The Dedication of the New Kitchen and Dining Hall

May 28, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

It has been two years and three months (822 days, to be exact!) since the fire that devastated our kitchen and dining hall.  At our lowest moments along the way, we may have thought for a fleeting moment that the day of returning to that space would never come.  But the promise given by God through the prophet Isaiah to the exiles has proven true for us along our own wilderness experience:

Don’t fear, for I have redeemed you;

    I have called you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

    when through the rivers, they won’t sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire,you won’t be scorched

    and flame won’t burn you.  (Isaiah 43:1-2)

The first Sunday after the fire, in our first worship service in the community center, our resident guitarist and songwriter extraordinaire Charlie Leissler offered this original song, which beautifully captures the promise of Isaiah:

To another new beginning

Lead us forward from this day

And as one this congregation

Will gladly say

This is Your house

This is our home

This is our gift to You

We will rise up

We will move on

And Your strength will pull us through

Yes Your strength will pull us through

Yes, indeed, God’s strength has pulled us through, and we are finally ready to dedicate our brand new kitchen and Schuldt Dining Hall this Sunday.  After worship, we will gather for a luncheon, joined by three congregations whose support has been essential in allowing us to continue ministry these last two years:  Memorial Presbyterian, Bethlehem Lutheran, and Crossroads Community.  They took up special offerings in the wake of the fire, and allowed us to use their facilities for over forty funeral luncheons and a number of weddings.  In addition, we have invited members of the Cherokee Fire Department to join us, to thank them for their stellar care on the day of the fire.

But Sunday will be more than just a debut of a new kitchen and dining hall.  It will be an opportunity for us to rededicate ourselves, and this campus, for the purposes of putting God’s love into action for generations to come.  Along the course of this reconstruction, we have remembered that our purpose as a church is not to build monuments, but to create movements, and these facilities are merely the tools through which we can accomplish the mission of this church to transform lives, improve the community, and change the world.

And what tools these new spaces will be for years to come!  In addition to replacing lost and damaged parts of the campus, we have made many dramatic improvements:

·      The kitchen and dining hall are now air conditioned, with a new, energy efficient system.  This will greatly enhance the usability of the space throughout the summer and early fall. 

·      We now have a state-of-the art audio/visual system, with the capacity to send a live video feed from the sanctuary down to the dining hall, for use in overflow situations.  The system also enables laptop and DVD projection, and wireless microphone usage.

·      The space is now completely handicap accessible through a renovated northeast entrance, that is at the same level as the loading area. 

·      The electrical service has been upgraded to a three-phase system, that will ease future expansion to the education wing of the campus. 

·      All of the appliances are now energy efficient, including a brand new dishwasher that runs a load of dishes in less than one minutes per cycle.

·      Our residential stoves and ovens have been replaced with a ten-burner, continuous surface stove, two commercial ovens, and a high-capacity convection oven. 

·      We have a new beverage and dessert service center, featuring two Bunn commercial coffee makers with on-demand, filtered, hot water that starts brewing coffee at the touch of a button.

·      We have increased the storage and seating capacity of the space, and with the new flexibility of the nearby Feller Lounge, we can seat more than 250 people at one time.  Both round and rectangular tables now allow us to change the configuration of the seating to meet the needs of each event. 

·      And, of course, the raised ceiling, new windows, and beautiful finishes in the room create a more modern, stylish, and intimate feel in the dining hall.

As you can see, there is much to be proud of in our new space, and we can’t wait to debut it to for the public this Sunday.  But more importantly, this is a chance for us to give thanks to God, for seeing us through the fire, and promising to use this space to put God’s love into action for generations to come.

See you Sunday!

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

A Lesson from Drowning

May 20, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

If it weren’t for a boy named Jason Short, I wouldn’t be alive today.

Seriously.  I can remember as clear as day the moment I nearly drowned in the school swimming pool when I was in first grade.  I have never been the best swimmer, and the pool unit in physical education class always gave me the shivers.  Some of it went fine, like using the kickboards or playing "Marco Polo" in the shallow end.  But on this particular day, I was in the deep end.  We were in the water doing our bobs:  hands on the wall, heads popping up and down into the water to practice our breathing.

