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Don’t Forget “Brother’s Day!”

A few years ago, after watching his mom receive several Mother’s Day cards (one of which he made himself), and what seemed like an extraordinary amount of attention and love being directed toward her, my son, Matt, asked: “When is ‘Brother’s Day?'” Of course his two sisters, and mother, and I all looked at each other and giggled, and wondered why we had never thought of that?

1620435_10152186416018467_2051343113_nEvery now and then, when Matt is hoping to receive a new CD, or T-Shirt with one of his favorite singers or actors’ “Avery T-shirt transferred” on to the front of it (many times with him photo shopped into the picture with them), and there is no apparent celebration such as Christmas or his birthday coming up, he will ask: “So when is Brother’s Day?”

In mid January, Matt’s sister, Kerra, called to say she had ordered a T-Shirt she was going to surprise him with on a weekend visit in February. The week before Valentines Day, Matt got off the bus and asked if his CD was in the mail. I had no idea that any CD had been ordered, but got to thinking if Valentines Day was only a few days away he had good reason to be hopeful. “Has the mail come?” was how he started the conversation, and then he said something about “Kenny Chesney…the road and the radio.”  He quite often makes up titles of CD compilations that don’t even exist with the sheer hope that him giving it a name will make it a reality.  When we bought Brad Paisley’s “Wheelhouse” as soon as it was available, within a week he asked for “Wheelhouse Live.”   I later found out there really was a “The Road and the Radio” by Kenny Chesney.  He had asked his mom to “order it” – his words – and so he actually knew what he was talking about.  But before I knew all this, and just to humor him and get him to stop talking about it, instead of walking into the house I told him, “Let’s go check the mailbox,” because I knew there wasn’t going to be anything except mostly junk mail in that day’s delivery.

As soon as I opened the mailbox there was a gray padded envelope addressed to Kerra. “What’s that…a CD?” he asked excitedly? I figured it was the t-shirt and I had to think fast. Knowing Kerra would be home in a couple of weeks I informed him: “It’s your Brother’s Day present from Kerra!” “Can I open it?” he asked. “No….you have to wait until Kerra gets here. She wants to be here when you open it.”

I think “Brother’s Day” was meant to happen on February 21-22 this year.

It will begin around 11:30pm the night of the 21st, when sister Kerra, brother-in-law Brett, and “dog niece” Lucy arrive and Matt finally gets to open the package.

Matt and Brad Paisley

This was Matt’s first concert – Brad Paisley in Knoxville, TN, in March 2012. Two wonderful friends arranged an after-concert backstage visit with Brad and it was a real treat for Matt and us too. Brad was an exceptionally kind and gracious “star.” Matt is wearing an autographed shirt that Brad had sent to him when he heard he had such a big fan at Station Camp High School.

It will continue all day Saturday, when we will surprise him with concert tickets to one of his all-time favorite singers, Brad Paisley. A kind man from the church where Matt participates in a “Special Friends” Sunday morning class, gave us four tickets to Brad’s Nashville concert. Matt will not know about this until the day of the show because the last time we got him tickets to a Brad Paisley concert we made the mistake of giving him the tickets for Christmas and having to wait until early March to go….listening to Matt’s continual questions about the concert and Brad Paisley. “No Matt, I don’t think Brad will come to your house and watch ‘Mean Girls’ with you.” “Yes Matt, I am sure Brad would love to come to your school to ‘recycle.'” (Matt said three things to Brad when he actually got to meet him at that first concert, and one of the first was: “Will you come to my school and recycle?”)

I don’t know if “Brother’s Day” will ever get enough traction to become a national holiday. If it does, please remember it was Matt that started it!

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“Why Do You Keep Saying That?” An Answer to a Question Everyone Should Ask

In my Lutheran tradition, when it is time for Holy Communion, the communicants are invited to come to the altar rail and kneel or stand to receive the bread and wine.  I guess the meaning of participating in that meal is as diverse as the people who come and gather at the table.

My eighteen year old son, Matt, has Down syndrome.  He has been taking communion for at least a dozen years.  From the very first time he took communion he just seemed to know what he was supposed to do, and for several years now he has no trouble stepping up to the altar (sometimes before the ushers have given him the “now-you-may-go” sign), kneeling, and extending his hand to receive the bread.  However, it is rare that Matt does not offer some commentary as he receives communion.

Before I was ordained, and was serving as a Vicar, I was assisting at the communion table, distributing the wine from the chalice, following the presiding minister, who was distributing the bread.  When the presiding minister got to the person just before Matt, he ran out of bread, and so he turned to move toward the altar to retrieve more bread.  There Matt knelt, hand extended, expecting the Bread of Life to be placed there lovingly with the words: “The Body of Christ…given for you.”  As he watched the pastor walk past him without even acknowledging that he was kneeling there, Matt exclaimed loud enough to be sure the pastor heard him: “Hey!  I think you forgot something!”

