Sermons from the Chapel

The Mark of Discipleship: Worship Weekly

2012-01-29T10:31:00.000-05:00

It is in obedience to God, who said, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.” (Exodus 20:8).

I.
One reason to come to worship in this Sanctuary, is so we can deal with life outside of the Sanctuary.

Many people think that worship is an escape from reality. But worship is not escape. It is a strategy to deal with the realities of life.

True worship is something that happens in the midst of life.

In our Old Testament lesson, Isaiah begins this passage with an interesting statement. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.”

It’s like saying, “In the year the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I worshipped God.

In the year that Kennedy was assassinated, I worshipped God.

In the year of the school shooting, I worshipped God.

In the year of 9-11, I worshipped God.

In the year that I was married,

in the year that my son was born,

in the year my friend died,

in the middle of life,

in the midst of experiences good and bad, I was worshipping the Lord.

Worship in the Sanctuary can never be oblivious to what is happening out there.

Why do we worship God? It is not to escape life out there, it is to deal with life out there.

If you want your worship inside the Sanctuary to be true worship, then you bring in with you all of the baggage of what is happening out in the world.

In the Old Testament Psalms, one writer said (Ps 86:6-7), “Hear my prayer, O LORD; listen to my cry for mercy. In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer me.”

It is a natural part of worship to bring with you the concerns of your life. We gather here and we bring in the fears of life, the worries of our family, the concerns of the world and we lift them up in prayer, and we seek God’s comfort and guidance.

Why do we worship God? Because our lives are so full of concerns and issues that we have to have someplace to take them.

II.
Another reason we worship God is because God is worthy of worship.

In Isaiah, the prophet goes to the Temple, and he says “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.” It is the presence of God that fills the worship.

True worship always focuses on God and on his holiness.

We’ve lost something of that in our worship services. There was a time when people were so aware of this aspect of worship that the very churches themselves were being constructed in ways that emphasized the awesomeness of God. It is difficult to walk into one of the cathedrals of Europe built centuries ago without feeling awe and wonder. The quiet, the slight aroma of incense or candles, the artistry of stained glass windows and classical music moves one to acknowledge awe and wonder.

In recent years, theology and worship have emphasized the personal nature of God, the love God, and joy of God to such a degree that for some reason we’ve forgotten that our God is also an awesome God. We have almost reformed God into a “little buddy” or someone to pal around with. We have forgotten that God is such an awesome and holy God that to be in His presence is to be filled with wonder.

It is not that one concept of God is true and the other isn’t. God is awesome, and holy, and wonderful – and He is also love, and joy and a personal relationship.

And since God is indeed all of these things, we worship God because he is worthy of worship. He deserves our worship.

III
Another reason we come to worship is so that our lives will be different.

Worship makes a difference in our lives. As the studies show, it improves our blood pressure, marriages, stress levels, and yes, apparent even improves our sexuality.
But more than that, it makes us better people.

Worship at its best, always motivates the worshipper to roll up the sleeves and to get to work for the good of the community and for our neighbors.

In our Old Testament lesson, the Prophet Isaiah is in the Temple worshipping God. He hears the call to worship, with angels singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

He is moved to confess his sins, which is followed by the assurance of his pardon.

He hears the word of God proclaimed, hearing the voice of God saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

And what follows then is the service. The work. The rolling up of sleeves and the reaching out to others. In the Scripture lesson, the Prophet said, "Here am I. Send me!"

True worship will always result in service. We cannot enter the sanctuary to worship, without departing into the world to serve.

So, why are we here? Why did we come to worship today? We came in here, in part, to be challenged to do something out there.

Copyright 2012, Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.

[i] Michael, R.Y., J.H. Gagnon, E.O. Laumann, and G. Kolata. Chapter 6 in Sex in America: A DefinitiveSurvey. Boston: Little Brown. 1995.Travis, C., and S. Sadd. The Redbook Report on Female Sexuality. New York: Delacorte Press. 1977

[ii] (Cutler, S.J., "Member in Different Types of Voluntary Associations and Psychological Well-Being," TheGerontologist 16 (1976): 355-339.

[iii] Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri..Shrum, W., "Religion and Marital Instability: Change in the 1970's?" Review of Religious Research 21(1980): 135-147.

[iv] Williams, R.W., D.B. Larson, R.E. Bucker, R.C. Hackman, and C.M. Pale, "Religion and Psychological Distress in a Community Sample," Social Science Medicine 32 (1991): 1257-1262.

[v] Seeman, T.E., and B.S. McEwen, "Impact of Social Environment Characteristics on NeuroendocrineRegulation," Psychosomatic Medicine 58 (1996): 459-471.

[vi] Steinitz, L.Y., "Religiosity, Well-Being, and Weltanschauung Among the Elderly," Journal for the ScientificStudy of Religion 19 (1980): 60-67.

[vii] Seeman, T.E.,G.A. Kaplan, L. Knudsen, R. Cohen, and J. Guralnik, "Social Network Ties and MortalityAmong the Elderly in the Alameda County Study," American Journal of Epidemiology 126 (1987): 714-723.Schoenbach, V.J., B.H. Kaplan, L. Fredman, and D.G. Kleinbaum, "Social Ties and Mortality in EvansCounty, Georgia," American Journal of Epidemiology 123 (1986): 577-591.

[viii] Larson D.W., H.G. Koenig, B.H. Kaplan, R.S. Greenberg, E. Loge, and H.A. Tyroler, "The Impact of Religionon Men's Blood Pressure," Journal of Religion and Health 28 (4), (1989): 265-278.) Others that indicate worship improves your chances of surviving cardiac surgery. T.E., D.H. Freeman, and E.D. Manheimer, "Lack of Social Participation or Religious Strength andComfort as Risk Factors for Death After Cardiac Surgery in the Elderly," Psychosomatic Medicine 57(1995): 5-15.

[ix] Wallace, J.M., and T.A. Forman, "Religion's Role in Promoting Health and Reducing the Risk AmongAmerican Youth," Health Education and Behavior 25 (1998): 721-741.

Second Hand Jesus

2012-01-08T10:29:00.000-05:00

Psalm 139:1-18
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. You hem me in-- behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. (NIV)

Acts 19:13-18
Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. The evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding. When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.

A few years ago I went to Haiti on a mission trip, and in getting ready for the travel I had to go to the doctor’s to have some shots -- Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B.

So I went to the doctor’s to get my shots.

This lady comes into the examination room and she swabs down my arm with alcohol, and then she starts fumbling around with my chart and fumbling around with whatever she has brought with her. Finally she says, “You know, I need one of those needle things.”

“A syringe,” I suggest.

“Oh yes, that’s it. I need one of those things. Be right back.”

She comes back in and she swabs my arm down with alcohol, and then she hesitates. “You know, I need to get the vaccine. I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later she comes back in and she swabs down my arm with more alcohol. She looks at me and asks me, “It does go into the arm, doesn’t it?”

She says she’s going to ask someone about that and she leaves.

She comes back and says someone else will be giving me my shots.

Suits me!

We start talking and at some point in the conversation she says she didn’t get much sleep last night because she was so excited about her new job. Today was the first day she was working in the doctor’s office.

The only thing that kept me from asking this lady about her last job was the fear of hearing her tell me that she had worked at McDonalds, or some place like that.

I’m sure she was trained, but she just didn’t seem to have any experience.

At least no first hand experience.

A lot of us are like that woman. We have lots of second hand knowledge, but no first hand knowledge or experience in certain areas of life.

I watch a lot of medical shows on television – ER and shows like that. I know all about subdural hematomas and defibrillation and saline solutions.

Well, I don’t really know about them. But I have this second hand knowledge about life in a hospital.

I have second hand knowledge about what the White House is like because I have watched lots of episodes of West Wing.

I have second hand knowledge about the military, because I talk to people who serve in the military.

Second hand knowledge is good, it’s helpful, it’s interesting – but it is no substitute for first hand knowledge and experience.

In our New Testament lesson from the Book of Acts we read about a time when the news of Jesus Christ was growing. The whole world was beginning to hear about Jesus – but for many people this news was second hand information.

As the New Testament reading from Acts tells it, “Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, "In the name of Jesus, whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out." What’s interesting here is that they did not know Jesus personally. Their Jesus was a second hand Jesus.

And of course, it does not turn out very well for them. As they were trying to deal with a demon possessed person, the evil spirit answered them, "Jesus I know, and I know about Paul, but who are you?" Then the man who had the evil spirit jumped on them and overpowered them all. He gave them such a beating that they ran out of the house naked and bleeding.

It is a dramatic illustration about how dangerous “second hand” knowledge about Christ can be.

Is your Jesus a second hand Jesus?

Do you know of Jesus only from what you have seen in the movies, or from what you have read in books, or by what you have heard from teachers and preachers?

I said a moment ago that second hand knowledge was a good thing – up to a point.

Knowing Jesus second hand is never quite sufficient for us.

It is not enough to know about Jesus.

One must know Jesus personally and through one’s own experience.

How do you do that? For many people, Jesus is an abstract thought. They know about him like they know about Abraham Lincoln or about George Washington.

How do you make Jesus personal in your life?

In our reading from Acts, there are three things the people do to move from knowing ABOUT Jesus, to the point where they know him PERSONALLY.

1. Respect the Name

First – there must be a respect for the name and person of Jesus Christ.

In the Book of Acts, news about the power and authority of Jesus begins to spread. As our New Testament lesson puts it, “When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honor.”

Many people who know about Jesus will never move to the point of personally knowing Jesus because they do not hold the name of Jesus in high honor.

Have you ever seen the movie "O God?" George Burns plays God himself, who has come to earth to speak with a grocery manager named Jerry Landers. In one of their conversations, Jerry, without thinking, says to himself, "OGod!"

And God says, "Yes, Jerry? What is it?"

And Jerry says, "Huh?? Oh, it’s nothing, Lord. It’s just an expression. A figure of speech. Nothing more."

And then God says, "Jerry, that’s why I’m here. I want people to know that I’m not just a figure of speech. I’m more than just a phrase that people blurt out when they get frustrated. I want you to tell people to take me seriously. That I am the Lord!"

For all too many people, Jesus is an empty phrase. An empty word. The name of Jesus is spoken as a curse, or as a word of exclamation.

More than that, people often ridicule Jesus.

Now, you can make fun of preachers – and I know you do! Some of you email me your best preacher jokes! Some of them are actually funny! Well, the jokes about Presbyterian preachers aren’t funny – but I’ve heard some hilarious jokes about Baptist preachers!

And people can make fun of the church. The Lord knows we deserve it. We don’t always practice what we preach and sometimes we deserve for folks to poke fun at us. A little humor can sometimes help the church understand the way the world sees us so we can correct ourselves and put us on the right track.

But it always hurts to see people ridicule Christ.

I’m not saying we can’t use humor to teach about Christ – I’d be the last to say that! But what I am talking about is the disrespectful humor and comments the world often aims at our Savior.

If you want to have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you must respect the name and person of Jesus Christ.

That’s what happened in the Book of Acts. People began to respect the name and person of Jesus Christ, and if you want to have a relationship with Christ, that is what you must do.

2. Confession

The second thing you need to do is to be open and honest with God about who we are. The old fashioned word for this is – confession.

In our New Testament lesson, when the word gets around about the power of Christ, people begin to respect the name and person of Christ – and then, in the words of our New Testament reading, “Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds.”

Confession helps move us from the point of knowing about Jesus to the point of actually knowing the Person of Jesus.

One of the most important moments in our worship services comes with the prayer of confession and the assurance of God’s grace.

God knows our sins and failures. He knows when we have failed to love others. He knows when we have been selfish.

Confession is not telling God anything He doesn’t already know.

But it is our act of admitting of our sins so we can get our past out of the way and be freed of guilt.

It is not so much that God needs to know what we have done – he knows that! WE need to get it off our chest and out of our souls.

When we sin, we are separated from God.

Our joy disappears,
our sense of God’s presence evaporates,
and we live in a gray world of uncertainty and frustration.

If we continue to sin, then we continue in a separation from God and Christ. We spiral downward into despair, regret, anger, and deep-seated bitterness.

We got to put the past behind us! Confession helps us heal our souls and helps open us up to a personal relationship with Christ.

That’s what the people in the book of Acts began to do – they confessed their sins so they could move from just knowing about Jesus, to the point where they personally knew Jesus.

3. Repentance

The third thing we must do, and this comes right after confession, is repentance.

This is not only a turning away from sinful activities, but a change of one’s mind and heart. It is a change of one’s lifestyle.

Referring again to our New Testament reading, after the people make their confession, they destroy the things that tempted them. As the Book of Acts puts it, “A number of those who practiced the occult collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins.”

Repentance means that I own responsibility for my part in what was unsatisfactory behavior. I accept responsibility for my part in what is and what will be new behavior.

Repentance is owning responsibility for what was, accepting responsibility for what is, and acting responsibly now.

It is responsible action. It is not a matter of punishing ourselves for past mistakes, hating ourselves for past failures, and depressing ourselves with feelings of worthlessness.

Repentance is finishing the unfinished business of my past and choosing to live in new ways that will not repeat old unsatisfactory situations. In the full Christian meaning of the Word, repentance is a process. It is a thawing out of rigid lifestyles into a flowing, moving, growing, repenting process.

A Sunday School teacher once asked a class what was meant by the word "repentance." A little boy put up his hand and said, "It is being sorry for your sins." But then another little child girl also raised her hand and said, "It is being sorry enough to quit." (Donald Grey Barnhouse)

There are so many people who know about Jesus, but they have never built a relationship with Jesus.

They know a second hand Jesus – not a first hand Jesus.

If you know about Jesus, but you don’t know him personally, this is a good time to begin that process of knowing him personally. It is a good day to confess one’s sins and to repent and turn from a former way of life and to turn toward a life devoted to Christ.

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2012
All Rights Reserved

Be Afraid – Be Very Afraid!

2011-12-25T12:24:00.000-05:00

Luke 1:26-38
26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,
27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.
32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,
33 and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end."
34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
36 Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month.
37 For nothing is impossible with God."
38 "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her.
(NIV)

As a kid fear was a great experience. Especially if it involved SOMEBODY ELSE being afraid.

Christmas and Easter are great holidays, but when I was a kid, Halloween was the most fun. Dressing up like some ghost or monster and jumping out of the bushes to yell, “boo!” And to see your best friend nearly faint with fear – ohhh what fun!

Or to be an a camp and to tell ghost stories around a camp fire until all the newest kids at the camp were too frightened to go to sleep.

Of course, when you grow up you don’t stop being afraid of things. In fact, fears become more troubling – no longer any fun at all.

We are afraid of cancer.

We are afraid that something might happen to our children.

We are afraid of what will happen with terrorist attacks.

We are afraid of losing our jobs, or of making the boss mad.

We are afraid our spouse will divorce us and leave us – and some are afraid the spouse will stay and continue to abuse.

Even this season of Advent and Christmas is full of fear -- fear of not having enough money, fear of not meeting everyone’s expectations (what if I didn’t get them the right gift or what if they get me a better gift than I got them); we worry over meals, over who will be there and who will not. We just seem to fear everything.

In the Gospel of Luke, Mary sees an angel and the angel tells Mary, “Fear not.”

Which has always struck me as strange – because if an angel suddenly appears before me, I am going to be shocked, surprised, disconcerted and yes – afraid.

This morning, I want us to look at three times God sent an angelic messenger to earth with messages connected to the birth of His Son, the Lord Jesus. Every one of these angels brought big news – news that troubled the hearts of those who heard. And yet, as troubling as the news was, the news also conveyed a message of peace.

Each one of these angels spoke the phrase, “Fear not.”

Why are we not to be afraid?

First, We are Told, Fear Not -- But Believe (Luke 1:26-31,34-35)

In our New Testament Lesson, we read,

Luke 1:26-31
26 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,
27 to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
28 The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you."
29 Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be.
30 But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God.
31 You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.

34 "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?"
35 The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

When our lives do not go as we have planned it is easy to fear that which is unknown. Often, God will allow things to happen in your life and in mine that seem to be hard to bear and hard to understand, yet the Lord sends them our way so that we might grow in Him and come to know Him in a better way. When these times arise, it is easy to question the Lord and His judgment.
Let’s look for a moment at Mary’s situation. If Mary were to be a part of God’s plan then she faced the possibility of having her engagement to Joseph broken; she knew that Joseph would have the legal right to have her executed when it becomes known that she was pregnant. Even if somehow Joseph would still marry her, she knew how people would talk; they would have a reputation for being sexually promiscuous. This was a less than ideal situation for a young Jewish girl to find herself in. God called on Mary to step out on faith in order to be a part of His divine daring plan. But being a part of the plan would cost Mary something. Yet Mary was willing to step out on faith because she knew God loved her.

And therein lies the difference between when God challenges us to step out on faith and the world ask us to take a risk.

