Charcoal Fire

We just saw N. T. (Tom) Wright at Elmbrook Church a few weeks ago. He had a marvelous take on the two Charcoal Fires in the Gospel of John. He draws on his own reflections in his book John for Everyone in the "for everyone" series published by Westminster/John Knox.
He starts with John 21:9, "When they came to land, they saw a charcoal fire laid there with fish and bread on it." A charcoal fire. Not an insignificant detail, but in my more than 30 years of ministry, a detail I'd missed. The other charcoal fire is in John 18 where it is written that Peter, his last supper protestations to the contrary notwithstanding in chapter 13, denies Jesus three times by chapter 18. The cock crows after the third time and it all takes place by a charcoal fire.
Put the DVD of Christ's life on fast forward to chapter 21. Another charcoal fire. Another set of three imprecations.

Think back to the smell of that fire [in chapter 18], wafting through the chilly April air. Think of Peter going out in shame, angry with himself, knowing that Jesus knew. Knowing that the beloved disciple knew. Knowing that God knew. And hearing the next day what had happened to Jesus. Not even the resurrection itself could wave a magic wand and get rid of that memory. Nothing except revisiting it and bathing it in God's own healing. (John for Everyone, p. 159)

There's something about smells that carry us back to another time and place, often in pleasant and sometimes in shocking ways. The home where Grandma spent the last days of her life come back to us Pastors when we enter the house of a shut-in whom we visit and smell the residual effects of Ben-Gay and other poultices. Imagine, Tom Wright suggests, the environmental odor of that second charcoal fire on the lakeshore.

The smell of that charcoal fire lingers. Peter's night of agony—and Jesus' own night of agony—returns. But because of the latter, the former can be dealt with. [p. 163]

Peter must have been in two places at once. The charcoal fire of the night of denial and the charcoal fire of the evening of resurrection. In the present fire, Jesus asks him three times, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Typical of Peter's impetuousness, he replies "Of course I love you." "Lord you know everything, you know I love you." Wright, the Greek scholar points out that two Greek words are used in this exchange between Jesus and Peter. Where Jesus uses the Greek word "agape" Peter replies with "phileos." Jesus asks Peter for a divine love, but Peter responds with a friendly love. Both are translated as just "love" in English because we don't have much choice. The way Wright put in his lecture at Elmbrook the conversation might have gone like this:

Simon, son of John, do you love me?

To which Simon Peter responds each time,

Lord, of course, you know I am your friend.

But the third time, Jesus comes down to Peter's level and says,

Simon, are you [really] my friend? Then feed my sheep, tend my flock.

In this marvelous exchange, Simon Peter, once entrusted with the keys to the kingdom, but must have been sure that he has lost them in the bramble of his own terror, has now been given them back.


I've thought of those charcoal fires and our own fire of 2005. Have we been given something to do with this marvelous new building?

Groundbreaking

In both senses of that word/phrase. The breaking of the ground on the new/old site as well as a breakthrough moment. We're building on the old site at 413 Wisconsin Avenue. It was a bit of a controversy. There was some who would like us to have gone out beyond the so-called "59 corridor" (the loop that surrounds the city of Waukesha and defines its suburbs). But we decided to stay -- to, as the prophet Jeremiah put it, "seek the welfare of the city..."


On a rainy Sunday morning, following our worship service at the Masonic Lodge, we gathered at the site of the old church. We stood on property which has been in the hands of this congregation for about 140 years. In the midst of a soft rain, we prayed, sang and listened to the Mayor and our alderman tell us how grateful they are that we have decided to rebuild in the downtown area of the city. Several of us spoke of the groundbreaking ceremony that took place in May of 1891 and how great a risk those good folks took in those days just before the turn of the century.


It was a great day. One year to go to that day when the keys are handed over to us. It's hard not to overstate our joy.

Ground Breaking

We're breaking ground for our new church on August 19th of 2007.

Here's the backstory. Our church, the Evangelical and Reformed United Church of Christ in Waukesha, Wisconsin, burned to the ground December 4th of 2005. A Sunday night it was. About 10:15 or so. Or at least that's when I got the call from a church member who said, "Our church is burning... I mean, it's really burning." I was not yet undressed for bed, so I rushed out the door. It was a bitter cold night and I was not altogether prepared for the cold. It was a horrible night and the cause of the fire would not be revealed for some weeks.

It was finally, a carelessness on our part. We left candles burning on the communion table after a funeral in the afternoon. It had been a long day. Worship for the second Sunday of Advent at 9 a.m. then a funeral for a dear woman at 4 in the afternoon. We had a marvelous meal with her family following the service and no one went up to check to see whether or not the candles on the table had been extinguished. They weren't.

Then the youth group met at 6 p.m. and we left at 7:45. The fire had been in its infancy at that point, but there were no hard-wired smoke alarms that would have warned the youth group that a fire was in the making. We all went home.

Then the call at 10:15 and the long night of running from one fire command post to another began.

But just now we are breaking ground.