It's a blessing to have a friend as devoted to us as the "narrator voice" in this song is to their friend. I know of what I speak. I have experienced having such friends. They have blessed me.
But this song, I think, at its core, expresses an aspiration we all have, even if we sometimes bury it beneath cynicism, self-glorification, and self-protection. We want to be this kind of friend to our friend, someone who's always there, who can be counted on for a listening ear, a compassionate shoulder, a warm embrace.
That kind of friend I haven't always been. In fact, I've been that kind of friend too infrequently. I pray for God's forgiveness, for the forgiveness of my friends, and for the empowerment of God's Spirit to be "a bridge over troubled waters" to those whose friendship means the world to me.
Friday, November 21, 2014
What Becomes of the Brokenhearted? by Jimmy Ruffin
This is going way back. (I'm also really fond of Paul Young's much later version of this song.)
By the way, this video is a little weird. Don't know exactly what's going on in it, but the tune is still touching.
By the way, this video is a little weird. Don't know exactly what's going on in it, but the tune is still touching.
"Waiting with Patience"
A high school classmate posted these words from Henri Nouwen on Facebook yesterday. Tough to remember.
How do we wait for God? We wait with patience. But patience does not mean passivity. Waiting patiently is not like waiting for the bus to come, the rain to stop, or the sun to rise. It is an active waiting in which we live the present moment to the full in order to find there the signs of the One we are waiting for.
The word patience comes from the Latin verb patior which means "to suffer." Waiting patiently is suffering through the present moment, tasting it to the full, and letting the seeds that are sown in the ground on which we stand grow into strong plants. Waiting patiently always means paying attention to what is happening right before our eyes and seeing there the first rays of God's glorious coming.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen
Thursday, November 20, 2014
First and Last Pictures of Lincoln's Presidency and Thoughts on Worry
The first & last portrait photos of Lincoln as President: May 1860 & Feb 1865. pic.twitter.com/BmTmanTNPL
— ClassicPics (@History_Pics) November 20, 2014
The toll of his worry and care can clearly be observed by comparing these two pictures, one taken at the beginning of Abraham Lincoln's presidency, the other taken just two months before his assassination.Worry and care do the same thing to all of us, which is why Jesus told us not to worry.
He undoubtedly told us this because to not worry is so foreign to human nature. We needed to be warned against it.
Worry is uniquely human. Creatures capable of anticipating the future, we use that capability in a way that expresses the fundamental sinful impulse of wanting to "be like God," to call the shots and control the future.
How many of the things that we want to control, are we able to control?
And more importantly, how many of those things should we control?
In the book, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis has his fictional senior tempter talk about different kinds of "time": the past, the present, the future, and eternity. (And how hell tries to leverage our confusion about these modes of "time" to destroy our having relationships with God.)
For we human beings, the past is done, something over which we have no control. We can repent for the sins of our past. But to spend time ruing that past, is a waste of energy for something that cannot be changed. If the devil cannot tempt us to new sin or away from repentance and God's forgiveness for past sins, he loves to weigh us down with shame or regret, not just for sins, but innocent actions of our past.
The future is as insusceptible to our control to the past. We can make plans. Some may even succeed. But we have no guarantees that they will be fulfilled or be fulfilled as we want. This world is imperfect. We are imperfect. Our plans are imperfect. And the follower of Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, is called to believe that God is in the final control of everything, despite our plans.
Both past and future are unreal. The past no longer exists. The future has yet to exist.
Yet, people often spend more time in these two unreal places, ruing and worrying, than they do in the two places that are real, where things can be changed.
Those two places are, first of all, the present, when we can decide what actions we will undertake, what thoughts we will think, what words we will say.
And the second is eternity, the place where God always dwells in what Lewis in another of his books, Mere Christianity, describes as "the eternal now." By His resurrection, Christ has secured a place for all who turn from sin and believe in Him, in that certain eternity.
Focusing on those two real places--the present and eternity--will mitigate our worry.
Focusing on what we can and should do in the present empowers us for living fully in the unfolding moments of our earthly lives.
Focusing on eternity assures us that even if we mess up, as we inevitably to, even when this world does its worst to us, those who trust in Christ, have a connection to a loving, sustaining God and to a perfect kingdom in which our tears will be dried and we will live in eternal certainty.
