Tag Archives: vacation

Rest and Responsibility

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Returning from vacation always puts me in a contemplative form.

When we landed yesterday at Detroit Metro Airport, having returned from our annual two weeks in Florida, I can assure you that I had one of those invisible moments where even the “ding” sound as the overhead seatbelt light went out seemed to carry a lot of weight.

Things were going to be very different from what they were only moments before.

And then there’s the aura inside the airport. Sheesh. Maybe it’s just me, but the people departing are far different than the people returning. The people preparing to board for vacation look bright-eyed and ready. Among those returning, some are wearing flip-flops and theme park shirts. Others are carrying totes probably filled with things they bought while away. All are carrying the quiet resignation of a settling reality. They’re sort of shuffling through the terminal, not like the people who are getting ready to leave. Those folks are eager for what’s next. The returning folks aren’t so eager for what’s next. Although they’re not resisting it, either. They appear to know that a vacation is precious. However, it can only be held for so long before you have to let go.

I suppose in a culture dominated by the relentless pursuit of pleasure, vacations run the risk of feeling a little bit like a secular salvation. That’s probably why resorts market themselves as paradises promising renewal through pleasure-seeking. Secularism pretty much champions the idea of this kind of escape. It suggests that genuine rest comes from detaching oneself entirely from the reality of responsibility, feeding the myth that fulfillment can only be achieved far away from who or what we actually are in the lives we regularly inhabit.

While waiting for our luggage at carousel 3, a man walked by in all black and high heels. He was trying his best to be womanly. He wasn’t fooling anyone, except maybe himself.

I share this because it’s an easy example. The modern push of transgenderism seems like an embodied form of what I’m describing. It’s driven by the notion that someone’s identity is actually apart from biological realities, and therefore, satisfaction can be attained by remaking oneself according to personal desire, rather than embracing the givenness and goodness of what’s real—of what God has designed.

In both cases, whether with gender or with the more benign realm of vacation marketing, the cultural message is the same: “Escape who you are. Reinvent yourself. That’s where fulfillment lies.”

But is any of this really true? While I can appreciate a resort’s marketing allure, I also recognize that a vacation’s escape is indeed a marvelous thing, but perhaps not in the way our culture imagines.

Vacations make space for things that generally have to wait. There’s more time for anything and everything, or nothing at all. It’s a moment in time to do whatever might ease life’s usual burdens. In the meantime, bills wait. Work waits. Life’s duties wait.

But here’s the thing. The duties do not wait idly. They wait hungrily. When we got home, I saw that the weeds in the flower beds continued to grow. The grass did, too. I found that one of our cars sat and leaked a steady stream of transmission fluid for two straight weeks, all over the driveway. The pre-vacation refrigerator that was emptied had to be refilled. The milk we forgot to dump was quite the clumpy sight. The house had that strange, unlived-in scent, and dust had settled on things that were cleaned before we left, reminding us of our absence.

And yet, even as I came home to these things, I’m not so bothered by them. There’s a goodness in them, too.

The dinner table was ours again last night. We all sat in our usual spots. Well, four out of the five of us did. Harry went to see some friends. And admittedly, we were all very tired. We woke Saturday morning at 2:30 AM to catch a 6:00 AM flight home. Either way, the discussion was as it always is. It wasn’t the novelty of vacation. It was something more rooted. By way of another example, I can say I experienced what I’m doing my best to describe when Jen and I drove back from a quick visit last night with Josh, Lexi, and Preston. Passing through town, I mentioned Linden’s landscape—its trees and such. They look and sound nothing like the manicured palm trees and flora in Florida. And while I didn’t say it, they looked and sounded more like home than paradise ever could.

That’s because Linden is home. And perhaps it is precisely this feeling that helps me understand why God’s Word might speak of rest—of vacationing—not as an abandonment of reality, but as a renewal within it (Matthew 11:28-30; Hebrews 4:9-11). Jesus, when tired, often withdrew to quiet places (Luke 5:16; Mark 1:35). He certainly didn’t do it to escape the burden He knew He would bear (Matthew 26:39, 42). He did it as a very real and very human in-between for re-engaging with strength (Mark 6:30-32). Unlike the secular goal of continually fleeing responsibility, God’s Word reassures us that work and rest, engagement and withdrawal, each have their sacred roles (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8). They are not opposed. Instead, they weave together to form a life that can actually be very good.

I think there’s something holy about returning to your place in the world, even if the transition is difficult. You belong there. You are needed there. I think if you’re listening closely enough, something around you may even whisper, “Welcome back. It’s good to have you home. And now, let’s get back to work.”

Don’t get me wrong. You’ll never hear me say that coming home from a vacation is easy. It isn’t. In fact, for the Thoma family, it’s one of the most challenging transitions there is. I can assure you there were tears. With as busy as our lives can be, vacation sees that busyness out the door for a little while.

However, I think we can all admit there’s something wonderfully reassuring about stepping back into the familiar spaces. As much as we crave what vacations can offer, there’s relief in sleeping in our own beds again. There’s reprieve in reclaiming the familiar routines that, in some ways, define us. After all, home isn’t just a building to which we return. It’s far more than that. It’s where the richness of our story unfolds. That story is layered. Within those layers, we experience the ordinary rhythm of work and rest.

As I’ve already more or less said, for as good as “paradise” may feel, there’s a holiness in the “ordinary.” In the end, coming home from vacation isn’t so much about losing something precious as it is rediscovering the beauty of that ordinary. For me, it’s a precise moment on the timeline when I’m forced to remember that rest doesn’t mean escape. Indeed, God sets something better—actually, something extraordinary—right in front of me every single day. Looking through that Gospel lens, I can make it through to next year’s getaway 365 days from now.

A Beautiful Season

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Even on vacation, as always, I’m up and at it. Soon, the rest of the Thoma family will awaken, and then we’ll be off to Zion Lutheran Church in Winter Garden. The service is at 9:00 AM if you’re in the area and interested.

We never miss worship. Not even on vacation. Why would we? God doesn’t take vacations from us.

Until it’s time, I’m sitting in my usual early-morning writing space, a swimming pool just beyond the wall to my right. What to write about? Well, the first thing that comes to mind is that we’re already about halfway through the summer. Thankfully, that realization comes to mind at a relatively impenetrable moment. What I mean is that, first, I’m typing this from what is, more or less, my happy place: Florida. And second, we just arrived here last night, so we have almost two full weeks of rest and relaxation ahead of us. Together, these two facts form a perfect moment for perspective—a kind of balance that vacations alone seem to offer.

In the early days of time away, there is an abundance of freedom. You look ahead and think, “We have so many days for anything and nothing. The time is wide open, and we can fill it however we’d like.” But then, something subtle happens a little past the halfway mark. It’s a quiet shift. Without warning, instead of looking toward a seemingly endless expanse, a countdown of sorts begins: “Only five days left. Now four. Now three.”

Maybe it isn’t this way for you, but it can be for me. And if I’m not careful, it can become almost like a thief. It steals my mind away from the present and into a kind of preemptive grief over what hasn’t even ended yet. And so, I do my best to savor rather than tally. If anything, my family makes that easy to do. They’re so much fun to be around, and the blessing is that when the vacation ends, we end it together. When we go home, we go back home together to just be what we were before we left—and for me, that’s enough.

