Advent V (The Bone Yahweh Picks)

An Old Testament passage which marks the beginning of the Advent season is one very familiar to many of us.  It comes from the second chapter of Isaiah and has within words such as, "In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains...He shall judge the nations,...they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nations shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war any more."  (Isaiah 2:2, 4)  It is a passage of Scripture which evokes such powerful images as it causes us to think of what we dare not think will one day be.  

We use it often in our political discussions without really considering that it is a Word addressed more to folks like us than those who lead us.  The bone which Yahweh picks with Israel is not so much with leadership as it is with the changes in culture which is sending the nation on a downward spiral and away from its dependence on Him.  In the historical framework of the Old Testament, God used for His purposes political leaders like Moses to thwart the power of Egypt, Nebuchadnezzar as an instrument of judgement upon Israel for  forsaking the ways of righteousness, and Cyrus for returning the exiled Hebrews home.

Righteous living implies caring for the concerns of God as well as caring for the concerns of the poor, the orphans, the widows, the disenfranchised and marginalized, and the invisible.  Another prophet named Amos thundered forth to the people of the nation, "But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."  (Amos 5:24). It is not just leaders who have forsaken God's pathway, but a culture of people who worship not God, but affluence, accumulation, power, and prosperity.  

Embrace the Vision

The sixth chapter of Isaiah tells us that Isaiah's career choice was to serve as a priest in the Temple.  As a young man he could see nothing else in his future.  He spent the best part of his youth training and preparing for the day when he would serve Yahweh and the people of Israel as a priest in the place most holy in all the land.  It was on an ordinary day of service that his life changed.  God appeared to him in a way that Isaiah described by writing, "I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of His garment filled the Temple."  (Isaiah 6:1).  Within that moment of vision, he saw himself as a sinner and a man whose sin was blotted out as his lips were touched by a live coal.   

The final part of the vision was an act of sending forth to become a prophet.  His future would no longer be centered in the Temple speaking the words of religious ritual, but centered in a community of people where he would speak as the voice of the Lord.  The experience of Isaiah reminds us that God does not bring us to moments where it seems that we are walking midst the clouds of glory so that we will have a great witness on testimony night, but so that we can be about the great things He has in His heart for us to do.  The greater thing He has planned may not be bringing a nation to revival, but to bring us to a place where we will choose to live a kinder and more gentle life where the heart of Christ can quietly touch the lives of hurting people.  

When a vision comes, we should never put it in the file of precious memories.  Visions come for a reason.  They come to carry us from where we are to where God wants us to be.  They equip and empower us for a service which would not be seen without going through the vision.  A vision seen and from which we walk away will always have us looking over our shoulder wondering what might have been.  When God's holiness breaks in upon us in an extraordinary way, never look behind for God is surely sending us forward.

Advent IV (The In Between Time)

Advent tells us we live in a time between the first coming of Jesus and the second.  The first is spoken of as coming by the Old Testament prophets, documented as something which did indeed happen by the gospels, and accepted almost without question by the church and the believers who are its witnesses.  The second coming of Jesus is hardly given a glance.  It does not challenge our faith as the idea of Jesus coming again seems to be nothing more than on the edge theology which really has no bearing on the way life is lived in the present age.  

Better to be concerned about degrees for the future, finding a marriage where happy ever after is going to happen, and putting money in the retirement fund than to think about the unlikely possibility that Jesus is going to show up in the clouds to re-order history and create an entirely new way of experiencing reality.  Yet, this is exactly where we live.  In this in between time is exactly where the church is located and it is the real context in which we live.   Over and over the Advent message is to live in a state of readiness.  Advent's call is for us to live as if today, or maybe tomorrow is the day that Christ will return.  The parable of the bridesmaids in Matthew 25 should be understood as a word which speaks clearly about the urgency of living in a state of readiness.  

Some of those within the parable were wise enough to know that readiness was important while others foolishly lived without the urgency of preparation.  While there are things which require our attention, the Advent message is one that reminds us to daily keep an eye toward what God is doing in our midst with every intention of being a part of it.  Participating in the plan of God and expecting Him to show up once again is the life to which Advent beckons us.  It is not a season of being prepared for Christmas, but a season of being prepared for Christ to arrive once again.

At the Onset of Rest

The sky is filled with a heavy gray.  The pecan trees are bare, like skeletons against the sky full of endless clouds.  The ground is littered with the last leaves of fall which have danced one way and then another until spent beyond any hope of dancing again.  The brown earth burnt of all green lays ready to receive those spent leaves for tomorrow's nurturing.  Squirrels are running here and there burying nuts as if hard lean days are to come.  Crow are fussing that the abundant harvest is about done and deer are roaming about in a endless search for something still green.  Ah, winter is near; perhaps, according to some, here.  

Another view is that creation is entering into its Sabbath rest.  Since the first breath of warm air touched the air nearly a year ago, the creation has been at work.  Foliage started sprouting on trees.  The pecans began to show like small green precious stones.  The land started coming to life bringing it power to grow and nurture to the surface once again.  Crops were planted.  Fields were harvested as the produce of the earth.  For such a long time now the creation has been hard at work.  These days which have finally come to us are days of rest.  It is not just the dormant season, but the season of rest.   

Would that we mortals could hear the creation's word to us in these days?  Would that we could hear the voice of the creation as the Voice of the Almighty speaking to us about the order of life first ordained before the Garden?  Even as the creation needs this extended Sabbath rest, so do we need such rest interjected regularly into our lives.  Life is about more than producing and accumulating.  Life is about more than working and staying busy.  It is about living. 

Advent III (The Red Headed Stepchild)

Advcnt does not take us away from  here and now, but it does causes us to see there and beyond.  Advent opens up with a strong eschatological word.  For those not versed in such big and strange words, eschatology refers to things to come and in the case of Advent, it is not what is to come, but Who.  Christ Jesus is to come.  He who has come is scheduled by God the Father to come again to bring history as we know it to its closing moments while bringing all that is earthly into the realm of the Kingdom of God.  The Word of God speaks of the Kingdom of God as something that is and is yet to be and to speak of eschatology is to speak of the "yet to be" as the present reality.   

One of the clearest Words about what is to come is found early in Acts.  After Jesus has been with the disciples for a period of time in his resurrected form, the Word tells us, "...as they were watching, He was lifted up, and a cloud took Him out of their sight,"  (Acts 1:9). As they gazed upward toward heaven, "...two men in white robes stood by them.  They said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?  This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come again in the same way as you saw Him go into heaven.' "  (Acts 1:11)  When He comes again, He will not be coming to provide the church with another date to celebrate on the Christian calendar, but to close the pages on all calendars.  He will come to fully usher in the Kingdom of God upon the earth.  

This Biblical teaching about the return of Christ is the opening word of Advent.  It is also the red headed stepchild of the church as it is hardly mentioned in its preaching or teaching and when the Scripture seems to mandate its message, what is preached is hardly recognizable as a Word about Jesus coming once again in all His glory to bring history as we know to its final moment. Ready or not, Advent tells us that the One who has come is coming again.  

Advent II (The Stand Alone Season)

Advent marks the beginning of the Christian Year.  Even though this is true, no preacher stands and joyously declares "Happy New Year!" for there is nothing festive about the season of Advent.  If Advent is to be characterized, a word like somber is appropriate.  The mood of Advent is one that gives pause to reflection and repentance.  The music is strikingly different, often feeling more like a funeral dirge than a hymn of celebration.  The liturgical color is purple, but were gray an option, it would be a good choice.  

While the church often wants it to be a season of preparation for Christmas as Lent is a season of preparation for Easter, it is hard to force it into such a framework for unlike Lent, Advent is more of a stand alone season on the Christian calendar.  Beginning with Christmas the liturgical calendar takes the church on a spiritual journey as it focuses first on the Incarnation, or the birth of Jesus.  As the next season, Epiphany, comes, we are caused to see through the coming of the men of the East, the mission of the church to the world.  This season is followed Lent, a season of repentance, Easter which enables us to celebrate the resurrection, and then Pentecost, a long season focusing on the work of the Holy Spirit.  

With all this in the rear view mirror and in the memory of our experience, Advent jolts us as it announces what is not yet come, but yet to be.  Advent immediately opens the curtains on a drama not yet played out on stage.  The script has been written, but only the Father whose hand has done the writing knows the details.  Advent is like a modern day trailer for a movie about to be shown as we are enabled to catch a glimpse of the Christ who has come in Bethlehem as a baby coming again, a second time, but not as a flesh and blood child.  Advent opens the drama of the gospel story with the coming of Christ the King in the clouds bringing into existence the hope of the prayer we pray each week, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done."  

