Unto Whom is Born This Day?

 Luke 2:11 (KJV) For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

 Moonless night.  Sheep sleeping.  Shepherds watching.  Wolves lurking. Just like every other night.

 But tonight, no pack of wolves appeared. Instead, a lone angel of God appeared with a message the world had forgotten it was waiting to hear: Messiah is born unto you!

 Unto whom is born this day? Read it again. Slowly.

 “The little word ‘you’ should make us joyful. For unto whom does He speak? Unto wood or stones? …Has he come to save geese and ducks and cows? Nay, verily, He speaks to all people.” Martin Luther

 I might quibble with Martin over one of his famous mugs of beer, discussing his sermon.  All creation rejoices. The heavens sing. But I see his point.  What makes the Christmas story more than a curiosity for you is that it happened for you. God sent the Son to be born of Mary for you.

 Meditate a moment on that inscrutable truth. Unto you is born this day a Savior.

 Is this not reason enough to be merry today? Merry Christmas to you.

The Sound of God Cooing

 Zephaniah 3:17 (The Message) 

Happy to have you back, he’ll calm you with his love

    and delight you with his songs.

 Christmas week. Time for ‘going home.’  For some this is a week of joy; for others, a week they dread. We all long for a home in which we feel welcome.

 This is a week we all need to decide whether to return to our spiritual home: Bethlehem. All are invited. Not all make the journey. Everyone has their reasons for not going home to Bethlehem. “I don’t believe it exists (anymore).” “I have more pressing priorities.” “God just wants my (money) (time).”  “I worship God in my own place.”

 But God is not deterred. You are never taken off the invitation list to the Christmas reunion. Your God (whether you claim God as ‘yours’) invites you to be among those gathered. God promises to bring you home. (Zephaniah 3:20)

 And when you eventually make that journey, what will the homecoming be like?  A mother holding her infant baby, calming you, ‘cooing wordless songs of tender love.’ (Bridger) The sound of God cooing sings, “You child, are mine forever.”

 Are you going home for Christmas this year?

"The Sleeve of One Jew"

 Zechariah 8:23 This is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies says: In those days ten men from different nations and languages of the world will clutch at the sleeve of one Jew. And they will say, ‘Please let us walk with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’” NLT

 They have come from the far country and the near lands. They come because they have heard, in the famous paraphrase of Eugene Peterson, that ‘God is in the neighborhood.’

 Is Zechariah painting a beautiful picture in which the number 10 represents ‘all’ peoples gathered around, tugging on the sleeve of One Jew, the Messiah? A prophetic prequel to John’s vision of the great multitude in Revelation 7:9? (Another picture you can meditate to fall asleep on a restless night.)

 Or is this a picture of whom all God’s children are to be? Magnets for their neighbors who desperately hold on to your sleeve because they see from the way you live your life that God has found you, and they want to walk with you and your God.

 If you are searching for God this Advent season, clutch the sleeve of one Jew and walk along to Bethlehem.

 

Playing With Words

 Luke 3:4 (Isaiah 40:3)  “Prepare the way for the Lord,

                                               make straight paths for him.”

 Two prophets of God, separated by about 600 years, offer this same encouragement to a people who wait for the Lord: prepare by making a straight path for his arrival.

 Two thousand or so years later we still read these same words, but what do they mean to us today? Here’s a little word game for this Advent season of waiting and preparing. Look at the list of December’s duties and place them in your current order of priority (1-10); then play again, placing them in the order of priority you believe would best prepare your life for Jesus to enter, bringing you a renewed sense of hope, love, joy, and peace.

 If the two lists differ in order, ask yourself why that is.  Do you want to know the comfort of Christ’s presence? Are you willing to prepare the way by making a straight pathway to your heart?

 Cooking. Church. Decorations. Devotions. Santa. Savior. Serving. Shopping. Work. Worship.

 Each of these words represent the reality of life during Advent. We choose the priorities.

 Play with the words.  Prepare the way for the Lord.

 

A Heart for Thanksgiving

 Joel 2:23 Be glad, people of Zion,

 rejoice in the Lord your God,

for he has given you the autumn rains
    because he is faithful.
He sends you abundant showers,
    both autumn and spring rains, as before.

 We received a thank you note in the shape of a heart which contained tiny seeds. If we plant the heart seeds in good soil, with full sunlight and plenty of water they will grow into a bouquet of flowers.

 I wonder if this is perhaps how we could offer our own thanksgiving to God for the gift of our lives.

 ‘God, create in me a heart for thanksgiving, filled with seeds of love for you and my neighbors.  Help me to place my heart in good soil, carefully arranging it to receive the full light of your love. Thank you for the early rains you send to help the seeds to take deep root, and for the latter rains, the showers of blessings which bring the seeds to full blossom.  Help me to live my life so that the seeds of faith and love you plant and nurture will spring forth from my heart into a bouquet of praise for your blessings.’

"He Knows Your Name"

 Exodus 33:17 “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”

 Moses asked that God’s Presence would go with God’s people on their journey to the Promised Land. More, Moses asked that if God would not journey with them, then please, God, do not let us even begin this journey.

 Whatever journey you are beginning or about to resume after a pause or detour, make this big ask of God: ‘Let Your Presence be my constant companion.’ The Presence guides, comforts, protects, delivers. Even in our journey through death, the Presence ushers us home.

 Why would God agree to your request? Because God is pleased with you, perhaps for your obedient response to God’s will,  but certainly because of what Jesus did for you on the Cross.

 God knows you by name. Think on that for a moment. You are no stranger to God. There are billions of people God knows, and one of them is you.

 Pause. Listen. Hear. The Presence is calling you by name, inviting you to join the journey through darkness and into light.

 Fear not, friends. He knows your name.

Life's Most Important Question

Exodus 20:2-3 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.”