There’s a well-worn line in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie” that takes a straight aim at the tallying urge I described before. For me, it translates into pondering what’s left of anything and instead dwelling in the enchantment of right now. As only Longfellow could scribble, he sets before us, “Then followed that beautiful season… Summer… Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape lay as if newly created in all the freshness of childhood.”

I’m 52 years old. Childhood seems so far away. And yet, I get what he means. He wraps his words around something that doesn’t seem to fade with age. He describes a kind of freshness that isn’t necessarily about being young, but about being present in something that has been given.

I don’t want to get too esoteric this morning. And yet, vacation time certainly does provide access to an entirely different and yet unrestricted level of thinking for me. I just feel good, more thoughtful. It’s the one time during the year when I can better see the things I already know. For example, as a Christian, I already know that life is far more than droning schedules. But on vacation, I can actually see it. It isn’t just symmetry on a calendar. It’s not something mathematical. Instead, life is a great big grace-filled opportunity that doesn’t need to spend any of its time worried about its end.

By faith, there is no end, and so, this is good, and it’s enough, whatever it is.

Maybe that makes sense to you, and you agree. Maybe it doesn’t, and you don’t. Well, whatever. For me, it’s enough. And either way, God’s Word agrees with me. Or better said, I agree with God’s Word.

If and when I find myself worrying about life’s fast-fleeting days, my Lord is there to remind me, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). These words are not intended as motivational poster material. They’re powerful. By the Holy Spirit’s power, they instill what they commend, which is a divine permission to stop counting what’s left of anything and simply receive what is. They’re words that stir believers to begin each day ready to hum along with the Psalmist, “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). The Psalm-writer didn’t say “was made” or “will be made.” He said, “This is the day.” This one. For me, it’s the one that begins with this little eNews message, a cup of tolerable coffee, and eventually a trip with my still-sleeping family to church at Zion Lutheran Church in Winter Garden, Florida. I don’t know what comes after that. Although it’s more than possible it’ll involve laughter echoing from the pool after eating a meal that makes it far too hard for me to swim.

Whatever the family and I decide to do, Lamentations 3:22–23 will rise and shine over all of it, even more brightly than the Florida sun. We’ll soak up the time remembering that the “steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

I suppose I’ll end with that. Indeed, life is not dwindling by the day. Not with Jesus. By faith, I know that even if I only have a few more days of vacation or a few more days of mortal life, it’ll be perfectly enough.

Vacation’s End

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Last week, more than one person asked me about my vacation. Some wondered aloud if it had been sufficiently refreshing, asking if I felt rejuvenated. In most instances, I gave the same answer. It was usually something like, “Vacation is always nice, of course, but the first week back in the office is like drinking from a firehose.” That is a less descriptive but congenial way of saying two things I’m really thinking.

The first of my two thoughts, if fully extrapolated, would probably sound like, “To understand what I mean by firehose, imagine you’re getting a cool drink from a water fountain when, suddenly, the water pressure explodes into your mouth with such force that it knocks you to the floor. Imagine further, after managing to get back to your feet, you lean into the Niagara-like stream, intent on reaching the valve to lessen the pressure, but you can only slip and slide backward, unable to make any progress.”

That’s what the first week back from vacation is like. Last week, I described the allure of “home.” It seems almost bi-polar to admit there’s a dread that palls the return, too. It rides in on the realization that summer’s pace is still only a fraction of the forthcoming autumn’s pace. In other words, it’s tough now, and in a few weeks, it’s only going to get worse.

My second thought is a newly realized but somewhat altered version of something I heard Jennifer say. The night we returned, I overheard from the closet Jennifer comforting Madeline in her post-vacation blues, saying, “I’ve never heard anyone say with glee after vacation, ‘Well, I feel fully rejuvenated and ready to get back to work.’” I realized she was right. I’ve never heard anyone say that, either. If I did, I don’t think I believed them. When I return from vacation, while I may feel partially rested, I do discover wondering thoughts like, ‘Why can’t life remain at this pace all the time?”

I’ve confessed here before to self-diagnosing Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is a depression that sets in during certain seasons of the year. Autumn and winter are very hard on me. Shorter days mean leaving home and returning home in the darkness, with barely a hello from the sun along the way. I don’t enjoy those seasons. I endure them. If there’s something called Vacation Affective Disorder (VAD), I probably have it, too. In fact, the day before returning home from vacation is so powerfully threatening for me that I’ve noticed I don’t feel much like eating. I have to make myself do it. It’s a bizarre sensation. It’s also very real.

Relative to these burdens, I do have two things going for me. First, I don’t like to lose. This means that once I conceptualize SAD and VAD as the imposing specters they are, I begin laboring toward their defeat. It’s then I stop wondering if I can make it through and start thinking about how I’ll make it through and what it’ll be like on the other side. Second, I’m not a quitter. Whatever I start, I finish. I’ve always been that way, especially when facing adversity. In a strictly human sense, it’s probably one of the only reasons I’m still a pastor. The harder Satan (and certain people) push to drive me out, the more I find myself leaning into the attempts with a concrete-like unwillingness to budge. Of course, as I do this, I remain in constant prayer that the instinct is not pride-driven. It certainly has that potential. Looking backward with humble honesty, I can see times when I stood my ground for foolish reasons. Conversely, I can also see plenty of times when God weaponized these personality traits, ultimately using them for His glory and the good of His people.

I’m not a subscriber to the weird world of psychophysiology (sometimes called biopsychology), which is the field of study devoted to the interconnectedness of the mind and body. I don’t dig all that deeply into it because its two-fold perspective excludes the spiritual dimension. Still, I had a conversation this past week with someone I care about, and it got me thinking about the basic premise. Truly, there’s something to be said in a cursory sense about the mind/body connection. For example, I mentioned during the conversation General George Patton’s insistence that “to win any battle, you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do.” His wartime record proved his words true. But regardless, the Bible speaks on occasion about the connection. Saint Paul writes in Colossians 3:2, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” In Romans 12:2, he writes, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

In both texts, Paul pits the mind against what’s physical. It isn’t a Gnostic thing he’s doing. Instead, he’s simply acknowledging the importance of what Christians know by faith to be the better rudder for navigating what we experience with our physical senses. Digging deeper, that’s more or less epicentral to his words in 2 Corinthians 4:7-9, where he writes:

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

In other words, even as we see and experience the world churning around and against us, there’s something else we know: we are not inheritors of this world but of the world to come. And so, Paul continues:

“We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus…. Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (vv. 14, 16-18).

I mentioned before that psychophysiology does not calculate for the spirit. It certainly doesn’t account for the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible doesn’t make that mistake. It makes sure we understand each facet of body, mind, and spirit relative to the Holy Spirit’s work to instill faith. Chapter 8 in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans is a great place to see this. It’s there Paul refers to believers as those “who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” (v. 4). In other words, the Holy Spirit empowers Christians to yield their fleshly bodies to God in faith. Paul describes the Christian mind in the same way, reminding the reader that “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (v. 5). Following some elaboration, he eventually brings the body and mind together with the spirit—all beneath the banner of the Holy Spirit’s work. He writes:

“You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you” (vv. 9-11).