Advent's Hope

Advent tells us our hope is misdirected.  It tells us our trust is misdirected.  It only takes a casual glance at what is around us to know that the world is in a mess.  City streets have become homesteads, food banks are overflowing with the hungry, genocide and war is not history but reality, the earth is being ravaged, the evening news is mostly about road rage and violence, most institutions are broken, and people have lost the art of being kind to one another.  Our hope for a different and better world is mostly a dream once dreamed.    

We hoped political leaders could find a way to save the world.  We hoped help would come through government programs and the serving ministries of churches.  There was a time when we hoped that common sense would prevail.  We even dared to think that what we did could change the world, but for every one rescued, a thousand remain.  History shows little progress in eliminating injustice, hunger, poverty, and manifestations of evil.  The lessons of history point to a truth Jesus acknowledged when He said, "You always have the poor with you..."  (John 12:8) as well as another truth acknowledged by Jesus as He cast out demons and did battle with the power of evil on the cross.  No one would deny He won the battle, but Satan still lurks and works.  There are more battles to fight until the victory won at the cross becomes prevailing reality.    

Advent tells us that we are here.  The battle rages on.  Our hope is only placed correctly when it is placed in the Lord who will one day reign and bring to our earthly existence the still unseen heavenly reign.  Isaac Watts had it right.  "O God, our Help in ages past, our hope for years to come..."  To hope in others is to enter into frustration and bitterness.  To hope in Christ means doing all we can in the meantime, but knowing that the final victory will only come through His coming.

Advent I (The First Week)

Advent is an easy season to figure.  Advent demands that there be four Sundays before Christmas Day. It always begins on the first of those four Sundays.  It is an easy season to figure, but hard to understand.  It is even harder to flesh out.  It is a season on the Christian liturgical calendar which is very counter culture.  Culture says that December is about Christmas.  Advent speaks a word which brings culture's month long Christmas party to a screeching halt demanding that Christmas wait until December 25th.   

Advent is about waiting.  It is about anticipating.  It is about expectancy.  To think of Mary and Joseph is to know that they like any parents knew something important was out there on the horizon, but they still had to wait and anticipate nine months.  It brings to mind the story of Abraham and Sarah who were promised a son by God; yet, who lived for twenty five years with no sign of their son except the promise given to them.  One of the things which confounds us about December is that we are a people accustomed to instant gratification and we grow weary in a hurry when life is about waiting.  One of the strange moments of Advent comes on the very first Sunday.  

Those who think Advent is somehow all about Christmas, or that it is simply a season of preparation for Christmas in much the same way Lent is to Easter, find themselves seriously frustrated with those readings from the Word which announce Jesus is coming again.  Advent begins not with baby Jesus of Bethlehem, but with the risen, ascended, glorified Lord and King coming once more to be among us.  We are not sure what to do with such a message.  The church often tries to do an end around run hoping no one will notice that the message of that first Sunday is being ignored.  Advent's early message is easy enough to ignore, but it does not change the fact that the One who has come is coming again and that we need to live ready.

Come, Jesus, Come

Tomorrow is the first Sunday in Advent.  Advent is a strange season on the Christian calendar.  It is every bit as somber as the Easter season is joyous.  The music is different.  Not being a musician it is hard to say what makes it different.  It is just different. It is experienced differently.  Maybe it is the mood it creates, maybe it is the key of the music, or maybe the words.  I have never been sure. I just know it creates a different atmosphere in worship.  Nonetheless, I look forward to it.  

If I were in charge of worship tomorrow, we would be singing as the opening hymn for worship and the Advent season a Charles Wesley hymn.  Thinking about it makes me want to warm up my vocal chords by singing it tonight which would be a little early.  "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus" is the song.  It is not a song which has us singing about Jesus being born in the manger of Bethlehem, but about Jesus being "born a child and yet a King, born to reign in us, forever now thy gracious kingdom bring..."   There is something wistful, something longing within the words and music.  

What one of us does not long for a day when suffering will be no more?  What one of us does not long for a day when injustice and war will be no more?  What one of us does not long for a day when there will be no sounds of hungry children, shattered dreams, and the wailing of hopeless grief?  What one of us does not long for the day when reality will be "the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God..."  (Revelation 21:2).  "Come, Thou long expected Jesus...dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart."

A Word of Thanks

Even though Thanksgiving Day is clearly in the rear view mirror, I am aware of unspoken words of gratitude which still need a voice.  As I write this blog, I am grateful to God for bringing this ministry of writing into my life.  It is like many of His blessings in that it is something I did not see coming until suddenly it was made visible to me.  I have always had an interest in writing, but throughout my life, I saw myself as a preacher and not a writer.  I remember well the day some five years into retirement when the God who called me to preach lifted that urgency from my life.  I am grateful to Him for enabling me to continue in usefulness to Him in this season of my life.   

Grateful, too, am I for those who read what I am writing.  Without those of you who read, I would be like a  preacher preaching to empty pews.  Some who read I do not know and some who read are those with familiar faces and stories we have shared together over the years.  I am grateful to both groups who form a different kind of congregation which has been entrusted to me by our Father.  The responses and comments offered and the faces which come to mind are a constant encouragement to keep at it.  Again, I am grateful to each of you for giving me those moments of your life to read and reflect on JourneyNotes.  I do not take such a gift lightly.  Thank you.  

I am grateful as well for those along the way who helped me find this path.  My high school English and Literature teacher, Mrs. Evans. saw in me things I could not see in myself.  She opened my mind to great literature and pushed me to involve myself in debate and writing competitions.  In some way she did more to send me on my way into God's future than college or seminary professors.  I wish she had lived long enough for me to realize the lasting impact she had on my life; however, she died before I came to understand what she had done for me.  So even though it is a tad late, I say once again as I have said many times to the wind which carries words away from here to there, "Thank you, Mrs. Evans."

Thanksgiving Day, 2025

The Thanksgiving Day meal is past, but not the gratitude which fills and overflows.  Over the years I have seen and experienced the way God has shown me a light in the darkness through which I have walked.  He has been my right hand in struggles for which I was far too weak.  There have been temptations which would have surely snared me, and wrong choices which would have led me out of His way, and people I would not have seen without His holy discernment.  How can we ever be grateful enough to God for the way He enables us to live our lives?   

Of course, as we think about how God has given us gift after gift of grace, we always remember the way His presence, His love, and His mercy have transformed our lives into something we never really could have seen coming into being.  The gift of His Son, the life He lived, the death which He suffered, and the grave from which He rose are blessings beyond measure.  Like so many who have lived before me and live with me, I know my sins.  I have known, too, a forgiveness from God that enables me to live without being overwhelmed by regret over what is past and with a hope for a future filled with love and acceptance instead of condemnation.

God's gifts to me have been abundant and eternal like in nature.  I am thankful for the blessings of this life and the blessings that are promised me when I walk the way of those who have walked before me into the arena where dwells the great cloud of heavenly witnesses. While I am so very grateful for every day of blessing shared here on earth with those I love, I know, too, that there will come a time when the place Jesus has prepared for me in the heavenly place will be mine.  My spirit overflows with gratitude for His constant provision for me and you and all of those who have gone toward Home before us.

The Great Invasion

It is certainly true that the Bible is a book of wonderful stories.  There are love stories, stories about hero like characters, stories that recount history, stories that are exciting, and stories that create awe and wonder.  Characters like Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Ruth and Boaz, Mary and Joseph walk into the spotlight on center stage of the Book.   There is no end to the greatness of the men and women whose lives light up the pages.  As a young boy just beyond the years of learning to read, those stories became like required reading.  The more I read, the more I wanted to read.   

For some it is enough to say that the Bible is a collection of good stories.  With some of those people, the emphasis is on stories and not the actual lives lived and recorded within the pages.  The truth is, however, that the Bible is always more than just stories about people.  It is the story about God acting. It is the story about a great invasion of the earth.   It is the story of divine intervention.  C. S Lewis wrote about it with the words,  "Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage."  

The Bible is not just about the stories of people.  It is the story of God acting in the affairs of humanity.  It is what He does.  He did it through the sending of His Son into the world to be born and to die on a cross.  He is doing it even now as He works in ways seen and unseen to bring human history and the Kingdom of God to a point of intersection where "...Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it in Heaven."