Instantly, my hands slipped away from the wall, and I was left adrift on my own.  Instead of swimming back toward the wall, I began to panic, flailing and gasping, pushing further out into open water.  My chlorine soaked eyes made everything look fuzzy, and in between the gasps, I caught a glimpse of Jason Short.

He was a boy in my class, lanky and athletic, and the fastest one in my grade.  He was a terrific swimmer, and he was sitting there on the wall.  His eye caught mine, as I managed to cough out a single word.

“Help.”

I’ll never, ever forget the feeling of his hand clasping mine, and the sharp, decisive tug that pulled me back over to safety.  In one moment I had felt sheer terror; in the next, instant and overwhelming relief.  

There have been times since then, as I’m sure is the case for you, that I have felt like I’m drowning.  Not literally in a body of water, but alone, tossed in the tempests of life, left to the whims of whatever waves and undertows would submerge and swallow me.  That day in Mr. DeYoung’s first grade P.E. class would not be the last time yours truly would ever call for help. 

And I'm sure you’ve said it a few times, too.

The memory of my near-death-by-drowning came to mind when I read the text for this Sunday.  Jesus is counseling his disciples on the eve before his death, knowing that the time would come when they, too, would feel alone and abandoned, left to face the tossing sea billows on their own.  But in the fifteenth chapter of John, he made this promise:

“I will not leave you as orphans.  I will come to you.” 

Jesus promised he would be right there, like a lifeguard, to extend a helping hand to pull us out of the depths of our suffering. 

Great promise, right?  Sounds like a terrific insurance policy, huh?  Well, except for one thing.  Jesus continued:

“Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.”

Here's the catch:  We have to see him first.  Because some people will, and some people won’t.  

Like so much of the spiritual life, solutions to life’s deepest and toughest challenges aren’t quite so simple.  There is no magic wand or Aladdin’s lamp to make all our problems go away.  And simply knowing that the hand of Jesus is always near to steer us to safety doesn’t guarantee that we will sense that presence.  Sometimes, the chlorine seems too thick, and we give up looking.  

What is required, first and foremost, according to John, is the ability to see Jesus.  There’s seeing, and then there’s really seeing. 

We don’t notice the nuance as much in the English language, but the Greek in which John was written has at least three different words for seeing.  One word is blepo, which is the simple act of using our eyes for physical sight, like the healing of the blind man in John 9.  Another is eido, which adds the dimension of knowing, similar to the way one says, “I see!” when gaining new knowledge.  Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3 that only by being born again could he see the Kingdom of God in this way.  And then there is the word theoreo, which means to search, ponder, and discern.  It’s what happens in John 12, when some Greeks approaching the disciples ask how they might see Jesus. 

All three of those words are used throughout the book of John over thirty times, more than any other gospel writer.  Clearly, he is interested in the subject of sight.

So which word for seeing does John use here, in chapter 17?  

Which form of seeing is required in order for the disciples to sense the presence of Jesus among them at all times, especially in the midst of their loneliness and abandonment? 

And, more importantly, how can you and I see God in the midst of our darkness, and acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit in us, whom Jesus says, “the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him?” 

How can we see, when our eyes are stinging from the chlorine, our lips barely breaking the surface of the water, our muscles cramping from the leg kicks and arm flails? 

What does it mean to see Jesus?

Well, how about this:  come this Sunday, and we'll discover it together.  You'll see for yourself.  

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

John 14:15-21

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

16 I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion, who will be with you forever.

17 This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be with you.

18 “I won’t leave you as orphans. I will come to you.

19 Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too.

20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you.

21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL REGISTRATION

Registration closes this Friday for our summer VBS "Weird Animals,” taking place June 16-20 from 9am-Noon. Registration will be open till May 23rd.  The cost is $7 and includes a t-shirt.  Kids age 4 years old thru completion of 4th grade are welcome. Registration forms available at church office, and will also be available in Sunday School classrooms and will be handed out to kids this week. Contact the church office at 225-3955 or Korrie Waldner at 229-7112 with any questions.

Two Prayers

May 13, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

A few years ago I received a precious gift from my dear friend and lifelong mentor Rev. Dr. Jack Stroman, the senior pastor who nurtured my call into ministry when I was a youth at Pasadena Community Church in St. Petersburg, Florida.  He gave me a book called A Diary of Private Prayer by the great preacher and author John Baillie, a minister in the Church of Scotland who lived from 1886-1960. 

