The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 6)

A group of Saint Matthew folks went out again today for a Saturday morning Kindness Outreach. Once more today, we gave away 210 bottles of cold water to folks in cars stopped at traffic lights, walkers, a fellow trimming hedges at a nearby house, and one dog. (More on the dog later.)

The writer of the New Testament book of Ephesians reminds followers of Jesus Christ that their relationship with Christ and the eternity with God that Jesus offers comes not because we're good or virtuous people nor for any good things we might do. "For by grace [that is, God's charity] you have been saved [from sin, death, and hell] through faith" (Ephesians 2:8). We are saved by God's grace, which we claim as our own when we dare to trust Jesus' promise to erase the death-dealing power of sin over our lives AND that He will give us new lives with God.

Kindness Outreaches present a great picture of how "grace through faith" works. We saw it again today.

The water we give is free. All people need to do is trust us enough to take it.

But some don't. Of course, we don't force the water on them any more than Christ forces Himself or His grace on anyone. Until the light turns green, when handing out water would entail stopping traffic, something we don't do, people can change their minds. Similarly, as long as we draw breath or until Jesus comes back, we can--like the thief on the cross who knew his sin, but turned to Jesus for forgiveness and the promise of paradise with God--we can turn to Christ and live. But why wait? The blessing of being sustained and accompanied, actually being dwelt in, by Jesus in this life are too good to pass up!

Few of the people who receive or reject the bottled water we offer them on Saturdays will ever think of themselves as participants in a living parable about how salvation works. But we do hope that the water and the little cards that accompany each bottle will help them think, "I wonder why people who believe in Jesus are out giving away something for free on a Saturday morning?"

If they are spiritually disconnected people, asking that question could lead them on a road to Christ. That's what we pray will happen because it's only through Jesus that the free gifts of forgiveness and life with God can come to a person. As Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).

So, what happened today?

• A woman was walking with her dog. She said that she wasn't thirsty, but that her dog was and loved to catch water from a bottle as she poured it. My wife Ann said, "Mark, you've got to get a picture of this!" I did. It's below. After Ann and Fran had a conversation with the woman, Ann told her, "Here's a bottle for you." She took it and said goodbye to us all as she walked on.
• Jesse, a college sophomore from our congregation, took water to the occupants of a stopped vehicle. A little kid offered the entire allowance he had just received in exchange. Even kids find it hard to fathom getting something for nothing...which is why the good news about Jesus is so hard to accept and so fantastic to receive!
• A woman stopped at a light on Hunter Street, her windows rolled down, had initially turned down my offer of water. But I persisted. "Really?" I asked. "It's cold and wet and free!" She laughed and said, "All right." She took the bottle and thanked me.
• A woman in her sixties wasn't going to take a bottle. "You're not going to get thirsty?" I asked her. "OK," she said, "but just one."
• Another woman was skeptical. "What's the catch?" she asked. "Nothing," I told her, handing a bottle to her and telling her, "Have a good day."
• A woman told Fran and Ann that she didn't need water, but wondered if she could make a donation to our work. They said, "No, thank you." We never take money. 
• A young mom happily accepted water and told us, "This will get me through the drive home!" 
• Three guys involved in lawn care were bunched together in the cab of their truck, the first vehicle in a line at the red light. At first, they refused our offer. But as they saw us giving away water to people behind them, they evidently thought better of it. "Hey!" the guy riding shotgun called out, "Could we have some of that water?" Sometimes all we need to take the leap of faith or trust is the example of others living with faith or trust.

Like I say, Kindness Outreaches present living pictures how "salvation by grace through faith" works.

No Kindness Outreach next Saturday. But we'll do another one on Saturday, August 27.

On Making Plans

"Plans are the prerogative of God; obedience is the privilege of His children." (Luis Palau, The Moment to Shout: God's Way to Face Walls)

A Few Thoughts on the Psalms

[This week, as we together read the Bible in a year here at Saint Matthew Lutheran Church, we're moving into the Psalms. Below is the text of what will be both a handout for the discussion groups on Wednesday and an insert in this coming Sunday's bulletin.]

The Psalms are sometimes referred to as “liturgical poetry.” Leitourgia, the word that is transliterated into English as liturgy, literally means “work of the people.” To worship God for all His goodness, grace, and power is the work of God’s people and it’s something we’re to do 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But there are special times when God’s people come together to worship God. The Psalms, compiled over many centuries, are words that the Jews of ancient times and of today, have used for their public worship for centuries. As people who have, through Jesus Christ and our faith in Him, been made part of God’s family, the Psalms are for us, too.

Traditionally, the largest share of the Psalms has been attributed to David, Israel’s second king. Others are said to be written by people like Moses and Asaph. Some are ascribed to nobody in particular.

Who wrote the 150 psalms in this book isn’t as important as what each of them does. Basically, they function to help us have an honest conversation with God, no matter what our circumstances, feelings, or needs.

According to one prominent scholar, Claus Westermann, there are ten types of psalms:
•    The Community Psalm of Lament
•    The Community Psalm of Narrative Praise
•    The Individual Psalm of Lament
•    The Individual Psalm of Narrative Praise
•    The Psalm of Descriptive Praise or Hymn
•    Creation Psalms
•    Liturgical Psalms
•    Royal Psalms
•    Enthronement Psalms
•    Wisdom Psalms

In general terms, lament psalms give voice to feelings we have in times of trouble. They could arise from personal suffering and grief or national calamities. Examples of community lament include Psalms 44, 74, and 79. Examples of individual lament are Psalms 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and many others.