The first few weeks after returning from vacation are hard on me. They’re an existential wrestling match between body and mind, presence and purpose. I’m guessing it’s the same for many of you. But there’s something else happening there, too. The Holy Spirit is at work. By His might, I can shift my perspective away from these things toward the Gospel of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. It’s by this Gospel I am thoroughly sustained. This isn’t to say that the challenges suddenly disappear or that the frustration is magically lifted. But I do discover I have the bodily strength to endure and the mental clarity to sort through and eventually understand beyond the immediate discomforts.

So, even as the first week back may feel like drinking from a firehose, and life’s pace may continue to increase, I am reminded that my truest rejuvenation doesn’t come from a vacation. Only by the Holy Spirit at work through the Gospel am I renewed and sustained, not only for whatever this life might send my way but for the life to come. Such knowledge makes even the busiest seasons bearable and ultimately purposeful.

One more thing. While I may take vacations, God doesn’t. He’s ever-vigilant and always working, ready to give what we need the most. As a result, His life-sustaining Gospel remains here at Our Savior in Hartland, Michigan, season after season.

The Theater of Humanity

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We arrived in Florida a little differently this year. Jennifer drove. She left a day early with Harry and Evelyn. I flew. Madeline went with me. It’s better that I flew to Florida and didn’t drive. My back is terrible. More than three hours in the car equals a few days of vacation ruined. That’s how long it takes me to recover, and I need every day I’m away to be as vacationy as possible. Indeed, I need two unscathed weeks of palm trees and a pool.

Unfortunately, when we landed, our phones exploded with the news that President Trump had been shot. Some of you texted me. Others left voicemail. Thanks be to God he’s okay. Now we pray for the families of the casualties and injured. Usually, I’d suggest praying for the perpetrator, except he’s already been neutralized. Now, he answers to eternity. Had his life been spared, we might know more. It’ll be a lot harder to get to the bottom of things now that he’s dead.

The White House noted that the FBI would be running the investigation. I wonder how Trump’s folks feel about that given the agency’s relative weaponization against him. By the way, I don’t say that lightly. I was nominated and accepted into an eight-week citizen’s training with the FBI this past spring. I learned firsthand just how partisan the agency has become. Passing jabs at conservatives was common. So were the excuses for “mostly peaceful” groups like Antifa, Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ, Inc., and Pro-choice extremists. I’m by no means inclined to believe the FBI has President Trump’s well-being in mind. They answer to ideologues who rile crowds, comparing Trump to Hitler and labeling him a “threat to democracy” and “the end of America.” Their boss, Joe Biden, rasped at a recent fundraiser, “It’s time to put Trump in a bullseye.”

It appears someone may have been listening.

I hope I’m wrong about the FBI. I hope I’m wrong about Biden and his administration. I hope they’ll get to the bottom of this. I also hope their gabbling is nothing more than campaign rhetoric. I hope the Democrats’ continued stoking of the so-called tolerant left and the subsequent assassination attempt are only coincidental. Either way, the images of Trump covered in Secret Service agents—a man who’s been through so much, the American flag now billowing above his blood-smeared face, his breaking through the agents’ shielding to fist-pump the word “Fight!”—this image was seared into the hearts and minds of billions worldwide. It will unify many.

This has me thinking of something else.

I began by saying there aren’t too many things I like more than palm trees and a pool. That said, there’s almost nothing more entertaining than an hour in an airport terminal watching passersby. You never know what you’ll see. A woman dragging her angry child by a leash a short distance across the airport floor, his shoes squeaking like well-worn brakes as he tries to hinder her momentum—an oblivious tween wearing headphones two paces behind the struggling mother. A heftier man with bleach blonde hair and fishnet over a bright t-shirt doing all he can to be a woman but without an ounce of success. Two clerics in flowing cassocks pulling bags, and one has a cane that he doesn’t appear to need for walking. A beeping trolley with an elderly woman in its passenger seat. An eager crowd of Florida-bound travelers waiting and watching a bedraggled ensemble disembark an arriving plane, their vacation has come to an end. Atop all of it, a bird that somehow found its way inside and is now flittering from steel beam to steel beam above the unsuspecting bustle.

Like the bird, an inconspicuously observing man with his own past, present, and future sitting beside his oldest daughter and thinking, “I wonder what else there is to these people.”

For as weird as the theater of humanity might be, I appreciate individuality. Each person is gifted and uniquely valuable, no matter who they are or what they believe. If this were not true, Christ would not have told Nicodemus about God’s love extending itself to the extremities of death for the whole world (John 3:16). He would not have told His disciples, “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest” (John 4:35), which was to say that every person in this world is worth laboring to retrieve.

Still, the importance of uniqueness has become misapplied, reaching a fever pitch in society. We currently exist in a culture hellbent on amplifying individualism above everything else, the result being extreme division. The attempt on Trump’s life is proof. Perhaps just as worse, society has learned to praise and protect abnormality while shaming normalcy. A person who wants to get married, have children, go to church, and live a relatively normal life is considered the epitome of mindless conformity. But a man who disrupts the community of “family” and “friends” by quitting his job, divorcing his wife, and leaving his children to embrace his most authentic self as a six-year-old girl is heralded as courageous. Get in his way, and you’ll be sorry. Try to help his family, and you’re a bigot to be canceled.

I’m reminded of something Rev. Henry Melville wrote. Unfortunately, his words are often misattributed to Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick. Nevertheless, Rev. Melville insisted in a sermon he delivered in 1855, “Ye live not for yourselves; ye cannot live for yourselves; a thousand fibers connect you with your fellow men, and along those fibers, as along sympathetic threads, run your actions as causes, and return to you as effects.” This is sermonically reminiscent of Saint Paul’s warning, “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you’” (1 Corinthians 12:21). And yet, society has grown to despise such a message, and now we have a mess of self-concerned, handless, and footless bodies. We have a mess of separate and nearly unnavigable identities, with more and more people inventing new ones every day, each highlighting its own supposed uniqueness. In short, it has become commendable to cut the fibers that bind us to community. It has become laudable to stand entirely apart.

Yes, we’re all unique, and our individuality is essential. But our sameness is, too. In fact, it’s individuality’s point. We have roles to play in something bigger. This is true in microscopic ways, such as individual talents and skillsets used to support an organization, but also in much grander ways. A man or woman is only one-half of the single most important society-perpetuating and stabilizing equation. Relative to the Church, it’s why Saint Paul wrote, “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them” (Romans 12:4-6).

Use them for what? For the benefit of the community. This is a divine nod to something significant.

The more radically individualized and disconnected from community and its normalcy we become, the more our society seals its doom. We’re already seeing airplane crashes because a more qualified engineer was overlooked for another with lesser skill but with 7% more Cherokee DNA. Even now, people are losing the will and ability to communicate in fundamental ways, having become utterly incapable of engaging in honest conversation for fear of using incorrect pronouns and offending someone’s made-up uniqueness.

While I’m people-watching, I certainly do wonder about individual backstories. However, in the end, I’ve realized I can only really do this through the lens of sameness. I suppose therein lies one of life’s greatest ironies, which I’ve heard phrased, “Each of us is different, just like everybody else.” The adults before me were all children once. I wonder about the uniqueness of their upbringing. They all eat food. I imagine their favorite meal. I also wonder about their struggles. Everyone has sins that they wrestle to keep hidden from others and themselves. White or black, tall or short, we’re all members of the fellowship of sinful human dreadfulness. Rich or poor, well-known or societally invisible, God does not show partiality and cannot be bribed (Deuteronomy 10:17), and, therefore, none among us is above or below the other relative to the need for a savior.

