A New Starting Point

If a group of people planning to start up a new church are asked the question, "How do we create and sustain a sacred community in a secular world?  the answer is likely to include a demographic study, a neighborhood survey, determining the available people niche, looking at the financial, physical, and personnel resources needed, and making some projection concerning the success of the venture.  In many cases the projected success is determined by the ABC criteria of successful churches which is Attendance, Building, and Cash. 

 

While it is always important to take our head and common sense with us to the planning table, it sometimes seems that the kind of planning we do may create successful institutional churches, but what is judged to be a successful institutional offspring does not always translate into a sacred community.  If our starting point is something which comes from the secular society around us, what is likely to be created is something which bears the mark of the secular instead of the sacred.  What goes in determines the end result.

 

Perhaps, asking that the second chapter of Acts be the starting point for creating and sustaining a sacred community in a secular world is a bit unrealistic, too impractical, and lacking what we call around here "horse sense."  Maybe it is.  But, then again if we want to see churches become sacred communities, communities that are set apart for holy purposes, then, perhaps, something as unprecedented as using the second chapter of Acts might need to at least be included in the answer.  A look around often raises the possibility that the churches around us might be less than sacred communities.  

A Sacred Community

A Texas pastor who was a member of my ordination group back in 1973 and who has become a good friend in these older years recently wrote some notes in response to some young clergy who asked him what he would do differently if he were a pastor today.  His thoughts sent me to thinking.  Those of us who wear the mantle of retired seem to have plenty of time to think.  Ruminate is what I like to call it.  Anyway, my reflection about my friend's response put a question out there that I have chewed on all day.  "How do we create and sustain a sacred community in a secular world?"

 

My first inclination took me to preparing my own list of things which would be different.  I quickly realized, however, that my list was more about how I would offer leadership rather than how the church might be different.  Maybe such is really all I could truly do.  But, after a time, I found myself wondering if there was a model already in place that I might take and use.  As I started allowing myself to think in that direction, I finally came to the account of Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts.  Is that scriptural account not a model for creating and sustaining a sacred community in a secular world? 

 

The only problem is Pentecost cannot be duplicated.  It was not about what men and women like you and me could do, but about what the Holy Spirit could do as folks wait for Him to act.  Is the beginning point of creating and sustaining a sacred community in a secular world an attitude of waiting on the Holy Spirit?  It sounds like a reasonable conclusion to reach, but, of course, the trick is figuring out what that means and fleshing it out.  Sounds like there might be some more thinking to do.

Anticipation

Worship requires a certain amount of energy, or all who gather are likely to be put to sleep.  This energy required for real worship to take place is not frantic activity, jumping and dancing, clapping hands or raising them in the air; although, there is nothing wrong with our bodies becoming instruments of praise and worship.  Instead, it seems that there is an energy derived from anticipation.  Worship experiences becomes lifeless not just because the leader is lifeless, but because those who come to be involved as participant come with no real expectation of encountering a living, powerful God who is likely to make Himself known in some surprising and unexpected way.

 

When there is no energy derived from anticipation, worship is mundane and people are in danger of falling out of their pews when asked to close their eyes for prayer.  Actually, mundane worship will cause such to happen when eyes are wide open!   Perhaps, the anticipation begins with the preacher in the pulpit.  Or, maybe it begins with the worship leader who calls the people to gather themselves and their expectations.  What is true is that a lack of anticipation on the part of those who serve through leading is a contagious thing.

 

Sometimes a single person will rise up in such a way as to energize the people with their holy anticipations.  When it happens it is indeed a wonderful thing to behold.  But, like a wave that crashes on the shore line, the moment passes and everyone applauds and goes back to sleep.  Too many worship moments that offer the promise of holy power to those who come die before the clock has time to tick away even the briefest of moments.  Holy power and energy is brought to the worship moment with contagious power only when it has gripped the preacher or the leader or the pew sitter long before the first note of the service sounds.  In it is those quiet moments before the worship begins that the anticipation grows into something that has a life of its own which is always something to share with the people of God.

An Unknown Preacher

With an autobiographical narrative Charles Spurgeon, a great 19th century preacher known as the "Prince of Preachers, tells of a Sunday morning when a blinding snowstorm sent him not to the church of his choice, but to a Primitive Methodist chapel.  On that day he marked as the day of his conversion he wrote,  "The minister did not come that morning, he was snowed up, I suppose.  At last, a very thin-looking man, a shoemaker or tailor or something of that sort, went up into the pulpit to preach.  Now, it is well that preachers should be instructed, but this man was really stupid.  He was obliged to stick to his text for the simple reason that he had little else to say. The text was 'Look to Me, and be saved, all you ends of the earth!' (Isaiah 45:22)...

 

... When He managed to spin out ten minutes or so,   he was a the end of his tether....fixing his eyes on me, he said, 'Young man, you look very miserable...look to Jesus Christ.  Look!  Look! You have nothing to do but to look and live!'  I know not what else he said.  I did not take much notice of it, I was so possessed by that one thought...When I heard that word 'Look'...I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away...There and then, the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away..."

