Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Jan Poses Important Questions
See here. There is an awful lot of testosterone in the Christian blogging world and sometimes it's a lot more testosterone than it is Christian, I think.
Rock Drummers are "Top Athletes"
Unless they have the life style of a Keith Moon, of course. (Click on the headline above to see what this is about.)
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Weeds or Wheat? It's God's Call
[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
A few years ago, a woman approached me with a concern. She told me that her father, by then in his seventies, was suing a woman whose car had brushed his in a mall parking lot, where he sat waiting for his wife. Even though both he and his car were fine, he claimed to have suffered physically. The daughter said to me, “This is the last straw for me! My dad has always gone to church, been on the church council, gone to Sunday School. But he’s also always tried to shaft other people in order to get some advantage. He even pushes people out of the way in order to be first in a check-out line. But I hadn’t realized how horrible he was until he sued this poor young woman who nicked his car. How can he call himself a Christian?” When she asked me that, I remembered an old saying: Just because the mouse lives in the cookie jar doesn’t mean it’s a cookie.
That, in a way, is one of Jesus’ points in today’s Gospel lesson. He’s had another run-in with the Pharisees, those holier-than-thou religionists who may have secretly doubted that God was good enough for them. As you know, the Pharisees didn’t like it that Jesus hung out with notorious sinners or that He said that prostitutes, thieves, extortionists, and even Gentiles could have places in His kingdom when they renounced their sins and followed Him. The Pharisees would have preferred for Jesus to renounce sinners and left it at that.
Instead, Jesus tells a story--a parable or, an allegory, really--to explain His actions and to guide all who follow Him and who might, like the Pharisees, sometimes feel tempted to look down their noses at others. The weeds planted by the farmer’s enemy in Jesus’ story, called darnel, are poisonous plants that look like wheat.
In his explanation of the allegory, Jesus designates what each character or element represents. He is the farmer. The good seeds are those who follow Him. The enemy is the devil. The bad seeds are those who follow evil. The harvest is the end of this world when Jesus will pronounce final judgment on us all and the place where the bundles are burned is hell.
In today’s post-modern world, we may feel squeamish in asserting the reality of hell. Jesus feels no such reticence. Nor does He shy away from speaking of a final judgment, one which all people will face. According to Jesus, those who repent and believe in Him will be with Him in His kingdom. Those who spurn Him will live with the separation from God they daily choose.
But Jesus today reminds us that only He will judge people’s fitness for His kingdom, not you and me.
There may be mice in the cookie jar of Christ’s Church. Those imprisoned by things like selfishness, egotism, materialism, and greed may look no different from those set free by the grace, goodness, and love of Jesus Christ. But until the day of judgment, the God we know in Christ is intent on letting His enemies and His friends live side-by-side, affording each equal opportunities to know and follow the Savior Who died and rose for us.
A man once asked me if the real point of Jesus’ words for us today isn’t, “Live and let live.” But that isn't the way of life to which we're called as Christians.
Jesus, for example, gives explicit instructions on what you and I are to do if we feel that a fellow Christian has sinned against us. Ultimately, if the whole church affirms that we have been sinned against and the one who has harmed us refuses to repent, the Church is obligated to bar such a person from the fellowship of the Church until they do repent.
Live and let live isn’t what Jesus commends. As every Lutheran Catechism student knows, Jesus has given to the Church “the keys of the kingdom.” That the means that the Church has the responsibility to declare Christ’s forgiveness to the repentant and Christ’s condemnation to the unrepentant.
But we are to exercise care in our judgments about others, especially toward those who aren't part of the fellowship of the Church.
Christ didn’t call the Church into being to act as God’s vigilantes, pointing out everyone’s else’ faults. We have different tasks.
Pastor Leith Anderson tells of calling ChemLawn to take care of his suburban lawn, infested with weeds. It was so bad that they rejected working for him. One member of his church said that he would completely remove his old sod and start a new lawn. It was an offer Anderson was almost ready to accept when a one-time farmer offered some advice: Don't worry so much about getting rid of the weeds. Just grow the grass, and the grass will take care of the weeds. The Andersons took his advice. After a couple of years, the lawn looked just as good as anyone else's in the neighborhood.
As I see it, the Church and we Christians are called by Christ to be about two main tasks: Growing in our own faith in Christ and helping others to experience Christ’s love through our words, actions, and lives.
We grow in our faith when we seek each day to consciously thank Jesus Christ for dying and rising for us by loving and serving in His Name.
We motivate others to want to follow Christ when they see us doing our best to loving and serving in His Name.
A friend of mine once invited some neighbors to attend worship with him. He was excited when, after several invitations, these neighbors, who had never been part of a church, showed up one Sunday morning. He was even more excited when they kept attending. He thought that his heart would pound out of his chest the day the neighbors made public affirmation of their faith, the kids were baptized, and they joined the congregation.
Two of the children were members of my friend’s Sunday School class and he was amazed to see how they took hold of faith in Christ for themselves. The family were part of that church for several years and then, for no apparent reason, left. They weren’t in worship or Sunday School. They stopped being involved in service projects.
My friend never felt that he could discuss things with this family. He would see them in the neighborhood and they would pleasantly say, “Hello.” But that was it.
Then, a few years later, a pastor ran into my friend and said, “The Smith kids have started coming to our church. They both mention what an impact you had on them. You can tell that you imparted a real love for Christ to them!”
Not long ago, my friend received an email from the youngest of his neighbor’s children. He affirmed what that pastor had told him and went on to say, “By the way, I’m starting seminary in the fall. Thank you for introducing my family to Jesus. He is everything to me!”
For years, whenever my friend considered his neighbors, he may have been tempted to feel like a failure and to see his neighbors lost to God forever. But he didn’t have to wait until the judgment day to have Jesus’ message for us today boldly underscored: Keep sharing the Good News of Jesus with others. All those people you see as weeds may, because you prayed for them, served them in Christ’s Name, and shared Christ with them, turn out to be wheat that will be gathered into God’s kingdom for all eternity.
Judge not: Christ can use your faithfulness to turn weeds into wheat and mice into cookies. After all, if God can do that with you and me--especially me, God can do it with anybody! Amen
Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43
A few years ago, a woman approached me with a concern. She told me that her father, by then in his seventies, was suing a woman whose car had brushed his in a mall parking lot, where he sat waiting for his wife. Even though both he and his car were fine, he claimed to have suffered physically. The daughter said to me, “This is the last straw for me! My dad has always gone to church, been on the church council, gone to Sunday School. But he’s also always tried to shaft other people in order to get some advantage. He even pushes people out of the way in order to be first in a check-out line. But I hadn’t realized how horrible he was until he sued this poor young woman who nicked his car. How can he call himself a Christian?” When she asked me that, I remembered an old saying: Just because the mouse lives in the cookie jar doesn’t mean it’s a cookie.
That, in a way, is one of Jesus’ points in today’s Gospel lesson. He’s had another run-in with the Pharisees, those holier-than-thou religionists who may have secretly doubted that God was good enough for them. As you know, the Pharisees didn’t like it that Jesus hung out with notorious sinners or that He said that prostitutes, thieves, extortionists, and even Gentiles could have places in His kingdom when they renounced their sins and followed Him. The Pharisees would have preferred for Jesus to renounce sinners and left it at that.
Instead, Jesus tells a story--a parable or, an allegory, really--to explain His actions and to guide all who follow Him and who might, like the Pharisees, sometimes feel tempted to look down their noses at others. The weeds planted by the farmer’s enemy in Jesus’ story, called darnel, are poisonous plants that look like wheat.
In his explanation of the allegory, Jesus designates what each character or element represents. He is the farmer. The good seeds are those who follow Him. The enemy is the devil. The bad seeds are those who follow evil. The harvest is the end of this world when Jesus will pronounce final judgment on us all and the place where the bundles are burned is hell.
In today’s post-modern world, we may feel squeamish in asserting the reality of hell. Jesus feels no such reticence. Nor does He shy away from speaking of a final judgment, one which all people will face. According to Jesus, those who repent and believe in Him will be with Him in His kingdom. Those who spurn Him will live with the separation from God they daily choose.
But Jesus today reminds us that only He will judge people’s fitness for His kingdom, not you and me.
There may be mice in the cookie jar of Christ’s Church. Those imprisoned by things like selfishness, egotism, materialism, and greed may look no different from those set free by the grace, goodness, and love of Jesus Christ. But until the day of judgment, the God we know in Christ is intent on letting His enemies and His friends live side-by-side, affording each equal opportunities to know and follow the Savior Who died and rose for us.
A man once asked me if the real point of Jesus’ words for us today isn’t, “Live and let live.” But that isn't the way of life to which we're called as Christians.
Jesus, for example, gives explicit instructions on what you and I are to do if we feel that a fellow Christian has sinned against us. Ultimately, if the whole church affirms that we have been sinned against and the one who has harmed us refuses to repent, the Church is obligated to bar such a person from the fellowship of the Church until they do repent.
Live and let live isn’t what Jesus commends. As every Lutheran Catechism student knows, Jesus has given to the Church “the keys of the kingdom.” That the means that the Church has the responsibility to declare Christ’s forgiveness to the repentant and Christ’s condemnation to the unrepentant.
But we are to exercise care in our judgments about others, especially toward those who aren't part of the fellowship of the Church.
Christ didn’t call the Church into being to act as God’s vigilantes, pointing out everyone’s else’ faults. We have different tasks.
Pastor Leith Anderson tells of calling ChemLawn to take care of his suburban lawn, infested with weeds. It was so bad that they rejected working for him. One member of his church said that he would completely remove his old sod and start a new lawn. It was an offer Anderson was almost ready to accept when a one-time farmer offered some advice: Don't worry so much about getting rid of the weeds. Just grow the grass, and the grass will take care of the weeds. The Andersons took his advice. After a couple of years, the lawn looked just as good as anyone else's in the neighborhood.
As I see it, the Church and we Christians are called by Christ to be about two main tasks: Growing in our own faith in Christ and helping others to experience Christ’s love through our words, actions, and lives.
We grow in our faith when we seek each day to consciously thank Jesus Christ for dying and rising for us by loving and serving in His Name.
We motivate others to want to follow Christ when they see us doing our best to loving and serving in His Name.
A friend of mine once invited some neighbors to attend worship with him. He was excited when, after several invitations, these neighbors, who had never been part of a church, showed up one Sunday morning. He was even more excited when they kept attending. He thought that his heart would pound out of his chest the day the neighbors made public affirmation of their faith, the kids were baptized, and they joined the congregation.
Two of the children were members of my friend’s Sunday School class and he was amazed to see how they took hold of faith in Christ for themselves. The family were part of that church for several years and then, for no apparent reason, left. They weren’t in worship or Sunday School. They stopped being involved in service projects.
My friend never felt that he could discuss things with this family. He would see them in the neighborhood and they would pleasantly say, “Hello.” But that was it.
Then, a few years later, a pastor ran into my friend and said, “The Smith kids have started coming to our church. They both mention what an impact you had on them. You can tell that you imparted a real love for Christ to them!”
Not long ago, my friend received an email from the youngest of his neighbor’s children. He affirmed what that pastor had told him and went on to say, “By the way, I’m starting seminary in the fall. Thank you for introducing my family to Jesus. He is everything to me!”
For years, whenever my friend considered his neighbors, he may have been tempted to feel like a failure and to see his neighbors lost to God forever. But he didn’t have to wait until the judgment day to have Jesus’ message for us today boldly underscored: Keep sharing the Good News of Jesus with others. All those people you see as weeds may, because you prayed for them, served them in Christ’s Name, and shared Christ with them, turn out to be wheat that will be gathered into God’s kingdom for all eternity.
