So You Think Slavery is a Thing of the Past?

Think again. Writes Joe Carter:

In 2004, the U.S. Government estimated that of the 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls, and up to 50 percent are minors. The data also demonstrated that the majority of transnational victims were trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation. The International Labor Organization (ILO)—the United Nations (UN) agency charged with addressing labor standards, employment, and social protection issues—estimates there are 12.3 million people in forced labor, bonded labor, forced child labor, and sexual servitude at any given time. If the estimate is correct it means that there are more people living in slavery than there are people who live in New York City and Los Angeles combined.

It's a sickening phenomenon that feeds off of the population explosion in the Third World. Joe continues:

With millions of economically and socially vulnerable people around the world, the "supply" of potential slaves today makes them cheaper than they’ve ever been in the history of the world. An average slave in the American South in 1850 cost the equivalent of $40,000 in today's money; today a slave costs an average of $90. Because they can be had so cheaply, they are of little value to the traffickers. If slaves get sick or injured or merely outlive their usefulness they are often dumped or killed.

According to Ken Bales, a sociologist who is an expert on this modern slavery phenomenon, there are three things that can be done to end the slave trade:

1. Public awareness has to grow, and there has to be public agreement that it is time to end slavery once and for all. This public commitment must be communicated to politicians.

2. Money needs to be spent to eradicate slavery, but not nearly as much as you might think. For the price of a bomber or a battleship, the amount of slavery in the world could be dramatically reduced.

3. Governments must enforce their own anti-slavery laws. To make this happen every country has to understand that they must take action or face serious pressure. We all know about the United Nations weapons inspectors, who enforce the Conventions against Weapons of Mass Destruction, but where are the United Nations Slavery Inspectors? When the same effort is put behind searching out and ending slavery, there will be rapid change.

Bales also notes that, "While the 27 million people enslaved today are the largest number of slaves alive at any time in human history, they are also the smallest proportion of the world population to ever be held in slavery." That fact provides some hope that with fewer stakeholders in modern slavery, it can be eradicated.

Joe Carter notes:

In the 18th and 19th centuries, British and American evangelicals were the leaders of the abolition movement. It’s time that modern-day evangelicals once again take our place in the struggle against slavery. In order to do that, however, we must become better informed, we must lobby our government to act, and we must raise up leaders who will become the Harriet Tubmans and William Wilberforces of the twenty-first century. We must take up the task of leading the next great abolition movement.

I suggest that Christians:

• Pray for an end the slave trade
• Petition all governments countenancing the trade to enforce their own anti-slavery laws.
• Go to Free the Slaves.net to learn more about what you can do.

[For further information see here, here, here, here, and here.]

First Pass at This Weekend's Bible Lesson: Jeremiah 33:14-16

[Most weeks, I present as many updates on my reflections and study of the Biblical texts on which our weekend worship celebrations will be built as I can. The purpose is to help the people of the congregation I serve as pastor, Friendship Lutheran Church of Amelia, Ohio, get ready for worship. Hopefully, it's helpful to others as well, since our Bible lesson is usually one from the weekly lectionary, variations of which are used in most of the churches of the world.]

Jeremiah 33:14-16
14The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

General Comments
1. This is one of the Bible lessons appointed for the First Sunday in Advent in Year C of the three-year lectionary cycle.

2. Advent means coming. During this season that kicks off the Church Year, we remember how the the ancient Hebrews once awaited the coming of the Messiah (the anointed king), who would execute justice and righteousness. We also remember that we await the return of that Messiah, Jesus, on what the Bible typically calls the Day. Then, we believe, all will be put right with God's creation and the faith of those who have trusted in Christ will be vindicated.

3. Jeremiah was a--you thought I was going to say "bullfrog," didn't you?--a prophet who lived during the sixth century BC. Throughout his ministry, he warned the people of Judah that there would be drastic consequences suffered for their worship of other gods, the haughtiness of their rulers, and the excising of God, Yahweh, from national life. They couldn't smugly presume on God's grace. Jeremiah said that Judah--what would later be known as Judea--would be conquered by another people, the walls of Jerusalem breached and overcome.

4. But Jeremiah also insisted that God is gracious, that He would forgive a repentant people, and restore the life and well-being of a Judea that turned to Him. He based this assertion on how God had acted for His people in the past.

5. Most scholars however, seem to believe that our lesson for this week was not written by Jeremiah and that it was actually composed by a later scribe, although they believe that our passage is a reworking of another indisputably written by the prophet, Jeremiah 23:5-6.

There are several pieces of evidence to support scholars in this belief. For one thing, our lesson doesn't appear in the Septuagint, the Greek translation Old Testament produced in Alexandria at around the third century-BC. (Its purpose was to allow Jews dispersed throughout the Mediterranean, who no longer knew Hebrew, to nonetheless read God's Word.) This suggests, the scholars say, that our lesson was written after the commonly-accepted version of Jeremiah had been around for awhile and then, only appeared in the Hebrew.

Another piece of evidence offered is the differences our text and Jeremiah 23:5-6. The earlier passage says:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Here, the prophet expressed hope for the restoration of Judah (or Judea, the land in which Jesus would live centuries later) and Israel.

After the reign of King Solomon in the tenth century BC, Israel split in two. The southern kingdom, Judah, was centered in Jerusalem. The northern kingdom, Israel, was centered in Samaria, the name by which it also came to be known. The split was precipitated by the selfish desire for power and it kicked off a pattern of ongoing faithlessness to God and a succession of mostly bad kings in both countries.

During Jeremiah's time, hope that a good king who would acknowledge God alone arose during the reign of Josiah in Judea. His reforms included ridding the country of idol worship and a commitment to doing God's will. But Josiah tragically died after a short reign and with him, his reforms died. The nation went madly on with its sinning.

The point is this: Jeremiah looked forward to a time when both Judea and Israel would be restored in faithfulness to God. But, by the time our lesson was written, Samaria no longer existed as a separate country. It had been conquered and destroyed. In our lesson, the scholars argue, the hope expressed by Jeremiah from a year before has been reworked. Now, the hope is expressed is for Jerusalem and Judah alone.

Notions of authorship were very different in those days. It would not be considered illegitimate for a scribe or later student of Jeremiah to have written oracles consistent with Jeremiah's teachings into the prophet's book.

6. So, what if the scholars are right about our lesson not being written by Jeremiah? It really doesn't change much. The prophecy still points to a God Who remains in control. Even after He has chastised His people--executing justice, He remains sovereign and He still loves His people. There is still reason to hope beyond whatever crucibles we may experience.

7. As we have Jeremiah in our Bibles, Jeremiah 33:14-16 is part of what's known as the Book of Consolation. This is the fourth of seven oracles of promise contained within that "book."

8. The early Christians saw in this passage a clear relationship to Jesus. Jesus is the King Who, unlike purely human kings, can be relied upon to execute justice and righteousness. In Jesus, we experience the Messiah Who forgives sin and puts things to right in our lives and Who, one day, will do so for all the world. That's why a simple prayer of excited anticipation is appropriate during this Advent season, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

'My Favorite Bible Stories': Links to the First Six Installments

When I first began this "occasional" series, I hadn't intended on it becoming so occasional. Here are links to the first six installments:
Part 1: The Place of Stories in the Bible
Part 2: David and the Well at Bethlehem
Part 3: The Hebrew Midwives
Part 4: Hannah
Part 5: Foreigners Allowed (Jonah)
Part 6: Foreigners Allowed 2 (Ruth, Part 1)
Where to find more Bible stories (and help with understanding them)

My Favorite Bible Stories, Part 6 (Foreigners Allowed 2)

For this installment--and the next three--I'm taking a different approach. The story I want to tell you is that of Ruth, from the Old Testament. But instead of re-telling in my words, I'm simply going to present Eugene Peterson's wonderful rendering of it in The Message, a chapter at a time, followed by a few comments from me. I hope that this isn't a violation of copyright laws. If it is, I hope that I'll be forgiven...and I hope that everybody who reads this will buy The Message.