While it is a great conversion story, what really struck me was the Primitive Methodist lay preacher.  He bears no name in the story and is written about in a rather uncomplimentary fashion, but God used Him to cement the transformation of a young man's search.  The young man who happened into that place of worship that day would preach to untold numbers, have a powerful widespread ministry, and his life and sermons would have a life span far beyond the years he lived.  I wonder about that preacher that launched Spurgeon in his ministry.  Did Spurgeon ever go back later in his life to find him, or did he become one of those who did an extraordinary work for God, but never knew it. 

Have a Blessed Day

It seems that the new word of departure is no longer "Have a good day," but "Have a blessed day."  It is not something heard only on Sunday, or in church, but every day and everywhere we go.  Whenever I hear it, I always receive the words as a religious blessing.  Unlike "good day," "blessed day" is received as a word with spiritual overtones.  I wonder sometimes if it is  meant in such a way by the ones who speak it to me, or if it amounts to nothing more than casual words between people who need something to say.

 

The Beatitudes use this word.  The first one begins, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3)  And, of course, this is only the beginning.  Each of the beatitudes which follow begins with this same word.  Some of the more modern translations, or versions of Scripture have changed the word "Blessed" to "Happy."  And while the alternative is a suitable change, it still does not quite measure up to the word originally associated with these beginning sentences of the Sermon on the Mount.

To speak of being "blessed" carries with it the image of something good coming to us from outside of ourselves.  It speaks of being gifted by God as the heart of His Son is shaped within us by the Holy Spirit.  We allow our heart to be open to the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit does a work in our heart that speaks of the heart of Jesus.  And, as all of this holy work is taking place within us, God chooses to gift us with spiritual blessing.  We are blessed not because of what human determination can do, but because of what the Holy Spirit can do with a heart that is eager to be shaped in the image of Jesus. 

Something Worth Writing Home

I have been reading Oswald Chamber's  "My Utmost for His Highest"  right at fifty years now.  I started using this daily devotional classic my junior year of college and it has always had an easy-to-get-to place on my bookshelf.  He seems to have a way of bringing a word into my life that resonates with my own faith journey.  A recent reading on the Beatitudes had me reading, "The Sermon on the Mount is not a set of rules and regulations; it is a statement of the life we will live when the Holy Spirit is getting His way with us."

 

Too many times we approach the Beatitudes as well as the entire Sermon on the Mount as a way of life that is possible for those who decide to simply live by those words.  Certainly, there was a time when it seemed to me that I could take those words and flesh them out in my own strength.  Determination and commitment would surely be enough.  Of course, like many others who have walked that road before me, I discovered it was a fool's journey.  I could not do what I thought I could do.  What I wanted to do was not possible simply because I decided it would be so.

 

Chambers is right as he speaks of the spiritual possibilities available to us if we allow the Holy Spirit to get His way with us.  What the Holy Spirit can do with us and through us if we give Him the absolute go-ahead is nothing short of extraordinary.  The impossible becomes possible.  But, it is never because of what we can do, but because of what the Holy Spirit can do with us when we allow Him to control completely our heart.  The spiritual life we are going after is never about us so much as it is about Him.  Depending on the Holy Spirit is the key to a spiritual life that gives us something worth writing home.

The New Absolute

In our day it is not kosher to talk about absolutes.  What the Apostle Paul wrote about the church being, "...the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth," (I Timothy 3:15) is more likely to raise a disbelieving eyebrow than a hearty "Amen."  First of all, there is a basic distrust of the church, a too prevalent thing today, and, secondly, the idea that the church would be the keeper of the truth is beyond any possibilities.  The church and the truth it proclaims is regarded as irrelevant, out-of-touch with the real world, and mostly an anachronism. 

 

What is interesting is that those who declare the church irrelevant and the truth set forth in the Scripture as anything but absolute have embraced a new keeper of truth and a new absolute.  The keeper of truth is common consensus and the new absolute is inside the secular doctrine of Relative.  Nothing is absolute anymore.  Everything is relative.  Relative is the new absolute.  And, who has a grip on this new absolute?  A society that has chosen to delegate the Word of God to second rate status has taken the place of the church as the source of understanding.

 

We live in a time of trendy fashionable thinking and midst a culture that questions the authority of what has always been known as the Word of God.  The truth is that the Word of God continues to be what it has always been.  It has not changed.  It is still an authoritative Word which "...is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work."  (II Timothy 3:16-17)  One thing which is overlooked in this word is the word "righteousness."  It is not a word which speaks of some super spiritual state, but a word which speaks of humanity living in a right relationship with the Creator God and those who share life with us.  Nothing can take the place of this word of absolute truth as we seek to live as we were created to live.

The Land of the Kingdom

When some folks read the Word, not a single syllable is read that does not go through a filtering process.  For them the Word cannot really be trusted to say what it says.  It must really be saying something other than the obvious and so the search begins.  An example is found in that Word the Apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy.  In the 15th verse of the 3rd chapter of I Timothy, we encounter words like, "...the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth."  Reading that simple Word makes a Pilate out of many who immediately ask, "What is truth?"  (John 18:38)

 

Most folks are not asking the question expecting to get an answer, but as a way of declaring that knowing truth is not a simple thing and that it must be filtered through their experience and intellect in order to pass the litmus test of real truth.  It matters not that Jesus said of Himself, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life."  (John 14:6)  Neither does it matter that Jesus later said about the coming Holy Spirit, "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth...(John 15:26)  Those with the question of Pilate on their lips cannot accept the simplicity of what the Word of God is saying.