But here’s the thing: even as God formed each of us as unique individuals, His greatest gift took aim at our sameness. He sent a Savior for all. By the person and work of Christ—His life, death, and resurrection—the whole world’s redemption was accomplished. He didn’t do it one way for Americans and another way for Somalis. We’re all the same in this. No one stands beyond the blast radius of the cross. Only according to this perspective does a genuine uniqueness come to light.

Those who believe this Gospel of redemption become the truly exceptional ones. They’re made holy. To be holy means to be set apart. Believers are set apart from a world intent on self-promoting shouts of uniqueness from the mountaintops. This world is set on having things its way—on doing, saying, and being anything it wants without consequence, all the while expecting commendation for the insanity. The Gospel for faith changes this. It’s the only thing that really sets a person apart, while at the same time drawing the one it inhabits to a better frame of reference. Suddenly, a person’s uniqueness becomes consequential to more than just the self. It becomes less about the spotlight and more about community. It’s moved to enact selfless love for the neighbor. And still, it knows more. Concerning the Church, suddenly, the community’s boundaries and preservation become paramount. That’s one reason why I appreciate tradition so much. It’s why the historic liturgy and the creeds are so valuable. They help bind and fortify the eternal community across time and location.

To wrap this up, I suppose I’ll close by acknowledging my appreciation to God for your uniqueness. I also give thanks for the more spectacular sameness of God’s love in Christ that binds us together in community. This sameness testifies to our value as individuals in the only way that truly matters.

Sabbath Rest

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First, having just returned to Michigan from Florida, I’ll say it’s good to be home. Well, sort of. Indeed, there’s no place like home. Resting a travel-wearied body in one’s own bed is hard to match. Still, coming home from vacation can be hard.

For one, the very first on-the-clock item I tackled when I got to the office this morning was taking ibuprofen. My body feels different in Michigan. I noticed that when I moved here from Illinois back in 1994. Secondly, time means very little on vacation—excluding, of course, the vacation’s final day. That particular day seems to exist somewhere beyond time’s regular pace. It moves too quickly. And it’s rather tortuous for children. But apart from that, all the other days of vacation move leisurely along, requiring little to no concern of any sort. In other words, unlike a typical day, if my family and I want to go to a movie in the middle of the afternoon, we can. If we want to swim from sunrise to sunset, we can. We’re on vacation. We are not obligated to do anything other than what the moment requires for rest. Anything added to the schedule is the vacationer’s fault.

I did my very best to put my phone away while in Florida. Admittedly, I needed it at times. But for the most part, it stayed in my pocket or on a nearby shelf. After a while, I didn’t even notice it buzzing anymore, which is pretty astonishing. I get pinged all day with this text message and that email and those phone calls. I mentioned to some friends that after a few days, when these ever-prodding communiqués finally reach the delta of my absolute disinterest—that is, when each of the phone’s chirps meets with an audible, “Whatever it is, it can wait”—I know I’m finally unwinding. It truly is a moment of self-awareness.

If you’re paying attention, returning from a vacation can also be a moment for self-awareness. I know for a fact that I change a little while on vacation. I’m not who I was when I left. When I return home to my life’s unchanging things—my home, my office, my routines—I can see what’s different about myself by comparison.

Wondering about this, I just looked it up. A study was performed in 2013 suggesting that among people returning from vacation, more than half experienced measurable personality changes while away on holiday. In other words, they were noticeably different to themselves and others while performing their usual routines. Most often, their behaviors changed for the better, even as they passed through feelings of dread before returning to the grind. That is rather intriguing.

Researchers might read the data and conclude that rest is beneficial. Although, that seems like a “duh” deduction. Reading about rest’s merits, I hear Saint Augustine praying, “Our hearts were made for You, O Lord, and they are restless until they rest in You.” The benefits of rest are not lost on Christians. We already know God insisted on rest’s importance when, so long ago, He commanded, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.” Luther framed the Christian’s understanding of this kindly mandate rather well in his Large Catechism:

“Our word ‘holy day’ or ‘holiday’ is so called from the Hebrew word ‘Sabbath,’ which properly means to rest, that is, to cease from labor; hence our common expression for ‘stopping work’ literally means ‘observing a holy day or holiday.’ In the Old Testament, God set apart the seventh day and appointed it for rest, and He commanded it to be kept holy above all other days. … [W]e keep holy days… first, for the sake of bodily need. Nature teaches and demands that the common people—manservants and maidservants who have attended to their work and trades the whole week long—should retire for a day to rest and be refreshed. Secondly and most especially, we keep holy days so that people may have time and opportunity, which otherwise would not be available, to participate in public worship, that is, that they may assemble to hear and discuss God’s Word and then praise God with song and prayer.”

Luther understood that God wants us to rest. And why? Well, for one, He knows we need it. Moreover, God knows that any form of physical rest, just as Saint Augustine poeticized, will always be a shadow of what can only be found in Him. He is the only One who can give respite from what truly makes us weary: Sin, Death, and Satan. And so, God mandates our presence in holy worship. He doesn’t make it optional. Just as He knows we need it, He also knows that if He doesn’t mandate it, our sinful nature will convince us that we can get by just fine without it. That sounds awfully familiar to me. I often struggle to admit I need a vacation. If I didn’t have caring folks around me saying, “Hey, Pastor, you need to get away,” I’d likely work myself to death. And in moments like this—the first day back, ibuprofen well in hand—I realize just how wonderful it can be to get away mentally and physically.

I’m glad I listened. My life and family have been better for it.

In the meantime, this year’s vacation is done. Physical rest has been had. It was exceptional, as always. Nevertheless, there’s another kind of rest I need far more than I get only once a year. Like my annual vacation, it includes family—my church family in Hartland. As a household of believers, we enjoy a better kind of rest. It’s an unmatchable kind—a divine kind—one in which God Himself attends to us with His brimming love. He beckons us into this rest, a respite only found in the arms of His compassionate care through Word and Sacrament ministry.

What could be more rejuvenating than that? Absolutely nothing. The Gospel given through Word and Sacrament has everything any of us could need for life in this world. And to think, these gifts of God’s grace are available to us every time we gather for holy worship.

I’m sad for those who think they can somehow endure without ever being together with their Christian family in worship to receive these heavenly gifts. It just doesn’t make sense to me. It is counterintuitive to genuine human need and spits in the face of the One who loves to provide for the need in abundance. Even more, it’s just plain foolish to believe that we can be apart from God in this way and still consider ourselves His children. God’s Word certainly warns against believing and practicing such nonsense. But even as it warns, it also promises. It promises that just as we’re inclined to take vacations from God, He’ll never take vacations away from us. Let that sink in. God is always on deck to give you rest. He’ll keep after you with the invitation.