Every once in a while, when I need to sharpen my own liturgical language and pay as much attention to the beauty and shape of my words as I do to their content and meaning, I turn to Baillie’s book.  In both my life and my ministry, his prayers have set the gold standard, artistically and accurately capturing both the longing of the human soul and the extravagant grace of God. 

Whenever I take the time to write out my pastoral prayers, I try to strike the rare balance of beauty and truth that Baillie seemed to achieve every time.  You might agree that many preachers (and public speakers in general, for that matter) have drifted so far into their pursuit of the vernacular in the name of “relevance” that they have sacrificed the power of well-crafted, efficiently constructed words.  It’s a caution I must often administer to myself. 

I offer these two of Baillie’s prayers to you now, in the hopes that they speak to you.  You might choose to incorporate them into your own life, praying them in the morning and the evening.  

Morning Prayer

O God my creator and redeemer, I may not go forth today except You accompany me with your blessing. Let not the vigor and freshness of the morning, or the glow of good health, or the present prosperity of my undertakings, deceive me into a false reliance upon my own strength. All the good gifts have come to me from you. They were yours to give and they are yours also to curtail. They are not mine to keep; I do but hold them in trust; and only in continued dependence upon you, the giver, can they be worthily enjoyed.

Let me then put back into Your hand all that you have given me, rededicating to your service all the powers of my mind and body, all my worldly goods, all my influence with others. All these, O Father, are Yours to use as you will. All these are Yours, O Christ. Al these are Yours, O Holy Spirit. Speak in my words today, think in my thoughts today and work in all my deeds. And seeing that it is Your gracious will to make even of such weak human instruments in the fulfillment of Your mighty purpose in the world, let my life today be the channel through which some little portion of your divine love and pity may reach the lives that are nearest to my own.

In Your solemn presence, O God, I remember all my friends and neighbors, my fellow townsfolk, and especially the poor within our gates beseeching You that You would give me grace, so far as in me lies, to serve them in Your name. Amen.

Evening Prayer

O Thou who art from everlasting to everlasting, I would turn my thoughts to Thee as the hours of darkness and of sleep begin. O Son of my soul, I rejoice to know that all night I shall be under the unsleeping eye of One who dwells in eternal light.

To thy care, O Father, I would now commend my body and my soul. All day Thou has watched over me and Thy companionship has filled my heart with peace. Let me not go through any part of this night unaccompanied by Thee.

Give me sound and refreshing sleep.

Give me safety from all perils.

Give me in my sleep freedom from restless dreams.

Give me control of my thoughts, if I should lie awake.

Give me wisdom to remember that the night was made for sleeping, and not for the harbouring of anxious or fretful or shameful thoughts.

Give me grace, if as I lie abed I think at all, to think upon Thee.

My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips; when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches.

To Thy care also, O Father, I would commend my friends, beseeching Thee to keep them safe in soul and body, and to be present to their hearts to-night as a spirit of power and of joy and of restfulness. I pray also for the wider circle of all my associates, my fellow workers, my fellow townsmen and all strangers within our gates; and the great world of men without, to me foreign and unknown, but dear to Thee; through Jesus Christ our common Lord. Amen.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

GRADUATION SUNDAY

This weekend we will join with the wider Cherokee community in celebrating the graduation of our high school seniors.  We have a handful of seniors in our own church that we will be honoring, and we invite you to join us this Sunday.  If you know of someone who is graduating from a college, university, graduate program, or other institution of higher education and training, please send the church office that information so that we can include it in the bulletin.

SERMON THIS SUNDAY

We continue our “Alive” sermon series by taking a look at John 14:1-14, in which Jesus declares himself to be the “Way, the Truth, and the Life.”  We’ll broaden our understanding of this text beyond its frequent misuse as an exclusionary, judgmental text, and see it as an invitation to live the kind of full, abundant life that Jesus offers us. 

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL REGISTRATION

Registration is now open for our summer VBS "Weird Animals,” taking place June 16-20 from 9am-Noon. Registration will be open till May 23rd.  The cost is $7 and includes a t-shirt.  Kids age 4 years old thru completion of 4th grade are welcome. Registration forms available at church office, and will also be available in Sunday School classrooms and will be handed out to kids this week. Contact the church office at 225-3955 or Korrie Waldner at 229-7112 with any questions.

