Tulips and Tulips

I come from the land of tulips, wooden shoes and windmills. Nowadays, the wooden shoes are almost gone as they are too uncomfortable. And most windmills are museums or kept up by some Stiftung to retain their historic value. Tulips are still very much a thing though. Most tulips that will be flooding the supermarkets in the next months will have been produced in the Netherlands. With big trucks, they are sold to Coop, Migros, Lidl, Aldi and distributed all over Switzerland. For the Dutch wholesalers, Switzerland is an attractive market; good prices and a great payment morale. Probably, the picture you get in your mind when I say ‘tulips’ is the wrong one when we are talking about a bunch of tulips you can buy in the supermarket. They have never seen any soil or dirt in their lifetime. In huge tulip brooding greenhouses, the tulip bulbs or ‘Schwiebeln’ are put on big tables, with their bottoms in fertilized water. The bulb is activated by the temperature and the water, starts growing roots and produces a tulip at the top. When it is about to open up, it is cut off and put into a bunch with other tulips. But what about the tulip fields then that are widely advertised and shown as a tourist magnet for you to come to the Lowlands in April or May? These fields are not to produce tulip flowers. They are to produce tulip bulbs. As soon as the tulips reach full bloom, the flowers are cut off and thrown away. Over the next months, the one tulip bulb with the decapitated stem starts multiplying in the ground and grows four, five, six new bulbs onto the old ‘mother’ bulb. When the process is done, the farmer digs up the bulbs, throws out the mother bulb and prepares the new bulbs to ship all over the world for good money. Production might happen totally differently than you might have imagined! We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives,so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience (Colossians 1:9-11). Growth in your life – whether spiritual, mental, emotional – might also happen totally different that you have imagined. Like growing through difficulties. Spiritually growing through your experiences in the workplace. Mentally growing through your input at church. Emotionally growing through what your teenagers tell you. If we think that the only way that God teaches us is through Bible study and listening to sermons – how good and worthwhile these are – think again! I’ve heard God speak through my agnostic brother-in-law. God has taught me things in the workplace about following Jesus, that I’ve never heard anywhere else. The ‘production’ of godliness in our lives can take many shapes and forms. What it takes from our side is a willingness to grow and flourish and see God at work in many different places and speak to us through many different channels.

A Full Backpack

When I walk to the church on weekdays, I inevitably come across kids going to school. If it is the right time, I come across many, many kids walking to school and they all have a backpack on their backs (Rucksack) and the fluorescent sash around them, front and back, so that they are visible in the dark winter months.    Have you seen the size of the backpacks that some of them are wearing? With some effort, they could fit in it themselves and be on someone else’s back. Then I wonder: what is in the backpacks that are so big? Are they carrying a library to school? Clean clothes? What?   I used to carry a briefcase to work in my former lives. Back then I had a very big, fat briefcase so that I could fit paper dossiers in it and review them at home. Later, the big fat briefcase gave way to a laptop case, but that online access made even bigger dossiers possible. Not just one or two of them, but all dossiers. A smaller briefcase is not the same as smaller work.   When I came to Switzerland, I decided that I would be a Swiss man and purchase a backpack. One blends in well when there’s a backpack to put your things in. If you doubt that’s true, just look around on the street, in the tram, in the bus: Swiss men are decked out with backpacks. They start out with backpacks as young kids, they have one when they’re going to university and they still use one when they are getting along in age.    I still wonder what everyone has in them. Especially when the backpacks are big. The contents of my backpack are humble. Just some necessary things and sometimes I use it as a small shopping bag when I have to pick something up.    All people carry backpacks around in the figurative sense. Let’s call them ‘life-backpacks’. Some are big, some are small. There are memories in them. Good ones and bad ones. Especially the bad ones take up a lot of space. Among the bad ones, there are a few notorious ones that fill up too much space: rejection, abuse, or disappointment. They weigh heavily and slow us down when we have to schlep them around.   Every so often, I take my real backpack and empty it completely. I shake it out; if necessary, I take a cloth and wipe it out and then I take all the items that came out of it and one by one, I put them back, or I decide I don’t need them any longer, or they’re not worth carrying them around.    When it comes to our life-backpacks that we are schlepping around, hear Jesus’s words: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:27+28).    When our life-backpacks are full of heavy things, we get weary quicker, and it often feels like we are carrying around quite a burden. Go to Jesus, unpack that backpack with him, clean it out, and then decide which things need to go back and which things don’t need to go back. Definitely leave behind the rejection, abuse, disappointment and bad memories. Leave them with Him. Find rest for your soul. The Lord Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. If you can leave your garbage with anyone, leave it with Him!   So, next time you see the little peats going to school with big backpacks, I hope this will come to mind again. No need to schlep a lot of debilitating garbage with you. The yoke of Jesus is light.  