In this world, sometimes the challenge to do something risky comes from those who don’t really love us nor do they have our best interest at heart. The challenge doesn’t even have to be spoken; it may just be the unspoken peer pressure to fit in with the crowd. We’ve all be in that position at one time or another.
God won’t challenge us to do something just for fun; He won’t pressure us to fit in with the crowd. God loves us and only wants what is best for our lives. God is not going to manipulate us and then laugh at us when we fall flat on our face.
Mary asked some legitimate questions; if she was going to become pregnant she would like to know how this was going to happen. However, Mary did not let her questions stop her. Mary said, “YES!” to the part of the plan that God had given her. When God challenges you to move out on faith and be a part of a God-given dream, it’s alright to ask some questions. It is okay to say, “God, that’s a great dream, but how are we supposed to get there?” God answered Mary, and He will give you an answer too. Now it’s important to understand that God didn’t give Mary all the details; Gabriel only gave Mary enough information so she could make a willing response to God’s plan.
God will give us just enough light for the path that is before us; as the Psalmist says, “Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light for my path” (Psalm 119:105 NLT).We are Told, Fear Not Only Believe and..

Secondly, We Are Told To Fear Not Only Obey (Matt 1:18-25).

There is another passage where an angel visits a human and says, “Fear not.” It is when Joseph finds out about his wife’s pregnancy.
How often have we read the Christmas story without stopping to consider the emotions that Joseph had to deal with in order to submit to God in ways which are contrary to his every natural inclination?
The Bible does not tell us when Joseph learned of Mary’s pregnancy nor who told him. But when Joseph learned of the situation there appeared to be only two possible solutions
1. He could divorce Mary quietly and have her sent away until the baby was born. or
2. He could divorce her publicly, and thereby subject her to the ridicule and humiliation of the public. This option could even have resulted in Mary’s death according to the Old Testament law (Deut. 24.). But as he thought on these things he received a message from heaven. We read about it in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 1:
We read it in Matthew chapter 1:

Matt 1:18-25
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
23 "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"-- which means, "God with us."
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.
25 But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
(NIV)
While the Bible does not say much about him, we know this one thing: Joseph kept his ears tuned to heaven.

In spite of the cultural expectations and practices Joseph listened to the voice of God even when it took him through all the tough times ahead. I am sure that Joseph must have thought something like this: “I don’t understand all of what I have been told. I sure can’t explain it. I’m not even sure I’m all together happy about it, but if it’s God’s will then count me in!”
So for you today, “Do not fear God’s purposes. They may look bad in the beginning, but in the end, He will be glorified and you will be blessed.”
Paul tells us in Romans 8:28; “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

Nowhere does God say that all things are good, but rather that “all things will work together for good” when we are following his purpose in our lives. Later in his letter to the church at Corinth Paul says, (2 Cor. 4:17) ”For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Whatever we are called upon to endure in this life for his sake will in the end be found to be worth it all.

III

There is a third time that angels visit people and tell them not to be afraid. It is when the angels visit the shepherds. And it is there that we learn to fear not, because we are important to God.
We read about this in Luke, chapter 2:

Luke 2:8-11
8 And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.
9 An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
10 But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.
11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.
(NIV)

Why were these shepherds afraid? Well the truth is that ordinary people have always displayed fear when they were confronted with the reality of God, because coming face to face with the Almighty has a way of making one face up with who we really are. You may think that if God is even aware that you exist, He probably doesn’t have a very favorable opinion of you. A lot of people, deep down, secretly feel like that!

The appearance of the angels to the shepherds tells us, “No matter how insignificant you may think you are, God knows you and you are important to him.”
The Apostle Paul says in 1 Cor. 1:26-28, “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. (27) But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; (28) and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen…”

Shepherds were just ordinary common people. They were not the social elite, they were just common working folks. Most likely these shepherds were tending sheep outside Bethlehem and these may have been sheep being prepared for temple sacrifice.
In verse fifteen we read, ‘So it was, when the angels had gone away from them into heaven, that the shepherds said to one another, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us."

This decision by the shepherds was a wonderful example of people acting in faith in the Word of God. They heard the message and they did something about it. They trusted what God had said and went and checked it out.

Verse sixteen says, “And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger. (17) Now when they had seen Him, they made widely known the saying which was told them concerning this Child.”
The shepherds did what we all must do, they came to Christ in faith. God had brought the shepherds to the stable as witnesses of the supernatural events which happened that evening and the shepherds did that marvelously.
Conclusion

Three times the angels came and three times there was a reaction based in fear.
However, when the fear had been dealt with and the Lord’s message was allowed to come through, the message was seen for what it really was, a promise of grace.
So it is this Christmas season. There may be those things around you that you fear, but if you can learn the lesson that Mary, Joseph and the shepherds learned, fear not but believe, fear not but obey, fear not because you are important to God.

Copyright 2011, Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
For copies of other sermons, visit www.Pittendreigh.com

No Room In Our Hearts

2011-12-24T23:50:00.001-05:00

Luke 2:1-7
1 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)
3 And everyone went to his own town to register.
4 So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David.
5 He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.
6 While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,
7 and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (NIV)

Finally!

Christmas Eve is finally here!

I thought I would never make it!

I actually thought that sometime during the past few days some desparate shopper would drive me off the road. I mean, people are driving like maniacs out there. Of course, it is not as if traffic is always good in season, but you have to admit that it has been particularly bad for the past few days.

But we survived the traffic.

And we survived the shopping. I’ve never seen such long lines! I went to Barnes and Noble Bookstore the other day, stood in line, and by the time I got to the cash register I had finished reading the book.

OK, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but not much!

And school programs! Preschools and day care centers have had their Christmas programs, usually with 100 terrified children, a dozen teachers, and a vast crowd of parents and grandparents, each looking at their children through their camera’s viewfinder.

And sending out cards, and mailing gifts, and --- well, all the other things!

And we survived it.

When we find the time to settle down and read what the Bible says about Christmas and the birth of Christ, we fondly remember all those wonderful characters of the story of the first Christmas. Mary and Joseph, the baby Jesus, the wise men and shepherds, the angels.
One of my favorite ones is the Innkeeper.

But that is a character that is not actually in the Bible.

The Scripture simply says that Mary and Joseph had to stay in a stable because there was no room for them in the Inn.

For all we know, they might never have spoken to the innkeeper. Perhaps because of the crowds coming to Bethlehem for the census, it may have been common knowledge among the travelers that there was no need to even try to find a room at the Inn.

But we like to imagine in our minds that Mary and Joseph actually went to the Innkeeper and were rudely sent away. These poor travelers, one of them pregnant and ready to give birth any minute, are sent away by this rude, uncaring Innkeeper.

When churches have Living Nativities, or when Hollywood makes another movie about Jesus, we like to see this character portrayed as mean. A villain. Rude and nasty.

BUT -- I think that there is something about the Innkeeper we identify with.

Here is a man who has no room in his Inn for Christ.

Many of us have no room in our hearts for Christ.

How many of us come to church every week, but in this time of year when we ought to be experiencing the full spiritual presence of Christ, don’t feel anything spiritual at all. Here it is Christmas, we ought to be feeling the wonder of Christ’s birth, but we don’t. There is no room in our hearts for Christ.

Christ has been pushed out by all of the rush of the traffic, the press of shopping, the anxiety of end of the year exams and tests in school, the demands made upon us by having to visit, or having to receive visitors.

There is no room in our hearts for Christ.

On the other hand, there are many here who come infrequently to church because the stress of the whole year keeps Christ at arm’s length. There is always work to do, always other places to go, always some sporting event to attend on a Sunday.
And so there is no room for Christ in your heart. Christ is pushed aside so other things can take hold of our lives.

Now it is not that we are villains and evil people when this happens.

It just happens.

It’s like the Innkeeper.

Since the Bible doesn’t mention anything about him, we like to imagine that he is rude and nasty. “Go away. There’s no room for you here.”

But I suspect the real innkeeper was just doing his job. Just going through his life. He was probably apologetic. “Gee I’m sorry Ms Mary, but there’s no room for you. And it would be unfair for me to go and tell one of the guests who’s already here and settled in that they have to leave to make room for you and your child.”

The Innkeeper wasn’t being mean. He was just being faithful to all of the other guests in his inn. He was just being faithful to all of the other demands of his life.

So that in the final outcome, there just wasn’t room for the Christ child in his inn, or in his life.

And when we push Christ out of our lives, for many of us, it is not that we are intentionally deciding, “I want Christ out of our lives.”

It’s just that we have already allowed so many other things into our lives that there is simply no room left.

No room for Christ.

We’ve got things to do.

We’ve got work.

We’ve got shopping.

We’ve got tests and exams and homework.

We’ve got to go to the Florida Keys this weekend.

And next weekend we have to go to Colorado to go skiing.

We’ve got to fix up our boat.

We’ve got to – well, the list goes on.

Is that the way we want to live our lives?

It’s not that any of these things are bad. Because they’re not. They’re good things. I like going to the Keys for a weekend. I like going to Colorado – not to ski, but to enjoy the view from the safety of a rocking chair! I never liked exams and tests, but they were necessary. Had to study for them. I like to work. I enjoy my job.

But when we do all of these things in such a way that they consume all of the space in our hearts and lives, so that there is no room in our lives for Christ – that’s sad.