Judge not: Christ can use your faithfulness to turn weeds into wheat and mice into cookies. After all, if God can do that with you and me--especially me, God can do it with anybody! Amen
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Ringo's LP is Okay, But He Should Think Again About Jesus
Ringo Starr is no Bob Dylan. He has a below-average voice. His songs are mostly hokie. But he's a great drummer and, as the three members of the Beatles who invited him to replace Pete Best as they began their recording career knew, a tremendous personality. The Beatle-y spirit of fun lives on in the music he continues to produce.In January, Starr released Liverpool 8, timed to coincide with his concert in Liverpool, part of that city's degination as "culture capital" of Europe for the year.
The title track, co-written with Eurythmc Dave Stewart, is a fun remembrance of his hometown and the Beatles years. Overall, it's a nice little LP, although Starr's collaboration with Mark Hudson--who, along with longtime Ringo sidemen, the Roundheads, is co-composer and producer of all but one of the LP's tracks--is growing a bit tiresome and predictable.
I also enjoy the rather offbeat and evocative tribute to his late buddy, Harry Nilsson, Harry's Song.
Two of the tracks could be omitted: Pasodobles, a Spanish-tinged song that wouldn't be good even if Starr could sing it and R U Ready?
The latter song reflects Starr's apparently growing, if superficial, interest in spiritual things and in his own mortality. In it, he equates Jesus, Buddha, and Krishna. He sings at one point, "Jesus was a wise man and everyone's a Saint/Are you ready to cross over, are you ready?"
I'm glad that Ringo thinks that Jesus was a wise man. But if he thinks that makes him ready to face death and eternity, Jesus would ask him to think again.
Jesus made bigger claims for himself than being wise. "The Father and I are one," He says, equating Himself God. And He says, "“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
Starr's lyrics reflect one of the commonest ways of dodging Jesus' call to turn from sin and believe in the message that His death and resurrection are the way to life with God forever. People call Him a nice man, a good teacher, or one of many ways to God, but not the one and only Lord and God Jesus claims to be. These dodges are attempts to have it both ways, to have Jesus without following Him.
Jesus won't have any of it, though! When confronting Jesus' message about Himself, that He is God and the only way to eternity with God, we have, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, three alternatives: We can (1) call him a liar; (2) call him a madman; or (3) fall down before him as the Lord and God he claims to be.
If Jesus is lying about Himself, He can't be the wise man that Ringo and, it seems increasingly, many, dismissively call Him.
The problem with these common statements about Jesus is that they overlook what's been revealed about Him and chronicled in the very books--the New Testament gospels--that anyone would have to call upon to label Jesus as wise.
Ringo Starr is no Bob Dylan. And though I like him, he's no theologian. And clearly, logic isn't his strong suit either.
Did Beaver Experience Any Desperate Hours?
At lunchtime today, I turned on the TV and saw the last two minutes of The Desperate Hours, starring Humphrey Bogart and Frederick March. I've never seen the film before and so was stunned by what I saw: March walking into a house that looked like that of the Cleaver family from Leave It to Beaver. Not the house from the early years, but the last few seasons. A Google search showed that mine isn't the only Baby Boomer mind cluttered with unnecessary facts and images. March really was in Beaver's house.Here's a picture of the first Cleaver house.
How many brain cells do we waste on memories like this one?
[UPDATE, 8/29/2012: Because the link above doesn't work, here's a new one that gives the rundown on Beaver's house. Later, Marcus Welby moved in.]
"The Eagle Has Landed!"
Tomorrow marks the thirty-ninth anniversary of the landing of Apollo 11 on the lunar surface. The space program that resulted in human beings walking on the Moon is a testimony to what human beings, driven by a positive purpose, can do together. There are countless other endeavors that would benefit from similar efforts.
Friday, July 18, 2008
To Help You Prepare for Worship on Sunday
For many of us, including those of us at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this coming Sunday, July 20, will be the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost. The Gospel lesson, Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43, presents one of several parables (and its explanation) told by Jesus in this section of Matthew's gospel. A great and challenging overview of the text can be found here.
In addition to the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation linked above, I also love the rendering of the passage by Eugene Peterson in The Message:
In addition to the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) translation linked above, I also love the rendering of the passage by Eugene Peterson in The Message:
[Jesus] told another story. "God's kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too.
"The farmhands came to the farmer and said, 'Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn't it? Where did these thistles come from?'
"He answered, 'Some enemy did this.'
"The farmhands asked, 'Should we weed out the thistles?'
"He said, 'No, if you weed the thistles, you'll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I'll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.'"...
Jesus dismissed the congregation and went into the house. His disciples came in and said, "Explain to us that story of the thistles in the field."
So he explained. "The farmer who sows the pure seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the pure seeds are subjects of the kingdom, the thistles are subjects of the Devil, and the enemy who sows them is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, the curtain of history. The harvest hands are angels.
"The picture of thistles pulled up and burned is a scene from the final act. The Son of Man will send his angels, weed out the thistles from his kingdom, pitch them in the trash, and be done with them. They are going to complain to high heaven, but nobody is going to listen. At the same time, ripe, holy lives will mature and adorn the kingdom of their Father.
"Are you listening to this? Really listening?"
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
How to Find Your Spiritual Gift
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Needed: People to Scatter Seeds
[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Mike Herman was a Saint Louis Cardinals baseball fan. From the time he was a little boy, he went to ball games hoping that he could catch a souvenir baseball. Grown to adulthood, he’d go to batting practices before games just to have a shot at grabbing a big-league ball.
Back in the mid-90s, during one batting practice, Herman got to know a five year old boy named James. James was on the same quest for a souvenir and after a time, Herman found himself telling James “he could have my ball if I caught one.” The promise may have been hollow in light of the fact that Mike Herman had been unsuccessful at retrieving a big league baseball for twenty-eight years! But, five minutes later, Herman explains, “I caught a ball, and yes, I gave it to James.” “I wonder,” Mike Herman asks, “how often God waits to give us something until we are willing to give it away?”
Today, Jesus tells one of His most famous stories. It’s called the Parable of the Sower. You know it well. A farmer, representing Christ or you and me with Christ working in us, sows or scatters seeds. Farmers planted seeds back in Jesus’ day by simply tossing them everywhere. This method of farming wasn’t so efficient, as you can imagine. Even top-notch seeds flung in the wrong places aren't likely to grow.
Some of the seeds flung by Jesus' fictional farmer, He says, fell along a path and birds quickly ate them up.
Other seeds fell onto rocky ground and warmed by the stones, sprouted quickly and died just as quickly for lack of soil depth and the sun being able to fry them, roots and all.
Another bunch of the seeds fell among weeds and thorns. As the thorns grew, they choked the life out of the good seeds.
Finally, one last batch of seeds fell into good soil and Jesus says that they gave yields of thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.
To show you how impressive that is, in first century Judea where Jesus lived, harvests of four- to tenfold were the norm. Harvests yielding fifteen times the seeds sown were considered really great. So, the seeds that landed in good soil in Jesus’ story gave a bumper crop!
Later, Jesus explained His story. The seeds are the message about Him, the good news that, because He died and rose for us, we can have our sins forgiven and enjoy right relationships with God and live with Him forever. That happens when we entrust our lives to Him.
The different spots in which the seeds in Jesus’ story lands represents different sorts of reactions you and I may receive when we share the Good News of Jesus with others. We may encounter people who simply refuse to listen; those who who will be enthusiastic about Christ at first and then leave Him behind; those who allow themselves to get preoccupied with other things like money or family worries; and finally, those who receive the Good News of Jesus and strive to live for Him from that moment forward.
Jesus is telling us that the Word about Him is always a good seed, whether people let it take root in their lives or not! We’re to keep spreading the word about Jesus all around us, no matter what reaction we may get.
One evening back when I was in seminary, Ann and I had dinner with two other couples, all people with whom we’d gone to high school. We were being silly when the conversation turned serious. “Mark, what do you think needs to happen for a person to go to heaven?” one person asked me.
I have to tell you that I was afraid. I wanted these people to accept me and I was fearful of being written off as some religious fanatic. What would they think of me if I said that getting to heaven involved simply entrusting your life to Jesus Christ and letting Him be their Lord and King? So, instead of telling them this truth, I made a joke.
About a year-and-a-half later, the man who asked that question of me left his marriage. I have often wondered what might have happened had I planted the seed of Jesus’ message in his life that night. Maybe nothing. Maybe his heart and will would have proved to be bad soil. But I’ll never know this side of heaven because I chickened out and failed to scatter the good seed among my friends!
I guess that I was waiting for a "better time." I was hoping that maybe later, I would have a little more courage and "success," whatever that is. But Jesus tells us that we should keep scattering His Word, whether it’s convenient or even if we see little prospect of our message being welcomed.
I try to always remember that. Just this past week, I was talking with a person I’ve gotten to know here in Logan. I’ve sensed that he and God haven’t exactly been on speaking terms. But I’ve been praying for him and his family and have tried to treat him with Christian friendliness and dignity. “Do you think that it would be okay if I came to your church sometime?” he asked me the other day. “Absolutely!” I told him.
Like the farmer in Jesus’ parable, we’re to recklessly scatter the Word about the God Who is for the whole human race! I pray that in God’s good grace, I never blow an opportunity to share the message of Jesus again. First Peter 3:15, one of my favorite passages of the Bible, says: "Be prepared always to give an account for the hope that is in you, but do it with gentleness and reverence." In other words, 'Don't beat people over the head with the message of Jesus; but never be afraid to share it! Just as it gives life and hope to you, it can give life and hope to others!'
When we commit ourselves to scattering the Word about God, God will orchestrate amazing coincidences that give us the opportunity to do that.
Just yesterday, I got an email from a blogging buddy, Andy. A resident of Arizona, he’s spent the last four months in Turkey and is getting ready to return home soon. In Istanbul on Friday, he ran into a group from Arizona State University’s School of Global Management and Leadership. Andy explained that he’s working on a book comparing Christianity and Islam a bit like an earlier book he wrote comparing Christianity and Mormonism. The professors, one Buddhist and the other Jewish, asked him to teach a class on Saturday on Islam. Andy did that. “You have a gift for teaching,” one of the professors said and at dinner that night, Andy was able to further scatter the Word about Jesus Christ!
The fact is that, whether they try to conceal it or not, all people have a hunger to be reconciled with God, to have the God revealed to all the world through Jesus Christ in their lives. I was struck several years ago when in some of the interviews I heard with survivors of terrorist bombings in London, they reported that almost all of the passengers, fearing that their lives would end, cried out to God.
People want God in their lives, even the people who in recent polling—I’m not making this up—called themselves atheists, but reported that they believed there was a God.
When we share the Word about Jesus, we’re telling people that in every time of need and through every day of their lives, they can call to the God of love and goodness we know through Jesus and that they can do so with confidence and hope, knowing that He is with them and able to take the world's worst circumstances and turn them into heaven's best.
Through the Word about Jesus Christ, they can experience a hope that endures forever!
Keep scattering the seed of the message about Jesus, whether it seems to make a difference or not. Just as you can’t see the ways in which seeds are taking root beneath the soil, we sometimes can’t see the ways in which the Word about Jesus is taking hold and transforming people’s lives.
Are you looking for blessings in your life? Then resolve to be a blessing to others; bless people with the word about Christ! Let the seed of God's Word grow strong within you by giving it away.
As Mike Herman, the fellow who wanted a major league baseball found out, you just don’t know what blessings God is willing to give to you when you are willing to give them away. Resolve to do it this week: To spread the message of Jesus and then trust God to do good things with the seeds you scatter!
[Mike Herman's true story is contained in the book, Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion.]
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
Mike Herman was a Saint Louis Cardinals baseball fan. From the time he was a little boy, he went to ball games hoping that he could catch a souvenir baseball. Grown to adulthood, he’d go to batting practices before games just to have a shot at grabbing a big-league ball.
