Different Journey, Different Map (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

What got you here won't get you there.

Different parts of a journey are approached differently. Different phases of a process require different actions. If you use a map to travel across the plains, you wouldn't use the same map to cross the mountains. Different terrain, different map. When it's time to harvest, a farmer would not use the planting routine to harvest the crops. You plant one way and harvest another.

When Marshall Goldsmith wrote the book What Got You Here a Won't Get You There, he applied this same understanding to career advancement. He explained that the processes people employ for making it as a worker do not apply to positions of management. It was an acknowledgment that the worker and the manager have different jobs, different uses of time and tools, and different objectives.

The book was aimed at people who aspire to management. It lays out a map, if you will, of milestones that must be achieved. It explains that some of the old must give way to the new; if not, the person will not succeed on this new journey.

This week’s Hebrews scripture has a similar message for those who want a relationship with God. In the first 10 verses of Chapter 10, the Hebrew writer succinctly sums up much of what Jesus tried to communicate to Israel's leaders: the Priests, Scribes, Pharisees, and Teachers of the Law. The old way, the way they clung to, was no longer viable. They would have to change if they wanted to be one of God's people. What had brought them to that point—the Law—could not get them any further. They needed a new redemption song. 

But, you should read those 10 verses for yourself. I recommend reading it in The Message; it makes the meaning plain. 

Jesus came in the fullness of time to fulfill the Law. It was done. It's as if Jesus was saying: What got you here won't get you there.

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Link to the scripture passage in The Message:

https://bible.com/bible/97/heb.10.1-10.MSG

New Redemption Song by Over the Rhine: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK6-s6qUJeo

PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Orr

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This Friday is DaySpring’s last Lectionary Breakfast during Advent. We will resume our Friday gatherings on January 7, 2022. We would love it if you could join us this Friday morning. We start at 8:00 on **Zoom and in-person at Our Breakfast Place. We'll do all the usual stuff: eat, read, discuss, laugh. But we'll also be celebrating, expectantly, the birth of our Lord. 

Come for the food, stay for the blessings. 

Enjoy the week!

Steve

**Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera & microphone if you don’t wish to be seen or heard.

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY & THE COMING WEEK

Read them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=98

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_FourthSundayofAdvent.pdf

Micah 5:2-5a

Psalm 80:1-7

Hebrews 10:5-10

Luke 1:39-45, (46-55)

Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 19, 2021`)

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Should You Quit Your Job for Jesus? (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

My Dad was a man ahead of his time. 

When Dad was a new husband in the 1950s, it was expected a person would work 20, 30, even 40 unbroken years for the same employer. That may be hard to imagine today, when people are likely to have six different careers! So, in a real sense, my Dad was a man ahead of his time. 

After serving under General Patton during World War II, Dad returned home wanting to explore the medical field. He knew he wanted to be a healer, but found his personal beliefs conflicted with some dearly held by the medical profession. He did his research and decided he wanted to become a chiropractor. And that is what he did ... for about a decade. 

Then the changes began. 

The reasons for closing his practice were many, but principally: (1) unlike today, medical doctors considered chiropractors to be quacks, and (2) when Dad allowed people to pay on a sliding scale based on economic circumstance, his patients paid very little.

Next up, Dad became a “brickie,” doing brick and tile work for a cousin’s construction business. Dad was good at the work, alignment and measurement being central to success. But, the money was low. 

Later, Dad worked on a riverboat, alternating one month on the boat and one off (30/30). The pay was better and sometimes he was the pilot. This lasted for a while, and was especially useful when he and a farmer friend arranged to alternate their 30/30's. One month Dad was on the boat and our friend ran the dairy. The next month, Dad managed the dairy and our friend worked on the boat. It was a kind of “job share” long before that was a thing.

Eventually, Dad moved on to working with a different cousin in a start-up printing business. Dad did this work for several years, and was still doing it when I entered college. 

Then, my parents moved to Florida. Dad joined Wickes Lumber Company. He worked there well into his 50s, until an on-the-job injury placed him on permanent disability.

Throughout those 3+ decades, while my Dad moved through multiple, unrelated career fields ... my Mom worked for the telephone company, her only employer all that time.

Jobs are an interesting part of who we are. Whatever we do as work in this life—be it the very important work of developing the next generation, or making things, or building places, or selling things, or a myriad of office type occupations—we tend to get what we do all tangled up with who we are.

I’m sure that more than once Dad scratched his head and wondered just where all of that was leading, or if it was leading anywhere at all. I am just as sure he wondered what all those job changes said about him, personally.

Can it come as a surprise that those who came out to hear John the Baptist in this week’s Luke passage were concerned? What impact would this "repentance" have on their lives? For most, the answer was pretty straightforward: Share with those in need. But, what about tax collectors and soldiers? Surely, they didn’t qualify for John's baptism. These were among the most reviled occupations in that place and time.

John's answers to them are most interesting, both by what he said and what he didn’t say. What he said to those soldiers and those tax collectors was (to sum up), "Don't exploit your position." Since tax collectors were considered cheats and thieves, and soldiers were—charitably—considered bullies, "Don't extort and don't bully" got right to the heart of repentance.

On the other hand, John did not tell them to stop being tax collectors and soldiers. 

Whoa.  

When you think about it, the implication is startling. Here was John’s opportunity to tell them, straight up: you folks are in the wrong professions. Instead, John got to the heart of the matter ... and it wasn’t their career choice.

