明けましておめでとうございます
Akemashite Omedetou Gozaimasu
Happy New Year everyone! Now, I realize it’s not quite the New Year yet, but with January 1st coming up, I thought it would be a good idea to get just a little bit ahead of the game. After all, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to stop procrastinating. I was going to make that my resolution last year, but I decided to put it off. This is the time of year where we spend a lot of time looking back on what’s been going on in our lives. You can’t go on social media and not see posts about the “Top 9” something of 2023 or listen to the radio and hear the countdown of the year’s biggest hits. Wherever you turn people are reflecting on the past year – where it went right and where we could improve. As a person, as a nation, as a global community, how did last year go? And that’s a good thing. Reflecting on the past will help us do better in the future. One area I’m going to challenge ALL of us to do better in (myself included) is to grow deeper in faith. Let those roots of our faith dig down deep and take hold. Whether that’s coming to worship more often, joining a small group, volunteering, giving, or even praying, spend time next year doing something MORE than what you did this year and see how God will bless your life. And if there is someone in your life who could use some encouragement to come to church more often (or come at all), here are some facts you could share with them.
Coming to church regularly is associated with …[1]
- 55% lower risk for mortality among middle-aged people
- 68% lower risk of death among women due to drugs, alcohol, and suicide and 33% lower among men
- 22% decrease in the incidence of depression
- Better time and life management skills
- Decrease use of drugs, violence, and delinquency among at risk youth
- Higher math and reading scores, and greater educational aspirations
- Being more likely to finish homework and degree programs
- Better intimate relationships
- Young adults being 18% more likely to report higher happiness, 29% more likely to volunteer, and 33% less likely to use drugs
But even if there were not all of these statistical reasons to come to church, even if I didn’t have facts and figures to back up why coming to church is a smart and healthy thing to do, I’d say it’s still the right thing because faith is best in community. Faith is best in community. Our faith is something God meant for us to develop together as we are about to read in our passage today. If you’ll please go to Hebrews 10:19 in your Bibles or your Bible app we’ll begin there this morning. In this passage, the author has just finished writing about how people used to offer sacrifices to God in hope of cleansing themselves and starting life anew. But that obviously didn’t work because day after day, year after year, the priests continually offered sacrifices to God to cleanse themselves, but now…now that God has written his law on our hearts as we heard in Jeremiah, now that God has written a new covenant with us, we are cleansed in his sight. We are covered in forgiveness. And that is where we enter the Scripture.
Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. – Hebrews 10:19-25
Seems that even as early as 70 AD, the church had a problem with worship attendance.
And they didn’t even have Sunday morning football to worry about. This letter was written only about 40 years after the death of Christ and Paul already feels the need to tell people to keep going to church. People were deciding they didn’t need to bother, the same sentiment many have today. Even if you considered yourself a follower of Christ, even if you wanted your daily or weekly dose of spiritual fulfillment, why bother coming to Sunday worship? You can listen to sermons via podcast. You can sing worship songs on your iPhone. You can even donate to your church or other organization through a mobile app. Who needs to step foot in a building? According to the research, only 23% of Americans both profess faith in Christ and attend church as an active participant.[2] Only 23%. The sad part is “active participant” is defined as someone who comes only once a month. On any given weekend, 17.5% of Americans can be found in a Christian church. You might think, “Well, maybe they’re going to other churches,” but that’s not it either. When you add in all the other religious groups, the number only goes up by 2%.[3] We, as Americans, have decided to devote our time elsewhere.
But we are NEEDED in the church as much as we need to be there.
When we took our membership vows, we promised to give our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness to God and to this church. And when we say presence, it means presence in the body of Christ. Presence means participating in this community of faith. Because even though we could sing praises to God in our showers; even though we could listen to sermons in our car; and even though we can give our offerings by mail or even on our phones, worship is more than that. Worship is more than the sum of its parts. It means fully and whole-heartedly giving of yourself to this time together. Of being fully present in worship, of being aware of those around you and what is happening. Presence means more than simply attendance. It means more than sitting in a chair or giving your offering to God. It means really being present for one another. It means sharing in fellowship and community because our Lord Jesus Christ told us that where two or more gather in his name he will be there. It means engagement in the community. Because worship is many things, and it is not just about us. Worship is many things, it is not just about us. It never has been. It’s about the body of Christ. And at different times and in different ways we contribute to the faith development of those around us, whether we are conscious of it or not.
We often dub the success or failure of a worship experience by what we get out of it.
But not every sermon was written for you. Not every song was played for you. Not every prayer was said just for you. Some weeks you’ll get more out of the message than other weeks. Some Sundays you’ll be profoundly moved by the Word of God or by a song we’ve sung. But even in those weeks when you didn’t connect to the sermon or the music, YOU may still have an important role to play. Maybe you’ll notice that person in the pew who needs a loving hand. Maybe you’ll notice that first time visitor who is feeling awkward and alone. Maybe you’ll be sitting next to someone who is having doubts about God. Maybe you’ll be the person they need.
That’s what happened to me when I was serving at Roswell UMC.
It was a rare occasion when I wasn’t either involved in worship or teaching a Sunday School class or something, but on this one particular Sunday, I wasn’t doing any of those things. I planned to simply show up, experience, and be a part of worship. Now, on those rare occasions, I usually sit up front or near the front, but because I had been talking to someone outside, I was a bit late and decided to sit in the next to last row. There was only me and one other woman in the pew and she was sitting pretty far away from me. I noticed she had a diaper bag, so I guessed that her little one was in the nursery and sure enough, she was. When it was time for the greeting, I made it a point to walk over to her and say “hello.” She turned to me and said, “Hi, I’m so glad you were sitting here. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.” I couldn’t help but wonder if she meant me specifically or just one of us since we had five full-time elders on staff. But she literally meant me. She had seen me and my family when coming to worship and noticed we were a mixed-race family and she was too. She wanted to ask me privately if this would be a welcome place for her child who was a blend of Asian and Caucasian heritage and she knew I could relate. I was able to set her concerns at ease and not long after she became a member of the church and we had the chance to baptize her child. It always felt to me as if this was one of those moments when God placed me in that place at that time for someone else. To be honest, I couldn’t remember a bit about the sermon or any of the songs we sung, but I have always remembered that woman and her family. Maybe you’re here for the same reason. Maybe you’re here to help someone else. Or maybe someone is here to help you.
We come to church for the promise of a better life.
But that better life starts here and now. It starts with each one of us, here today, offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice for his will. To allow God to use our presence to serve his Kingdom. And while there are lots of benefits for us to be in worship, perhaps the biggest benefit is the community of Christ that surrounds us and that we are a part of. We made a promise when we joined this church to give of our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. Fulfill that promise today and everyday for the Lord and Savior who gave his life for you.
[1] Please note that while these benefits are AWESOME, your mileage may vary! You can read the details for yourself at the following websites: Vanderbilt University, JAMA Psychiatry, Peter Haas,
[2] David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), 29-30.
[3] The American Church Research Project.
“Hello, My Name is Jesus”
The first time I put on my nametag at Disneyland was when I believed I actually had a job at the Happiest Place on Earth. Up until then, it didn’t seem quite real. To be sure, I went through the hiring process, got assigned my first area, went through Disney University, and attended Traditions like every single cast member to walk through the doors of a Disney theme park. But it was when I was given my nametag and put it on in the upper left corner of my shirt that it all clicked into place. I was a cast member of the Walt Disney Company. In life there are moments when something becomes real for us, like putting on a nametag. But other times life unfolds over a series of small moments, each one leading to the next until we come to realize we are living in a new reality. That’s how it was for me when I started to attend UCLA. I remember waiting to hear back from all the schools I applied to and was ecstatic when my acceptance letter came in the mail, but it wasn’t quite real yet that I was about to attend UCLA. When I went to orientation on campus and had the chance to buy my first UCLA sweatshirt, it still wasn’t quite real. I think it all crystallized in my mind when my parents left me at the dorm for the first time and I was completely on my own. Then it became REAL! But it wasn’t like the nametag. Instead, it was this slow-growing realization that crystalized in that moment. I was a UCLA Bruin.
No matter how it happens, when that realization hits, our life changes perspectives.
A new reality sets in, a new way of looking at things. Becoming a cast member was incredibly meaningful to me. That nametag meant something when I put it on. It meant I was part of something bigger than myself. It meant I belonged to a community that stood for something, that believed in something. “We create happiness.” I was part of that now. Becoming a Bruin was the same way. I was there for an education, but at the same time I now belonged to a community and shared something in common with everyone around me. Together we were part of something bigger. For all the brochures I read about the school, for all the information I gathered from books and magazines, it was a different feeling than actually becoming a student at UCLA. I was a Bruin! Becoming a follower of Christ is like that too. When you GET IT, when Jesus becomes real to you, you realize you are part of something bigger than yourself. That you are part of a much larger community. That being Christian means something. It stands for something. It shapes you and changes you in ways it’s hard to describe, more than a job, more than a school. And I’d have to say in even more profound and deep ways than you can probably imagine. But like those other moments, it has to become REAL for you. It has to become more than just words on a page or an hour of your life every Sunday. Because if the words on the page don’t make it into your heart, the Bible is nothing more than a book of interesting stories. And to be honest, not all that well written. Not a lot of character development, no climatic build-up, no dramatic tension, GREAT overarching theme and some pretty amazing events happen, but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John weren’t exactly J.R.R. Tolkein.
But the Bible is one of the most amazing books ever written.
What makes it so brilliant is as much what is NOT said as what IS said. Exploring the Bible is like an archaeological dig right in the comfort of my chair. The more I dig, the more I find. And that’s because the Bible is more than just words on a page. When I read it, I get something new from it almost every time. I feel like in some ways, God is talking to me through the words on the page, giving me new insight into my life and the world I live in. But I don’t think any of that would have happened if my own faith in Christ didn’t become real for me. And I can be slow on the uptake at times so this was a long process. It started probably from birth, but my first recollection of someone helping to make Christ real in my life was my mom back when I was 8 years old. From there it wouldn’t be until college when I met Lisa who really made an impact on me and got me thinking again about God. Then it was Mark and Steve and Andrea, friends of mine I met while working at Disneyland who kept inviting me to church. It was then I started to become more serious in my faith. And of course my wife, Cassie who supported me in this journey so I could stand before you here today. And that’s just some of the people who helped me get to know Jesus. There wasn’t one “aha” moment like Paul on the Road to Damascus. Instead, it was a series of events that changed the course of my entire life – one after another after another that changed me and then inspired me to want to do this – to share how life-changing, peace-giving, and satisfying it could be to have Christ in your life. I figure that’s what it must have been like for those shepherds nearly 2000 years ago when they first heard the news.
And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”
13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
16 So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17 When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19 But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told. – Luke 2:8-20
I don’t know about you, but I think I would have collapsed on the spot.
We tend to think of angels as these chubby little dudes with harps who float around playing sweet music, but that isn’t at all the image the Bible gives us. We read about seraphim and their six wings; two covered their face, two covered their feet, and two helped them to fly (Isaiah 6:2). Not what I’m used to imagining. The Bible tells us about cherubim too, and they aren’t nice and cuddly. They had four heads, four eyes, and four wheels and all of it was covered with eyes (Ezekiel 10:11-12). They were the guardians of the Tree of Life in Eden and carried flaming swords. So imagine you’re one of the shepherds and suddenly this vision of an angel pops up out of nowhere. Immediately, terror probably sinks into your heart. But the angel says to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord.” And then after giving them this pronouncement an entire army of these scary, powerful beings appear right around them. But as impressive as that was, that moment didn’t make Jesus real for them. It was when they saw him in person lying in the manger. When they encountered Christ for themselves was when they believed and they went out and told everyone they knew. Only then did it go from being just words to becoming a reality. When they encountered Christ for themselves was when all of the stories went from being just words to becoming a reality.
We call that the incarnation of Christ.
The incarnation of Christ. It’s a fancy word meaning that Christ becomes real for us in this life. For the shepherds, for Mary and Joseph, for the early disciples, Jesus literally became real. But today, Christ becomes real for us through the love of other people. Jesus knew this would happen. He knew that people would have a difficult time believing and he knew he wasn’t always going to be here for us in person. But that’s why he spent time with the disciples training them to spread the Gospel. That’s why he sent the Holy Spirit, to embolden and empower those early followers. That’s why he said to Thomas, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed (John 20:29).” Jesus was talking about us. But in a way, we have seen him. We may not have seen him directly, but for each of you who experiences the reality of Christ in your heart, for those of you where Jesus isn’t just some guy in a book, but a living, breathing being, this stuff is REAL. Christianity isn’t a religion based on blind faith, but a faith based on our experience with Jesus through the world around us. The love of a friend, the kind words of a stranger, the tough love of those closest to us; those are the things that make Christ a reality for us today. We may not have burning bushes or witness the resurrection of a friend, but we can’t say God isn’t active in the world because he is. Christ is alive in us. Christ is alive in us.
Many of us don’t yet experience that reality.
We know that the world is only about 1/3rd Christian as it is, which means the vast majority of people don’t live with this view of life. And of that part of the world that is Christian, not all of them live with that feeling of assuredness either. I don’t. There are times when I worry or question where God is in the world. There is too much cruelty and evil and greed and selfishness in the world not to experience moments of doubt. But for the most part, the love of God is just too evident in my life to turn away. That’s not the case for everyone. There are many people who turn away. There are many people who never experience God’s love in the first place. There are many who are overwhelmed by doubt or anger or pain and who cannot reconcile that with a loving God. Then there are those who feel they don’t need God. They don’t necessarily believe or not believe, but Christ isn’t a reality for them in a way that makes it evident why they need to do anything about it in their lives. It’s up to those of us who believe to make Christ real for them, too. It’s up to us to make the reality of the love of God so evident that they can’t help but believe. It will take humility. It will take perseverance. It will take patience. And most of all it will take love. I want to challenge you to think of someone in your life who could really use a good dose of God’s love and spend time thinking how you could make Christ a reality for them. Think about what they need, who they are, what’s gone on in their life that might have distanced them from Christ and pray about what you could do for them. And if you ARE that person, if you are the one for whom Christ is not a reality, please simply open up your heart to the possibility of God’s great love. Ask questions. Explore your doubts. Challenge yourself that maybe you need God in your life more than you are willing to admit. And see where it leads you. As we go out into the world and celebrate the love of Jesus made real for us in the world, let us also be a beacon of light and life to those around us. Let the incarnation of Christ work through us that we might touch the life of another and help them to know that Jesus loves them, too.
The Unreliable Bible
Don’t tell anyone, but I had a little crush on my Den Mother.
I loved being in Cub Scouts, and not just because of her. It was fun to earn the badges and hang out with my friends. It was cool to go to school in our uniforms and see all the other kids who belonged to your troop. At the time I didn’t realize it, but it was great to feel part of something bigger than yourself. I loved all the doodads you could get for your uniform, too. I had this one cravat for my kerchief that I particularly thought was cool. It was blue and gold and just looked awesome. Everyone in scouts had a handbook and we used that as a guide to help us earn each badge. You’d have to fulfill certain requirements to progress to the next level. We started at Bobcat and then moved to Wolf and then Bear and finally Webelos. Earning my Arrow of Light badge was bittersweet. It was the highest honor you could achieve as a Cub Scout so I was happy and proud to have achieved it, but it also meant it was time to graduate to the Boy Scouts. It was the end of an era. But what made me a scout wasn’t the uniform or the awards or even the scouting handbook. It was an adherence to the ideals of scouting. Going through the book and earning the awards was evidence of my character, but it wasn’t those things that made me a scout. It was about upholding the Cub Scout motto to do my best.
In the same way, our faith doesn’t come from the Bible.
Like the Cub Scout handbook, it’s meant to help us and guide us and in the case of the Bible get to know God better and draw closer to him. But if the Bible were the end-all-be-all of existence, we’d be in a lot of trouble because there are so many things the Bible never addressed. The internet, genetically modified fruit, modern medicine to name just a few. And within the Bible are contradictory narratives. Right from the very beginning. The first chapter tells us that God created the Heavens and the Earth. Then he created the seas and the land. Then he created the plants and after that the animals. And only after everything else was created did he make people. The Bible is very clear on this. Until chapter two. Because in that chapter it says God made man and breathed life into him before any other living thing. When Adam was created, there were no plants or animals. There weren’t even any women. Just him. So, if your faith rests only on the inerrancy of the Bible, you’ll eventually find you have no faith at all. But thankfully, it doesn’t. Our faith does not rest on the Bible. Our faith rests on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:13-14, 19).”
Christianity does not exist because of the Bible. The Bible exists because of Christianity.
Christianity does not exist because of the Bible. The Bible exists because of Christianity. We do not believe in Jesus because it’s in a book. We believe in Jesus because he was born to a virgin, lived amongst us, performed miracles only God could perform, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. And while the Bible chronicles the life and teachings of Jesus, the Bible is not why we are Christian. Andy Stanley used this example in a sermon. He said you don’t exist because of your birth certificate. If something happened to your birth certificate, you wouldn’t cease to exist. Your birth certificate documents something that happened.[1] In the same way, the Bible documents something that happened. And this is exactly why Christianity spread, because the early disciples believed that Jesus rose from the dead and died for their sins. We see this in our reading.
13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. 14 But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
21 After further threats they let them go. They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened. 22 For the man who was miraculously healed was over forty years old. – Acts 14:13-22
Peter and John weren’t putting their lives on the line because of the Bible.