Monday, November 17, 2014
Christ the King Sunday Welcome
With every season or special day of the Church Year, there is a special welcome for worshipers in the bulletin of Living Water Lutheran Church. This is the welcome that will appear in the bulletin for this coming Sunday, November 23, Christ the King Sunday.
If you don't have a church home, why not find a church close to you and attend worship? It could change your life for the better...and forever.
Welcome to Living Water Lutheran Church. We’re happy that you’re worshiping with us today.For more about the Church Year, see here.
This morning, we celebrate Christ the King Sunday. On this Sunday, we take time to celebrate the fact that Jesus Christ is the King of the universe. It’s a kingship that was expressed in His humble submission to death on a cross, accepting the punishment for sin we deserve, and His resurrection from the dead, by which He opens eternity and new life to all who turn from sin (repent) and believe in Him. Jesus will finally and fully assert His kingship over all that God has created when He returns to this world and establishes a new heaven and a new earth.
In the meantime, all who trust in Christ as their God and King, trust in Him to be with them always, to bring their prayers to God the Father, and to assure them of their place in His kingdom.
Unlike Christmas or Easter, holy days that can be traced to early Christianity, Christ the King Sunday is a new day on the Christian calendar. It began in the Roman Catholic Church in 1925. In 1970, Lutherans, Anglicans, and other Christians adopted the day for their calendars. It happens annually on the last Sunday of the Church Year.
Thank you for being with us. Our prayer is that the Holy Spirit will use our worship and fellowship to draw You close to the God we know in Jesus Christ. We pray too, that you will feel welcomed and worship with us again soon!
If you don't have a church home, why not find a church close to you and attend worship? It could change your life for the better...and forever.
The "Defeated Adversary" Cannot Overpower Us
From today's Our Daily Bread:
The good news is that Satan is a defeated adversary. While he is a powerful foe, those who are protected by salvation, prayer, and the Word of God need not be paralyzed in fear at this roaring lion. We are “kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5). James 4:7 assures us: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”These words put me in mind of words in one of my favorite hyms:
"...Though hordes of devils fill the land(Martin Luther, A Mighty Fortress is Our God)
All threatening to devour us,
We tremble not, unmoved we stand
They cannot overpower us."
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Anyway by Paul McCartney
I know that I've posted this song before. But it's a great one.
"We can cure each other's sorrow..." Nice thought.
"We can cure each other's sorrow..." Nice thought.
Should You Eat Gluten-Free Bread?
Even if, like me, you have Celiac Disease? Five experts asked by TIME magazine say no. Their reasoning is sound. (Thanks to halehawk for sharing this article with me.)
The Call to Risk
[This was shared during this morning's worship services with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]
Matthew 25:14-30
When we look at Jesus’ parable in today’s gospel lesson, we have to be careful.
That’s because a lazy reading of this story might cause a person to think that, at the ends of our lives, God judges us on the basis of how much good we’ve done or how good we’ve been. But that’s not what this parable is about.
If we simply stop and think about it, we realize that that can’t be Jesus’ message to us this morning. After all, throughout His ministry, Jesus took pains to announce that He had come “to seek and save the lost,” the sinners of the world. (Like me and, if I may say so, you.)
He frequently went after the Scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders who thought they obeyed God’s Law and who boiled a saving relationship with God down to abiding by a list of some 620 rules. They had made themselves good people, they thought. And so, they also thought, God preferred them and loved them and didn’t like the sinners Jesus spent so much time around.
Jesus told them they were wrong.
So, we have to leave behind any notion that Jesus is talking about being saved by our works when we read this parable. We are saved from sin, death, and darkness not by our works, but simply by our faith in--our trust in--Jesus Christ. That's one message of this parable, in fact.
But faith or trust is not simply intellectual agreement. Faith is more than intellectual assent to a proposition. That too is a message of this parable.
Let’s dig into it now, Matthew 25:14-30.
Jesus’ words follow those He spoke last week. He says: “Again it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.”
I understand why the translators of the New International Version, from which we're reading, used the term bags here. They wanted to convey that the master was entrusting a lot of cash to his servants. But the word that appears in Matthew’s manuscript isn’t bags, but talenta, talents.
A talent was a Greek word for a sum of money. “A silver talent was worth c 7,300 denarii,” a single denarius being worth a single day’s wages. A gold talent could be worth thirty times that!