 

An old country and western song used to sing about looking for love in all the wrong places and so do some look in all the wrong places for the truth.  They look to what the majority declares to be truth.  They look to what they have already decided to be truth.  The look to a world view that does not embrace the Christian lifestyle or values.  They look to what their ego will allow them to accept.  They look in all the wrong places and whatever truth is declared belongs to a land far from the land of the Kingdom. 

The Pillar and Bulwark

Like a lot of the mainstream denominations, the United Methodist Church which baptized and ordained me, is going through a rough patch.  The crisis is not so much an internal theological crisis as it is one which is being precipitated by the changing sexual values of the society around it.  I keep reading the Word for a way forward midst all the uncertainty and confusion.  The other day I ran across one of those verses which seemed to have leap-from-the-page powers.  It was from I Timothy.  "...I am writing...that...you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth."  (I Timothy 3:14-15)

 

Several things seemed to be doing some leaping and the one that jumped the highest was the phrase, "the church of the living God."  Those words serve to remind me and, perhaps, others that the church does not belong to any single one of us, or any single gathering of us, but to the living God.  It is His Church and not really ours which is, of course, how we like to talk about it.  Since it is the church of the living God, it only seems logical to assume that what we understand to be the inspired Word of God should have some bearing on how we think about it and how we do its work. 

 

But, there was at least one other phrase which I found ruminating worthy. "...the pillar and bulwark of the truth."  The word "bulwark" is not commonly used today and refers to a wall of strong defense.  The word "pillar" points to an upright structure, perhaps, one which gives support to the bulwark.  Such is how the church of the living God is described as it confronts external and internal controversy.  The church is not just the pillar and bulwark of truth, but the pillar and bulwark of "the truth," which is, of course, the truth revealed to us through the sacred Word.

One Day

On that final day
when all ceases,
  sweat and blood,
  crying, laughter,
  work and play,
  death and grief.
Unbounded wild
joy will prevail,
  unbridled love,
  abandoned dancing
  in glittering streets
  beneath my feet.

Sinners Like Me

I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not have a church.  The first church was mostly a Sunday School on an Air Force Base and the last one was a small church attended by only a few.  In between there was one which proudly pointed to a historical marker and another one so new it still had the new church smell.  Some were surrounded by cemeteries and others by bustling neighborhoods.  Each of them were different; yet, all of them were the same. 

 

And while I have been in many of those churches as the chief spiritual leader entrusted with the care of the souls who worshipped there, I know that each one had a shaping role in my own life.  In the beginning the church provided a place to learn about God and the heaven where my father had gone.  It cared for my soul on a perilous journey that went from doubt and skepticism to outright rebellion and stubborn self-sufficiency.  It graced my life with baptism, ordination, the sacred words of marriage, spiritual nurture, and a place to serve the Christ who called me to a life time of preaching the gospel.

 

Though I have served the church almost all my life, the scales have never measured equal.  What I received from it always weighs heavier than what I able to give.  There is a debt I can never repay.  There is a love for the church that has only grown with the passing of the years.  It troubles me when the church that I have known and loved is troubled.   Some of its trouble is its own doing as it has sought to be all things to all people when the reality is that the church can only be the church when "I believe in Jesus" is its creed and the Word of God is its cornerstone.  I pray that the church will continue to be the presence of Jesus in the world that has saving and shaping power for sinners like me who are still to come. 

Replacements

When I arrived at the St. John Church way back in the early dark ages, it was going through a rough time.  The church was in turmoil and more people were leaving than coming.  While I do not remember the names of so many of those folks anymore, I do remember the moment when one family made the difficult decision to leave.  Most of us thought it was the death knell of the church.  We did not see how the church could survive without them.  But, it did and after a time started growing.  Something learned during those difficult days was the reality that God provides leadership for His church.  Others came and their coming was more important than the departure of a few.

 

Call it replacement theology if it seems right to do so.  Over the years at other places I saw some folks leave who I wish would have stayed, but I had learned not to fret because God would send replacements.  Certainly, any Methodist preacher should know this to be true.  Not a single one of the churches I served and left died after I moved.  Each one kept right on going with the new leadership which came as I departed.  Leaders are not indispensable.  They may be important to the spiritual life of the church, but no one is beyond being replaced.

 

Still, I wonder how Elijah felt when the Lord said to him, "...you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah as prophet in your place."  (I  Kings 19:16)  He had just ascended to the heights of leadership on Mt Carmel as he overcame the 450 prophets of Baal and announced an end to a three year drought.  No one would question that He was a man of God.  Hardly had the rain stopped and God was talking about a replacement.  Like you and me, Elijah had an important role to play in the plan of God, but the plan was then and is always bigger than anyone of us.  It requires what we can do as well as what those who follow us can do.  Long after we are gone from the earth, the plan of God will continue to go forward and we will look back from eternity thankful to have had a part.

The Amazing Thing

After the fire and after the pouring rain, Elijah should have felt like he was invincible.  But, what follows that mountain top moment is truly one of the amazing moments described in the whole of Scripture.  What Elijah did on the mountain may have sent King Ahab scurrying off in fear and trembling, but his wife, Jezebel, was full of fight and fury.  "Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, 'So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.' " (I Kings 19:2)  Of course, she was saying that Elijah should consider himself as dead as those prophets of Baal that were killed after the fire fell on the mountain.

 

What was Elijah's response? "Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life..." (I Kings 19:3)  Now some would simply dismiss the moment by saying that Elijah understood the fury of a woman.  A word from this woman seemed more fearful than facing the 450 prophets of Baal!  Regardless of how the moment is viewed, it is simply amazing that Elijah would run away in fear.  He had just done a mighty deed and now he is running like a frightened rabbit.

 

Most of us are familiar with those kinds of moments.  We know that God is all powerful and that He had done life changing things in our lives and in the lives of those around us, yet, we are constantly running in fear because we listen to some of the negative voices around us that tell us God cannot do what He has declared in His Word He will do.  We often think that unbelief is the opposite of fear, but the opposite of faith is fear.  Fear is what happens when we suddenly decide God is no trustworthy and dependable.  Faith is living with a belief that God is as dependable on the mountain as He is in the valley.

The Firemaker

The fire which lit the altar, consuming the bull, the wood, the stones, and the dry dust did not start out as a smoldering fire that Elijah had to fan to keep burning.  There was no time for smoke to gather in the air.  From whence the fire came is part of the mystery which is set forth there on the mountain.  The text says, "Then the fire of the Lord fell..." (I Kings 18:38) so right away we know the Lord lit the fire and apparently it came from above to the ground.  The sky was clear taking away the possibility of a random lightning strike.  It was such a hot and powerful fire that it "...licked up the water that was in the trench." 

 

There were no skeptics that day on Mt Carmel.  "When all the people saw it, they fell on their faces, and said, 'The Lord indeed is God; the Lord indeed is God.' " (I Kings 18:39)  No one can blame any of those who had been watching when they suddenly tried to hide themselves in the hard ground of a mountain top.  To stand in the presence of the Almighty God is a frightening moment.  Such is how the Hebrews experienced it when God came down to Mt. Sinai and such is how the ancestors of those wanderers experienced it as well.

 

The God we talk about today is the same powerful, fire breathing, earth moving God, but we have domesticated Him so that He is not like the roaring lion, but the house kitty cat.  Our trendy theology which turns God into a friendly fellow who is anxious to hang around us is such a mockery.  God is not our buddy.  He never has been and never will be.  He does not exist to serve us.  We were created to serve Him.  We are not His equal.  The Hebrews on Mt. Carmel had it right when they declared, "The Lord indeed is God..."  It is a truth worth some serious reflection. 

The Lord's Bidding

Sometimes God tells us to do things that really do not make a whole lot of sense.  Remember Jesus' trip to Bethany after Lazarus died.  Jesus got the word to come before His friend died, but He delayed going and, therefore, arrived after Lazarus had been in the tomb four days.  (John 17:11)  The disciples must have murmured, "What's the point in going?"  And, then there is old Elijah up on Mt. Carmel confronting the 450 prophets of Baal and King Ahab.  Apparently, he went up the mountain with four large jars of water and enough extra water to fill them up two more times.  What brings us to this conclusion is I Kings 18:36 where we hear him praying to the Lord, "...O Lord...let it be known...that  I have done all these things at your bidding...."

 

When Elijah showed up on the mountain, he brought a lot of stuff with him.  He already knew what the Lord wanted him to do and he went prepared to do it.  To the average person, it was an unlikely thing to do, but Elijah knew it was the Lord's bidding and nothing else mattered.   Unfortunately, we are prone to act first and ask about God's bidding later.  It is not surprising that some of the things we do in His name do not work out like we figure they should.  It may be more about us than Him.

 

It is always important to seek and know the Lord's bidding in our life.  Without knowing we may do some good things, but their effectiveness is somehow diminished by the seeds of our own willfulness that we plant with the deed.  If we are really serious about doing the work of God in the places where He has put us, we must spend enough time with Him to know and understand His bidding.  To act according to His bidding may not bring the spectacular results experienced by Elijah on the mountain, but we will end the day with the joy of being a faithful and obedient servant. 

Stuck on Mt. Carmel

I seem to be stuck up on Mt. Carmel with Elijah and Ahab.  It was not really my plan when I turned to the Elijah narrative, but instead of making a quick visit and departure, I find myself still stumbling around trying to figure out stuff.  The biggest bothersome thing has been those four jars of water filled and poured out three times around the altar prepared by the prophet.  It still seems like an excessive amount of water in the midst of a three year drought.  Surely, it was a lot of water poured out in the trench around the altar.  The text does not seem to imply something like a pint jar, but a clay or stone vessel that held a lot of water.

 

What causes me to think a lot of water is that New Testament story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana of Galilee.  The stone water jars brought into play that day held twenty or thirty gallons. (John 2:6)  Since a gallon of water weighs about eight pounds, someone did some heavy lifting there on the mountain.  If the jars Elijah used there on the mountain were the large variety, the prophet had to have some help.  As I started seeing folks around Elijah pitching in to help pour the water, it made me think about the stuff of miracles.  One thing we often forget about miracles is that they often require a community.