There is More to This Moment

May 6, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

Life is filled with constant vacillations between hilltops and valleys, highs and lows.  We chart our time with linear progressions of days and years, but life is never a straight line forward.  It is an undulating wave, meandering through triumphs and tragedies at a random pace, surprising us around every bend with what lies next.  There is no predictability to life, no surefire way of foreseeing the future.  We yearn for what lies ahead, only to realize that it cannot surely be grasped.  We cast anchor for the past, back to the “good old days,” fickly forgetting that the nature of change makes such a return impossible. 

All we have with any certainty is the here and now.  Our only true task is not to fret about tomorrow or get stuck in yesterday, but to focus on the gift of the present moment.  The more we live into and breathe through every moment as it comes, the more we realize that our lives are actually never static, nor our existence ever still.  There is movement in every moment.  

At times, we are moving uphill, ascending steep grades of struggles and suffering, with every step a challenge.  At other times, as we get over the hump, we cruise downhill with speed and glee, hurtling with joyful freedom.  And there are times that we cannot discern exactly what is happening, as the two extremes seem indistinguishable.  

After all, the analogies of “uphill” and “downhill” are too ambiguous, if not downright confusing.  What does it mean to go “uphill,” anyway?  If someone says, “Business is really going uphill,” is that good or bad?  Might it mean that it is rising to the top and ascending towards a peak?  Or perhaps the terrain is too tough, the climb too steep, and the pull of gravity too strong.  Likewise, is going “downhill” a good thing?  It might mean coasting along life with little effort and great contentment.  But in the context of finances, or age, or health, going downhill means something else entirely. 

Maybe it is in their vagueness that such metaphors have meaning, for ambiguity is inherent to every moment.  Notice the next time you take a long walk what happens when you walk up a hill.  When you are going uphill, it might seem at first to be a chore.  Your legs burn, your ankles ache, sweat moistens your furrowed vow, and your shoulders slouch.  But also notice that as you are ascending, you are forced to walk at a more deliberate pace, slowing your speed to enable you to observe your surroundings with keener perception, more focused clarity, and greater appreciation.  Uphill climbs make you notice things around you that you might otherwise have sped past.  You are also exercising those muscles, putting them through a rigor that will lead to increased strength and endurance for the long haul.  Going uphill might seem laborious, but it has its redemptive qualities.

Now notice what happens when you pass the crest and begin the downward slope.  Your speed is quickened, and your effort is eased.  This will feel like a pleasure, one that you wish would linger for a while.  But you must be careful, for it is here that gravity is both friend and foil.  You must watch your feet to avoid even the slightest misstep.  Your forward momentum amplifies every slight move, and a small miscalculation will send you tumbling toward injury.  Your speed feels like freedom, but it makes relishing, savoring, and absorbing the world around you all but impossible.  Going downhill is indeed a pleasure, but it is coupled with great caution.  

The lesson here is simple.  Not only must we live in the moment, we must acknowledge its ambiguity.  And therein lies our path to clear-minded living.  When we go through the toughest struggles, we can dare to believe that something redemptive is still at work, and it will be fully revealed someday.  And even when we experience the highest thrills, we must guard against pride, complacency, and self-deception, for even the slightest misstep can avalanche quickly.  

Highs are not as high as we think they are, but neither are our lows as low as we fear they are.  Every triumph has a subversive side of caution, and every tragedy has a shadow side of redemption.

The Greeks had a word to describe this realization about time:  kairos.  It means the richness and depth inherent in each moment.  It is not the kind of time that moves lifelessly onward, in a sequential march of minutes, days, and years.  Instead, it is a realization that each moment we have is loaded with meaning, including caution and hope and everything in between.  

Here’s one more way to say it:  No matter what you are going through, God is in it.  It may not be clearly evident to you now.  The pain of your struggle may be so intense that you cannot see through the fog of your disillusionment to sense anything beyond the trauma.  But there is a redemptive hand already at work.  Your uphill climb is forcing you to slow down, observe what you would otherwise miss, and develop the musculature to work through the next inevitable climb.  

