William K. Neely

A fellow Presbyterian minister and I were in conversation one day about how we received our calls to ministry. My friend said that when he went to talk with his father about his career plans, his father said, “I was hoping you would go into the family business.” My friend replied, “But Dad I really believe God is calling me to be a pastor.” His father retorted, “Do you know what a Presbyterian minister is?” My friend replied, “Well, I think so, Dad.” His father came back, “A Presbyterian minister is nothing but a Democrat preaching to a houseful of Republicans.”

Now if you believe statistics, this statement from the father to the son holds true in not only Presbyterian churches but in many mainline denominations. In my own ministry, I have struggled with walking the fine line between the mandate of the gospel and my own political bent. At times I have been accused of being too timid in my preaching and of course at other times of being too bold. I once had a man offer the church a large sum of money if I would endorse one candidate over another. I would not do that. Jesus himself was accused not only of blaspheming God but also of trying to overthrow the Roman government. All of the early disciples were brought into court and told they must not preach. Indeed, history is full of both church and state trying to cajole each other into speaking their own brand of “truth.”

As we enter into a summer filled with political debate, my prayer for all of us is that we listen clearly, try to hear all of the voices, discern truth from fiction, and seek to be open to the possibility that God has not given up on our nation or our world. Let us pray for civility and open and honest debate about the issues that are not only a present concern but will affect future generations. May God bless the process and the election. As Paul reminds us, even civil authority is given by God, though at times we find this hard to believe.

Bill

This week our state held an election.  We voted on candidates for community, state and federal government positions, and we were asked to consider a critical decision about what kind of people we will be. Perhaps like me, you struggle to know how to vote. The struggle comes from our desire to take care of ourselves and at the same time follow the mandate of Christ to love our neighbors as ourselves.  As we try to live out our Christian faith, we try to make our political decisions engaged and informed by Christ’s example for human relationships.

For me this means not only how my vote will affect me personally but also how it affects those who are my neighbors and my brothers and sisters.  Indeed my actions go beyond just those individuals with whom I agree politically, but my decisions must be based also on how I can best love “my enemies,” those with whom I disagree.  For me practicing Christian citizenship is an extremely complex matter and can never be reduced to simply my likes and dislikes, my opinions and beliefs, but must take into consideration all the others who are fellow citizens of my country and of the world.

May God give us the wisdom and the courage to vote with this rule in mind, to treat others the way we ourselves desire to be treated.  It is our duty as citizens and Christians to vote and to vote prayerfully.  As the framers of the Declaration of Independence wrote, “To this end, we pledge our lives, our fortune, and our honor.”

Bill Neely

When I was in college, we had a May Day celebration. They would have the female students dance around a Maypole, each with a ribbon in their hand and as they wove in and out around the pole, they would weave a beautiful tapestry down the pole. May 1 is the day that the Russians celebrate their independence, and as a child and young adult I remember the May Day parades through Moscow shown on TV. The military would march by and the latest intercontinental ballistic missiles would be displayed, all for the purpose of bolstering their citizenry and putting fear into the hearts and minds of their American enemies. More recently I have celebrated Cinco de Mayo “May 5” with our friends from south of the border and now for the past nine years, I have watched with amazement as this congre-gation pulls off Mayfest for Missions.

I don’t know whether the organizers of my college May celebration knew that originally the Maypole was a sexual symbol and that the virgins would dance around it. I am almost certain, like the recent display of North Korea’s missiles, much of what Russia was doing was symbolic, and I know that Americans celebrate more on May 5 than our Mexican brothers and sisters. In some ways, celebrations always take on a life of their own and they become more about what we would like to be than who we really are.

Mayfest for Missions in this congregation does indeed take on a life of its own and I continue to be amazed at the generosity of goods, time, and energy that you share to make this event happen. I can think of no better celebration of May than to do things for others. This Saturday, May 5, beginning at 4:00 in the morning, we will cook chicken, we will bake biscuits, we will sell baked goods and yard sale items and finally, late in the afternoon, when the tents are down and the buildings are clean, we will surprise ourselves again that this congregation has once again had a suc-cessful Mayfest.

Bill

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” so asked Juliet to Romeo. But the reality is that our names are important. They identify not only our person but our family as well. To my dismay recently I turned on a television and there testifying before a congressional hearing was a “Mr. Neely.” I started searching to see if this man was kin to me. I found that there are more than fifteen Jeff Neelys listed on LinkedIn, the social network for professionals. One of those is my first cousin, a basketball coach in South Carolina, but the Jeff Neely who was testifying about his work for the US General Services Administration is not a close kin.

I remember my father saying one time, “Your name is the most important thing you have. If you protect it and honor it, your name will serve you well. If however you abuse it, your name can be your downfall.” A family name is indeed the most precious thing that an ancestor can pass to a descendant. My grandfather Ed Neely and my father Kirk Neely passed to me a name of which I am proud. However, I carry another name that is even more important to me than the surname Neely. That name is Christian.

I was dismayed at seeing “Mr. Neely” prominently displayed on a television screen for a per-son charged with being careless with his position and responsibility and refusing to testify concern-ing it. I have experienced that same dismay when I have seen individuals commit atrocious acts in the name of Christ. Christians are judged by their actions and rightly so. We should strive to emulate Christ in all that we are and all that we do so that we bring honor and glory to our Savior.

