Gleanings...So Far (Part 2)
Gleanings…So Far (Part 2) by Rev. L. John Gable
July 3, 2022
Those of you who were with us in worship last week will remember that I began sharing with you gleanings that I have gathered about life and ministry over the first 40 years of my ministry. I shared 20 of them with you then and offer 20 more to you this morning.
All 40 gleanings are printed for you as a bulletin insert this morning and a copy of Part I is available on line, as will be this one later this week. So, we begin with-
#21. WHEN IN DOUBT, DO THE LOVING THING. Given that every day we are faced with new opportunities and challenges to live out our faith, I will confess that there are many times when I am not really sure how best to do that. So, I have determined, when in doubt to try to do the loving thing. When questioned along this line Jesus said all of the commandments can really be boiled down to two: love God and your neighbor as yourself. All the rest is just commentary. So when in doubt, do the loving thing in the loving way.
#22. GIVEN ALL WE’VE BEEN GIVEN THERE’S A TIME TO GIVE BACK. Bob Bufford wrote a book several decades ago titled Halftime in which he argues that many folks spend the first half of their lives pursuing “success” and the second half seeking “significance” –making a difference. While there is much in his book with which I disagree, (primarily his suggestion that we have to wait until halftime before trying to make a difference in the world), I do agree with him that: given all that we’ve been given there is a time when each of us has to give back, and I would suggest that that time is sooner rather than later.
#23. I AM NOT IN CONTROL, AND I DON’T NEED TO BE. People often refer, or defer, to the Senior pastor as being “the boss”, the one who makes decisions, the one who is in control, when in truth I don’t see that as being my role around here at all. If there is one way to characterize my leadership style it is “consensus building” and “permission giving”. One of my favorite sayings is, “There go my people. I must follow, for I am their leader.” Rather than trying to wrest control from you, or over you, I have tried consistently to give it away. I have determined that if everything needs to go through me- every idea, project and decision- then we are completely bound by my time, my energy, my vision, my faith-capacity. However, if each of us is encouraged to pursue our own God-given passions, given that they are consistent with our shared faith, values and mission, then our capacity for doing ministry is compounded exponentially. I know I am not in control, and the good news is, I know I don’t need to be.
#24. EVERY CHURCH – AND CHURCH MEMBER – HAS TO DO THE MINISTRY GOD HAS GIVEN THEM TO DO. We are all familiar with the “80/20 rule” – that 80% of the work in any organization is done by 20% of the people. If that is true, and I think it is with some variation, then that means two things – first, that we are doing far less than God desires or has equipped us to do, and second, that only a small minority of people are getting to experience the joy of being used by God in any meaningful way.
Too often I hear people complain about what other people aren’t doing which seems to me to be wasted energy. We need only be concerned about what God has given us to do and then do it, and when we do that it is remarkable how much of God’s work actually gets done.
I believe God has given Tab, and each of us as part of the Tab church family, a very particular kind of ministry to do, starting right here at 34th and Central, then emanating out. So, we needn’t concern ourselves with what others are, or are not, doing, we simply need to keep doing the ministry God has given us to do. God has given us this field to plow.
#25. THE CHURCH IS MADE UP OF SOME VERY ODD PEOPLE… AND ALL OF THEM ARE LOVED AND LOVEABLE. This one I think is pretty much self-explanatory. If it is not, just look around. We are some pretty quirky folks and it would be hard to find the common denominator among us, save the love of God. And that’s the beauty of it all: every last one of us is loved, even when we aren’t very loveable.
#26. PEOPLE ARE JUST PEOPLE. Through the years I have had the opportunity to sit with folks in nearly every conceivable station and situation of life…at the moment of birth and of death; in state houses and state penitentiaries; in houses with many rooms and in houses that could fit into one of those rooms; with the famous and the infamous, and through it all I have come to learn that people are just people. Sometimes we get so enamored or intimidated or even put off by peoples’ titles and positions and stations in life – high or low – that we forget that people are just people who have the same kinds of hopes and dreams and fears and desires that you and I have.
#27. LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS. This is a lesson that every individual, family, community, state, nation and church would do well to learn. God has made us stewards of His creation, so we must learn to live responsibly with all of it. Fiscal responsibility is a discipline and, like any other discipline, it can be very hard work, but, like any other discipline, once it is mastered, it offers tremendous freedom to do what we want and need to do. God has given us a great work to do here, but we can’t do any of it if we don’t have the resources. So, we must continue to live within our means and ever seek to expand them.
#28. LONLINESS IS A TERRIBLE DISEASE. Mother Theresa once said, “Of all the diseases I have known, loneliness is the worst…We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair and hopelessness is love.” This chronic disease has only been exacerbated by the pandemic. If you are one who is battling loneliness, please do everything within your power to reach out, and if you are one who knows someone who is struggling with loneliness please do everything within your power to reach in.
#29. LITTLE ACTS OF KINDNESS ARE NOT LITTLE. I think it would be safe to say that most of us hope to be remembered for some significant act we did, but I have come to believe that most of us will be remembered best for some little act of kindness we extend: the note written, the call made, the smile offered, the name remembered, the prayer lifted. I am often reminded that seemingly little acts of kindness are not little.
#30. NEVER CUT WHAT YOU CAN UNTIE. Relationships are difficult and complicated: husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends, pastors and parishoners. In those difficult times there is always the temptation to simply cut the tangled knot and move on, but to the contrary, I have learned: never cut what you can untie. Leave the door open. Always be ready to run to welcome the prodigal home.
