June 25 – Good News from Fox Hill

DIVERTED ATTENTION

1 Kings 19: 15-16,19-21                         Galatians 5: 1, 13-25                        

Luke 9: 51-62

        When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

So, it is true that faith really matters here in Fox Hill, Wisconsin, my hometown.  That’s not to say that there hasn’t been much going on, there sure enough has.  But conversation has definitely been muted because people’s minds seem otherwise occupied; COVID-19 cases, stage 3 of businesses reopening, Black Lives Matter rallies, and violence in the streets.  Not necessarily here in Fox Hill, but it’s been a quiet week because it has been quite a week.

        There were a few chuckles when drivers passing through town noticed the signboard out in front of Our Lady of Desperate Hope Catholic Church.  Father Gary had come across these words on a picture link on his MyFace page and thought it would lighten things up in town if he put them on the church sign: “Honk if you love Jesus…Text while you’re driving if you want to meet him.”  But hardly anybody even noticed it.

        At Dan’s Diner, with the sign out front, “Breakfast, and Lunch and Dine Here,” a few of the bachelor farmers, when they gathered for a Leinenkugel beer, the beer with the name on it you can’t pronounce, were giving Olli Lunenberg a rough time because they had all noticed a wide gap of nothing planted in his corn field.  Rather than keeping precise, parallel rows, the corn plantings veered off at an angle.  “What, did the sun get in your eyes?”  “Maybe you’ve been planting after midnight?”  “Did that Burpee Seed hat fall down over your pinhead?” 

        No farmer worth his salt does such a wasting of field land like that!  Olli, trying to explain his obvious planting mistake, told the story of how he had seen a rare schroon bird land in his field, and it took him a while to identify it and then some more time to admire it.  Now, the Schroon is a cross between a screech owl and a loon, identifiable mostly by its annoyingly loud “CAW!” at 5 o’clock in the morning. And by the time he focused again on the planting, he’d realized he had steered off course.  Well, by now the corn is quite a bit higher than knee high by the fourth of July, so nobody can notice it anymore.  So, it was only a one-drink topic of conversation before they all returned to their inborn silent and stoic nature.

        Becky Martin, the youngest daughter of Judy and David Martin, he being the semi-retired pastor of the Fox Hill Lutheran Church, wasn’t talking to anybody because the whole world hated her and she hated the whole world.  And you know how that goes with teenaged daughters, whether justified or not, parents are always on the top of that list.  She had been angry that her Dad was lessening his role at the Lutheran Church pulpit during her senior year of High School.  He had passed the mantle, so to speak, like Elijah to Elisha, to a young, female student intern from New Jersey.  The new Vicar Lena would only be part time.  That was all the Lutheran Church could afford now, and that would take some getting used to.  The Martins had promised that they would stay in Fox Hill until Becky graduated, and probably longer than that. But that didn’t seem to satisfy their daughter.

        So Pastor and Judy just let her be.  She would stay out late at night and come home with the smell of alcohol on her breath; things that were not typical for Becky.  So they hoped it would just pass.  Becky’s dream was to be the valedictorian of the class of 2020 at Fox Hill High School and pursue her goal of becoming a veterinarian at Appleton College.  But she was also the second base player on the High School softball team and the Fox Hill Lady Walleyes were expected to go all the way to the Wisconsin state championship.  That meant extra practices and an extended season and less time to pay attention to her studies. And then the coronavirus put an end to all her hopes and dreams. She just gave up. And her final semester report card, based on online Zoom classrooms, announced the feared results: all Cs with but one B in chemistry.

        Two boys passed her in grade point average.  And then came the rejection letter from Appleton College.  She’d have to go to the State University at Eau Claire instead and get her act back together.  But when you’ve got no one to blame but yourself, you wind up blaming everybody.