Trust and See

Despite the popularity of the old folk song with the line, "Hello, Darkness, my old friend," most people do not regard the darkness as their friend.  Darkness hides.  Darkness limits vision. Darkness makes the familiar things of the world invisible.  Darkness makes ordinary things like walking and working more difficult.  Here on the farm when darkness comes, it is truly dark.  Very dark. To walk around here when the sun has disappeared is to risk stumbling, falling, or running into some nocturnal critter whose sudden appearance can make the heart skip a beat.  

Before I was ordained, I had to write a sermon for the Conference Board of Ordained Ministry.  I have lost the sermon, but I have always remembered the text.  It was from Colossians 1:13-14 which reads, "He (Jesus) has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."  It is a text which speaks of a darkness that is deeper than the farm darkness.  In this passage of Scripture, the Apostle speaks of an inner darkness, a spiritual darkness, a darkness of a soul that was at its creation bathed in eternal light.  It is the kind of darkness from which there is no relief.  

The truth is that we are not capable of finding our way out of this spiritual darkness without Christ.  He is the Light of the World (John 8:12), He is the eternal creating Light, He is the Light which can penetrate any spiritual darkness and the Light which no darkness can overcome.  (John 1:1-5).  We no longer have to walk in a darkness that blinds us to who we are, why we are here, and to Whom we really belong.  We no longer have to stumble about trying to find answers to the core questions of our life.  Jesus is the answer to all of them.  Trust in Him and see.

Musings on a Gray Morning

My morning visit to the porch took me into a morning overcast with low thick gray clouds.  To add to the aura of the morning, there was just enough fog to bring the gray down to earth.  It was a gray morning empty of any markers which might point one toward north or south or east or west.  The morning provided a vision of what I was seeing and what I felt as I looked not toward the unseen horizon, but inward toward a feeling that somehow I had lost sight of my true north.  The events of the recent days had flooded over me in such a way that my moorings seem to have been washed away from underneath the foundation of my being.  

Such was the awareness which weighed heavily upon me as I stood there wanting to offer praise for a new day and gratitude for blessings that had come and which were surely coming.  Not being able to find either within me, I simply stood to become a part of the morning that had come to break the darkness which had covered the farm viewed from the porch.  In the midst of this moment of feeling separated from where I was and from whom I knew myself to be, a Word from the Psalmist came to break the inner darkness as surely as the morning sun soon took away the grayness of the morning.  From the 121st Psalm the Words started playing in my spirit.  "I lift up my eyes to the hills--from whence will my help come? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth." (Psalm 121:1-2). 

Suddenly, as a lost soul in the wilderness might catch a ray of morning sunshine from the eastern sky, I saw again my way. I saw not the east, but my true north.  As the prophet Isaiah wrote, "I saw the Lord..." (Isaiah 6:1), not high and lifted up, but in the gray all around me and within me.  It was not a moment which took away completely the shadow of the sadness, but it was a moment which pointed me toward the One who has always guided me through all kinds of shadows to the Light I have come to know as everlasting, inextinguishable, and eternal.    

The Twinkling of an Eye

Today while attending a memorial service, a verse of Scripture not read bolted into my conscious thought.  It is a Word which the Holy Spirit prompted the Apostle Paul to write to the Corinthian Christians.  Found in that Resurrection Chapter, it reads, "Listen, I tell you a mystery!  We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye...we will be changed"  (I Corinthians 15:51-52).  It is a verse which is certainly an appropriate Advent verse for it is eschatological in nature and even as this is true, it is a verse which reminds us how quickly we who are mortal and perishable put on immortality and the imperishable clothing of eternity.    

What really jolted me in the pew was the thought about how quickly life is changed by death.  "In the twinkling of an eye...we will be changed," the Word says.  While my thoughts admittedly raced beyond the scope of this verse, it pointed me toward an awareness that it is not only the dead who are changed, but also all those who remain to mourn.  Death may be regarded as the greatest change agent of them all.  Those who mourn and walk away to live the rest of their lives will do so, but no grieving survivor of loss remains the same.  As surely as the dead are given a new life, so are those who walk forward to find a new life without the one who has had a shaping power in their life.  

Those of us acquainted with grief born out of love know that going forward is to go forward into the realm of the becoming.  As we walk away from the grave, it is not clear who we shall become, but we walk away changed as in the twinkling of an eye and we begin a hard journey in which who we are to become will unfold before us.  The Word is true in what it says and even beyond.  In the twinkling of an eye, we shall all (the dead and the living) be changed.  

Among the Stones

Among the manicured stones,

   sentinels of the silence

     stand to speak to mortal men.

        Like Dives they seek to speak  

          to admirers of the stones

who see not what is to see.

 

"Come, mortal one," they say.

    "Walk among us, read our words.

       Know that one day you shall lay

          here beneath us in a place

            not desired, but made certain

on the very day of birth."

 

Midst the silent stones of earth 

    comes another silent voice,

      "Look not here," it boldly says,

          "the stones speak not a last word,

            they only hold emptiness

for Christ is risen, indeed!"  

Fully Human

Jesus is an amazing figure in history.  He lived at a level of life which seems so much higher than ours that we give Him super human status.  Such does not surprise anyone since He is Son of God and one who spoke of Himself by saying, "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father."  (John `14:9). God Incarnate is how we know Him.   John 1:14 says, "And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen His glory as of a father's only son..."  The child born of the virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit, assumed flesh, and lived among us.  God became flesh.  In and through Christ Jesus, God has walked among us.   

If we can step outside the constraining theological boxes in which we are so comfortable and think of Jesus being fully human and fully divine without allowing the fully human part to be something which demands we to think of ourselves as being conceived and created as less than fully human, then we have opened the door to considering that following Christ means reclaiming our original human condition instead of denying it by buying into the idea that we are born as sinners.  If we lay aside for a moment the fact that Jesus was fully divine and, therefore, not allow that dimension of who He is to be the reason He could live fully human, then we have taken a huge step toward affirming that we were born with the imprint of the Holy and fully human.  

Saying we sin because we are fully human seems to imply that somehow Christ was without sin because He was not fully human as are we.  We become children of iniquity not because of our birth, but because of our choices.  We are most fully human when we allow the Holy Spirit to bring the fullness of the heart of Jesus into our life.  It is worth thinking about for a spell and it may be something which radically changes our understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.

Not One or the Other

We pray "The Lord's Prayer" too flippantly.  Perhaps, it is because we pray it each time we gather for worship.  We pray it so often we really end up saying it instead of praying it.  We pray it so often that the words, "Our Father in heaven..." turn on the auto pilot in our brain and the words just roll out automatically.  This is not to say that we should cease using the prayer in our worship, but simply an acknowledgement that frequency and familiarity can diminish its meaning unless we intentionally choose otherwise.   

While each part of the prayer is important, there is one part of it which has its importance underscored by Jesus.  The prayer causes us to pray, "...forgive us...as we also have forgiven..." (Matthew 6:12). At the conclusion of the prayer, we hear Jesus giving emphasis to that part of the prayer in a way He does no other part.  Verses 14 and 15 of that chapter enable us to hear Jesus saying, "For if you forgive others their trespasses, Your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."   Most of us would rather hang on to what the Word says in I John 1:9 as it says, "If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins..."   

When confronted with the tension implicit within these two sections of Scripture, we are in a better place to read and think not one or the other, but both.  It is those who hunger and thirst after righteousness who will be blessed. (Matthew 5:6)  Righteousness is about being in a right relationship with God and one another which may point to the reason Jesus made such an issue of forgiveness in the model prayer He taught us.

Is God Listening?

One of my churches I left with a memory full of broken relationships and a heart full of anger.  When I left I thought I had put it all behind me.  I was certain it was not my fault so the ball was not in my court.  A year or so into my new appointment I heard about a bankruptcy of one of my antagonist in the church I had left.  My first thought upon hearing his bad news was, "Well, he got what he deserved!"  No sooner had the words rolled around in my thoughts than the Holy Spirit spoke, convicting me, and telling me I had some heart work to do.    

I did not argue with the Spirit.  I confessed He was right and asked first for God's forgiveness and then I forgave the man who meant me so much harm.  Though I could not see him, he was forgiven.  It would be years before our paths crossed, but when they did, we both were ready to shake hands, acknowledge that we could have done differently, and face to face forgive one another.  It took me far too long to get my own heart in order and forgive him.  There was one other in my ministry that I wanted to ask for forgiveness, but I waited too long.  This is to say that if we know about broken relationships in our life, the best time to be reconciled to a brother or sister is today.  

If we value our life with Christ, it is the only way we can truly be at one with Him.  To stand in the sanctuary and pray the prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven....forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.."  and know we have  broken and unforgiving relationships in our life only means that we are making a mockery of the prayer.  The Father may choose not  to listen.

A Hard Business

Forgiveness is tricky business.  It is hard business.  We are all for it when it is someone asking us for it.  When the shoe is on the other foot, it is easier to play the blame game than to be the one seeking to restore a broken relationship.  I have in my memory of ministry a moment filled with brokenness, words spoken which should have been held, and an unwillingness to budge an inch toward finding middle ground.  The only reason the church did not ask me to leave was because I asked to be moved.   

When I think of those days, it is with much regret.  I completely ignored what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount when He told His disciples, "...when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift...and first be reconciled."  (Matthew 5:23-24).  I left that place spurning an attempt at reconciliation and carried with me a heart full of anger.  I consoled myself by saying it was not my fault.   

Jesus makes it clear that who is at fault is never the issue.  The issue is the broken relationship.  If we realize there is a broken relationship in our life and we choose to ignore it, or move it from the scope of our responsibility, we are simply ignoring the Word and the will of Jesus.  In this verse it is clear that the issue is never finding who is at fault, but making things right.  Whatever it takes to make a relationship right again is what we are called to do.  It has nothing to do with placing blame.

On the Death of a Friend

Gone now.

Out of sight.

No more to roam.

Slowly and quickly,

Finishing now the race.

No longer here among us.

 

Still here.

Now alone.

Very alone.

Unable to move,

Life suspended in place.

Broken and beyond repair.

 

Risen.

Here no more.

As Christ now lives

Beside the Father,

Waiting and preparing,

Just beyond the veil so thin.

 

Not here.

Now gone there.

Behind the Christ 

He has now risen.

Taken the final step,

Abiding now in glory. 

The Morning Praise

As I was fixing the morning coffee, I looked out the kitchen window and was surprised by the sight of a flock of seven or eight turkeys strutting across the hay field.  Since it was a first sighting this year, it was a moment filled with excitement.  It was one of those moments which Annie Dillard describes in one of her books as "now you see it, now you don't."  Hardly had I gotten to the front porch for a better view and they disappeared into the heavy brush down by the branch.   In these years here on the farm I have learned that there are many such moments to experience.  

There is a big and getting old silver fox squirrel who is eating my pecans, but I still relish every moment he graces me with a sighting.  There are sounds like owls hooting at night and circling hawks shrieking in the sunlight.  I have learned that the dirt is full of life and dormant trees will come back to life again.  The most amazing part of these years living here immersed in the creation is the way God shows up.  Surely, He is with us all the time.  He expresses His desire to be in our presence more than even the most devout express a desire to be in His presence. To speak of Him showing us is to say there are those moments when His voice speaks through the silence which belongs to Him to say a Word that resonates in my heart as His Word.  

In the midst of any day, there are signs of His presence all around.  Sometimes that moment of presence comes through a shining forth of the Creation.  Sometimes it does so through the most ordinary things which are seen and taken for granted.  Sometimes this moment of presence arrives through the presence of someone who stands along beside me and then there are also those moments of being reminded of His presence while watching turkeys on their morning stroll, or a fox squirrel scampering up the tree for pecans that are mine, but also his.  "When morning gilds the skies my heart awakening cries: May Jesus Christ be praised!" 

Friends

Earlier in my life, I was too busy to have friends.  While I had some people in my life I thought of as friends, it was mostly a ploy in my mind to make me feel better.  The truth is friendships take effort.  They require putting self aside at times in order to be a friend.  They can sometimes get in the way of the scheduled things we regard as truly important. Friendships are not always cultivated within the land of convenience.   

Many of the ones I called friends were really acquaintances and colleagues. True friends come more in the category of the few instead of the category of the many.  A regret is that I let myself be so occupied with myself and my pursuits that I had no time for the work of being a friend.  I was reminded of the importance of friends this evening as I shared a meal with a friend from my college years. While the years since those first years of friendship took us in different directions, it is good to reconnect and to claim once again a life sustaining relationship.  I am grateful for this man who was a boy when our friendship took roots.  

The evening brought to mind One who has called me friend.  He is known by many of us.  John 15:15-16 enables us to hear Jesus saying to those He loves and who love Him, "I do not call you servants any longer,...but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."   Transparency and risk and sacrifice are ingredients of friendships.  It is never enough just to talk about being a friend.  It is imperative expressions of care and love come forth from our hearts.  Jesus certainly modeled that for us to see as He journeyed from the waters of baptism to the cross on the hill.  One thing is certain.  The bar of friendship is raised to a new level when He chose to call us friends.

Harvest Days

These are the days for the harvest.  The big Harvest Moon has already run its course brightening up the hours belonging to darkness.  Farmers in these parts are working around the clock to bring the hay, cotton, and peanuts out of the field and to the market.  Most of the hay has already been cut and baled.  Peanuts are being dug.  The combine is in the cotton fields.  Even here on this part of the planet where a small farm is a part of my life, it is the time for gathering the pecan crop which has been anticipated since the cold winter day almost a year ago when fertilizer was broadcast on the ground.  

Whatever the crop, it takes time.  There is no hurrying it.  Most harvested things begin their journey to harvest as a seed.  In the case of pecans, a dormant barren tree of winter comes alive as hints of Spring start stirring it to life.  Watching these farmers toil long hard and dusty hours in these days is a sure reminder that the harvest may be produced, but the farmer's work is an important ingredient in the creative process as well.  What is often overlooked by all of us is that no fall harvest comes from the earth aside from the partnership of the farmer and the Creator.   

Everything we grow is dependent on the Creator.  He provides the light of the sunshine, the rain which is like drinking water, a soil that has the power of life within it, and different weather that provides for the seasons between beginning and end.  "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof..." said the Psalmist. (Psalm 24:3)  It is true.  There is a holy blend of elements involved in any harvest and about all we can do after adding sweat and energy to the mix is to give thanks to the God of Creation who has given us the blessing and privilege of sharing in the produce of the earth.

Not For Eavesdroppers

The other day I was in the room while someone was praying.  It was a public kind of prayer.  It was the kind of prayer which could be understood as one person praying for all the rest of us.  It reminded me of the Sunday morning pastoral prayers I used to pray during worship.  The intent of those prayers was to somehow catch up the needs, the hurts, the sorrows, the joys, the praise, and the hopes of all those gathered.  It sounds like an impossible task and it was.  Still is.  Praying for the masses is a difficult task as any one who prays can understand.   

When those public prayers are being prayed, it is not uncommon for those who are listening in and praying in their own spirit with the one praying aloud to whisper in the quiet chambers of their heart affirming words such as "Amen," or "Yes, Lord."  In that room where I was praying as a silent participant, the one praying suddenly ceased speaking to God which is the intent of praying and started offering a political statement.  It was not like a television message which said this is sponsored by a political party, but clearly, a line had been crossed which caused me to open my eyes, look toward the direction of the one praying, and cease praying.  

While it is tempting, making political statements in prayer turns prayer into something to be heard by others and not God.  At that moment what is being offered as prayer ceases to be prayer.  This is not to say that it is inappropriate to bring issues of justice, mercy, righteousness, and love into the moments we gather as the people of God.  Old Testament prophets such as Amos and more recent ones like Martin Luther King have sounded such words.  The point is that prayers need to be addressed to God and not to the ears of those who are eavesdropping on the conversation.

Sleeping While Praying

Somewhere between "Father God" and "Amen,"  I dozed off.  Well, dozing off is not actually true.  I went to sleep while praying.  I have gone to sleep in some other religious moments like in the middle of a sermon to which I am listening.  When I started preaching as a young seminary preacher, I was confident that no one would ever go to sleep while I was preaching.  It did not take long for that illusion to be shattered.  A front row member of my first church put it to rest while the rest of us wondered what to do with his snoring.  It just seems that sometimes sleep should not overtake us.  

Certainly, we should not sleep when hearing the Word of God being preached, or when asking for God's ears and heart while praying.  I remember the story of Eutychus who went to sleep while Paul was preaching.  He did not just doze, but went to sleep so soundly, he fell out a three story high window and was found dead on the ground. (Acts 20:7-12).  The Bible has a story of some others who should have stayed awake, but went to sleep.  The gospel writers remembered the night of Jesus praying in Gethsemane.  Jesus asked the disciples to pray with Him and they went to sleep. (Matthew 26:26-46).  The fact that the disciples went to sleep, not once but three times, comforts me little when I should be paying attention in a moment with God and go to sleep. 