Psalms of narrative praise speak of God’s greatness through the narration of specific events. Examples of community praise include Psalms 106, 124, and 129. Examples of individual praise are Psalms 9, 18, 30, and many others.

Psalms of descriptive praise give honor to God while describing His blessings. They had a special place in ancient Jewish worship. Some in this category include Psalms 29, 33, 65, and 145-150, among many others.

Creation psalms speak of God as the Sovereign Who created and rules over His creation. They praise God as Creator. Psalms 8, 104, and 139 fall into this category.

As to liturgical psalms, Westermann says that those psalms referred to as “liturgies…are clearly shaped by…a combination of liturgical speech with liturgical actions.” Most commonly, this involves what we call antiphonies, when a worship leader or one group issues a call and all in the congregation or portions of the congregation respond. Good examples are Psalms 66 and 107. There are subcategories in this grouping like Pilgrimage Songs, sung by people as they processed or traveled to the temple in Jerusalem; Songs of Zion, which were probably Pilgrimage Songs specifically asking God to protect Jerusalem from attack; Psalms of Blessing, special benedictions for those who had worshiped in Jerusalem during a festival and were returning to their homes; and Entrance Instructions, dealing with entering the sanctuary during a festival.

Royal psalms have to do with the rulers of the nation, while enthronement psalms hail God as the one and only true King!

Wisdom psalms are liturgical poetry that present wisdom from God, akin to the book of Proverbs. Examples include Psalms 37, 49, and 112.

The word psalm refers to a sacred song or hymn. There are psalms in other books of the Old Testament and the categories into which scholars sometimes divide the book of Psalms can overlap.

But hopefully, this overview is helpful.

Does God Still Speak to His People?

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

1 Kings 19:9-18
In his fantastic book, The Power of a Whisper, Pastor Bill Hybels, tells what happened to him one day after he prayed this prayer: “God, if there is something you would like me to do…then please say so. It doesn’t matter what it is; I’ll do it.”

He had no idea how God might answer that prayer. But in a few days, Hybels and his wife Lynne were leaving the funeral of his aunt and getting into their car when he “spotted a frail, elderly woman pulling into [a] nearby apartment complex.” He saw the woman park her car, then “slowly and laboriously pull grocery bags out of her trunk.” Hybels sensed God’s Holy Spirit telling him, “How about helping that woman with her groceries?”

Initially, Hybels says, he tried to brush past this holy whisper. It seemed so mundane. But he remembered his prayer.

He approached the elderly woman, asking if he could help her. Relieved, she said, “Oh, yes! Thank you!”

As Hybels tells it: “The driveway leading back to her apartment recently had been seal-coated and was roped off, meaning residents had to walk a few hundred yards just to get from their cars to their homes.” Hybels knew he was helping to fill a real need, especially when the woman handed him a thirty-pound bag of peaches even he found a little hard to handle.

As Hybels tells it, the woman led him “through backyards that had become swamps due to recent rains…” She was “extremely arthritic and slow-moving.” It took thirty minutes for them just to make their way to the woman’s apartment!

After he had helped her to empty the sacks, she reached her hand out to Hybels and said, “I will believe to my dying day that God sent you to help me just now.” As inglorious as it all seemed, Hybels was sure she was right.

Our first Bible lesson for today recounts a conversation between God and the prophet Elijah. It raises an important question: Does God still speak to believers in 2011, the way He spoke to his prophet in the ninth-century BC or was Hybels’ direct message from God a figment of an overly spiritual imagination? What does the Bible say?

Pull out the pew Bibles for a moment, please, and turn to 1 Samuel 3:1, on page 158. The verse tells about when God called a young boy named Samuel to be a priest, judge, and prophet. It says: “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. [And this is the part to which I want to call particular attention:] And the word of the LORD was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation.” That last sentence has always interested me because of is its unspoken assumption that, throughout much of ancient Israel’s history, God commonly spoke to His especially called people, like prophets. The era before Samuel’s call apparently, was a rare time when the connection between God and His people grew spotty.

Centuries after Samuel, after God came into the world in the person of Jesus and after Jesus died and rose and sent the Holy Spirit to believers in the Church, it wasn’t just to prophets and priests that God spoke. It was to all believers. In the pew Bibles, take a look at Acts, chapter 2, starting at verse 17, on page 627. On Pentecost, Peter is explaining how ordinary people who believed in Jesus were telling others about God’s mighty works. He explained how such a thing was possible by remembering the ancient words of the prophet Joel: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh…”

In fact, throughout the book of Acts, which tells the story of the early Church, we’re told how God’s people prayed and God directed them. The Bible assumes that it’s normal for God to speak to believers who are dialed into God.

But how does God speak to us?

Please pull out the Celebrate inserts and look at the first lesson, 2 Kings 19:9-18.

Let’s set the stage: It’s the ninth century BC. About fifty years earlier, the nation of Israel had split in two. The southern kingdom, known as Judah, retained its worship life in Jerusalem and struggled to retain its faith in the God of the Bible, Who they knew as Yahweh, the LORD. The northern kingdom, with its capital of Samaria, called itself Israel.

According to the Bible, the northern kingdom never had a king who was faithful to Yahweh or just in his actions. The worst of its rulers was Ahab, who worshiped Baal, a false deity of rain, fertility, and agriculture.