Now, God can certainly do alone the things we might deem to be miracles, but what we often see as we look closely is that He brings in folks like the water pourers on the mountain, the little boy with the bread and fish, and the people gathered to pray on Pentecost.  I also think of some church food kitchens that feed hundreds each week, a mission ministry that digs deep wells in Africa, and people covenanting to pray for someone sick.  All of these point to a partnership between God and a community.  Such a partnership is a miracle in the making. 

Water Questions

While I received my degree from Candler School of Theology, I started seminary at Asbury Theological Seminary.  One of my Asbury professors was Dr. Robert Traina, author of a book entitled "Methodical Bible Study."  His class was my first serious study of the Bible.  What he taught us to do was to read the Bible with a notebook in which we were to write down questions as we read.  No question was too insignificant.  We were not supposed to answer the questions.  Our instructions were to write them.  His class became a way of life for me.  I do not write page after page of questions anymore, but I do hear them going off in my head as I read.

 

Perhaps, this is why I found myself stumbling all over Mt Carmel when I was reading about Elijah.  I am still trying to figure out those four jars of water that were filled three times and poured out around the altar prepared by the prophet.  I did notice that he used twelve stones to build the altar which was one stone for each tribe of Israel so I figured the same symbolism applied to those four jars of water filled three times.  The big question is from whence came the water.  Surely, there was not a stream flowing off the top of the mountain.  Such would have been too convenient.  Maybe Elijah brought the jars and God mysteriously provided the water like He did the meal and the oil for the widow of Zarephath.

 

There is probably some Biblical scholar who has this stuff all figured out, but it seem logical for me to simply say that one who seeks to figure God out is going to make a fool of himself.  God has a way of doing what He intends to do.  Sometimes He uses us to get His work done.  If we are uncooperative, He will find someone else.  And, He will do it His way.  I have been too hard headed at times as I tried to convince God I knew a better way.  Sometimes what He does makes sense and sometimes it is pure holy mystery.  I have learned to live with both. 

Extravagant Gifts

The other day while reading about Elijah's mountain top confrontation with Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal, I stumbled over something new.  The setting is, of course, at the end of a severe drought.  No rain had touched the face of the earth for over three years.  Streams had turned into dust.  Wells required longer ropes to reach the water.  No doubt a kind of rationing of water was in place by necessity.  Long baths were out of the question.  Crops were mostly memories.  Water was short and non existent in some places.  Three year droughts change a lot of things about ordinary living.

So, what caused me to stumble was this part which read, " 'Fill four large jars with water and pour it on  the offering and on the wood.'  'Do it again,' he said, and they did it again.  'Do it a third time,' he ordered, and they did it the third time.  The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench."  (I Kings 18:33-35)  Now, who takes large jars to a mountain top?  Who has that much water to pour on the ground when water is as precious as gold?  In the midst of such a severe drought and in such a harsh location there is this surprising abundance of water which is poured on the ground.  Such an act of extravagance.  It brings to mind the widow who threw her only two coins in the offering and Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with expensive ointment.

On Mt. Carmel water was the extravagant part of the offering being made to God.  The thing which had been withheld for three years was one of the holy things being sacrificed.  When the water was poured in the trench, some thought it was an act of foolishness and others thought it a waste.  But what God knew was that twelve large jars of water was nothing compared to what was coming from a distant cloud that was forming in the sky.  Two extravagant gifts were given that day.  One was the twelve jars of water from Elijah and the other was the drought ending rain from God. 

The Awful Silence

The Biblical story has some scenes of awful silence.  Abraham suffered through such a silence that day on Mt. Moriah after he tied his only son, Isaac, to the altar.  Hopefully, the boy had something placed over his eyes to keep him from seeing his father unsheathing his knife and raising it into the air.  The knife raised into the air was raised into a silence that surely must have stretched from the edge of one horizon to the other.  The old man must have been looking everywhere but down at his outstretched son as he paused with the knife suspended in the silence of the moment.  What he was going to do he was going to do, but how he must have hoped deep in his soul for a voice that would break the awful silence and spare a father a grief that would never heal.

 

Moments of awful silence invade our lives as well.  Some of them come to us because of our faithfulness to God.  However, some come suddenly and unexpectedly leaving us without a voice to speak or one to hear.  Who can understand why God appears to us as the Silent One when our hearts are broken by the hard demands of life?  Who can fathom a Father who is able to be silent when His child is broken, desperate, and being overcome by a deep darkness?  Who can figure out why the One who sends seems like One who has turned aside to other things when the One sent is suffering?

 

We are told by many who have walked the road ahead of us that we should be seekers of the silence.  We are told God makes Himself known and that His voice can be heard in the silence heard only by the soul.  But, it can be an awful silence.  It can turn into a moment when it seems that we stand so alone that not even the angels of heaven can touch us.  There are those times when God puts us into places not of our own choosing, or perhaps, allows us to walk into it only because it is where obedience takes us.  Like Abraham on Mt. Moriah, or Jesus on Calvary, we may find ourselves in the midst of a silence so awful that there is no option left to us but to trust in a God who cannot be seen, or heard, or understood. 