I created new jobs

Often, you hear politicians make claims that they have created an x-amount of jobs when they were in power. Or that when they are elected, they will create so many jobs. This happens in all countries. With politicians from the whole political spectrum. No one exempt. These are unfounded claims. How can a president, a prime-minister, a premier, a party, or a minister prove that there is a cause-and-effect connection between the number of new jobs and his government? The only jobs that can be directly attributed to a government are when new government jobs are formed. But often, that is not the intention of a government at all. Usually, they want less government workers and, in that way, spend less money on government. It is businesses that create jobs. Businesses are willing to create jobs, when there are good business opportunities, and the business environment is stable enough for the companies to have the trust it will pay off. Government meddling with new rules and regulations during the process will only scare businesses away from creating new jobs. Governments might often be the reason why no new jobs are created, or less than what could have been. Businesses like stability and predictability. Politicians therefore shouldn’t make that claim at all. At the most, they can make sure that the business environment is stable, and they shouldn’t come up with too many changes and no sudden hiccups. What goes for politicians also goes for people in the workplace. Don’t make claims about your accomplishments that are farfetched. Perhaps you played a role in what has been achieved. Maybe even an important role. But probably a few people or perhaps even a lot of people have played their part. Success has many fathers, but failures are always orphaned. What goes for politicians and people in the workplace, also applies to pastors and church staff and volunteers. No pastor can say: “Because of my excellent spiritual leadership, this church has grown by so many people.” Or, “Finally we’ve gone deeper then ever before.” At the best, the pastor has played a facilitating and leading role. But mostly it is because many people are facilitated to play their role. Romans 12:3-5 speaks to this: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. Sober judgment for politicians, for people in the workplace, for pastors, and for church staff and church volunteers. We all play our role. We all celebrate the success. And a really great leader is willing to be the father of the failure.

Most hated IT advice

In my former job lives, there were always computer guys around. A system manager who is responsible for the IT system, the servers, the backups, troubleshooting for the users, keeping an eye on security and admonishing everybody that we shouldn’t click on links that might be dangerous. There is always a bit of a love/hate relationship between a system manager and the users. You can’t go with them, but you also can’t go without them. You can’t go with them, because they are strict in what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do. At the most stressful moments, they must shut down the system, because it | “needs a reboot, in order not to crash”. You can’t go without them, because they fix your problems with your laptop, the printer, the access to your files and when things just don’t work. Here’s the most hated IT advice of IT specialists: “did you try to turn it off and on?” You’ve got a zillion programs open with all the files you’re working on, and this irritating ‘specialist’ says you have to close all the files, close the programs, shut down the computer, turn it on again, open all the programs and open all the files. That takes at least 15 minutes, which you don’t really want to spend on it. You just want the IT person to fix it… now! But, strangely enough, the most hated IT advice often works wonders. Just as if somewhere in the computer or the system, a bit or byte was laying crooked and by turning it off and on, it straightens itself out. Basically, the system manager only kicks into action, once you’ve tried this tested ‘remedy’. Probably, we should apply this hated, but tested IT advice to more areas of our lives. Like in our relationship with the Lord, our devotion times, our giving to ministry. Or when we start a new day that turns out to be a difficult and cumbersome day. Or with relationships that run into difficulties after which unexpected and unmeant harsh words are spoken. Or with a colleague that we start out with on the wrong foot. “Turn it off and on.” A pause, a reset, a moment of contemplation and downtime, a new start, doing it right a second time. Or a third time. The Lord specialises in new moments. I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for him.” Lamentations 3:19-24 Things don’t work out as you wanted them to work out? Had a bad start? Something is laying crooked somewhere? We are not consumed. There is new compassion EVERY morning. Not just once.