        It’s hard to think when your head is spinning, and Pastor Martin realized how true that was for himself.  It wasn’t only his concern for Becky.  As he slowed down at the church, programs that were coming to an end even before the summer because of all the mandated quarantines seemed more like they were dying than taking a break.  The Sunday School, once the pride of Fox Hill Lutheran had diminished to a remnant handful.  The church council had a hard time just getting a quorum for regular monthly meetings on Zoom.  Church finances were in such a dangerous state that they could only help him with a part time person.  Offerings were way short of expenses and way behind last year.  On top of it all, Pastor Martin, while waiting for the new vicar to get to know people, was conducting at least one funeral every week.  What was going on?

        He wondered if that was why Jesus had said to the wanna-be disciple, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”?  The man had wanted to follow Jesus, but he had a few distractions he first had to attend to.  Pastor Martin always thought the words of Jesus to be rather harsh, but perhaps the point was that it was meant to be a gift of freedom from social expectations and responsibilities.  Then another had said to Jesus, “I will follow you, right after I say goodbye to my family.”  Could Jesus really mean it when he said that if you want to proclaim the Kingdom of God that has to be your one and only priority?  Not home, not family, not even death.  Not too much to do, not sports, not even schroon birds?  Even the coronavirus was teaching us that lesson. Jesus had said, “Anybody who puts a hand to the plow and looks back will wind up with a tough row to hoe.”  Well, he meant something like that.

        He realized that Becky wasn’t the only one.  We’re all so distracted, our attention so diverted, that we have lost touch with our priorities.  As true as that is for so many things in our lives, it’s true for our faith as well.  If we let the busyness and all the concerns of life distract us from living out our faith, we may just meet our Maker before we ever have the chance to serve our Maker, as Father Gary’s sign indicated.

        But Pastor Martin knew it was true for him too.  How much time and energy had he spent on distractions that drained his energy and attention?  It was time to refocus.  Not to relax in semi-retirement, but find a sense of refirement.  It was still time to proclaim the kingdom, not complain about the problems.

        When he prayed for the faithful people in the little church he had served as Pastor all these years, he marveled at how truly dedicated and devoted they really were.  When he thought about Becky, he beamed with a father’s glow with how proud he really was of her, in class and in sports.  At the High School graduation ceremonies on Friday night out on the football field with everybody practicing social distancing, Pastor Martin listened to the speeches of the salutatorian and valedictorian, but he realized that Becky’s life was a speech better than any words could express.  He looked out over the entire class of 2020 and, yes indeed, they were all exceptional.

        By golly, he was going to tell them – the congregation he had loved, and his daughter whom he loved – about how proud he really was of them.  Enough of all this bad news, enough of all these distractions.  It’s time to share some good news, time to get back to what is really important.  Isn’t that, after all, what Jesus came to tell us and the reason why he gave his life for us on the cross, and what our faith is all about?  And if we would all start to talk about these things, maybe it wouldn’t be so quiet after all in dear old Fox Hill.

        Olli put his hand on the screen door of Dan’s Diner, uncertain about going in again.  But there was a Leinenkugal Shandy with his name on it calling for him.  Sure enough, as soon as he entered there was a chorus of bird calls and caws.  Olli yelled, “Uf dah, put a lid on it, why doncha!”  You could hear a pin drop in that bar.

It was Lars Lundgren who broke the silence, “What have we done to you, Olli?  Take a chill pill. We’ve only been joking with you.  Hey, we’ve all done it; there’s not one man here who can plant a straight row, doncha know.”  The new waitress came over and gave him a beer, “Here, take this one, Olli, it’s on me.” 

“Who are you and when did Dan and Evelyn start hiring a waitress?” he asked.

“I’m Vicar Lena from New Jersey, the new part time helper at the Lutheran Church,” she answered.  Yes, it’s going to be very difficult adjustment for the Lutherans in Fox Hill!

“Thanks,” said Olli, “I appreciate it.  Let’s pray for some rain or else that corn won’t grow at all this summer.”

Just then, two cars driving through town honked their horns.  That was Good News; they were honking because they love Jesus. And the chatter of faithful souls returned to Fox Hill, where faith really matters for every single man, woman, and child; oh, and the married ones too. Amen.