Back in the mid-90s, during one batting practice, Herman got to know a five year old boy named James. James was on the same quest for a souvenir and after a time, Herman found himself telling James “he could have my ball if I caught one.” The promise may have been hollow in light of the fact that Mike Herman had been unsuccessful at retrieving a big league baseball for twenty-eight years! But, five minutes later, Herman explains, “I caught a ball, and yes, I gave it to James.” “I wonder,” Mike Herman asks, “how often God waits to give us something until we are willing to give it away?”Today, Jesus tells one of His most famous stories. It’s called the Parable of the Sower. You know it well. A farmer, representing Christ or you and me with Christ working in us, sows or scatters seeds. Farmers planted seeds back in Jesus’ day by simply tossing them everywhere. This method of farming wasn’t so efficient, as you can imagine. Even top-notch seeds flung in the wrong places aren't likely to grow.
Some of the seeds flung by Jesus' fictional farmer, He says, fell along a path and birds quickly ate them up.
Other seeds fell onto rocky ground and warmed by the stones, sprouted quickly and died just as quickly for lack of soil depth and the sun being able to fry them, roots and all.
Another bunch of the seeds fell among weeds and thorns. As the thorns grew, they choked the life out of the good seeds.
Finally, one last batch of seeds fell into good soil and Jesus says that they gave yields of thirty, sixty, and a hundred times.
To show you how impressive that is, in first century Judea where Jesus lived, harvests of four- to tenfold were the norm. Harvests yielding fifteen times the seeds sown were considered really great. So, the seeds that landed in good soil in Jesus’ story gave a bumper crop!
Later, Jesus explained His story. The seeds are the message about Him, the good news that, because He died and rose for us, we can have our sins forgiven and enjoy right relationships with God and live with Him forever. That happens when we entrust our lives to Him.
The different spots in which the seeds in Jesus’ story lands represents different sorts of reactions you and I may receive when we share the Good News of Jesus with others. We may encounter people who simply refuse to listen; those who who will be enthusiastic about Christ at first and then leave Him behind; those who allow themselves to get preoccupied with other things like money or family worries; and finally, those who receive the Good News of Jesus and strive to live for Him from that moment forward.
Jesus is telling us that the Word about Him is always a good seed, whether people let it take root in their lives or not! We’re to keep spreading the word about Jesus all around us, no matter what reaction we may get.
One evening back when I was in seminary, Ann and I had dinner with two other couples, all people with whom we’d gone to high school. We were being silly when the conversation turned serious. “Mark, what do you think needs to happen for a person to go to heaven?” one person asked me.
I have to tell you that I was afraid. I wanted these people to accept me and I was fearful of being written off as some religious fanatic. What would they think of me if I said that getting to heaven involved simply entrusting your life to Jesus Christ and letting Him be their Lord and King? So, instead of telling them this truth, I made a joke.
About a year-and-a-half later, the man who asked that question of me left his marriage. I have often wondered what might have happened had I planted the seed of Jesus’ message in his life that night. Maybe nothing. Maybe his heart and will would have proved to be bad soil. But I’ll never know this side of heaven because I chickened out and failed to scatter the good seed among my friends!
I guess that I was waiting for a "better time." I was hoping that maybe later, I would have a little more courage and "success," whatever that is. But Jesus tells us that we should keep scattering His Word, whether it’s convenient or even if we see little prospect of our message being welcomed.
I try to always remember that. Just this past week, I was talking with a person I’ve gotten to know here in Logan. I’ve sensed that he and God haven’t exactly been on speaking terms. But I’ve been praying for him and his family and have tried to treat him with Christian friendliness and dignity. “Do you think that it would be okay if I came to your church sometime?” he asked me the other day. “Absolutely!” I told him.
Like the farmer in Jesus’ parable, we’re to recklessly scatter the Word about the God Who is for the whole human race! I pray that in God’s good grace, I never blow an opportunity to share the message of Jesus again. First Peter 3:15, one of my favorite passages of the Bible, says: "Be prepared always to give an account for the hope that is in you, but do it with gentleness and reverence." In other words, 'Don't beat people over the head with the message of Jesus; but never be afraid to share it! Just as it gives life and hope to you, it can give life and hope to others!'
When we commit ourselves to scattering the Word about God, God will orchestrate amazing coincidences that give us the opportunity to do that.
Just yesterday, I got an email from a blogging buddy, Andy. A resident of Arizona, he’s spent the last four months in Turkey and is getting ready to return home soon. In Istanbul on Friday, he ran into a group from Arizona State University’s School of Global Management and Leadership. Andy explained that he’s working on a book comparing Christianity and Islam a bit like an earlier book he wrote comparing Christianity and Mormonism. The professors, one Buddhist and the other Jewish, asked him to teach a class on Saturday on Islam. Andy did that. “You have a gift for teaching,” one of the professors said and at dinner that night, Andy was able to further scatter the Word about Jesus Christ!
The fact is that, whether they try to conceal it or not, all people have a hunger to be reconciled with God, to have the God revealed to all the world through Jesus Christ in their lives. I was struck several years ago when in some of the interviews I heard with survivors of terrorist bombings in London, they reported that almost all of the passengers, fearing that their lives would end, cried out to God.
People want God in their lives, even the people who in recent polling—I’m not making this up—called themselves atheists, but reported that they believed there was a God.
When we share the Word about Jesus, we’re telling people that in every time of need and through every day of their lives, they can call to the God of love and goodness we know through Jesus and that they can do so with confidence and hope, knowing that He is with them and able to take the world's worst circumstances and turn them into heaven's best.
Through the Word about Jesus Christ, they can experience a hope that endures forever!
Keep scattering the seed of the message about Jesus, whether it seems to make a difference or not. Just as you can’t see the ways in which seeds are taking root beneath the soil, we sometimes can’t see the ways in which the Word about Jesus is taking hold and transforming people’s lives.
Are you looking for blessings in your life? Then resolve to be a blessing to others; bless people with the word about Christ! Let the seed of God's Word grow strong within you by giving it away.
As Mike Herman, the fellow who wanted a major league baseball found out, you just don’t know what blessings God is willing to give to you when you are willing to give them away. Resolve to do it this week: To spread the message of Jesus and then trust God to do good things with the seeds you scatter!
[Mike Herman's true story is contained in the book, Perfect Illustrations for Every Topic and Occasion.]
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Mugabe and His Beijing Henchmen
I wrote earlier about the Chinese government's support of despot Richard Mugabe. That government, along with the regime in Russia, is proving to be a stalwart ally of Mugabe's government. It shouldn't be surprising. Birds of a feather, you know.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
A Look at This Sunday's Bible Lessons (July 13, 2008)
[I try--most weeks--to present some thoughts of the appointed Bible lessons for the coming Sunday. I do this to help the folks of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, where I'm privileged to be the pastor, to prepare for worship each week. (It helps me too.) But I also hope that these pieces will help others, since we use the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), the plan of Biblical lessons used by many Christian churches.]
The Bible Lessons:
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65:9-13
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The Prayer of the Day:
Almighty God, we thank you for planting in us the seed of your word. By your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy, live according to it, and grow in faith and hope and love, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
A Few Thoughts:
1. As I've explained before, some scholars believe that Isaiah was written by three different authors over an extended period of time. Because the ancients didn't have the same understanding of authorship that we have, it was considered legitimate for a writer trained by a particular teacher or trained by teachers operating in a teacher's school of thought, to write in that person's names. Scholars claim to be able to discern an Isaiah, a Deutero-Isaiah, and a Trito-Isaiah, each writing at distinctive times in ancient Israel's history.
2. According to Lutheran scholar Ralph Klein, our first lesson, from Isaiah, comes at the end of Deutero-Isaiah (Second Isaiah), a section of the book composed of chapters 40 through 55.
3. Klein goes on to say of the Isaiah passage:
5. In our lesson from the Psalm, David says that the water God sends to earth accomplishes something. It brings growth. In just the same way, our other lessons remind us, God's Word accomplishes good things in those open to it.
6. In last Sunday's lesson from Romans, Paul wrestled with the fact that the law of sin that lives in all of us thwarts even the good-intentioned from doing the right thing. (Anybody who's ever made a New Year's resolution knows all about this!) He asks, if we can't be relied on to live according to God's law of love for God and neighbor, even when we don't want to us, who can save us from futility? He answers by saying, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" We throw ourselves on God's mercy and God helps us.
How? That's the question that today's lesson answers.
7. It begins by reveling in the fact all "who are in Christ Jesus," that is, all who repent of sin and follow Jesus Christ, are free of the rightful condemnation for sin that is the common lot of all humanity.
8. Paul then draws a contrast between what he calls "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" and "the law of sin and death." The Spirit of God (also the Spirit of Christ), the Holy Spirit, enables us to trust the Good News of Jesus Christ. Once we are under Christ's lordship, we're set free from the old domination of sin which, barring what He accomplished for us through His death and resurrection, otherwise would have led to our everlasting separation from God.
9. Verse 4 makes clear that God's implacable requirement of righteousness are fulfilled in us not because of our obedience to the "first law," the laws embodied in the Ten Commandments and in Jesus' response to the young man about the greatest commands of God. When it come to obeying these laws, we have failed and failure leads to death.
But by the power of the Spirit, we are able to believe in Christ, Who has obeyed the law perfectly and payed the penalty for sin--death--on our behalf.
Belief in Christ then, is obedience to "the law of the Spirit," the means by which God graciously makes it possible for rebel sinners to be fit for eternity with God.
Those familiar with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will see how C.S. Lewis worked this element of Biblical faith into the novel. There, Edmund turns traitor against Aslan, his siblings, and the people of Narnia. According to what's called "the deep magic" of that world, the White Witch, sort of a devil figure, has right to take Edmund's blood as "forfeit" for his treachery. She demands that Aslan turn Edmund over to her. Instead, Aslan gives his own life in Edmund's place. In this way, the "deep magic" is assuaged, just as in Christ's death, the appropriate sentence of the law that all sin deserves death, is fulfilled.
In Narnia, Aslan, resurrected like Jesus, later explains, there was "a deeper magic." It held that "when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead...death itself would start working backwards..." The deeper magic of our real world is what Paul calls "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." As we trust Jesus Christ, our own death works backwards. We are made alive with Christ!
10. In the balance of the lesson from Romans, Paul talks about those who "live according to the flesh" over against those who have "set their mind on the Spirit." This is really no different from the contrast between the law of sin and death and the law of the Spirit.
Please note that when Paul talks about "the flesh," he isn't talking about sex, as many erroneously conclude. He's referring to people who have a "this world is all there is" mentality. Afflicted by this perspective, we no longer look at things from God's point of view. Life "in the flesh" can even take over among people who confess Christ as their Lord. Most frequently, it causes them to be closed-minded, to turn their churches into museums, and their faith into tales of what God did "back then," rather than relying on God to lead them through life today. Among those who don't profess belief in Christ, living "in the flesh" leads to all sorts of ills: materialism, racism, sexism, promiscuity, selfishness, traditionalism, and so on.
11. The Gospel lesson from Matthew happens on the same day that Jesus runs into opposition from the religious leaders of His nation and He claims that His true family aren't the mother, sisters, and brothers among whom He was raised in Nazareth, but all those who do the will of the Father. (See here.)
12. The great question with which we're left at the end of Matthew, chapter 12, is if Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy of a Savior, why is Israel, including it seems, His Nazareth kin, repudiating Him?
13. In Matthew, chapter 13, Jesus answers that question through a string of parables, most notably the one that begins the chapter, in verses 1 through 9, which Jesus goes on to explain to His disciples (and to us) in verses 18 through 23. For a detailed exploration of this passage, go here. There, I also explain a little bit about parables.
The Bible Lessons:
Isaiah 55:10-13
Psalm 65:9-13
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
The Prayer of the Day:
Almighty God, we thank you for planting in us the seed of your word. By your Holy Spirit help us to receive it with joy, live according to it, and grow in faith and hope and love, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.
A Few Thoughts:
1. As I've explained before, some scholars believe that Isaiah was written by three different authors over an extended period of time. Because the ancients didn't have the same understanding of authorship that we have, it was considered legitimate for a writer trained by a particular teacher or trained by teachers operating in a teacher's school of thought, to write in that person's names. Scholars claim to be able to discern an Isaiah, a Deutero-Isaiah, and a Trito-Isaiah, each writing at distinctive times in ancient Israel's history.
2. According to Lutheran scholar Ralph Klein, our first lesson, from Isaiah, comes at the end of Deutero-Isaiah (Second Isaiah), a section of the book composed of chapters 40 through 55.
3. Klein goes on to say of the Isaiah passage:
- The prophet compares the sureness of Yahweh's word of promise to the regularity and effectiveness of rain and snow, which do not just bounce back to the sky, but soak into the ground and bring forth abundant crops.
- God's word too does not return to God empty-handed, but carries out the tasks God has assigned to it.
- Verse 12 returns to the theme of a new Exodus, which has emerged often in the previous sixteen chapters. The deliverance of Israel will lead to a new creation, a re-creation, of nature. The mountains and hills will hail this day with singing, and all the trees will give liberated Israel a standing ovation. Instead of weeds and other noxious plants there will be cypress and myrtle.
- These events will lead to Yahweh's honor; they will be an everlasting sign which will never lose its effectiveness.
In Old Testament times, vows were taken seriously and fulfilled completely. No one had to take a vow, but once made, it was binding (Deuteronomy 23:21-23). The vow being fulfilled here is to praise God for his answers to prayer.I cringe to think of how often I've prayed desperately for something and after God has answered the prayer, often in ways far more fantastic than I would have imagined, just gone on about my business, as though His grace was what I deserved, not a word of thanksgiving passing from me to God. That's nothing less than shameful! At least in this instance, David wasn't so mindless: He thanked God.
5. In our lesson from the Psalm, David says that the water God sends to earth accomplishes something. It brings growth. In just the same way, our other lessons remind us, God's Word accomplishes good things in those open to it.
6. In last Sunday's lesson from Romans, Paul wrestled with the fact that the law of sin that lives in all of us thwarts even the good-intentioned from doing the right thing. (Anybody who's ever made a New Year's resolution knows all about this!) He asks, if we can't be relied on to live according to God's law of love for God and neighbor, even when we don't want to us, who can save us from futility? He answers by saying, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" We throw ourselves on God's mercy and God helps us.
How? That's the question that today's lesson answers.
7. It begins by reveling in the fact all "who are in Christ Jesus," that is, all who repent of sin and follow Jesus Christ, are free of the rightful condemnation for sin that is the common lot of all humanity.
8. Paul then draws a contrast between what he calls "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" and "the law of sin and death." The Spirit of God (also the Spirit of Christ), the Holy Spirit, enables us to trust the Good News of Jesus Christ. Once we are under Christ's lordship, we're set free from the old domination of sin which, barring what He accomplished for us through His death and resurrection, otherwise would have led to our everlasting separation from God.
9. Verse 4 makes clear that God's implacable requirement of righteousness are fulfilled in us not because of our obedience to the "first law," the laws embodied in the Ten Commandments and in Jesus' response to the young man about the greatest commands of God. When it come to obeying these laws, we have failed and failure leads to death.
But by the power of the Spirit, we are able to believe in Christ, Who has obeyed the law perfectly and payed the penalty for sin--death--on our behalf.
Belief in Christ then, is obedience to "the law of the Spirit," the means by which God graciously makes it possible for rebel sinners to be fit for eternity with God.
Those familiar with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will see how C.S. Lewis worked this element of Biblical faith into the novel. There, Edmund turns traitor against Aslan, his siblings, and the people of Narnia. According to what's called "the deep magic" of that world, the White Witch, sort of a devil figure, has right to take Edmund's blood as "forfeit" for his treachery. She demands that Aslan turn Edmund over to her. Instead, Aslan gives his own life in Edmund's place. In this way, the "deep magic" is assuaged, just as in Christ's death, the appropriate sentence of the law that all sin deserves death, is fulfilled.
In Narnia, Aslan, resurrected like Jesus, later explains, there was "a deeper magic." It held that "when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead...death itself would start working backwards..." The deeper magic of our real world is what Paul calls "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." As we trust Jesus Christ, our own death works backwards. We are made alive with Christ!
10. In the balance of the lesson from Romans, Paul talks about those who "live according to the flesh" over against those who have "set their mind on the Spirit." This is really no different from the contrast between the law of sin and death and the law of the Spirit.
Please note that when Paul talks about "the flesh," he isn't talking about sex, as many erroneously conclude. He's referring to people who have a "this world is all there is" mentality. Afflicted by this perspective, we no longer look at things from God's point of view. Life "in the flesh" can even take over among people who confess Christ as their Lord. Most frequently, it causes them to be closed-minded, to turn their churches into museums, and their faith into tales of what God did "back then," rather than relying on God to lead them through life today. Among those who don't profess belief in Christ, living "in the flesh" leads to all sorts of ills: materialism, racism, sexism, promiscuity, selfishness, traditionalism, and so on.
11. The Gospel lesson from Matthew happens on the same day that Jesus runs into opposition from the religious leaders of His nation and He claims that His true family aren't the mother, sisters, and brothers among whom He was raised in Nazareth, but all those who do the will of the Father. (See here.)
12. The great question with which we're left at the end of Matthew, chapter 12, is if Jesus is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy of a Savior, why is Israel, including it seems, His Nazareth kin, repudiating Him?
13. In Matthew, chapter 13, Jesus answers that question through a string of parables, most notably the one that begins the chapter, in verses 1 through 9, which Jesus goes on to explain to His disciples (and to us) in verses 18 through 23. For a detailed exploration of this passage, go here. There, I also explain a little bit about parables.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Another Big Enemy of Our Holy Resolves: Us
Last week, I wrote this piece both for our church's newsletter and the blog. In it, I talked about how the devil will work immediately and feverishly to undermine positive resolutions we make.
The piece has elicited emails and personal conversations, people sharing their own stories of how they seemed immediately thwarted by "unseen forces" from fulfilling their own "holy resolves."
Of course, the devil isn't the only one who works to keep us from living life God's way. As I mentioned in that piece last week, Martin Luther, in The Small Catechism, succinctly identifies the three main thwarters of our doing the right things in our lives: the devil, the world, and our sinful selves.
The second Bible lesson read in our Lutheran churches yesterday, written by the apostle Paul in about 65AD, had a thing or two to say about that last thwarter of holy intentions. I like the way Eugene Peterson renders the yesterday's lesson in The Message, a wonderful paraphrase/translation of the Bible:
If we're sincere about wanting to live life God's way, with love for God and neighbor, a commitment to justice for all people, compassion for the poor, and a desire to share the good news about Christ with others, God will help us overcome the sin in us.
God is willing to help us keep our holy resolves.
This side of heaven, we will do God's will imperfectly and the rebel sinner in us will cause us to fail to love God and love others throughout our lives. But as we submit to the God we know through Christ, even we rebels will at times evidence the love, goodness, and grace of the God Who went to a cross and rose for imperfect people like me.
Those are comforting thoughts for me as I ask God to help me each day to know and do His will.
The piece has elicited emails and personal conversations, people sharing their own stories of how they seemed immediately thwarted by "unseen forces" from fulfilling their own "holy resolves."
Of course, the devil isn't the only one who works to keep us from living life God's way. As I mentioned in that piece last week, Martin Luther, in The Small Catechism, succinctly identifies the three main thwarters of our doing the right things in our lives: the devil, the world, and our sinful selves.
The second Bible lesson read in our Lutheran churches yesterday, written by the apostle Paul in about 65AD, had a thing or two to say about that last thwarter of holy intentions. I like the way Eugene Peterson renders the yesterday's lesson in The Message, a wonderful paraphrase/translation of the Bible:
What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.The wonderful thing is that the God Who "justifies" sinners like me, reconciling us to Himself in spite of our sins as a free gift, simply because we repent and believe in Jesus Christ, "sanctifies"--or makes us holy--after we've come to believe in precisely the same way, as a free gift.
But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:15-25)
If we're sincere about wanting to live life God's way, with love for God and neighbor, a commitment to justice for all people, compassion for the poor, and a desire to share the good news about Christ with others, God will help us overcome the sin in us.
God is willing to help us keep our holy resolves.
This side of heaven, we will do God's will imperfectly and the rebel sinner in us will cause us to fail to love God and love others throughout our lives. But as we submit to the God we know through Christ, even we rebels will at times evidence the love, goodness, and grace of the God Who went to a cross and rose for imperfect people like me.
Those are comforting thoughts for me as I ask God to help me each day to know and do His will.
Two Prayer Petitions from July 6 Worship
Here are two petitions that were included in our prayers on Sunday at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio:
Pastor: We thank you for the privilege of living in a land in which, without fear and in freedom, we can worship and serve You and others in Christ’s Name. Help us to honor our country best not by putting it first in our priorities, but You. And help us too, to live by the ethos of the true patriot: our country, when right, to keep it right and when wrong, to make it right. God, we thank You for blessing America and in response, we pray that You would help us be a blessing to others. Hear us, O God;[In part, these prayer petitions are based on those provided to congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I invite you to pray these prayers for our country and our world with us.]
Congregation: Your mercy is great.
Pastor: We pray for nations and peoples that suffer oppression and scarcity at the hands of the powerful, that they may find restoration in your promise of life. Especially today, we lift up the imprisoned peoples of Zimbabwe, China, and Tibet. Hear us, O God;
Congregation: your mercy is great.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Purpose: The Deeper Meaning of Jesus' Call to "Rest"
[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
You may have heard the story before of the man who came upon a construction site and stuck around to watch some brick masons do their work.
He called out to one and asked, “What are you doing?” This guy, nose in the mortar, grunted impatiently, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m laying this row of bricks.”
But not satisfied with that answer, the man asked a second brick mason the same question, “What are you doing?” This second guy looked up and with a smile on his face said, “I’m helping to build a great cathedral! Just think of it, for as long as God wants it to be here, this will be a place where people will come to worship and praise God, get God's comfort, enjoy being with other believers, commit their marriages to God, baptize their children, and be sent out to serve others in Christ’s Name. I have a great job!”
Both brick masons answered the question accurately. But the second one had something the first one lacked. It’s that something Jesus wants you and me to have and He talks about it in today’s Gospel lesson. Let’s pray….
Gracious Jesus: Help us to find our rest in You. Amen.
"Life's greatest burden," Methodist Bishop William Willimon has said, "is not having too much to do, but in having nothing worthwhile to do."
That statement rings true, I think. It’s been my observation that most people are busy, busy to the point of exhaustion and not just with their daily jobs. But, like the first brick mason, not many are sure that the things with which they're busy really matter. And that can wear people out.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus tells us, "Come to Me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."
I have always thought that in those words, Jesus was inviting us to cast aside all the oppressive ways of living, all the sins, and all the scurrying we do to prove ourselves to an often bruising and demanding world and to instead accept the acceptance and thrive in the love that comes as a free gift to those who let Him wrap His arms of forgiveness, love, and hope around us.
I still think that's what He means. But, I've come to believe that's only part of what Jesus is inviting us to do when He says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." There's something more.
That something more is hinted at when Jesus goes on to say in our lesson: "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. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
First of all, there's that word we see translated as “easy.” We like easy. We wish those easy buttons in the Staples commercials really did make all the tough and annoying challenges of life go away. In fact, we speak of people “taking it easy” as doing nothing but hanging out on the beach all our lives.
But in the original Greek of the New Testament, that word translated as easy was an adjective for something or someone that was useful, kind, good for a purpose, suitable.
An easy hammer was one well-suited to driving in nails, for example. In describing His yoke as easy, Jesus was saying that it would be the right fit for us. Chances are the first brick mason had no more business being a brick mason than I would have. I have no talent for it. It doesn’t fit me. Jesus’ yoke custom fits everybody. He has a custom-made one for all of us. That’s what makes it easy.
But there’s a second hint that in inviting us to come to Him and find rest, Jesus means more than letting Him wrap us in grace. A yoke, you know, is a wooden bar put on the backs of oxen so that they can do work in the field. So far as I know, a yoke is never put on just one ox. Yokes are put on two oxen or a team of them. Jesus says, "Take My yoke upon you."
What's He saying? I think this: "I've got work I'm doing. I'm giving the love and provision of God away to the whole human family, so that all who follow Me will have life forever with God. It's sometimes hard work. It requires self-sacrifice and devotion. I laid down My life for this end. But it's fulfilling work. It's joyful work. And I want you to get in harness and join me in doing it! It'll be the lightest burden you've ever felt because finally, you won't feel that you've got too much to do or that you're doing something foreign to your God-given nature; you'll feel that you're doing exactly what you were made to do and I’ll be right beside you. You'll play precisely the role in my mission that was designed into your make-up before you were born!"
Jesus is inviting us to a new way of living. When we turn from sin and the death-bound ways of the world, Jesus empowers us to experience the sense of purpose for which we were made! When we submit to Jesus’ yoke, He gives us the ability to make the right choices, the ones that honor Him, provide adequately for our families, serve others, and fulfill our desire to be useful as well as busy. That's the yoke that Jesus wants to place on our shoulders.
There is a God-given joy that comes to us when we feel that, in however small a way it might be, whether on our jobs or in our lives as family members or neighbors, we're doing God's work for us, loving God and our neighbor in our own unique ways.
Years ago, I heard a sermon by a pastor whose daughter told him as he was tucking her in and having good night prayers with her that she wanted to be an actress. “When I’m playing a part,” the then-twelve year old told her father, “I feel alive!” Twenty years later, that girl is an actress. She never made it big in Hollywood. She found her niche as part of drama troupe at a large church where thought-provoking skits and plays honor God and entertain its community. But that young woman is at ease. She’s wearing the custom-fitting yoke of Jesus, honoring God by doing what Christ calls her to do.
So does a friend of mine who has two master’s degrees, one in Education and the other in Divinity. He’s a brilliant guy and he was always a far better student that I ever was. But he found his niche neither at a university or a church. Instead, he works in retail, allowing him, once he’s clocked out for the day, to do the work that, for him, is easy and that allows him to play his role in Christ’s mission in the world. He provides free computer software and hardware expertise to the large congregation of which he’s a member and to many people in his church and community. Yes, he takes on tasks that he wouldn’t otherwise need to take on. But what looks like hard, unnecessary, after-hours work to others—and would be for me—is easy for him. He’s using his God-given talents to honor God. Whenever we do that, whether on the clock or not, the burden is light. It’s easy.
The yoke of lives set free from futility, the easy burden Jesus invites us to experience in today’s Gospel lesson, comes to those who stop long enough to simply let Jesus love them...to those who have had enough of lives lived only for the almighty buck, or the high opinions of others, or to feed their egos...and who are ready to live with a sense of purpose.
They declare their dependence on God and let themselves be harnessed with Jesus in doing His will and His work in the world. When we allow the love and acceptance of God, given to us through Christ, to saturate our lives, we'll choose doing the important over the urgent and even when we're busy, we'll be at peace. Our hearts and our souls will have true rest, given by the Lord Who loved us all the way to the cross.
Today, why not make your own declaration of dependence on Jesus Christ? As we pray the Lord’s Prayer this morning, resolve that when you say, “Thy will be done,” really mean it. Be open to asking God to help you experience the authentic ease that comes from playing the part in God’s plans for the world which the Creator of the world made just for you. This week, make it your prayer to ask God, “Lord, what do you want me to do today? What ministry of service in Your Name do You want me to perform?”
Then, be prepared to experience the peace that comes from being harnessed as one with Jesus, going where God leads, being who God calls you to be.
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
You may have heard the story before of the man who came upon a construction site and stuck around to watch some brick masons do their work.
He called out to one and asked, “What are you doing?” This guy, nose in the mortar, grunted impatiently, “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m laying this row of bricks.”
But not satisfied with that answer, the man asked a second brick mason the same question, “What are you doing?” This second guy looked up and with a smile on his face said, “I’m helping to build a great cathedral! Just think of it, for as long as God wants it to be here, this will be a place where people will come to worship and praise God, get God's comfort, enjoy being with other believers, commit their marriages to God, baptize their children, and be sent out to serve others in Christ’s Name. I have a great job!”
Both brick masons answered the question accurately. But the second one had something the first one lacked. It’s that something Jesus wants you and me to have and He talks about it in today’s Gospel lesson. Let’s pray….
Gracious Jesus: Help us to find our rest in You. Amen.
"Life's greatest burden," Methodist Bishop William Willimon has said, "is not having too much to do, but in having nothing worthwhile to do."
That statement rings true, I think. It’s been my observation that most people are busy, busy to the point of exhaustion and not just with their daily jobs. But, like the first brick mason, not many are sure that the things with which they're busy really matter. And that can wear people out.
In our Gospel lesson, Jesus tells us, "Come to Me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."
I have always thought that in those words, Jesus was inviting us to cast aside all the oppressive ways of living, all the sins, and all the scurrying we do to prove ourselves to an often bruising and demanding world and to instead accept the acceptance and thrive in the love that comes as a free gift to those who let Him wrap His arms of forgiveness, love, and hope around us.
I still think that's what He means. But, I've come to believe that's only part of what Jesus is inviting us to do when He says, "Come to Me, and I will give you rest." There's something more.
That something more is hinted at when Jesus goes on to say in our lesson: "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. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light."
First of all, there's that word we see translated as “easy.” We like easy. We wish those easy buttons in the Staples commercials really did make all the tough and annoying challenges of life go away. In fact, we speak of people “taking it easy” as doing nothing but hanging out on the beach all our lives.But in the original Greek of the New Testament, that word translated as easy was an adjective for something or someone that was useful, kind, good for a purpose, suitable.
An easy hammer was one well-suited to driving in nails, for example. In describing His yoke as easy, Jesus was saying that it would be the right fit for us. Chances are the first brick mason had no more business being a brick mason than I would have. I have no talent for it. It doesn’t fit me. Jesus’ yoke custom fits everybody. He has a custom-made one for all of us. That’s what makes it easy.
But there’s a second hint that in inviting us to come to Him and find rest, Jesus means more than letting Him wrap us in grace. A yoke, you know, is a wooden bar put on the backs of oxen so that they can do work in the field. So far as I know, a yoke is never put on just one ox. Yokes are put on two oxen or a team of them. Jesus says, "Take My yoke upon you."What's He saying? I think this: "I've got work I'm doing. I'm giving the love and provision of God away to the whole human family, so that all who follow Me will have life forever with God. It's sometimes hard work. It requires self-sacrifice and devotion. I laid down My life for this end. But it's fulfilling work. It's joyful work. And I want you to get in harness and join me in doing it! It'll be the lightest burden you've ever felt because finally, you won't feel that you've got too much to do or that you're doing something foreign to your God-given nature; you'll feel that you're doing exactly what you were made to do and I’ll be right beside you. You'll play precisely the role in my mission that was designed into your make-up before you were born!"
Jesus is inviting us to a new way of living. When we turn from sin and the death-bound ways of the world, Jesus empowers us to experience the sense of purpose for which we were made! When we submit to Jesus’ yoke, He gives us the ability to make the right choices, the ones that honor Him, provide adequately for our families, serve others, and fulfill our desire to be useful as well as busy. That's the yoke that Jesus wants to place on our shoulders.
There is a God-given joy that comes to us when we feel that, in however small a way it might be, whether on our jobs or in our lives as family members or neighbors, we're doing God's work for us, loving God and our neighbor in our own unique ways.
Years ago, I heard a sermon by a pastor whose daughter told him as he was tucking her in and having good night prayers with her that she wanted to be an actress. “When I’m playing a part,” the then-twelve year old told her father, “I feel alive!” Twenty years later, that girl is an actress. She never made it big in Hollywood. She found her niche as part of drama troupe at a large church where thought-provoking skits and plays honor God and entertain its community. But that young woman is at ease. She’s wearing the custom-fitting yoke of Jesus, honoring God by doing what Christ calls her to do.
So does a friend of mine who has two master’s degrees, one in Education and the other in Divinity. He’s a brilliant guy and he was always a far better student that I ever was. But he found his niche neither at a university or a church. Instead, he works in retail, allowing him, once he’s clocked out for the day, to do the work that, for him, is easy and that allows him to play his role in Christ’s mission in the world. He provides free computer software and hardware expertise to the large congregation of which he’s a member and to many people in his church and community. Yes, he takes on tasks that he wouldn’t otherwise need to take on. But what looks like hard, unnecessary, after-hours work to others—and would be for me—is easy for him. He’s using his God-given talents to honor God. Whenever we do that, whether on the clock or not, the burden is light. It’s easy.
The yoke of lives set free from futility, the easy burden Jesus invites us to experience in today’s Gospel lesson, comes to those who stop long enough to simply let Jesus love them...to those who have had enough of lives lived only for the almighty buck, or the high opinions of others, or to feed their egos...and who are ready to live with a sense of purpose.
They declare their dependence on God and let themselves be harnessed with Jesus in doing His will and His work in the world. When we allow the love and acceptance of God, given to us through Christ, to saturate our lives, we'll choose doing the important over the urgent and even when we're busy, we'll be at peace. Our hearts and our souls will have true rest, given by the Lord Who loved us all the way to the cross.
Today, why not make your own declaration of dependence on Jesus Christ? As we pray the Lord’s Prayer this morning, resolve that when you say, “Thy will be done,” really mean it. Be open to asking God to help you experience the authentic ease that comes from playing the part in God’s plans for the world which the Creator of the world made just for you. This week, make it your prayer to ask God, “Lord, what do you want me to do today? What ministry of service in Your Name do You want me to perform?”
Then, be prepared to experience the peace that comes from being harnessed as one with Jesus, going where God leads, being who God calls you to be.
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Patriotism, Flag Lapel Pins, and Barack Obama
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer gleefully notes that Barack Obama is sporting a US flag lapel pin these days, just in time to appeal to more conservative voters in the general election.A Facebook friend, Amy Goldman, an embittered Hillary Clinton supporter who now is supporting John McCain, pointed earlier today to Krauthammer's column on the subject and said simply, "the faces of obama. NO DEAL," presumably meaning that Obama's seeming lapel pin "hypocrisy" is one more reason she will not be reconciled to his nomination for the presidency.
Frankly, both Obama and his assailants crack me up on this "issue." There are several reasons for my chuckling.
First of all, wearing a pin is no proof of patriotism. It's the easiest thing in the world to don a patriotic lapel pin, irrespective of one's true sentiments. (Although I must confess that every time I've owned and put on flag lapel pins, they've fallen off within hours, a problem I've not encountered with pins of any other type.) Inauthentic or showy patriotism often is the last refuge of political scoundrels.
Secondly, because a flag lapel pin really is no proof of one's patriotism, Obama shouldn't be so defensive about the matter. Now, he looks ridiculous whenever he puts a flag pin in his lapel, tacitly agreeing with the purveyors of photo op patriotism, pandering to them.
I wonder though how many folks who are exercised about this issue though, wear flag pins every time they're in public? I doubt it.
When I pointed this out to Amy Goldman, she didn't agree, saying that, as a presidential candidate, Obama should be held to a higher standard for patriotism than others.
But I don't think that we should have separate standards for presidents or would-be presidents from what we expect of other citizens. Are flag lapel pins now required of all citizens, a la loyalty oaths from the McCarthy era?
We ought to have other measures of the sort of patriotism that commends people for public office, including the presidency. The criteria might include:
1. Evidencing taking the time to be informed about public policy issues.If these attributes of citizenship are absent, no flag lapel pin will compensate for their lack. If they're present, no flag lapel pin will make the wearer any worthier for office.