When I wake up early in the morning to pray and find myself asleep and about ready to fall out of my chair, I quietly fuss at myself a bit and think, "At least I was where I was supposed to be."  I am not sure the Lord takes any real pleasure in such a rationalization when His heart is grieved over the things about which He has put on my heart to pray.  I feel sure He looks at me, shakes His head, and murmurs, "So, could you not stay awake with me one hour?" (Matthew 26:40).  Who knows?  Maybe it is His voice speaking such a Word in my spirit that shakes me back to consciousness?

A Season of Loss

The last few days have been hard days.  Several people who have been in my life for some time now are in the midst of suffering through loss and the grief which surely weighs heavy upon them.  Any of us who have experienced loss in our own lives can understand how hearts can be broken and hopes and dreams shattered.  No matter how much we might speak the words of faith and no matter how much we choke back the tears of our emotions, the loss of those we love changes our world into a world never before known.  

While we cannot take away the pain of the moment from those we love and while we do not have the  power to shorten the road of grief that must be traveled, what we can do is to stand alongside of them in whatever way we can.  In some cases we can physically be present.  Even though those moments may be moments of not knowing what to say, our presence will be remembered long after any words.  It is also true that distance can make physical presence impossible, but it does not diminish the care in our hearts, nor our ability to make a phone call or to send a handwritten card.  

Another significant way of expressing our care for someone in the midst of loss is through prayer.  Not one prayer, but a season of prayer.  If we have walked the journey of loss and grief in our own life, we know how much prayer becomes a source of strength as well as how it leads us toward hope and the rest of the life God is unfolding.  The Apostle Paul wrote the Christians in the Galatian churches to "bear one another's burdens..." (Galatians 6:2) and another apostle named James wrote to those entrusted to his care, "...pray for one another, so that you may be healed.  The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective."  (James 5:16).  "Father God, in the quietness of our own heart, we pray for those we know whose grief is so very heavy.  Have mercy, Lord Jesus.  Bring comfort, Holy Spirit.  Amen."

The Power of God

We have to find some way to get the cross back in the church.  Some might quickly respond by offering a reminder that their church has one hanging on the wall behind the choir area.  Others might point to the number of people who wear Sunday t-shirts on which there is a cross and, of course, there are likely to be plenty of cross necklaces showing up at worship.  Long years ago a woman whom I thought was listening to me preach told me she counted all the crosses she could find in the sanctuary.  Maybe, some would say, there are more crosses than I am seeing.  

Still, I affirm we have to find some way to get the cross back in the church.  It no longer seems to be portrayed or preached about in a convicting way.  When I was growing into faith as a teenager, there were many sermons which did more than just mention the cross upon which Jesus died.  Those sermons carried me to its foot, enabled me to see why Jesus was dying, for whom He was dying, and what difference it made.  The cross of that church was not something which gave lip service to the agony of Golgotha, but one that penetrated hearts and brought forth tears of repentance.    

There is much talk these days about the need for Spirit filled churches and I would never deny the importance of the Holy Spirit empowering the church, but I sometimes wonder if revival might not be more likely to come through a church that models its ministry after Paul the Apostle who said, "...we proclaim Christ crucified."  Maybe modern preaching might fear it might get emotionally messy, but the Word of God says that it is "...the power of God."

A Time for Dancing

We can only walk in one direction at a time.  We can choose to go forward or turn around to what is behind us.  We can even try walking forward while looking over our shoulder which is mostly about not going forward.  Everyone of us comes to times in our life when we are faced with the inner chaos of such indecision.  It may come after a marriage falls into pieces.  It may come at the death of a child, or a parent, or a spouse, or, perhaps, even with a doctor's diagnosis which threatens to diminish the years of our life.  Some find themselves at such a place when a job is lost, or when some much worked for dream is shattered.   

If we have not come to a moment of having to choose between holding to an impossible to hold past or a future overflowing with the unknown and the uncertain, it can only be said that such a moment will surely come.  Turning loose of what is behind is one of the hardest things in life that we do.  It is where we have security.  It is where life seemed to make sense.  It was where we experienced belonging.  We knew who we were and where we were going.  It is hard to turn this loose even when we know in the depths of our inner being that it is no longer ours to hold.  

A singer named Lee Ann Womack sings a song which contains the words, "When you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance."  After moments in our life which shake us to our core, looking back instead of forward is like sitting out the dance.  To dare to dance when everything within us wants to reclaim the past means that we are choosing not to sit out the rest of our life.  There is an often quoted verse in Jeremiah 29:11 which speaks of God having a plan for us.  It is not just any plan.  It is not plan B.  It is God's plan "to give you a future with hope."  By faith walk into it.  "Don't sit out the rest of your life.  Dance."

One in Two

There are two Words of Jesus which measure the value of our living.  It is not that He is watching to determine if we are paying attention.  The measurement is not taken by Him so much as us.  It has been said that the human criticism of great art or music is not saying anything about the art, but a great deal about the one who carries the critical judgment.  In much the same way, these words of Jesus impact our lives. At first glance it seems that there are two words in that section of Scripture from the gospel of Mark, but a more deliberate look enables us to see that one impacts the other and neither one really stands alone.  

Mark 12:30-31 reads, "...you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength."  There is no word like this Word.  It is what it is: an issue of first importance.  However, Jesus went a bit further in response to the question, "Which commandment is the first of all?"  The word about loving God is followed with Him saying, "The second is this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself."  (Mark 12:31). "There is no other commandment greater than these," He said.  (Mark 12:31).  

Jesus speaks into existence two words, but connects them so that they become one. He did not say, "no commandments greater than these" which would not be surprising, but "no other commandment is greater than these."  To separate them in practice is to refute both parts of the one Word.  Obedience to only part diminishes the meaning of the whole.  We love God and our neighbor or we do not love either. To think and act differently is a perversion of the message which Jesus taught and for which He died.

Today, not Tomorrow

We should not count on tomorrow.  Certainly, it is good to plan on tomorrow.  We all do, but planning and counting on it are two different things.  Planning for tomorrow speaks of preparing for it should it actually comes.  Counting on it implies that there is something which needs doing today, but it going to be delayed until tomorrow.  When Jesus spoke, saying, "one day's trouble is enough for the day," (Matthew 6:34)  He was telling us that the best living is done when we stay in the day we are being given.  To stay in the day we are being given means, "making the most of the time." (Ephesians 5:16)   

The most fragile thing we hold is our life.  It is not some easily broken fine china, or even a family heirloom which is never used, but is always safely displayed. What we never know is when "our soul will be required of us." (Luke 12:20)  There is good reason the Word admonishes us "not to go to let the sun go down on our anger."  (Ephesians 4:26)  It makes no sense to count on tomorrow to ask someone to forgive us, or to forgive them.  It makes no sense to leave home in the morning without a word of kindness or an expression of love to the ones most precious to us.  It makes no sense to hold and nurture our guilt from the past when the Holy Spirit is speaking to us about it in our hearts.  It makes no sense to count on tomorrow to do the important things we need to do today.   

I often remember an old farmer during the days of the civil rights struggles telling his preacher, "I know what the right thing to do is, I just ain't ready to do it yet."  What so often keeps us from admitting we are wrong, or doing the right thing today is our ego.  Our pride.  Or, maybe we are just living in such a hurry we have forgotten how to pay attention to the important stuff which needs doing in the today moment of our life.  It is always a good thing before the day is too far spent to see what matters of the heart need tending and then tending to them.

Burden Bearers

The Word of God in the letter Paul wrote to the Galatian Christians calls us to bear one another's burdens.  (Galatians 6:2). A burden is not carried easily.  It is the kind of thing which not only weighs heavy on our spirit, but it wears us down until there is little energy for living.  If we can imagine the dramatic portrayals of Jesus carrying the heavy cross of execution to the place waiting for it and Him and if we can imagine the kind of exhaustion which caused Him to need another's help, then we can possibly wed that image and our own experience so that we can understand how it might be for some troubled and heavily burdened brother or sister.   

