Wednesday, July 5, 2023

Wisdom Wednesday: The Bar and The Church

Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Today is Wednesday, July 5, 2023 I started reading an autobiography this weekend called The Tender Bar, written by J.R. Moehringer. J.R. is just a few years older than I am, and he writes about growing up in the mid1970s and early 80s in the town of Manhasset on Long Island. His childhood is straight out of a Dickens novel. His famous radio DJ father abandoned him. He and his mother lived with her abusive and sadistic father. Growing up, JR was hungry for male role models until he found them at the local bar where his uncle worked. The bar’s name is fittingly enough called Dickens, and at Dickens JR meets a whole host of men who have issues with work and money and health and gambling and women and many, many issues around alcohol consumption. But they welcome young JR and they teach him about life and love and having confidence, even when life is cold and so hard. They provide community and acceptance for him. I’m just a hundred or so pages into the book but I believe JR’s life story is headed toward a good ending. When JR grows up he becomes a journalist and he was the ghost writer for the autobiographies of Andre Agassi and Prince Harry. He is now married with 2 children of his own. When I was growing up one of the most popular TV shows was the sitcom Cheers, set in a bar in Boston. The theme song for cheers was: Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot. Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came. I am not the first pastor to hope that the church could be more like Cheers and the Dickens bar. I want Peakland to be the place where when life is hard, you come here, and folks know your name and they’re always glad you came. I want Peakland to be a place where all folks find community and acceptance. We at Peakland had an excellent time last week at vacation bible school. We had about 50 children in the church and 30 adults and youth who gave generously of their time and talents. Just this morning, I delivered to Daily Bread the homemade trail mix that the VBS kids made. In so many ways, this past week of vacation bible school was one of the highpoints of my time at Peakland so far. But I know full well that there are so many of us in the church and in the community who are finding life cold and so hard. We are dealing with our own issues with work and money and health and addictions and challenging family issues. I want Peakland to be the place where we have good times together and we welcome and accept one another and are genuinely glad to see one another, AND I want Peakland to be the place where we aspire to be more than we are right now, where God’s love empowers us and resurrects us. As I read about the men in the Dickens bar, and as I remember the characters of Cheers, they don’t change much. Many of them feel run over by life and unable to change. I don’t what that for us at Peakland. I want a community of folks where we seek a greater connection with our One Trinity God and with each other. I want a community of folks who are hurting and hopeful, who maybe down but will never be out. We are people who dream big for our church and for the wider world. We do that by following Jesus. By following the ways of Jesus, we at Peakland become more generous with our time and our talents. We become more forgiving and more loving. We seek a better way in life not just for ourselves but for all of those around us. Here at Peakland, we have acceptance and aspiration! We extend a warm welcome to others, and we seek spiritual growth! Here at Peakland we want community for us and for all our neighbors. Beginning next week, we at Peakland will begin reading and discussing this wonderful book, God in the wilderness. We’ll have in person classes and talk about the book on Sundays in worship and here on our Wisdom Wednesday videos. In a few weeks, our congregation will put together 10,000 bagged meals in our fellowship hall with the Rise Against Hunger organization. Contact me at PeaklandPastor@gmail.com for more information on how you can be part of all this and part of our great community. Thanks be to God!