Are you in Egypt, a slave to some addiction, habit, attitude which is destroying you and your relationship with people you love? How will you ever be set free?

 Turn to the One True God, the God who sets people free.  God’s plan for your life is not to live as a captive to the ‘other gods’ that bind you. God’s plan is always that the captors would  ‘let my people go’ on a pilgrimage to the land of freedom.

 Or are you in the desert, wandering, searching for the pathway to a fulfilling life?  Why would God set you free only to dwell in a desert place? To help you focus on knowing God and God’s perfect plan for your life.

 God’s perfect plan for your life begins with that simple command: serve the LORD God first and only in every aspect of your living and you will find freedom and the pathway to joyful living.

 Are you ready to answer life’s most important question?

Who is your God?

"Bake What You Want to Bake"

 Exodus 16:23 “Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until the morning.”

 Today is Saturday.  Moses taught the Israelites that Saturday is a day of rest, set aside for the LORD.

 Sabbath’s purpose is perhaps lost on us. God designed us to work but also to rest. We honor God in our work and in our rest from work when that rest includes time with God.

 Friday was a day to make a double measure of food. Every other day was a day to make just what the Israelites needed for that day (“give us our daily bread,” prayed Jesus, a faithful child of Israel.)

 Has the idea of sabbath rest become impossible for you? Could plan your week so that one day involves less rushing, less stressing over life’s demands? If life has become for you a ‘24/7/365’ grind are truly enjoying life as God intends it to be enjoyed?

 Tomorrow is a day of sabbath rest.  Bake enough today so that tomorrow you can rest in the Lord.

Who Is Your Aaron?

 Exodus 7:6 “Moses and Aaron did just as the LORD commanded them.”

 ‘You don’t have to do this alone.’  This is God’s message to Moses and every leader commissioned by God. When God commissions Moses to lead the people, all Moses can focus on is that he is  ‘slow of speech and tongue,’ that he speaks ‘with faltering lips.’ (Exodus 4:10, 6:30)

Moses doesn’t seem like the ideal choice to lead God’s people to freedom.  But God chose Moses. That’s all that matters.   When Moses acknowledges his need for help, God responds. God appoints Aaron, his older brother, as Moses’ prophet. By themselves neither one would have succeeded in leading the Exodus. But if they listen to God, trust God, work together, they cannot fail.

 What work is God asking you to do?  You don’t need to do it alone. In fact, wise leaders never try to do it alone.

 Ask God to supply a partner to help you do that work for which you are not especially gifted.

 Doing God’s work isn’t supposed to be easy, but it is essential. Good leaders find partners who together with them will be able to do just as the LORD commands.

The Faith of a Mother

 Exodus 2:3 “But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile.”

 Moses would die unless she acted now. Jochebed, his mother, desperate to avoid the fate of Pharaoh’s order that all Hebrew boys be thrown in the Nile at birth, knew an act of intense faith was required.

 Jochebed knew the God of the Hebrews to be a God who cared for her ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. But where was God now? Would God not save her son?

 The key to the survival of Moses, who would lead God’s people to freedom, was the radical faith of his mother. She grasped the real meaning of ‘let go and let God.’ That is a trite saying until you must make the decision to place your son in a basket, releasing him into the river, waiting to see what happens.

 When the solution to your deepest concerns is beyond your control, place the problem in basket and wait to see what happens.

 Life-giving faith allows God to be God.

"When You Hit the Bottom"

 Genesis 50:20-21a “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don’t be afraid.”

 Your family rejects you when you reveal who you really are. Your boss fires you to settle a score. The jury finds you guilty because of your skin color.

 You can name the time life threw you into the pit, leaving you for dead. Joseph could. His brothers threw him into a cistern to die. It wasn’t fair. It was evil.

 Where is God when we find ourselves in the bottom of the cistern, victims of injustice? Does God forget about us?  When we hit bottom, we can give up on God;  conclude that God is not in control, that God is an absentee landlord.

 Or we start to pray for God to do what only God can do when evil assails us.

God didn’t throw Joseph into the well. Why didn’t God stop the evil?  The answer can take a lifetime to discover.

 God is not the author of evil. But God does turn human evil into good outcomes.

 There is a Rescue Plan. And it is good.

"God, Where Are You?"

 Genesis 28:16-17 “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”

 Jacob found God on some desolated roadside. Sleeping, he dreamt of the stairway to heaven. Waking, he realized that God was in the place where he rested. His pillow became an altar to God. Bethel.

 God is far above the earth we travel. True enough. But God is also alongside the paths of our journeys. Stop to listen for God and God’s presence will be revealed.

 You cannot run so far as to be beyond God’s vision. You cannot go so deep as to be out of God’s grasp. If your life is a game of hide and seek from God, then know God always wins.

 When God seems distant, pray for God to disclose his presence. In the hospital room; in the coffee shop; in the office cubicle or factory floor; at the graveside of a loved one; surely the Lord is in that place.

 May your prayers for God’s presence in the place you dwell lead you to declare,

 “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

 

From 'Go' to 'Went'

 Genesis 12:1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”

 Abram and his wife, Sarai, begin their journey after listening to God.

 Listening to God asks them to decide whether to stay in a place of predictability and comfort or to go on journey to a place only God knows.

 Is God inviting you to begin a journey into a land of blessing?

 First, listen for God to speak. Read God’s Word. Pray often. Worshiping God in community. So your ears become attuned to God’s voice.

 Second, when God say ‘go’, you must actually move, in faith, trusting that God knows the way to your place of blessing and that you do not need to know it.

 “So Abram went….” (v. 4)

 This is the most important part of any journey, and the most difficult, from God’s ‘go’ to your ‘went.’ Why did Abram and Sarai go with God? They had faith that God would never take them on a journey to a dead end.