Despite the LORD’s first commandment that no other god should be worshiped, Ahab and his wife Jezebel encouraged the people to turn their back on God.

God made Elijah a prophet in order to call the king and the nation to repent for their sins and to trust in God alone.

A contest was held at Mount Carmel involving Elijah on one side and 400 prophets of Baal on the other. No matter what the prophets of Baal did, they couldn't cause their idol to do anything to prove its existence. (In fact, one of the funniest passages in Scripture is part of this incident. As the Baal worshipers went through their conniptions, Elijah taunted them, at one point suggesting that Baal has wandered away. But actually, that dainty translation in most of our English versions of the Bible don't get it right. Elijah literally told them that maybe Baal had to take a pit stop to go to the bath room!)

At Mount Carmel, God was shown to be faithful and powerful, while Baal was shown to be a man-made fiction.

Right after this contest, it seemed that the northern kingdom would return to God. King Ahab got rid of the prophets of Baal as God, through Elijah, directed him.

Later though, Ahab told his wife Jezebel about all that happened and she sent a message to Elijah, telling him that within a day’s time, she would see that Elijah was a dead man. First Kings, chapter 19, verse 3, says that when Elijah received that message, “he was afraid” and he ran. Like Peter, in our Gospel lesson, Elijah allowed his fears to veto his faith in God. He panicked.

Our lesson finds Elijah at Mount Horeb, also known as Mount Sinai, the place where, six centuries before Elijah’s time, God gave the Ten Commandments to Moses. Twice in our lesson, God asks Elijah why he has run. Twice, Elijah says, as he does in verse 10, you see: “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken Your covenant [the covenant God had made with Israel on that very mountain], thrown down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”

Have you ever known fear like that, a fear that leaves you feeling alone and without hope? The doctor tells you about a poor prognosis or a loved one dies and you wonder how you can possibly function. The stock market moves further into negative territory and you fear that you’ll have no retirement income.

It’s at times like these that God wants to tell us, in the words of Psalm 46:10: “Be still and know that I am God.”

God wants to tell all who believe in Jesus Christ, as 1 John 4:4 puts it: “Little children…the one who is in you [the Bible teaches that Christ lives in His people] is greater than the one who is in the world.”

God is bigger than anything we may fear and, as Romans 8 reminds us, those who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ, live in the certainty that nothing can separate us from the love of God given to us through Christ!

Sometimes though, we may need special guidance or assurance. Elijah did.

Look at verse 11 of our first lesson. God told Elijah to stand on the mountain, “for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then, we’re told, “Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind, an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire, and after the fire the sound of sheer silence.”

It was there in the silence, that somewhere in his own spirit, Elijah heard God speak to him. (The older translations says that God spoke to Elijah in “a still, small voice,” but even that may suggest something too noisy.)

God then ordered Elijah to move past his fears, giving him three specific tasks.

Listen! When you’re afraid or lonely or need guidance or you simply want to offer yourself to the God Who offered Himself for you on the cross, you can hear from God.

The most reliable place to hear God is on the pages of the Bible. That’s where God’s Word can always be found.

I got to know a Pentecostal pastor named Howard back in Cincinnati. Loved that man! We were having a heart to heart one night when he said, “You know, so many Pentecostals want to hear ‘a special word from God.’ But all they really need to do is look at the Bible to find God’s Word for their lives.” I smiled and said, "Howard, you sound like a Lutheran!"

Howard was right! We’ve all read about people who have done horrible things because, they claimed, some voice had told them to do so. If you feel prompted to do something, look in the Book. Find out what God’s Word says. Talk to a trusted Christian friend who knows God’s Book. God will never tell us to do anything that runs contrary to His revealed will in the Bible. Never.

But when, in the silence of your soul, you sense God prompting you, go for it!

Jim and Sheila, from our congregation, went to Bob Evans for lunch on Friday. Across the way from them sat an older man eating by himself. Sheila observed his conversation with the waitress, indicating he might be a “regular” there. She thought she heard him use the word, “radiation.”

That’s when I think God spoke to Sheila. “I felt,” she wrote to me in an email on Friday, “like I wanted to make this man’s day.”

In order to not be heard by the man, she wrote a note asking the waitress to bring the man’s check to Jim and her. She handed one of our “The Meal’s on Us!” cards to the waitress to give to the man. Later, the waitress brought a box to the man as he’d requested and told him that his meal had been taken care of. “Who?” he asked. The waitress shrugged. The man teared up, read the card twice, then tucked it into his pocket. Sheila says, “My heart felt warm all over.”

[The front of one of our "This meal's on us!" card.]

[The back side of our "This meal's on us!" card.]

Does God still speak to His people today? Yes, most reliably in His Word, the Bible.

But there are also times when God may speak to us in the silence of our hearts and minds, when God will order our steps directly. God will teach us, as He taught Elijah (and as he taught Peter in our Gospel lesson), to live "by faith and not by sight.”

And when we live by faith in Christ, then we are  truly living!

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 5)

This morning's Saint Matthew Kindness Outreach was a fantastic experience!

Ten Saint Matt folks participated as we once again gave away cold bottled water at a heavily-trafficked intersection here in Logan. While the traffic lights were red, we were able to give away 210 bottles of water in under an hour. That means that in the four outreaches we've done so far, we've given away 770 bottles of water.

Some vignettes that stand out from today...

• As Dick gave water to one woman, she told him about her seven-day old niece who had suffered a stroke. Doctors had given her little chance. But the little one has shown improvements which the doctors say they can't explain. The family feels they can explain, that God is answering their prayers in inexplicable ways. By this time, I was involved in the discussion and Dick and I promised to pray for the child. She drove off saying, "I love you guys!" When the light turned green, Dick, Isaac, and I formed a circle and prayed for the baby and her family.
• Isaac offered water to two fellows in a pick-up truck. They refused the offer. But Isaac didn't give up. "Come on," he said, "it's free!" The driver held up a cup indicating that he already had something to drink. Undeterred, Isaac asked, "What about your friend?" The power window on the passenger side slid down. Isaac handed a water to the guy riding shotgun and then handed in another water, this one for the driver. "You have one too," he said.
• A woman in one car was incredulous. "Free? I can't believe it!" Dick handed her a bottle of water and said, "Well, believe this!"
• A young man in his twenties was going to refuse my offered water. But I said, "Hey, look it's wet, it's cold, and it's free." "Free?" he asked, then laughed, and said, "I'll take it." We both laughed when I told him, "Free is the operative word."

Of course, we do these outreaches to demonstrate what God's grace is like. God loves us, no strings attached. He simply asks us to repent (acknowledge our need for Him and His forgiveness) and believe (that is, trust) in Christ.

In doing the Kindness Outreaches, we also negate an old stereotype that says that all churches want is people's money.

But the outreaches have a great impact on those of us privileged to serve our neighbors in Jesus' Name in this way, too.

• During today's outreach, young Isaac turned to me and, running back to a cooler to restock on water for the next wave of cars, said to me, "This is a joy!"
• And Fran said that she'd had the feeling this morning that we might have too many Saint Matt folks and wondered if she should participate, but then thought to herself, "I don't care. It's too much fun!"

And it is! In fact, the secret we Lutheran Christians have been keeping from ourselves for far too long is that reaching out to our neighbors with the love of Christ is fun. And this summer, the Lutherans at Saint Matthew are having a blast being Jesus' hands and feet in Logan through these Kindness Outreaches!

What's the Best Book You've Read in the Past Six to Twelve Months?

Let me know in the comments section. I'm always on the prowl for good books, of all kinds and descriptions.

No Matter What the Economic News

"God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7). This is a fact for all who entrust themselves to Christ, even when S&P downgrades the country's credit rating.

Tonight's Discussion of Job

Different Saint Matthew folks got together today in the morning and the evening to discuss this past week's Read the Bible in a Year chapters, Job 4-24.

In these chapters of what scholars believe is the Bible's oldest book, the increasingly contentious dialog of Job, a man who has suffered incredible grief, pain, and loss, and his three friends--Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar--are presented.

A good outline of Job can help us understand it more readily. One outline comes from The Message of Job (Augsburg Old Testament Studies) by Daniel J. Simundson (chapter numbers on the left):

1-2                   Prolog
3                      Job's passionate outburst
4-27                Three cycles of speeches of three visitors and responses from Job
28                   A poem about the inaccessibility of wisdom
29-31              Job's concluding statement-longing for old days and oath of innocence
32-37              Elihu's speech
38-41              Two speeches by God
40:3-5             Job's reply to God's first speech
42:1-6             Job's response to God's second speech
42:7-17           Epilog

Below is a recording of the evening session. Both sessions today got interrupted by "critters." In the morning, we had a bug of some kind. In the evening, we spied a bat in the church fellowship hall and decided to open a door in the hope that it would find its way out the building.

Reflections on Job and the Suffering of the Innocent

Along with members of Saint Matthew who are reading the Bible in a year, I'm wrestling with the Old Testament book of Job these days.

Job is no theoretical essay on the question of why faithful or innocent people suffer. (What the theologians call theodicy.) It's the story of the experiences and feelings of one faithful man who undergoes multiple tragedies. It also recounts the ensuing arguments he has with "friends" in trying to explain it all.

Despite their bitter disagreements, through much of the book, Job and his friends all believe in "retributive justice," the idea that when we suffer, it's punishment from God for sin.

It's a tempting argument. So much of life evidences "the law of cause and effect." And the Bible does teach that, in an ultimate sense, suffering is rooted in the human condition of sin, our inborn alienation from God, Who is the source of life. Ultimately too, the Bible teaches that those who refuse to turn from sin and turn to the God revealed in Christ for forgiveness and new life, will suffer eternal alienation from God.

But the Bible--including the book of Job--also affirms two disturbing facts about life in this world:

• The innocent sometimes suffer.
• The unrepentant sometimes thrive.

The book of Job is a warning from God against any simplistic thinking about human suffering. Anyone who, like Job's misguided friends, think they have figured out why people suffer would be well advised to read Job and then, clam up.

Both as a human being and as someone who's counseled people for almost thirty years, I believe (I know) that ultimately, no intellectual explanation of suffering will help people when they suffer or grieve.

That may be why the book of Job ends without an explanation, but a call for continuing reliance on God.

Today, heeding that call may be easier than it would have been for Job. The New Testament records how God came into the world in the person of Jesus and bore both the weight of human suffering and our debt for sin, then rose from the dead. For people who dare to hand over their sins and their lives to Christ, suffering and all its painful questions are not the last word. We have two incredible comforts:

• The presence of Christ with us, "to the close of the age."
• The promise of a new life, free of suffering, with God for eternity.