The Bible didn’t exist and would not exist until hundreds of years after their death. In fact, some of the most important letters and teachings of the Bible were written or said to be written by them. But Peter and John put their lives on the line because they believed Christ was the risen Savior, and they believed because they witnessed him after his death. They said to the Jewish elders who were putting them on trial, “As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” It didn’t matter their lives were being threatened, they could not deny their own experience and so eventually the Sanhedrin had to let them go. They believed because of what they knew. Not because of something they read or some theory they heard. They believed because of what they knew and eventually they wrote it down and it became part of what we know to be the Bible today.
But no one in the first century came to believe in Christ because of the Bible.
They didn’t believe because of the Bible in the second century either. Or the third. It wasn’t until Easter in the year 367 that Athanasius, the Bishop of Alexandria, first issued the 27-book list that we call the New Testament.[2] It didn’t become officially canon until the Synod of Hippo in 393.[3] And during that time, Christianity grew BEFORE there was a Bible. Despite persecution, their numbers went from a dozen men to thousands of people to literally millions, until by the year 300 they accounted for 10% of the population of the Roman Empire.[4] In the year 313, Emperor Constantine made Christianity legitimate and by 380, Emperor Theodosius made it the official state religion of the Empire.[5] So for the first 360 years of its existence, Christianity grew from a small group of followers to a Jewish sect to the official state religion of the biggest empire in the known world, and that whole time they didn’t have a Bible. How in the world did they come to believe?
People believed in Jesus Christ because of the transformative power of faith.
People believed in Jesus because of the transformative power of faith. It wasn’t because of a book. It was because they saw for themselves how faith in Christ changed those around them. I’m sure the same is true for you. Although you may have read the Bible as a kid or sung that song we all know and love (“Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so…”), that’s not why you believed in Jesus. It’s because you trusted whoever it was that took you to Sunday School. It’s because you thought your pastor knew what he was talking about. It’s because your grandmother had such overpowering faith that you felt compelled to learn more about God. No matter how it happened, you came to have faith in Christ because of the people around you who in either overt or subtle ways convinced you this was something worth believing in. But you didn’t come to faith because of a book. You came to faith in Christ because it was made real to you through the love of those around you, just as it did for Peter and John and Matthew and Luke and Mark and Paul who were so overwhelmed by the love of Christ they had to write about it and tell it to everyone they knew. Love became real for them and through that love they had faith.
The Bible is important.
Please don’t misunderstand that point. I do believe the writers of the Bible were inspired by God. I believe that the words within it are useful to teach, rebuke, and correct as Paul wrote to Timothy. But I also believe human beings are fallible and we have often misinterpreted the words contained within it. I believe human beings even with the best of intentions interpret the Bible in ways that do NOT reflect God’s will. And I know the Bible contains contradictions we cannot resolve. And if the Bible has been used in your life to make you afraid; if the Bible has been used against you as a weapon; if the Bible has been the justification for causing you pain and anguish, I am so sorry. Because that was not why the Bible was written. To quote Jesus’ disciple, John, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believethat Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” The Bible was meant to tell the story of God’s great love. A love so great that Jesus gave himself up on the cross for us as a sacrifice for our sins. A love that moved dozens and then thousands and then millions of people to love one another so radically that it convinced others to do the same, and hopefully it has or will do the same for you. The next time you read the Bible, keep that in mind. If you have given up your faith in Christ because of the Bible, please come back. If you have stayed away from believing in Jesus because of the Bible, please give it a chance. And if you have doubts because of the Bible, please feel free to share and ask about it. But know that we believe in Jesus not because of a book, but a book was written because we believe so strongly and want to share that love with the world.
[1] Andy Stanley in his sermon, “Who Needs God?: The Bible Told Me So,” August 27, 2016. Also attributed to that sermon is a variation of the quote “Christianity doesn’t exist because of the Bible…”
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_New_Testament_canon#Muratorian_fragment
[3] https://gotquestions.org/canon-Bible.html
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_church_of_the_Roman_Empire
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_the_4th_century
Where Do Babies Come From?
Depending on when you asked you probably got a different answer. Parents have been answering that question in different ways since time began. There’s the stork story, the cabbage patch story, the story of the birds and the bees, you get the picture. Different kids at different ages can handle different stories. A lot of it has to do with where your child is and how ready YOU are to share. I still remember the day I found out – February 16, 1977, the day they aired the ABC Afternoon School Special, “My Mom’s Having A Baby.” We plopped down in the family room and watched it with my mom. The cartoon parts were hilarious and at nine years old, that was enough for me. When I got into eighth grade we had “sex ed” with Mr. Reller and Mr. Reller took the more direct approach to learning. He let us ask any questions we wanted and there were some doozies. I found out more in that one day of class than in the whole rest of eighth grade! But if nine-year-old me was in that room, it would have been too much. I wasn’t ready for it. It took time for me to gain the maturity, knowledge, and level of understanding to process the things we were talking about. I think I’m STILL processing some of what we talked about that day.
The same is true for our faith.
We need time to mature in our faith as we ask more and more complex questions. That’s a fundamental truth for anything we want to learn about. We start with the basics, build a good foundation, and then go on from there. Nobody starts with the LEGO Expert set. We don’t talk about God the same way to a 5-year old as we would a teenager or an adult. They have different levels of understanding. But what happens when you grow older and your faith doesn’t grow with you? When we leave our faith in childhood, our God stays there, too. Lots of people leave the church in their teens and don’t come back until something draws them back. Whether that’s getting married, raising children, or noticing a hole in their life they are hoping to fill, they come back to church with only the tools they left with. So whatever God we believed in back when we left the church is often the God we still believe in when we come back. The problem is our adult ideas don’t match up with our Sunday School God. Sometimes people never come back because they can’t reconcile the God they believe in with the life they know. But it’s not God that doesn’t make sense, it’s that our ideas about God haven’t changed as we have. And this isn’t a new problem either. You’ll find that most of the problems and issues we come up with today are the same problems and issues we’ve had all along. Even the 1st century church had these problems. You’d think being so close to the time when Jesus actually lived, they might have an advantage, but they struggled with faith just as much as we do today. Maybe even more so because everything was so new.
1 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. – Hebrews 5:11-14
Is your faith still in its infancy?
Just because you’re going to church doesn’t mean your faith is growing. It needs to be nurtured and tended to and fed like any other living thing. For a garden to bloom, you can’t just plant seeds in the ground. You have to water it, position it to get the right amount of sun, give it good soil to take root in, and tend to it. If you don’t, you might get lucky but usually, you just have a bunch of seeds buried in the ground. In the same way, faith needs to be nurtured. Without care, it just withers away and that’s what has Paul frustrated. He’s writing to this group of believers who he feels have grown lax in their spiritual growth. He’s so frustrated he insults them, “You need milk, not solid food!” He tells them they should be teaching this stuff, but they still haven’t mastered the basics. And he says, “But solid food is for the mature, who by CONSTANT USE have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” Constant use. If we don’t practice our faith it becomes stagnant. We grow up, our ideas of the world become more complex, but our vision of God remains rooted in our childhood.
As you get older, you don’t believe the stork brought you to your family.
But a lot of us hold on to childhood beliefs about God unless our faith grows with our understanding of the world. In one of his sermons, Andy Stanley mentions some of these versions of God from our childhood.[1] One of them he calls Bodyguard God. Bodyguard God is the God that always protects us from harm. This is the God who never lets bad things happen to good people. We tell children if they listen and obey then God will keep them safe, but to a child this means nothing bad will ever happen to me as long as I believe. But that is just not true and it leads people to abandon their belief in God the moment things go bad because they have based their understanding of God on something that isn’t true. God never promises us a life free from harm. He even says it out loud. Jesus told them flat out, “In this world you will have trouble.” I don’t know how much more plain he could be. “In this world you will have trouble (John 16:33).” Then he goes on, “BUT (my emphasis) take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus doesn’t promise us a life free from trouble. In fact, he guarantees it! It’s just we don’t have to lose hope when trouble comes our way because we know God is with us. But Bodyguard God? That God doesn’t exist.
Then there’s Blanket God.[2]
Blanket God is the God of comfort, the God who is always present. He reminds me of Linus from the Peanuts gang because his blanket is always with him. But there are times in our lives where we are distant from God. There are times in our lives where we not only don’t feel his presence but instead feel his absence. And this poses a big problem for Blanket God believers because they feel abandoned and sometimes it leads them to abandon their faith. What they don’t understand is God is still there. Even in those moments where we can’t feel his presence, God is constantly reaching out to us. There’s just something that is blocking our vision of him. Sometimes that means we have to weather the storm until the fog clears from our eyes. This is when we need a deeper faith to hold on even when we can’t see God for ourselves. A friend of mine from Georgia gave me the best advice one time when I was going through my own period of doubt and it’s stuck with me ever since. He told me when he looks back on his life he can see all the ways where God helped him through the valleys. He couldn’t see it at the time because he was stuck in his own grief or anger or depression or whatever he was feeling at the time. But afterward, he would look back and see how God was present for him and when he was going through another valley, that’s how he could keep his faith in God, knowing that even if he seems absent God is still at work in his life.
There’s also Gap God.
Gap God is the God who fills in the gaps of our faith. This God is the God who explains the unexplainable. Whenever something happens when we don’t understand or can’t explain, we say, “It’s a God thing.” And while that might seem to be giving God his props, it’s really undermining our faith. Because God becomes a crutch for the unexplainable when we start to use God in that way. Remember when the AIDS epidemic first began and there were people like Pat Robertson who said it was caused by God to rid the world of homosexuality? Then they had to backtrack when heterosexual people started getting it too. Or when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 and those same God pundits declared it was God’s wrath upon a sexually promiscuous society? As if that one area of the world was the only den of ill repute. Using God to fill in the gaps of our knowledge is not only small-minded but denies the real power of God. We don’t believe in God because of the mystery of God. We believe in God because of his revelation in Jesus Christ. We don’t believe in God because of the things we can’t explain, but because of the things we have experienced ourselves.
Before Emma was born, I went through my own period of doubt.
I’ve shared this before and it was a really tough time for me. Cassie was pregnant and I went to my pastor, Jane to talk about it and I’ll never forget what she said. First, she told me it was okay to doubt, that doubt was sometimes healthy for our faith. But she also said, to hang in there and when Emma is born, I’ll know God is real. And she was right. The first time my baby girl held my finger in her tiny hand, I couldn’t help but feel like I was witnessing a miracle. I know it happens every day to hundreds of thousands of people, but this time it was happening to me. I know the biology of it all, I know how babies are born, but to be part of the creation process was mind blowing. And I saw God’s great plan up close for once. It wasn’t my LACK of knowledge that made God real for me, it was my understanding that did.
If you have lost faith because of one of these versions of God, I implore you to come back.
These are simplistic views of God that were meant for a time when we didn’t have the life experiences we have now. I want to challenge you to open your heart up to the possibility that it isn’t God that’s the problem, but instead our outdated views of him. Get to know God again. And if you are solid in your faith, I challenge you to keep studying, praying, and looking for God in your life because God doesn’t disappear overnight, but in the slow erosion of our faith. God vanishes because we allow life to chip away at our vision of God until there isn’t enough for God to rest upon and it all collapses beneath us. Question God. Question your faith. Don’t be afraid to put God to the test but be open and willing to listen to the response he returns. Don’t outgrow your faith, but instead nurture it, feed it, protect it and let it grow with you.
[1] From Andy’s sermon to North Point Community Church, “Who Needs God? Gods of the No-Testament.”
[2] Andy called him Boyfriend or Girlfriend God, but I think this description fits God better.
The Truth Is Out There
Before we found out chocolate was good for you…we ate it anyway because it was so good. But, when studies came out saying it provided real health benefits, it gave us every excuse to indulge in this tasty treat. But consider this. How many of you read the fine print? Most chocolate you buy in the store ISN’T good for you. It’s highly processed, contains way more milk and sugar that you don’t need, and doesn’t contain the nutrients that make it good for you in the first place.[1] If you’re going to have chocolate at all it should be at least 70% cocoa, taken in moderate amounts, and still contain flavonoids which often get stripped away in the process of making your favorite chocolates. It’s the flavonoid epicatechin that is the active ingredient doing all the hard work to help your body.[2] Without it, it’s just sugar your body doesn’t need. Remember when wine was good for you? First it was bad, then it was good, and now it’s bad again. You know why? Because they found out that in all of these studies that said drinking in moderation was good for you, they never studied the people. Turns out there was a reason moderate drinkers showed positive health results – reasons that had nothing to do with having a glass of wine each day. The new results are in, and it says that the safest amount of alcohol is zero drinks per day.[3] Most of you probably hadn’t heard about this news. It doesn’t grab your attention like the one that says having a glass of wine a day is good for you. Now that’s a headline! The truth is often buried behind a stack of half-truths and untruths and we don’t take the time to find out if what we like to hear is based on fact or not. Because what we are really after is validity rather than verity. We are looking for validity instead of verity. The truth may be out there, but we aren’t all that interested in finding it.
The same is true with our faith.
We are interested in finding out whatever it is that supports our view of faith, but aren’t all that interested in finding out information that may challenge it. If you believe in predestination, you aren’t all that concerned you might ignore that God tells us we have the freedom to choose (Joshua 24:15). If you believe women should never be pastors, you aren’t interested to hear Paul supporting women who taught Scripture to men (Acts 18:26). And if you believe every word in the Bible is the literal word of God, you don’t want to hear about the two different creation stories or two different accounts of the Great Flood even though they are right there in the first book of the Bible.[4] Because these things challenge your system of beliefs. That’s even true for people who don’t believe in God. If you’ve made up your mind God doesn’t exist, no amount of evidence is going to convince you otherwise. You might say you have a bunch of reasons why you don’t believe, but I have to challenge you to ask, “Is my objection to God really about God’s existence or my resistance?”[5]
How open are you to the truth?
Are you more interested in being right or finding out what’s real? Because if you only care about being right, all you’ll see in front of you are the things that confirm your own beliefs. You’ll forever live in a world of your own making which can be disastrous. One of my friends told me she would never get her kids vaccinated because it might harm them. And I’m not talking about COVID vaccines (although there is plenty of denial about that too). I’m talking measles, mumps, and rubella; the famous and quite standard MMR. Vaccines, by the way, that her parents readily gave to her and her siblings and my parents gave to me and my sisters and I’m sure one most of you received, too. There was a study published in the journal The Lancet which claimed a link between autism and MMR and anti-vaccine advocates picked up on this like white on rice. But it wasn’t true. Studies have been done to refute it. The design of the original study was found to be grossly flawed. And it turns out the lead author had a financial incentive to lie – he was being paid by companies involved in a lawsuit against the makers of those vaccines.[6] But despite the massive amount of evidence against the lie, people continue to believe it – except my friend who once she had kids did get them vaccinated. When we give up on the search for truth, the world is worse off for it. Doctors would still be doing lobotomies to free us from evil spirits and bloodletting to balance out our humours.[7] We would still believe people are inferior based on race or gender alone (sadly many still hold onto these falsehoods also). And we would still believe eggs are bad for you![8]
What is it in us that leads us to deny the truth?
How is it we remain willfully ignorant of the facts no matter how obvious they are? And this is a question for all of us. You are not as immune as you’d like to think. It would be hypocritical to look around and think, “Well, I hope (insert name here) is reading this,” because I am sure there is something in your life you are denying right now. Whether it’s the way you are living, the way you are caring for your body, the way you are practicing your faith, there is probably something you are living in denial about, and if you say, “That’s not true” there’s perfect evidence right there. Now, whether you believe in the Bible or God or any of it, you’ll find that this problem of truth denial can be found all throughout history. Even Jesus had to deal with it.
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.” – John 8:31-38
Pride. That’s what gets in the way of the truth.
Pride. It is the poison that gets in the way of healing, of good relationships, of reconciliation, and the truth. Pride. We’ve read from this passage before, but this time I want you to hear it from the perspective of pride. Did you hear how the other Jews answered Jesus? He said, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But instead of absorbing those words, instead of thinking about what Jesus had to say, they responded. “We’ve never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Pride made them blind to the fact they were slaves to their own sin. You’ve probably heard kids say, “You’re not the boss of me!” Well, this is the adult version of that very same sentiment. “We’ve never been slaves of anyone! You’re not the boss of me! You can’t tell me that I need to be set free.” Andy Stanley brought this up in one of his podcasts. How many times have you been in the middle of an argument and it dawns on you the other person is right. And even though you know they are right, you keep on fighting anyway. Because it’s no longer about two people or two sides trying to get to the truth, now it’s all about winning. It’s all about being able to say you’re right. That’s pride. We think pride makes us strong. We think pride is an admirable trait. But we would be wrong. Strength lies in humility.
There’s a reason people use the expression “puffed up with pride.”
Pride inflates our ego to the point where we devalue others. Pride swallows up the room and pushes out space for new ideas and new learning. Pride forces us to continue down a path even when it’s clear it’s the wrong path. Humility on the other hand keeps us grounded. Humility opens us up to new ideas and new ways of thinking. And it takes a great deal more strength of character to be humble than to be filled with pride. Pride is for the weak, not the other way around. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity that pride was the great sin, the one from which all others stem. He describes pride as “spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.”[9] There was a study done on the quality of humility as a competitive advantage in the workplace and the researchers came to the conclusion, “Humility is frequently associated with shyness, lack of ambition, passivity, or lack of confidence. We argue quite the opposite—that humility offers strategic value for firms by furnishing organizational members with a realistic perspective of themselves, the firm, and the environment. In fact, we propose that humility is a critical strength for leaders and organizations possessing it, and a dangerous weakness for those lacking it.”[10] Another study showed humble people make the best leaders.[11] And even the FBI believes humility is essential for success. In an article on leadership they wrote, “Humility often can be overlooked or, even, viewed as weakness. It is not. It is vital. Allowing yourself to be humble and to express your humility openly allows for others to grow. There is nothing more powerful than that.”[12]
Commit yourselves to the pursuit of truth instead of your own righteousness.