#31. INVEST IN THE FUTURE. When is the best time to plant an oak tree? 75 years ago. When is the second best time? Today. As I consider the future of the church, the Church with a capital C not Tab specifically, I am continually reminded of how important it is that we invest in the future. I have been blessed to be invited to walk alongside pastors younger than myself and when asked if I will meet with them I always say “Yes”. I believe in the importance of investing in the future. All of the capital improvement projects we are doing around Tab right now are an investment in the next 100 years of our ministry on this corner. Today is the day to invest in future.
#32. HOLD ON TO FEWER ESSENTIALS. You have heard me quote the Moravian saying, “In the essentials, unity; in the non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.” As I have aged, and hopefully matured in my faith, I have come to realize that the fewer essentials I try to hold on to the better it is for me. I have learned to hold firmly to some: the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the gift of grace, the two great commands: love God and others; and I am learning to loosen my grasp on others.
#33. TALK LESS, LISTEN MORE. This is a curious one for someone who has spent his life and career talking. But I increasingly see the value of trying to talk less, shorten my stories, tighten my responses, to listen more. The old adage about God giving us two ears and one mouth is good advice.
#34. PLAN YOUR NEXT STEP. Many of you are aware that Kristin and I moved in a retirement community about a year ago and a good number of you have wondered “why?”, and some of you have even been bold enough to ask us. Through the years, having watched and walked alongside many our age and older, I have seen the wisdom of planning your next step. In my experience, too many people find themselves having to make quick decisions, expensive decisions, frustrating and disappointing decisions when faced with a life-changing event. We wanted to try to avoid those, as best as we can, so determined that this decision to move was something over which we could take control.
I’m not suggesting that this is the right decision for anyone else, but I am suggesting is that there is value, regardless of what season of life you are in, to planning your next step.
#35. PLAN, BUT BE READY TO PIVOT. Playing off the last gleaning, this one was highlighted during Covid. Like many of you, during the pandemic, we, as the Tab staff and leadership, would spend hours making plans for what could and could not be done in the building, and more than once, when a decision was finally agreed upon, some new bit of information would arise that forced us to scrap our plans and start all over. Of course, plan, but always be ready to pivot.
#36. WE CAN DISAGREE EVEN WITH THOSE WITH WHOM WE AGREE. Perhaps you have heard me say that these past several years have been the most difficult of my forty years in ministry and that, in part, because I have found myself in disagreement even with those with whom I generally agree, and I know I am not alone in saying that. Tensions have run high, given the pandemic, the political environment, the social complexities we are facing, the violence which plagues us, and so on. One of my favorite Presbyterian mottos has always been: “persons of good character and principle may differ”. As much as I agree with and value that principle, I have found myself being surprised by how much disagreement and division people of good faith and principle have allowed themselves to engage in, even with others with whom they by and large agree. I find that I continue to need to remind myself, and you, that the One who unites us is greater than anything which could ever divide us, so we should live that way.
#37. END WITHOUT AN ASTERISK. How many high profile athletes, business leaders, politicians, pastors can you name who, near the end of their careers, have made a mistake which has stained their characters and tarnished their reputations? Hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear or read about someone who has to put an asterisk by their name and accomplishments. I don’t spend any time at all worrying about this for myself, but I do add it to this list as a reminder as I draw near the end of my career that when a pastor fails, morally, he or she takes a lot of people down with them. Their words and actions can influence the relationship others have with God and the Church, for good or for ill. So, I remind myself, and you, end without an asterisk.
#38. TAKE TIME TO LOOK IN THE MIRROR. Last summer when we gathered in small groups to talk about the issues surrounding the death of George Floyd and the difficult history of racism in America I recall being asked, “What I was learning through it all?” I remember answering, “I am taking this time to look in the mirror.” Not so that I can see a few more wrinkles and grey hairs, but as a life review regarding my own attitudes and experiences with persons other or different than myself.
I grew up in what I have come to understand is quite a segregated suburb of St. Louis. I knew my black friends lived on one side of the city and I on another, but I never really gave much thought as to why. I realize now that there was a history of discrimination in my city of which I was not aware, until I was forced to take a hard look in the mirror. A number of years ago, my mother, who was about 94 at the time, came to a similar conclusion, so she invited about 30 of her friends, all white, to come to her home and listen to stories being told by one of our family friends about what it was like to grow up black in our community. When she issued the invitation she told her friends, “We are here to listen, not to talk, just listen.” There were a lot of mirrors being held up that evening that we need to hold up still.
#39. JESUS LOVES ME THIS I KNOW FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO. Karl Barth, perhaps one of the 20th century’s greatest theologians and a man about whom it was asserted that he never had an unpublished thought, was once asked by one of his students, “What is the greatest truth you have ever learned?” Expecting some profound theological explanation Barth responded, “Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.” Barth’s answer reminds us that some truths are simply profound, but most truths are profoundly simple.
This is essentially what I believe the Apostle Paul was trying to say to the Corinthians centuries ago, and what I have tried to say throughout my 40 years of ministry. “I have decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified…so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom, but on the power of God.”
#40. YOU ARE LOVED, NOW GO DO SOMETHING GREAT FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD. This is the way I have ended every staff meeting for many years, and if I ever forget, someone there will be sure to remind me. So, friends, I leave you with this: You are loved, now go do something great for the Kingdom of God.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN