Noon on Sunday

The basic assumption of most worship planners is that an hour of worship on Sunday morning is all anyone wants, or can stand.  It would not miss the mark too much to say that most preachers work within the constraints of this assumption.  Jokes and true stories abound of people making a production out of shaking their watches at the noon hour as if to suggest it must not be working, or maybe as a reminder to the preacher that it is time to say the benediction.  One time conscious preacher I knew had someone in the balcony noting the number of minutes given to each act of worship within the service so a more efficient  and time conscious service could be offered.   

It always seemed to me that worship was over when it was over.  I found ways of stretching the expected hour to give more time for worship.  For example, I would start the service at 10:50 with those ten minutes being devoted to greeting one another and parish announcements.  Of course, sometimes we still would break that noon barrier with some of the sermon unpreached, but I told my crowd when I began a sermon late into the hour that any preaching after noon was free so they had no worries.  On a more serious note, worship is one of those things which does not need a stop watch, or an alarm to call it to a conclusion.  This is not to say that some worship services run far too long due to a lack of planning, verbal rambling, and preaching that runs past a multitude of stopping places. 

Without taking advantage of people's time and without ignoring some of our culture's expectations, it is true that worship is about God and what He is doing in our midst.  He may be the author of time, but He is not the holder of the clock on Sunday morning.  Many a movement of the Spirit has been snuffed out because the preacher wrestled control of the service back from the Spirit so the benediction would send happy people out of the sanctuary at noon.  Sometimes worship simply takes longer than an hour.  There is no need to fear it.  Rejoicing that God is at work in our midst is a better response.

A Liturgical Wish

I have been a Methodist since I was baptized at age nine.  My history is connected to this denomination at almost every major moment.  I cannot say that I have ever seriously considered going to another brand of church although there are some things about others that truly resonate with my soul.  At age 76 I am not up to getting on another horse.  I not only am going to stay on the horse I have been riding all my years, but it is something I want to do.  I am a firm believer in the Wesleyan theology of the Methodist Church and would not replace it with any other tradition.   

Having said all this I would add there are some things I wish were different.  If I were at the beginning of my ministry instead of moving toward the end, I would make sure the churches I served had more Table gathering.  I am not talking about the Wednesday night fellowship variety of table gatherings, but the ones in which we gather to share in the meal of the bread and cup.  It has always seemed to me that the church as I have experienced it over the years has suffered a kind of spiritual impoverishment because of its hesitation to offer the Sacrament on a weekly basis instead of a monthly one, or as is the case in some places, quarterly.  

Perhaps, it would be true that it would not attract a large crowd, but as a clergy friend once told me about doing a Good Friday service even if no one shows up, "It is just important to do."  He was right.  We tend to measure a worship service's value according to the number who attend, but there are times for affirming that some acts of worship are important enough to offer whether or not the masses participate or not.  A few souls can be blessed as surely as a crowd of them.  Maybe we simply need to remember what Jesus said about two or three gathering in His name. 

Destined for Home

When I first started my faith journey with Jesus, I did not think much, if any, about the destination.  Of course, as we have heard and said many times, it is not the destination, but the journey that is important. As we say this, we are attempting to slow down our hurried pace so we can pay attention to where we are in the moment.  It is true.  We do live in such a hurry and we do need to slow ourselves down on our way to the grave.  But, in the context of our spiritual journey with Christ, there is a bit more to be considered.  We do need to pay attention to the present, but we also need to know we are destined for our heavenly Home.    

When we read deep into the book of Hebrews, we find in the 11th chapter verses which speak of the journey of the saints by saying, "They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth...they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one."  (Hebrews 11:13-16).  Though we may not think much about the destination of our faith journey as it gets started, it is still out there for us and as we find ourselves living closer to the western sky than the eastern one, heaven starts coming into view in a way it was not in the beginning.  It is not that we become heaven obsessed people, but that we start seeing the whole of the journey more completely.  

The truth is we are destined for this Home.  We are conceived in the womb with this longing in our soul.  Life is a wonderful gift from God, but as the Spirit's influence grows greater and greater in us, we begin to know a hope of a greater joy than we have ever experienced or imagined.  It is a natural thing as signs of the journey's end start appearing more clearly to grasp even tighter the eternal Hand that has always been reaching out toward us and with the deepest gratitude prepare to receive the final gift of grace which is our eternal Home.

Created for Love

Our society is so full of animosity and division.  More and more it seems that we live in an "us and them" world.  We pay too much attention to the things that make us different at the expense of noting those thing which make us brothers and sisters.  What we find easy to forget is that we were not created for animosity, hatred, resentments, and unforgiving spirits, but for love.  We were created out of love and we find our purpose most completely when we affirm that we are also created for loving.  Loving is the most important thing we are called to do in life as a believer in Jesus Christ.    