Silent and Absent

To be alone in the silence hopefully waiting on God can be a frightening thing.  He might not make an appearance.  There may not even be a single soft word whispered.  There may be nothing there but an even deeper silence and a greater sense of Absence.  It can be such an overwhelming moment of emptiness that it is too difficult to muster up enough from within to enter again at a later time into the silence.   

 

What does it mean when our hope for a voice and a Presence is filled only with a silence and an Absence?  Perhaps, Jesus wondered such thoughts in that horrible moment of darkness when He was at the edge of death on the cross.  Is God ever truly silent and absent?  Is it possible that He speaks in the silence in ways that are so beyond the boundaries of our expectations and hope that we are simply unable to hear? If it is true that He is out there in the silence seeking to help us find new ears to hear, then He is not really the Absent One, but the Mysterious One.

 

When the silence seems unending and seems filled with no Presence, the only thing we can do is wait.  Oh, we can, of course, give up and go elsewhere with our attentiveness, but we can also wait.  The waiting may transcend the time we can physically wait in the silence, but there is also the sense in which we can take the silence within with us into whatever it is that awaits us.  Maybe a part of what we learn in those moment of taking the silence within into the world is how we can live in the busy spaces of life with an awareness of the Quiet Presence within us.

To Not Know

Like you I have prayed for an outcome different than the one which seemed imminent.  I have done like the widow who wore out the judge with her unending pleading.  I have prayed with every measure of faith and hope that I could muster all the while believing that mustard seed size faith was more than enough.  I have prayed the simple prayer of some who saw Jesus on the road, "Jesus, have mercy." Like you I have knocked until the knuckles of my very soul were bleeding, and asked until my throat was dry as dirt longing for rain.  And like you, I have heard only the sounds of silence from heaven.

 

I wonder sometimes where these prayers go.  Are they laid up as treasures in heaven for another day's strength?  Are they thrown in a holy heap, or put in boxes on are which are written, "Yes," or "No," or "Not now, maybe later?  Do angels pick them up from a big table in the throne room and flit here and there trying to figure out what God wants to do with them?  Or, do they just disappear somewhere never to be heard by any divine ear?  I wonder sometimes.  It may all sound a bit sacrilegious for some pious and holy hearts, but if you are like me, there have been those moments of being the skeptic in the face of holy mystery.

 

Like you I don't always know what to think about what appears to be unheard and unanswered prayers.  I don't know the answers to my own questions.  What I do know is that God is dependable.  God is good.  God is loving.  God is faithful to those who love Him.  He is a Promise Keeper.  I know the Word He has written tells me to pray.  So, I will hang on with faith to what I do know.  I will keep casting prayers toward heaven.  I will have faith that He hears and faith that He is, even in what seems to be silence, working for good in my life and in the lives of those for whom I pray.   

God Don't Make No Junk!

One thing I have noticed in recent years is that everyone seems younger.  So many of the old guys I used to admire are gone as are some of those who were age peers in ministry.  When I look at the names of the people who are serving some of the churches I used to serve, I wonder who they are and from whence they came.  Another thing I noticed after retirement became a way of life was the way the denomination in which I pastored has just kept right on ticking without me.  This was no surprise as I had noticed the same thing with every church I pastored and left over the years.  Indispensable I an not.

 

Still, I remember something I heard so long ago about the value of each one of us.  This unforgettable word of wisdom came in the form of a rather trite but memorable saying which said, "God don't make no junk!"  (Forgive me for the bad English, but it does make the point.)  We sometimes forget this truth about ourselves and everyone else.  There are times when we feel worthless and there are times when someone might say something that would seem to invalidate our value and worth.  But, the truth is we are always important in the eyes of God.  He never ceases having a use for any of us.  It may be something which has disappeared from our eyes for a time, but it is always true that we are important persons in the eyes of God.

 

Nothing proves our value and worth so much as Jesus dying on the cross.  It was not for junk that Jesus died, but for folks like you and me who were created by God, who are being daily sustained by God, and for whom God has plans which include eternity.  When we remember we are loved by God and always have been, we will be able to turn a deaf ear to those who would undermind our own sense of value and worth.  "God don't make no junk!"  He made you and me.  Not junk.

From There to Here

Anyone who has ever looked behind them and wondered how they got from where they were to where they are knows there are a number of plausible possibilities.  It could just be a thing of chance and coincidence.  Maybe such is how we got from there to here.  Or, it could be that we are smart enough to figure out the course that takes us into a desirable future.  Who would deny that good old ingenuity, creativity, and determination could pave the way forward?  And there are those who would simply point to some mysterious wheel which turns and pushes us along the course of life.  Could fate be the divine directive operative for all of us who walk planet Earth?

 

Those who hold the Biblical Word in their hands and seek to live with it in their hearts point to still another possibility.  But, to be honest those who live believing that God is the One who directs our destiny do not see it as a possibility.  Instead, it is seen as a reality.  A long time ago I decided to accept as fact the very possible reality that God is the One who has brought me from the there of my past to the present of my future.  But, make no mistake.  I am not so special in the eyes of God for His guidance and leading is available to anyone who is open to it.