Listen to Him. Understand that God’s Sabbath command is nothing short of the same kindly offer His Son offered when He said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

A Family Reunion

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I pray all is well with you this morning. I, for one, am performing my usual early Sunday morning routine, even in Florida. Again, I continue to tell myself I won’t write and send anything on Sunday mornings. But then, I do. I already know the disease’s name. It’s called hypergraphia. It’s a neurological condition marked by an intense desire to write or draw.

I’m just kidding. I don’t have hypergraphia. People suffering from hypergraphia will do something like spend an afternoon writing the lyrics to a favorite song fifty times. I wouldn’t do that. I’d be more inclined to spend a free afternoon writing fifty new songs. I see writing—especially free writing—as a means of creative probing designed to discover what I think about something. The particular prompt is never an issue. I look around at things. I sip my coffee. In a moment or two, I see something, then I’m off and following. In the early morning Florida sun, there are plenty of mental meadows for such wandering. Michigan has its share, too. Every place has an abundance. You need only to pay attention.

In a little while, the rest of the Thoma family will awaken. Soon thereafter, we’ll make our way to Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church in Winter Garden. We visited there last week. The guest pastor, a kindly gent, preached a fine sermon. At one point along the homiletical way, he spoke of being part of a group. Specifically, he described seeing a family gathered in a park for a reunion. He mentioned the picnic tables, the food, the laughter, the sunshine, and all the things that make for a friendly gathering of loved ones. From there, he described a lonely onlooker’s desire to be a part of such things—to have a place of belonging. The point of the illustration was to describe the Church, and he did so in an interesting way.

Admittedly, I drifted a little while the pastor described. Seeing the familial picnic in my mind, I imagined the conversations. In particular, I thought of how families often retell the worst about themselves, ultimately adorning their conversations in laughter rather than tears. They tell the story about so-and-so’s new carpeting and how their son, now a grown man, once ran diaperless through the room, ultimately doing his business and leaving a stain that remains to this day. Or they reminisce about the time Uncle so-and-so pushed Grandma on the park swing, and when she came back on the upswing, he grabbed her wig and ran away, leaving her helplessly embarrassed and angry.

Everyone listens and laughs at the former foolishness. The carpet stain is still there, forever remembering something good now soiled. Grandma is still there, too. She still wears her wig. And yet, she’s not embarrassed, and she’s no longer angry. Why?

Family.

I firmly believe that the only type of human love that will ever come close to demonstrating the love God shows us is the familial kind. When I look at my wife, when I look at my children, I see Jesus there. They know pretty much everything there is to know about me. More importantly, they know my worst, most detestable self. Still, they love me. And I love them—enough to give my life in their place. This love changes me. Self-love is pushed aside, making room for being the best husband and father I can be.

Even if only in a minimal way, all these things give a sense of Christ’s divine view. What’s more, all these things demonstrate just how wonderful things can be in a community desiring to live in the shelter of repentance, forgiveness, and amending the sinful life. It’s in gatherings like that where former sins become memories worthy of little more than a laugh.

Strangely, this sounds a lot like God’s blueprint for the Church. That being said, I hope you’re making plans right now for this morning’s family reunion. We are. We won’t see you, but we will be with you.

Vacation for Vocation

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Like many of you, I have vacationing on the brain.

Memorial Day is meant to remember those who gave their lives in service to the country. Still, judging by the weekend’s typical worship attendance, it’ll be akin to a test run of the forthcoming summer’s getaway potential. In other words, it’s a practice vacation. It doesn’t offer much time to rest, but it gives a sense of what rest could be. And if not rest, then at least the liberty to spend a long weekend with friends and family—some we like and some we don’t—doing something…or nothing.

I just used the word liberty.

I’m not above reminding anyone why the rest they enjoy in America is possible. People died to provide it. Considering that Thomas Jefferson once called religious liberty “the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights,” I’m not above reminding folks to consider churchgoing as one of liberty’s best exercises. A far more critical death sits at its center—the death of God’s Son. His death won far more than freedom from earthly tyranny or foreign threats. His death stole you away from eternal condemnation and the power of Death. That’s certainly worth a day or two of any vacation.

At our Church Council meeting last week, our new Youth Board chairman, Jason, spoke about future opportunities for our youth to enjoy fellowship together and serve in the community. As he explained, I drifted back to my days as the youth leader, a time when we were heavily invested in international mission efforts, going to places like Russia and Lithuania. I share this because later that night, on the treadmill, I visited a travel website to check on airfare prices to Lithuania, figuring it might once again be a possibility. Of course, Russia seems like a stretch right now. Anyway, while ticket shopping, one of the side advertisements was scrolling quotations about vacationing. I don’t usually pay much attention to advertisements. The sayings caught my eye in this case, probably because the Thoma family is precisely 20 days away from our annual two-week getaway to Florida.

The first quotation I jotted down was from Robert Orben. He said, “A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.” Another from Hal Chadwicke offered, “A vacation is a sunburn at premium prices.” I also saw one by Susan Sontag. She wrote, “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” Finally, there was the following from Gustave Flaubert: “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

I know who Robert Orben was. In fact, he died just this year. He was a comedy writer who later became a presidential speech writer. I only know this because he managed to do something I’d appreciate doing, which is speech writing for political candidates. Other than that, I’ve never been a fan. I don’t know who Hal Chadwicke is. I’ve never heard of him. I’ll probably look him up after typing this. Known or unknown, he said something insightful that was worth sharing. Susan Sontag was a leftist crazy. She did all she could to depict America as a villain. For example, she was the kind of person who could visit an orphanage in Africa built by Americans and figure out how to blame America for the local warlord’s murdering the children’s parents. I’m not a fan of Susan Sontag. Still, she wrote at least one thing worth sharing.

Gustave Flaubert’s observation resonated with me the most. He was a nineteenth-century French novelist. He wrote Madame Bovary. I’ve never read it. It’s a classic, so I probably should. I guess I’ve never been that interested, mainly because of its reputation for having a class-envy theme. Still, Flaubert’s words about travel are pinpointedly accurate. Stepping beyond the front door of our lives has a way of revealing the uniqueness of one’s place in the world.

Vacations are inherently good for this.

Relative to this ramble’s start, I think I’ve sorted out a few things. One lesson learned concerns my being completely disinterested in spending a Memorial Day weekend with any of the authors I mentioned. However, even though I might not be fond of particular people, situations, or tasks, I can garner something of value from almost anyone or anything if I’m paying attention. Even Saint Paul found value in the pagan poets. With that, no matter where you are or what you’re doing, pay attention to what’s happening around you, even when you’re doing absolutely nothing. You’re bound to discover something worthwhile. This leads me to something else.

I suppose vacations are designed to provide rest. But they’re also supposed to be rejuvenating. Rejuvenation isn’t necessarily a do-nothing event. It’s restorative. It’s a creative act. It’s also self-contemplative. It takes in information and applies it to the self. It has a heightened awareness, one that’s undistracted from the usual day-to-day bustle and capable of looking around at life for new ways of making one’s regular days healthier and, perhaps, more productive. I can promise you that’s one of the only reasons I try new things while on vacation. I rarely do nothing. But I rarely do something to say I’ve done it. I eat food I’ve never eaten or try activities I’ve never tried so that I can decide if I want to add them (if possible) to my life back home. I discover things about myself and my everyday routines as I do this. As Flaubert hinted, I’m reminded how small my corner of the world is compared to the rest of God’s beautiful creation. The older I get, the more aware of this process I become. And it really is a splendid process.

