Plain Brown Envelope

It is now 64 years since I opened the first important plain brown envelope addressed to me. I sat with some 100 others about to graduate as seniors from Concordia University, Chicago. We were assembled to receive our “assignments”. In that day church leaders decided where we would sere in our roles as Christian educators. Oh, we had been asked about where we might want to serve, but the decision was for others to make. When we entered that room we had no idea as to where we might be called. I sort of assumed it would be a church school in Texas because it was a strong tradition that Texans were assigned to teach in Lutheran schools of Texas.

I walked to the front of the room where Dr. Dan Maurer handed me my brown envelope. I rushed to my seat, tore open the envelope and saw the assignment: “Teacher and Principal; St. Paul Lutheran School, Tracy, California.” And within three months I was in the classroom of St. Paul’s, Tracy.

It was actually a good assignment. The school was at the forefront of dramatic changes within the Lutheran school system. I had known only the traditional parochial school that served only children of the sponsoring congregation. There was no tuition, all costs covered by the congregation. While that was my experience, Tracy introduced me to a body of students of many or no faith. Congregational financial support was minimal; school costs were raised through tuition and major fund raising efforts. I had to learn fast. Many helped teach me. They were patient, affirming, and supportive. It is an experience I recall with pleasure and gratitude.

The second plain brown envelope arrived via second-class mail on a Saturday morning in1956. I hardly noticed the envelope and didn’t open it for a few hours. I was too busy installing the antenna for our very first television set that had been given to us the night before.

When I looked at the return address on the envelope there was no big surprise. I received lots of mass mailings from The Lutheran Church_Missouri Synod Board for World Missions. But when I read the enclosed letter I was shocked to the core of my being. I was being asked to be Co-coordinator of Education for a Lutheran School System I was to establish in Hong Kong. I had never expressed an interest in “foreign” mission work. At that time I had no idea of where Hong Kong was even located.

A few months later my wife Jane, son Dave, and I were in Hong Kong where we spent 10 marvelous years. They were years of challenge and growth; years of mistakes and forgiveness; years which played a role in establishing a Hong Kong Lutheran School System which now enrolls some 25,000 students n 10 secondary schools, 6 primary schools and 12 kindergartens; all way beyond the dreams enclosed in that plain brown envelope.

Today I realized that in a way the plain brown envelope was more than paper. It was a challenge, a call and a commitment. I, too, am just a plain brown envelope which God used to accomplish a great purpose. One final reflection: On this Easter weekend I await one more destination for the plain brown envelope: the final call, and the best which is yet to come.

Holy Land Tour Part 6

(For the next several months this blog will contain memories, reports, journals of international tours I have led or workshops I have conducted. They will include The Holy Land, China, Finland et al. Each blog will contain a portion of the original reports.)

Memory Flashes 

High Lights

There were the moments when the stimuli of particular places produced an immediate reaction. Sometimes the reaction was fleeting. It came. It was there. It went. Yet, as I sit here now they once again invade my consciousness. Some Samples:

a. Walking down those layers of civilization at Meggido, each one thriving, fighting, dieing, and now silent as an archeological dig.

b. Masada, vacation and security of Herod, then place of resistance and death each and everyday of Jewish defenders. What if I had been among them? What if I had been the leader? Would I have made the same decision? Is there any circumstance under which I could kill my family to save it from greater torture?

c. The gardens of the Bahai shrine. How beautiful nature can be, all tended and nurtured and laid out with only one goal: to be beautiful. It stirred my memory of a book written 3 decades ago by a famous Biblical scholar, Jaroslav Pelikan in which he challenged me to answer the question: What is finally the true, the good and the beautiful?

d. The Mt. of the Beatitudes with Edie’s moving reading of those beatitudes. Blessed are the meek, the peacemakers… … and the quiet prayer, Lord let me claim those blessings.

e. Quaram, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Museum of the Books. Centuries of written fragments miraculously confirm and then testify to the amazing accuracy of the Biblical texts over all these years. Can this all just be chance? What an amazing example of the providence of God.

f. Sitting near the Garden Tomb, listening to our evangelical guide, and then seeing The Place of the Skull. Maybe this is Golgotha.

g. I had never heard the theory of Jesus being kept in a “dungeon” after his Maundy Thursday arrest, his trial before Caiaphas - and awaiting the morning trial before Pontius Pilate. The site makes a pretty compelling case. Could it be? Yes, yet I doubt.

h. Just wondering. The security at Tel Avis as we left was tight. The questions I was asked were “no nonsense”. e.g. Did anyone join this group who had not been a member of your church as long as the rest? Why is she not with you now? Do you know where she is at this moment? Aha, so someone gave you a gift (a small oil lamp given to me by the shop owner in Bethlehem). And after all of this, and a thorough bag inspection, yet we were not asked to remove our shoes.

i. Just wondering: Did the Golden Tulip Hotel in Tiberius change its alcohol policy after we left - namely free beer, wine and Israel produced liquor (all included in the price of the room)?

