Matthew LaClair, know about it. He called this treatment “harassment” and is suing the district because they didn’t stop his fellow students from harassing him.

I have one comment to little Matthew: GROW UP!!

In real life, people are going to say and do things you don’t like. You can’t run to an ACLU lawyer everytime your feelings get hurt. The teacher was wrong and the district dealt with it. When you, dear Matthew, anger your friends and they bother you or someone says something you don’t like, don’t go crying to a lawyer to get it fixed. Stand up and deal with it. While your teacher was wrong to do what he did, you’re equally wrong in suing your school district because your friends are mad at you.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama announced his presidential ambitions this weekend during a speech in Springfield, Illinois. Senator Obama spoke of his faith as being central to his life. As a pastor, this made me smile. Faith should not be something we pull out on Sunday mornings when we walk into church. It should be something that we use only in selected situations during our day.

One of the hardest things to do in life is to live your Christian faith in your daily walk. It is hard because the secular world will contantly pull and prod you to reject what your faith would guide you to believe and do.

Politicians have a hard job to live their faith in their lives. They poll everything and find that many times most people will want their elected officials to do opposite of what their faith would want them to do. For example, abortion. A person’s Christian faith compels one to reject abortion and to fight to save God’s most innocent children. But the politician, in many respects, who is Christian will turn their backs on this central tenet of one’s faith of protecting innocent human life and support abortion rights. Senator Obama is one of those who supports abortion rights.

Living one’s faith in one’s life is hard. It is not easy. We should pray everyday that our faith would be our guide in all that we do. Christian faith should not be a line in a political speech just to make people of faith happy.

To paraphrase Nike, if you want to live your faith in your life, “Just Do It.”

Today is a great day … well, for at least comics readers in Northern New Jersey. The Bergen Record today started printing their daily comics in color!!

OK. That may not be earth shattering news, but for comics readers in Bergen County, it is a great day.

Just checked the top news stories over at Fox News’ website. Here is a screen capture of the top stories:

Three stories deal with the sad Anna Nicole Smith case: the police don’t know why the former model died; a sick videotape of her last moments has sold for a half a million dollars; and now Zsa Zsa Gabor’s husband claims that HE is the father of Smith’s baby. Talk about tabloid fodder!!

The other deals with the sad story of a Los Angeles hospital dumping a homeless paraplegic man Skid Row.

It is definitely time to say a prayer for this sinful world, don’t you think?

It was nice that in this year’s Super Bowl were two head coaches who weren’t afraid to speak about their faith in Jesus Christ. It was also a wonderful expression that head coaches don’t have to be mini-thugs or have rotten personalities in order to make it.

The post-game show which highlighted the Indianapolis Colts victory had God at its center.

Phil Musnick in today’s NY Post expresses an interesting opinion regarding all this God-stuff in sports. He contends that when faithful sportspeople raise God as the one who led them victory, it trivializes God. Why was God for the Colts and not the Bears on Super Bowl Sunday?

…people in sports don’t think twice about suggesting that God has a rooting interest – and in them.

And God apparently works in particularly mysterious ways during Super Bowls. Remember what He did to Janet Jackson’s outfit?…

God is good; God is great. But the trivial and sometimes even exploitive application of God’s hand to sports events – especially televised events – becomes a bit much. It was a golf tournament, then a football game. OK, a big football game, but still, just a football game.

God is most definitely good and great. But He doesn’t takes sides in the Super Bowl or on the golf course or at the Little League field. However, it so easy for us to jump to the conclusion that it was the hand of God who pushed the football a little bit further to the right as to prevent the ball from going through the uprights and let God’s “favorite” team to win. Our sinful mind has this need to try and figure out why our team wins or loses, why we’re suffering or that others are suffering, or why we aren’t millionaires but others are rich beyond belief.

On the other hand, when good things happen, we should thank God for all the blessings in our lives. Yes, even Super Bowl champions should thank God for their win, for their health, and for the blessings in their lives. But all people should thank God.We should all be like Tony Dungy, a God-fearing man and head coach of the Colts, who thanks Almighty God for all the good things he was experiencing.