 When your faith conquers your fear, you will see the land of promise God has prepared for you.

"And It Was Good"

 

Genesis 1 ⁹ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

I am sitting about 250 yards from the gathered water on a cliff of dry land, watching waves and gulls reflect clouds and sun. Alone on the eastern edge of the Straits Hole 16, I pray for my family, my church, our God. I sing to the Creator, offering praise and thanks for our blessings:

 “Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise God all creatures here below. Praise God above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.”

I am caught in the wonder and mystery of the truth that what I am seeing is ‘not yet’ the perfect Creation God first saw nor the perfect Creation we will one day see.

How much more ‘good’ can ‘good’ be?

Until our new eyes take in the majesty of the New Earth, my friends, find an hour to see how good Creation is and offer praise to the Creator.

In the Beginning

 Genesis 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

 Sometimes life is a real struggle.  Work. Family. Health. Money. What would you add to the list of things we all struggle with at one time or another?

 God is no stranger to your struggles.  God overcomes chaos with creativity.

 God faced emptiness. Chaos. God’s Spirit “brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.” (Peterson, The Message) Something better could exist where there was now nothing. What did God do next?

 ³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

 In the struggles you face this day, this week the Spirit broods like a bird with you, hovering over the emptiness in your life, the despair, the uncertainty.

 Pray for our Creator God to give you a new beginning, giving order to the chaos.

 Pray for light.

 May today be the day God creates a way through the struggle and into the light.

 

 

I Give Up

 Someone needs this message today.  Perhaps it’s not you. Not today. Perhaps it’s someone you know, or someone you will meet. Lift up these words in prayer for someone, naming them before our God, asking that they receive this encouragement from God: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” 2 Corinthians 12:9 

 If you are so sad, depressed perhaps, that you just don’t see how you will make it until tomorrow,  this is for you. If you are so heartbroken that you don’t know if the broken pieces can ever be reassembled, this is for you. If you are unsure how you will be able to live with the physical limitations or the physical pain racking your body, this is for you. If you have hit the bottom to which addiction so often brings its victims, this is for you.

 If you are sitting there ready to say, “I give up,”, then hear this word from God: “Don’t give up.  I am going to lift you up in your weakness and give you my power, the perfect power that grace alone can provide and for which grace alone is sufficient.” 

 Friend, keep on praying this word from God until it becomes a part of your memory, and bring it back to mind when you are ready to give up.  Then feel God’s grace strengthen you. One more hour. One more day.

 A famous London preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who battled depression his entire life, preached these timeless and prophetic words in 1876:

 “The grace of our Lord Jesus is sufficient to uphold thee, sufficient to strengthen thee, sufficient to comfort thee, sufficient to make thy trouble useful to thee, sufficient to enable thee to triumph over it, sufficient to bring thee out of it, sufficient to bring thee out of 10,000 like it, sufficient to bring thee home to heaven….” (https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/strengthening-words-from-the-saviours-lips/#flipbook/)

 Someone needs to hear this today. Pray for open eyes, open ears, and an open heart.  In Christ there need be no fear, for God’s grace is sufficient for everyone in every circumstance. Don’t give up.

"What Should We Talk About?"

 Not that this would ever happen. But if it did, here is what I might say.

 Imagine a group of women are on their way to celebrate one of those milestone birthdays ending with a zero. Maybe the first number is a 4.  Friends all. Christians all.  A four-day celebration of friendship and life. 

 Now imagine one of their number says to me, ‘Pastor Bill, could you suggest a good discipline that we could use this weekend to strengthen our friendships and our walk with Jesus?’ (I already said, this would never happen, but play along.)

 So, I say, ‘Sure. This would be a fun exercise in transforming discipleship which would add loads of positive energy to your time together. Read this quote every morning and practice it all day.’

  “An added discipline for this week might be to say nothing negative about anyone else or about yourself. This will give you more energy for inner work on the subject [self-observation]. If you find it a difficult discipline to keep, do not be discouraged. A discipline is to help us learn, and there is often more learning in failure than in success.”–Elizabeth O’Connor, Our Many Selves, p. 71 (inward/outward.org)

 ‘Imagine talking about the restaurant that offered slow service due to understaffing without saying anything negative.  Imagine avoiding all negative words about yourself as you sit around the living room at night swapping stories of children and pets and, dare I say, husbands. (Alright, maybe that bit about no negative talk about ‘husbands’ is beyond imagination.)

 Imagine learning a little more each day about how smiles and laughter come much more easily to faces that say nothing negative about anyone else or about yourself. That’s what you should talk about, my friend.’

 Not that this would ever happen.  But imagine if it did. And you were there.

How to Become an MVP

 I suppose it is possible that you do not know that the Milwaukee Bucks are National Champions.  And I suppose it is possible you do not know that this was made possible in large part by the efforts of one player, Giannis Antetokounmpo (whose name, I am very happy to report, is so famous it even is corrected by the spell-check software). If that is you, please know that Mr. Antetokounmpo is a man gifted with a very unique combination of physical attributes and skills making him one of the very few human being on planet Earth who can play basketball at an elite level.  For this reason, he is a multiple winner of the Most Valuable Player award. He is an MVP of the highest order.

What makes him a person that we mere mortals should listen to is not his athletic prowess but his mental approach to the game and to life. I suggest it is his life perspective as much as his skills which make him an MVP.  The attitude he brings to his work is one that can make anyone an MVP in God’s eyes:

“Antetokounmpo’s news conferences were must-see events, and my favorite moment came midway through the Finals when Sam Amick, a national reporter for The Athletic, asked him a great question about his lack of ego. 