For it was Jesus himself who told us the truth would set us free. This week, challenge yourself to keep an open mind. Try a new food. Try a different detergent when washing your clothes or a different shampoo for your hair. We often get into routines without ever challenging if there might be better ways of doing things. Don’t blindly pick something, but actually think about it, ask for opinions, look something up. Open up your horizons to a world of possibilities (please keep in mind I am NOT telling you to do something dangerous or illegal – certainly you don’t have to go that far to do something different). If you’re on the fence about faith, I want to dare you to open your mind to the possibility there is a God. That he actually loves you. That he really did send his Son to Earth to die for you. And that he wants a relationship with you even if you don’t want one with him. If you have honest objections to faith, that’s totally reasonable and also healthy for any strong journey towards the truth. But be open to a world where God exists and has been searching for you for your entire life. Open that door a crack and watch the love that will pour in.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/10/health/chocolate-health-benefits/
[2] https://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20040601/dark-chocolate-day-keeps-doctor-away#1 The study done by Engler through the UCSF School of Nursing used 1.6 oz. per day of Dove Dark Chocolate.
[3] https://www.popsci.com/moderate-drinking-benefits-risks/
[4] http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/cflood.htm
[5] From Andy Stanley’s sermon “Who Needs God? I do” https://whoneedsgod.com/message-gallery/2016/10/4/who-needs-god-part-6
[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136032/
[7] https://theconversation.com/five-bloodcurdling-medical-procedures-that-are-no-longer-performed-thankfully-75818
[8] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/why-are-eggs-good-for-you#TOC_TITLE_HDR_6
[9] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 125.
[10] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PdfExcerptURL&_imagekey=1-s2.0-S0090261604000506-main.pdf&_piikey=S0090261604000506&_cdi=272151&_orig=article&_zone=centerpane&_fmt=abst&_eid=1-s2.0-S0090261604000506&_user=12975512&md5=65d0f6fc48d7e81535608d991b99f331&ie=/excerpt.pdf
[11] https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238328
[12] https://leb.fbi.gov/2014/march/leadership-spotlight-humility-a-leadership-trait-that-gets-results
Alone In A Crowd
I love hosting parties. I hate going to them.
You would think as a pastor it would be easy for me to mingle with people I don’t know, and in the context of church you’d be right. I love making people feel welcome. I love meeting first time visitors. I try to go the extra mile to make people feel at home. But that’s the key. This is our space. We are the host. We have home field advantage. When I was young, it was so easy! I guess I had the innocence of youth. You know how I met one of my best friends, Lance? It was my first day of Kindergarten and I just went up to him and said, “You want to be my friend?” It’s been over 50 years now and we’re still friends. It’s harder for me now. Maybe because I’m more aware of social norms. Maybe because I’m not as innocent as I used to be, but it’s tough for me to walk into someone else’s territory and feel comfortable. I’m not sure how to behave, how open I can be, where the restroom is, what are the rules of the house. Do I need to take my shoes off? Which is always tough for me because I have very flat feet and it hurts to walk around without shoes. But I want to respect our host. After all, they opened their doors to me. So, it feels weird to walk into a place that is completely foreign, that has its own customs and traditions, that has a history and expectations all its own. How do you live up to all of that? You feel like a fish out of water. At least I do.
I imagine Jacob felt the same way.
Let me set the scene for you. Jacob and Esau were brothers. But early on, Jacob blackmailed his brother to give up his birthright to him[1] and then later tricked his father to steal the family blessing away from Esau. Which was a very big deal back then. Stealing the birthright was like stealing the family inheritance and stealing the blessing meant that Esau would always be inferior to Jacob in the family. After twenty years, Jacob was forced to flee from where he had been living (again because he had deceived someone even if rightfully so) and decided it was time to reconcile with his brother. He was understandably nervous. And a little bit fearful for his life. After all, his brother had no reason to forgive him. No reason to accept him onto his land. And no reason to be kind to him. So, you can imagine the level of anxiety Jacob had when he finally approached his brother for the first time in two decades.
Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men; so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel and the two female servants. 2 He put the female servants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph in the rear. 3 He himself went on ahead and bowed down to the ground seven times as he approached his brother.
4 But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept. 5 Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children. “Who are these with you?” he asked. Jacob answered, “They are the children God has graciously given your servant.” 6 Then the female servants and their children approached and bowed down. 7 Next, Leah and her children came and bowed down. Last of all came Joseph and Rachel, and they too bowed down.
8 Esau asked, “What’s the meaning of all these flocks and herds I met?” “To find favor in your eyes, my lord,” he said. 9 But Esau said, “I already have plenty, my brother. Keep what you have for yourself.”
10 “No, please!” said Jacob. “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably. 11 Please accept the present that was brought to you, for God has been gracious to me and I have all I need.” And because Jacob insisted, Esau accepted it. 12 Then Esau said, “Let us be on our way; I’ll accompany you.” – Genesis 33:1-12
What a relief it must have been!
To have been accepted with literal open arms like that. To be made welcome immediately and to be accepted. This was worse than just walking into a party at someone’s house or going to a new school or your first day on the job. Jacob was fearful for his life! And not just his, but his whole family as well. But Esau doesn’t treat Jacob like an enemy, and he doesn’t approach Jacob as if something fishy was going on. Instead, he approaches him with what we consider the love of Christ. No strings attached. No reservations. He even initially refuses Jacob’s gift and tells him to keep it for himself.[2] But when Jacob insists, he graciously accepts it – not for his own gain, but to help ease Jacob’s anxiety. Then he does exactly what a good host should do – he accompanies him to his new home.
This is the kind of hospitality that God wants us to offer to everyone.
An open, no strings attached, no reservation, unrequited love for our neighbor. When you are the host, whether it’s a party at your home or welcoming a new teammate at work or even here at church, keep this in mind. When you have home team advantage, the onus is on YOU to take the initiative. It’s up to YOU to reach out, to offer hospitality, and to accompany the new person in our midst. Sit with them. Talk with them. Take your cues from them. Don’t impose your own needs and wants upon them but try to be in tune with what they need and want from you. Romans 12:9-13 sums up God’s expectations pretty well. Be sincere in your love of neighbor. Honor others above yourself. Join them mentally and emotionally wherever they are. As it says in the passage, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, (and) faithful in prayer.” Practice hospitality. It’s kind of God’s recipe for being a successful host no matter what situation you find yourself in.
What happens before a person enters our doors is more than we’ll ever know.
Whether that’s at home, at work, or at church, whatever brought them to us is deeper than what we see on the surface. While at a seminar for intercultural communication, they said people are like icebergs. What we see, what we hear, what we observe is only about 10% of what is actually going on. The other 90% is down below, hidden from our view and we’re not going to get to it on a first visit or even maybe a fiftieth. We just need to be patient, be observant, and be in tune with those who come to us. From a church context, this is especially critical. Nelson Searcy once wrote, “Seven minutes is all you get to make a positive first impression. In the first seven minutes of contact with your church, your first-time guests will know whether or not they are coming back.”[3] If you haven’t done the math yet, the first seven minutes is before they ever hear a song or listen to a sermon. It’s the time they spend from the parking lot to the door to the chair. That’s the most critical time for a guest. So how we go about offering hospitality and being a welcoming church is so very vital.[4]
But there is a right way and a wrong way of doing this.[5]
People want to be welcome, but they don’t want to stand out. From my own observation as the new membership pastor at Roswell UMC, it takes on average 18 months for someone to feel comfortable enough to actually join the church. Like jumping in a pool, everyone has their own way of doing it, but most people like to mosey in the shallow end and progress deeper and deeper as they feel comfortable. Often, they have joined a small group, started singing in the choir, or volunteered to help out before they consider actually joining. And they don’t like to give their personal information for at least the first four or five times they attend worship. They want to sit and observe and see if it’s a good fit. Highlighting them during announcements or prayer is often just too much for most people and they absolutely hate “passing the peace.” For some of you, you’re thinking, “What?!” But it’s true. There have been many, many, many studies on this. People want to be welcome, they don’t want to stand out.
It’s always hard being a new pastor at a new church.