Ruth, chapter 1

1-2Once upon a time—it was back in the days when judges led Israel— there was a famine in the land. A man from Bethlehem in Judah left home to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and his two sons. The man's name was Elimelech; his wife's name was Naomi; his sons were named Mahlon and Kilion—all Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They all went to the country of Moab and settled there.

1. The judges were people in the land of Israel who God periodically called to do things like lead armies and arbitrate disputes among the people. Later, reluctantly, God would accede to Israel's desire to have kings like the countries that surrounded them. But things rarely went well. In an ultimate sense, things never really go well when we let anyone or anything--even our families--have a higher place in our priorities than God.

2. There are several bits of irony in these opening verses. For one thing, Bethlehem is Hebrew for House of Bread. There was no food in the House of Bread. What happens when the bread basket gives out? Refugees go to where they might find food. That's what this family from Bethlehem did.

The other irony is where they go: Moab. (Two syllables, the first sounding like "mo" in the word motion and the second with a short a, like the a in abs.) Moab was directly east of the Dead Sea and its people, the Moabites, were fierce enemies of God's people, the Israelites. But when you're hungry, you pretty much don't care who your neighbors are if there's food at hand.

3-5 Elimelech died and Naomi was left, she and her two sons. The sons took Moabite wives; the name of the first was Orpah, the second Ruth. They lived there in Moab for the next ten years. But then the two brothers, Mahlon and Kilion, died. Now the woman was left without either her young men or her husband.

1. One tragedy after another befalls this family. There was joy that the boys found wives, no doubt. But then, in rapid succession, all the male members of the family die, first the father and then the grown sons.

2. Widows, for the most part, had zero standing in these ancient near Eastern cultures. Rarely did they have property rights. A widow might hope to be taken in by her father, if he were still alive. Her best hope of avoiding destitution would have been to get married again...and quickly. But many widows were forced into prostitution.

That's one aspect of the story of Ruth (and her mother, Naomi) that's so remarkable. This is the tale of faithful, resilient--even heroic--women who, in spite of heartache, continue to follow God and demonstrate admirable shrewdness. They exemplify the characteristics which Jesus says all believers should display: They're as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.

The Hebrews, in spite of being a patriarchal society, were unafraid to have female heroes of faith.

6-7 One day she got herself together, she and her two daughters-in-law, to leave the country of Moab and set out for home; she had heard that God had been pleased to visit his people and give them food. And so she started out from the place she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law with her, on the road back to the land of Judah.

1. The two daughters-in-law, amazingly want to go back to Israel with Naomi. As young women, they might hope to be taken back into their respective fathers' homes, avoiding poverty and humiliation. But they appear committed to their mother-in-law. This is some measure of the love that bound the three together. And something else: At least in Ruth's case, we'll soon see, there is also a devotion to the God which Naomi and her family claimed was the one true Lord of creation.

8-9 After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, "Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may God treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me. May God give each of you a new home and a new husband!" She kissed them and they cried openly. 10 They said, "No, we're going on with you to your people." 11-13 But Naomi was firm: "Go back, my dear daughters. Why would you come with me? Do you suppose I still have sons in my womb who can become your future husbands? Go back, dear daughters—on your way, please! I'm too old to get a husband. Why, even if I said, 'There's still hope!' and this very night got a man and had sons, can you imagine being satisfied to wait until they were grown? Would you wait that long to get married again? No, dear daughters; this is a bitter pill for me to swallow—more bitter for me than for you. God has dealt me a hard blow."

1. In those days, the next unmarried brothers of a deceased man would be obligated to marry his brother's widow. But Naomi is pointing out that it's highly unlikely that she will have any sons soon. Orpah and Ruth would have little chance at a good life in Israel. Naomi, as always, was being practical in telling the her daughters-in-law to stay in Moab.

2. In speaking of how bitter her life has become, Naomi gives us more of the irony that fills this little book. Her name, Naomi, means sweet. One commentary suggests that her name was roughly equivalent to the term, sweetheart, as we use it today. Life has become bitter for Naomi. Having faith doesn't mean that our lives are all sweetness.

14 Again they cried openly. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law good-bye; but Ruth embraced her and held on. 15 Naomi said, "Look, your sister-in-law is going back home to live with her own people and gods; go with her." 16-17 But Ruth said, "Don't force me to leave you; don't make me go home. Where you go, I go; and where you live, I'll live. Your people are my people, your God is my god; where you die, I'll die, and that's where I'll be buried, so help me God—not even death itself is going to come between us!" 18-19 When Naomi saw that Ruth had her heart set on going with her, she gave in. And so the two of them traveled on together to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem the whole town was soon buzzing: "Is this really our Naomi? And after all this time!"

1. Ruth not only expresses her love and allegiance to her mother-in-law, but also to her mother-in-law's God and people. Through her husband's family, she has come to know and worship the one true God revealed to the Israelites.

2. This passage is often read or sung at weddings. There's nothing especially wrong with that. But it's interesting to note that like that other famous "wedding Scripture," First Corinthians 13, this passage had nothing to do with marriage at all.

20-21 But she said, "Don't call me Naomi; call me Bitter. The Strong One has dealt me a bitter blow. I left here full of life, and God has brought me back with nothing but the clothes on my back. Why would you call me Naomi? God certainly doesn't. The Strong One ruined me."

1. Naomi blames her tragedies on God. Whether we agree with their view or not, the ancient Hebrews unflinchingly believed that God, as Sovereign, orchestrated the good and the evil that befell them.

I say "unflinchingly" because, in spite of the incredible psychological, intellectual, and emotional issues this belief raised, their notion that God had a right to do what He might was so strong that it seldom caused them to doubt their basic belief in God.

Our post-modern belief in personal sovereignty--in our capacity and our "right" to do what we want--is so strong that we're inclined to find reasons not to believe in or follow God in life's inconveniences, adversity, or tragedy .

To blame our tragedies on God isn't evidence of faithlessness, although it may indicate that we haven't taken every aspect of our tragedies into consideration. The person who "blames God" or gets angry with God nonetheless believes in God. You hardly become angry with someone you don't think exists.

2. The actual name Naomi asks her Bethlehem neighbors to call her is Mara, which means Bitter.

In ancient Hebrew culture, a lot of stock was put in names. Names were thought to express some deep truth about a person or to contribute to their destiny. Naomi's life was far from sweet and, she felt, a new name was warranted.

Today, of course, we generally give names that to our children that we happen to like. It's in our nicknames that we act more like the Hebrews. Since I was about four years old, it's been rare for any member of my family to call me by my given name, for example. The first of four younger siblings tried to call me "brother," and I've been "Bub" or "Bubba" ever since. I'm even Uncle Bub to my nieces and nephews.

Sometimes nicknames are used almost in the same way Hebrews used names, as something like an article of faith about their destiny. Years ago, I read about a football coach who wanted to encourage his players toward excellence. So, he started calling the slowest runner on the team by the nickname of Speedy. In time, Speedy became the fastest player on the team.

22 And so Naomi was back, and Ruth the foreigner with her, back from the country of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

1. Two important facts to remember here. First, Ruth, a foreigner, not a member of God's people. Second, harvest time, a time when God commanded His people to leave some portion of the harvest in the fields, so that the poor and the foreigners among them could glean some of the crop and so, not go hungry.

We'll leave it there until the next time.

WOW!

The Ohio State University becomes the first school in thirty-three years to hold #1 rankings in football and men's basketball at the same time.

GO, BUCKEYES!

Narrator Lowell Almen is far from scintillating...

but this is a solid and interesting account of the early history of Lutherans in North America.

I Admit It: I Sought a Favor from Sherrod Brown

I took a basket of dirty clothes to the basement this morning and suddenly was reminded that in 1979, I sought a favor from Ohio's now-US Senator-Elect, Sherrod Brown. Brown granted me the favor. Is that scandalous? You be the judge.

First, a bit of background. For more than two years, from late 1976 to late 1978, I relentlessly nagged the then-Executive Secretary of the Ohio House of Representatives, Joe Sommer, to hire me. I'd always wanted to work at the State House. It had been a goal of mine from childhood.