‘I figured out a mindset to have that when you focus on the past, that’s your ego,’ Antetokounmpo said. ‘I did this. We were able to beat this team 4-0. I did this in the past. I won that in the past. When I focus on the future, it’s my pride. Yeah, next game, Game 5, I do this and this and this. I’m going to dominate. That’s your pride talking. It doesn’t happen. You’re right here.

‘I kind of try to focus on the moment, in the present. That’s humility. That’s being humble. That’s not setting no expectation. That’s going out there, enjoying the game, competing at a high level. I think I’ve had people throughout my life that helped me with that. But that is a skill that I’ve tried to, like, kind of — how do you say, perfect it.’” (Jim Polzin | Wisconsin State Journal July 22, 2021)

“Humility. Humility. Humility.” (John Calvin) The stuff of which MVPs are made.

"We Found You, My Child!"

“My child is missing!!” Can there be a more sinking feeling than when a parent realizes that harsh reality?

 During our trip to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Jill was waiting for our grandsons and I to return when she overheard a frantic mother trying to describe her two-year old daughter to a security guard.  The little girl was in her stroller while the parents were watching the fish swim and somehow, she managed to escape the stroller and was missing in a minute. Or was she abducted? The father was off looking for his precious child. Jill asked the mother for the daughter’s name and size and clothing description and offered to help in the search.

 As we started our drive through the rain on our way to Michigan, our grandsons safely seated behind us, a prayer went up for the missing girl.  Days later when we headed home Jill wondered out loud, “I just can’t stop thinking about that missing girl. How can we find out if they found her?”

 Then I read about Guo Gangtang. Mr. Guo had for 24 years, searched for his son who was abducted while playing outside their home as his mother was inside preparing a meal.  Mr. Guo wore out 10 motorcycles as he travelled throughout China in his search. This week the police were able to produce a DNA match for the lost child and the search was over. As the boy turned man met his parents in a three-way hug of a lifetime, Mom said, “My darling, my darling, my darling. We found you, my son, my son.” ( Parents Who Never Stopped Searching Reunite With Son Abducted 24 Years Ago By Vivian Wang and Joy Dong https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/world/asia/guo-gangtang-china)

 What is the work of the church and its community of believers? To listen for stories of lost children. To join in the desperate search for them, like a Shepherd who never stops looking for the one who wandered away; to be motivated by a love that outdoes even Mr. Guo’s relentless effort to find the Father’s lost children.

 God invites us to join in the search which we are assured ends with God wrapping every lost child in the best hug ever, while whispering (or shouting?) ‘We found you, my child!”

Are Butterflies Surprised?

 She told me she saw a butterfly. She was a little sad, because her Mother had always told her butterflies were a sign of Fall’s return.  “No,” I assured her, “they are a sign of summer, going from flower bed to flower bed. They are a sign of new creation, new life.”

As I thought about that conversation this week, I was reminded of an old cartoon in which the characters consider butterflies like this:  "Do caterpillars know they're going to be butterflies, or does God surprise them?" (Family Circus, Bil Keane, Feb. 23, 2007)

 Last fall I watched the caterpillars crawling for safety.  It was a slow, long crawl to a destination I did not know. I don’t know if they did either. Sometimes you just keep crawling along until you stop.

 This summer I see the butterflies in our backyard enjoying the plants. It appears their long crawl was rewarded. I wonder what it was like that first day when they awoke to find themselves flying instead of crawling? Was this a long-winter’s night dream come true or a shocking revelation? Did they remember that they used to be able to only crawl? Or was the act of flying so wonderful that they just forgot all about the crawling life?

 I don’t know if we will wake up after our long sleep and be surprised. ‘I can fly? I can fly!’

 Maybe it won’t be literal flight we enjoy, but we will feel so unburdened that we feel as if we are ‘walking on sunshine.’

 Until then, while it might seem like a long slow crawl, you can know the lightness of being, enjoying the surprise of being a new creation on the inside. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

 This summer, keep your eyes peeled for a butterfly. They come as a sign of second chances, of fresh starts, of healing, as their wings sing a song of new life sent to you.

Surprise!

Sparkler or Candle?

 I was watching our teenage grandsons wave sparklers last night.  It was fun while it lasted, but that wasn’t long.  The longest a sparkler will burn is four minutes. Impressive. For a sparkler. What you get with a sparkler is a big flash of light, some popping sounds, and some sparkles of course.

 But what if you want a longer light show? Buy a candle.  Candles can burn for hours. Add some salt and you get an even longer burn.

 What you don’t get with a candle is a big flash or popping sounds or sparkles. I guess the type of fire you want to light depends on the effect you are after, the length of the burn you desire.

 How would you describe your faith in God? If you have taken the time to read this, well, I am guessing you are more candle than sparkler.

 Still, if your faith journey is being lit by a long-burning candle, remember that they don’t burn forever. Be sure to visit the candle store often, so you are always ready. If your faith journey is being lit by a sparkler presently, then find your way to the candle store, or soon you will find yourself walking in the dark.  You can choose to walk in the dark, but eventually you bump into things. Ouch.

 Or worse, you get lost.

 Sparkler faith is fun to see in people. You see the big flash of faith, and they make lots of popping sounds and sparks. For a while. But candle faith is what prevents the darkness from overcoming the light. (John 1:4-5) 

 Think about your faith journey. Is it a fast-burning sparkler or a long-burning candle? Do you have enough light to get you all the way home?

The Best Laid Retirement Plans

 When I first read John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, I discovered, “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” I use that line from a Robert Burns’ poem to explain why, no matter how carefully I have planned a project, something goes wrong. When things go wrong despite my best intentions and efforts, I comfort myself by reciting, ‘the best laid plans….’

 Through my life I have been a planner.  I wrote a letter to my mother-in-law while I was courting her daughter to explain how I planned to live the next twenty-five years of my life so that I would become President. The letter worked in gaining her approval of my plan for her daughter to become my bride.  As for the rest of the plan, well, ‘the best laid plans….’