Take Care of Yourself

It is the time of the year again; the health care premiums for next year are made known. They only know one direction and that is up! The people living in Basel-Stadt will only see an increase of 1,5% of their Krankenkasseprämien. Perhaps the only time that Basel-Stadters come away cheap! People living in Baselland have to live with 5,3% increase and if you’re living in Solothurn, you’ll have to reckon with 5,8% more. The news is full of interviews, opinions and explanations why the premiums are going up: we’re getting older on average, new treatments, new medicines, life expectancy goes up but with increased medical care needs. In the next months, the health insurance company carrousel is going to turn its annual cycle. Is it cheaper with another company? Is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? The telemarketers are lining up to shower you with their unwanted and unsolicited phone calls! A portion of the increased premiums can be ‘blamed’ on people in our church community! New, expensive medicines, new medical treatments… sounds like the results of some of your jobs! I have watched first-hand with my own parents in their last days, how some of the medical treatments are not wanted by the patients, but almost forced on them by medical professionals. As things become medically possible, it sometimes seems like it is anathema to not accept the treatments. To force it unto people that qualify, regardless of their age, health and desires. I know there are lots of discussion and moral questions around treatments, and I don’t want to make light of it. When we’re talking about health care, costs and treatments, we’re looking at our own finiteness on this side of reality. What can medical treatments do for us and what can they not do? There are other things that confront us with our limited years on earth: drawing up a will, talking about succession, discussing how we want to live after our retirement, how we want to be buried or cremated. Yes, perhaps a bit morbid, but very real. Listen how the apostle Paul reflects on the end of his life that is coming mighty close to him: For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. (2 Timothy 4:6-8)It helps a whole lot in life if you have an eternal perspective like Paul has. There are more and greater things to come and we live our present lives in that perspective. Don’t forget that when you’re requesting new offers for another health insurance. Yes, health is very important and good to take very good care of. But your spiritual health and care are equally important. How about finding a better policy for that? Better and fuller coverage. Less deductible. Direct contact with the Provider!

Inevitable

In the news about the Die Post (the state-owned mail company in Switzerland): “Die Post verändert sich. Filialen schliessen. Dienste warden digital. Es stösst auch auf Widerstand” (The Post is changing. Settlements are closing. Services go digital. There is resistance.). This is not just something Swiss, it is happening in all countries. Some weeks ago, I was talking to someone in the Netherlands who was complaining about how much she has to pay for a letter to be delivered. Nowadays, you don’t even get the guarantee that the letter will be delivered the next day. It might even be 3 or 4 days later! I said to her: “It’s your fault.” She looked at me with incredulous eyes, like “Why me?” I said: “It is because you don’t send enough letters and that’s why they have to reduce their services, up the prices and try to make it work within those limited parameters. I am old enough to remember the times we did not have email, WhatsApp, Facetime, Messenger, Facebook and what-not. When you wanted to inform family, customers, potential customers, send invoices, insurance papers, damage claims, there was only one sure way: you sent it by mail. Die Post was your biggest and reliable friend and Postman Pat was not only delivering envelopes, but he also contributed to the social cohesion of your village or neighbourhood. But how many times do we send a physical letter nowadays? Very few times. Invoices come into our inboxes, we speak to family far away through some video service and we submit our stuff through secure websites. And Die Post gets the short end of the stick and we complain about the prices and the quality of their services. Anybody with some economic sense that looks at these developments can have seen this coming from miles and years away. But we still resist when it happens. Why is that? Why can’t we accept the inevitable? Galatians 6:8 tells us: “A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” God gives us the warning – beforehand – that our behaviour, our ‘sowing’ has consequences. But then when we get the predicted ‘short end of the stick’, we complain. We can see it coming from miles and years away. But we still complain when it does come. Better then that we learn to ‘sow to please the Spirit’. We can see the results coming from miles away: “from the Spirit we will reap eternal life”. Let’s be keen to sow in the right place today. And tomorrow. And all the days after that. I can see those results coming from a mile away as well!