Through the years, the primary tool I've used to achieve my goals has been nagging. It's how I convinced my wife to marry me and later, in spite of my poor undergraduate record, it's the way I got the admissions people at Trinity Lutheran Seminary to let me study to become a pastor. After I'd made a complete pest of myself, Sommer approached the Speaker of the House, Vern Riffe about bringing me on as supervisor of the college pages. I began the job in January, 1979.

The office from which I did my work also happened to be the place where House members and staff could pick up copies of most of the state's major newspapers. Among our regular clientele was Sherrod Brown, an affable fellow about my age who then represented House District #61, near Mansfield. I knew about Brown before I arrived at the State House, of course, and honestly, I was in awe of him. Fresh out of college, he'd hit the bricks in his first campaign for public office...and won. The fact that he'd accomplished this at so young an age amazed me!

I could have been envious, resentful of his status, I suppose. But Brown's demeanor made that impossible. Unlike many people who gain public office or notoriety at a young age, Brown had no airs. He was a down-to-earth guy who seemed to take his work seriously, but not himself. I always enjoyed our rapid daily chats.

It was because of his friendly accessibility that I approached Brown for a political favor, the physical evidence for which sets before me now. I'd long forgotten it until I noticed it today, visible with a group of sacked items setting near our washing machine, placed there after a recent basement cleaning frenzy. In short, I asked Sherrod Brown to sponsor a Resolution honoring my wife on her twenty-seventh birthday.

Not only did he say, "Yes," he even agreed to the exact wording I proposed. And so, on June 13, 1979, The Ohio House of Representatives, under the sponsorship of Representative Sherrod Brown, House District #61, unanimously passed the following resolution:

"On behalf of the members of the House of Representatives of the 113th General Assembly of Ohio, we are pleased to take this opportunity to congratulate ANN DANIELS on the occasion of her twenty-seventh birthday.

"Despite advancing years and the handicap of a husband of dubious character, you continue to be a vital member of society and a revered citizen of our state.

"Your contribution to the Arts in Columbus...; your work with Bethlehem Lutheran Church; your friendships; and the cheerful, efficient manner in which you care for a virtually helpless spouse have earned you the plaudits of our state.

"Good luck, God bless and may you have many more."

The document was signed by Brown and Speaker Riffe.

What does all of this say about Sherrod Brown?

First of all, it says that at least twenty-seven years ago, he had a great sense of humor. He'll probably need that on his new job in Washington.

Secondly, it may say that he's a bit sadistic. I remember him laughing at my proposed text, but not once did he say, "Hey Mark, are you sure you want to be called 'helpless' and 'of dubious character' here?" And so the State of Ohio is still officially on record as tagging me with these labels. I wonder if that wasn't Sherrod Brown's game all along? Hmmm.

The last time I saw or spoke with Brown was in early-1980. By that time, I'd left the State House and was enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at the seminary. A professor, aware of my former place of employment, had asked me to find a politician who was also a Christian and might be willing to talk about the role faith played in his public policy decisionmaking. After I made a phone call, Brown spoke to the prof's class and the-then State Representative and I had another chat during a coffee break the same day.

The real reason I tell this story is that, amid the uncivil frothing at the mouth that passes for political debate these days, we all too often forget that our public officials are real human beings. Many are decent people. Often, they have a sense of humor. And, whether we agree with their politics or not, I think we should remember these things.

[THANKS TO: Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice for linking to this post.]

Living with Christ our King!

[This message was shared with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church during worship celebrations on November 25 and 26, 2006.]

John 18:33-37
This is Christ the King weekend. But what exactly does it mean to call Jesus our King? We get an idea from the last words in our Bible lesson for today, words spoken by Jesus to the Roman governor Pilate on the day before His execution: “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

Part of what Jesus says here is easy for me to understand. Sometimes when we’re in worship, a baby starts to cry in the nursery. Most of us in the sanctuary have no idea which of the children it is. But there are usually two people who know immediately: the parents. With the first whelp, at least one of them is out of their seat to see if anything is wrong. Elsewhere, Jesus says that He is the Good Shepherd to us, His sheep, and that we know His voice when we hear it. When we’re part of Jesus’ Kingdom, when we’ve come to believe in Him, His voice can be heard above the din of our own selfishness and sin and the temptations that surround us.

So it’s easy to get part of what Jesus means when He says: “Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” But what does it mean to “belong to the truth”?

To us, that’s a strange turn of phrase. When you and I talk about the truth, we’re usually referring to the factual. “I had toast, jelly, and orange juice for breakfast this morning.” “My wife and I were married on August 2, 1974.” “The sky is blue.” These are statements of fact that are either true or not. And, of course, God wants us to tell the truth. The Eighth Commandment tells us to not bear false witness against our neighbor. And the New Testament tells us to “speak the truth in love.”

But sticking to the facts isn’t what Jesus means when He says that those who worship Him as King “belong to the truth.” For Jesus, the truth boils down to something simple and stunning. He puts it plainly at another place in John’s Gospel when He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Jesus Himself is the truth, the strong foundation on Whom we can build our lives. In another of the Gospel books, Jesus says that wise people build their houses--their lives--on the rock. Jesus is the true rock. To base our lives on anyone or anything other than Him is a lie that leads to death and separation from God. According to Jesus, He is the true and only way to life with God that lasts forever.

When we’re in Jesus’ kingdom, we hear His voice...

• Every time we read the Bible or spend time in worship.
• Every time we pray together or alone.
• Each time we receive Holy Communion.
• And whenever we serve in His Name.

This connectedness to Him is what the Bible calls abiding in Jesus.

But what does all of this mean for you and me as we live from day to day?

What might it mean for our congregation to live with Jesus as our King every moment of every day?

The vision for Friendship Lutheran Church has always been about sharing and living in intimate fellowship with Jesus, the King. I’ve said that Friendship is the most Lutheran congregation in the world because like Martin Luther and the other reformers in the sixteenth century, we work to tear down all those barriers that so often prevent people from gaining access to Jesus, His forgiveness, His life, and His Kingdom.

So, as the old Church Year closes and we begin a new one next weekend, it’s a good time to renew that vision. I want to suggest where Friendship needs to be headed in 2007. This Friendship Vision 2007 boils down to four essential elements.

First: Exalt the Lord. When we exalt someone or something, we give our praise or honor. Another term for it would be worship. People who want to hear Jesus’ voice in their everyday lives, seek to honor Him not just on Saturdays or Sundays, but all the time.

I once heard about a talented football player who went to a top Division 1 college team, but turned out to be a total bust. This kid everyone had expected to be among the best quarterbacks in the country, maybe a Heisman Trophy winner, rode the bench for four years. As it developed, he proved to be indifferent to his coaches’ instructions, spent little time looking at the playbook, and had little to do with his teammates. Without those connections, his playing career died, the victim of what I call, “permanent potential.” Sadly, that seems to be the same condition from which most Christians and most churches suffer, never becoming what God has in mind for us when He calls us to follow Christ our King.

You and I may look at some Christians and see them exhibit joy in the midst of hardship or purpose in the midst of chaos and wonder how it’s possible. It’s simple: They’ve maintained contact with Christ. They’ve adopted the habit of exalting the Lord.

And make no mistake about it: You cannot continue in a strong relationship with Jesus Christ unless you trigger this pattern of exalting Him. You trigger the habit of worshiping Christ with your whole life by regularly attending worship with your Christian family, the church.

Some of you have heard the story of the Scottish pastor who visited a member who hadn’t been in worship for a long time. The parishioner expected that the pastor was going to give him a tougue-lashing. But nothing of the sort happened.

By a roaring fire in the parishioner’s living room, the pastor just had a friendly conversation with the man. Without interrupting their talk, at one point he stood up, picked up the tongs by the fireplace, grabbed a red-hot ember, and plunked it down on the stone floor in front of the fireplace. As the conversation went on, the parishioner watched the ember’s once-bright color turn to gray as the flame that once illuminated it died out. The parishioner said, “I understand. I’ll be in worship this coming Sunday, Pastor.”

Without regular worship with the Church, the flame of our faith dies out. For us to exalt the Lord on Mondays, we need to exalt Him together on Saturdays or Sundays.