That’s tragic.

And I think that is why the Innkeeper captures our imagination in Living Nativities and books and stories about the birth of Christ.

Because he’s us.

There’s no room for the Christ child in the Inn.

And there’s no room for Christ in our lives.

But is this the way we want to live our lives?

Jesus came into this world and wants to come into our lives that we might have eternal life. Why would we possibly want to exclude Christ out of our lives when he comes to offer us eternal life?

St. Paul wrote in his first letter to Timothy, (1 Tim 1:15), “Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners-- of whom I am the worst.”

Go to any football game and you will see someone holding a sign that has the Scripture reference, John 3:16. How many of you have seen that in a football game – or maybe I should ask, how many of you have NOT seen that at a football game?
It may be the most familiar passage of the Bible.

In John 3:16, we read, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Christ came to give us eternal life. Don’t we want to have room for him in our hearts?

Christ came to give us peace. We have so little right now. Our world is at war with terrorists.

And how peaceful can anyone feel at Christmas – shopping, rushing around, driving in traffic with maniacs all around, in-laws coming.

But if you are pushing Christ out of your life because you have so much shopping to do, so much rushing around, so much this and that on your list of things to do – then you are depriving yourself of the very peace that this season ought to provide.

Make room for Christ in your life, and you make room for peace.

Jesus said (John 14:27), “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Christ came to bring peace to our lives. Don’t we want to have room for him in our hearts?

Christ also came to give us life, so that we could experience it to the fullest. Jesus told us in John’s Gospel, (John 10:10), “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Christ came to give us abundant life, but in the busy-ness of life, we fill our time with so much, and yet we find at the end of the day that life we’ve led has been empty. It has lacked meaning and purpose.

Christ came to enable us to live life to the fullest. Don’t we want to have room for him in our hearts?

It is Christmas Eve. We finally made it. We survived all the crazy drivers. We survived the stress of the final exams or the pressures of work. We did all of our shopping – and if we didn’t, well, it’s too late so we might as well relax.

Now would be a good time to make sure that we make room in our lives for Christ.

Now would be a good time to make sure that whatever other clutter may exist on our daily schedules, we are able to make room for Christ in the weekly worship on Sunday mornings, in the time for prayer and Bible reading, in the time for service to others.

There is room for us in Christ’s hands.

Let’s make room for Christ in our lives.

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011
All Rights Reserved

Living In Expectation

2011-11-27T10:27:00.000-05:00

Mark 13:32-37
"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch. "Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back-- whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!'" (NIV)

College students today have it easy! A few years ago, my son was a student at the University of Central Florida and I watched him register for classes.

The way he did it was to go to the computer, get on the Internet, and in 5 minutes he was registered for all of his upcoming classes.

Back in my day, we had to stand in line and wait. And this was not a small line.

On the day of registration, we couldn’t be at home in front of a computer; we had to physically be on the college campus. We would get to the Administration Building very early and take a place in line. The line would stretch from the entrance of the door, around the building. Some students would take books to read. Some took chessboards. A few wise and learned students took folding chairs.

Slowly, inch by inch, the line would creep along until at last you would enter the doors of the Administration Building, only to find that inside there were MORE lines.

A line for student loans.

A line to pay last year’s delinquent bills.

A line to get a dormitory assignment.

A line to register for each class.

One year, the pre-med students of my school decided to make a comment about these long lines.
They broke into the Science Building and went into the biology lab where they stole – something.
Then they went to a store and had a special T-Shirt printed up.

They placed these items at the front door of the Administration Building so that when the registration process was to begin, and a college official opened the door, the first thing the college official saw was the item that had been stolen from the Science Building – a human skeleton wearing a newly printed T Shirt with the words, “Class of 1901.”

Thanks to the Internet, now everything has changed for students registering for college classes. But don’t worry – the world is still FULL of long lines.

There are still long lines at the bank. Now if you bank where I bank, you don’t talk to a human – but you still stand in line at the ATM machine.

Long lines are still the rule of thumb at the check out line of the grocery store.

Long lines of traffic at the stop light.

By and large, we are part of a society that hates to wait.

However!!!! As much as we dislike waiting in general, sometimes waiting is not such a bad experience. In fact, waiting in expectation might very well energize us.

We have all known, in small ways, the energy an eagerly anticipated future can give to our actions in the present. The expectant parents who find joy in what would otherwise be a toil – assembling the crib, painting the nursery, practicing the pushing and breathing. Or take the residents of a town who eagerly wait for the visit of a famous celebrity or dignitary – the lawns are mowed, the sidewalks swept, the cracked windows are repaired at City Hall, the colorful banners are stretched between telephone poles on Main Street as they prepare to welcome someone important to their town.

Christmas itself has that kind of power. People brave crowds at the mall and face up to edgy store clerks. Gifts are carefully chosen. Packages are wrapped. Ceramic nativity scenes are dusted and set in place, piece by piece.

Every action has meaning, because people are waiting, expectantly.

The sadness of our waiting is when we lose the excitement of anticipation to the dreariness of apathy.

We have all known the sense of loss and disappointment over a hoped-for-future that does not come quickly. The husband and wife who try to conceive a child, in vain. Or again, plans are changed and the famous celebrity travels by another route, bypassing the town, leaving the once festive banner to droop in the rain.

Even Christmas day has its own measure of disappointment. The packages are opened, the gifts admired and put away. The tree comes down; the shepherds and angels are stored for another year, and the long-awaited day passes with a sense that nothing has happened.

We have waited, and waited, and nothing has happened. And the way we have waited is with apathy.

In our Gospel lesson, the church is told to wait, and to watch – for something important is about to happen – Jesus is going to set up his Kingdom. And so, that first century church is able to stand on their tiptoes and watch the horizon of time in anticipation, waiting to see the dawn of a new day, when there will be justice, when crime will be eradicated, when the poor and oppressed will be freed, when the hungry will be fed and the sick healed.

Then came the 2nd century, and the standing on tiptoes in expectation became more tiring.

Then came the 3rd century.

And the 4th.

And the 5th.

And the 6th, and on down the centuries, until now we find ourselves in the 21st century.

It is hard to wait.

After 2000 years it is difficult to still stand on tiptoes waiting for the Kingdom.

And the sadness in waiting is that sometimes we lose the excitement of anticipation to the dreariness of apathy.

Years ago I taught a group of second graders in a Sunday School class. It occurred to me that it might be good to encourage the children to memorize the key verse of Scripture each week. One week, the key verse of Scripture for the lesson came from Mark’s Gospel – the part we read a few moments ago.

“So watch, for you don’t know when the Son of Man will come.”

One of the children memorized it and repeated it to me with perfection – well, almost with perfection. What he actually did was to miss one word – replacing the word “WATCH” for the word “WHAT.”

So what he said came out like this – “So what, you don’t know when the Son of Man will come.”
An amusing mistake, but it was a revealing one. For you see, that is the approach many of us have toward the return of Christ and the anticipation of the Kingdom being established on earth. So what? You don’t know when it will happen. So what?

You see, it is not only important that we know that someday Jesus will return, that someday the kingdom will be established. It is also important that we know HOW to wait.

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples to wait and watch for the coming of the Kingdom. In the chapters that follow Mark’s Gospel, it becomes obvious that the disciples know absolutely nothing about HOW to wait and to watch.

What is wrong with the disciples in these chapters is that they don’t understand that the way one waits for what God is doing in the FUTURE – out there – is to respond to things that God is doing in the PRESENT – the here and now.

In our Gospel lesson, Mark says that the Son of Man might come at evening, at midnight, at cockcrow, or in the morning.

Look at how Mark weaves these threads back to those times as he progresses in the last few chapters of his book.

In our lesson, Mark says that the Son of Man might come at evening. And in the very next chapter, Mark says, “When it was evening” Jesus ate his last meal and announced, “one of you will betray me.”

In our lesson, Mark says that the Son of Man might come at midnight. And further in Mark’s book, the Gospel says that one evening, when it was midnight, when the disciples went to Gethsemane, and while Jesus prayed, they slept. In the words of Jesus, “Could they not have WATCHED one hour?” Couldn’t they have waited up with him a little longer?

In our lesson, Mark says that the Son of Man might come at cockcrow. And later in Mark’s Gospel, there is Peter, denying his Lord not once, but three times – and in the distance is heard the cock crowing.

In our lesson, Mark says that the Son of Man might come at morning. And later in Mark’s Gospel we read that as it was morning, Jesus was bound and led away to trial and crucifixion.
Morning. Cockcrow. Evening. Midnight.

The four times here are the four Watches in that culture. It seems to me that what is being raised here is the fact that in every watch, shift, hour, moment, we need to be watchful. – because while the Kingdom and the Second Coming of Christ are still over the horizon, there are things continually happening NOW, in this watch, in this shift, in this hour. Things that challenge us as disciples. And the way we wait for what is way off in the future over the horizon is to respond to the things that are happening right here and now.