Low Lights

I’ve listed some highlights, some highly inspirational moments. Naturally there were a few matters that did not make it to the top ten list:

1. The Blue Bay Hotel in Netanya and our first night check-in. We did not get off to a good start with accommodations. It was close to 7:00 p.m. when we arrived. We were told our rooms would be ready. They weren’t. We were told to go have dinner and then our rooms would be ready. We did. The rooms still weren’t ready. Finally, everyone had their keys, but no bellmen to take luggage to the assigned rooms. I hadn’t even gotten to our room before my roommate Ken came with the news, “Mel, did you know that we are sharing the same bed?” When I protested to the manager she was surprised at my displeasure. She said, “Sir, I gave you a nice room with a nice view!” When my protests continued she said, “Well, okay. I’ll send up a roll-away cot for you.” My protests continued. Eventually she assigned Ken and me a room way beyond the swimming pool which I had great difficulty finding in the dark - and to which a bellman did not want to accompany me.

Of course, by this time I learned that virtually every two-some of unrelated persons all had rooms with one double bed - and we never did get satisfaction.

The answer was the same, “You folks arrived on the Sabbath. Jewish people can’t drive until after sunset. They don’t check out until after sunset. You are unreasonable to expect rooms to be ready and all bed arrangements right. You should know better than to arrive on the Sabbath.”

I didn’t sleep all night, even called at 1:30 a.m. to complain about a malfunctioning air conditioning system. The same person who thought she had given us good rooms answered the phone. She was consistent. “Well, we certainly can’t do anything about that at 1:30 in the morning. You must have messed with the controls!”

The breakfast was wonderful. The next hotel had rooms ready for us but we didn’t really care because free beer, wine and Israel produced gin was just waiting for us, as was the $7.00 a bottle tonic. But we didn’t complain.

The wine and beer even flowed from the spigot into water glass-sized glasses. The Calvary group (including me) could handle that!

2. The food. I eat what is set before me. When I travel to a foreign country I don’t expect American menus. The meals by and large worked great for me. Yes, I had to turn my eyes away from most of the breakfast items at the Bethlehem Hotel. I regret that Bob and Judie got some salmonella and were really sick for a few days after their return. I learned that Ken has an amazing appetite and capacity for herring. In Jerusalem Olga Nawas brought me a dish filled with sweets. I said to her, “Wow!. Thanks! I’ll have a hard time finishing all this before we leave Israel.” She responded, “I brought it for your wife!”

3. Floating in the Dead Sea. Being afraid of water from my earliest years I am a very poor swimmer and an even worse floater. I imagined it would be great to calmly lie on my back and float serenely on the Dead Sea. Wrong! It was a slimey, dirty, slippery mess. I did’t have the courage and the patience of Suzanne to get beyond the waves near the shore. She had a great float. Ken and I hung on just to make it and were happy to get showered and back on the bus. So I never floated - in the Dead Sea - or anywhere else.

4. Biggest disappointment - and yet. I was not surprised and yet was somewhat saddened by the commercialization of all the sacred sites, from the Annunciation to the Ascension. The hubbub around the Holy Sepulcher was especially disturbing, making it almost impossible to be reverently respectful.

And yet, suppose no one ever came to the sites. Suppose nobody ever visited Nazareth, Bethlehem, the Mt. of Olives! Suppose the story of the life of Christ was a forgotten one. Suppose no one cared. That would be the bigger tragedy.

Holy Land Tour Part 5

(For the next several months this blog will contain memories, reports, journals of international tours I have led or workshops I have conducted. They will include The Holy Land, China, Finland et al. Each blog will contain a portion of the original reports.)

The Stole

In Jerusalem we moved slowly out of the place where Jesus faced his trial before Caiaphas, the high priest. Then we walked down into the dungeon where Jesus may have been held before being taken for his trial before Pontius Pilate.

I wandered into the nice adjoining gift shop run under the auspices of a group of catholic nuns.

Nancy Rinehart had a question, “Mel, we are thinking of buying a stole for Pr. Lubs. It could come from the group - about $3.00 from each of us. I immediately focused on the red festival stole with the beautiful Jerusalem cross embroidered in it. Nancy stood holding that and I went on my way.

During the following days I wondered when Nancy was going to ask each tour member for his or her 3 bucks. I thought about bringing it up, decided that maybe Nancy decided not to buy the stole after all. Besides, I’ve learned long ago that if Nancy has a need she’ll take care of it without any assistance from me.

Then came the meal at the Bethlehem Hotel when Al, on behalf of the group, presented me with that beautiful red stole with a gorgeous embroidered Jerusalem Cross.

I was/am deeply moved. This group had been great. The trip had been amazing. In the midst of it, my mind occasionally thought about my future. I have resigned from Wheat Ridge Ministries. I have terminated my service with the Center for Urban Education Ministries. My role at Calvary has steadily diminished. I’m ready to move to a Retirement Community. What does all this say abut my ministry?

I saw the stole as an affirmation of the past - and as a symbol of continued opportunity and call to be a minister to whomever God calls me.

Slight ecclesiastical hitch. My official ministry category in the ELCA has been a challenge for some. Without going into all the details - it has to do with what’s the appropriate ministerial status for me. Since I was originally commissioned in The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod as a minister of the Gospel for the educational ministries of the church - and the ELCA does not have this category, what is the appropriate stole for me? Most would say it’s the red diaconal stole, worn over one shoulder, connected by a gold chain at the waist. But that was not the stole presented to me.

And so Step II happened. The bus driver, guide and group all readily agreed to return to the shop in Old Jerusalem. Gary went with me to the shop. The manager could not have been more helpful. She traded stoles and I now have the appropriate stole, from a very special place, given to me by a very special group of people. I cherish it deeply.