This place should be packed every weekend! When just one of us is missing, we can’t give each other the mutual encouragement to daily exalting God the church is meant to provide to us.

We need to challenge one another to be in weekend worship together at least three times a month. And you don’t need my permission to call up the people you haven’t seen in worship for awhile. Pick up your phones and call them!

Second: Each one reach one. Anyone attentive to the voice of Jesus knows how desperate He is for us to reach out to others with the Good News of Jesus Christ. If each of us prayerfully committed ourselves to heeding Jesus’ call to make disciples by bringing a spiritually disconnected person into relationship with Christ through our congregation, we would double in size by next December. The more members, the bigger Christ’s Kingdom and the more of Christ’s work we can do together. We should be doubling in size every year!

Early next year I’ll be offering you practical help with how to share your faith in Christ with others. But you don’t need Mark’s program. Jesus Christ lives in you. The Holy Spirit is with you. All you need to do is tell your friends about your best friend, Jesus Christ, and about this incredible fellowship of Christians of which we’re a part, Friendship Lutheran Church.

When it comes to witnessing for your faith, you can’t go wrong if you’ll simply speak from your experience and your heart. Take the advice of the Nike people: “Just do it!”

Before you go to bed tonight, talk with the Lord. Ask Him to tell you who you will reach in 2007.

If each one will reach one in 2007, we will all have the satisfaction of knowing that God has used us to bring another person to heaven.

Exalt the Lord. Each one reach one. That brings a third element of the Friendship Vision for 2007, as I see it: Engage in service. In our mission statement, which I hope all of you know by heart, we say that:

Friendship Church is a welcoming and caring people who seek to share the kindness of God so that all metropolitan Cincinnati may grow in the faith, hope, and love of the living Jesus Christ!

People made confident and hopeful by the love of God given to us through Christ serve others as Jesus has served us. That’s why I’m so excited about all that the Outreach/Servanthood team is doing and has planned for us. I’m proud of all the service I see you doing in Jesus’ Name. One of the great developments in the life of Friendship in 2006 is that servanthood has been wired into the DNA of our life together. Keep it up!

Exalt the Lord. Each one reach one. Engage in service. One more: Expand your vision. The state of Ohio isn’t the only entity that should have Jesus’ words--”With God, all things are possible”--as its motto. Expand your vision for Friendship. Dream big dreams for what our congregation can do in service to God and our neighbors!

But hear this warning: When you bring your vision before our Church Council and they affirm your vision as something Friendship should do, your role can’t end there. Backseat driving is no more attractive in the church than it is in your car!

Back in Old Testament times, some of God’s people, the Jews, who had been living in exile, were allowed to return home. But one of them, Nehemiah, still living away from his homeland, learned that the city of Jerusalem had not yet been rebuilt. Its walls had crumbled and until they were put back up, the city was subject to marauding bands of thieves and thugs. Though he had no experience with building or leading work crews, Nehemiah felt the force of a dream to rebuild those walls. And with God’s help and empowerment, God used Nehemiah to accomplish that dream.

When God plants an idea in your mind and soul for a new ministry, you, like Nehemiah, also must be willing to roll up your sleeves and take the lead in bringing the vision into being. Christianity isn’t a spectator sport. Everybody needs to get into the game.

The coming year promises to be a great one at Friendship. The youth mission trip in June is just one of many things God may have in store for us. I look forward to our growth in faith, in discipleship, in vision, in numbers. As people connected to Jesus Christ, our King, let’s commit ourselves to what I call Vision 2007:

• Exalt the Lord: Every member in worship regularly and each of us checking on those we haven’t seen there for awhile.
• Each one reach one, our congregation doubling in size by December, 2007.
• Engage in service, every member with a ministry.
• Expand the vision, each of us daring to make God-honoring dreams realities at Friendship.

The time to get on board with what God has in mind for us is now. Christ our King awaits our response.

A Preview: Opening Your Spiritual Gifts

[As I mentioned yesterday, during the Advent season that begins next Sunday, I'll be presenting a series of posts called Opening Your Spiritual Gifts. To give you a taste of what this series will be like, here's the first installment, which will be republished on December 3. Be sure to return to the site each day from then until December 24 to look at what spiritual gifts are for, what they are, and how to determine what your gifts may be.]

Every believer in Jesus Christ has at least one spiritual gift.

I read somewhere about a man who never opened his Christmas presents. Instead, each year, he placed his newest gifts under the tree with past years’ packages, all unopened.

It’s a stupid story. But it’s the story of most Christians. The Bible affirms that God gives all believers in Christ at least one spiritual gift. The apostle Paul puts it this way in First Corinthians:

“God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful...” (First Corinthians 12:4-7, The Message)

Like the man in that story though, most Christians never make the effort to open their spiritual gifts, often because they’re ignorant of them.

Advent is the season of the Church Year that begins on December 3. The word advent, from which we get the word adventure, means coming. In this season just before Christmas, we remember the coming of God into our world through Jesus Christ. We remember too, that one day, Christ will come again.

In the meantime, God invites Christians to live an adventure. He calls we Christians to open the spiritual gifts He’s given to us, maximizing our God-given potential and pointing others to the hope we have in Jesus Christ.

Every believer in Jesus Christ has at least one spiritual gift.

Bible Passage to Ponder: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit...” (First Corinthians 12:7, New Revised Standard Version)

Coming This Advent: Opening Your Spiritual Gifts

Advent, the season that kicks off the Church Year and anticipates Christmas, starts on December 3. The Servanthood/Outreach team at our congregation is planning a special emphasis on spiritual gifts during the four weeks of this season. As part of it, I'll be presenting a series of daily readings for the congregation--and readers of this blog, called Opening Your Spiritual Gifts.


The readings for Opening Your Spiritual Gifts will be similar in length and tone to a series I presented here during the Lenten season, 40-Days to Servanthood.

I hope that people find it helpful. Feel free to give your feedback once that series begins.

Here is an explanation of Advent.

Here is some information about Advent Wreaths.

Remembrances of Thanksgiving Past

Here.

Making Contact: Come, Lord Jesus

[In this new series, Making Contact, I present a series of short (almost) daily considerations of Biblical texts that I hope you'll find helpful. The idea behind the name is that in the Bible, we make contact with the God Who has revealed Himself to humanity to millions of people over thousands and thousands of years. God can make contact with us today. The texts are based on the daily lectionary found in the Lutheran Book of Worship.]

Making Contact: Revelation 22:14-21
14Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. 15Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and fornicators and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. 16“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.” 17The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let everyone who hears say, “Come.” And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift. 18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this book; 19if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

20The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! 21The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

A Few Thoughts:
1. These are the last eight verses of the last book of the New Testament. Revelation is, in many ways, a weird book, its imagery often stretched and misconstrued by religious sensationalists, some of whose motives are questionable at best.

2. The traditional English title of the book, more fully The Revelation of John, is a literal translation of its name in Greek: Apocalypsis Joannou means Revelation of John.

3. The book claims to contain statements made to the apostle John, by then an elderly man, by the risen and ascended Jesus. Here, Jesus reveals things to seven churches, each in various states of spiritual health, as they face persecution by the Roman Empire. Like Daniel, the apocalptic book found in the Old Testament, Revelation deals most clearly with the historical situation that existed at the time it was written. Claims that it deals with current world circumstances are as dubious as those that once claimed it dealt with the now-dead Soviet Union.

4. This doesn't mean that the book is irrelevant to our circumstances. It is relevant. But it's a misreading of apocalyptic literature to treat it like tea leaves, assigning rigid meanings to various images and symbols. Its application to understanding the human condition and our need of Jesus Christ as Savior is more universal than that and less self-aggrandizing than many tea-leaf-style interpreters usually are.

5. Speaking of the imagery and symbolism of the book, it's consistent with what's found in the Gospel of John and the three New Testament letters attributed to the disciple traditionally thought to be "the beloved disciple." If you ground yourself well in those four books, Revelation will become a bit more accessible.