I’m coming into YOUR house to serve you which feels a bit awkward because I don’t know much about you yet. It takes time to get to know you, get to know what is important to you, and how best I can use my gifts and graces to help be a blessing here. But as hard as it is for me, it’s especially hard for my family. Time and time again, they get thrust into a new church, one that they didn’t pick and are expected to make it their church family right from the start. And on our first day here, people were friendly and welcoming, but no one came up to Cassie to sit with her. No one came up and introduced her to different people in our congregation. No one showed her around. Thankfully, Cassie is the type to do it on her own, and she really liked you all right away. But sometimes it’s the little things that go into that first seven minutes that make the biggest difference. No one did anything wrong, but sometimes we need to take that extra step to be a truly exceptional host. Be bold and be willing to be that angel of hospitality. And if you’re not that kind of person, tap someone on the shoulder who has that gift and point out someone who could use that extra touch. This is true no matter the context. Whether it’s at work, at school, or at church, when you have home court advantage, be the gracious host. Don’t assume someone else will do it, because you know what they say about assumptions! Imagine, if it’s hard for you to step up into that role, how hard it must be for that new person walking in the door. Everybody can use a friend.
[1] https://www.gotquestions.org/birthright-Bible.html
[2] This totally reminds me of a Japanese custom to always refuse a gift at first offering. A Western equivalent would be “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” But a friend once told me that in Japanese custom you must refuse three times and if after the third time the person still insists, then you must take it or risk shaming them. But refusing is important because it shows your own humility and hospitality.
[3] https://www.ministrymagazine.org/archive/2017/12/Five-keys-to-opening-the-front-door
[4] Which is not to say that music and good sermons are not important because they are! A good sermon is often cited as the number one reason why people come and stay. Music is up there along with children’s programming, outreach, and fellowship. But it’s those initial seven minutes where an impression is made.
[5] If you’re interested, here are a couple of good articles on the subject:
Outreach Magazine’s “10 Things Not to Do to First-Time Guests”
Melody Maxwell’s “7 Do’s and Don’ts of Welcoming Guests to Your Congregati
Humble Pie
In a few days, I’ll be eating a tremendous meal at my sister’s house.
I don’t know how she does it, but on Thanksgiving, she has this FULL spread of food. Turkey, dressing, potatoes, warm rolls, soft butter, and my brother-in-law’s famous cranberry sauce which I love. He says it’s from the back of a box, but I can’t make it like he does. It’s going to be a seriously gut-busting day. One thing I really love about Thanksgiving is PIE! And I’m not alone. Thanksgiving is the number one pie holiday with Christmas being number two.[1] Pie is part of my Holy Trinity of desserts – homemade cookies, ice cream, and pie; so pie a la mode is like heaven on a plate. However, there’s one kind of pie which probably won’t be on the menu, but one we should all probably have a slice of once in a while. Humble pie. We could all use a good slice of humble pie.
I was thinking about this while watching one of my favorite episodes of Sports Night.[2]
The show opens with Dan and Casey getting ready for an evening broadcast and it becomes really clear Casey doesn’t know the staff very well. He’s kind of oblivious to the people who make the show happen. And so a few days later, when he’s being interviewed on another talk show and gets complimented about his wardrobe, he doesn’t think to compliment the woman on his staff who picks out all his clothes. Instead he makes a joke and everyone laughs. But later on, the wardrobe assistant, Monica, comes to his office, carrying his clothes for that night’s show and says to him, “I think you hurt the feelings of the woman I work for. Maureen? She’s been working here since the day you started?” Monica holds up a tie and asks him, “Do you know what color this is?” And Casey looks at it and says, “It’s gray.” And Monica says, “It’s called gunmetal. Gray has more ivory, gunmetal has more blue. Do you know what shirt you should wear with it?… Mr. McCall, you get so much attention and so much praise for what you actually do and all of it’s deserved. When you go on a talk show and get complimented on something you didn’t, how hard would it be to say, ‘That’s not me. That’s a woman named Maureen who’s been working for us since the first day. It’s Maureen who dresses me every night. And without Maureen I wouldn’t know gunmetal from a hole in the ground. Do you have any idea what that would have meant to her? Do you have any idea how many times she would have played that tape for her husband and her kids?” Casey doesn’t know what to say. He just got served a big helping of humble pie. But it really makes him think on what she said, and at the end of the episode, he publically gives thanks to the people behind the scenes who make the show a reality. And when he does, we know it comes from a place of gratitude because we know Casey has a humble heart.
When we give thanks, do we do it from a humble heart?
Do we realize how fortunate we are for the blessings we have or for the people in our lives who helped to make it happen? Because none of us live in a vacuum. No matter how talented or successful or powerful we are, we only got there on the backs of other people. As independent and self-sustaining as we like to believe we are, it really does take a community of people to make it happen. None of us can do it on our own. None of us is truly a self-made person. But it takes a humble heart to realize that. Someone once wrote, “If you want to live in a state of perpetual thanksgiving, you must abide in humility. Humility is the state of mind wherein pride, ego and haughty self-sufficiency have been crucified with Christ.”[3] The culture we live in encourages a pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps mentality, but that mentality denies the state of the world we live in. We owe our success and our blessings to those around us, to our community, and ultimately to God. That’s the lesson King David tried to teach the people of Israel in the passage we are going to read. Prior to this passage, David had addressed all of Israel about his desire to build a temple to the Lord. He told them of how the Lord had chosen Solomon to succeed him as King and that it would be Solomon who would build the temple, but David wanted to make it as easy as possible for Solomon to accomplish this task so before he died, David wanted to amass everything that would be necessary for building it. He not only acquired all the necessary material, but he donated his personal fortune into building the temple and he asked all the leaders of the nation of Israel to do the same. By the time he was done, the people of Israel had donated more than 8 billion dollars worth of gold and more than 243 million dollars in silver not to mention the precious stones, bronze and iron that was also given. And that’s on top of what David gave. And so after all the wealth had been collected, David lifted up this prayer of thanksgiving to God.
10 David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying, “Praise be to you, Lord, the God of our father Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. 11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all. 12 Wealth and honor come from you; you are the ruler of all things. In your hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. 13 Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name.
14 “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. 15 We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. 16 Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you. 17 I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things I have given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. 18 Lord, the God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep these desires and thoughts in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you. 19 And give my son Solomon the wholehearted devotion to keep your commands, statutes and decrees and to do everything to build the palatial structure for which I have provided.”
20 Then David said to the whole assembly, “Praise the Lord your God.” So they all praised the Lord, the God of their fathers; they bowed down, prostrating themselves before the Lord and the king. – 1 Chronicles 29:10-20
David’s model of thanksgiving is one that comes from humility.
He praises God as Creator and Father of all. He attributes all good things to God. And then he adds this line, “But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? EVERYTHING comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” David wants to make sure everyone understands that all the wealth and power and blessings they have been given are only because of God’s grace. It would have been easy for them to take pride in what they accomplished. Think about how much they were able to give! When you include David’s personal contribution it was over $12-13 BILLION DOLLARS worth of gold alone. It would have been easy for them to say, “See what we’ve done? Look at we were able to accomplish! All for God of course, but look at what WE were able to accomplish!” And David reminds them in his prayer that this is nothing. This is nothing because they were only returning to God what he allowed them to use. As huge of a sacrifice as this seemed to be, it was really no sacrifice at all because it didn’t belong to them in the first place.
This was an important lesson to Israel and to us.
To remember that all we have accomplished comes on the backs of the many people around us. That as talented as we are, it is only because we are utilizing the gifts that God has given. And that our worth cannot ever be measured in dollars and cents but in the love we show to others. Because the richer we are, the more we seem to forget these lessons. We don’t even have to go back to ancient Israel to see that’s true. Patricia Greenfield from UCLA studied the linguistic frequency of key words in our writings over a period from 1800 to 2000 and as the country became wealthier “the frequency of the word ‘get’ went up, and the frequency of the word ‘give’ went down.”[4] Americans also became more individualistic and less community-oriented. Words like “individual,” “self,” and “unique” were more common while words like “give,” “obliged,” and “belong” were seen less. This might seem to be a small thing, but when you couple that with giving statistics that show that poorer people give about 50% more of their income to charity than the wealthy, it’s not that big of a leap to say that as we become more affluent, we tend to forget our humility and instead become more sure of our own ability to succeed. The wealthier we are the more we cut ourselves off from our communities and from those around us. We cut them off and assume people are only in it to take from us what is “rightfully ours” forgetting again that it doesn’t really belong to us in the first place and won’t go with us when we die. We forget these wise words from Ecclesiastes which says in chapter 9, verse 11, “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” We forget our good fortune is as unlikely to happen to us as it is to anyone else, but when we stay grounded in humility, we become rooted in reality and realize how truly grateful we need to be. Because thankfulness without humility is like pie without the filling. Thankfulness without humility is like pie without the filling – it’s empty. It has no real meaning.
When I was at UJCC, our associate pastor, Akiko, used to say these great prayers for blessing the food.