Now, I didn’t set out at the beginning to sound like some new-age therapist bent on meditative self-help techniques. Instead, I’m thinking about my upcoming vacation, realizing I’m going away to a place that’s not my home. I will return to the real world and its seemingly endless tasks.

I’m also thinking about what I read in Ecclesiastes 3 this morning. Chapter 3 is that memorable portion from King Solomon that talks about how there’s a time for everything under heaven. I noticed vacationing fits into what Solomon wrote.

Interestingly, after Solomon lists various seasons in life, some good and some bad, he appears to connect all of them to man’s general toiling—his day-to-day vocation. In verse 13, he summarizes that God wants man to take pleasure in his work. His phraseology implies that the toil and its fruits are God’s gifts to us, not simply a package of things we endure until retirement. They’re proof of God’s love.

In verse 22, the final sentence of the chapter, Solomon adds one more thing. He once again restates that man should rejoice in his work, but then he ends by asking the rhetorical question, “Who can bring him to see what will be after him?” I won’t dig too deeply into this question because I’ve already been long-winded. In light of everything Solomon has written, it sounds like he’s assuming a life of labor in gratefulness to God produces a job well done. A job well done benefits those who come after us.

Finally, reading Solomon’s concern for times of laughter and healing—and knowing they’re relative to our daily labors—I think one of the “vacation” takeaways is that we shouldn’t necessarily be thinking about our time off as an escape from work. Instead, we vacation for the sake of our vocation. In other words, we take time to rejuvenate—we grow and learn and take in new mental and physical resources—so that we can return to our daily labors better equipped for faithful laboring to the glory of God and the good of the neighbor.

Returning to the real world after vacation can be depressing for some. I get it. Still, I think Solomon is telling us there’s a way to take a little bit of it with you. My advice: pay attention. Ask yourself while away, “What can I bring back to my corner of the world that’ll make my vocation more of a joy in thankfulness to God and a blessing to my neighbor?”

Now, if I can only figure out how to fit Florida’s sunshine, a few palm trees, and a swimming pool into my suitcase. I’ll bet that would make everyone in Michigan happy. Florida can keep its sharks.

You’re Already Home

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Having just returned to Michigan from Florida yesterday, I suppose I’ll begin this morning’s note with a simple observation. In short, one of the most enchanting qualities of “home” is that while it sometimes feels so incredibly good to be away from it, there’s very little that compares to returning. The ghostly warmth hovering throughout—the familiar smells and the favorite spaces; one’s bed or best-loved chair—all of it together is a resonant foretaste of the purest welcome to be found only in the chambers of heaven.

Indeed, as Cicero once said, “There is no place more delightful than one’s own fireside.”

I was thinking on the plane yesterday afternoon about how difficult it can be to make one’s way back into the busyness of life. After two weeks in which the hardest thing I had to do was adore the palm trees while swimming from one end of the pool to the other, just about anything else can seem daunting. Even unpacking the suitcase last night felt like a chore, especially compared to the exertion that today will require. Today, I’ll drift from yesterday’s lazy river into the swifter current of this and that and then this and that. I’ll finish tapping out this message, and then I’ll write the prayers for the Divine Service. From there, I’ll make my way toward plenty of other preparatory things before the 9:30 AM start time. At that point, I’ll preside over the liturgy, baptizing a little one at the beginning and seeing that you get the Lord’s Supper at the end. After the Bible study hour that follows, I have a couple of meetings, and then it’s off to officiate a wedding followed by another baptism.

Today will be nothing like yesterday’s palm trees. I expect I won’t find my way home until mid-evening. I’m grateful to Rev. Christian Preus for joining us this morning as a guest preacher and for taking time during the Bible study hour to talk about the up-and-coming Luther Classical College. Not only will this help, but if you’re at all concerned about sending your child off to any of today’s modern colleges or universities, his time with us will be worthwhile.

Having said all these things with an unmistakable tenor, you must know that none of them changes the point I made in the beginning. No matter what’s going on, L. Frank Baum was correct to make his character Dorothy repeat, “There’s no place like home.” Surrounded by her family and friends at the end (who echoed through the characters she discovered in Oz), Dorothy realized, as so many often do, that it’s not necessary to travel the world to find what we need. Home is where you’ll often find it. In that sense, home is more than things. It’s people. It’s routines. It’s a sense of belonging. It often requires from you just as much as it gives, and that’s okay. It’s a two-way investment that creates unique relationships resulting in lives actually lived rather than only being observed from afar. You’re not just passing through. Instead, you belong—with and for the others who are there, too. God so graciously works these things into our lives, settling the solitary in a home (Psalm 68:6) and blessing them with a wonderful synergy of both needing and being needed.

These thoughts on home bring something else to mind.

Last week I learned a new word from Rev. Dr. Scott Murray. He used the term “theologism.” If I recall correctly, he defined it as a religious statement that many people regularly say, having accepted as totally self-evident. But when the saying is rigorously tested, it’s proven to be far less than all-encompassing. In particular, he identified as an example the saying, “God hates sin but loves the sinner.” I think he’s right. Psalm 5:5 is an easy example of God’s dislike for sinners. The first chapter of the Prophet Malachi combined with Saint Paul’s handling of the same material in Romans 9:10-13 is another example. Personally, I think many Christians gravitate toward the saying because they feel God needs a little help in the Public Relations department. In other words, rather than simply accepting that God hates Sin and everything it produces—which includes sinners—we attempt to soften the blow of such things. When we do, we confuse the theology and allow wiggle room for missing the seriousness of the predicament and our need for actual rescue. When that happens, we begin redefining Sin in ways that enable us to remain comfortable with it in certain forms. I think it’s better to say that hate is an alien thing for God. His natural inclination is one of love, which is why the Gospel is far more prominent in the Bible than God’s hatred. If anything, we are to know that what’s innate to God’s very being has overpowered what He knows we’re due and what He has every right to exact. In other words, His love moved Him to do what was necessary for rescuing even the things He hates. In our case, by the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ, He makes us into friends.

Perhaps another theologism is the saying, “We’re only just passing through this life. Heaven is our home.”

For the most part, the saying is true, especially when you consider Saint Paul’s words in Philippians 3:20. He refers to Christians as citizens of heaven awaiting the Lord’s return. Hebrews 13:14 speaks similarly, describing God’s people as awaiting the arrival of “the city that is to come.” The Apostle Peter calls us “sojourners and exiles” in 1 Peter 2:11.

I suppose I start to steer away from this saying as all-encompassing or all-interpreting when I realize how it licenses far too many for disengagement in this world’s affairs, as though they don’t belong. This bothers me, especially when I read the Lord’s words in John 17:14-16, which is a moment where He prays to the Father on our behalf, saying, “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

Two things come to mind in this.

Firstly, and indeed, we are foreigners in this world. The world hates us, but mostly because we do not rely on it as the source of our lives. We look to something else, that is, someone else—namely, Jesus. John 15:19 confirms this. Here in John 17, the genitive preposition “ἐκ” (which is often translated into English as “of”) implies the same thing. The word means “out of, out from, by means of, or as a result of”—which is to say the source of our lives and existence does not come from this world. It comes from God.