 After a lifetime of planning, two years ago I planned my retirement with a team of colleagues at our church.  We planned for me to retire from full time ministry four days from now. This would have been my last Saturday Stirrings.  Then ‘the pandemic’ happened. You may have heard of it.  ‘The best laid plans….’

 Plan B: wait a year. In June 2021, begin a search process for my successor, so that I would retire one year hence.  As the calendar turned to June, that bride I mentioned above, my partner of 46 years, she and I came to the same conclusion.  I am not ready to retire. There is more work to be done with the people of Hope Church, and anyway, there is nothing she wants me to fix around the house since everything I touch breaks on contact. ‘The best laid plans….’

 The church leadership agrees. Not that I break things, but that there is more work for me to do.  The wonderful people of Hope agree, or at least the majority do.  For the first time in my adult life my plan is to have no plan.  Having no plan there is nothing to ‘gang aft a-gley’. What happens next is God’s plan.

 To God alone be the glory.

 “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.” Psalm 71:18

Why I am Celebrating Juneteenth

 Happy Juneteenth!  Today, June 19, 2021, is the first time the United States officially celebrates in the form of a new national holiday the end of slavery in the United States.  It happened by means of a rare overwhelmingly bipartisan show of support in the United States Congress, and it was signed into law by President Biden, in what he describes as one of the greatest honors of his life, and Vice-president Kamala Harris, in her role as president of the United States Senate. The official name of the day is Juneteenth National Independence Day. 

Why should the people of God observe and celebrate Juneteenth? Allow me to suggest three reasons among the many reasons we should support this new holiday.

First, the story of the Bible is about the end of slavery for human beings.  The story of the humanity in its relationship to God is about the Exodus, where we leave our individual and collective ‘Egypt’ and march toward the freedom of the Promised Land.  The people of God oppose slavery in all its forms, especially the slavery caused by our sin. The people of God celebrate freedom in all its forms, and in the United States that means celebrating the end of one of the darkest chapters of U.S. history. 

Second, the unique story of Juneteenth, in which the celebration was delayed two and one-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, is representative of the story of salvation. Jesus Christ won the war over the slavery of sin at the Cross, but the battles over sin’s influence continue until Christ returns to proclaim final victory.  We are free, but not everyone yet knows that truth.

Third, it is a day we can use to reflect on our progress in achieving true independence and equality for all races.  The final scenes of God’s Word pictures a great gathering of a multitude ‘from every nation, tribe, people and language standing before the throne’ of God.  When we pray ‘your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’, what do you think that means? That we, the people of God, strive on earth to set all people free and to celebrate our liberty until that day when we all stand as equals, the redeemed of the Lamb, celebrating our final freedom in heaven.

Graduation Speech: Secret to Success, Pt. 2

 Verda Tetteh. Remember that name. Verda Tetteh is near the top of my ‘most likely to know success in her life’. She unlocked the secret as a high school senior.

 Ms. Tetteh is a child of an immigrant family, from Ghana. She worked her way through the pandemic year at a grocery store while achieving the highest of academic honors at her school. Oh, by the way, she also received admission to Harvard. Yet, admirable as are these achievements, the part of Ms. Tetteh’s character that impresses me most is what she did with the $40,000.00 award from her school for her excellent record.

 After listening to the graduation day speeches about ‘being selfless and being bold’, she made an unscheduled trip back to the graduation day microphone.  She proceeded to ask that the school change the game for someone else’s life by taking back her $40,000.00 award and granting it to someone in greater economic need.

 One news outlet reported her remarks and what followed: “’I am so very grateful for this, but I also know that I am not the one who needs this the most,’ she said. Out on the grass, her classmates rose from their folding chairs to cheer. It was her second standing ovation that day.”  (https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/08/verda-tetteh-scholarship-graduation/)

 I would have been one of those rising to cheer her too. Ms. Tetteh’s selfless and bold act, one could argue, was poor personal financial planning. But it is great life-planning, learning as a young adult that keeping what we need while being generous with that we do not need, or that someone else needs more.

 As Leslie Barnor, Verda’s stepfather explained, “’We are a Christian family….We believe we don’t need to have so much before you give to others.’” That’s the secret, friends.

 I don’t know what God has in mind for Ms. Tetteh’s path going forward, but I hope her story will be one that her generation will repeat often and widely.  The future of our society is much brighter because of visionary immigrants like Ms. Tetteh, people who truly understand that making someone else’s dream possible is the secret to success in life.

Graduation Speech: The Secret to Success

 There are two types of people in the world.  The difference between them lies in how each type responds to a problem. As you enter the next stage of your lives, there are many parts of your life you cannot control, many aspects of your future you cannot choose.  But everyone chooses which one of these two types of people we will be. Everyone chooses how they define success.

Whether it is building a cohesive family, a profitable business, or a socially valuable non-profit, one characteristic is common to the people who are more likely to find satisfaction in their relationships and ventures. When it is all said and done, do you find the adventures you experience on life’s journey satisfying, worth your time, helpful to the people you care about and love?

There are two types of people in the world. The first type sees a problem and thinks, “I need to fix this problem, or find someone who can help me fix it.” The second type sees a problem and thinks, “Boy, that’s a real problem. Someone (else) should do something about it! It’s not my job.”(Or ‘I don’t care’; or ‘I am too busy’; or ‘I don’t know how’; or ‘I don’t know who to call.’ And on and on.)

The type of person I would hire for my business or bring alongside on a new project are the people whom I know to be the first type.  The volunteers who make our church possible are the people who ‘find a need and fill it’, to borrow a phrase. The people who made the law firm I managed for many years successful were those who saw what needed to happen to make our clients successful and wouldn’t stop trying until that occurred.

Sure, you can get through life, even make a good living, by being the second type. You can join the crowds who see a problem and complain that ‘someone’ doesn’t fix it. But that just makes you grumpy; not happy.

Or you can decide that you will be the one with the heart of a servant. At the end of your life, you will have the satisfaction, the joy, of knowing that you made a difference.  Be ‘Mr. Fix-it’; ‘Ms. Problem-solver.’

Choose to succeed.

Building Memorials

 Memorials don't just happen. Someone does the hard work of sacrificial living; someone else lives, doing the hard work of remembering the sacrifice. The rest, as they say, is history.

The women of the South who may have started Decoration Day, the predecessor to what we now call Memorial Day, decorated the graves of those who died during the Civil War. Notably, they decorated the graves of the soldiers from both the North and the South.  What they were memorializing was not the battle but the sacrifice. Certainly, the soldiers did not set out to die.  They set out to offer their lives as a sacrifice for the cause in which each "side" believed. 

Memorials don't just happen. They require a sacrificial act and an act of remembering, a demonstration of gratitude.

The religious life is all about creating memorials. God sacrifices; people remember. People sacrifice for God and neighbor; God and people remember.

Think about how you want your life to be memorialized.  It is not too late to start living your life in a way which will cause people to remember you as a person who sacrificed something for some cause, someone you love, some One you believe in. It may not require you to die, but it will require you to sacrifice.

Live your life in such a way that someone will want to do the hard work of remembering you for your sacrificial living; for a life that that is pleasing to God, to your family and friends, to your country, and to those who may never know your name but will remember your sacrifice.

Use this Memorial Day weekend to do the hard work of remembering those who sacrificed for you. But also use it as a time to ponder how you want to be remembered.

Memorials don't just happen.  People, like you, need to build them.

Talking to the Basil

 We were sitting on our friends’ warm porch on a cool night when Jill noticed the basil plants growing in a nearby planter.  She spoke admiringly of the plants and expressed her love for all things basil, so our friend offered to send some leaves home with her.

 As we were preparing to leave after a pleasing evening of conversation and dining, our host gathered her scissors, leaned over the basil, and said, ‘Sorry basil!’. My pastoral mode kicked in and I felt compelled to reassure her, “It’s all right. That’s why the basil exists.” “Really?” “Oh yes, it lives to die,” I said confidently. Circle of life, right?  Snip. Snip.

 But that night I began to wonder if my pastoral counsel was sound. I was studying Romans 8:22, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”  What is the basil giving birth to that causes it to groan with birth pangs?

 Basil exists to bring healing through its leaves. Basil exists to bring flavor out in meals. Basil exists to add its pleasing scents to our garden walks. What more could it be waiting to be, to experience?

 It is waiting for a time when the children of God will be redeemed, in their new bodies, and for them to become the stewards of creation we were supposed to be from the beginning.  That will be a time when the New Earth is revealed, in all of God’s glory; when the plants grow in habitats protected from unnatural changes; when the rivers ramble and the fish swim without worry of pollution; when indeed all creation experiences the perfect climate for each and all to flourish; then we will know what all the groaning was about.

 Until then we can talk to the basil. We can try to understand what it is telling us. We can use it and enjoy it for all the purposes God intended it to fulfill.  We can promise the basil that we will protect it, that we will be good midwives for that new birth for which it groans.  We can invite the Spirit of God to reveal what the basil is trying to tell us.

 Now I am going to stop and smell the basil.

"Up, Up, Up"

 Up, up, up. And then you see the sun. 

 One of my favorite travel moments, especially if we have taken off when the clouds are producing rain, is when that moment when the airplane finally breaks through the thick moisture and we are surrounded instead by sparkling, eternal, bright blue.

 How you experience life is a matter of which side of the clouds you are on. Beneath the clouds you feel their weight holding you down.  Rise above them and you feel the freedom of flight, the joy of being held aloft on God’s pillow mattress. Then the clouds are pillows inviting you to skydive onto them, a playground of white cushions and blue spaces.

 Hope is the knowledge that carries the dying up.  Here is what we know: just as Jesus’ body was taken up, hidden by a cloud, so it shall be for our bodies when Jesus comes again to fly us home. (Acts 1:9, 11)

 Up, up, up. And then we shall see the Son.

 (Inspired by the movie Clouds.  Written for a friend who is in hospice, awaiting her rise above the clouds.)

We'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
Go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear
It won't be long now, it won't be long now.

Zach Sobiech, Clouds

 

Mystic Sweet Communion With Myra

 Myra (Kleis) Berry defied every stereotype of “mother-in-law”. We developed a unique relationship defined by our shared love of God, Jill, and our families.  And we loved playing hymns on the piano, quoting Bible verses which the hymns brought to mind. We were soulmates. On the night she died, I turned on my streaming music service which played Amazing Grace, followed by When the Roll is Called Up Yonder.  Now who do you suppose selected that song sequence? Thanks for the confirmation, Myra.

 I keep in my Bible a card which Myra sent to me ten years before her death.  It bears the signature of “Space & Mare”, nicknames for my parents-in-laws.  Beneath her signature she wrote Romans 5:1-2. She read her Bible through, cover to cover, many times. I believe she made me a custodian of these verses so that I could send the words as reminders to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, whom she loves so dearly, about the source of her abiding faith: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 

 This Mother’s Day weekend, as the ‘Berry Women’ gather together to remember the Grand Ol’ Mare, they will, I hope, connect through the Spirit with Myra, gaining some mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won. (For the record, I am singing our favorite hymn lyric with Myra right now.)

 If Mother’s Day offers us anything, it offers a chance to recast memories in words that heal, in words that help our mothers abide with us, as Myra could sing from memory until her new birth day:

 Abide with me: fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide! When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me.