More specifically:
Adam and Eve, after their fall into sin, were banished from the Garden of Eden to keep them away from the tree of life. This was an act of compassion toward the human race on God's part. Had our two ancestors gotten access to eternal life while still in their sin, the whole human race would have been lost to God forever.

But because His death and resurrection have made it possible for all with faith in Christ to have new lives, we will once again eat the fruit of this tree, living forever with God. (C.S. Lewis plays wonderfully with this image in The Magician's Nephew, one of the seven volumes in The Chronicles of Narnia series.)

Believers in Jesus (saints) have been washed clean of their sins in the waters of Baptism, through which we become heirs of Christ's self-sacrifice. Revelation also says that we are washed clean in the blood of the Lamb of God, Jesus.

The bride here and at other points in the so-called Johannine literature in the New Testament is the Church, with Christ as our Husband. This conveys the intimate relationship Christ has with His people.

To more fully understand the phrase, "And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift," check out John 4:1-15. The Baptismal allusion is clear.

Jesus could return at any time. While the world still exists and while I still exist, I pray that He will help me to remain faithful in following Him. Amen, come Lord Jesus!

Anita O'Day, 1919-2006

I've been reading about jazz singer Anita O'Day, who died yesterday. The Washington Post had a terrific profile. But I loved looking at what Mike of Mike's Noise has collected on his site. I think that you will, too.

The Ayatollah Khomeini, Osama Bin Laden, and Tony Hendra

Writer Tony Hendra joins the likes of fanatical haters like Khomeini and Bin Laden with a "prayer" at Huffington Post:

I give thanks O Lord for Dick Cheney's Heart, that brave organ which has done its darn-tootin' best on four separate occasions to do what we can only dream about.

O Lord, give Dick Cheney's Heart, Our Sacred Secret Weapon, the strength to try one more time! For greater love hath no heart than that it lay down its life to rid the planet of its Number One Human Tumor.

There are many legitimate reasons for disagreeing with Cheney and for expressing disapproval of his politics. But wishing for his death is sick, sick, sick, sick.

For another perspective, see Helen Smith's post here. I don't agree with Smith that Hendra's words are worse than those contained in Michael Richards' recent rampage. But I do think that they're every bit as despicable!

Has the Eleventh Commandment Been Violated Already?

Has Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney violated the Eleventh Commandment promoted by Ronald Reagan: Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican, just as the 2008 presidential campaign begins?

This past week Romney went after John McCain and Rudy Giuliani on the issue of gay marriage. The New York Sun reported on Wednesday:

With most potential presidential candidates still making final decisions about whether to pursue a White House bid, one prospect, Governor Romney of Massachusetts, is already slugging away at his rivals for the Republican nomination.

In an interview published yesterday, Mr. Romney alleged that two other prominent Republicans likely to enter the race, Mayor Giuliani and Senator McCain of Arizona, are not true conservatives.

"I'm a conservative Republican. There's no question about that," Mr. Romney told the Washington Examiner. "I'm at a different place than the other two."

Mr. Romney said his positions were more conservative than those of the other men on immigration, campaign finance restrictions, same-sex marriage, and interrogation of detainees, but the governor took particular aim at Mr. McCain for claiming to oppose legalized gay marriage while also opposing a federal constitutional amendment to outlaw the practice.

"In my opinion, it's disingenuous," Mr. Romney said. "Look, if somebody says they're in favor of gay marriage, I respect that view. If someone says, like I do, that I oppose same-sex marriage, I respect that view. But those who try and pretend to have it both ways, I find it to be disingenuous."

McCain opposes gay marriage, but respects the right of states to allow it. The regulation of marriage and domestic relationships has always been the prerogative of states under our Constitution. McCain appears to wish to uphold that conservative principle.

Romney, on the other hand, seems to accept the neo-conservative view, ascendant during the Bush years, that the federal government should be involved in such matters. That's a legitimate position, of course. But it doesn't make him more conservative than McCain.

Philosophical issues aside though, one of the lessons drawn from the midterm elections this year is that Americans want more civility in their politics. Does Romney's accusation of disingenuousness on John McCain's part flout that sentiment and does it bode ill for civility in the 2008 campaign? I hope not.

[For more on the shifting notions of what constitutes conservatism, see the "third angle of vision" here.]

[This is being cross-posted at RedBlueChristian.com.]

[UPDATE: For what seems like a balanced and fair overview of Mitt Romney's one term as Massachusetts governor, see here.]

[THANKS TO: Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice for linking to this post. Mitt Romney's candidacy for President is the subject of several posts at his site.]

Everything Thanksgiving

Matt Brown has it.

Thanksgiving Inspiration from Glen VanderKloot

[This Thanksgiving devotion comes from my friend and colleague, Pastor Glen VanderKloot from Faith Lutheran Church of Springfield, Illinois. If you'd like to receive Glen's daily emailed inspirations, send an email to olwf1@gliq.net. Type SUBSCRIBE onto the subject line.]

Thought for the Day

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.

H.U. Westermayer
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Scripture Verse
Psalm 100:4 TNIV:

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

Prayer:

For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in heaven, we thank Thee! Amen

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

An Excellent History of Thanksgiving...

by Pastor Mark Roberts. It's outstanding! A sample:

The idea of a permanent, national celebration each November came 242 years after the first Pilgrim-Indian festival in the early 17th century. During the Civil War, many Americans clamored for some sort of national religious holiday. One of the most vocal was Sarah Josepha Hale (who, by the way, wrote “Mary Had a Little Lamb”). Hale used her clout as editor of the influential Godey’s Lady’s Book magazine to motivate President Lincoln to proclaim a national holiday. On September 28, 1863 she wrote a letter to the President encouraging him to “have the day of our annual Thanksgiving made a national and fixed Union Festival.” Five days later Lincoln issued the “Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863” (which we’ll examine below).

In his proclamation, Lincoln set apart the “last Thursday of November” as “a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”

Read the whole thing.

A Great Thanksgiving Post...

by Pastor Jeff, includes historical background, a few personal thoughts on the habit of thankfulness, and a few Thanksgiving prayers. All in a relatively short post, adapted from several tracts. That Jeff sure packs a wallop!

Thanksgiving is recognizing with gratitude who God is and what He has done. It's looking to God as the source of everything in our lives. It is believing He rewards those who diligently seek Him. Even when "bad things" seem to be happening to us, God is still there -- and He loves us. When we understand that, we will give thanks to God from a heart full of gratitude. That’s worth doing anytime.

Read the whole thing.

A Thanksgiving Confession of Faith

One of the ways in which I try to make worship a bit more interesting and meaningful is by occasionally writing confessions of faith related to the themes or holidays being celebrated in worship on particular days. Here's one I composed for tonight's Thanksgiving Eve worship service.

We believe in the God Who gives every good and perfect gift.

We believe in God the Father, Who created the universe, and gives us life.

We believe in God the Son, Jesus Christ, Who has entered our world incarnated in human flesh, so that He could give His life on a cross, the perfect offering for our sin, and so that He could rise from the dead, opening forgiveness and eternity to all who entrust their lives to Him.

We believe in God the Holy Spirit, Who even today, calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies a people devoted to the God definitively revealed in Christ.

We believe that all who follow Christ will spend eternity with God, thanksgiving ever on their lips and always in their hearts. Amen

Thanksgiving Eve: How to Overcome Worry

[This message was shared during the joint Thanksgiving Eve worship celebration of All Saints Lutheran Church (Cincinnati, Ohio), Lutheran Church of the Resurrection (Cincinnati, Ohio), and Friendship Lutheran Church (Amelia, Ohio), on November 22, 2006.]

Matthew 6:25-34

I spent a long time as a student: thirteen years in public school, four years in college, four years in seminary. Somewhere around the end of my twentieth and the beginning of my twenty-first and final year as a student, I figured something out. Do you want to know what it was? It was this: If the teacher repeats something, it’s probably important. (I figured that out all by myself. I didn’t say I was the brightest student.)