There are lots of things in the book of Job that disturb me and that I can't explain. And there are many things in this life that disturb me, driving me to fervent prayer. But, I ask God to help me be more like Job, who believed even when he got angry with God. I ask God to help me to keep holding onto Jesus whatever life brings.

Learning to Be Like Jesus

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 14:13-21

I knew a man named George who served in the army during World War 2.

After VE Day, George was part of the occupying force in Germany. Every day, he encountered families and many orphans who had no food, no place to bathe, and no habitable place to live. It broke his heart and he never forgot it.

This experience became the subject of a promise George made to God. Wherever he found hungry people, George vowed, he would do what he could to feed them.

He lived that promise. For the rest of his life, George would find out about people who needed help and somehow get groceries to them. Fellow members of the Lutheran congregation of which he was  a part got wind of what he was doing and asked how they could help. Eventually, George’s efforts became part of the congregation’s ministries and budgets. Well into his eighties, George was still taking food to people in need. And, whenever his personal resources or those of his church were skimpy, he would call area pastors and ask if they or their churches could help someone whose needs they couldn’t address.

When he died, people were asked to forget about sending flowers and instead, provide money for his church’s ministry to the poor. Thousands of dollars were raised.

George’s life is a story of Christian discipleship.

The word disciple—mathetes in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written—means student.

This doesn’t mean that the follower of Jesus is someone who compiles a lot of religious information, as if Judgment Day were going to be like a final exam deciding whether we get a “passing grade.” To be a student (or disciple) of Jesus means that, by the way we live, we’re learning each day to be more like Jesus.

And being like Jesus is the ultimate goal of every believer. This is mentioned often in the New Testament.

• 1 John, for example, says that when Jesus returns to the earth, “we will be like Him.” 
• 2 Corinthians says that as we follow Jesus, we “are being transformed into” His image. 
• Romans says that followers of Jesus are being “conformed to the image of His Son.” 

All of this is the work of God’s Holy Spirit, of course. We can’t make ourselves more like Jesus. But you and I can make the decision, each and every day, through a life style of "daily repentance and renewal" about whether we will be open to the work of the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ.

This is why in one of the greatest passages in the New Testament, the apostle Paul says, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” In other words, confident in God’s love and grace for you, take the attitude of a servant. Let the Spirit work through your open heart and will to make you more like Jesus. Being like Jesus must mean, as it did in George’s case, being compassionately moved by the same things that compassionately move Jesus.

Our English word, compassion, is a compound meaning to suffer with. In the New Testament's original Greek, a common word for compassion reflects ancient people's belief that our emotions weren't centered in the heart, but in the gut. Compassion is that stirring of the gut that happens when our sympathies are aroused.

• It's what makes you want to pray or send a check to Lutheran World Relief when you see pictures of starving children in Somalia.
• It's what makes you want to intervene and pray when you're at the store and see children being neglected either by parents who fail to discipline them or by treating them unkindly.
• It's what makes you so concerned about the eternal destiny of a classmate or coworker that you want to share Jesus with them.

We give water away during our Kindness Outreaches out of compassion. Those who receive these acts of kindness may not need the water, but they do need the One Who sends us.

Compassion looks at the needs of others and is stirred to sympathetic action.

Compassion is the openness of heart toward others that comes to those whose wills and lives are open to the God we know in Jesus Christ.

In that connection, please pull out the Celebrate inserts and look at today’s Gospel lesson. It begins with Jesus learning that John the Baptist, has been executed. Jesus goes by boat to a spot where nobody lived, no doubt to pray and to consider how John’s execution foretold His own. He needed to process His feelings. But crowds sought Jesus out. We’re told in verse 14: “When He went ashore, He saw a great crowd; and He had compassion for them…”

This isn’t the first place we’re told of Jesus’ compassion for crowds. Another is at Matthew 9:36. Please turn to it in the pew Bibles, page 556. It says: “But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd.”

What aroused Jesus’ compassion for the crowds in these two passages represent the full breadth of God’s concern for all of us. In the Matthew 9 instance, Jesus has compassion for the crowds because of their spiritual condition. They’re disconnected from God, unaware of their need to turn from sin and to believe in Jesus to gain eternal life with God. All they know is that they have a hunger to be with Jesus.

In Matthew 14, in our gospel lesson, Jesus looks at another crowd and sees all that was wrong in their physical condition, their need for healing. Jesus, God-in-the-flesh, shows us that God cares for our whole beings.

As disciples of Jesus, people intent on learning to live like Jesus, our call is to have the same compassion for people that Jesus has. Bob Pierce, the missionary who founded both Samaritan’s Purse and World Vision, often prayed, “Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God.”

And it’s exactly here that, until this past week, I had always faulted the disciples as they’re portrayed in today’s gospel lesson. Look at verse 15. The disciples tell Jesus that they’re in a remote place and that he should send the crowds away so that they can get food.

I had always thought that the disciples were being selfish here, that they wanted Jesus to themselves, and that they didn’t care about the crowd. Some of that may be true. But one New Testament scholar has convincingly written that like the Savior they followed, the disciples felt the crowd’s need for food.

But they didn’t have food to give to the crowd, or very little of it. So, rather than having this whole throng in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat, the disciples thought that the compassionate thing was to send them away to find food where it could be found, in the nearby towns. Their suggestion wasn’t a failure of compassion, but a failure of faith.

In verse 16, we come to the centrally important part of this entire incident. Jesus tells the disciples that the crowds needn’t go away. “You give them something to eat.” “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish,” they say.

Now, we’ve all heard or read about the feeding of the 5000 many times. But have you ever considered this: What if the disciples hadn’t told Jesus about the five loaves and the two fish?

What if they had pretended, as maybe all of us have when approached by someone asking for money, that they didn’t have anything "on them"?

The disciples felt compassion for the hungry crowd, but this was all they had…a few scraps of bread and two measly fish. What was so little in the face of so great a need?

We know what happened. Jesus took the bread and fish and fed the whole crowd, one composed, Matthew says, of five thousand men plus women and children. A conservative estimate of the entire crowd would be about 15,000 people.

But the feeding of all those people may really be the second miracle in this incident.

The first miracle may be that the disciples were willing to disclose to Jesus (and then give to Jesus) all that they had. The grace of God in Jesus had broken down any selfishness they might have felt and filled them with compassion for others!

How much of ourselves are we willing to give to Jesus?

On the cross, Jesus spent His whole life to buy your freedom from sin, death, and eternal separation from God. Jesus died and rose so that all who surrender to Him can have life forever with God.

The more we yield to Jesus—the more of ourselves we give to Him—the more He will do in our lives and the more He can do through us.

That’s what the first disciples learned the day Jesus fed the 5000. It’s the lesson that my friend George’s life teaches.

It’s a lesson we all can learn as we give ourselves to Jesus every day.

Recently, Ann and I heard from a dear friend. She was excited about exciting new developments in her life, a shot of unexpected joy, possibilities, and purpose. But then, she told us, it shouldn’t really be that surprising. “Not long ago,” she explained, “I did something I’d never done. In the past, I bargained with God. I’d tell God: ‘If you do this, I’ll do this.’ But not this time. I told God, ‘I’m wide open. Whatever you want!’” In the book of Ephesians, we’re called to give glory to the God Who “is able to accomplish abundantly more than all we can ask or imagine.” Our friend is learning that truth.

We all know that bad things happen to faithful people and that we live in a fallen, imperfect world. The mystery of prayers not answered as we expect them to be will be with us for as long as this present world exists. But what Jesus showed when He miraculously fed a huge crowd with the food offered by the disciples is that if we will offer our whole selves to Him, we can become conduits for the blessings of God on a world of great spiritual and physical need.

And as we give ourselves to Jesus, God’s Spirit will move us closer to the goal of being like the One Who died and rose for us. That’s God’s aim for our lives and for the life of Saint Matthew. May it be our aim for our lives and for Saint Matthew too. Amen

Self-Care v. Self-Centeredness

From psychologist and Christian counselor Henry Cloud's book, Changes That Heal:

The Bible never says that doing things for ourselves is bad; it assumes that we need to do some things for ourselves. However, it does speak harshly against making ourselves the center of the universe, living only for ourselves. This self-centeredness is evil.

The Kindness Outreach Chronicles (Part 4)

Once again this morning, members of Saint Matthew hit the streets to give away bottles of cold water to motorists stopped at red lights. We handed out 140 bottles of water in about 40 minutes. (Last night, I simply happened to ice down seventy fewer bottles than I had for the first two outreaches.)*

As always, this outreach was a lot of fun!

Nine Saint Matthew folks participated and each seemed to have stories to tell this morning.

Sarah G. told about approaching a truck. The man driving it held up a can and said, "I'm good. I've got a Sprite." Sarah noticed that he had two dogs with him and asked, "But do your dogs need water?" The man accepted waters for them. Sarah added, "Now take one for yourself, too." He did.

"Will you accept a donation?" a woman asked after she and her passenger had been given waters. "No," was the emphatic answer, followed by an enthusiastic, "Thank you."

It is hard for people to believe that they're getting something for nothing. That's why kindness outreaches present great pictures of God's grace, a love we can't earn and don't deserve. Paul wrote: "God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Pass it on!

*So far, we've had three Saturday morning outreaches, scrubbing last week's because of a heat emergency. We've given out 560 bottles of water in that time. (Or, as we like to put it, we've perpetrated 560 acts of kindness in Jesus' Name.)

I Love This!

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; ²³they are new every morning..." (Lamentations 3:22-23)

Go Ahead, Pray Those Non-Specific Prayers!

I don't talk back to my television very often. But I did this past Sunday afternoon.

I had just come home from worship and plopped down on our living room couch to do a few minutes of channel-surfing before having lunch. My clicking brought me to the program of a prominent preacher, usually good for a laugh. He was talking about prayer. I'm paraphrasing, but the basic gist of his message was this: "And you must make your prayers specific. God won't answer vague prayers. You say, 'God, give me more money.' How much? You say, 'Bless the preacher.' In what way." He went on to excoriate the limited faith of people who aren't specific in their directives--I mean, prayers--to God.

This is when I started to talk back to my TV set. You see, in worship this past Sunday, our second Bible lesson came from Romans 8 and included these lines:

...the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints* according to the will of God. (Romans 8:26-27)

The meaning of this passage is simple. Sometimes, we have no idea what to pray for. But as followers of Jesus, Who taught we Christians to pray, "Thy will be done," we don't need to have fine-tuned prayer petitions. We simply submit ourselves to God and trust His good will for us.

Our prayers can be specific, of course. But the real measure of our faith is not the specificity of our prayers, as though visualizing a preferred end is a magical incantation that will force the hand of God. The real measure of our faith is our submissiveness to the God Who sent His Son to die and rise for us and has better plans for us than we can ask or imagine.