 

It is always possible to walk outside the way that God leads.  I know this to be true, not because others have given me reports of their misadventures, but because I have too often ventured out into that land I knew to be off the road He wanted me to be walking.  Yet, even when I did venture out on my own,  He treated me as did the faithful Father in the parable who looked expectantly down the road for the wayward younger son to return.  Like the younger son of the parable, my road has been paved with more grace and mercy than anyone would have ever thought could exist in the whole universe.  So, I know now after all these years of walking that getting from there to here has been all about the grace of God.   

Paying Attention

Out of the blue it occurred to me today that I had been here in this place of retirement for eight years.  Eight years may not seem too long to some, but for a Methodist preacher like me who started out in  ministry knowing that the expected length of a pastorate would be four years, eight years is a long time.  In my preaching years I did manage to stay in one appointment ten years, another nine, and the final one, seven, so I learned to play havoc with appointment expectations. 

 

When I think back over this final season of my life, I remember thinking that it was important to become more conscious of each day.  I started out with an intent to spend more time smelling the roses, or the coffee.  To some degree I have lived out that part of the journey.  The one word which I have embraced over and over again in these days is a simple one:  "Pay attention to the present."  As I sat on the side porch today waiting on the grill to do its work, I put my head back and watched the big white clouds move toward each other.  When it seemed they would collide, I realized they were at different heights in the sky and one was passing under the other. 

 

Certainly, watching clouds can make one look like a dreamer, or a sluggard.  But, it is also an example of what it means to pay attention to the present.  There are things happening around me that I have not been seeing.  It is not that I have suddenly been given sight, but that I have learned to practice a new discipline of being aware of what is happening around me.  Paying attention gives me cause to see clouds moving, but more importantly it gives me a greater awareness of how God is present and at work all around me.  I enjoyed viewing the world from a pulpit, but the view afforded by paying attention is truly amazing. 

Pressing On

Life really is about the journey and not the destination.  It is more like a messy process than something which adds up and makes sense.  It seems that there are always more questions than answers.  There was a time when it seemed that life was more orderly, maybe even more predictable, but in these years which have stretched into seven decades, getting there has ceased to be a goal.  To borrow a phrase Paul used in writing to the Philippians, life seems to be about straining forward to what lies ahead.  Life is about pressing on.  (Philippians 3:13-14)

 

There are days when pressing on seems to be the only thing which really makes any sense.  But, pressing on as one who walks into a brick wall only to get up and do the same thing again is not exactly what I think about when I pull out this image of pressing on.  Instead it is the image of one who has caught a glimpse of Jesus ahead on the road and will not cease going forward lest He disappears in the distance.  I live with a conviction that Christ is in control.  I live believing that He knows what is ahead and where the road leads.  I am convinced that He is able to see farther up the road than I can as I plod along behind Him. 

 

So, I will press on.  I will not quit even though it might make more sense to go another way.  I will not forsake the road on which I have walked all my life.  It is the road which has enabled me to live with a sense that my trip through this life is counting for something greater than it would had I walked another way.  It is the road which is paved with His footprints which are sometimes hard to see because of the markings of so many who have walked behind Him, but ahead of me.  I know I am not alone on this road.  It is the road of faith.  It is the road that will finally take me home. 

An Inviting Prayer

Over the years I have run into a few folks who were highly critical of those who used written prayers.  I remember one preacher who really got on his soap box because another preacher who shared in the service of worship used a prayer from a book of prayer instead of praying extemporaneously.  It seems like a strange criticism to make given we all use the prayer known as "The Lord's Prayer" to the degree that it has become a part of our memory and common spiritual legacy. 

 

At the beginning of my spiritual journey, I did not use written prayers as much as I have learned to do in these latter days.  Our choice makes us no better or worse than the one who prays differently than we do.  It just makes us different.  However, my feeling is that God hears the prayers of all us, but that He takes great delight when the prayer comes from a contrite heart.  In a book by Esther de Waal, I recently came across a prayer which I have handwritten in my journal as a keeper.  It reads, "O God, I commend to you this time and ask You to bless and to strengthen me in my heartfelt search for that silence and stillness in which I pray I shall find You and You will find me."

 

When I first read it, I thought it was like a prelude inviting us to worship, but then maybe it is more like an invocation inviting God to join us.  What I realized very quickly was that it was a prayer I could pray with a sincere and genuine spirit for it reflected something I would choose to happen each time I draw apart for moments of solitude with God.  What is true is that we can use all the prayer rituals we might choose and they do have some value as a source of blessing, but if there is to be real blessing and real communion, it will surely be because God is the One doing the blessing. 

Independence Day Musings

There are times when it seems that we have created a God who is too small for world He has created.  Of course, it is a bit odd to speak of creating God, but such is what we do.  The God we create is not really the God of the Sacred Word, but our version of Him.  As we read the Old Testament we see a God who takes an active role in the affairs of nations.  He makes them and He breaks them.  He uses leaders who have the faithful heart like David and men like Cyrus who pay Him no attention at all.  Our created version of God is One who has separated Himself from such political looking activities.