The only way our jobs can define us is if we allow it. They certainly do not determine our relationship to God. In that light, the two different career paths taken by my parents come down to the same thing: in the end, the number of jobs or employers comprising your working years are not the point.  

How we do our work, how we treat others in conducting our business, how we impact others with our industry—these things are paramount.

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PHOTO CREDIT (Allied soldier with French citizen during WWI): https://theconversation.com/amp/as-the-us-entered-world-war-i-american-soldiers-depended-on-foreign-weapons-technology-75034

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Join us Friday morning at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We eat, we  talk, we laugh. We meet at 8:00 on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place restaurant. 

Enjoy the week!

Steve

**Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera if you don’t wish to be seen and to mute the microphone if you don’t wish to speak.

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY & THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=97

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_ThirdSundayofAdvent.pdf

Zephaniah 3:14-20

Isaiah 12:2-6

Philippians 4:4-7

Luke 3:7-18

Third Sunday of Advent (December 12, 2021)

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Embracing My Bumpuses at Advent (a Steve Orr scripture reflection)

"The Bumpuses were so low down on the evolutionary totem pole that they weren't even included in Darwin's famous family tree. They had inbred and ingrown and finally emerged from the Kentucky hills like some remnant of Attila the Hun's barbarian horde.”  

—Jean Shepherd, A Christmas Story

If you've ever seen A Christmas Story, then you surely recognize that line from the voiceover narration. The Bumpuses were the family that lived next door to Ralphie Parker and his family. It was the Bumpus hounds who absconded with the Parker family Christmas turkey. Even though we never actually see them, author Jean Shepherd portrays them as caricatures, the ultimate hillbilly family.  

I went to church with a family like them … in some ways.

My Bumpuses had the requisite drawl, the car with the busted suspension, the rambunctious kids who just could not stay clean between their house and church services. Their clothes never seemed to fit; too large, too small, too long.

There were plenty of people who could not see past the look and sound of them to realize what was right before their eyes. I heard the talk. I saw the looks. I quickly discerned how most of the folks in our church regarded them: not quite measuring up, too hillbilly.

I, too, was put off by their apparent disinterest in looking and acting like everyone else. But, the way they lived their lives soon won me over. At a crucial time in my development, God sent these simply-living (yet, anything but simple) people into my life.

My Bumpuses were one of the very best things to happen to my young life. Think of the people who helped shape you into the person you are. My Bumpuses are high up on that list. I learned something so important from them, something I am sad to report I have seen far too little of in this life.

I didn't have a term for it, then. I just knew I was witnessing something I had read about but could not recall ever seeing. To be fair, I have encountered this a few times since then. But my Bumpuses were the first, and they left a lasting impression.

I have a term for it now: Advent People.

My Bumpuses lived their lives as if every day was an Advent day, as people who were expecting Jesus, looking forward to His arrival. Yes, they seemed to give little thought to how they were dressed, the baby's drooping diaper, the loud creaking of their old car‘s suspension, an accent that turned heads even in Kentucky. 

In place of all that, they invested their time and energy into helping others. They were always available to help out. Always. They taught Sunday School when substitutes were needed. They did all of those behind-the-scenes kind of jobs that are so forgettable but so necessary. They were almost always the last to leave, just in case something needed doing. 

And, for some reason, they took an interest in me.

I rode in that old car to church camp when my parents couldn't take me. I later learned that it was my Bumpuses who rounded up the camp fees when my mother couldn’t pay. I had a front row seat, so to speak, to observe them pray, simply and earnestly. I could not count for you the numerous acts of kindness I saw these folks perform, and almost always on the down-low. A lifetime of reflection has not eroded my view of them, and it is not idealized. 

Don't think they didn't know what others thought and said about them. They knew. They just didn't care. They were living, breathing examples of that well known A. W. Tozer quote, "I claim the holy right to disappoint men in order to avoid disappointing God."

My Bumpuses, my Advent People. 

Why do I call them that? It’s because they embody what Advent is all about … especially as described in this week’s passage from Philippians. I really do thank God every time I remember them. Like those Philippians, the way they lived “produced the harvest of righteousness.” They understood this fundamental thing: that what Jesus said and did to others is a template for how we should speak and act. Most of all, they wanted to be found being just like that when He returned … something they longed for and expected at any moment.

It’s Advent. Embrace your Bumpuses. 

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PHOTO CREDIT (and a great little article about the Bumpus hounds: https://www.wesa.fm/arts-sports-culture/2016-11-24/the-bumpus-hounds-look-good-for-their-age

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Advent! A great time to spend with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Consider joining us Friday morning at DaySpring’s Lectionary Breakfast. We gather at 8:00 on Zoom** and in person at Our Breakfast Place restaurant for an hour like no other. We eat, we talk, we laugh; and all of it surrounding a reading of God's word. 

Hope to see you there.

Enjoy the week!

Steve

**Contact me for the Zoom link

NOTE: Zoom allows you to mute the camera if you don’t wish to be seen and to mute the microphone if you don’t wish to speak.

SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY & THE COMING WEEK

Find them here: 

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=96

Print them here:

https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/pdf//Cx_SecondSundayofAdvent.pdf

Malachi 3:1-4

Luke 1:68-79

Philippians 1:3-11

Luke 3:1-6

Second Sunday of Advent (December 5, 2021)

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