*In the Bible, the word "saint" refers to anyone who repents for sin and believes in the God ultimately revealed to all the world in Jesus Christ.

Joe Nelms: Laughter and Prayer?

George Hamilton, a British writer of historical fiction, sent a question my way earlier today. Referring to Pastor Joe Nelms' pre-race prayer at a NASCAR event over the weekend, he asked, "Is it allowable to laugh so much during prayer?"

It's a good question.

Laughter is a good thing, of course. The Bible often tells people to rejoice, to enjoy God and the blessings God gives. Laughter goes with rejoicing.

The Bible also says that laughter and good humor are good for us. Proverbs 17:22 says that "a cheerful heart is good medicine."

And honestly, there are times when I pray that I laugh, whether at God's goodness or my own ridiculous, sometimes pompous, behavior.

But, here's where I think humor in prayer goes wrong: When it calls more attention to the pray-er or to the manner of expression than it does to God. When performance becomes central, prayer ceases.

This is where I personally feel that Pastor Nelms may have gone "off the track," so to speak.

In Matthew 6:5-14, Jesus teaches about prayer. He warns us against praying for show. Pastor Nelms may have unintentionally created a show that caused people to yuck it up rather than to talk with God.

And talking with God, with faith and humble dependence on God, is what prayer, whether private or public, is about.

How Do You Spell "Buggedy, Boogedy, Boogedy"?

I've never heard of Pastor Joe Nelms. But he went viral with this prayer on Saturday.

Don't Fool Yourself

Here.

Obama and Boehner Were Close to a "Grand Deal"

Interesting article.

What's Your Pleasure?

Here

The Kingdom of Heaven is Here, Now!

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier today.]

Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52
There was a Coast Guard station in the community on Lake Michigan where I did my seminary internship. One day, the commander of the station stopped by the church office and we chatted. He was excited because in a matter of weeks, he would be retiring. “Are you staying here or moving elsewhere?” I asked. “I would never live here or anywhere in the North,” he told me. He went on: “If you drew a line across the continental United States, you’d have to say that everything North is a moral cesspool, a mission field where God can’t be found.”

Apparently not interested in being a missionary to we heathen Northerners, he was intent on heading south, where he was convinced, all the Christians lived.

The five parables Jesus tells in today’s Gospel lesson are a warning to anyone who thinks they’ve figured out who’s right with God and who isn’t, who’s decent and who’s not, where God is and where He can't be found.

To understand these parables, you have to go to the last verse of our lesson, where Jesus says, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a household who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.”

The parables in this lesson are all designed to show us that, whatever people may think—be they opponents of Christianity or, like that Coast Guard captain, snobby, self-righteous Christians--the kingdom of heaven is active and growing in places where many people can’t (or won’t) see it.

In these parables, Jesus, the master of His household—the Church—brings out of His treasure old images, familiar things and places, to show us the new things God is up to…even in the lives of people the world might dismiss or ignore.

Jesus here affirms the power of ordinary lives like yours and mine in which Jesus and His kingdom are present and growing.

In the first parable in our lesson, in verses 31 and 32, Jesus says that the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that grows into “the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree” in which birds make their nests.

The people of Jesus’ day were familiar with mustard plants. They saw them as useless weeds, as welcome in their fields as crabgrass or poison ivy are in our lawns today.

On top of that, every one of Jesus’ original listeners would have known that a mustard plant can never grow into a tree.

Most people would have scratched their heads at Jesus comparing a weed to the kingdom of heaven. But for believers in Jesus, the image brings inspiration.

In the days after Jesus told this parable, He was arrested and executed. His followers scattered for fear that they would be killed for their allegiance to Jesus. The unbelieving world—Jew and non-Jew alike—believed that in crucifying Jesus, the weed of faith in Him as the Savior of the world had been destroyed, that there was no need to repent and believe in Jesus or to acknowledge Him as God. Life could follow its same old path of sin, death, and dog-eat-dog ethics.

But believers know better!

They know that Jesus changed everything when He conquered death on the first Easter. They know that the kingdom has come to all who believe.

They know—we know—that Jesus is in the process, day by day, of transforming us from weeds, sure to be rounded up, into mighty Redwoods rooted in Christ’s love, grace, and power.

As we pray, worship, receive forgiveness for our sins and the Lord’s Supper, and serve in Jesus’ Name, we grow together in Christ’s family, the Church, in ways we sometimes can’t even see ourselves. God is at work in our lives and we know it, even though we can't always articulate it.

We’re like the backwoods Christian I’ve mentioned before who said, “I ain’t what I wanna be and I ain’t what I’m gonna be. But through Jesus, thank God, I ain’t what I was!”

In verse 33, Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is like yeast a woman mixed in with three measures of flour until all was leavened.

In those days, leaven was seen as a symbol of moral corruption which like leaven mixed in with flour, could infect families, communities, and nations.

Adding further scandal to Jesus' parable was the fact that the person adding the yeast of God's kingdom was a woman. In the patriarchal societies of Jesus' day, men were seen as pure and women as impure. 

Yet, here was Jesus saying that God’s kingdom is like leaven mixed into flour by a woman!

Jesus was saying that even in the midst of what we may think is rotten or small or worthless or inconsequential, His kingdom can be present.

In my life—and I’m not kidding when I say this—I have never been able to see a thing through a microscope. Not in junior or senior high school nor during college nor at any time since. But I take it on faith that there is an almost infinite variety of life in this world too small to be detected by the naked eye (or by a clueless preacher looking through a microscope). The kingdom of heaven is like those tiny life forms: alive even when the world doesn’t see it, or is too incompetent to see it, or doesn’t want to see it!