Secondly, the Lord digs deeper into this when He prays that we not be extracted from the world but protected while living in it. In other words, we belong here, and until the Lord returns on the Last Day bringing the new heaven and earth, this world, as a location, is just as much our home as is heaven—even as exiles, even as sojourners, even as prisoners. What’s more, God’s Word (which is also Jesus Himself [John 1:1-3, 14]) is referenced as the source of this protection right at the beginning of the Lord’s plea in verse 14 above. From this perspective, we understand our home as far more than the house in which we live or the community in which we dwell, whether in the past, present, or future. Instead, the definition of home becomes akin to Solomon’s inspired words in Proverbs 24:3-4: “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.”

Your truest and final dwelling is coming. But your home—both in this life as a foretaste and the next as fulfilled—is in the Word. I’m guessing this isn’t far from what the Lord meant when He said in John 14:23, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

I suppose I should probably end this morning’s note right here, primarily because I need to get started on some other things. In the end, know that even as eternal life is yours in Christ, you’re not just passing through this mortal life. By faith in Him, eternal life is happening to you right now, too. Holding fast to Him and His Word, no matter where you are, you’re already home. He’s with you, and wherever He promises to dwell, there, too, is the Christian’s own fireside.

Vacation

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A lot has happened in the past few days, hasn’t it? For one, Roe V. Wade was overturned. Praise God for this. Now, America actually has a good reason for expressing pride during the month of June—Godly pride, that is. Personally, I’d say the timing couldn’t have been better.

First of all, and liturgically speaking, the day the ruling was handed down—June 24—is traditionally celebrated by the Church as the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. I know lots of folks are jumping up and down about the ruling happening on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is a distinctly Roman Catholic devotional celebration more or less born from private revelations the Jesuits claimed Saint Gertrude experienced in the 1600s. The point of the celebration has become Christ’s love for humanity. I suppose that’s a fine theme, too. Except to say that the Sacred Heart celebration was never really a fixed feast date. It moved around throughout history based on various papal decrees. I can’t say for sure, but I think it still does. If that’s the case, then remembering June 24 becomes more difficult.

But the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist is cemented to June 24. Even better, its origin isn’t speculative. It remembers events and characters actually recorded in God’s inspired Word, having been fixed on the calendar by Christians since the fifth century. This is no insignificant thing when we consider the SCOTUS ruling in relation to the date. Yes, it celebrates John’s birth, but it also digs deeper. It’s seasoned with the memory of John who, as an unborn child in Elizabeth’s womb, leaped for joy when Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary, the mother of our Lord, stepped into her presence. And why did the unborn forerunner of Christ begin stirring with joy at that moment? The scriptures tell us it was because Mary was pregnant with Jesus (Luke 1:41-45). Even superficially, the Bible considers John and Jesus to be far more than clumps of cells as the vile pro-choice ideologues would claim.

Second of all, and a little closer to home, the 6 to 3 ruling by the highest court in the land was well timed in the sense that it arrived on the heels of 14 pastoral and lay delegates who, at our recent English District convention, voted anonymously against a resolution affirming life and the important resources made available for preserving it pre and post-birth. I know that’s not very many votes, especially since there were a few hundred in attendance over the three days. Still, I struggled to stomach the fact that 14 people representing a handful of LCMS congregations in my own district had just proved themselves to be at odds not only with the church body in which they hold membership but with God’s Word. If that weren’t enough, a handful of pastors and delegates voted against a resolution affirming human sexuality as God designed it—namely, that men cannot be women and women cannot be men. A small number opposed this biblical truth, and yet, it was still quite bothersome. Another resolution decrying Critical Race Theory and its ideological promulgators, such as the openly Marxist organization “Black Lives Matter,” had a much larger contingent of dissenters. There were 44 among us who voted against that particular resolution.

For the record, I intend to do a little investigating. If I can know the voting record of my elected representatives in congress, I should be able to know the votes (and the reasons) of those who voted on doctrinal issues. I mean, if any electoral process requires the integrity of letting one’s yes be yes and no be no (Matthew 5:37), it’s in forums that discern and determine the future of the Church’s doctrine and practice.

Of course, this same thing happened in many of the other district conventions bearing similar resolutions. Thankfully, the English District passed all of the resolutions I mentioned with overwhelming support. This is proof that we still have an overwhelming number of faithful pastors and lay leaders throughout the 22 states we call home. I thank Bishop Jamison Hardy for leading the way in this regard.

Anyway, enough with this stuff. I’m writing from a bright little spot about an hour and thirty minutes south of Tampa, Florida. The sun has just arisen. There’s a palm tree just outside the nearest window. I can see the anoles are already skittering up and down the tree’s trunk as though it were a miniature highway. I don’t know what they’re doing, but whatever it is, it seems far more important than what I’m doing at the moment.

I don’t have to do anything right now. Not even this tapping at the keyboard is required. I’m on vacation.

I won’t tell you where the Thoma family is presently holed up only because I value your friendship and I’d miss you if you were gone. You know the saying: I could tell you but then I’d have to… well… you know. It’s likely those of you closest to me also know that of all the routine things the Thoma family might do in a year, the two weeks of vacation we attempt each summer are the most sacrosanct. There is no other moment amid the earth’s regular orbiting of the sun when we get to be together, just us, for such a significant stretch of time. Not even the days post-Christmas and Easter offer the kind of rest we get in these moments. In that sense, this time is untouchably holy.

It hasn’t always been this way.

It wasn’t until 2016 that we took our first real family vacation. I’ve been serving in the church since 1994, and yet, before 2016, I’d never gone away for any significant amount of personal time. The only time I can remember being out of the saddle for more than a week with family doing something that wasn’t necessarily church-related occurred in the summer of 1995 when my brother Michael died. Other than that, I had only ever scooted away for two or three days in the middle of the week a handful of times. Not much changed after Jennifer and I got married in 1997. We took two or three midweek days to visit family, but we were always sure to return home no later than Saturday night so that I could climb back onto Sunday morning’s horse.

But then, Jennifer took a chance. Without really even including me in the plans, she scheduled a ten-day vacation in Florida. She paid the airfare, reserved a house with a pool, and rented a van that seated six people. The phone conversation was incredibly brief. If I remember correctly, it happened sometime in January, and it went something like this:

“Chris, whatever you have scheduled from June 25 to July 7,” she said, plainly, “get someone else to do it.”

“Um,” I likely mumbled.

“We’re going to Florida for two weeks.”

“We are?”

“Yes,” she replied, just as simply as she began. “All six of us.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll tell you more tonight when you get home. Love you.”

That was about it. Needless to say, I first checked to make sure I wasn’t presiding at any weddings, and then I noted in my calendar accordingly.

Admittedly, it was challenging at first to step away from my duties. It felt alien to be so far out of reach. The life of a pastor is a 24/7 thing, and it’s not kept cleanly compartmentalized in public and personal boxes—at least, not like so many other jobs. It’s just the plain truth that the public’s gravity is almost always stronger than the personal. No matter where I am or what I’m doing, I’m always within reach of anyone who needs me. This is good. But it can also be incredibly draining, not only for me but for my family. Ask them. Plenty of family moments have been abruptly altered by a phone call and my sudden departure. That’s not a complaint. It’s what I signed up for. Still, and I suppose humanly speaking, rest is needed, and if the 24/7 access to anyone and everyone isn’t kept in check, the pastor and his family can be irrevocably harmed. In a way, I’ve been forcibly taught that a vacation is one of the necessary barriers that help to preserve my family’s wellbeing.

