Mining the Good Stuff

Grace and peace to you brothers and sisters, and thanks be to God who is always inviting us to join in a life of deep abundance and joy.  It's good to be back with you.

Thank you to all those who stepped up and gave us the chance for refreshment.  We enjoyed the gift of time further up the way at the "end of the world," on the Keenewaw Peninsula in Lake Superior.  On our way up, we had the chance to visit with Brian and Valerie Martin and their kids.  Well, I say kids.  But Caleb, Tobbie, and Ellie are no longer kids. Caleb stands a good two inches taller than me, and Tobbie and Ellie aren't far behind.  

Many of you may remember the Martin family.  Many of you probably never met them, but it always brings me delight to know that as a church family we've been blessed to share fellowship with several families and individuals who continue to do great work for the Lord in new places.  

Brian and Valerie both work now for Crossway, a Bible and Christian book distributor.  In fact, Brian gave me two incredibly thoughtful gifts when I last saw him:  a publication of the Bible as an entire narrative of books, more in line perhaps with how God intended them to be received and a finely crafted English Standard Version Bible that I'll have to show you at some time.  It's a beautiful work, fitting for God's life-giving Word.

On our way up to our final destination, we took the time to visit the Quincy Mine just north of Houghton, Michigan.  We had passed the mine and it's old rock-hewn buildings last year, hurtling past without much notice or consideration on our way up to Isle Royale.  But, this time we had a few hours in our day to fill, so we pulled into the gravel parking lot and entered the gift shop.  I imagined us just sifting through the trinkets on the tables, but we soon learned of a tour leaving in fifteen minutes and happily joined the group.

What a great thing we did!

Over the course of the next few hours, we were granted a first-hand witness into the real history of this place, coming to learn about this country in a way that had escaped us last year.  Michigan's Keenewaw Peninsula along with Isle Royale National Park were both formed long ago, a billion years in fact, when the earth's slow churning brought forth molten lava, cooling and solidifying into seemingly impenetrable stone.  Except, something else cooled and congealed in that dense rock:  copper.  So much so that it was practically falling out of the rock in places, a fact those native to America knew and returned to when a special amulet was needed.  

Well, you know how this story goes.  

When European American explorers caught news of the windfall, they quickly began setting up camp in places like Eagle River and Calumet and, yes, in the aptly named Copper Harbor.  Industrialists and investors from Pittsburgh and Boston took notice, seeing a chance to procure their own wealth and armaments.  And laborers were brought.  

The first to come were the Cornish men, having plied this trade to great effect in their own English mines, so much so that the work had become tedious and dangerous, tunneling as they were well below sea level.  Here, in the Keenewaw, these laborers found fresh fields of copper, and quickly set about harvesting the copper ore in masses too large to carry.  They brought with them their love for Methodist hymns ... and drinking.  Those mining towns weren't always the most civilized of places in those early years, and Methodist missionaries soon arrived on the scene to bear with and be with the people.

The Germans and the Irish came later, digging even further down into the bedrock, going as far as 6,000 feet under in the Quincy Mine.  And then the Nordic people came.  They are the ones who remained, even after the copper reserves began to peter out, and for good reason.  The Upper Peninsula winters are long and hard, and only those accustomed to heavy snow drifts and that long isolation of deep winter were prepared to truly endure this place.

Now, there are two things that strike me from all that we gathered from the tour.  

The first is that we have always been a nation that has been a place of immigration.  Now surely this great melting pot experiment has not always gone smoothly.  The justice of the peace had to work hard to instill some sense of civility between the Cornish men and the Irish back in those early mining days.  It turns out they hated each other with no small loathing and saw in each other the cause of all their problems.  So, they had to learn how to live with one another.  Sometimes they were successful, but sometimes they weren't.  Other times, since our nation still had other frontiers to explore, when things became difficult, groups simply moved on to places more hospitable and habitable.  We just so happen to be living in a time in history where "space" is limited and running out.  Nothing has marked this 21st century quite like the reality of immigration and of refugees.

Two, unfortunately, we're living in a time again when the old seeds of racism and protectionism are raising their ugly heads.  Read enough American history and you see it through the decades, layered upon each other like lines in volcanic stone that trace the geological periods.  In 1855, it was the rise of the American Party, also known more famously as the Know Nothing party, that group of Anglo-Saxon settlers who saw in the wave of German and Italian laborers arriving on American shores as huge threat to their culture.  Later, it was the likes of Charles Lindbergh who would say:  "We can have peace and security only so long as we band together to preserve that most priceless possession, our inheritance of European blood, only so long as we guard ourselves against attack by foreign armies and dilution by foreign race."

This racism has always been our unfortunate reversion, our weaker nature, our enduring sin:  looking to blame and villify "the other" out of fear for our own security and welfare.  This past week gave us evidence of its reality again.  It's sad to see, and it needs to be identified for what it is.  Those chants at the rally the other night were wrong, clearly and truly.  They harken back to some of the sentiments I'm sure the Cornish miners voiced from time to time.

Of course, the whole issue of the border and of immigration is no simple situation.  And I would highly recommend you listen to the interview on Fresh Air's podcast from Thursday if you get a moment.  It's clear we are facing a real crisis, and it's also clear that the Church is desperately needed as an agent of mission and ministry for this time.

It's clear, in other words, for us as followers of Jesus to step forward and present a different way.  

Which is why I'm clinging to one other image from our time in the Quincy Mines.

In his typical, clear-cut way, Jesus told a crowd, "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of" (Luke 6:45).

We all get the freedom to choose what sources we are going to let inform and shape our hearts and minds.  Our invitation as Christians is to let the words and way of Jesus be what we are truly seeking to mine as our life-source and direction.

And Jesus invites us into a different way of life and interacting with the world around us, not a way of fear or anxiety about the future or of needing to isolate ourselves from threats.  The way of Jesus invites us to live our lives in love, for love, and by love, extending ourselves in risky, sacrificial ways to be there for the other, to support them, and to seek their welfare.

I keep thinking about those Methodist missionaries who were loving and compassionate enough to want to go to the Cornish immigrants in their midst to minister to and remain with these people.  We need more of those attitudes amongst us as Christians, looking to be with those Jesus would be with, including those at our borders.  And, I say this mostly to myself.  As I return, it needs to be the same for me, most of all for me.  Jesus' words and instructions and way of life are the "good stuff."  They are the best, in fact.  And I can only expect to live a life of compassion, love and mercy so long as I keep digging into the Word and finding life and light therein.

Looking forward to mining the word of God along with you, friends,

Pastor Wes