In 1886, the first Lutheran missionaries went to Papua New Guinea. Over the next thirteen years, numbers of missionaries, each sharing Christ by words and deeds were sent to work in different parts of Papua. But it wasn’t until 1899, thirteen years after the first Lutheran missionaries arrived, that the first two Papua New Guineans were baptized.

Some looking at what seemed thirteen years of futility on the part of those missionaries might conclude that nothing had been going on, that the missionaries were lazy or unpersuasive or ineffective, that God had been absent.

But it would be wrong to sneer, because in those first thirteen years God was at work, mixing the leaven of his kingdom into the flour of Papua New Guinea’s life. And that would be true even if the Lutheran Church there didn’t today include 900,000 believers in Jesus Christ!

The next two verses of our Gospel lesson—44 and 45—underscore just how precious the kingdom of heaven is for those who see it.

It’s like treasure found by someone in a field, Jesus says. He’s so excited to have the treasure that he sells everything he has in order to buy the field.

The kingdom of heaven is also like fine pearls found by a merchant. He too, will sell everything he has to buy the pearl.

You and I know that citizenship in the kingdom of heaven is a free gift from God. It can’t be bought. Jesus died as the perfect sacrifice for our sins so that all who repent and believer in Him will gain a share in what He won when He rose from the dead, eternity with God.

But we can’t grasp Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and new life for those who repent and believe in Him if with the rest of our lives, we’re trusting in other things to see us through.

You know, it's been my observation that most of the things people value in life can be compared to illegal drugs. We might trust in real estate or ice cream, antiques or computers, music or books (my weaknesses), cars or clothes, sex or power, our families or human potential, prestige or money.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. But when we start to depend on them to measure our own worth and value as human beings, we’re in trouble.

We develop needs for them, the way an addict needs heroine.

We give up everything to taste, touch, or keep our obsessions of choice.

They give us a buzz that’s here today and gone tomorrow.

And then these things—none of which can give us life—leave us dead.

Jesus is the only obsession that can give us forgiveness, life, purpose, or joy.

Jesus says that His kingdom is so great that, if we’re wise, we’ll be willing to part with all the temporary pleasures of this dying world in order to grab His offer of eternity.

People will think we’re crazy for putting our whole lives at the disposal of Jesus, to bet our whole eternity on Him.

They’re right! “We are fools for Christ,” the apostle Paul once boasted of his ministry team and himself.

The men in Jesus' parables who gave up everything for the treasures they found would have been seen by Jesus' first listeners as foolish. Financial advisors today tell us how foolish it is to forgo diversified investment portfolios by betting everything on one single investment.

But believers in Christ know it’s foolish to invest one’s whole life in anything but a relationship with the Lord of heaven and earth! At another point in Jesus' ministry when many were beginning to desert Him, Jesus turned to the twelve apostles and asked if they wanted to leave, too. Peter, still figuring things out about Jesus and in the same fog I confess myself to be in many times, said that wasn't an option. "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the holy One of God." If we want a life with God here in the challenges of life and a life with God beyond the grave, investing our lives in Jesus is the only choice that makes sense!

One of the best questions we Christians can ask ourselves from time to time is this: “What really foolish thing have I done for Jesus Christ lately?” “What tangible thing that the world values—that we value—are we willing to lay aside in order to grasp more tightly and dependently on Jesus?”

Ask those questions and you might end up doing something really foolish—and find yourself enveloped by the joy of God’s kingdom!

Drawing from another old familiar scene from daily life, Jesus tells a fifth parable. It reminds me of the parable of the wheat and the tares we looked at last Sunday.

The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is like a net thrown into the sea. Fish of every kind were caught. But once on shore, the fishermen sorted the good catch from the bad, putting the good in a basket, throwing out the bad.

Just so, Jesus says, God will one day deputize His angels to separate the righteous, those made clean by Christ and their faith in Christ, from the evil. The latter will be thrown into the furnace of fire--hell, Jesus says, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth—eternal regret for having spurned the new life that comes to those who repent and believe in Jesus. You can bet that Jesus’ first listeners would never again look at old fishing nets in the same way.

For all who confess Jesus as God and Savior, the implications of this last parable should be clear. Jesus calls and commands His Church to be “fishers of people” or, "fishers of men." We’re to push out into our daily lives and strive to bring all into the gracious embrace of Jesus, to invite them to be with us in worship to hear the call to repentance and the good news of new life for all who surrender all to follow Jesus.

Jesus has welcomed us into the kingdom of heaven and now sends us out to bring more to Him, one person, one friend, one family member, one classmate, or one co-worker at a time.

It’s not glamorous. It’s not flashy. It won’t grab headlines.

The world may not notice it, may even disdain it.

They won’t see how God’s kingdom is, right now, right here, making old things new in and through people like us.

But this is how the kingdom of heaven comes to us all: through parents and family members and friends who care enough to share the most precious thing anyone could ever own, citizenship in the kingdom of heaven.

And, long after all the new things we human beings have devised have died and been forgotten, the kingdom of heaven and all who follow Jesus will be ever alive, ever rejoicing, ever new!

In the meantime, allow yourself every day, to live as a citizen of God's kingdom and celebrate the fact that Jesus’ kingdom has come to you, that by His grace, you belong to Him now and forever! Amen