God may be at work in the distant future, but he is also at work today, in every hour, moment, shift and watch.

Watching then, is more than waiting. It is an ACTIVE sort of waiting, in which one is continually looking out to the horizon, waiting for the kingdom to come, and at the same time, dealing with the challenges of the present.

What is wrong with the disciples in Mark’s Gospel is that they never realize that the way to wait for the future Kingdom is to realize that while God is at work out there in the future, he is also at work right here and now. And while there is a future Kingdom of God, out there, God is also at work here and now -- and there are things that are happening now that call us to respond as disciples of Jesus Christ.

As Mark writes his Gospel book, he has looked at the story of Jesus and realized that every moment of the passing day is already alive with the promise of God’s future. As the church strains its sight toward the horizon of the coming kingdom, it also hears the ticking of the clock on the wall, and knows that each passing minute is filled with the potential for faith or denial. For decision or tragedy. For hope or despair. Those who trust in the promise of God’s coming kingdom are also able to see advance signs of its coming all around them.

Advent is a season of waiting.

We wait to celebrate the birth of Christ.

We wait to celebrate and remember his first coming.

We also wait in anticipation of his second coming when he will return to earth and establish peace, and justice and his kingdom.

We wait – and that is something we are not good at.

While we wait, we need to be at work.

We don’t just wait for peace; we work for it here and now.

We don’t just wait for justice; we work for it here and now.

For in the time of waiting, life is full of opportunities. So therefore, Jesus says to us, “So watch, for you don’t know when the Son of Man will come.”

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011
All Rights Reserved

Living Under The Influence

2011-11-20T16:23:00.000-05:00

Psalm 1:1-6
Today’s New International Version

Blessed are those
who do not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
but who delight in the law of the LORD and meditate on his law day and night.
They are like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.
Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will be destroyed.

1 Corinthians 5:9-11
Contemporary English Version

In my other letter I told you not to have anything to do with immoral people. But I wasn't talking about the people of this world. You would have to leave this world to get away from everyone who is immoral or greedy or who cheats or worships idols. I was talking about your own people who are immoral or greedy or worship idols or curse others or get drunk or cheat. Don't even eat with them!

My great aunt Lucille was my oldest relative. When I was a child, she would talk about the war. The Civil War. She talked about her uncles, all of whom were missing an arm or leg. She could tell you which family relative died at Shiloh, and which one died as a POW in Maryland, and she would talk about her Uncle John, who was Missing in Action, as if she might someday learn what happened to him. But of course, she never did.

Actually, Great Aunt Lucille was born in 1875, a decade after the war. But she grew up under influence of the war. She heard her father tell the stories at the dinner table. She heard the uncles talk about their battles.

We all live life under the influence. Our history, our environment, our culture, the stories we hear, the people around us – they influence us. Whether we like it or not, and even if we are aware of it or not, everything around us has an influence on who we are, what we believe, what we do.

Great Aunt Lucille was influenced by the words she heard at the dinner table. And so, while she was born ten years after the end of the war, she never, ever liked my Dad. She never trusted him. Aunt Lucille was on my mother’s side of the family, but Dad, while he was born in South Carolina, was the son of parents from Massachusetts! That part of the family was made up of Yankees. And not just any kind of Yankee, but the kind of Yankee, the adjective of which I cannot repeat from the pulpit.

We live life under the influence.

We can’t escape it. We are surrounded by history, and culture and music, and words, and stories. And like it or not, all that surrounds us become threads weaving in and out of the fabric of our souls.

We all live our lives under some sort of influence. And so we are told in our Old Testament lesson, “Blessed are those who do not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers…”

What is the influence of your life?

For some people, this Psalm seems to be telling us to be so careful with whom we associate and that we should have nothing to do with anyone who is immoral in any way. In fact, Paul in his letter to the Corinthians begins our New Testament reading by saying, “I have told you not to have anything to do with immoral people.”

Avoid anyone who is a negative influence.
Avoid anyone who would influence you to lie or cheat.
Avoid anyone who lives life in a way other than what Christ would desire.
Avoid them!
And, in fact, that is what many parents teach their children, even though parents know what Paul would eventually get around to admitting – you can’t avoid evil people all the time. You will be influenced by them. Like it, or not.
+++

Every Sunday, I invite the children to come forward and we open up the box. I’ve been doing that box for a few years now, and I’ve never been stumped. Not yet. I will admit, some Sundays are easier than others. You know the rules. Nothing alive, or recently alive. And whatever is in there must be approved by an adult at home.

So I opened the box about 10 years ago. And inside was a music CD. It had an interesting cover. On the cover was a naked man. A knife had ripped out his heart and there was blood everywhere in the picture. In the corner of the cover of the CD was a warning to parents. “Parental advisory” or some such words, that obviously that child’s mother had ignored.

So I talked about music. I talked about how it was a gift from God. And how it can glorify God. And how it can inspire. Or not. Music does not always inspire. It is not always positive. So we have to be careful with the music we listen to. Because the words become part of our soul.

As I gave that children’s devotional, I was hoping that the mother of that child was listening that day. I thought the music was inappropriate for the child to listen to, and I thought the mother should have kept that influence completely out of her child’s life.

It was later that day that I remembered my father tried to do the very same thing with me. I wanted to buy some Elvis Pressley albums and my father, believing that rock and roll was the devil’s music, prohibited me from buying any recordings by the King of Rock and Roll. While I was begging my Dad to give me some of that old time rock and roll, because I thought it would soothe my soul,[1] Dad decided to protect me from the evil influence of the devil’s music. My Dad then went to his music collection and gave me three albums, all by the same singer, and as he handed me those albums he said, “Al Jolson is good enough for anyone.”

Now what makes that story so interesting is that a year ago, as I was preparing to move here, I was selling stuff, and throwing away stuff, and giving away stuff. I just had too much stuff and moving was good time to lighten the load – if you’ve ever moved, you know what that’s like. I came across those three Al Jolson albums that my Dad had given me. They were stacked with all of my Elvis Pressley and Beatles and Steppenwolf albums. I took a lot of them to a collector and there were three albums he bought.

You guessed it. He bought the three Al Jolson albums.

He didn’t even look at the records. They could have been badly scratched and he still would have bought them. He was fascinated by the album covers. He said, “these are the most offensive, evil, vile album covers I’ve ever seen.”

My father would have been shocked. He thought they were wholesome, but there on each album cover was Al Jolson dressed in blackface.

Now for those of you who do not know, blackface was a form of entertainment that lasted from the 1830s until around the 1950s. White singers would paint their faces black, their mouths white. They would depict African Americans as charactertures in a manner that today is understood as racist.

But that is the way it is with the influences under which we live our lives. It is sometimes so subtle, that the evil does not become apparent until many years later. In the late 1950s, my Dad would have never have thought of Al Jolson in blackface as a bad influence on a young child’s image of African Americans.

Theologically, sin is NOT a list of dos and don’ts. It is a part of the nature of humanity that so permeates this world that everything we do is tainted by it. So we are all influenced by its presence, and you can’t get away from it.

St Paul, in our New Testament lesson realized this. He wrote, “I have written you in my letter not to associate with … immoral people— not at all meaning the people of this world who are immoral, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters. In that case you would have to leave this world.”

So what does it mean? “Blessed is the one who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.”

It does not mean that you are to completely avoid the influence of the immoral. Even Jesus did not try that – in fact, he delighted in every opportunity to be with anyone and everyone, no matter their lifestyle. The biggest criticism of Jesus by his contemporaries was “He eats with sinners.”[2]

What this Psalm forbids is not walking in the company of the wicked, but rather walking in the guidance or counsel of the wicked.

What this Psalm forbids is not standing alongside the sinner, but rather standing in the belief and lifestyle of the sinner.

What this Psalm forbids is not sitting beside someone who is immoral, but rather sitting in their seat and adopting their ways.

You cannot avoid the negative neighbor whose influence drains your spirit.

You cannot avoid working with people who have lifestyles that are offensive.

You cannot avoid racist people. Or hateful people. Or sexist people. Or greedy people.

And you will live your life under the influence of such people ---

Unless you take one step that can put your life back into balance.

It is a step found in our Old Testament lesson.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.

We live life under the influence.

We can’t control the influences under which we live our lives, but we can balance them with the most positive of all influences – the Word of God.

Time and again in Scripture, the Word of God says of itself that it is useful for putting balance into your life. Psalm 119:11 says, “Your Word have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against you.”

It is true, you cannot avoid the negative neighbor, but you can balance that negativity with God’s Word about joy and peace.