It is not just another who carries such burdens.  There are times in our life when we are the burden bearer in need of someone to help us on the way which must be walked.  Some of us may see ourselves as being able to live alone apart from the care and help of another, but what is really true is that we desperately need a community of people around us.  I have memories of times when the burden being carried was so heavy there was no energy for praying.  In those dark and hard hours, a community of people rose up, or maybe I should say, knelt down to pray in my behalf.  

When someone asks for our prayers or our help, we can never take their request lightly.  Our willingness to be a burden bearer through prayer may be the only reason they are able to make it.  We all live fragile lives.  We are all members of a community of sufferers.  We do need one another.  Within that community there will be moments for being the helper of others as well as moments for being helped by others.  What is carried as a burden may not be taken away, but somehow it is carried better when someone is willing to stand alongside of us.

Proliferation of Population

Genesis is indeed the book of beginning. As we spend more and more time rambling about in the Garden, we begin to understand that it speaks of more than just the beginning of what we might refer to as the life of humanity and creation.  The Garden also speaks of the beginning of our understanding of God, the Creator, thus, it becomes the hub of our theology.  To extend our thinking is to see it as the beginning of what we know as interpersonal relationships as well as the intimate personal relationships which sustain our individual emotional lives.  And though, not finally, it is interesting how the Garden story is suggestive of a more agrarian life, or at least one which provides an appreciative connection to the land.  

Living on the farm has been an unexpected blessing in life which has opened life changing vistas of thought.  I sometimes wonder if God really anticipated the way we would faithfully keep the first part of that first commandment, "Be fruitful and multiply..." while totally abusing the intent of the second part which spoke of subduing the earth and having dominion over it.  (Genesis 1:28).  The text goes on to speak of the animal and plant resources of the earth being provided for food and to sustain life, but we have gone far beyond the original intent to a place where what was meant to sustain life has been become a gift exploited for greed.  

Rambling extensively in the Garden speaks to us not of original sin, but of the original intent.  The proliferation of our population has not only created urban magnets which draw the masses, but has in the process dulled our senses to the value of somehow finding a way to show appreciation for the creation which has continued to sustain us since the days of the Garden.  We cannot live within the Creation and regard ourselves as its center lest life as we know it disintegrates into a final chaos.

A Simple Song

"Some days are diamonds, some days are stone" is how the song from way back is remembered in the memory I carry with me these days.  The song has more than a measure of truth.  Some days seem like sunrises all day long and some seem like a billowing thunderstorm from beginning to end.  Some days end with lingering frustration and some end on a note of joy.  Every day brings to us its own music.  We never know for sure when our feet hit the floor exactly where they are going to walk.  

However, this morning started with a surprising rendition of "This is the day that the Lord has made...I will rejoice and be glad in it."  It is a simple song.  Most of us know it.  Most of us have sung it a time or two.  It is a song which refutes the idea that some days are stones as it declares all days are diamonds because we see and know and experience the presence of the Lord inside of them.  When I heard the song at the beginning of this day, my spirit without a thought said, "Amen!"   

To paraphrase a poem by Cushman which has within it the line, "all day long His presence lingered, like glory in my breast," I have walked through a day which had a lot things which could have derailed it causing disaster; yet, this song kept an awareness of presence in my heart.  Indeed, every day is a good day.  No matter how we feel on rising and no matter what stones get thrown at us during the day, it a good day for one very simple reason.  It is a day the Lord has made.  It is also a day that the Lord has given to us.  Thanks be to God for a simple song to provide steering for the day.

Heavenly Thoughts

I have never been one to be too occupied with thoughts about heaven, but in different ways I have been bumping into it all my life.  My first thoughts about it came at age seven when my father died.  It is also true that preachers preached more about heaven in those days than today's preachers who regard being other worldly as one of the seven deadly sins of the pulpit.  As I have gotten into the seventies, I have a growing list of family and friends who have headed to heaven ahead of me.  All of this came to mind today as I worshiped and shared in liturgy focused on All Saints Sunday.   

Apparently, I am not the only one in recent years to give some thought to heaven. Back in 2014 a movie called "Heaven is for Real" hit the big screens of the world.  The budget for the film was $12 million and it made a little over $100 million in a four week run at the theater.  Regardless of what we think about such a movie, a lot of people had enough interest to line up at the box office.  I am one of those who confesses up front to not knowing much about heaven, but I do believe it is not going away.  Without meaning to be simple or profound, it is here, or maybe it is there, to stay.  It defines eternity.  Of course, whatever we know about heaven, we know by faith.  Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen..."   

As a boy who was separated from his father too abruptly to say good-bye, I hoped for heaven.  As an adult who chose to become a follower of the Christ whose earthly life ended not with death, but with an empty tomb, I live with a conviction in what cannot be seen.  I love to remember the song Sandi Patti used to sing which declares that "We shall behold Him."  The faith which continues to grow in me tells me it is true.  The One who said He was going from our midst to prepare a place for me and you can be trusted to keep His word.

All Saints Sunday

While I do not have any regrets about retiring, there are some Sundays I would like to once again be the one leading worship and preaching.  Certainly, Easter is one of those Sundays.  There is nothing to compare the joy and excitement, blessing and privilege that it is to proclaim the message of the risen Christ to the people of God.  Pentecost Sunday is another great Sunday for preaching and, of course, Christmas Eve.  This upcoming Sunday is another one of those Sundays when every part of me will want to get out of the pew and take over the pulpit.  

This Sunday is All Saints Sunday.  It is a moment of worship when we remember how thin the veil is between here and there.  Here is only a breath away from there.  Here is where we catch glimpses of what is there and there is where the faithful ones who have run the course among us now dwell midst the glories of eternity.  It is a Sunday for sharing the Holy Meal and thinking of the Heavenly Banquet as a meal we share here and they share there.  It is a Sunday when the Table seems so long it extends from where we gathered to where they are gathered with us.  

On no other Sunday does that great cloud of heavenly witnesses seem to linger among us so closely.  It will be such a blessing to sing my best that great hymn which says, "For all the saints who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia. Alleluia!"  Before the music ceases the people gathered will sing those words of great victory, "O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.  Alleluia, Alleluia!"  I can hardly wait to sing this song.  Maybe I should go ahead and practice now!

Always With Us

We can never know what is up the road just out of sight from where we walk.  It may be a bed of roses or some rocky hardship that measures not just our stamina, but our faith as well.   We cannot see what is up the road and neither can we see Who is up the road.  However, the One ahead whom we cannot see is One who has been with since before the first steps were taken.  In creation's moment of conception we came into being bearing the imprint of the Holy One who shaped and knew our unseen form.  We are from that moment never out of the sight and the care of the Holy God of Creation.  

When we cannot see what is ahead in our journey, we can know that the One who brought us into being has walked ahead and knows the way He is leading us.  A part of the holy mystery is that the One who ranges ahead is also the One who is with us.  He is ahead, but also beside. He is out there, but within us.  His promise is that it shall always be.  We hear that promise from Jesus as He said, "I am with you always, to the end of the age."  (Matthew 28:20)  Never alone and, certainly, not forgotten, or forsaken is who we are.  There has always been more to our lives than we could see.  It could always be characterized as unfolding before us.  

We may not have experienced life as such in the earlier days of our faith journey, but the more we walk the more we truly see what is behind us even as our faith enables us to see what and Who awaits us in the days still to come.  We have always gone with God.  He has always been present.  The promise proven by our past is the promise of all that is ahead.  He remains present and so He shall always be.

The Troubled Road

"How do you not be troubled, Lord,

   when your trouble goes down bone deep

     and your mind thinks of nothing else?

       How can You say, 'Don't be troubled?'

         Haven't You heard a Word I said?

Your wordy sedatives won't work.

 

Not any more.  I just feel guilty.

    Guilty, because I am troubled

       and all You say is not to be.

        It does not work that way for me.

          Say what You will about belief,

my trouble will not go away.

 

I hear what You are saying, Lord.

    'As surely as sparks fly upward'

      trouble is going to come my way.

        And I know You said it will come

           to all, the just and the unjust.

I see the dust of Your troubles.

 

The troubled road You have walked,

   the one that took You up a hill,

     to a hole prepared for Your cross,

       to a tomb readied for Your death,

         to a place made ready in glory.

I see Your walk, I hear Your words.

 

When You speak the believing Word,

    it does not take away trouble,

      it takes away its dark power.

        'I am the Way' is what You said.

          With You is still where I  will go.

Trouble comes and goes, but You stay."       