God is at work, in the midst of uncertainty, because God lives in the ambiguities.  That’s how a mysterious God operates:    just beyond the reach of our senses and sensibilities, but fully approachable through our faith.    “He who learns must suffer,” said the Greek playwright Aeschylus.  “And even in our sleep, pain – which cannot forget – falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” 

And even if life for you is calm and serene, watch out:  God is at work.  As long as there is an inkling within us that flirts with the fallacy that we are self-made creatures, and as long as we walk with a puffy-chested, thumb-nosing swagger, God is ready to conform us into a likeness of humble service that fulfills the image of God within us.  It’s not to say that God uses trauma to teach us a lesson.  I don’t believe in that.  But it is to say that when life is going well, sin exerts its greatest influence, as pride, gluttony, and laziness impede the way of holy living.  

My prayer for you is that you would experience that “awful grace of God” in the midst of your lives, in every present moment.  May you come to know the joy that comes in trusting God in the midst of your hardship, as you take your journey through the ups and downs of life, one step at a time.  

Grace and Peace, 

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

CONFIRMATION SUNDAY AND CAMP FUND OFFERING

Join us this Sunday as we celebrate a milestone in the faith of our seventh graders.  Confirmation Sunday gives them the opportunity to affirm the vows taken on their behalf long ago, and you will want to be part of this sure highlight of the St. Paul’s church calendar.  In addition, for this Mother’s Day you have the opportunity to give the gift in her honor or memory that will make a real difference in the life of a child at Camp this summer.  All of the proceeds that come from this special offering this Sunday will go directly to offset the cost of camp tuition at Lake Okoboji.  

HOT DOG DAYS THIS THURSDAY

Once again, we will be serving hot dogs town-wide for this year’s annual “Hot Dog Days.”  We will be serving food along Main Street along the north lawn sidewalk starting at 5pm until we run out of food.  If you would like to help with set-up, cleanup, and serving, contact the church office.

VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL REGISTRATION BEGINS

Registration is now open for our summer VBS "Weird Animals,” taking place June 16-20 from 9am-Noon. Registration will be open till May 23rd.  The cost is $7 and includes a t-shirt.  Kids age 4 years old thru completion of 4th grade are welcome. Registration forms available at church office, and will also be available in Sunday School classrooms and will be handed out to kids this week. Contact the church office at 225-3955 or Korrie Waldner at 229-7112 with any questions.

A Word of Thanks

April 29, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

First, a word of thanks.  At last Sunday afternoon’s District Conference in Primghar, district leadership presented a video highlighting many ministry moments from acrossNorthwest Iowa throughout the past year.  I was deeply gratified to see the faces of so many of you among the pictures, as you put God’s love into action.  I saw pictures of so many of you:

·      Fighting malaria at last May’s Pancake Breakfastwith Bishop Julius Trimble;

·      Hosting the District Conference;

·      Braving the cold while processing donations at last November’s Ingathering; and

·      Volunteering countless hours during last summer’s flood relief.

Also, I received a packet of certificates officially recognizing St. Paul’s for its faithful connectional giving during 2013.  I am proud to say that we paid both our apportionments and our District Asking in full, prompting this acknowledgement and appreciation letter from our District Superintendent Tom Carver:

Dear Friends,

I am writing to thankyou for your commitment to Jesus and our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.  As you know, this mission of changing the world can’t be done by ourselves.  We must be part of the larger work of God in order for a world to be transformed.  That is why we need each other.

As your superintendent, one of my great joys has been to meet the pastors and people from the communities and congregations in the Northwest District. I have seen wonderful examples of lives being touched by Jesus through all of you.  I have also seen incredible potential for spreading the gospel, changing our communities and making a difference in our world.  I can see a vision for our future of people who are experiencing God, living out of their relationship with Jesus and able to share their story with others. 

One of the ways this past year that your commitment has been evident is in your congregation’s efforts to financially support our common ministry as the part of Christ’s body that is the United Methodist Church.  I am aware that your congregation has paid 100% of your apportionments for 2013.  I am proud of your accomplishment as you should be.  Now if we give God the credit, I pray that this will be a source of energy to do even more this year for our mission.

I especially want to thank your pastor and the leaders in your congregation who set a positive example for others. It begins with what God has done for us and then continues through what we do for others in the name of Jesus.