It is true, you cannot avoid working with people who have lifestyles that are offensive, but God’s Word can teach love and tolerance.

It is true, you cannot avoid racist people. Or hateful people. Or sexist people. Or greedy people. But by making the Word of God part of your life, you can walk in God’s way, rather than, as Psalm 1 warns, “walk in the counsel of the wicked.”

The problem is, the Word of God sits on our nightstands, not in our hearts.

Our Bibles decorate our bookshelves, or gather dust, and are rarely opened.

In a world that is bombarding us with influences of all sorts – desirable AND undesirable, are we meditating on the “word day and night?”

When will we read the Word of God? When will we let it be the primary influence of our lives?

Copyright 2011, Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
www.pittendreigh.net
[1]Bob Seger, “Give me some of that old time rock and roll, the music just soothes my soul” are lyrics from the song “Old Time Rock and Roll,” from the 1978 album, “Stranger in Town.”
[2] Luke 15:2, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Also: Matthew 9:11, Luke 5:30, 7:34, 7:39, 19:7.

Pathways to Peace

2011-11-13T09:47:00.000-05:00

Zephaniah 3:14-20
14 Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O Daughter of Jerusalem!
15 The LORD has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. The LORD, the King of Israel, is with you; never again will you fear any harm.
16 On that day they will say to Jerusalem, "Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands hang limp.
17 The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
18 "The sorrows for the appointed feasts I will remove from you; they are a burden and a reproach to you.
19 At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you; I will rescue the lame and gather those who have been scattered. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they were put to shame.
20 At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes," says the LORD.
(NIV)

Philippians 4:4-9
4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-- think about such things.
9 Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-- put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah says there come times when people say “Peace, peace, but there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14)

And boy, that’s the truth!

We are a world at war, under the threat of war. There is violence and turmoil in every corner of the globe.

And it is not just international conflict and war.

In our own lives there is domestic violence. The threat of home invasions.

Add to that the economy, the gas prices, the uncertainty of jobs and layoffs. Our pensions and investments are at risk.

If you are not afraid, you must certainly feel some anxiety about these times.

Friday was Veterans Day and with it there is the reminder that so many of our people have struggled to protect our nation and valiantly tried to establish peace.

Sadly, ten years or a hundred years from now, we will honor NEW veterans who have been called to protect us in conflicts we cannot yet imagine.

What do we, as Christians. do to establish peace in a world in which there is no peace?

I mean, we are not the president of the United States. We don’t have a say in International Affairs. I don’t think any of us are in the diplomatic corps. So where does that leave us? What can we do, in our little corner of the world, to seek peace?

First, we may not have an impact on a global scale, but we can have a positive and peaceful attitude that can influence the people in our immediate surroundings.

Paul, in his letter to the Philippians, writes about peace. He gives a wonderful benediction to the readers of his letter in which he says that the “peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.”

In this benediction of Peace, Paul tells us how we can experience peace in our lives. The first step is to have a positive attitude.

Paul says in verse 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”

I’m not talking about putting your head in the sand and ignoring the troubles around you. I’m talking about having a realistic, but positive attitude about life.

Someone emailed me with a story this week about a 92 year old woman whose family decided it was time to move her into a nursing home. The family worried about the change, but the woman took on a positive attitude. On the long drive, the family began to talk positively about the nursing home, talking about wonderful staff, the nice view, the good food. Finally the woman declared, “I love it.”

Her son said, “But you haven’t even seen it yet. But just wait, I’m sure you’ll like it.”

“I don’t need to see it,” she said. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged... it's how I arrange my mind.”
That is a rare gift!

I know that there are some folks who never experience peace because they have such a bad attitude about life.

Several years ago, I met a fellow named Andy.

Andy was without doubt the most depressed person I have ever met.

He was so gloomy and depressed, that he radiated gloom and depression.

All you had to do was to come within 10 feet of the man, and you began to feel gloomy and depressed yourself.

Andy never looked on the positive side.

He always looked on the negative side.

I remember he came to the Men’s Club at the church – and I was serving a very small church at the time. He came to the Men’s Club and said, “You know, I don’t understand this church. We never seem to get people interested in our events. Look at this. There are only 20 people here.”

Well, I thought – hey – we have 20 people here – that’s great. There are only 25 men in the whole church. Besides, the Men’s Club met for breakfast. On Sunday mornings. At 6:30 AM. I was always amazed that anyone would get up that early on a Sunday morning for breakfast.

But that was Andy. Never looked on the bright side.

One day I went to visit Andy to try to get him out of his gloomy attitude.

He told me he was gloomy because he was so lonely.

I suggested that he invite some folks over, have a small get together, a party.

“Wouldn’t work,” Andy said. “My wife wouldn’t want to do all the work to get ready for it.”

I suggested that he have a dinner with just one other couple.

“Wouldn’t work,” Andy said. “People don’t like the kind of simple foods I like.”

I suggested that he go out and visit other people in their homes – just drop by for a visit.

“Wouldn’t work,” Andy said. “People don’t like you dropping by like that.”

Finally, I suggested to Andy that nothing was going to work because he liked being gloomy and depressed.

Andy agreed.

He was lonely, anxious, restless, never had a moment’s peace, because he was allowing his bad attitude to become a stumbling block in his life.

On the other hand, a positive attitude can become a pathway to peace.

Paul in this New Testament letter we read from for today, told his readers, “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice.”

The prophet Zephaniah, in our Old Testament lesson, said, “Sing, O Daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart… Don’t be afraid, don’t let your hands hand limp. The Lord is with you.”

Some people are like Andy. They let their bad attitude become a stumbling black in their search for peace. Others however, seem to find a sliver lining in the darkest cloud. For example, during the Second World War, General Creighton Abrams found himself and his troops surrounded on all sides. With characteristic optimism, he told his officers: “For the first time in the history of this campaign, we are now in a position to attack the enemy in any direction.”

Whatever problem seems to surround you, concentrate on the solutions, not the difficulty.

Have a good, healthy attitude. A positive attitude. As Paul said, “Rejoice in the Lord.”

The prophet Jeremiah says there come times when people say “Peace, peace, but there is no peace.” But Jesus taught us that the Kingdom of God is within – and so in a world in which we cannot control wars and violence around us, let us be at peace within.

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011
All Rights Reserved

What Is Heaven Like?

2011-11-05T21:20:00.000-04:00

I Corinthians 2:6-10

⁶ We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. ⁷ No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

¹⁰ these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

One day, my name will be read on All Saints Day.

I know that as my name is read, my body will have been turned to ashes, and the ashes will be in the sea and scattered. But my soul – the essence of what and who I am – will be in heaven.

Now most of us are afraid of death – we fear the pain and the uncertainty and for some of us we worry about the financial burdens a long illness and slow death might leave on our family. Being afraid of death is natural and expected.

Comedian Woody Allen said it best when he said, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens to me.”

But beyond our moment of death – have you ever given any thought toward that? What happens when we die and go to heaven? What is heaven like?

First, Heaven is a place beyond our ability to comprehend. What we would like is a travel brochure or a map or some photographs to show us exactly what heaven is like – but we don’t have that. We cannot conceive of heaven.

I can conceive of the distance of 10 miles, but I when I think of a million miles? That’s beyond my ability to comprehend.

I can understand having a credit card debt of $100. But a national debt of trillions of dollars? Between a trillion and a billion I can’t conceive.

To imagine heaven? That is impossible. And the reason it is impossible to comprehend is because it is so much better than anything we have experienced.

I’ve had a good life – I can even imagine it getting a little bit better -- but Heaven is so far, far better than any of my experiences that I simply cannot conceive with my limited imagination what it is like.

The Bible tells us what Heave is like in I Corinthians 2:9, which says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

Second, having said that Heaven is beyond comprehension, we can say that it is a place of joy. We might not be able to fully comprehend how much joy there is, but we can say that heaven is a place of joy. In heaven there will be no disappointment or pain. Death will be no more. Sorrow and sighing will flee away (Isaiah 51:11). The Bible teaches us time and again about the joy of heaven, and no where is this more clearly stated than in Revelation, when it is said that God will “wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

3

But this is not to say that heaven will be a dull place. Heaven will be interesting and exciting because we will never stop growing spiritually and intellectually. We will understand things in new ways, for Paul in I Corinthians says this: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

What is heaven like? Heaven is a place of fellowship. Many people have expressed concern to me about whether they will know their loved ones in heaven. Everything in Scripture points to the reality that we will know each other, and even know each other better than we do now. Paul described Heaven in one of his New Testament books by saying, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that we will not know one another.

Jesus told the interesting story of a rich man and a beggar-man named Lazarus. Lazarus went to heaven after his death, and the rich man ended up in hell. The story describes how Lazarus recognized the Old Testament man, Abraham, even though he had never seen him in life.