Now, I bring this up for a reason. Jesus’ words to us tonight come from the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. Ed Markquart, a wonderful Lutheran pastor in Seattle, has calculated that in the four gospel books of the New Testament--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John--”there are 60 teachings, 40 parables, and 25 miracles of Jesus.” And the Sermon on the Mount contains a whopping twenty-five of Jesus’ sixty teachings. They come at us at such a furious pace in chapters 5, 6, and 7 of Matthew’s book, that you think Jesus would hardly have the time to repeat Himself in order to highlight what’s important.

But He does repeat Himself in the ten verses that make up our Bible lesson. In fact, Jesus punches home the same teaching three times in these verses. And then, to underscore His teaching, He asks seven rhetorical questions, all with the same message: DO NOT WORRY!

Jesus also gives us plenty of good reasons for heeding that imperative. He says that life is more than food or clothing and that if God the Father takes care of the birds, He’ll take care of us. He says that worrying won’t add a single second to our earthly lives and that to be consumed with these things is to be as futile in our thinking as the Gentiles with no knowledge of God. I think that Jesus would endorse the words of Canadian folk rocker Bruce Cockburn, when he sings, “You can take the wisdom of this world/ And give it to the ones who think it all ends here.”

You and I know that Jesus is right. We shouldn’t worry. We know that God cares about our every moment. We know that we’re in the palms of God’s hands, that God hears our prayers. We know too, that all with faith in Jesus Christ belong to God eternally. Even non-believing people realize the silliness of giving our minds over to worry. The writer Mark Twain, an atheist, once said, “I am an old man and have known great troubles, but most of them never happened.”

So, why exactly do we worry?

And what does this all have to do with Thanksgiving?

We worry, let’s face it, because we’re control freaks. Adam and Eve were lured into sin because the serpent told them that when they ate the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would “be like God.” It bothers us that while, unlike all of God’s other creatures, we can project and to some extent, predict, what the future will bring, we can’t control what happens to us. This past week, several people on the staff of the school where my wife works learned that they’re dealing with various threatening health conditions. I’m sure that when this year began, that wasn’t part of their plan.

Yet we persist in stewing over things over which we have no control. I once visited a man who had recently undergone a quadruple heart bypass surgery. The procedure had gone well and he was recovering. But his face was twisted with worry when I arrived. “How are we going to solve the federal budget deficit?” he asked me. His wife shook her head and told me, “He worries about that all the time.”

It’s good for us to make plans and it’s good for us to be engaged in trying to solve problems in our world. But we need to realize that worrying about things solves nothing. The number one fact of the universe is that God is God and we’re not. So, make your plans and when the time comes, willingly move on to Plan B.

Jesus puts it this way: “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” Pastor Gerald Mann summarizes Jesus’ imperative this way: Wait to worry. I would add: And live today.

So, worrying is a bad thing. But what’s it got to do with Thanksgiving? Just this: No matter how facile you may be at multitasking, there are two things that are very difficult to do simultaneously. Though you may be able to do them both at the same time for awhile--maybe decades--eventually, one will win out over the other and become the prevailing habit of your life. You can’t keep worrying and remain thankful at the same time.

You see, in the end, worrying is a form of self-worship. Even though we may express our worry by saying things like, “What am I going to do?,” seemingly confessing helplessness, the underlying assumption is that my immediate problems and, by extension, the long-term good of the known universe, depends on me.

Thankfulness, on the other hand, takes an inventory of our lives and asks, “What has God already done?” How has God already blessed us, starting with our eternal salvation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ? I liked it a few years ago when Michael Bridges, of Lost and Found, told me that instead of those little "What Would Jesus Do?" bracelets that were so popular at the time, there ought to be ones that said, "What Has Jesus Done?" Thankfulness is a byproduct of faith and it gives us the capacity to face whatever life may bring to us.

The people of this congregation have heard me tell the story of my visit with an elderly farmer shortly after I was ordained twenty-two years ago. “You know, Pastor,” he said, “if you’re a farmer, you have to have faith or you won’t last long.” He went on to explain that you could pick the best seeds for your crops and be diligent about cultivation and weeding. But farmers know that they have no control over the sun or the rain or temperatures that if not just right, could scorch or freeze their crops. What this farmer discovered is that over his long life, God could be trusted. Thankfulness displaced worry. Faith supplanted anxiety.

I found this to be true generally of the people of that congregation in northwestern Ohio. And out of this thankful attitude, not only was worry banished, something else happened. Thankfulness led to generosity. I never saw people who were so generous in giving to the relief of hungry people around the world. Here in the burbs, we may go to Biggs, Meijers, or Kroger and take food for granted. But those folks knew what a miracle food is and they were thankful.

And we followers of Jesus have much for which to be thankful. This past week, I heard again a story that took place during the Holocaust, that spasm of murder and barbarism perpetrated by Nazi Germany against the Jews. When the Nazis put people in concentration camps, they would work the imprisoned until they could no longer do anything. Then, they would execute them.

One family was composed of a father, a mother, and their two children, one of whom suffered from a physical disability. Every day, the mother and two children were taken to one work site and the father was shipped to another. And every night, the father checked on his family. One night though, the father found only his one son. "What happened?" he asked. The surviving child said that the brother with the disability had no longer been able to work. And so the guards had taken him to be executed. He clung to his mother's skirt, sobbing. She picked him up and, holding him close to her, said, "Don't be afraid. I'll go with you." And so she did.

That's akin to the God we have through Jesus Christ. In Christ, God stands with us in the darkest and the worst of times--even in death--so that all who trust in Him will be ushered into eternity with Him! For that, we can be the most thankful of people.

Having heard me say how bad worry is and how important thankfulness is, you all have a right to know whether I worry or not.

Well, I do. I worry every time my son and daughter take trips. I worry how my daughter and son-in-law are going to make it financially down in Florida and how they'll deal with their first holidays on their own. I worry over what my son may do in his future. I worry about bills and debts. I worry too, about the people of Friendship and their spiritual well-being. I worry how Friendship is doing. I worry whether I’ll be able to do a good job as president of the Boys and Girls Club board next year.

But if I worry, then I suppose that I fit right in with the rest of the Church. It’s been my observation that the Church is Jesus Christ’s community of recovering control freaks. We’re learning to replace our worry over tomorrow with gratitude to the God Who tells all who believe in Jesus, “You belong to Me for eternity!”

Years ago, I learned about a man who had a “worry tree.” He had a stressful executive position and every night, before he walked through the front door of his house, he touched a tree close to the porch and said, “God, all these worries I’ve been stewing over, I’m giving to you here now at the worry tree. I’ll pick them up from You tomorrow if You seem to be telling me there’s anything I can do about them. Otherwise, I’m turning them over to You...and thank You!”

Martin Luther said that we recovering control freaks are to live in “daily repentance and renewal.” A suggestion for how to make each day--and not just tomorrow--a day of Thanksgiving: Leave your worries with God and when you do, thank Him for all your blessings. Thankfulness can become our way of life and God can make us a blessing to everyone and everything we touch.

Amen

Richards' Racially-Charged Rage

I never watch the David Letterman show and I've seen all of about twenty minutes of the old Seinfeld sitcom. But like most of America, I suppose, I had seen the clip of Seinfeld cast member Michael Richards's profane, racist diatribe during a recent performance at a comedy club and learned that he was to appear on Letterman's show last night. So, I tuned in.

"I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this," Richards proclaimed with intense emotion during a satellite-link interview Letterman conducted, Jerry Seinfeld at his side.

If Richards isn't a person of racist attitudes, how to explain the racism he expressed or the venom in his words as he wandered the club stage, catlike, for what seemed like an interminable time? Is he simply an angry man who grasped at the most apparent tool, the only thing he really knew about them--their race--to bludgeon two hecklers? Or is he a racist--perhaps one who's never realized it about himself--smoked out by his inexplicable anger?

As the Washington Post notes in its account of Richards' appearance on Letterman:

Richards described himself as going into "a rage" over the two audience members who interrupted his act Friday at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood.

That's when the laughter stopped.

Richards has apologized and that's to his credit. Seinfeld said that Richards was a person he loved and that Richards was "shattered" by the incident.

Obviously, I believe in the efficacy of apologies and in forgiveness for the repentant. But I wonder if people will ever be able to look at Michael Richards the same way again.