Bill Neely

We have entered the season we Christians call Eastertide and our Jewish brothers and sisters refer to as Shavuot, that is the seven weeks between Easter or Passover and Pentecost or Festival of Weeks. In these weeks through song, scripture and sermons Christians continue the celebration of Christ’s resurrection and the worship of Christ as our risen Lord.

We need to be reminded constantly that Christ has conquered sin and death through his death and resurrection and that, as the apostle Paul says, we are no longer slaves to sin and destruction but set free to live as Christ’s brothers and sisters in the world. We are beset on every side with life realities that try to drag us back into our former condition of despair and anxiety, of believing that we have to face death and destruction on our own. But Christ assures us that we are not alone.  We have a teacher, comforter, ally and companion to help us, the Spirit of God in Christ, the Holy Spirit.

As we wait and watch like the early disciples did, may the Spirit of God descend upon us with power and faith, enabling us to live the life to which we have been called.

Blessed Eastertide,

Bill

“Whan that aprill with his shoures soote The droghte of march hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour Of which vertu engendred is the flour;  Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye (so priketh hem nature in hir corages); Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,” So begins The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

In the book of 2 Samuel 11:1, the writer records, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites, and besieged Rabbah.  But David remained at Jerusalem.”  David should have gone with them; he may have stayed out of trouble.

Spring is the time of year when the sap begins to flow, the flowers are blooming and our hearts turn toward dreams of the mountains, the beach or other distant destinations.  We delude ourselves into believing that we can discover new selves if we can just escape from it all. Problem is we take ourselves with us, and we cannot get away from ourselves.   Perhaps what we need is time to focus on our lives and reevaluate who we are and who we want to become.

Take your pilgrimage this spring and summer, but use it not so much as an escape but as a spiritual journey, to examine your life and your calling.  Who are you and who does God want you to become?

Have a safe trip and hurry back.

Bill

We have entered into Holy Week. This week in the Christian year has become for me a week that carries pangs of grief as well as celebrations of joy. In 1977, on the Monday of Holy Week, Wanda and I checked our 11-month old son, Will, into the hospital. We spent the week going through test after test and speaking with multiple doctors and social workers. Finally on Friday of that week, “Good Friday,” we sat around a conference table and heard the news, “Your son has Tuberous Sclerosis.” We were informed that Will would most likely be profoundly mentally handicapped, struggle his entire life with seizure management, and would probably die sometime between the age of 14 and 20. On the 28th of April 2012, Will turns 36.

On Good Friday 1977, when we checked Will out of the hospital, his grandmother Sula said to us, “Well he’s not dead yet, and I’m taking him shopping for an Easter outfit.” And she did. On Easter Sunday morning as we sat in worship our hearts conflicted with both joy and pain amidst the Easter lilies and the reverberating sound of “Christ is risen,” we wondered is there indeed resurrection? Is there still life for us and our son?

I buried my father in April of last year. It was almost ten years to the day after I had buried my mother. The haunting words of the apostle Paul have a way of coming back to me during these Holy Weeks: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.” (I Thessalonians 4:13-14)

Christ is risen. Christ is risen indeed.

Bill

I have spent the first three days of this week in Charleston, South Carolina with individuals from our church Age Venturers group. It is difficult to imagine a more beautiful way to experience spring than peeping through gates of hidden gardens in the Old Town of Charleston. No doubt many hours of patient and attentive care went into making those hidden places beautiful.

As I looked at those gardens, I thought how the places in our lives that are hidden and unseen by others, are nonetheless worth keeping beautiful. Like the gardens in Charleston, the hidden parts of our lives take attention to detail and hard work. We must carefully prune those things that create distraction. We must eradicate the weeds that destroy and feed those things that bring beauty if our lives within are to be beautiful. We have spent the last six weeks in a time of spiritual examination and reflection. Now is the time for us to open the garden gates and share our beauty with others.

May God continue to give each of us the courage to plant, tend, and prune in our lives so that we may be a beautiful example of Christ’s abiding love.

Bill Neely

I had the occasion to be in Charleston, South Carolina, this past week. In Charleston spring comes about two weeks earlier than the rest of the southeast, and so the azaleas, dogwoods, redbuds and jonquils were all in their full glory, and of course that yellow powder we call pollen was everywhere. The next morning as I drove into Greenville, I was amazed at how quickly the trees and the flowers were beginning to bloom here. Truly spring has sprung. As a matter of fact, I think it would be entirely possible on these warm spring days, to sit and watch grass grow and really be able to see the difference. As the world greens around us and comes into its full flower, we are reminded of Easter and the hope and truth of the resurrection.

It was not by accident that the church set Easter after the vernal equinox, when life is renewing it-self. The promise of new life and resurrection has for me become an anchor over the past few weeks as I have conducted funerals of both family and dear church friends. The apostle Paul reminds us that if there is no truth in the resurrection, then our hope is lost and we are indeed miserable people. But be-cause Christ is raised, our hope that death does not have the final word is made certain. Now while there are many different ideas about what life after death means, of this I am sure: we will be surrounded by the love of God in Christ Jesus and in the company of all those who have gone before us. May this spring be a renewing of your faith and hope in Christ Jesus our risen Lord.

Bill