Sometimes we need to be forcibly taught what’s good for us.

The English novelist Lisa St. Aubin de Terán said something about how taking a vacation is like flirting with actual life. I don’t know the context of her words. I only know that she wrote them. I’m guessing she meant that for many, vacationing is a brief interlude with a way of life they cannot have. In a sense, that’s true. I’d love to wake up each morning and do what I’m doing right now with a palm tree outside my window. And after a brief bit of early morning writing, I’d awaken my lovely family with the crisp aromas and crackling sounds of breakfast, all before inviting them to join me for a leisurely dip in the pool, the rest of the day being an open horizon leading toward whatever we’d prefer.

This is the life I’m flirting with right now. That being said, one day, I intend to make it a reality. Strangely, I had to be forcibly introduced to it. And now that I know it, I never want to surrender its pursuit. In fact, I’ve learned I need it. Without the rest these two weeks in a year provide, the potential weariness of the year’s remaining days would almost certainly overtake me.

I suppose this word-rambling is leading me to something else.

Take a vacation from the day-to-day and go to church. Don’t be fooled into thinking you have no time for it. You do. And you need it. Join your holy Savior in worship. To do so is to enjoy a divine romance with life—eternal life. Although, this is a flirtation that extends far beyond what I’ve already described. To be with your loving Savior each week in worship is by no means to experience something you’ll never have. Instead, it is a rest-filled foretaste and proclamation of the divine promises of God’s forgiveness that are already yours by faith, something you will fully retire into when you breathe your last breath. Unfortunately, this is something that far too many Christians appear to resist, especially during the summer months. And so, for a person’s wellbeing, Christ and His pastors must sometimes forcibly say, “Go to church. And take your kids.” They do this because they know the routine rest that worship provides is necessary. It’s fundamental to Christian health, both as individuals and as a community.

We’ll be going to church this morning. Just like a vacation itself, worship is a relationship with life—the One who is the way, the truth, and the life—we never want to surrender. We need what Christ gives. We need the rest God imputes by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel preached and administered. And so, we go. No matter where we are, we go. This year we’ll be attending Redeemer Lutheran Church in Englewood, Florida, which is a confessional congregation helmed by one of the Lord’s faithful servants, Reverend James T. Kress. Although I suppose now that I told you this, you can figure out the general vicinity of our retreat. Still, I suppose if you want to use this information to crash our time of respite, you’ll need to move quickly. Worship begins at 9:15 A.M. Also, I should say you wouldn’t be crashing anything. It would be a pleasure to sit beside you and your family in the pews, partaking together of God’s gracious gifts of Word and Sacrament with the rest of His people at Redeemer.

I’m okay with that. But I’ll draw the line there. Don’t plan on following us to our rental home after the Benediction. I love you in the Lord and all that, but rest assured I’ll be driving like a criminal on the show “Cops” to lose you along the way.

Unguarded

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Even though summer doesn’t technically arrive until mid-June, for many, it has already begun. School is out. Graduations are underway. Schedules become shapeshifters ready to consume each newly liberated hour the season promises. I don’t know what this means for you, but for the pastor of a church with a school it means arranging my day in a way that gets me to the office much earlier in the morning than usual with the hope that I can find my way home by mid-afternoon. Doing this allows time I don’t normally have with the family before needing to venture out for anything church-related in the evenings.

As it is every summer, I intend to use a portion of the morning’s quiet time for reading. Hardly moved by the criticism of my fellow pastors, I rarely spend much time in the summer with anything distinctly theological, but instead, whatever is enjoyable in the moment. Although, technically everything is theological—or better yet, Christological. I’ll give you an example.

I’ve already started my summer wanderings by picking away at a collection of letters from Charles Lamb, an essayist and poet of remarkable style from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. I stumbled upon the compilation in Google Books while looking for something else.

One thing is for sure, you can learn a lot by reading from a historical character’s personal correspondence. Not only do you discover the superficial things relative to culture—such as favorite foods, pastimes, manners, colloquialisms, and the like—but you learn quite a bit about the person’s hidden qualities. For instance, a rather famous Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote a letter to Lamb, one in which he described summer setting in “with its usual severity.” Coleridge’s point was to complain about England’s unfortunate (but not unusual) coolness in May and June. Apparently, he didn’t like it. Interestingly, Lamb didn’t acknowledge Coleridge’s complaint in his reply, but instead carried on about how the painter who’d recently completed a portrait of Lamb had captured him in “one of those disengaged moments… when the native character is so much more honestly displayed….”

From what I know of Coleridge, which is that he was a delightfully expressive man, one who could hardly be characterized as a complainer, Lamb’s words to his friend seemed almost out of place. Or better yet, if they were intended as a subtle response to a very wise Coleridge, then they were pointed. In other words, they appeared to suggest that just like everyone else, the real Coleridge could be betrayed by an unguarded moment. For as beloved as Coleridge was by the public for his eloquent appreciation of all things, his secret dislike for English summers slipped through to Lamb.

Whether or not this was Lamb’s point isn’t exactly clear. Still, I have the nagging sense it was. Either way, like everything else in life, it can be viewed through theological lenses. In this circumstance, it first serves as a reminder that no one is perfect. It’s also a lesson to the would-be narcissists among us. For as complete as one might appear to be, the unguarded moments eventually come around, and when they do, our incompleteness breaches the surface. And this is a good thing. It brings about the opportunity for honest confession—the opportunity to recognize one’s need for rescue from Sin’s deathly grip.

Lamb wrote something else of interest in his reply to Coleridge. Having included a small facsimile of the portrait with the letter, he scribbled, “Whatever its pretensions, I know it will be dear to you, towards whom I should wish my thoughts to flow in sort of an undress rather than in the more studied graces of diction.”

Did you pick up on Lamb’s inference? He offered two things that, if thinking theologically, are likely to resonate with Christians. The first is that no matter our failings, we can be counted as dear to one another. This is true because God’s grace is holding us together as the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). With this as the connective tissue for our friendships, the second thing Lamb said becomes incredibly clear. He notes his hope for genuine honesty between he and Coleridge—that the things troubling, worrying, or haunting either of them can be made bare, rather than remaining guarded by a “studied” carefulness with words. This means as brothers and sisters in Christ, we don’t need to hide our real selves, as though needing to project an image of having it all together. We don’t even have to exist in a way that stays within the easy boundaries of cordiality. Instead, we can be real friends—folks ready to walk together through both the complete and incomplete parts of life.

In short, Lamb implies what the rest of us already know by King Solomon’s words, “For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!” (Ecclesiastes 4:10). This is the epitome of Proverbs 27:17, which reads: “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another,” and certainly it’s at least a molecule in the Lord’s formula fueling the encouragement to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:24-25).

My prayer for you today, and always, is that you will remain part of a Christian church family that truly enjoys such collegiality. We can do no better than to be surrounded by genuine Christian friends as much as possible, knowing full well that a “friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (Proverbs 17:17).