She would always give thanks for the land, for the animals, for the people who cultivated the land…I mean she would do more than ask for a blessing upon the food. She would give thanks for the chain of life that made it possible to have this food on our table and it made me think how much more interconnected we are than we often think about. Too often we take things for granted that we shouldn’t. Things like water and the sun and the plants, let alone the people and the resources that it takes to make the world go round. This week as we celebrate thanksgiving let us remember that no matter how great our accomplishments we never do it in a vacuum. Let us find within ourselves the humility to admit that we need others more than we think we do. In that vein, let us challenge ourselves through this Christmas season to give thanks to at least one person every day for what they do in our lives. Give thanks to them for helping you in ways big and small that maybe you’ve never noticed before or given voice to. And give thanks for the invisible ways in which your life is made better because of the efforts of those who labor around you. Pray daily to God for no other reason than to give thanks. Not just for the food we eat or the clothes we wear, but for being the one who gives life. For being the one who loves us enough to send his son into the world for us. And for being the very model of humility we should strive to emulate. Let’s face it. We can all stand to eat some humble pie once in a while. Make it your thanksgiving treat this year.
[1] https://premise.com/blog/totw-favorite-holiday-pie-in-the-us/#:~:text=Thanksgiving%20and%20Christmas%20dominate%20the,%25)%20and%20Christmas%20(41%25).
[2] “Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee,” Sports Night 12/15/1998
[3] http://www.christianblog.com/blog/blessings2you/humility-is-the-foundation-for-thanksgiving/
[4] http://www.npr.org/2013/09/03/218627288/why-being-wealthy-doesnt-lead-to-more-giving
iCloud
What is “the Cloud?”
Most of us have things being stored in “the Cloud.” We have pictures and emails and documents that are being kept there. We’re able to watch Netflix and Hulu and Disney+ because of it. And today “the Cloud” touches almost every aspect of our lives in some way. But what is it? If you’re not a very technical person, hearing that your things are being stored in “the Cloud” might seem almost like magic. But “the Cloud” is just a cute term for the storage of materials remotely instead of locally. “The Cloud” is just a term for storing data remotely instead of locally. Back in the old days, like in the 1980’s and 90’s, if you didn’t have your data downloaded to your computer or stored on a floppy disc, it didn’t exist. Computer games, photos, and documents all had to be stored somewhere in your home. And you could almost forget about video. The amount of data it took to transmit video was enormous by today’s standards. But with advances made in communications and technology, we can now store and transmit all of that material to different places and from different places. We call that accumulation of material, “the Cloud.” “The Cloud” is sort of like The Force. As Obi-Wan Kenobi said, “It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.”
The Bible talks about us being surrounded by a cloud, too.
And it too is all around us. This passage is part of the famous “faith” narrative in the letter to the Hebrew people living in Jerusalem. The writer of the letter gives many examples of what it means to live by faith sharing names the Hebrews would be familiar with. People like Abel and Noah and Abraham. People like Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses. He talks about all the trials and tribulations they personally dealt with and the Israeli people dealt with – the crossing of the Red Sea, the walls of Jericho falling. And then the writer adds this…
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. (Hebrews 11:39-12:3)
We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.
Kind of intimidating actually. There are some places I don’t want a “great cloud of witnesses” to be watching. But that’s not what is meant here. It isn’t a bunch of ghosts watching our every move. It is the accumulated knowledge and experience of everyone who has gone before and paved the way ahead of us. Our faith in God is not some empty promise but built upon our forebearers in faith – both those we know and those we’ve never met or maybe even heard of. People like Deborah, Joseph, Gideon, and Ruth help us to understand God in a better way and to know who he is. Because of disciples like Peter, John, and Mary, we know the person of Christ and have come to trust in his promises. Our “cloud of witnesses” are all those people who have come before and whose stories form the foundation of our faith. As it says in John 20, “30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe[b] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” We tell the stories of those who have passed to give us strength and inspiration in tough times and to help us have confidence in what we believe.
But what really gives us hope is that first line.
“None of them received what had been promised.” Doesn’t SOUND hopeful so why does it bring hope? Sometimes we get stuck in an Old Testament “eye for an eye” mentality and it’s hard for us to look beyond that. Most of the world, whether they are religious or not often thinks this way, too. We expect tit for tat. When we do good, we expect good to come back to us. If we give money or time or energy into something, we expect others will do the same or return the favor in some way. But that doesn’t always happen, and when it doesn’t, because of our quid pro quo thinking, our faith and trust in the system weakens. The same is true with our faith and trust in Christ. When things don’t work out as expected, we become disappointed in God. We think somehow God has reneged on his end of the deal. But this passage reminds us that is not the case. “None of them received what had been promised” and yet…God had in mind something better. Even if they didn’t get the reward they expected, it’s only because God had something better planned. That “something better” may not always seem obvious to us because we see through a much different lens than God does. God can see the whole picture while we can only see our piece of it. But the writer of Hebrews here is trying to encourage us to keep our trust in God and shares this “cloud of witnesses” as testimony to God’s faithfulness so that we can remain strong, even in difficult times. So the writer of Hebrews encourages us to throw off our fears and trust in God. To continue to live a life of faith, to act and behave in a way that is consistent with a person who believes in the living Christ.
On All Saints’ Sunday we pay tribute to our own “cloud of witnesses.”
We honor and remember those who have since passed on who helped us to grow in our faith. We remember those who molded us and shaped us into the people we are. We honor loved ones we miss. Our definition of “saints” is probably different than what you traditionally imagine. It might even feel a bit uncomfortable to talk about our loved ones as saints. We often think of St. Patrick or St. Valentine or even St. Nicholas – specific people who have been honored by the Catholic Church for extraordinary service to God. People who are beyond reproach and most of us are far from that. But that type of “saint” is more like the Queen bestowing a knighthood upon one of her people. It’s a human title instead of a Heavenly one. For us, we believe that all Christians are saints. The word comes from the Greek hagios which means “consecrated to God, holy, sacred, pious.” So, to say we are saints doesn’t mean we are without flaws, or we deserve to be revered. That honor is reserved for God and God alone. It means we are set apart in service to God. When we talk about All Saints’ Day, it’s a way of honoring ALL those who have participated in the life of God’s Kingdom. Take a moment today to reflect and pray for those who have made an impact in YOUR faith journey and may we live up to that legacy.
What If?
What if?
It’s natural to wonder how things might have turned out if we had done something different in our lives. What if you went to a different college? What if you had moved to a different city? What if you turned left instead of right? Our life is filled with choices and each one makes a difference. Growing up, one of my favorite comic books was titled “What If?” and every month they would explore this idea about how the choices we make can affect our lives. Sometimes the differences were huge. Sometimes the differences were small but meaningful. Sometimes the differences were just…different. It was always interesting to read but was also a reminder that every day is important. What we do and say MATTERS! God has given us this chance at life, but we only get to do it once so how can we make the most it?
God wants us to be BOLD!
Nowhere in the Bible is there a story about a guy who played it safe and was told by Christ, “Good job! Who needs to take risks? Play it safe.” Instead, it’s quite the opposite. In the story of the Parable of the Talents, God rewards those who have taken a chance with the gifts they are given and instead punishes the guy who plays it safe. In the book of Acts, we read about Ananias and Sapphira who withhold a portion of their profits for themselves instead of giving it to God and they die on the spot! Not that God would literally kill us for playing it safe, but maybe it’s a metaphor for how our trust and our faith die a little bit when we hold back. We were put on Earth to serve God in BOLD ways, to dare to make this world a better place. And that takes BOLD people. There was a scene in the movie Dead Poets Society that reminds me of God’s call to boldness. In it, Mr. Keating is teaching his students about poetry, and the kids are used to studying about rhyme and meter and iambic pentameter – all the forms and functions of poetry. But Mr. Keating wants to inspire them, to go beyond just studying about it and understanding it and he says to his students, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are all noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman: ‘O me, o life of the questions of these recurring, of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities filled with the foolish. What good amid these, o me, o life?’ Answer: that you are here. That life exists, and identity. That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” What will YOUR verse be?
God is never short of inspiration either.
There’s a great passage in Malachi I want to share with you today. Malachi is the last book of the Old Testament. It was written to the Jews who had returned from Babylon after the temple had been rebuilt. The people had become spiritually apathetic. They didn’t turn to false gods or other deities, but were “disillusioned about their future and skeptical of God’s promises.”[1] They had the form and function of a church, but really had turned into nothing more than a country club for Jewish people. They stopped being a church. And in the beginning of this chapter, Malachi foretells the coming of Christ and asks the important question, “…who can endure the day of his coming? (Malachi 3:2)” Who can endure the day of his coming? And he follows it up with the section we are about to read this morning.
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the LORD Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the LORD Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the LORD Almighty. – Malachi 3:8-12
Test me in this!