Hold thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies: Heaven’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee; in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

 Thank you for the love, Myra. I love you too. I’ll be there soon. Say hello to everyone for me.  

Billy

Nancy and the Pink Cat

 Many moons ago, Nancy and Bert were very close friends of mine.  We shared pursuits we valued. As the moons rolled by my connections to them loosened, but Nancy and Bert remained close. They shared beverages appropriate to the time of day, swapped stories, exchanged book reviews.

 After years of scheduled and unscheduled meetings and meals Nancy stopped responding to Bert’s invitations. Age and all that goes with it were catching up to Nancy. And then Nancy died. Quietly. And now Bert missed her friend, creating a space in her spirit that needed to be filled by someone, by Nancy, by Nancy’s spirit.

 As Bert mourned her friend’s loss, she recalled a book she had read about trying to connect through ‘signs’ with those who have gone to be with the Lord. Because Nancy was a lover of cats, Bert thought the perfect sign she should ask for was a cat. Not just any cat, a pink cat. Not a Pink Panther type sighting, but a real, live, cat that purrs and cuddles. So, she started looking for the pink cat, for a sign of, or from, Nancy, that friends they would remain during the time of bodily separation.

 One day, while out on errand with her husband, Tom, they made an unscheduled stop at the home of a friend.  Bert and Tom were greeted by the friend and then a black and white cat appears. As it sidles up toward Bert, giving her a cat-hug, the cat twists its body revealing that one side of its fur is completely…you know what’s coming…pink.

 Bert, stunned, calls out, “Tom, a pink cat! It’s a pink cat!” Tom smiles, knowingly. The cat owner, not in on the ‘sign,’ is not quite sure what all the fuss is about. She calmy explains that the cat must have rolled in the children’s pink sidewalk chalk.

 What won’t the Spirit do to be the Comforter we are promised? Of course, to gain that comfort, one must first ask for it, and then look for it, and then receive it, joyfully. Nancy is not here. But she is not ‘gone’.  Thanks to the pink cat, Bert can again see Nancy laughing her unique laugh, enjoying the moment of revelation, as she awaits their re-gathering.

Holy Saturday Meditation "Death Cannot Keep Its Prey"

 Pilate didn’t know the whole truth.  But then, no one did.  Everyone in history faced the fact that ‘a man dies and is laid low; he breathes his last and is no more.’  So it appeared to all of humanity for all of time. But, lurking in the back of Pilate’s mind, perhaps, was Job’s old question, ‘If someone dies, will they live again?’ (Read Job 14:1-14)

 Even Jesus’s secret friend, Joseph, thought this was Jesus’ fate, to lie in a grave with the dead of all time. So, he gave him a proper, an honorable burial, with Pilate’s permission. Pilate would let this man he thought to be King be buried with dignity. But when the religious leaders warned of a plot to steal the body on the third day, Pilate, not knowing the whole truth, ordered the securing of the tomb stone and posting a guard. (Read Matthew 27:57-66)

 Ah, the best laid plans. We know what happens to those when God decides to intervene, don’t we? Those plans are made for naught. For our God was about to shine his face on his servant in the darkness of the tomb, saving him in his unfailing love. (Read Psalm 31:1-4; 15-16)

 “Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness.” (Read Lamentations 3:1-9; 19-24)

 Even in his death Jesus’ spirit was at work, preaching the Good News to the dead. (Read 1 Peter 4:1-8) Because there was no stone, no seal, no guard who could keep death’s prey past the power of the coming dawn.

 “Low in the grave he lay…waiting the coming day.”

 That is the whole truth. Almost.

Holy Week Good Friday Meditation "Pilate Knew the Truth"

 Pilate knew the truth.  But did he know the whole truth?

 Pilate knew that Jesus was a king, identifying him on the cross as “The King of the Jews”, much to the dismay of the religious leaders. When they asked him to change the inscription to read, ‘This man said, I am the King of the Jews’, Pilate famously replied, “What I have written I have written.” (Read John 18:1-19:42)

 Did Pilate know that this King was the final offering for the sin? Did he know that the blood of the King would create the opening in the curtain (‘that is, through Jesus’ flesh’) which would allow us to approach with confidence the house of God? (Read Hebrews 10:16-25)

 Did Pilate know that the torture he ordered, the beatings which resulted from his sentence of this King, would fulfill the prophetic words that his appearance would be ‘marred…beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals’?  That this King’s crucifixion would fulfill the promise that the servant ‘shall be exalted and lifted up and shall be very high’? That this King’s Friday death would forever be marked because in it ‘he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors?’ (Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

 Did Pilate know that by sending this King to his death he was writing the final scene in salvation’s story? Did he know that this King is the one of whom ‘future generations will be told…and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it?’ (Read Psalm 22)

 Did Pilate know the truth that this King’s death was not a bad ending but a Good finish, because he was not only King of the Jews but also King of the Universe?

 Did he know that this is what the cross’s inscription meant to the angels waiting and weeping, to the generations of a people yet unborn?

 Do you?

Holy Week Thursday Meditation "Last Supper Menu"

 You know the tradition of offering a condemned man his choice of a meal for his final supper?  I wonder if that is how Jesus felt on Thursday.  He knew that his time had come, that he would soon depart from this world and go home to the Father. Did he sense he was a man who was condemned having a final meal, or man about to be set free, having his last supper?

 Tonight he would eat his final Passover Meal. On the menu was lamb. As it had been for centuries. (Read Exodus 12:1-14) The Lamb of God would be serving lamb, the lamb with which we remember God’s grace in passing over the homes which housed his children.