Since I have been presiding at communion I have always wondered what Matt was going to say.  Sometimes it is simply “thanks,”  Sometimes it is: “Thanks Dad….see you at lunch.”  Sometimes he mumbles a little bit and is honestly hard enough to understand that I just smile at him and move on to the next person.

On a recent Sunday, as soon as I handed him the bread and said: “The Body of Christ given for you,” he replied so clearly that I heard him – and I am sure everyone else did too: “Why do you keep saying that?”  I smiled at him and moved on to the next person.  But as I did that, I couldn’t help but realize he had been paying attention.  He always does.  He realized I was saying the same thing to everybody.  Or maybe he has always noticed that – and today he was going to ask me “why?”  The assisting minister was following about three people behind me, and when the small cup of  wine was given to Matt, with the words: “the blood of Christ shed for you,” I heard him ask again: “Why do you keep saying that?”

All of a sudden, I wasn’t sure if he was asking me that because he wanted to know, or if he was asking me that to test me?  I could almost sense him asking us: “Do you know why you are saying that over and over: ‘The body of Christ given for you? The blood of Christ shed for you?’”

I decided to learn from him in that moment, and that is why, before I pronounced the table blessing, after everyone in the congregation finished taking Communion, I told everyone present  that I had heard him ask that question of me and the communion assistant, and here was my answer…and I thought that it was a question everyone should ask, and so everyone should hear the answer: “Matt, I say that to everybody because none of us can hear the story enough times about how much and how deeply God loves us: “The body of Christ given for you…the blood of Christ shed for you.”

It is not just that Jesus’ body was given, or his blood shed. These things were done for you.

Thank you Matt for reminding me the importance and impact of what we say and what we hear when we receive this holy gift from God.

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What She Said…

If you go back and look at my (Facebook) timeline it is only occasionally that I have much to say. I hope that is because every week I spend lots of hours listening, reflecting and unpacking what I think God wants me to say in a few minutes on Sunday morning to those good people who have made the effort to come listen. My Lindsay, who will celebrate her 22nd Birthday next week, has discovered something every pastor wishes every person that ever asked: “Where is God” would discover….and believe….and hold on to when it just seems like there is nothing else to hold on to. So thank you Lindsay for giving me something to share that you said worth saying today and everyday on Facebook and everywhere else in the world. I love you!
Here is what Lindsay wrote on her Facebook post:

Well THIS is pretty crazy. I know that we live in a society where people are always wanting something more or something better. I struggle with this too, and it’s also been really tough since I don’t have a job right now, and well, I kinda thought that almost 4 months after graduating that I’d already be making my own money in the “real world”. So I was doing my bible study and had turned to Hebrews 12 for that. I stopped doing my bible study and felt that I needed to pray to be content with where I am in my life right now and with what God has given me, and to stop always wanting something else. I glance down and my bible study book was covering my whole bible except for Hebrews 13:5 which is “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ Real funny God, thanks for always showing me that you know a little bit more than I do about life!! 🙂

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Something’s going on here!

In August of 1990, I wrote the first pages of a journal that stuck.  Like many people, I had made numerous attempts at writing my thoughts and feelings and after a week (or less) never wrote again.  But this time I kept writing.  Having something very deep and dear to write about: my wife’s very complicated twin pregnancy, that less than a month from the beginning of my journaling would end with the death of my daughter, Gretchen – before she was born – and the birth and tentative start of my now 20 something year old daughter, Lindsay, has a way of keeping the story going.  I continued to write in my journal faithfully.  I continued to record my story as our third child, Matt, was born and surprised us with raising a son with Down syndrome.

In the fall of 2000, while enrolled at Belmont University in Nashville, to complete my Bachelor degree, I took a class titled: “Telling Stories – Experiencing Life.”  Through the process of writing essays, coloring pictures, telling stories to one another, I realized and confessed aloud that I was a writer.  It didn’t matter if I sold insurance for a living (what I was doing at the time), or serving as a Lutheran pastor (what I had really wanted to do since I was a child…and what I do now), I was born and wired to write.

And so in the spring of 2003 I worked my way out of a 20 year insurance career, took a year of sabbatical and began work on a book.  A year later I took a staff position at my home congregation as Director of Christian Education and Family Life, and in the summer of 2007 began the candidacy process to become a Lutheran pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, being ordained on January 3, 2011.

Needless to say the book took a back seat to all my life and career changes.  The work I have done – most of it nine years ago – has sat under lock and key since then.

A long story in a short version…

I seem to get “messages” in three’s.  That has happened in the last week (I will tell that story later).  It is time to write.  I don’t even think there was such a thing as a blog when I was writing before (at least not one that I could manage).  So here I go.

For those of you who are going with me, I covet your prayers and conversations and comments along the way.  You are free to be honest as long as you are not mean.  I sold insurance for 20 years so, trust me, I’ve heard most anything that could be said about me that might hurt my feelings.  However, until you are paying for what I am selling, I am not obliged just to take it laying down!!

Let the writing begin!

Matt Steinhauer