A Tree Grows in Lincoln

Tomorrow will mark five years since the death of my friend, boss, and mentor--Pastor Larry Meyer. The autumn after he passed away, the Lutheran Student Center at its annual Woodworking Auction (the auction was Larry's idea...he loved woodworking) auctioned off a Chinquapin Oak tree donated by Bud Dasenbrock in Larry's memory.

Sweetie and I bought that tree and planted it in our backyard. We all refer to it as "Larry's Tree," even Kiddo.

This morning I took a picture of Larry's tree. It's growing like gangbusters--sometime in the next few weeks the leaves will be fully open, and I anticipate it growing at least another foot again this summer. It's healthy, beautiful, and reminds me of the healing and reconciling mission and ministry that Larry was called to.

On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. --Rev. 22:2 (NRSV)

God bless you, my friend. I miss you like hell.

Sweetie, Carol and I after buying "Larry's Tree" in 2005

"Larry's Tree" in our backyard this morning

LH

A Birthday Gift of Sorts

Well, today would have been Pastor Larry Meyer's 62nd birthday. He was my friend and mentor, and basically the person who dragged me kicking and screaming into ministry. I've written about him a couple of times.

To keep a promise I made on Facebook, as I write this I'm finishing up a beer in his honor. Yes, it's just after 10 AM, but that was the designated Facebook remembrance time...and if today were a Saturday and there was college football on TV, it wouldn't be TOO horribly early, right? Larry loved his beer (and college football, for that matter). Mostly Schlitz, because it was cheap, but still was (sort of) beer. I didn't have any Schlitz available, but Bud Light will just have to suffice. Forgive me, Larry, for purchasing a 24-pack of Bud Light for 5 dollars more than a 30-pack of Schlitz would have cost me.

Larry, you would have called that bad stewardship.

But the beer isn't the gift.

No Larry, my gift to you today, as well as to the family who loved you and supported your ministry for so long, is this: my public announcement that, about ten years after you first made the suggestion, and about five years after you began the process of hounding me mercilessly, I've finally given in and have submitted an application for seminary. That's right, the M.Div. program. Ordination track. At Luther in St. Paul.

Damn it Larry, you win. Happy?

I know what your gut reaction would be. Bad stewardship. For about the same investment, the church could have had me already ordained, and next year I could be looking at a 5 year ordination anniversary instead of fretting over how I'm supposed to pass Koine Greek. But you never would have said that...to me at least. Or at least, not seriously. You would have said something to the effect of "better late than never," and then would have put me on a preaching and ministry schedule designed to give me a better first-hand education than I'd ever receive through lecture and discussion in a classroom.

Oh, about the classroom. Larry, you knew that one of my big hangups concerning seminary was the relocation part of it. Picking up my family for two years of classes, picking up again for internship, a third time for classes again, and then finally for first call. Luther Seminary now has what they call the Distributive Learning program for the M.Div. That means that I can stay in Lincoln, take about 2/3 of my classes online, take the other 1/3 on campus in St. Paul in short week-long intensives, and do my internship, CPE, and contextual education all here at home. Without that program, no way would I be doing this. I know it's a new program, and I know you were never all that hot on all this internet crap. But I also know that you were big on finding ways for folks who had the tools and the calling to pursue that call, and I can't help but think that you'd be telling me, "Well, I'd rather have you on campus, but if this is what it takes, then what the hell are you waiting for."

I'm not doing this for you, Larry. I'm not chasing ghosts here. But I do recognize that you were the one who got me back on the road that eventually led me to where I am now. There have been so many other twists along the way, so many other folks who have enabled the journey to continue. But today, this is my gift to you.

Happy birthday, my good friend. Soli deo gloria. And thanks for giving me an excuse to have a beer at 10 in the morning.

LH

+++Rev. Larry L. Meyer+++

This post is a couple of days early, but the next few days are going to be very busy ones in the LH household (for a number of reasons...maybe next week I'll have the chance to tell you about some of them), and I don't know that I'll be posting again before Monday.

Sunday, April 29th, it will have been two years since my mentor and friend Pastor Larry Meyer died of esophegeal cancer. He was 58 and still at the height of his calling as a pastor to young adults at the time, and it both angers and saddens me when I think of all of the people he still could have had the opportunity to touch.

But this post is about neither sadness nor anger. So I'm not going to let myself go there.

This post is about the impact God made on countless numbers of people through Larry's life. Over 100 pastors currently serving in the ELCA either were students at one of the campus ministries Larry served, or had Larry as an internship supervisor when they were in seminary. Larry Olson, founder of Dakota Road Music, first heard his call to music when Larry tapped him to be a music director at a campus ministry in South Dakota. Hundreds, probably even thousands more people found or affirmed their life's vocation (both in AND out of the church) with Larry's advice, guidance, and prodding.

As this anniversary comes and goes, I feel re-challenged to help others discover their vocation, their calling, just as Larry helped me discover mine.

I want to share a couple of things. The first is the manuscript of the words that I spoke at Larry's memorial service. I had been asked to do two things: talk about his love for woodworking, and speak from the perspective of the many college students he had touched as a campus pastor. The second thing I want to share are the lyrics of a song Larry Olson wrote and sang for Larry Meyer's funeral--it's called One Life. I'll be playing and singing it Sunday morning at church. Even without the added significance, it fits the themes of both the Revelation passage and "Good Shepherd" passage from John that we'll be hearing.