 Speaking of serving, Jesus taught, remember that you, my followers, exist to serve others, not yourselves, just as Jesus did for his us, so we are to do for him. To emphasize the lesson, and to give us the motive to serve, Jesus teaches a new commandment: that we love one another. How can we know that we are invited to take a seat at the Table with Jesus? Examine your life: do you have one for one another? (Read John 13:1-17, 31b-35)

 Also on the menu was bread and wine.  Jesus explained why: The bread which we break, he said, ‘This is my body that is for you.” The wine which we drink, he said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”  For centuries since we follow his menu directions: whenever we eat and drink at the Lord’s Table, we commune with each other and Jesus in remembrance of Jesus, recalling this last holy supper. (Read I Corinthians 11:23-26)

The Lamb. The Bread. The Cup.  Life-giving ingredients. Heavenly taste.

 Then a closing hymn to give thanks for a last supper.  A hymn of thanksgiving, lifting up the cup of salvation in return for the Lord’s bounty. And then heading out into the darkness, full of the knowledge that ‘Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his faithful ones.” The thanksgiving sacrifice is offered to fulfill vows made to the LORD, to offer up praise. (Read Psalm 116:1-2; 12-19)

 ‘Praise the LORD!’, the Lamb who is worthy sings. Amen.

Holy Week Wednesday Meditation "Face Like Flint"

 Tomorrow it begins in earnest. Wednesday is the last day of waiting, of planning, of summoning courageous faith. Today then, is a day of crafting the words that will begin the end.

 The morning begins using prayer and praise to find strength as Jesus’ body displays the usual signs of nervous anxiety. “I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O LORD, do not delay!” (Read Psalm 70)

 By the time his prayers are finished, as the sun rises on his last Wednesday in this pre-glorified body, Jesus has heard the Father speak. So, he declares, “The LORD God helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame….It is the LORD God who helps me; who will declare me guilty?”  (Read Isaiah 50:4-9)

 There is no verdict which the Roman government nor the religious leaders can now give which will overcome the confident knowledge which Jesus’ flint-faced determination reveals: he is the innocent Lamb, carrying out the Father’s perfect will. Jesus is now ready, mind, body, and spirit, to finish the task of being the “pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame.” (Read Hebrews 12:1-3)

 How then shall he begin the final chapter? What words will he use to release Judas from the table at which he will eat his last supper with his friends? Jesus knows what Judas is plotting. He knows that if he allows the plot to succeed, he will surely die, and quickly.

 Simplest is best. Let Judas know that he knows; “Very truly, I tell you, one of you will betray me….It is the one to whom I give this piece of bread when I have dipped it in the dish.” Then, Jesus plans, he will quietly hand his friend the damning evidence, the piece of bread, while looking him straight in the eye,  “Do quickly what you are going to do.” (Read John 13:21-32)

 Yes, that will do. That is how it will begin. His face like flint, his faith like a rock, he sleeps well. One last night.

Holy Week Tuesday Meditation "Jesus Remembers Mother"

 I have seen it often. People as they near death remember their parents, speak of their mothers. After Jesus revealed himself as the light, as the Son of Man, as the Messiah, Jesus went into hiding. (Read John 12:20-36)

 What does the Son of Man think about in the week of death as he hides from those who would kill him, because it is not yet his time? No doubt he thinks about how frustrating it is for God the Father to see that the people who hear about, even meet Jesus, cannot get past fact the that in the calculus of human wisdom, what Jesus is about to do is foolishness. Who would arrange for their own son’s death, even if it is to save the world from itself? (Read I Corinthians 1:18-31) Jesus in hiding shakes his head, and perhaps even his fists. Why do people still not know the boundless love of God, after all this time?

 But then his thoughts turn to the inevitability of his mission, the very reason he was born. Which, of course, makes him think of his mother. Does he wish she was with him now? Is he hoping she will understand the mystery of his existence in some greater detail by the end of the week?

 He knows it was the LORD who formed him in his mother’s womb to be the LORD’s servant, to become the Redeemer for the tribes of Jacob, the survivors of Israel, yes, but also to bring salvation that reaches the ends of the earth.  From his mother’s womb, where his mother cared for him like mothers throughout the ages, dreaming of their children’s future. (Read Isaiah 49:1-7)

 Jesus sings himself to sleep this Tuesday night. “Upon you have I leaned from by birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.” (Read Psalm 71:1-14)

 “O God, do not be far from me; O my God, make haste to help me.”  Hiding. Resting. Waiting. Sleep well,  Son of Man, son of Mary, for soon there will be sleep no more.

Holy Week Monday Meditation "Dinner Conversation"

On this Monday night, six days before the Resurrection, Jesus dined with his friends. Imagine Jesus is dining at your house this evening. (Read John 12:1-11)

 What are you serving? Who will fill the seats around your table? What will you discuss?

 Perhaps you will discuss the Prophets, asking Jesus what it means when it says that the Messiah, ‘a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench.’ (Read Isaiah 42:1-9) Are these not some of the most wonderful words we can draw upon when we discuss the future of our lives and the lives of those whom we love, those who are perhaps not yet fully accepting that Jesus is the promised servant, the LORD’s chosen, in whom the LORD delights?

 Perhaps you will discuss the Passover Lamb, the shedding of blood which covers the people who believe. Will Jesus give you a glimpse of what is to come on Friday, when his own blood is to be shed? (Read Hebrews 9:11-15) What will you be thinking if Jesus says that he is sealing a new covenant with God for all people later this week? Behold the mystery.

 And following dinner, because Jesus loves to sing the Psalms, someone will suggest one. (Read Psalm 36:5-11)“You save humans and animal alike, O LORD.”  All of the voices blend in praise to the Father as you sing together, “How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.”

 And then, it being a work night, everyone heads home to get some sleep. Because it is going to be a long week. A Holy Week. A long, holy walk with Jesus. 

 Enjoy your dinner, pilgrims.