2. Voting regularly in those candidate and issue races in which they've become informed and being honest enough to refrain from voting in those races in which they feel they're insufficiently informed.
3. Regularly engaging in service to neighbors and community and when possible, to the country.
4. Displaying an openness to hearing others out, even when their views differ from their own.
5. Displaying a maturing awareness of the country's history and principles.
6. Believing in the Constitution.
7. If a veteran, having a record of honorable service.
So far as I can remember, none of the country's greatest presidents wore US flag lapel pins. Not Washington, Lincoln, either Roosevelt, or Eisenhower.
Is Obama a patriot? I don't know. But a piece of metal or plastic on his suit coat won't answer that question either.
Friday, July 04, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
God: Our Friend, Not Our Buddy
"People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time."
The words come from the first installment written by C.S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They recount the moment when the four children from our world encounter Aslan, the central figure of Lewis' tales. Aslan, Lewis would say, was the result of his imagining what Christ would be like were he to enter a world as a lion.
When the four children meet Aslan, they experience both incredible fear and a sense of loving grace.
Lewis is right that such a mixture of feelings is foreign to many in this world.
I knew a woman who was in the habit of telling me that she hated it that in our Small Catechism, we Lutherans constantly said believers are "fear and love God." "We shouldn't be afraid of God," she would tell me in syrupy tones.
There is a sense in which that woman is right, of course. The central message of the New Testament--and of the entire Bible, for that matter--is that God, the creator of the human race, is for the human race and for us as individual people. In Christ, God is shown to be our friend who dies and rises for us and gives new life to all who will follow.
But God has the power to give us life and take it away and is perfect in righteousness and holiness in ways that should leave sensible people quaking. God is, as the twentieth-century Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich put it, "wholly other," our friend but not our buddy.
The woman who ignorantly railed against fear in God would be the first to fall all over herself in deference to presidents, kings, business magnates, sports heroes, and celebrities, never dreaming to presume being their buddy. Yet she wanted to withhold sensible deference from God.
I doubt that her thoughtlessness is unique. Some people have so bought into democratic ideals and an attenuated Freudianism that makes all people victims that they become insensible to the complete otherness of God.
All we human beings may stand as equals, sinners in need of redemption, human beings counted worthy of Christ's death and resurrection. But all of that makes God even more worthy of our honor, praise...and fear, not less.
I wonder if that woman paid any attention to the introduction and first petition of the Lord's Prayer that she said in worship each Sunday, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name..." These words, taught by Jesus himself, commend a sense that God is both "good and terrible."
Whenever inclined to see our loving God as a buddy rather than a friend, as someone we shouldn't fear, we would do well to look at Psalm 96:8-10:
The words come from the first installment written by C.S. Lewis in The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. They recount the moment when the four children from our world encounter Aslan, the central figure of Lewis' tales. Aslan, Lewis would say, was the result of his imagining what Christ would be like were he to enter a world as a lion.
When the four children meet Aslan, they experience both incredible fear and a sense of loving grace.
Lewis is right that such a mixture of feelings is foreign to many in this world.
I knew a woman who was in the habit of telling me that she hated it that in our Small Catechism, we Lutherans constantly said believers are "fear and love God." "We shouldn't be afraid of God," she would tell me in syrupy tones.
There is a sense in which that woman is right, of course. The central message of the New Testament--and of the entire Bible, for that matter--is that God, the creator of the human race, is for the human race and for us as individual people. In Christ, God is shown to be our friend who dies and rises for us and gives new life to all who will follow.
But God has the power to give us life and take it away and is perfect in righteousness and holiness in ways that should leave sensible people quaking. God is, as the twentieth-century Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich put it, "wholly other," our friend but not our buddy.
The woman who ignorantly railed against fear in God would be the first to fall all over herself in deference to presidents, kings, business magnates, sports heroes, and celebrities, never dreaming to presume being their buddy. Yet she wanted to withhold sensible deference from God.
I doubt that her thoughtlessness is unique. Some people have so bought into democratic ideals and an attenuated Freudianism that makes all people victims that they become insensible to the complete otherness of God.
All we human beings may stand as equals, sinners in need of redemption, human beings counted worthy of Christ's death and resurrection. But all of that makes God even more worthy of our honor, praise...and fear, not less.
I wonder if that woman paid any attention to the introduction and first petition of the Lord's Prayer that she said in worship each Sunday, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name..." These words, taught by Jesus himself, commend a sense that God is both "good and terrible."
Whenever inclined to see our loving God as a buddy rather than a friend, as someone we shouldn't fear, we would do well to look at Psalm 96:8-10:
Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name...
Worship the Lord in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth.
Say among the nations, “The Lord is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.”
Happy 4th. of July!
I hope you enjoy some of the following blasts from the past to mark the Fourth of July:What is the American Dream?
Our Best Presidents?
The Rest of the List
Some Thoughts on George Washington
On Alexander Hamilton
Habits of the Heart:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
The Promise and the Perils of Democracy:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Interpreting Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
'If You See Her, Say Hello' by Bob Dylan
My favorite all-time Bob Dylan LP is 'Blood on the Tracks,' written and recorded following the breakup of his marriage, released in 1975. It features one poignant and honest song after another, even the uptempo rockers.
But my favorite track is this one. I don't like the live versions of this song Dylan has played in recent concerts. It's just not an uptempo piece.
But my favorite track is this one. I don't like the live versions of this song Dylan has played in recent concerts. It's just not an uptempo piece.
Gods of Men
The video is pure-80s with a healthy dose of Uncle Randy humor, but check out Randy Stonehill's 'Gods of Men' (1985). Good stuff!
When Tim Skipper's dad, Kent, saw this video and watched the silly "choreography" of the female back-up singers, he said with unenthusiastic flatness, "Shake it, baby."
Every word of this song rings true, though!
When Tim Skipper's dad, Kent, saw this video and watched the silly "choreography" of the female back-up singers, he said with unenthusiastic flatness, "Shake it, baby."
Every word of this song rings true, though!
On Their Way from Amazon...
Liverpool 8 and Photograph: The Very Best, both from Ringo Starr. I'm stoked!
Check out the video for the title track of Liverpool 8, which Ringo co-wrote for former Eurythmic Dave Stewart, here.
Download Music Free...House of Heroes
The lead singer of House of Heroes is Tim Skipper, son of high school classmates of my wife and mine. Tim was born just days after our son Philip and in fact, somewhere around here, we have pics of the two of them when they were just little guys, taken when the Skippers came to visit us in northwestern Ohio. Anyway, a lot of time has passed since the boys frolicked in the baby pool with another classmate's son, Andy Ottney, while the grown-ups listened to Santana and Randy Stonehill. Download three free songs from House of Heroes.
Here's the House of Heroes site on MySpace.
Here's the House of Heroes site on MySpace.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Keep Following, Even When the Neighbors Aren't Saying, "Hello"
[This is an adaptation of my monthly article for the July, 2008 newsletter of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio.]
Has anything like this happened to you?
Sunday morning worship went well on June 29. I preached on the Gospel lesson, Matthew 10:40-42, and challenged the congregation and myself to see Jesus in the people around us and to extend Christian hospitality to them, including strangers.
To tell you the truth, I was stoked to meet my own challenge by intentionally greeting everyone with whom I came in contact.
After youth group ended that night, my wife Ann and I took a walk. Logan is a friendly place and people are usually generous with their hellos. Often, the walks that Ann, our son Phil, and I take around town get “interrupted,” when casual greetings turn into long conversations with friendly strangers.
But not this night. Instead, in spite of my new inspiration, almost every person to whom I said, “Hi,” or “Good evening,” or “How ya doin’?” met me with a vacant stare and silence.
The guy in front of his house just looked at me when I said hello. So did the teen heading for his car, the kid who passed us on his bike, and the woman walking her dog.
The next morning, as I thought about it, I couldn’t help smiling. Here’s why:
I have found that the very minute you understand God’s will for some aspect of your life and you try to follow God’s will, the devil, the world, and our sinful selves will get in your way.
The devil especially likes discouraging us from living life God’s way. He loves to snuff out the God-pleasing habits we’ve decided to adopt at the very moments we make our decisions.
The habits we’ve decided to take on could be anything from worshiping every Sunday to attending an evening Bible study, from giving more to the local food bank to spending time reading the Bible and praying each day. Or, it could be, as it was in my case, to be more deliberate in extending the hospitality of God to others.
The devil just loves to prevent us from keeping our “holy resolves.” When we Christians get discouraged about the daily business of being Christians, it makes the devil’s work easy.
The Bible isn’t exaggerating when it says, “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
The Bible states simply, “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil…” (Ephesians 6:12).
The minute you decide to do things God’s way is the minute that the devil will try to keep you from fulfilling your resolve. Take his obstructions as proof that you’re doing the right thing.
Don’t let the devil get his way. Pray simply, “Lord Jesus, Your will be done” and keep following Christ…even when the neighbors aren’t saying, “Hello.”
Has anything like this happened to you?
Sunday morning worship went well on June 29. I preached on the Gospel lesson, Matthew 10:40-42, and challenged the congregation and myself to see Jesus in the people around us and to extend Christian hospitality to them, including strangers.
To tell you the truth, I was stoked to meet my own challenge by intentionally greeting everyone with whom I came in contact.
After youth group ended that night, my wife Ann and I took a walk. Logan is a friendly place and people are usually generous with their hellos. Often, the walks that Ann, our son Phil, and I take around town get “interrupted,” when casual greetings turn into long conversations with friendly strangers.
But not this night. Instead, in spite of my new inspiration, almost every person to whom I said, “Hi,” or “Good evening,” or “How ya doin’?” met me with a vacant stare and silence.
The guy in front of his house just looked at me when I said hello. So did the teen heading for his car, the kid who passed us on his bike, and the woman walking her dog.
The next morning, as I thought about it, I couldn’t help smiling. Here’s why:
I have found that the very minute you understand God’s will for some aspect of your life and you try to follow God’s will, the devil, the world, and our sinful selves will get in your way.
The devil especially likes discouraging us from living life God’s way. He loves to snuff out the God-pleasing habits we’ve decided to adopt at the very moments we make our decisions.
The habits we’ve decided to take on could be anything from worshiping every Sunday to attending an evening Bible study, from giving more to the local food bank to spending time reading the Bible and praying each day. Or, it could be, as it was in my case, to be more deliberate in extending the hospitality of God to others.
The devil just loves to prevent us from keeping our “holy resolves.” When we Christians get discouraged about the daily business of being Christians, it makes the devil’s work easy.
The Bible isn’t exaggerating when it says, “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
The Bible states simply, “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil…” (Ephesians 6:12).
The minute you decide to do things God’s way is the minute that the devil will try to keep you from fulfilling your resolve. Take his obstructions as proof that you’re doing the right thing.
Don’t let the devil get his way. Pray simply, “Lord Jesus, Your will be done” and keep following Christ…even when the neighbors aren’t saying, “Hello.”
Liberated from Navel Gazing
This morning I read this about Christ's death on the cross and resurrection:
For years, I've known an elderly man who visits and prays with the sick from his church. He's not a pastor, just a a Christian set free from slavery to selfish priorities.
The happiest people I know are those who have been liberated from navel gazing. They're free to be human, free to connect with God and others.
I pray that someday, I'll be one of those kinds of people. If I do, it won't come through my steely resolve, but through the power for living that comes from Christ.
And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. (2 Corinthians 5:15)A thought that strikes me when reading that passage is that one of the reasons Christ died on the cross is to set us free from slavery to self, from the tyranny of always thinking about me. We no longer live just for ourselves. We live for the one who died and rose for us. Through Christ, we live too for all those other people for whom Christ died.
For years, I've known an elderly man who visits and prays with the sick from his church. He's not a pastor, just a a Christian set free from slavery to selfish priorities.