Entropy

The laws of entropy/thermodynamics states that ‘as one goes forward in time, the degree of disorder of any isolated or closed system will always increase, or at least stay the same.’ More popularly expressed: left to itself, any closed system will deteriorate to a lower level of organization. This is true for thermodynamics and energy, but we see this in any kind of life. If you doubt this reality, just look at how a kids’ room looks after it is cleaned up and look at the same room two days later when mom or dad didn’t pay attention! The laws of entropy are the biggest argument against spontaneous evolution of life. The reality we see around us is that things spiral down. They never spiral up. If you have to manage in your vocational life, you know what I’m talking about. One moment everything is lined up, your team is all arranged, all noses are pointing the same direction, everybody knows what to do. You turn around and don’t pay attention for some weeks and you’ll find that you need to put in a fresh dose of energy to get back to the same organizational readiness of your team. This also applies to our spiritual lives. Left to itself, it will deteriorate into a lower level of energy. Chaos increases, organization decreases. You can’t pump up your spiritual life on a Sunday or whatever day that you get some spiritual input and then trust it to remain at the same pumped-up level for the rest of the week. One Jesus-experience in the past is not enough to get you through life and into heaven in a glorious state. As one pastor said it so fittingly: we leak. We leak energy. We leak spiritual air. We’re like an air mattress that has a tiny little hole in it. It feels like it is pumped up and sturdy to sleep on, but long before the night is over, you’re on empty and you feel the hard floor underneath. The writer of Hebrews admonishes his readers: Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed (vs 12+13).Your spiritual fullness needs topping up regularly. You need to inject new energy into your system on an ongoing basis. Our spiritual lives are not a closed system. It needs input, it needs topping up. Also, this Wednesday morning.

Celebrate heritage

On the last day of August of this year, a world record has been put in the Guiness book of Records by 1’006 Swiss Alpenhorn players on the Klewenalp in Nidwalden. If you missed it, you can find a news item here from the Swiss new service SRF. It is an impressive accomplishment. The Alpenhorn is a rare instrument and to get so many of them together on the mountain meadow overlooking Lake Lucern and having them play a melody of 5 minutes long is an impressive feat. This is Swiss heritage at its best and if you have any feeling for pride and honor, you’ll have some chills running down your spine and perhaps a tear in your eye. In general, the Swiss are doing a great job at celebrating heritage. If it is not their church bells, it is their Schwingfests, and if it is not their Alpabzug, it is their Fassnach. And right they are. When I grew up, we read a piece from the Bible at the end of our family dinner meal. Personal faith was not really a thing, but this piece of heritage was part of my Reformed tradition. It is a good piece of heritage, and I wish we had done the same when my boys were growing up. Probably you can think of good exercises of heritage when you were growing up. Telling each other what you are thankful for, before you ate the Thanksgiving Dinner. Taking a time of prayer before you kicked off the New Year. Writing poems or rhymes with your Christmas presents, so that opening them was not just an act of ripping off the paper, but a celebration of relationships. Serving at a local soup kitchen regularly as a family, so that you and your kids know that it is not all peaches and cream for all people. I want to encourage you to think about good heritage, good habits that you need to keep alive or revive. They can be milestones that you will look back on later in life. At those milestones, significant things happen. This is what Deuteronomy 11:18 tells us: Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.  It is not enough to just recite the words of the law for the Jews. They have to wear them as symbols on their hands and bind them to their foreheads. Of course this indicates it should determine their deeds and their thinking, but it sure helps if you are reminded of these things by actually wearing them. The Lord’s Supper is also an important piece of heritage, which the Lord Jesus commanded us to keep on doing: For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes 1 Corinthians 11:26. Take your example from the Swiss people today and think about which heritage you should keep on celebrating or reinstitute.