I am truly looking forward to working with you in the coming years to make difference in our part of the world. May you continue to bless others as you have been blessed by God.

Grace and Peace,

Thomas L. Carver

District Superintendent

It occurred to me, after reading his letter and receiving these certificates on behalf of the church, that I have rarely expressed my own gratitude to all of you for being so faithful in your connectional giving.  Tom Carver thanks me in the letter, but I have never really had to do much encouraging for this church to pay its apportionments.  If anything, as much thanks should be given to my pastoral predecessors, from Gary Armstrong to Ray Hampton, who instilled the importance of giving to the denomination and made it part of this church’s DNA.  It is just a natural, given assumption that this church gives to the wider church, no questions asked.  I am well aware that this is not the case in many other churches, and I am grateful that it is an obstacle Ihave never had to face here. 

Then, I received another certificate.  It was to acknowledge that, once again, this church has received Third-Mile status in the Conference’s Rainbow Covenant Missions Giving program.  For the fourth year in a row, we have been able to give at the highest level per member toagencies, missions, and initiatives that put God’s love into action both here in Cherokee and around the world.  In fact, this past year saw our highest amount of giving to missions in the seven years that I’ve been your pastor.  Thanks be to God!

This is all to say thank you.  Thank you for your commitment to the mission of this church, and your faithfulness to the global United Methodist connection.

THIS SUNDAY

Speaking of our connectional system, this Sunday we are honored to welcome the Rev. Kathy Martin as our guest preacher.  For many years, she has served as the Campus Minister for Morningside College in Sioux City, and she has an amazing heart for both missions and young people.  In addition, she is a terrific preacher, who will be bringing us a message called “Tales from the Table” based on Luke 24:13-35.  You all will also be sharing the sacrament of Holy Communion together.

Kathy is coming to preach so that I can be out of town from Friday to Sunday.  I have been asked to lead an orientation and training workshop for the United Methodist Publishing House’s new Bible study curriculum Covenant Bible Study, which I have had the privilege to help write.  It will be just a quick trip down to First UMC Lakeland, Florida, but it will give me a chance to serve the wider connection through this important new educational resource. 

As always, it is great to be the church!

Grace and Peace,

Magrey 

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

Stop Me If You've Heard This One

April 22, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

Amid the somberness of this past Lenten season, I recently picked up a book for some lighter reading.  It’s called The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny by Peter McGraw and Joel Warner.  It is an account of a researcher and a journalist who traveled across five continents and conducted nineteen experiments across 91,000 miles to answer the basic question, “What is humor?”

Think about the last time you laughed heartily at a joke, or a story, or something you witnessed.  What made it funny?  The absurdity?  The timing?  The surprise?  And do you think that what you thought was funny would be equally hysterical to others? 

Those are the kinds of questions that McGraw and Warner tackled, in a series of wonderfully rich, often hilarious episodes around the world.  Without divulging too much of their escapades, I’ll just share one of the their foundational ideas that grounded their work.  To explain what makes things funny, Peter McGraw developed a theory called “benign violation.”  In essence, something is humorous when it 1) violates an expectation, 2) does so in a benign way, 3) and does so simultaneously. 

In other words, we find something funny when something is wrong, unsettling, or threatening, but is at the same time seems okay, safe, acceptable. 

Consider these examples:

·      You watch a person fall down the stairs (violation), but is unhurt (benign). 

·      Someone tells you a joke:  “Why don’t you ever see elephants hiding in trees?  Because they’re really good at it.”  (A violation, because it tricks you with a twist.   But it’s benign, because it deals with an absurd scenario). 

·      Or this joke:  “Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?”  (A violation to the monkey)  Answer:  “Because it was dead.”  (Benign, because no actual monkeys were harmed in the telling of this joke.)

I decided to put McGraw’s theory to the test using a joke that Rev. Bob Blair, a local retired pastor, once told me in between one of our racquetball games at the Wellness Center:

            Did you hear the one about the cannibal that ate a Jewish Rabbi, a Baptist Preacher, and a Methodist Pastor?  Later, he had an ecumenical movement.

I laughed at that one for days.  It was a violation, of course, because the idea of a cannibal eating anyone is pretty horrifying, and the topic of excretion is fairly unsettling.  But it was also benign because it is a fictitious story, and because the new association with ecumenicalism makes the unsavory ideas of cannibalism and bodily function safer to consider. 