The happiest people I know are those who have been liberated from navel gazing. They're free to be human, free to connect with God and others.
I pray that someday, I'll be one of those kinds of people. If I do, it won't come through my steely resolve, but through the power for living that comes from Christ.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Welcoming Others in the Name of Christ
[This sermon was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]
Matthew 10:40-42
It was uncommonly warm that October day in 1990. My family and I had arrived in the Cincinnati-area neighborhood that would be our home for seventeen years less than two months before.
We had gone there to start a new congregation and as part of the start-up process, I was going door-to-door, eliciting interest in this adventure of faith.
On this particular day, I was knocking on doors, ringing doorbells, and running from German Shepherds when I came up the driveway of a woman who was weeding her flower bed. I introduced myself and we chatted for awhile.
“It’s awfully hot out here today,” she observed. “Would you like a drink of water?” I responded enthusiastically: “That would be great!”
Years later, that woman, by then a longtime member of the congregation I’d been called to start, told me that as she prepared the glass of ice water for me, she remembered words of Jesus that are in our Gospel lesson for this morning: “Whoever...gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple--truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
That woman believed that by welcoming me in Jesus’ Name, she was welcoming Jesus Himself. As His words in today’s Gospel lesson indicate, Jesus agrees with her.
Hospitality--for all people--is at the core of our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. It begins with God’s welcome of us. We know that we’re like the prodigal son in Jesus’ famous story. We’ve tried to make our way in the world and even when we’ve achieved success, we’ve experienced an emptiness that can only be filled by the God we know in Jesus. Like the father in that same story, God has welcomed us back.
This theme of hospitality is then, Jesus says, to be replicated in our own lives as we welcome others. The New Testament book of Hebrews, tells us, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)
That passage remembers an incident from the Old Testament when Abraham, the father of all with faith in God, had pitched his tent amid some oak trees and received strange visitors. It turned out that the three men were God and two of His angelic servants. (Saint Augustine, the bishop of the north African city of Hippo, believed that the three visitors were God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But that's another story.)
The point is that our every encounter with others might well represent divinely-orchestrated appointments.
Why? Because it’s God’s passionate desire to welcome into His kingdom others in the same way He’s welcomed you and me.
A woman who was a member of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, once told her former pastor, Mike Foss, how she’d landed in that congregation:
Through the years, I personally have known or talked with hundreds of people who could tell stories similar to the one told by that woman: How, at pivotal moments in their lives, they too were welcomed to turn from sin, to follow Jesus Christ, and to get involved with the ministries of the Church.
In fact, that’s really my story. When Ann and I were first married, you know, I rejected the very notion of God as a an unnecessary fiction, a crutch for the weak. The pastor of Ann’s home church didn’t know my sentiments when he dropped by our apartment one day and asked us to be the youth group leaders. But, having been welcomed into the ministry of the Church, I was incited to learn more about this Jesus I was serving. When we welcome others, we are most clearly doing Jesus’ will for our lives!
And this ministry of welcome isn’t something that we’re called upon to extend just to strangers. We're to extend it also to the people we know well, something that can, at times, be more difficult than reaching out to strangers.
The late priest Henri Nouwen, was an amazing writer and one who spent a good portion of his adult life living with and caring for the mentally retarded. Toward the end of his life, he ministered to gays and lesbians dying of AIDS and wept as he said that it broke his heart to see these people were literally dying for the love that the world had withheld from them.
In one of his books, Nouwen wrote about the nuclear family—moms, dads, and children--and observed that in those households where love prevailed and children thrived, there was a common thread: Parents treated their children as guests sent to them from God. That isn’t to say that the parents didn’t provide loving discipline. But these parents, Nouwen observed, never lost sight of the fact that their children were gifts sent to them from God.
How might our lives be changed if we regarded every person we encountered as though they were a very special guest: Jesus?
What consideration might we show them?
Would we quench their thirst for hope and kindness?
Jesus says that when we freely give to others the same hospitality and welcome He has given to us, we in turn hold on tightly to the free gifts of forgiveness and life He gives to all who follow Him.
During our recent mission trip, some of our church members cleaned a Christian elementary school in inner city Grand Rapids. The staff there deeply respected the principal. One of the stories they told about him is how at the beginning of each school day, this principal greets every student by name and shakes their hands. It’s a simple thing. But that simple gesture may alone explain the success that school seems to be having in turning the lives of at-risk children around. You see, by acknowledging those children personally, that principal is saying. “I see the Jesus in you. I see how important you are. Welcome to this outpost of God’s kingdom!”
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a sort of parable about the day of judgment when He will judge the whole world. Those who enter His kingdom, Jesus says, are those who saw the Jesus in the neighbor, in the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned.
When we see Jesus in those around us and extend Christ’s love to them, something amazing happens: they see Christ in us.
This week, I hope that you’ll join me in accepting the challenge in Jesus’ words to us today, the challenge of making Christian hospitality part of our lives each day.
We could try, for example, to ask a co-worker or a neighbor how they’re doing and then, actually take the time to hear their answers.
We could invite a spiritually disconnected friend to be with us for worship next Sunday or come with you to the Roots of Our Faith class tomorrow evening.
Let’s extend the loving welcome of Jesus to those who need Him. For a world thirsting for love and truth, hope and God, we can be a cup of cool water that refreshes them now and gives them hope for eternity.
Matthew 10:40-42
It was uncommonly warm that October day in 1990. My family and I had arrived in the Cincinnati-area neighborhood that would be our home for seventeen years less than two months before.
We had gone there to start a new congregation and as part of the start-up process, I was going door-to-door, eliciting interest in this adventure of faith.
On this particular day, I was knocking on doors, ringing doorbells, and running from German Shepherds when I came up the driveway of a woman who was weeding her flower bed. I introduced myself and we chatted for awhile.
“It’s awfully hot out here today,” she observed. “Would you like a drink of water?” I responded enthusiastically: “That would be great!”
Years later, that woman, by then a longtime member of the congregation I’d been called to start, told me that as she prepared the glass of ice water for me, she remembered words of Jesus that are in our Gospel lesson for this morning: “Whoever...gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple--truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”
That woman believed that by welcoming me in Jesus’ Name, she was welcoming Jesus Himself. As His words in today’s Gospel lesson indicate, Jesus agrees with her.
Hospitality--for all people--is at the core of our lives as followers of Jesus Christ. It begins with God’s welcome of us. We know that we’re like the prodigal son in Jesus’ famous story. We’ve tried to make our way in the world and even when we’ve achieved success, we’ve experienced an emptiness that can only be filled by the God we know in Jesus. Like the father in that same story, God has welcomed us back.
This theme of hospitality is then, Jesus says, to be replicated in our own lives as we welcome others. The New Testament book of Hebrews, tells us, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” (Hebrews 13:2)
That passage remembers an incident from the Old Testament when Abraham, the father of all with faith in God, had pitched his tent amid some oak trees and received strange visitors. It turned out that the three men were God and two of His angelic servants. (Saint Augustine, the bishop of the north African city of Hippo, believed that the three visitors were God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But that's another story.)
The point is that our every encounter with others might well represent divinely-orchestrated appointments.
Why? Because it’s God’s passionate desire to welcome into His kingdom others in the same way He’s welcomed you and me.
A woman who was a member of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Burnsville, Minnesota, once told her former pastor, Mike Foss, how she’d landed in that congregation:
“I came to this church when I was at a crossroads in my life, Pastor Mike. My marriage had failed, I was between jobs, and struggling to find myself. And when I came [here], the first thing I noticed was how warm it felt, how close to Jesus it brought me. But the best thing was that, when I looked for a place to serve and belong, I found [several] right away...[I got involved with several small groups.] This church not only gave me a sense of the nearness of God, but by welcoming me into ministry, by making room for a stranger, I could belong.”Foss says that the woman then looked at him for a moment and said, “Pastor Mike, this church gave me the strength to believe in God and myself again. I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for the people of [this congregation].”
Through the years, I personally have known or talked with hundreds of people who could tell stories similar to the one told by that woman: How, at pivotal moments in their lives, they too were welcomed to turn from sin, to follow Jesus Christ, and to get involved with the ministries of the Church.
In fact, that’s really my story. When Ann and I were first married, you know, I rejected the very notion of God as a an unnecessary fiction, a crutch for the weak. The pastor of Ann’s home church didn’t know my sentiments when he dropped by our apartment one day and asked us to be the youth group leaders. But, having been welcomed into the ministry of the Church, I was incited to learn more about this Jesus I was serving. When we welcome others, we are most clearly doing Jesus’ will for our lives!
And this ministry of welcome isn’t something that we’re called upon to extend just to strangers. We're to extend it also to the people we know well, something that can, at times, be more difficult than reaching out to strangers.
The late priest Henri Nouwen, was an amazing writer and one who spent a good portion of his adult life living with and caring for the mentally retarded. Toward the end of his life, he ministered to gays and lesbians dying of AIDS and wept as he said that it broke his heart to see these people were literally dying for the love that the world had withheld from them.
In one of his books, Nouwen wrote about the nuclear family—moms, dads, and children--and observed that in those households where love prevailed and children thrived, there was a common thread: Parents treated their children as guests sent to them from God. That isn’t to say that the parents didn’t provide loving discipline. But these parents, Nouwen observed, never lost sight of the fact that their children were gifts sent to them from God.
How might our lives be changed if we regarded every person we encountered as though they were a very special guest: Jesus?
What consideration might we show them?
Would we quench their thirst for hope and kindness?
Jesus says that when we freely give to others the same hospitality and welcome He has given to us, we in turn hold on tightly to the free gifts of forgiveness and life He gives to all who follow Him.
During our recent mission trip, some of our church members cleaned a Christian elementary school in inner city Grand Rapids. The staff there deeply respected the principal. One of the stories they told about him is how at the beginning of each school day, this principal greets every student by name and shakes their hands. It’s a simple thing. But that simple gesture may alone explain the success that school seems to be having in turning the lives of at-risk children around. You see, by acknowledging those children personally, that principal is saying. “I see the Jesus in you. I see how important you are. Welcome to this outpost of God’s kingdom!”
In Matthew 25, Jesus tells a sort of parable about the day of judgment when He will judge the whole world. Those who enter His kingdom, Jesus says, are those who saw the Jesus in the neighbor, in the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the imprisoned.
When we see Jesus in those around us and extend Christ’s love to them, something amazing happens: they see Christ in us.
This week, I hope that you’ll join me in accepting the challenge in Jesus’ words to us today, the challenge of making Christian hospitality part of our lives each day.
We could try, for example, to ask a co-worker or a neighbor how they’re doing and then, actually take the time to hear their answers.
We could invite a spiritually disconnected friend to be with us for worship next Sunday or come with you to the Roots of Our Faith class tomorrow evening.
Let’s extend the loving welcome of Jesus to those who need Him. For a world thirsting for love and truth, hope and God, we can be a cup of cool water that refreshes them now and gives them hope for eternity.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
"God seems to value character more than our comfort...
"...often using the very elements that cause us the most discomfort as His tools in fashioning that character." A tough, but hopeful lesson taught by God.
Check out what Paul writes in Second Corinthians (New Testament):
Check out what Paul writes in Second Corinthians (New Testament):
Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it's all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become. [2 Corinthians 12:7-10, The Message]
Robert Mugabe's Winning Campaign Slogan...
"Vote for me or die."
The UN Security Council, including neighboring South Africa, passed a tepid condemnation of yesterday's sham election in Zimbabwe. But the ball is now in the court of the African Union, whose member nations are the ones who must bring pressure to bear on Mugabe to step down by refusing to recognize him as the legitimately elected president of his country.
The UN Security Council, including neighboring South Africa, passed a tepid condemnation of yesterday's sham election in Zimbabwe. But the ball is now in the court of the African Union, whose member nations are the ones who must bring pressure to bear on Mugabe to step down by refusing to recognize him as the legitimately elected president of his country.