God is able to forgive and forget. That's harder for we human beings.

[THANKS TO: Joe Gandelman of The Moderate Voice for linking to this post.]

"Who will see? Who will do something?"

Those are the questions that Washington Post writer David Montgomery says are posed by images of the genocide in Darfur. The pictures are being displayed on a facade of the US Holocaust Museum, facing the Tidal Basin.

After the Jews, the Cambodians, the Bosnians, the Rwandans, the people of Darfur are the victims of systematic rape, murder, pillage and displacement.

In a three-year-old war between ethnic African rebels and the Arab-led central government, more than 400,000 people have died. The Holocaust Museum was one of the first institutions in the world to call the Darfur tragedy "genocide." The U.S. government followed suit.

Leaders of the museum, who consider it part of their mission to address contemporary cases of genocide, deliberately picked the week of Thanksgiving to thrust Darfur in Washington's face. The display runs from 5:30 p.m. to midnight through Sunday.

"During Thanksgiving week, a time of reflection and gratitude, we are lending the museum's moral stature to alert the public to the urgency of stopping the human catastrophe in Darfur," said Fred Zeidman, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Council. The idea was that as commuters and pedestrians hurry by in a fog of preoccupation, they might be jolted to consider other dilemmas beyond free-range or Butterball? Mashed or sweet? Store-bought or baked?

If the pictures "stir some sort of curiosity in the average person as they go by and see it, then the job is done," said Omer Ismail, a refugee from Darfur who was on hand last night. "They will go out and ask, Why?"

Read the whole thing. This is a holocaust actually happening as I tap out these letters on the keyboard. When will we stir ourselves to take the substantive steps to bring it to an end?

[See more about the Holocaust Museum photo display on Darfur here.]

More Egyptian Bloggers Arrested

Glenn Reynolds links to an article from the BBC and includes contact information for the Egyptian embassy in the US. Repression is a major tactic of the Egyptian government.

First Pass at This Week's Bible Lessons

[Most weeks, I present as many updates on my reflections and study of the Biblical texts on which our weekend worship celebrations will be built as I can. The purpose is to help the people of the congregation I serve as pastor, Friendship Lutheran Church of Amelia, Ohio, get ready for worship. Hopefully, it's helpful to others as well, since our Bible lesson is usually one from the weekly lectionary, variations of which are used in most of the churches of the world.]

We'll have two worship celebrations this week. On Wednesday night, we'll have our annual Thanksgiving Eve worship celebration with our friends from All Saints Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church of the Resurrection. The text for that night is Matthew 6:25-34:

[Jesus said:] 25“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? 28And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34“So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

The lesson for our upcoming weekend worship celebrations, when we'll commemorate Christ the King, is John 18:33-37:

33Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” 35Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” 36Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” 37Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”

A Few Comments:
1. Thanksgiving is meant to be an integral part of the Christian life. We thank God for all His "good and perfect gifts," especially the gift of new life through Jesus Christ.

2. Jesus' words in the Matthew text highlight the difficulty that comes when we allow worry to dominate our lives. We find it hard to be thankful when we're worried about the bad things that might happen. Worry and thankfulness, both being attitudes, are almost mutually exclusive.

And yet, though there are things that happen in our lives that can be difficult or tragic, we can be thankful to God in all circumstances, if not for all circumstances. (See here.) God is still our God when the chips are down. And glorifying the God we know through Christ is still our highest priority.

3. Solomon, king of Israel at its zenith, was his country's greatest and wealthiest ruler ever. In the Matthew text, Jesus is saying that even Solomon, with all his bling, would have to take a backseat to the lilies of the field when it comes to stunning adornments. Unlike Solomon, the lilies do nothing to acquire their clothing, Jesus says. All of it is a gift from God.

There may be a double meaning to Jesus' reference to Solomon. After Solomon died, Israel split in two. Its former glory was gone. This is what happens when followers of God fall prey to living life like the Gentiles--non-Jews. Wealth and power may be impressive. But it's doomed to die. Only God and the things given life by God keep living.

4. As to the John text, this coming weekend brings us to the end of the Church Year. That always means celebration of Christ the King. This text finds Pilate, Roman governor over first century Judea, worried that Jesus may threaten Roman rule by claiming to be a king. Pilate thinks of Jesus' possible kingship in the same terms as the crowd Jesus fed in John 6. They wanted to make Him a ruler who would throw out the Romans and do their bidding. Jesus eluded their desires to make Him that sort of king. Yet Christ is the King of all creation.

5. Jesus discusses the concept of truth a lot in John's Gospel. I like how Father Walter Burghardt explains it in a sermon on another text from John:

...what sort of truth did Jesus have in mind? I harked back to my years of philosophy. Remember epistemology, the science of knowing? An idea, a statement, a judgment was true if it was conformed to reality, was in harmony with the real. If I say that George Washington was born in 1732, and it turns out that he was, then my statement is true. And that went back to common Hellenistic usage, where "truth" hovered between "reality," "the ultimately real," and "knowledge of the real."

Now is that the truth Jesus had in mind when he told his disciples, "The Spirit of truth will guide [you] along the way of all truth" ([John] 16:13)?...The best scriptural scholarship declares this not untrue, simply inadequate...[In Jewish thought] "truth" often serves as a synonym for wisdom. Proverbs, for example, commands us to "buy wisdom" (Prov 23:23). Moreover, "truth" is associated with "mystery," so that to know the truth is to know the plans of God...; truth speaks of God's plan of salvation as revealed to humans. The two ideas, wisdom and mystery, come together when Jesus declares that he is "the truth" (Jn 14:6). He is wisdom incarnate and he is the expression of God's mysterious plan of salvation (Col 1:27; Eph 3:4)

In addition to God's wisdom and the mystery of how Christ's passion works our salvation, I believe that there is a third dimension to the truth Jesus speaks about: Jesus as God in the flesh--God incarnate--is the rock hard foundation on which we can place the full weight of our whole lives. As I wrote in a post on John 8:32, just a few weeks ago:

Jesus Himself and the word about Jesus--His life, death, and resurrection which brings new life to repentant sinners who trust in Him--is the truth He's talking about. Build your life on Him and the truth about Him and you will be forever free of sin and death.

Maybe more later in the week.

"Drama is life with the boring bits left out"

That's what Alfred Hitchcock said.

A problem for many of us is that we've expected life to be a full-fledged, Technicolor, HDTV dramatic epic all the time. I know that I've lived most of my life under this delusion.

But if we're fortunate, we trip over the wisdom that most of life is lived in the little places of daily routines and mundane tasks.

For many, this realization is a disappointment. For others, though, it's a vital learning, leading to mature acceptance. Tamar Jacobson writes:

...recently I have been noticing that, in fact, life is quite ordinary. It seems so much smaller, and my expectations have become almost non-existent. Dreams of academia or the one love of my life have been brought way down to size. I don't think they have been shattered. It's not disappointment, cynicism or disillusionment. I am not sad or bitter about it. Rather, it feels like a peaceful acceptance that life is just that. Little acts, mundane, daily routines. Every now and again someone will surprise me with an act of kindness, compassion or generosity of spirit. Or there will be a beautiful sunrise bringing me out of a painful night. Sometimes life will be sprinkled with fiction that might suspend my reality for a moment, filling me with joy or pleasure and then on I go again, plodding along through life.

In fact, I realize, it is quite comforting not to have to go crazy any more, trying to cover all this reality up with desperation and pain, angst and glorious passion.

Plodding feels just fine to me right about now.

Read the whole thing.

(For more on life lived in mundane, everyday places, go here and here.)

The Further Adventures of Moe and Joe: Consecration Sunday?

[This is the second Moe and Joe pure cornball skit I've written for our worship celebrations at Friendship Lutheran Church. Here is a link to the first one. It's the companion of this message.]

[As the scene starts, Joe is standing by himself, facing the congregation, scrunching his face as though trying to understand something or maybe, to see something in the distance.]

Moe: Hey, Joe.

Joe: [a bit impatiently, as though he’s being interrupted from doing something important] Oh...hey, Moe.