I know that when I die I will see my sisters, my parents, my grandparents, my friends who died before me.

The final point about Heaven is that we should not be anxious about it. We should have faith and trust in God. Death is a difficult process, filled with fear of pain and the unknown, but for the faithful, these fears should not be related to whether or not there is a heaven or about what heaven is like.

Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going. . . . I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:1-6).

We read a long list of names this morning. We had many other names we listed who were not members of this Chapel by the Sea, but were members of our families or who were our neighbors or friends.

One day, my name will be read on All Saints Day. So will your name. But I do not let my heart be troubled. I trust in God, because I know that a place has been prepared for me in God’s joyful, incomprehensible heaven.

Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.NET

What are you doing HERE?

2011-10-23T09:52:00.002-04:00

Isaiah 6:1-8
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.
3 And they were calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.
7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
(NIV)

In a television program I watch, there is an episode in which the minister stood up before the congregation. It was a vast sanctuary -- but it was almost empty. The minister looked out upon all of the empty seats and surveyed the 4 lonely people in the congregation -- one young man, and three elderly women.

The minister begins to speak.

"I give thanks to God that there are at least a handful of us who have made the effort to come to worship, who have come to feed on the Word of God, and who don't believe that God is less important than the football game on television."

Suddenly, the young man in the back pew jumps up. "Oh no, I forgot about the football game." And with that he runs out of the sanctuary.

I look around and wonder, don't we have anything better to do right now than to come to worship service?

There are chores to be done at home, books to read, movies to see, games to watch, and web sites to surf. What motivates us to abandon the television and postpone a visit to the mall in order to worship?

I suspect that for some, the answer is "habit." And to tell the truth, not all habits are bad -- although we tend to speak in terms of good habits as discipline. Study habits, proper exercise routines, and good financial management and budgeting are all good habits -- good self discipline. And attending worship is a good spiritual habit. Some of us are here because it is our habit.

But there is something lacking in that answer, because some time earlier in our lives, we didn't come to worship out of habit. We had to make the decision that this was a discipline we wanted to follow. Why did we make that decision?

Others of us may come to worship because we are struggling with God. We are grieving or we are hurting. We are lost, or we are lonely. And our attendance at worship is part of our search for answers.

Still others may be here against our will. You come here because your parents make you and they are bigger than you are.

Or your wife made you come – maybe she’s bigger than you are.

Or maybe your wife made you come here and if you want your life to go smoothly over the next day or two, giving into her about coming to worship is the thing to do.

The story is told of a man who was enjoying a pleasant sleep in bed when his wife suddenly yanked the covers off the bed and announced, “Time to get up and get ready to go to church.”

Meekly, the man told his wife, “I don’t wanna go to church today. Just let me stay here and sleep in this one day.”

Without any compassion, his wife looked at him and said, “Look Bozo, you have to go to church today. You’re the pastor.”

By the way, that is NOT an autobiographical story.

Why come to worship?

Our Scripture Lesson from Isaiah is a great place to look for answers to these questions. For the past 3 thousand years, worship has found its basis in this chapter.

No matter how we change worship from generation to generation, we tend to gravitate back to the sequence that we find in Isaiah. In fact, much of our own order of our worship is based in part on this 6th chapter of Isaiah.

Worship begins with praise and adoration…
“Holy, Holy, Holy!”

Then moves to an awareness of our own sinfulness…
“Woe is me, I am a person of unclean lips.”

Confession leads to an assurance of God’s Grace…
“Your guilt is taken away.”

Then there is the proclamation of the Word and the sending forth into the world…

“Here I am, send me!”

But Isaiah does not just give us an order of worship. His experience gives us some important principles for worship.

I.
First, true worship is not an escape from reality. It is something that happens in the midst of life.

Isaiah begins this passage with an interesting statement. “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord.”

It’s like saying, “In the year the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, I worshipped God.

In the year that Kennedy was assassinated, I worshipped God.

In the year the World Trade Center was attacked, I worshipped God.

In the year that I was married, in the year that my son was born, in the year my friend died, in the middle of life, in the midst of experiences good and bad, I was worshipping the Lord.

Worship in the Sanctuary can never be oblivious to what is happening out there.

Why do we worship God? It is not to escape life out there, it is to deal with life out there.

If you want your worship inside the Sanctuary to be true worship, then you bring in with you all of the baggage of what is happening out in the world.

In the Old Testament Psalms, one writer said (Ps 86:6-7), “Hear my prayer, O LORD; listen to my cry for mercy. In the day of my trouble I will call to you, for you will answer me.”

It is a natural part of worship to bring with you the concerns of your life. We gather here and we bring in the fears of life, the worries of our family, the concerns of the world and we lift them up in prayer, and we seek God’s comfort and guidance.

Why do we worship God?

Did we come because our parents made us? Or our wife nagged us? Or because we didn’t have anything else to do?

No. We are here to worship because our lives are so full of concerns and issues that we have to have someplace to take them.

That is the first principle of worship -- True worship is not an escape from reality. It is something that happens in the midst of life.

II.
The second principle for worship is that true worship focuses on God.

This is where many of us make a mistake.

We assume that worship focuses on us.

I’ve heard many times people talk about how they are struggling in their worship life because they aren’t being fed. Have you ever heard anyone say that? “I’m not being fed. I’m not getting anything out of worship. I’m not being nurtured by worship. I don’t get a blessing out of worship.”

Well, that is a legitimate question with some people, but what concerns me is that I never, ever hear people say anything about whether or not God is being blessed in the worship service.

I never hear anyone concerned about whether or not GOD is enjoying worship.

Why do we worship?

We worship so that WE can get something out of the experience, but we also ought to worship PRIMARILY so that GOD can get something out of it.

And until God gets something out of our worship, we never will. Until God is blessed by our worship, we won’t be blessed.

All too often, we treat worship as something that is supposed to entertain us. But it isn’t. What is most important is that God enjoy the worship experience. We are here to worship HIM. We are here to bless HIM.

In Isaiah, the prophet goes to the Temple, and he says “I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple.” It is the presence of God that fills the worship. One of the principles of worship is that true worship always focuses on God.

III
Another principle of worship is this -- true worship always begins with an awareness of God’s holiness.

We’ve lost something of that in our worship services. There was a time when people were so aware of this aspect of worship that the very churches themselves were being constructed in ways that emphasized the awesomeness of God. It is difficult to walk into one of the cathedrals of Europe built centuries ago without feeling awe and wonder. The quiet, the slight aroma of incense or candles, the artistry of stained glass windows and classical music moves one to acknowledge awe and wonder.

In recent years, theology and worship have emphasized the personal nature of God, the love God, and joy of God to such a degree that for some reason we’ve forgotten that our God is also an awesome God. We have almost reformed God into a “little buddy” or someone to pal around with. We have forgotten that God is such an awesome and holy God that to be in His presence is to be filled with wonder.

When Moses was aware of God’s presence in the burning bush, Moses was overwhelmed.

When Jacob had a dream of a staircase or ladder to heaven, he woke up and was afraid, because he said, “Surely the Lord is present and I didn’t know it.” And the Bible says he was filled with awe.

Time and again, when people are aware of the presence of God, the Bible describes the experience as one filled with awe and even fear.

Why do we worship God? Because He is holy, and His holiness demands our attention.

It is one of the principles of worship that true worship must begin with an awareness of God’s holiness.

IV.
Another principle of worship is that true worship helps us understand ourselves and our shortcomings and to seek God’s forgiveness.

In Isaiah, the heavenly beings sing, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." And immediately, the prophet cries out, “Woe to me!” And he speaks of his own sinfulness.

You cannot come into the presence of God without becoming aware of God’s holiness, and without becoming aware of our own unholiness.

Paul, in his letter to the Romans, said (Rom 3:23), “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” As people who have fallen short of the glory of God, it is impossible to approach his presence without being aware of our own shortcomings and sins.

That is why in our worship, a prayer of confession is always present. And what happens after our prayer of confession?

The answer is in your bulletin in the order of worship. The Assurance of God’s Grace.

Our confession always results in God’s forgiveness. In Isaiah, the prophet becomes aware of the holiness of God, which moves him to become aware of his own sinfulness and to admit that sin. That confession leads to the free forgiveness of sins. In Isaiah the heavenly being symbolically takes a hot coal and touches the lips of the prophet as a gesture that declares his sins are forgiven.

In one of John’s New Testament letters, (I Jn 1:8-9), we are told, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our faults, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from unrighteousness.”

Why do we worship? One reason is to be able to experience that forgiveness. We need to hear the same message the Prophet Isaiah heard. “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

V.
Let me suggest one more principle of worship – true worship makes a difference in our lives.

One of the main reasons why we worship is so that our lives will be different. And the difference should be in terms of service. Worship at its best, always motivates the worshipper to roll up the sleeves and to get to work.