In Troubled Times

The first signs of trouble are up the road and mostly invisible.  The trouble itself is around some bend in the road and holds not only the dreaded trouble, but the trouble that is given birth in our spirit from what might be, or what could be.  In the beginning the trouble has little to do with what is, but mostly with what might be.  When some wind of adversity hits us in the face, we can only imagine that a harder wind is waiting to blow.  Bad become worse and worse becomes the worst.  Such is how trouble comes.   

As we anticipate and feel the headwinds of trouble, there comes to us this word of Jesus we have heard quoted a thousand times.  Not only have we heard it all those times, but we ourselves have repeated it when the pressure around us and in us begins to build.  The improbable words of Jesus are found in the first verse of the fourteenth chapter of John.  "Do not let your hearts be troubled.  (You) believe in God, believe also in me."  "Trust Me," is what He said.  "Take Me at my Word," is His Word to us.  Over and over through our journey toward Home, we are faced with the challenging question about Jesus.  We seldom voice it to others, but we often speak it to ourselves.  "Can this Jesus be taken seriously?  Is He really Who He says He is?"   

Our answer is going to make all the difference in how trouble affects us.  When we run into bone deep trouble, it is not just an academic exercise, but the difference between living and dying and dying and living again.  At the end of the journey, the faith with which we started is still what will sustain and deliver us.  Of course, the end of the journey faith is not the same as the one known at the beginning because He has led us through dark valleys and has enabled us to see the enduring and eternal power of faith in Him. 

Grace and Faith

We live with faith and trust, or we live in hopelessness and despair.  Everything about life points to grace and faith.  None of us have anything to say about how we got here.  We did not choose our parents.  Neither did we choose our homeland.  Some say we choose our friends, but we are born with our family.  It is true enough.  Such things are not ours to decide.  Those who declare we are the master of our fate need to look again at the moment of beginning.  While it is true our choices have some bearing on where we go with our life, our beginning is not ours to choose.   

Some live long years and others hardly have years enough to count.  As surely as those whose lives are short wonder why old age is denied them, those in the older years wonder why they lived so long when so many lived so much less.  Life is not really about us.  We might try to frame it inside our choices, our will power, our self care, and a host of survival tactics, but in the end, life is about grace.  Grace is not something we earn.  It is not something guaranteed by good and right living.  It is a gift.  More specifically, it is a gift from God.  Though we may have questions we would like to ask Him, our life comes from Him, is sustained by Him, and as the Word declares, He does know the number of our years.  We are here and we live here because of God's grace.  

It is, of course, something which is not as provable as test tube experiments in a lab, but it is truth, nonetheless.  Not all things are visible in the present.  Actually, there may be more things invisible in our present moment than things which are visible.  Life is lived not in realm of the known, but in the realm of the unknown.  The writer of Hebrews wrote, "faith is the conviction of things not seen..."  (Hebrews 11:1).  Grace is what got us here.  Faith propels us forward.  It is the way which leads Home "to the better country."  (Hebrews 11:16) 

The Soft Sing-a-long

I have always been a fan of church choirs.  I have never had any minister of music invite me to join, or even do a sing-a-long.  Not sure why.  What some of them did not know is that I often sang along without permission.  As I sat in the pulpit chair listening to the choir right over my shoulder, I would often sing along with them.  True, I sang softly.  I made no big production out of my singing with them.  Sometimes I just could not help myself.  There have been many times when I thought the choral director should at the end turn around to face the congregation and invite everyone to sing it again with the choir.   

Church choirs, of course, come in different sizes and shapes, and have different degrees of musical skills.  Though there are some, none of the choirs in the churches I served required an audition, or offered payment to exceptional singers.  All the singers were volunteers who were exercising what I perceived to be a spiritual gift.  A few may have made the choral director cringe, but they were all offering praise to God which is what I saw myself doing from the pulpit chair.  

What I must confess is that I still do very soft sing-a-longs from the pew with choirs on some Sunday mornings.  The music and the singing just lifts my spirit in such a way, it is impossible not to offer my voice along with theirs in praise to God.  Some folks raise their hands, or say "Amen!"  I just sing softly hoping no one can really hear me, but God.  After all, He is why we gather to sing.  He is our real audience which is why on those rare moments when someone showed up at choir practice who could not carry a tune in a bucket and the choral director wanted to do something which might persuade them not to sing, I was always in their corner.  No one who wants to praise God with the voice God has given them should be denied the opportunity.  Even me!

Expressing Dependence

I cannot remember living without praying.  It is true enough to say that those first prayers were simple; perhaps, they could be thought of as primitive, but mostly they were about me.  In those early boyhood days of learning to pray by doing it, I became quite proficient at letting God know what I thought He needed to do.  Praying back then was mostly about God helping me stay out of trouble after I had gotten into trouble, or getting something I thought I needed in order to live.  Hopefully, praying has moved to a different level at this stage of my life, but as is always the case, old habits are hard to break.   

Our prayer lives surely have an evolving and growing dimension as we journey on the road of faith in Christ.  Even as our understanding of God changes, so does our praying.  Hopefully, as the years begin to add up, we cease seeing Him as some holy Santa Claus dressed in white instead of red who will give to us not according to our needs, but our wants.  The Scripture does encourage us to pray and to pray about any and everything, but I sometimes wonder if I am not wasting God's time by asking for a parking place close to the entrance to the grocery store when there are so many people suffering from hunger.  

In his book, "No Man is an Island," Thomas Merton wrote, "All true prayer somehow confesses our absolute dependence on the Lord of life and death...It is when we pray truly that we really are...When we cease to pray, we tend to fall back into nothingness."  Merton's words resonate as truth for many of us.  As we grow in our understanding of the nature of God and what prayer is all about, we begin to see ourselves praying not so much because there are things we need or want from God, but because we know that without Him in our life, life would amount to a huge ball of nothingness.  To say, "Our Father," is first of all an acknowledgement that we need Him and maybe that is indeed the most important thing to be expressed in the prayer of our heart.

The Our Table Folks

One of the great mysteries of the church has to do with the Sacrament we call the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion. There are certainly some differences in the meaning of the bread and wine.  Some say it is actually the body and blood of Jesus.  Others say that it is a symbol of the body of Christ, or a means of grace.  There are denominations which offer the Sacrament every time there is a worship service and there are others where the infrequency requires announcing it ahead of time.  There is a lot to unwrap every time the church gathers around the Table.   

The great mystery; however, is not about what it means, but the way His Table becomes our Table.  His Table is open to everyone.  The invitation is to "whosoever."  His Table is uncluttered with restrictive guidelines.  Our Table is full of them.   Those places with an our Table mentality allow only the confirmed to approach the Table.  Some of the our Table folks say any participant must be a member of the church that has set the Table. Young children and sinners should stay away.  For the our Table folks, the Supper is only for the saints and saints is defined not by the Bible, but by the decrees of the church.   

When we prepare the Table, we do it for the Christ.  Some who are yesterday's lost sinners and today's sinners saved by grace may serve the Sacrament, but it is a moment when human hands become the hands of Jesus.  Anyone who serves must know that it His Table.  Turning people aside is something we never see Him doing in the Scripture.  It is not His nature.  His nature is to love, to forgive, and to accept.  One of the great mysteries of the church is why the our Table folks speak of Him being at the head of the Table.

Self Denial

When Jesus said to those who would follow him, ""If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23), He spoke a hard word.  Anyone like me who has been to church for a life time has heard these words at least a few times.  Then again, sometimes I wonder if a life timer such as myself has ever really heard it at all.  Hearing the words is easy compared to allowing our spirit to soak in the word until repentance begins to undo the heart.  

What has always been easy to do with the words of Jesus is to dilute them of their power, to allow our need for rationalization and compromise to altar the radical intention of His words, and to be content with whatever superficial sacrifices we have made and are prepared to make.  I would rather applaud myself on giving a tithe and maybe even more than to consider how much I keep for myself.  I hear the word about denying self while I cling to nurturing hurts and placing blame rather than embracing the hard work of forgiveness and unconditional love.  When our soul is allowed to soak in this hard word of Jesus, we began to see anew that the really hard things to let go are not the things accumulated in our hands, but the attitudes of the heart that give life to division and brokenness.  

This word of Jesus will not even allow me to cling to my self imposed righteousness which assures me that my understanding of what it means to live as a faithful disciple of Jesus is more pleasing to Him than the understanding of my neighbor who has obviously been led astray.  It often seems that what Jesus is calling us to do with this word about self denial is to come to Him with nothing.  Just maybe all He really wants of us is our self, not our stuff and not our opinions. 