Friday, June 27, 2008
With Low Turnout, Zimbabweans Are Voting for End of Mugabe Era
What if a thug government held an election and almost nobody voted?
That appears to be what's happening today in Zimbabwe. Violent intimidation by strongman president Robert Mugabe toward the supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai caused the insurgent candidate to withdraw from today's runoff election several days ago.
Besides wanting to protect his supporters from increasing violence, Tsvangirai's motivation appeared to be force the international community, particularly leaders of other southern African nations, to repudiate the legitimacy of today's balloting. For years, the fellowship of African leaders have looked the other way as Mugabe not only spectacularly mismanaged Zimbabwe's economy, but also terrorized its people, intimidating those who would even consider voting for opponents.
Some African leaders have spoken out against Mugabe's scare tactics in recent days. But, disappointingly, the African National Congress (ANC), ruling party in South Africa, has basically supported this sham election. South Africa is the most important power in that region of Africa and, in spite of the evidence, may, by its support, give Mugabe's thuggery a patina of legitimacy it doesn't deserve.
But so far, turnout in Zimbabwe is low. That may give wise members of the international community sufficient cover for saying what the Zimbabweans are today obviously saying: The government of Mugabe is illegitimate.
It will be of little importance for Britain or the United States to make such statements, or even the United Nations. Britain is Mugabe's favorite straw man, the one-time colonial power he constantly claims wants to re-take Zimbabwe. The US is portrayed as a colonial apologist. The UN is composed of many nations Mugabe might readily dismiss.
But if South Africa and other African countries, who have for decades legitimated Mugabe's dysfunctional and violent reign of error, were to refuse to accept the results of today's Zimbabwean runoff, it might be the beginning of the end for Mugabe and the start of a new beginning for Zimbabwe.
The people of Zimbabwe, by not voting, appear to be voting. They want Robert Mugabe to leave the presidency. The international community ought to recognize what they're telling us.
That appears to be what's happening today in Zimbabwe. Violent intimidation by strongman president Robert Mugabe toward the supporters of Morgan Tsvangirai caused the insurgent candidate to withdraw from today's runoff election several days ago.
Besides wanting to protect his supporters from increasing violence, Tsvangirai's motivation appeared to be force the international community, particularly leaders of other southern African nations, to repudiate the legitimacy of today's balloting. For years, the fellowship of African leaders have looked the other way as Mugabe not only spectacularly mismanaged Zimbabwe's economy, but also terrorized its people, intimidating those who would even consider voting for opponents.
Some African leaders have spoken out against Mugabe's scare tactics in recent days. But, disappointingly, the African National Congress (ANC), ruling party in South Africa, has basically supported this sham election. South Africa is the most important power in that region of Africa and, in spite of the evidence, may, by its support, give Mugabe's thuggery a patina of legitimacy it doesn't deserve.
But so far, turnout in Zimbabwe is low. That may give wise members of the international community sufficient cover for saying what the Zimbabweans are today obviously saying: The government of Mugabe is illegitimate.
It will be of little importance for Britain or the United States to make such statements, or even the United Nations. Britain is Mugabe's favorite straw man, the one-time colonial power he constantly claims wants to re-take Zimbabwe. The US is portrayed as a colonial apologist. The UN is composed of many nations Mugabe might readily dismiss.
But if South Africa and other African countries, who have for decades legitimated Mugabe's dysfunctional and violent reign of error, were to refuse to accept the results of today's Zimbabwean runoff, it might be the beginning of the end for Mugabe and the start of a new beginning for Zimbabwe.
The people of Zimbabwe, by not voting, appear to be voting. They want Robert Mugabe to leave the presidency. The international community ought to recognize what they're telling us.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Review: Coldplay's New CD, 'Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends'
Same old, same old from a band that could do better. Boring.
What I Get Out of Mission Trips
From Sunday, June 15 through Friday, June 20, eight young people, three other adults, and I, all from Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, participated in a Group Workcamps Foundation Week of Hope mission trip. We were in Grand Rapids, Michigan, part of a group sixty-eight youth and adults from four different churches, three different faith backgrounds, and three states.I talked a little bit about the experience in my sermon of last Sunday.
This is the second year for me to participate in Group's mission trip program. (Last year, I was part of a similar retinue from the parish I previously served as pastor, Friendship Lutheran Church in the Cincinnati area.) Group splits up the members of youth groups, affording participants to meet and work with people from other Christian faith traditions. (And, probably not coincidentally, avoiding the tensions that inevitably arise when people who know one another well spend too much time together in a six-day period!)
Among the projects and programs with which the people at our workcamp dealt last week were: Mel Trotter Ministries, a Grand Rapids organization that works with the homeless, alcoholic, and drug-dependent; the Potter's House school in the inner city; an agency that recycles computers; a day care center; and the homes of elderly folks incapable of doing some maintenance work on their homes and yards.
Our six-hour work days were bracketed by learning and worship times in mornings and evenings and devotions during lunch breaks at our various work sites.
We also had a lot of fun...and, with 5am wake-ups and 11pm lights-out, did without much sleep. (I'm still recovering from that! During twenty-four years as a pastor, I've learned that all youth activities ultimately, are sleep deprivation experiments.)
I was proud of the people from Saint Matthew, who worked hard, laughed a lot, and, based on the incredible things they said during our nightly devotion times, grew in their faith in Christ from the experience of serving others.
Of course, the question that often gets asked is, "Why go away to serve? Can't you serve others in Jesus' Name right in your community?"
The answer is that, absolutely, we can serve others here in our community. And we should and do.
But, sometimes, it takes a trip away to get our attention, to remind us of Christ's call to love our neighbors in very practical ways, to give us a template for service that we carry with us into our daily lives back home.
Among the adult participants from Saint Matthew in the mission trip was Becky. Like me, Becky spent her days sorting shoes, clothes, and hard goods for Mel Trotter Ministries. We became acquainted with staffers there who had rehabbed from alcohol and drug dependencies. Jesus Christ had gotten them to the point of recovery and with Christ's help, they were living day to day in new ways. It was, as Becky told the rest of us during worship back here at Saint Matthew on Sunday, "humbling."
To be humble, as someone has said, is not to think less of one's self, it's to think less about one's self. When we're humbled, we're liberated from navel-gazing. Confident in God's grace for and acceptance of us, we're free to live more fully as human beings, as members of the human family.
We live in a world in which we're constantly prompted to look out for number one. It's the widespread acceptance of this selfish ethos that lay behind so much of the war and misery that exist in our world.
The sense of gratification I felt last week as I sorted crate after crate of donated shoes, some of which would be sold to support a ministry that might transform the life of a homeless person, can't be described. Our trip to Grand Rapids reminded me that Jesus' call to servanthood is a call to the greatest nobility we can experience as human beings, the nobility that comes to those who dare to love God and love neighbor.
Will I go on another mission trip? If I have the opportunity, you bet I will. And if it reminds me to serve the other fifty-one weeks of the year, it will be a trip well worth taking!
[The picture above was taken during my participation in a mission trip last year. Then, we went to Canandaigua, New York, and I spent the week working with nursing home residents.]
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Thanks to...
cnn.com for linking to my post here on Zimbabwe and to TheWeekDaily.com for linking to the same piece as presented over on The Moderate Voice.
Monday, June 23, 2008
George Carlin, Satirist, Has Died
George Carlin, the undeniably clever comedian who, a decade into a career that was comprised of typical Borscht Belt schtick, took his comedy in a self-consciously countercultural direction, has died.It was probably inevitable that the decade that triggered Carlin's comedic transformation would inspire some satirizing court jesters to express the antiestablishment feelings of millions toward the war in Vietnam, the struggle for civil rights, White House lies, and the everyday hypocrisies of American life, among other things.
But Carlin, whose trademarks had been silliness and tuxedos in five-minute bits on The Ed Sullivan Show, initially seemed ill-fit for the role of a bearded, ponytailed, convention-tweaker in blue jeans.
When this new Carlin emerged in the late-1960s, it was jarring for those of us accustomed to seeing him sandwiched between such benign acts as Topo Gigio and Russian circus dancing bears.
No doubt much of what animated the comedy of Carlin in the four decades since his "conversion" is anger. Anger is often the motive power of comedy and Carlin found much about which to be angry. The Pentagon Papers demonstrated that both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon had lied to us about Vietnam, for example. Hypocrisy was widespread among the elites in politics, corporations, and the churches.
But as it relates to the churches, Carlin, I believe, made the same mistake common to such contemporary atheists as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, confusing the hypocrisy and disinformation sometimes peddled by those who claim to speak for God, from marginally Christian parents to culture-apologists masked as theologians, for authentic faith.
Carlin, who grew up in what appears to have been a culturally Christian family, apparently got a bad dose of misinformation about the Judeo-Christian worldview and he apparently never thought to disabuse himself of the pseudo-Christianity he encountered.
He attributed some of society's worst woes to a version of religion to which he was most intimately exposed, a superstitious junk religion rooted not in the grace of God extended to sinful human beings, the source of all hope in Biblical faith, which is the common proclamation of those in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
He claimed, for example, that all opposition to obscenity and pornography was rooted in "religious superstitions" that regarded sex and the human body as dirty and evil.
The attitudes Carlin describes are exhibited by misinformed Christians. But an examination of the Bible, the book which Christians regard as the Word of God and which in my Lutheran Christian tradition is seen as "the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life" will demonstrate how off the mark he was in his characterization of the Judeo-Christian view of sexuality.
The Bible has an elevated view of sex. According to Genesis, the Bible's first book,human beings created in the image of God were made male and female, indicating that sexuality was part of what made God's creation of humanity "very good."
Sexual intimacy therefore, was meant to be part of every married couple's life, from the beginning, a fact underscored by the fact that when first created, Adam and Eve, were naked and unashamed.
The joy of sexual intimacy between husband and wife is celebrated in the Song of Solomon, a book filled with subtle yet unmistakable pictures of various romantic and sexual encounters.
Sexual intimacy is protected in the Bible. The point of the Sixth Commandment--"You shall not commit adultery"--isn't to prevent the human race from enjoying their sexuality, but to ensure that this high expression of love between a husband and wife is protected from cheapening, from "adulteration." Martin Luther explains the commandment in The Small Catechism:
We are to fear and love God so that in matters of sex our words and conduct are pure and honorable, and husband and wife love and respect each other.If those operating under a Judeo-Christian conception of the human body and sexuality sometimes object to gratuitous sex (and violence, for that matter) which appears in movies, video games, TV shows, and standup comedy routines like Carlin's, it isn't because the Bible regards the body as dirty. Quite the opposite.
The New Testament portion of the Bible says that the body is "the temple of the Lord." And when Adam and Eve hide from God because of their nakedness, it's not because their bodies are inherently evil, but because of an awareness created by their fall into sin, that their bodies can be used for sinful purposes, only some of them of a sexual nature.
As a Christian who regarded Carlin as a talented, if misguided, voice of our times, I regret that he never enjoyed a positive relationship with someone who truly reflected the Judeo-Christian view of sex and the human body. (I regret too, that he never took the time to find out about it for himself.)
Carlin's experience, sadly, isn't uncommon. We Christians allow legalists parading as Christians to hijack our faith. While they flap their jaws and invoke their crude cartoon versions of Christian faith, we keep silent. So, the Carlins of the world draw erroneous conclusions about Christian faith and the ability of all people--whatever their faith--to speak to and understand one another is hampered. No wonder then, that the wise pastor (and Doctor of Philosophy) Gerald Mann has said that one mission of today's Christians is cleaning up the bad reputation given to God by those who misspeak in His Name.
It's just one aspect of George Carlin's passing that saddens me today.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Lots of couples honeymoon in Niagara Falls...
But maybe because this couple was from Niagara Falls, they honeymooned on the Lusitania and so, made a rendezvous with history.
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