So, the Master is entrusting huge sums of money to these three slaves. And he does so fully intending that they should try to make the money grow. He expects them to take risks with the trust He has given to them.
Jesus tells this parable as part of a string of parables all about the end of this world and His coming kingdom. In this particular parable, it’s clear that Jesus is the Master. He’s the One Who has gone away for a time and Who will one day return to settle accounts.
You and I, His Church, are the slaves.
And the talents? This is the message of the Gospel, which promises us that all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ have forgiveness of sin and new and everlasting lives with God.
In another parable, Jesus gave an idea of how valuable this Gospel--this good news--is for us when He talked about a man who “sold everything he had” in order to possess it.
But, as we’ll see, faith resides not just in the possession of the Gospel. Faith also resides in trusting God enough to recklessly invest it in every aspect and all the people of our lives.
Jesus goes on: “The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”
Something important needs to be pointed out here: Jesus gives bags of different value to the three men. He gives them a trust over his money in proportion to their ability.
You know, one of the foundational principles of this country is that all people are created equal. And, as Christians, we can affirm that all people have equal worth in the eyes of God. Jesus Christ came to be the Savior of all human beings willing to have Him.
But not everyone has the same gifts, abilities, advantages, opportunities, or even faith.
Jesus graciously does not hold us accountable for the blessings we don’t have. He doesn’t expect me to be a mechanic, for example, because God hasn’t endowed me with that gift or interest. But Jesus does hold us all accountable for how we use the freedom from sin, death, and darkness He gives to all baptized believers in Him.
The man in Jesus’ parable who doubled the two bags (or talents) with which He’d been entrusted was given the exact same commendation for doubling what He’d been given as the man to whom the Master had entrusted five bags. Now, Jesus knows full well that 10 bags are more than 4 bags.
Here’s the point: We are only accountable to God for using the faith and the life that we have. God doesn’t expect me to be a Billy Graham, or a Dan Mershon, or a John Bradosky, or a Martin Luther. But He does expect me to seek to live out my call to be the Mark Daniels His gospel has set me free to be.
All of which leads to the next part of the parable. Verse 24: “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’”
In first century Judea, where Jesus told this parable, the religious leaders of His day had been guilty of burying the truth that human beings, Jews or Gentiles, were saved not because they belonged to the right ethnic group, nor because they slavishly adhered to a set of religious do’s and don’t’s, but solely because they believed in the God revealed to Israel. (This same God has been revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ, true God and true man.)
The first century religious leaders had buried salvation by faith in a gracious God under a mountain of religious duty born of distrust. They didn’t trust God.
They didn’t trust that even if they were killed for their faith in God, God would see their enduring faith and welcome them into eternity.
The third man in Jesus’ parable didn’t trust the Master. So, instead of risking to make something more of the one talent with which he had been entrusted, he buried it.
This man is like the Christian who refuses to take any risks in pursuing the one and only mission with which those of us who have been saved by grace through faith in Christ have been entrusted. This man is like Christians who want nothing to do with making disciples. Monday through Saturday, they bury their faith in Christ in a private place.
Because of this burial, they don’t grow in faith or character or in certainty of God’s love for them. And the people they might touch with the good news of new life in Christ remain untouched.
This kind of safe living is not what God intends for us as believers. He has set us free for more than just slinking through life, heads down, fearful.
In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus tells believers: "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
In the book of James, Jesus’ earthly brother writes: “...faith without works is dead.”
We are not saved by our good deeds or works; we are saved by our faith in the God we meet in Jesus Christ. But if we have faith--in other words, if we trust Christ to stand with us always, to bring meaning to our lives, to give us the power to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, to have life beyond the grave with God, then we will do the deeds that God empowers us to do.
They’re deeds that will bring God glory, show Christ to others, make disciples, and build God’s kingdom.
Our call is to not bury our faith and make ourselves more palatable to others in our everyday lives, but to let that faith and our Savior be seen as we serve people in His Name, offer to pray with the hurting, tell others about the hope that we have through Christ even in this life’s dark times, and to help others know Christ and His salvation for themselves.
At the end of Jesus’ parable, the faithless servant is condemned, thrown “...outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” He was separated from his Master.
Jesus here uses language that He uses elsewhere in describing hell. Truly, this was the fate the faithless servant chose for himself when he turned his back on his Master’s grace, choosing instead distance from and wariness of the master, rather than trusting relationship with Him.
