50 Years

Fifty years ago - September 12, 1969. I was in my 20s and anything was possible; after all, we’d landed a man on the moon a couple of months earlier. It was my wedding day, and Joan and I were embarking on a marvelous journey called marriage together. It was a great day, though not without its unexpected surprises (like a flat tire late at night on the way to the airport).

Over the years I’ve wondered from time to time what it would be like to celebrate my golden wedding anniversary. I’ve attended a number of celebrations of other people’s golden anniversaries; some of them have been wonderfully joyful, some deeply meaningful, and a few others were, quite frankly, utterly terrible. So I’ve occasionally pondered what my own might look like. Those wonderings, of course, didn’t include the unexpected and painful reality that one of us might not live that long.

We made it three-fourths of the way to our golden wedding anniversary before the Lord called Joan home. It was a very good marriage, and she has helped to shape the person I am today. She didn’t expect to be a pastor’s wife, but she filled that role well. She was my best friend and a superb mom to our two kids; love was deep. When she died with a rare blood cancer in our 39th year of marriage, I resigned myself to learning to be single again; I figured my marriage days were over and there would be no 50th celebration.

I was wrong. (It’s not the first time that’s happened.) God brought Valerie into my life, and once again I find myself joyfully married to my best friend. Who could have guessed that a gracious God would let me live this adventure twice?  I’m pretty sure we won’t live long enough to celebrate 50 years (Valerie says we’d better not!) so we count the months instead. This month we celebrated our 88th anniversary.

Valerie suggested - insisted? - that I celebrate this golden anniversary. I confess it seemed a bit weird to me that wife #2 would suggest celebrating marriage #1, but those of you who know are aware that God has gifted me again with a gracious wife. So we’ll be north of the border celebrating this golden wedding anniversary in ways I might not have imagined. It won’t be the kind of celebration where we share each other’s embarrassing moments from the last fifty years. And if you’re waiting for the invitation, there will be no party. But there will be a quiet and grateful awareness of the immeasurably deep grace of a loving God who has designed and given this great gift called marriage, and who for the last fifty years has blessed me beyond measure as He has been teaching me what it means.

New Joy

The newest joy in our clan arrived on Saturday morning.  Weighing in at six pounds eleven ounces and twenty inches long, Nova Joy Melchor Brewer made her appearance September 7 just before four a.m.  She is a blessing, and Mommy, Daddy, and big brother (that’s Suzanne, Andrés, and Mateo) are doing just fine.  (So, by the way, is grandpa.)

In one way or another, I can bear witness to the miracle of birth from the perspective of three generations.  I have been (and am) a grandpa, a dad, and a brother.  And I think I can say with some authority that birth is easiest on us grandparents.

The roots of the word Nova are Latin; it means new.  Nova Joy - New Joy.  Little Nova Joy, may the good Lord enable you to live up to your name as you bring new fresh joy to all who know you.

Beware of the Pews

A couple of years ago in the midst of a recarpeting project, the church I was serving at the time considered whether or not to replace their pews as well, since they would have to be moved anyway. Pews or chairs? Personally I like the flexibility of chairs, preferably big comfortable padded ones, but they decided to keep the pews.

I was reminded of that decision last Sunday when we walked into a church we’ve visited to be greeted by pews that had been roped off with caution tape.  And I don’t mean just a few pews.  With the exception of the first two rows, the two largest sections of pews - roughly 2/3 of the seating capacity - were blocked, leaving a thankfully thin Labor Day Weekend congregation to gather in the two remaining narrower sections on the far left and right sides of the sanctuary.

This is interesting, the pastor in me thought.  Perhaps it’s a sermon illustration and we’re going to be separating the sheep from the goats. I secretly hoped I was sitting on the sheep side. I’ve been around long enough to know that pastors are not above doing strange things to get the attention of a congregation.  I remembered the experience of my son enhancing worship by rigging a vacuum-cleaner-powered cannon in the balcony to shoot confetti over a congregation while they were singing “Lord Reign in Me,” undoubtedly infusing that worship song with new meaning for the surprised congregation.

Could it be a visual illustration of a church split? No; it turned out to be nothing that creative or dramatic. The physical set up had nothing to do with serrmon content or enhanced worship but was simply evidence of an in-progress pew renewal project. It was a necessary distraction. I felt for the pastor whose congregation had been forced to the fringes with a vast emptiness in between. In typical and I suppose predictable evangelical fashion, those available front pews had been almost universally ignored — including by me.  It was as though the pastor were in a boat in the middle of a river trying to preach to the folks gathered on both banks. And it was a pretty wide river.

In retrospect, I’d have been wiser to accept the invitation of the guy who tried to seat us up front. There the caution tape wouldn’t have distracted me every time I moved my eyes. I know: It shouldn’t have been a distraction. But it was, and confessing that is a confession of my own weakness.

The joy of worship is found in the presence of Christ, and that can happen in an ornate sanctuary or by the side of a river, either real or metaphorical. When He is at the center, worship will happen. I almost missed the important message for me inscribed over and over on those yards of yellow tape: Caution. Beware of the pews. Don’t let them - or anything else - get in the way of worship.