RISUS PASCHALIS

At any rate, I concluded reading The Humor Code over this past weekend, coinciding with what the fifteenth century Christian church eventually regarded as the greatest joke every played on the devil:  the resurrection of Jesus on Easter morning.  Five hundred years ago, a Bavarian priest inserted into his post-Easter sermon a bunch of funny stories about how the devil tried to keep the doors of hell locked against a Christ who was descending into it.  His stories were both violations (discussions about Satan and Hell) and were benign (Christ was ultimately triumphant).  The priest’s congregation erupted into uproarious laughter, and the tradition of Risus Paschalis (or, “Easter Laughter”) was born.

Today, a growing number of churches celebrate the first Sunday after Easter as “Risus Paschalis,” or  “Holy Humor Sunday.”  They invite parishioners to stand and tell their favorite jokes, preachers tell funny stories, people wear silly costumes, and children are invited to engage in humorous activities throughout the morning.  It is all based on the grand theological notion that on Easter morning, God pulled the ultimate prank on the devil, and gave rise to the most joyous punch line in human history: 

After Jesus died on the cross, seemingly granting victory to evil, wickedness, and suffering in the world (the violation), God raised Jesus from the dead, granting us new life, freedom, and hope (the benign). 

Peter McGraw said one more thing about humor that I found interesting.  Humor serves a purpose in our evolutionary progression.  Our ancestors developed laughter as a survival mechanism.  The use of amusement and humor was used to “signal to the world that a violation is indeed okay,” and that an imminent threat need not be of concern.  McGraw believes that laughter emerged as an instinctual way to show us that a perceived threat is actually a false alarm – for example, that a rustle in the bushes was the wind, not a sabre-toothed tiger.  “Organisms that could separate benign violations from real threats benefited greatly,” he says.  [1]

That’s what Easter laughter does for us.  It takes the gravity of sin, the severity of evil, the threat of suffering, and declares, “False Alarm!”  It concludes that what seemed to be an imminent threat is really just harmless.  The violation is benign.  Death has not won.  Christ is victorious.

So, go ahead and laugh.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey 

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

[1]  http://www.wired.com/2011/04/ff_humorcode/all/1

The Great Wager

Holy Week, 2014

Dear St. Paul’s Family,

The Great Wager

How is it proved?

It isn’t proved, you fool; it can’t be proved.

How can you prove a victory before

It’s won?  How can you prove a man who leads

To be a leader worth the following,

Unless you follow to the death, and out

Beyond mere death, which is not anything

But Satan’s lie upon eternal life?

Well – God’s my leader, and I hold that he

Is good, and strong enough to work his plan

And purpose out to its appointed end.

I walk in crowded streets, where men

And women, mad with lust, loose-lipped, and lewd,

Go promenading down to hell’s wide gates;

Yet have I looked into my mother’s eyes

And seen the light that never was on sea

Or land, the light of love, pure love and true,

And on that love I bet my life ….

…. I bet my life on beauty, truth,

And love!  Not abstract, but incarnate truth;

Not beauty’s passing shadow, but its self,

Its very self made flesh – love realized.

I bet my life on Christ, Christ crucified.

(By G.A. Studdert-Kennedy (1883-1929)

Anglican priest, poet, World War I military chaplain, and pacifist)

On behalf of the staff and lay leadership of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, I wish you and yours a blessed Holy Week and a Happy Easter.

Grace and Peace,

Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega

St. Paul's United Methodist Church

531 W. Main St.

Cherokee, IA  51012

Ph:  712-225-3955

Email:  mdevega@sp-umc.org

HOLY WEEK AND EASTER SCHEDULE

Maundy Thursday, 7:00pm.  Service of Holy Communion

Good Friday, 7:00pm.  Service of Tenebrae

Easter Morning:  Identical Services at 7:00am and 10:10am

Fellowship in the new kitchen and dining hall between services

CHURCH CLEAN-UP DAY SATURDAY

To prepare for the debut of our new kitchen and dining hall, and in anticipation of our many visitors on Easter morning, we are having a church-wide clean up day this Saturday, from 9:00am to 12noon. 

OFFICE CLOSED MONDAY

In observance of Easter, the office will be closed next Monday, April 21.