“Test me in this…and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it…” That is such a striking image and I imagine as God is saying this, he isn’t angry or upset. He’s excited! He’s challenging. He’s ripe with anticipation. Are you willing to take God up on that offer? All we need is two things – faith and trust. When we have faith in God’s promise and trust him to be faithful to us, he promises a flood of blessings. Instead, we often choose to rob God of what is already rightfully his. God doesn’t ask you to give everything you have. He only asks for your trust enough in him so he can show you the amazing blessings he has in store for you. God challenges us to tithe, not because he needs it, but because we do. When we fail to give in service to God, we are not only robbing God, but robbing ourselves of this opportunity to experience God’s blessing in our lives. Now, you might be tempted to get this image of a mighty God holding back this wonderful blessing as a punishment for our failure to be more faithful or trusting. But the curse we are under is one we’ve made ourselves, not one that God wants for us. When we hold back from giving all we can, we are also holding back the chance for God to work in our lives in the most powerful of ways. God WANTS to do this for us. He invites us to “test him,” but that requires us to have faith in God’s promise.
For me, this is a reality.
And I can’t promise that it will happen for you in the same way. But before I ever even thought about becoming a pastor, I went through a real crisis of faith. It was not long after 9/11 and we just found out Cassie was pregnant with Emma. With so many horrible things going on in the world, it made me wonder what kind of world we were bringing our newborn child into. I started to wonder what kind of God would let so much evil go unchecked. Where was God in all of this mess? Maybe…there wasn’t a God. My whole world seemed to turn upside down, and it was horrible. I lost sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night sweating through my shirt. I felt hopeless and helpless. But during this time, I kept hearing this challenge – to test God. I heard it from my pastor, from the radio, on the Internet, and so I did it. And I can’t help but feel that it was God reaching out to me through these various people. Test me in this. Not with money but with prayer. I prayed for God to give me a sign, to show me some direction, to show me some kind of proof that he was there. And through people I loved and people I never heard of; through books and radio and Scripture and everything in-between, I kept feeling more and more connected again to God. God helped me to develop eyes to see and ears to hear until I felt what John Wesley felt – that blessed assurance God was there. And at the end of it all, I felt a new calling on my life. I needed to serve God in a new way so others who may be distant from God could see him and know they are loved. It was this crisis of faith that led me to be here today.
Where do you need to be bold?
What areas do you find yourself hesitating in? What things do you not fully trust God with handling? For you it might be prayer, too. But it might be giving financially to growing God’s kingdom whether that is through our church or in some other way. Or it might be in giving of your time to help others grow in their faith. Maybe you’re being called to serve as a Sunday School teacher or in the tech booth or on one of our committees. Challenge yourself in this thanksgiving season on how you can be bolder in your love of God and neighbor and see if he doesn’t rain down blessings upon blessings on your life. In whatever way I can, I would love to help so please reach out. But it’s really up to you. How is God calling on you to be bolder, more giving, more open to where he is leading. May we all pray to have eyes to see and ears to hear.
[1] Some of this section is taken from The Archeological Study Bible, “Introduction to Malachi,” p. 1545.
One More Day
If you only had one more day, how would you spend it?
Probably not at work. Or paying bills. Or worrying about buying the newest video game. Instead, we’d probably spend it doing the things we love with the people we love. That might be going to Disneyland or spending the day at the beach or maybe just spending the day at home eating our favorite meal. We’d talk to one another, share our thoughts and feelings, give lots of hugs, hold hands, and pray about what happens next. Because when it comes right down to it, we know in our heart what is truly important. Jesus tells us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And he uses the word “treasure” to broaden the scope of things we store up for ourselves. It’s more than just money. It’s how we spend our time, how we share our talent, and where we give our effort. And when we find ourselves with just one more day or even one more week, one more month, or one more year, it forces us to open our eyes to what’s truly important. But for the most part, we don’t think about life that way. We live life as if we had forever instead of one more day. We trifle away our lives worrying about the unimportant, investing in things that ultimately don’t matter, and then later regretting our decisions. Let’s change that.
Because you don’t have forever.
None of us do. Not even Jesus. So where is your treasure? Where does it lie? Most of us would say it’s with our family and friends. Some might even say it’s with God. But if you look closely at your life, where is it really? That’s the question we need to ask because it’s so easy to fool ourselves into thinking we’ve got our priorities straight. But maybe it’s more out of whack than we like to believe. I’m guessing, whoever is in charge of the iPhone must be a Christian because every week I get this little guilt trip early Sunday morning. About 9am, right when I’m getting to church, I open up my computer and at the top right corner, a little box pops up with my screen time for the week. And I think, did I really spend that much time on the computer? Now to be fair, about 90% of what I do weekly for the church takes place on my computer. Whether that’s working on the sermon, doing the weekly email, creating slides for worship, or doing ZOOM meetings, most of it takes place on this 13” screen on my desk. But if I’m honest, I spend a decent amount of “me” time on my computer, too. I love playing Magic the Gathering Arena online. I play Marvel SNAP. I hunt for bargains on eBay and Amazon. And I’m not alone. They did a study in China where they track early onset myopia and about 80% of teens and young adults are near-sighted. [1] All linked to too much screen time and not enough getting outdoors. Those kinds of problems lead to things like glaucoma, cataracts, and retinal detachment! And it’s not just in China but the entire world. In America, we went from 25% of the population being myopic in 1971 to 41.6% in 2017.[2] It’s estimated that worldwide, 40% of the world will be myopic by 2030.[3] What does that say about where our treasure lies? And more importantly, where it does not.
Obviously, that doesn’t mean you have to throw away your phones.
Or give all your money to charity. Or quit your job to spend time with your family. Our phones can be incredibly helpful, not only for work or personal time but for keeping in touch with those family and friends who are important to us. And you need money to care for those same family and friends – whether it’s to feed them or clothe them or pay for medicine to care for them. And without your job, could you save enough money to ever get to spend quality time with them? It’s about priorities. About setting them and keeping them. Because we are challenged all the time to keep them straight. We get pulled in a million different directions and it can be hard and frustrating trying to keep up with all of it. We probably feel a little bit like that Aesop fable about “The Miller, The Son, and The Donkey.” We can please some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time, but we can’t please all of the people all of the time. So, it’s important to set and keep our priorities and not let them get lost in the shuffle of life. The passage we are about to hear today is from a group of letters in the Bible called the “Pastoral Letters” because each one is written by Paul to help Timothy and Titus lead their churches. And in this first letter to Timothy, Paul gives advice on a wide number of topics. But we are going to focus on one. Paul is offering advice to Timothy on how to preach about “true wealth” and how we confuse material wealth and spiritual wealth. As you read this passage, listen for how that challenge speaks to you. Hear now the Word of God.
17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. – 1 Timothy 6:17-19
When Paul writes about “those who are rich in this present world” he’s talking about you.
About all of us. We don’t have to be rich financially for this to apply to us. We could be rich in other ways like time. And by that I don’t mean we have more time in our day than others. But when we are young, we approach life like we’re going to live forever. We don’t often think if we should be spending our time somewhere else because there’s so much of it left. The days in front of us outnumbers the days behind us. We are rich in time! But does that mean we should waste it? Paul is talking to everyone who has an abundance. Of anything. Of money. Of time. Of energy. Of useful limbs. Of wisdom. Of experience. And in that way, he’s talking to everyone, because no matter how old we are, we are rich in something. And Paul is telling us that in whatever ways we have an abundance, to use them not for building up more for ourselves, but to help others. To be rich instead in “good deeds” rather than anything else. And in that way, we are not only making the world a better place, but we are laying a foundation for the next one. I like how Paul puts it, “so that (we) may take hold of the life that is truly life!”
Take the time now to plan ahead for the future.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to do what needs to be done. Because when those opportunities pass us by, we can’t always get them back. One regret I often hear is not spending enough time with family. Skipping those games your kids wish you had attended. Missing those meals because something just couldn’t wait. Ditching your friends to be with some girl you just met even though you’d been planning this for months. You think, “They’ll understand.” And they might. But at what cost? Now of course there are times when you really can’t get away, when it might mean your livelihood or an opportunity that won’t come around again. But a lot of times, we sacrifice the very things that are the most important to us just because we can. But you never get those moments back. It’s not like you can gather your family up on a Sunday morning and say, “Okay, I know I promised to have dinner with you all week and I didn’t, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’ll stop by IHOP on the way to church and have a huge stack of pancakes! Then after church we’ll go over to Olive Garden and have as many breadsticks as you want. Then we’ll go out to dinner at Red Lobster for those yummy cheddar biscuits and that will make up for all the dinners I missed, and we’ll bond and everything will be okay.” It just doesn’t work like that. One extravagant moment doesn’t make up for all the missed opportunities, all the disappointment. True devotion comes in the choices we make day by day.
Linda Ellis wrote a wonderful poem called “The Dash” that captures all of this.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206701199/how-our-tech-habits-are-causing-our-eyes-to-elongate-which-causes-myopia
[2] https://www.nei.nih.gov/about/news-and-events/news/myopia-close-look-efforts-turn-back-growing-problem
[3] Ibid NPR “How Tech Habits…”
Craig's Corner 