In a sense, he chose death over life by choosing seeming safety and security over trust in the Master who had given him so much.
The Master in Jesus' parable was gone a long a long time. Similarly, it’s been many centuries since Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven. In a world that evidences everything between indifference to hostility regarding the good news that can save a life for all eternity, it’s tempting to bury our faith.
I face this temptation all the time, frankly. "Oh, no," I imagine family and friends and acquaintances telling themselves, "Here come the preacher." When imaginings like this go through my mind, I'm tempted just to bury any mention of my Lord or of the gospel hope that's mine in Christ.
Recently, we went to visit the family of a friend we have known for about thirty years who was dying. In all that years, we hadn’t really talked about Christ, though I knew there is much faith in the family. I wanted to do and say the right thing. I prayed silently that God would help me to be faithful. Then I asked before we left, “Would you mind if we all shared a prayer?”
The response was immediate, “Yes, please.” And there at what would prove to be our friend’s death bed, we prayed.
Never be afraid to risk sharing your faith.
Never be afraid of investing in others with the good news that has changed your life for eternity.
It’s only when we risk and invest in this way that God’s kingdom grows and that we grow in our relationship with God.
And in doing so, we fulfill the very purpose of our lives. Amen
Matthew 25:14-30
When we look at Jesus’ parable in today’s gospel lesson, we have to be careful.
That’s because a lazy reading of this story might cause a person to think that, at the ends of our lives, God judges us on the basis of how much good we’ve done or how good we’ve been. But that’s not what this parable is about.
If we simply stop and think about it, we realize that that can’t be Jesus’ message to us this morning. After all, throughout His ministry, Jesus took pains to announce that He had come “to seek and save the lost,” the sinners of the world. (Like me and, if I may say so, you.)
He frequently went after the Scribes and the Pharisees, the religious leaders who thought they obeyed God’s Law and who boiled a saving relationship with God down to abiding by a list of some 620 rules. They had made themselves good people, they thought. And so, they also thought, God preferred them and loved them and didn’t like the sinners Jesus spent so much time around.
Jesus told them they were wrong.
So, we have to leave behind any notion that Jesus is talking about being saved by our works when we read this parable. We are saved from sin, death, and darkness not by our works, but simply by our faith in--our trust in--Jesus Christ. That's one message of this parable, in fact.
But faith or trust is not simply intellectual agreement. Faith is more than intellectual assent to a proposition. That too is a message of this parable.
Let’s dig into it now, Matthew 25:14-30.
Jesus’ words follow those He spoke last week. He says: “Again it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.”
I understand why the translators of the New International Version, from which we're reading, used the term bags here. They wanted to convey that the master was entrusting a lot of cash to his servants. But the word that appears in Matthew’s manuscript isn’t bags, but talenta, talents.
A talent was a Greek word for a sum of money. “A silver talent was worth c 7,300 denarii,” a single denarius being worth a single day’s wages. A gold talent could be worth thirty times that!
So, the Master is entrusting huge sums of money to these three slaves. And he does so fully intending that they should try to make the money grow. He expects them to take risks with the trust He has given to them.
Jesus tells this parable as part of a string of parables all about the end of this world and His coming kingdom. In this particular parable, it’s clear that Jesus is the Master. He’s the One Who has gone away for a time and Who will one day return to settle accounts.
You and I, His Church, are the slaves.
And the talents? This is the message of the Gospel, which promises us that all who repent and believe in Jesus Christ have forgiveness of sin and new and everlasting lives with God.
In another parable, Jesus gave an idea of how valuable this Gospel--this good news--is for us when He talked about a man who “sold everything he had” in order to possess it.
But, as we’ll see, faith resides not just in the possession of the Gospel. Faith also resides in trusting God enough to recklessly invest it in every aspect and all the people of our lives.
Jesus goes on: “The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’”
Something important needs to be pointed out here: Jesus gives bags of different value to the three men. He gives them a trust over his money in proportion to their ability.
You know, one of the foundational principles of this country is that all people are created equal. And, as Christians, we can affirm that all people have equal worth in the eyes of God. Jesus Christ came to be the Savior of all human beings willing to have Him.
But not everyone has the same gifts, abilities, advantages, opportunities, or even faith.