True Religion

Last Saturday, we organized an evening together with Compassion Switzerland. Some of you were there. A former Compassion sponsorship child talked about the impact the sponsorship had on his life. Without it, he would not have been the young professional that he has become. It gave him an incredible boost to become more than just a nameless kid from a disadvantaged family. The story was impressive and moving. If you were not there: you missed something significant! I have worked for an organization that organized both child sponsorship programs and granny sponsorship programs in Eastern Europe and East Africa. These are the two most vulnerable groups in societies: kids and elderly. In a lot of countries there is no AHV and BVG or other pension programs. It was my duty to go check on those sponsorship programs that we organized in conjunction with local churches and Christian organisations. I have spoken to many sponsorship children and their parents and a whole row of grannies that received sponsorships from a “rich” sponsor from a western country. I have seen the impact on the kids or elderly that were brought together in a program to share community and togetherness. School tuition was paid for the kids, school uniforms were purchased, the elderly received medical care and (in Ethiopia) came together for a ‘coffee ceremony’ or in other ways supported each other. If you click this link, you can watch a little clip from a few of those visits. Sorry for the poor quality, they are from two handfuls of years ago. Every time I come across those clips and watch them, tears spring into my eyes, and I know that sponsorships make a HUGE difference. And as the auditor of the projects, I can honestly say that by far most of these projects are squeaky clean financially. No penny goes to waste. While I was in Tanzania, I met one of my ‘own’ sponsorship children and one of my ‘own’ grannies. Although it is some 10 years ago, I remember these encounters like yesterday. They are engraved in my mind forever. Until today, my wife and I have six sponsorships, two children, four grannies. Why am I writing all of this? It is simply, because becoming a sponsor is a splendid way to heed the call of James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. We all have food in our mouths, a roof over our heads and if we find ourselves in need, there is always somewhere to turn to. For kids and elderly in developing countries that’s just not the case. They go hungry, they get rained on in bed because the roof is leaky, there is no money to pay for school and no resources to get medical care. I know, there are other ways you can implement James 1:27, so by all means, do it! Sponsorships are not the only way. We have asked Compassion to leave a few ‘sponsorship files’ on our Welcome Table for a few weeks. Hook up with a child in a developing country that needs your support. To be fed. To sleep in a proper bed. To be able to go to school. Grab one of those files and let’s make sure we do something more than lip service. See you Sunday,Pastor Nico

Hidden, but dangerous

For many years, the Swiss military dumped old, obsolete ammunition in its lakes. In Lake Luzern some 3’300 tons were dumped over the years and in Lac Neuchatel that total was something like 4’500 tons. The thought was that these were safe places where the old ammunition could be dumped. Out of sight, out of mind. In Lake Luzern it lies at a depth of 200 meters below water, but in Lac Neuchatel only some six to seven meters. But: ‘out of sight, out of mind’ doesn’t really work that well. The authorities fear environmental damage (due to heavy metals), corrosion and safety, because some of the ammunition is still quite explosive despite having been under water for so long. Think about that for a minute when you are cruising these lakes with one of those neat, touristic boats that have such cute whistles and look so idyllic on the water. The ‘Big Bang Theory’ might get an entire new meaning. Therefore, the Swiss Ministry of Defence has promised rewards of CHF 50’000 for the best three creative, innovative ideas how to extract this ammunition from the troubled waters. The Defence Ministry has been working on this issue ten years already, but no satisfying solution was found to get the ammunition from the bottom of the lakes. They hope that now, 10 years later, innovation and developments have come along to better assist them with their efforts. Think with me for a moment. Our hearts and our memories are like Lake Luzern and Lac Neuchatel. We dump many unpalatable things in there: grudges, bad memories, frustrations, sin, unforgiving thoughts. We dump them in there. They go below the water level. All seems tranquil and serene from above, but down at the bottom, things corrode, toxic stuff is released, it pollutes the water and we run the constant, latent risk that one of those ‘bombs’ will get triggered and it will explode and cause damage. Matthew 10:25-27 says: There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. It is much better if we learn not to dump all kinds of ammunition in our hearts. Let’s learn to defuse the ammunition and get rid of it in a safe way. By repentance. By talking things over. By forgiving. By releasing it in God’s hands. By letting God be the judge instead of me.