Moe: [looking in the direction toward which Joe is squinting] What are you looking at?

Joe: [still impatient] I’m not looking at anything.

Moe: Then, what are you doing? Did you have too much Skyline last night? I warned you about that.

Joe: [squinting harder] No! I’m concentrating!

Moe: Concentrating? Concentrating on what?

Joe: [gives up on the “concentrating” to look at Moe] I have no idea. But I just know that I’ve got to do it.

Moe: Why?

Joe: Because this is concentration Sunday.

Moe: No, Joe, it’s Consecration Sunday. Consecration.

Joe: Oh. That changes everything. It’s Consecration Sunday. [pauses] What does consecration mean, Moe?

Moe: I wondered the same thing myself. It does sound like one of those goofy words we only use at church. So, I looked it up. It comes from the word consecrate, which... [JOE INTERRUPTS WITH HIS LINE BELOW]

Joe: I remember that word! It’s in the Gettysburg Address. [goes into a mock-baritone speaking voice, as though imitating a speech-maker] “But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.”

Moe: Right, Joe. And that speech was given at the dedication of the cemetery honoring all who lost their lives at the Battle of Gettysburg during the Civil War. To consecrate something means to dedicate it to some purpose.

Joe: So, what are we dedicating on Consecration Sunday?

Moe: We’re dedicating ourselves.

Joe: Hmmm. Dedicating ourselves. To what?

Moe: As nearly as I can tell, we’re going to dedicate ourselves or re-dedicate ourselves to one what and one whom.

Joe: Whom? What whom?

Moe: We’ll be dedicating ourselves to God. That’s the Whom. And we’ll also be dedicating ourselves to the mission of Friendship.

Joe: That sounds great, but how do we do that?

Moe: Well, at the end of the worship celebration, we’ll be asked to bring forward the time and talent surveys and the estimated giving cards we received in the mail.

Joe: So, we’ll dedicate our time, talents, and treasures to God and to the mission of the Church.

Moe: Hey, that’s good. [turn to the congregation and direct them to the PowerPoint] I think that we all should say it together, “On Consecration Sunday, we dedicate our time, talents, and treasures to God and to the mission of the Church.”

Joe: Hey, Moe. I have one more question.

Moe: What’s that?

Joe: Why can’t we just call it Dedication Sunday?

Moe: Oh, you know the pastor: He loves those goofy church words.

Joe: See ya, Moe.

Moe: See ya, Joe.

Consecrated to God

[This message shared with the people of Friendship Lutheran Church, Amelia, Ohio, during worship celebrations on November 18 and 19, 2006.]

Joshua 24:1-2a, 14-18
Hebrews 10:19-25

In the Dallas Cowboys locker room before the 1993 Super Bowl, head coach Jimmy Johnson spoke with his players. Johnson later recalled what he said. “I told them that if I laid a two-by-four across the room, everybody would walk across it and not fall, because our focus would be that we were going to walk that two-by-four. But if I put that same two-by-four 10 stories high between two buildings only a few would make it, because the focus would be on falling. Focus is everything. The team that is more focused today is the team that will win this game.” The Cowboys won 52 to 17.

What is the primary focus of your life?

If following the God we know through Jesus Christ isn’t our focus as individuals and as members of the part of the body of Christ known as Friendship Lutheran Church, we could fall.

But if we will put our trust in God and follow Jesus Christ, acknowledging that all of our time, all of our talents, and all of our treasure are God’s gifts to us, we will lead focused lives that accomplish great things for God and God’s Kingdom.

God isn’t looking for perfect people. God isn’t looking for self-righteous people. God is looking for forgiven people who will acknowledge what Jesus Christ has done for them on the cross and from an empty tomb with their whole lives. Today, you and I are being asked to focus--to really focus--on consecrating (or dedicating) our whole selves to God.

The first of our two Bible lessons today recounts an incident that happened at the end of the life of Joshua.

Joshua was the leader of God’s people, the Hebrews. He succeeded Moses and was the one who led the people into the promised land.

Now, he was soon to die. So, he called the leaders of the people together. We’ve given you an extremely condensed version of what Joshua said that day. He spent a long time reminding the Hebrew leaders of all that God had done for them. He recalled how God had called Israel into being with just two people, Abraham and Sarah, a couple who had once lived comfortably in what is today Iraq. He remembered that God had saved them at the time of the great famine through the leadership of a dreamer named Joseph. Then, he recalled that, through Moses, God had gotten His people out of slavery in Egypt and, in spite of their stubborn rebelliousness, led them to the land in which they now lived.

But there was a problem: Even though God had never given up on them or stopped blessing them, the people kept chasing after other gods.

Like the person who claims to believe in Christ, but then spends every waking hour giving other things their highest priority and greatest effort, the Hebrews let other things crowd God out of their lives.

That’s why Joshua tells them: “Now therefore revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness.”

Frankly, our translation dainties things up a bit. Far better is the rendering of the New International Version, which says, “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness.” No matter how confident we can be of God’s love for us and of God’s desire of the best for us, we never dare get over our fear of God. God is greater than we are. God made us. We are in God’s hands. But Joshua’s point is that this great God Who has done everything for us--and Who is awesome in His power, strength, and perfection--deserves our complete surrender.

It’s also in our interest to surrender to this God. Only those who surrender to the God we know through Christ clear away the obstructions that would otherwise block His grace and blessings from our lives.

The lesson from Hebrews was addressed to a group of Jewish Christians in the first century, many centuries after Joshua lived. The issue in this address was that the Roman Empire was starting to persecute those who confessed Jesus and it was tempting for these Jewish followers of Jesus to renounce their faith in Him. The writer of Hebrews tells the believers to not give up on their relationship with the God revealed to the world in Christ. Just before our lesson, he talks about all that Christ had done for them, enduring the cross to win life for them. He says that because Christ gives us confidence to come before God in our prayers and because Christ is our great advocate--our high priest--Who sacrificed Himself for us, we can approach God with trusting faith, hold onto Him with hope that He’s good for all His promises, and dare to love one another. Because of Christ, we can live in faith, hope, and love.

For twelve-and-a-half years, Friendship Church wandered in the wilderness. Our worship, for most of those years, happened in a building so bad that the West Clermont Local School District is trying to get voters’ authorization to tear it down and build a new school. Bible study, small groups, and other activities happened in homes and shopping malls. We couldn’t wait to get into our promised land. Then, we thought, we could really be a church. We’d be able to be together for worship any time we wanted, even Saturday nights and Wednesday nights in Lent and Christmas Eve. We could have as many Bible studies and service activities as the building would hold. And we would be bursting at the seams.

Funny. Most of that hasn’t happened. Why?

Maybe we lost our focus.

Maybe we got apathetic.

Maybe we took God and our congregation for granted.

Maybe we got so involved in the stuff of being a church that we forgot that growing in the faith, hope, and love of the living Christ is meant to be our focus, building or not.

Maybe we forgot that the only truly happy people in the world are those who are focused on God’s purposes, the people who focus their time, talents, treasures, their whole lives on God. They do it, not to try to get God’s attention or to procure heavenly fire insurance. They do it because of their gratitude to Christ and because of the need that all of us have to give ourselves over to a great cause--the greatest cause: Jesus Christ and His mission in the world.

Joshua knew and the writer of Hebrews knew what we must know: When our lives get out of focus, it’s time to renew our covenant with God, to rededicate ourselves to Christ.

This can be such a day for you.

In a moment, I’m going to ask you to bring your offerings and your completed Time and Talent surveys and your 2007 statements of estimated giving to the Lord’s Table. I ask all of you to approach this as the truly important moment that it is.

If you’ve already filled out your forms, take some time to pray about it and pray that God’s good will be done for Friendship. Ask God if there’s anything He’d like for you to change about your commitment.

If you’re planning on filling out the forms during this time of commitment and prayer, ask God to guide you and our congregation.

As we begin, pray with me for just a moment...

[The true story of Jimmy Johnson and the Dallas Cowboys is told in 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself by Steve Chandler.]

ONE WIN AWAY!

Go, Buckeyes!