So what does it mean that Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees has never been on a World Series champion? Thinking that God hates A-Rod? You’d be wrong. 

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The Catholic League, a conservative Roman Catholic organization, is calling on Democrat Presidential candidate John Edwards to dismiss two bloggers who have made what the group considers “anti-Catholic” remarks in the past on their blogs.

One of the bloggers wrote in opposition to the Roman Catholic church’s prohibition of contraception and claimed forcing women to have those unwanted children was creating more tithing Catholics. Nasty stuff.

The other blogger made a more general attack on Christians, calling conservative Christians who support President George W. Bush “Christofascists.”

Why am I posting this story?

If these bloggers made similar remarks to Muslims, this would have led newscasts last night. But when Christians are being attacked, the story is relegated to obscurity. The media isn’t fair when it comes to attacks on Christians.

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Friends of mine are going through hell right now. Their son’s murderer is being released from jail because a Federal court judge ruled that the failure of the Westchester County District Attorney’s office to turn over a few documents deemed exculpatory evidence meant that the guilty have to go free.

The judge himself believes the guy who was convicted is the murderer. They got the right guy. But it didn’t matter to him – apparently getting the process right is more just than keeping the guilty in jail.

It makes me sick.

(more…)

It is no secret that Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary, is a lesbian, and she is pregnant.

This has caused certain "evangelicals" to criticize Mary’s lifestyle and that she is going to raise a child in a non-traditional "mom and dad" home. Even TV reporters have questioned the Vice President about this. He rightfully told the reporter that he was stepping over a line.

The church should always oppose homosexuality because God’s Word says so. This is not done because we hate, but because the God of love who created us tells us to. It is not hateful for the church to say that something opposes God. It is loving. We don’t want our brothers and sisters to live lives of sin. That is why we cannot water down our teachings or lessen our hold on the Word of God.

But what this topic boils down to is sin. The church is supposed to oppose sin, not matter the form. The church doesn’t promote pre-marital sex. We preach that it is wrong. Why? God’s Word tells us that sex between partners is only supposed to be between a wife and husband. Any kind of sex between a boyfriend and girlfriend is wrong. Sex between non-married partners of any age is wrong. And the church can’t change this teaching. However, we don’t throw couples out of the church who are having sex before marriage. We teach the importance of God’s Word and the importance of understanding of fighting our internal mechanism that causes us to sin. And when we fail, the church says, we sinners go to our God and repent and ask for forgiveness.

When we Christians oppose a particular lifestyle or action of our fellow sinners, we don’t oppose it because we hate. On the contrary, our opposition is one of love. God’s Word provides a blessed explanation of what sinfulness is. And as we read the Word, we find that all of us are sinners and are in need of a savior. We are to cling to the cross of Christ and ask our Lord for the forgiveness that Jesus won for humanity through His blessed life, death, resurrection, and ascension.

As Christians, one of the things that we aren’t supposed to do is stand in judgment of others. When Christian leaders go on TV or speak to reporters about Mary Cheney and her pregnancy and then be critical of her, they have lost sight of a most important aspect of our lives as Christians – we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Or we are to love our neighbor as our Lord Jesus loved us when He humbled Himself to come to earth to die for our sins. Our Lord didn’t just come to die for the sins of those righteous, church-going, Bible-thumpers — He came to die for all the sins of the world, including the sin of homosexuality and sin of sex outside of marriage. Christian leaders, while being firm against sin, cannot attack the sinner. We are to reject the sin, but love the sinner.

How about this – today in your prayers, say a prayer for Mary and her unborn child. Ask our Father in heaven to guard and protect mother and child during the months of pregnancy. Most especially we should pray that when Mary’s child is born, she is led to the waters of Holy Baptism.

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David Bell, writing in Sunday’s L.A. Times, thinks the US overreacted after Osama Bin Laden’s soldiers of death killed nearly 3000 Americans on September 11, 2001. He says that our reaction was completely out of proportion to what was truly inflicted upon our nation that day.

Tell that to those New Jersey families – including one here at Saint Matthew’s – who lost loved ones that day, not only at the World Trade Center, but also on United 93 that took off from Newark International Airport.

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