 

While we may not consider the possibility that God is the ruler and the controller of nations, it does not mean that He no longer is about such work in the world.  Admittedly, it raises all sorts of thorny issues for us to handle.  There are cruel oppressive dictators loose in the world and there are always a bevy of ego seeking politicians who seek the power of leadership.  To say that what is happening in the realm of nations equals God at work is too big a stretch for many of the political activists of today.

 

Some will dismiss this whole way of thinking as something which makes no sense, or is something which is made not valid because it comes from the Old Testament.  However, God used the doings of nations and political leaders in the days of Jesus.  We must never forget that Jesus died not because His life was taken from Him, but because He willingly gave it.  But, it is also true that the means of that death involved a host of different political processes and leaders of nations.  God may not have ordained Pontius Pilate to be a leader, but He certainly used Him for divine purposes.

Survival Skills

It was in the middle of the day and while I was standing under the shade of a huge pecan tree, it was still more than just hot.  Using the tail gate of a truck as a work table, I was shucking a bushel of corn.  Somewhere in the old gray matter, memories of such days from the past starting pouring forth.  In the memories I was a young boy about the same chore as the one done today, but also with butter beans and peas in bushel bags waiting for unwilling fingers to shell.  As I was remembering, what occurred to me was the way my parents taught me these survival skills.  They knew I would like eating and taught me some of what was necessary to eat.

 

But, there were other survival skills I learned in that home of my past.  I learned about the importance of loving God.  I learned how to pray.  I was given a Bible at an early age and encouraged to read.  When the church gathered for worship, I was present whether I wanted to be there or not.  I can never remembered being pressured or coerced, but always there was this open door toward faith in Christ that I soon learned I could enter.  As surely as shucking corn can be seen as a survival skill, so can be seen the spiritual disciplines I learned to practice so long ago.

 

I still practice them.  I have not yet perfected any of them, nor do I expect such will happen in this life.  But, I know where I must go to have my soul nurtured.  I know the source of the Water when I run dry.  I have developed a hunger for the Word that has never been satisfied though I have read it and read it again and again.  So, it shall be till I did.  But, until the breath leaves this body that is showing signs of being worn out, I shall practice these spiritual survival skills learned so long ago from parents who cared enough to teach me through word and example.

Not All Are Equal

They say that all days are created equal.  And, I suppose it is true.  After all,  each day has the same number of seconds, minutes, and hours.  However, it is also true that some days seem like they will never end while others fly by so fast it seems they are pushed along by hurricane winds.  Most of the days we live are forgettable, but occasionally one comes along that is never forgotten.  Not only is it never forgotten, but it leaves an unmovable mark on us.  For some of us such a day is a day of graduation, or a wedding day, or the day a child was born.  And while I have experienced and remember those days, the day I really entered into a relationship with Jesus is also one of those days to be remembered.

 

Now some folks who are farther down the road of faith and walking more in step with Jesus than I have managed claim no remembrance of such a special day.  Instead of being able to circle a day on the calendar as the day it all started with Jesus, they just speak of a relationship that somehow started even before they were aware it was taking place.  Those kind of relationships we often try to characterize by calling them Emmaus Road Walkers.  My beginning point was one that was markable, but certainly does not place me in a better spiritual position than someone else.

 

It matters not how we got on the road of faith in Christ.  The important thing is being on it and walking it.  Yet, sometimes it seems that the church and its preachers are a bit reluctant when it comes to actually preaching with intentionality for a decision for Christ.  Preachers say they do not want to be manipulative.  Good idea.  But, it has always seemed to me that good preaching is persuasive and invitational.  Some may find some other point in preaching, but if it does not lift up Jesus in such a way that listeners are drawn toward Him and the message, it hardly seems like preaching at all.  Persuasive preaching that is invitational makes for days that are never forgotten.

The Sandspur

Nothing trumps the tenacity of the sandspur.  The first one must have overheard what the Creator God said to the Garden of Eden couple and thought it was meant for it, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth..."  (Genesis 1:28).  It recreates itself wherever it falls to the ground.  But, it is also a great traveler.  Aside from beggar lice, nothing travels so quietly with such tenacity.  The other day after picking all the sandspurs off my work clothes, I washed them, threw them in the dryer, folded them and put them in the drawer.  A few days later as I was walking across the farm, I kept feeling like something was in my boot.  When I looked, I found a single sandspur imbedded in the fabric of my clean washed and dried sock.   

 

I wonder if there were sandspurs in Israel when Jesus walked the land.  Probably not.  Had there been, He surely would have used it as an object lesson for some teaching as He did the mustard seed or the birds of the air.  What a great teaching on prayer He might have offered as He said, "Consider the tenacity of the sandspur."  But, as I have ruminated all day on the lowly sandspur, I have found myself thinking about the way I approach my spiritual life.  Too often it is more careless than determined.  Certainly, I could learn much from the tenacious sandspur.

Think about it for a moment.  Chew on the image of the lowly sandspur and think about the way we walk with Jesus.  The sandspur speaks volumes to us about sticking to what we have set out to do.  It quietly finds a place on the journey and never considers letting go.  I have been walking with Jesus for a life time, but as I carried the sandspur in my heart today, I realized again and again that I have miles and miles to go.  The only way I will make it is to grab hold of the Holy Spirit, or maybe I should say, let the Holy Spirit grab hold of me, and never let go.