Jesus made it clear as He said to a questioning Pharisee, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment."  (Matthew 22:38). No act of service to someone around us is more important than our loving God.  After speaking this Word, He went on to add another Word to what He was saying, "And a second is like it.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  (Matthew 22:39). One other Word which underscores this teaching is found in I John 4:7, "Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God."     

We live best when we affirm that love is woven into the fabric of our soul when we are inside our mother's womb and then accept the calling to love as one who gives loves to whoever it is that God puts on the path to share the journey with us. If we wonder who we are, it only needs to be said that we were created out of divine love and from that divine love, we are to love one another.  For those who are serious about following Christ, there is no place for any spirit except the spirit of love.  We are to love those who love us and those who show no signs of loving us.  What someone else decides to do is unimportant.  As those created with the love of God, we have no option but to love.

Dependent on Grace

One of the things which has been pounded into my head and heart in these years of following Christ is that we are truly a grace dependent people.  In the beginning it is easy to make the mistake of many others who have gone before us and give what we do a place of prominence that it does not deserve.  Certainly, this is not to say that our acts of service, our acts of kindness, or our acts of worship are unimportant.  Instead, it is to declare that our life with God does not begin, nor is it sustained by what we do.  The beginning point of the whole God-human relationship is God' grace.   

The Apostle Paul points us to this in that oft quoted verse from Ephesians:  "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God..." (Ephesians 2:8).  We had nothing to do with being given life in our mother's womb.  Neither can we guarantee that our life will extend beyond the next breath.  Being given life and being given breath is a gift as is our salvation.  We do nothing to earn it.  It is a gift from our creator which as we know is a definition of grace.   

As the years have added up to a greater number than so many of my friends, I know that I am not here because of a better diet, or taking better care of myself, but simply because for some unknown reason God has chosen to give me the gift of these years.  Putting my feet on the floor each morning is a gift and breathing the air I am about to breathe is a gift.  Knowing Him in my life each day is a gift.  Life is all about God and all about God's grace.  It is hard to imagine anyone living and coming to a different conclusion.

Frogs in Church

It happened in the children's sermon this morning.  Those things can be the ruin of many a well prepared adult.  On any given Sunday the whole group can conspire against the leader and take control.  Actually, it only takes one child to accomplish the takeover.  I know.  I have had it happen too many times to count.  This morning's group of children had more energy than could be contained on the front pew on which they sat.  No one was shy.  Everyone was eager to talk.  The leader said something about God being present and one of the kids pointed toward the window and said what I thought was "There is God."  He grabbed my attention and then when he spoke again I realized he really said, "There is a frog!"   

He was right.  There was a little green frog in the window.  Actually, there was another one on the piano beside the window so we had about 50 people present and two frogs.  I was reminded immediately of my pastorate in Talbotton.  Between the ceiling of the sanctuary and the roof of the church were bats.  Every evening a watcher could count a multitude leaving and on most Sunday mornings, there were at least two or three hanging upside down from the ceiling of the church.  If one of those bats so much as looked like it was going to move, there was an immediate collective loss of attention among the congregation and the preacher.  

I am not sure why the frogs showed up for worship this morning, but I did notice someone collected them and took them outdoors.  I was glad they got back outside where they belonged.  They, too, bore the imprint of the Creator in a way different than those of who came to sit in pews and stand in the pulpit.  I am grateful the frogs were put back on the road home which is what I was preaching about this morning as I lifted up the Scripture which says, "...they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one..." (Hebrews 11:16) and our  faith journey which leads us Home.

Always Be Ready

In his first letter, Peter wrote to those of faith in the church, "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is in you..."  (I Peter 3:15).  The difficult word in this passage is not the word about speaking a word concerning the hope we have in Christ, but the word, "Always."  God is constantly dropping us into situations where an opportunity to speak of our hope is given to us.  There may be times when we are living with such an expectation, but for many of us, the awareness comes to us not as something about to happen, but as something which has happened.    

This afternoon in one of those waiting rooms in which we all find ourselves from time to time, I sat down nursing my impatience about being in such a place when a man of Asian descent sat down across from me.  Before I could really be comfortable in my chair, he was telling me about his wife of 38 years who was seriously ill.  As we talked I asked if he was of the Christian faith to which he replied that he was Buddhist and then he said, "There is one God.  We all pray to one God."  I thought of a friend who lives out in Lubbock, Texas who speaks of God as "the God of the universe."  The way my Texas friend speaks of God caused me to see this distressed man across from me as my brother and for whom I offered to pray.     

If we continue reading what Peter wrote we find him saying, "...Yet do it with gentleness and reverence."  (I Peter 3:16)  In that moment I saw this man whom God put in my path as someone who bore within himself the essence of the creating God of the universe.  He was not someone I needed to try to convert.  He was not someone whose faith was amiss.  He was my brother who was suffering with fears of losing his wife and I pray that my conversation was received as hopeful and healing and that my prayers for him have been full of a gentle spirit that regards him with reverence and love.