Abandonment to the Mystery

In our journey toward God, we eventually come to the moment when we realize that He can only be defined by mystery.  It was mystery which Moses experienced when the bush was burning; yet, not consumed.  It was mystery which overwhelmed Isaiah in the Temple.  It was mystery which knocked Saul from the throne of personal arrogance into a blindness that could not be healed apart from the help of one he sought to kill.  How do we explain God?  How do we explain our encounters with the Holy One, the Mighty Lord of the Universe?  

Certainly, we try.  There are those who have come before us who have spent the wealth of their years seeking to speak of Him in such a way as to open ours eyes and mind to what cannot really be seen or understood.  Like them we have constructed our own system of understanding, defining, and knowing God.  It may be a system more simplistic than the brand name theologians whose books sit on seminary library shelves, but still it exists in our mind and by it we live out our relationship with the Creator who made us.  In the end it may be true that we all will come to the place of claiming mystery instead of knowledge.  

We may all come to the place of knowing that there will always be more we do not know than we could ever know about God.  We give up many things as we walk the journey which leads to home.  In some ways life can be defined as a process of letting go.  As we venture walking that road with Him, we began to realize that we must not only let go of the things we hold in our hands, but also all the things we have held dear in our heart.  To finally come to Him and to be enveloped in His holy presence will likely require us to let go of what we thought we knew about Him so that nothing holds us to here and we can be swept away to there as surely as Elijah was carried away in a fiery chariot.

A Greater Glory

On a recent trip out west, I spent an afternoon riding into the Rocky Mountains.  I had seen pictures that were awe inspiring, but what I saw with my own eyes went beyond any photographic resemblances.  I remember standing at an overlook thinking it was like being in church.  It was a thought which spoke of a a moment akin to standing midst the sacred.  To get to the Rocky Mountains required driving through the vast plains and prairies of the west.  At one point I stopped the car, got out, and stood beside the road to simply be a part of the majestic vastness of what was all around me.  It was a trip filled with glimpses of the majesty of mountains and the eternal unending land that stretched from horizon to horizon.  

The truth is I only saw a dot of the whole.  What filled my eyes was just a glimpse of what could be seen.  No matter how much my mind and heart was wrapped up by it, there was still more to know than could be possibly be experienced.  I saw and knew a part of the majesty and glory all around me, but surely only a part.  So it is with our glimpses of what God has prepared for us in the eternal place.  When what is only partially seen is fully seen,  it will be, if I may use human terms to describe the eternal, jaw dropping.  It will be not only be jaw dropping, but it will surely bring us to our knees to worship and praise not the place we call heaven, but the God whose hands have brought it into being.   

Until a few weeks ago, I had only heard folks talk about the majesty of those mountains and plains.  Having seen a part, I can only imagine what glory there must be in seeing the whole.  While I am overwhelmed by the beauty of every revelation of God in the creation around me, there is more, so much more.  One day according to His promise, we shall see the glory of the Christ as we have never seen Him, and not just for a moment, but for an eternity. Wow!

Before the Slithering Snake

It is to make us fully human that Christ has come.  At first glance such a thought runs a bit counter to what the church has taught us about ourselves.  Over the years we have been thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that we are born sinners.   The 51st Psalm has shaped that view which has been with us since Augustine.  "Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me." (Psalm 51:5).  The Apostle Paul would much later write, "...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:23) but being or becoming a sinner is a different thing than being conceived and born in iniquity.    

What we have tended to do as we develop our understanding of ourselves in relationship to God is to justify our sinful actions by declaring that we are only human. The implication of such a statement is that if we were not human we would not sin.  It is our humanity that does us in.  Yet, consider for a moment what Genesis tells us.  After every act of creation is complete, the Word concludes by saying, "God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good."  (Genesis 1:31). The comment about being very good is an amplification of the previous words about various acts of creation simply being good.  There is a contradiction here that we have so many times chosen to ignore due to our theological sell out to original sin.  

To embrace the tension of the contradiction means dismantling some of what has become the foundation of our understanding of what it means to be spiritual.  In contrast to being conceived and born in sin, Genesis speaks of our bearing the imprint of the Holy One and being seen by Him as being very good.  This does not negate the choices we make which obliterate our spiritual identity, but instead, it suggests to us that being fully human is what we were before the slithering snake spoke in the Garden.  To speak of ourselves as being fully human does not point to our sin, but to our beginning in the Creator's hands.

A Good Exchange

I think I am kin to a saint.  Really!  A sixth century saint named Kevin.  I know Kevin is not as well known as Peter, or Francis, or Patrick, but he was a real life saint, nonetheless.  How do I know?  Well, it is kinda like a little bird told me.  Really!  St. Kevin of Glendalough was a Celtic monk who went in his prayer cell at the beginning of Lent.  It was so small that when he extended his arms to praise God, one arm went out the window.  A blackbird landed in his hand and as the story goes, St. Kevin neither closed or moved his hand for the whole season of Lent while the blackbird built a nest, laid and hatched eggs, and the baby blackbirds flew away.   

My story is just a bit different.  I was sitting outside this afternoon under a pecan tree. I was sitting very still, so still that a bird landed on my arm.  It had a green hood, a reddish brown circle around its neck, and an light red breast.  It was much smaller than a blackbird and it stayed less than ten seconds before flying into the tree above.  For a moment we were together.  I looked closely at it.  I am not sure if it looked at me as I did it. As the bird lifted from my arm, I thought of St. Kevin and smiled.  

I wonder if God smiled at the moment of pleasure and praise afforded me this afternoon.  The Word does speak of Him seeing the sparrow so maybe I was seen by Him along with the bird which blessed me with its presence.  It was a holy and unexpected moment.  My arm provided the bird with a resting place and the bird provided me a blessing.  It was a good exchange.  I am grateful for it.

Re-setting the Climate

Re-setting the spiritual climate of a church so that its people can be more open to altar ministry is not always an easy thing. Both preachers and churches who are accustomed to life without an altar used for prayers will have to deal with fears that go with risking change to the status quo if the altar is going to be something more than a memorial to the way things used to be done.  In a church overcome by stagnant spiritual life, there is nothing quite like seeing people kneeling around the altar in prayer.  It is contagious, inspirational, and invitational.   

In one church I served the associate pastor and I would process down the aisle at the beginning of the service and pray at the altar during the prelude.  Some might have wanted to point out the passage in which Jesus warned against praying to be seen in public, but what we did was done as a way of inviting those in the pews to join us in prayer at the altar for the worship which was beginning.  Never did a huge crowd gather with us, but there were some.  In addition to the prayers offered for our worship, it was a means of using the altar for praying.  It was permission giving. It was a way of giving people permission to once again use the altar for praying.   

There was nothing extraordinary about this means of highlighting altar ministry.  It can be done in many different ways.  The important thing for the church is to find ways to help its people once again claim the altar within the sanctuary as a holy place where God's grace and power can intersect with human need.  When this divine intersection takes place,  God brings blessings to His people.  When the church begins to see this happening again, it will change its heart.  

Still Remembering

Once my "rememberer" started remembering, the names and images of pastors who have had a memorable influence on my journey of faith started spilling over the cup of memory.  Some of the earlier influencers were Joe Bridges who preached a message in which I heard God's call to preach, John Kay who gave steady encouragement during my college years and three pastors, Clark Pafford, Bill Dupree, and Virgil Lee who gave direction during my youth ministry years.  

In the years that followed, there were many more.  During my seminary days, John Brokhoff taught me how to preach and Claude Thompson taught me how to think about God.  Jim Rush and Don Sparks came to steady my course during troubling pastorates.  Frank Roughton Harvey, an evangelist and actor, first came to my churches as a servant of Christ and later as a friend.  During the course of the forty years of ministry there were young pastors who came to work with me and spoke of me a mentor, but I am sure I learned more from them than they from me:  Ben Martin, Bill Daniel, and Hank Perry. Like me, they have gotten older, but not as old.  

As I walk deeper into these retirement years I am also very appreciative of a few pastors who ceased being colleagues and have become friends who stayed with me for the journey.  Lowery Brantley is one.  Wayne Mosely is also one.   Jim Jackson is another.  There are also two who were college roommates.  The Asbury College roommate is Harold Lumley who became a Nazarene pastor and my Young Harris College roommate, Tom Daugherty who is the only Baptist on my list.  There were others that my memory has overlooked, but these are surely a few of those for whom I have great appreciation in these days of remembering.