Jesus graciously does not hold us accountable for the blessings we don’t have. He doesn’t expect me to be a mechanic, for example, because God hasn’t endowed me with that gift or interest. But Jesus does hold us all accountable for how we use the freedom from sin, death, and darkness He gives to all baptized believers in Him.
The man in Jesus’ parable who doubled the two bags (or talents) with which He’d been entrusted was given the exact same commendation for doubling what He’d been given as the man to whom the Master had entrusted five bags. Now, Jesus knows full well that 10 bags are more than 4 bags.
Here’s the point: We are only accountable to God for using the faith and the life that we have. God doesn’t expect me to be a Billy Graham, or a Dan Mershon, or a John Bradosky, or a Martin Luther. But He does expect me to seek to live out my call to be the Mark Daniels His gospel has set me free to be.
All of which leads to the next part of the parable. Verse 24: “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’”
In first century Judea, where Jesus told this parable, the religious leaders of His day had been guilty of burying the truth that human beings, Jews or Gentiles, were saved not because they belonged to the right ethnic group, nor because they slavishly adhered to a set of religious do’s and don’t’s, but solely because they believed in the God revealed to Israel. (This same God has been revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ, true God and true man.)
The first century religious leaders had buried salvation by faith in a gracious God under a mountain of religious duty born of distrust. They didn’t trust God.
They didn’t trust that even if they were killed for their faith in God, God would see their enduring faith and welcome them into eternity.
The third man in Jesus’ parable didn’t trust the Master. So, instead of risking to make something more of the one talent with which he had been entrusted, he buried it.
This man is like the Christian who refuses to take any risks in pursuing the one and only mission with which those of us who have been saved by grace through faith in Christ have been entrusted. This man is like Christians who want nothing to do with making disciples. Monday through Saturday, they bury their faith in Christ in a private place.
Because of this burial, they don’t grow in faith or character or in certainty of God’s love for them. And the people they might touch with the good news of new life in Christ remain untouched.
This kind of safe living is not what God intends for us as believers. He has set us free for more than just slinking through life, heads down, fearful.
In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus tells believers: "You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”
In the book of James, Jesus’ earthly brother writes: “...faith without works is dead.”
We are not saved by our good deeds or works; we are saved by our faith in the God we meet in Jesus Christ. But if we have faith--in other words, if we trust Christ to stand with us always, to bring meaning to our lives, to give us the power to forgive as we’ve been forgiven, to have life beyond the grave with God, then we will do the deeds that God empowers us to do.
They’re deeds that will bring God glory, show Christ to others, make disciples, and build God’s kingdom.
Our call is to not bury our faith and make ourselves more palatable to others in our everyday lives, but to let that faith and our Savior be seen as we serve people in His Name, offer to pray with the hurting, tell others about the hope that we have through Christ even in this life’s dark times, and to help others know Christ and His salvation for themselves.
At the end of Jesus’ parable, the faithless servant is condemned, thrown “...outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’” He was separated from his Master.
Jesus here uses language that He uses elsewhere in describing hell. Truly, this was the fate the faithless servant chose for himself when he turned his back on his Master’s grace, choosing instead distance from and wariness of the master, rather than trusting relationship with Him.
In a sense, he chose death over life by choosing seeming safety and security over trust in the Master who had given him so much.
The Master in Jesus' parable was gone a long a long time. Similarly, it’s been many centuries since Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven. In a world that evidences everything between indifference to hostility regarding the good news that can save a life for all eternity, it’s tempting to bury our faith.
I face this temptation all the time, frankly. "Oh, no," I imagine family and friends and acquaintances telling themselves, "Here come the preacher." When imaginings like this go through my mind, I'm tempted just to bury any mention of my Lord or of the gospel hope that's mine in Christ.
Recently, we went to visit the family of a friend we have known for about thirty years who was dying. In all that years, we hadn’t really talked about Christ, though I knew there is much faith in the family. I wanted to do and say the right thing. I prayed silently that God would help me to be faithful. Then I asked before we left, “Would you mind if we all shared a prayer?”
The response was immediate, “Yes, please.” And there at what would prove to be our friend’s death bed, we prayed.
Never be afraid to risk sharing your faith.
Never be afraid of investing in others with the good news that has changed your life for eternity.
It’s only when we risk and invest in this way that God’s kingdom grows and that we grow in our relationship with God.
And in doing so, we fulfill the very purpose of our lives. Amen
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)