First, the manuscript:

This is one of my most prized possessions. You’d never guess by looking at it, or by seeing where I keep it. It’s a small coat or hat rack, or more specifically in my case, it’s where we hang my son’s diaper bags on the wall of the laundry room in my house. It’s very simple—a long board with three pegs sticking out of it. But it’s well-built…the board is straight, and the pegs can hold a LOT of weight. It’s functional. It does the job it was designed to do very well.

Why is this such a prized possession? Pastor Larry Meyer made it. He gave these one of a kind Larry Meyer original coat racks (or diaper bag racks) to the Lutheran Student Center staff as Christmas gifts in 2003.

Larry loved to work with wood. More specifically, he loved to work with pieces of scrap wood. He’d take discarded, seemingly useless leftover bits and scraps from other projects, and with his innate vision and skill he would shape them into something else…something useful, something with a purpose, something new.

I can’t help but think that the way Larry looked at his woodworking projects was the same way he saw the people whose lives he touched. God gave Larry the gift of vision, and he used that gift to its fullest. In all with whom he came into contact, Larry saw both potential and purpose.

And as with his woodworking hobby, God gave Larry the tools to help shape people…to help them realize and use their own God-given gifts to further the work of the Kingdom. I know there are hundreds, even thousands of stories to be told by all of us who are here this morning of the uncanny way Larry had of seeing gifts in us that we didn’t even know were there.

The thing about Larry, though, was that he didn’t just recognize gifts. He poked, and he prodded, and he pushed, and he kicked, and he cajoled, and he asked, and he just kept relentlessly pursuing you until you finally saw those same gifts in yourself, realized what God had given you, and were using those gifts, preferably in the church, but if not, then wherever the Spirit led you. Larry would use all the tools in the vast toolbox God gave him to help you find your own tools. To Larry, we weren’t just pieces of scrap wood to be thrown away. He knew God has a purpose for all of us, and before you knew it you were singing in the choir, or leading a Bible study, or serving on a committee, or living in the Student Center apartment, or providing special music for services, or ushering, or helping with communion, or making a donation, or going to seminary, or serving as the Lutheran Student Center’s Director of Campus Ministry for Southeast Community College and Nebraska Wesleyan…which is what I’m doing today, thanks to a phone call from Larry back in October of 2003.

I had been working at an insurance company here in Lincoln and was thoroughly miserable in my job. My wife was pregnant, and after a lot of prayer and discussion, I had decided that when I took time off from work after the baby was born in December, I would use part of that time to find a new job. It wasn’t two weeks after I came to that conclusion that my phone rang. It was Larry. I hadn’t seen him or spoken with him for quite a while, so I was surprised to hear from him. His first words were, “what are the chances that you’re dissatisfied with your current job situation?” After I told him that those chances were hovering…well, right around 100%, he said, “Good. I’ve got an opportunity for you.” And he went on to tell me about a new ministry position the Student Center created to reach out to Nebraska Wesleyan and Southeast Community College, and asked if I wanted to interview for it. And here I am today.

It didn’t matter if you were a student, or an alum, or a colleague, or a friend or family member—Larry had a knack for saying the right thing at the right time to the right person in the right way. Sometimes it came through a comment in a Bible study, or an invitation to a conversation over a meal or a drink, or even just a seemingly idle comment in passing. Very often, it came through his preaching. Week after week, I’d listen to his sermons in church, and leave convinced that he had been speaking the whole time directly to me and to my current situation in life. Sometimes, I’d wonder, “how did he KNOW that’s exactly what God needed me to hear today?” The thing was, though, that everyone else in the congregation felt the same way.

It was that knack that made him such a great pastor, but more importantly it’s what made him such a good friend and mentor. It’s why so many of us are crowded in here this morning to celebrate Larry’s life, and why thousands more who couldn’t be here are smiling across the country and around the world, remembering a man to whom God gave extraordinary gifts, and who wasn’t afraid to use them. Whether it was sanding down a rough edge on a piece of scrap wood he was building something with, or helping someone sand down the rough edges of their lives, Larry found his calling in bringing out the beauty God intended in others.

Larry said, “these aren’t useless pieces of wood. These will become a coat rack.” And now, it is a treasure to me.

Larry said, “you aren’t a useless person. God gave you gifts that he wants you to use, and I’m going to help you discover what they are.” And now we know that we are treasures to God.

And today we say, thank you, Larry. You have been a treasure to us.

Amen.

And the song:

One Life

by Larry Olson (c) 2005

Standing upon the rock

wrestling with the Word

giving it all you've got

so many people served

Oh how the years have gone

this much I know is true

my life is better

'cause I met you

Chorus:

One life, one heart

one dance upon this earth

one life, one heart

so many blessings from God

Where do we turn our eyes

where do we find our home

where do we send our cries

all of creation groans

Somewhere I hear you say

nothing in death or life

can separate us

from the love of Christ

(Chorus)

So many stories told

so many moments shared

I am still on this road

sometimes I don't know where

Faith will not let me go

this much I know is true

I saw Jesus

alive in you

(Chorus)

LH