There is a sense in which worship and service must go hand in hand. In the Christian life, one cannot have worship without service to follow.

In our Old Testament lesson, the Prophet Isaiah is in the Temple worshipping God. He hears the call to worship, with angels singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.”

He is moved to confess his sins, which is followed by the assurance of his pardon.

He hears the word of God proclaimed, hearing the voice of God saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

And what follows then is the service.

The work.

The rolling up of sleeves and the reaching out to others.

In the Scripture lesson, the Prophet said, "Here am I. Send me!"

True worship will always result in service. We cannot enter the sanctuary to worship, without departing into the world to serve.

So, why are we here? Why did we come to worship today? We came in here, in part, to be challenged to do something out there.

So the question for us today not why do we worship? Or why do we come to church today when there are other things we could be doing?

The real question is what will we do when we leave this place of worship.

For the prophet Isaiah, he was sent out to speak a message to the people.

But what are we sent out to do?

What is God calling you to do this week?

Who is it in your life that you need to love a little more?

Who is it in your community that you need to reach out to a little harder?

Who is it that you know of who is not coming to worship who should be invited to come here to Chapel by the Sea?

Are we working at God’s Table? Are we signing up for Habitat for Humanity? Are we helping with the youth programs?

We started this morning by asking the question, “Why are we in worship?”

Forget about that question – the more important question is “what now?” What happens when you leave worship?

Copyright 2011, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting http://www.pittendreigh.net/

The Joy of God's Forgiveness

2011-10-16T20:39:00.001-04:00

Psalm 51:1-19

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge. Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem. Then there will be righteous sacrifices, whole burnt offerings to delight you; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

(NIV)

John 8:1-11

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"

"No one, sir," she said.

"Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."

(NIV)

My son came home from school one day to catch me on the telephone.

When my son realized that I was talking with his teacher, he became very anxious.

I hung up the telephone and my son immediately said, “Who was that?”

“That was Mr. Brown,” I said very somberly. “Your teacher.”

“Why were you talking with my teacher?”

“He was telling me some things that were going on at school.”

“What things?”

“Well son, I don’t have time to talk about them now. I have to go visit someone in the hospital. But I promise you we’re going to have a loooong talk when I get home.” And then I headed for the door and just as I was about to walk out, I turned to my son, his face pale, and I said, “When I get home, if you confess to all you’ve been up to, then I promise things will go a lot easier.”

Then I closed the door and headed off to the hospital, and I was gone a long time.

When I got home my son was sitting in the living room waiting for me.

He could not confess fast enough.

He told me about everything!

And as I promised, the punishment was not too severe, but he made a commitment to me that he would never, ever do those things again.

And as far as I know, he didn’t.

I did not have the heart to tell him that what prompted my son’s teacher to call me was that he was inviting all of the parents to an open house.

But, on the other hand I always knew my son was up to mischief at school and needed to confess SOMETHING.

Most of us have something to confess.

And for many of us, what we need to confess is something serious.

Billy Graham once reported that he had spoken with a psychologist who had claimed that more than half of the people in mental hospitals could be released if they could find a way to experience forgiveness. Whatever problems they were having with mental health, this psychologist claimed that their problems were so heavily compounded by a bad conscience that they simply could not find a road to health and recovery. What they needed was a healing that could bring them relief from the guilt and pressures under which they lived.

Our Old Testament reading for this morning was written by a man who had an intimate knowledge of guilt and the need for forgiveness. The author of this reading -- Psalm 51-- was King David, and it was written after a prophet named Nathan had uncovered a double sin that David had tried to keep secret -- adultery and murder.

The way all of this had come about was that David had been on his roof one evening.

In ancient times, roofs were flat and they were often used like we would use a porch or patio. Perhaps David was up there to be alone -- to think about the war that his army was fighting in some distant city. Or perhaps he was thinking of some of the other problems of state. Or perhaps he was simply doing what many of us do when we sit on our porches or patios -- relaxing after a difficult day at work.

At any rate, David soon became aware that he could see--not too far off in the distance -- a woman bathing. She was beautiful. So much so that David could not forget about her. The next day, he asked about her and learned that her name was Bathsheba, and that her husband Uriah, was in David's own army, and away in battle.

David sent for Bathsheba and the two had an adulterous affair. As a result, Bathsheba became pregnant.

King David realized he had done something terrible. He was guilty of a terrible and dishonorable thing, so what did he do to handle his guilt?

Cover up!

Isn't that just like a politician? Isn't that just like all of us?

David sent word for Uriah to come home from battle, pretending that he wanted him to give an official report from the battle front. In reality, he hoped that Uriah would spend the night at home with his wife while in Jerusalem. When the child was born, Uriah would accept it as his own. But Uriah was a soldier and his commitment was such that during wartime, he would only sleep with the other soldiers.

The cover up didn’t work, so David took another step.

This is often the case. We make a mistake. We need relief from our guilt. But we find ourselves getting deeper and deeper, much more so than we ever intended to go.

To cover up his sin, David ordered Uriah back into battle. And then David ordered one of his military leaders to arrange for Uriah to be killed in the battle. And the order was carried out. And Uriah died.

Finally, the king was safe. He could relax. Eventually Bathsheba and David were married and the child was born. But that didn’t last long.

A prophet named Nathan learned about David's actions. He approached the king and in a very skillful way, confronted the king about his terrible deeds.

Suddenly David knew his secret sin was no longer hidden. He had been caught. I dare say that all of us here have lived through that moment, and shared with David the feeling he felt then.

A student cheating on a test, caught by the watchful eye of a teacher.

A wife, cheating in her marriage, caught by the husband.

A respected businessman caught by the IRS for lies he told on his tax forms.

A friend caught by another betraying a trust.

In small ways and large, we have ALL have felt the agony of being found out. Of being caught. David was caught. He felt the agony. He felt the pain of realizing his cover up had failed to hide the ugly truth. And then he felt the need to confess his sin to God.

Which is what he should have done in the beginning. It is the one thing that brings healing. We make mistakes. But we should not waste time trying to cover them up, or trying to un-do the mistake. The mistake is there. The sin is there. Confession is what we need to do. Admit the mistake. Own up to what we have done.

Psalm 51, the Scripture reading for this morning, is a poem written by David that expressed his prayer of Confession after being confronted by Nathan. Through this prayer David experienced the relief of forgiveness.

How can we experience and know that we are forgiven?

By examining this psalm and the historical background of King David we see that there are certain steps in receiving forgiveness.

Confession of our sin is the first step.

Confession is vital, but it is probably absolutely contrary to our nature.

When I was a teenager, I briefly took up the habit of smoking cigarettes. One day when my mother and father were supposed to be gone for the entire day, I sat down to light up a cigarette, and when I was about half way through it, my Dad walked in. “What are you doing? Are you smoking?”

Now I have always thought fast on my feet, so with smoke coming out of my mouth I looked at Dad and asked, “Who? Me?”

The last thing I wanted to do was to admit that I was smoking, even though I was sitting alone in a smoke filled room holding a cigarette.

Now you can laugh at that, but we see grown men and women doing the same thing on the television news every day. Caught red handed, they still deny, deny and deny.

No one, by nature, likes to confess.

But if healing is to come to your soul, that is where we begin.

That is where David finally started to find healing.

As long as David covered up his sin, he could not experience forgiveness -- He had to come to the point where he could confess his sin to God.

You want to experience the joy of forgiveness? Step one is confession. Step two is asking God for mercy.

David admitted his mistake to God. In the Psalm, he said, "Against You and you only have I sinned." Of course, others had been hurt. Bathsheba had lost her reputation and her husband. Uriah had been killed. David had abused the power of his public office and so the trust of the people had been violated. And the infant who had been born as a result of this affair eventually died as an infant.

Nevertheless, David said to God, "Against you and you only have I sinned." For David saw that a sin against another of God's children is a sin against God, and that ultimately any wrong doing is an insult to the love of God.

More than anything else, it is God's love that has been wounded the most. It is God's grace that has been injured.

Therefore if you want to experience the joy of forgiveness, you must first confess your sin TO God, and you must then ask GOD for mercy.

Many people do not experience the joy of forgiveness and freedom from guilt because they believe that God OWES his Children his forgiveness. They believe that they DESERVE God's mercy.

David knew better than this. What sin deserve is justice -- punishment.

Historian Shelby Foote likes to tell a story about an incident that occurred during the Civil War. A very young Soldier has been caught trying to dessert. He enters the tent of General Robert E. Lee himself. The soldier is obviously frightened and Lee tries to put him at ease. "Don't worry son," the General Says, You'll find Justice here."

To which the young solder replies, "That's what I'm afraid of sir."

Our sin deserves justice. Punishment. But what we NEED is mercy. And we need to understand that this mercy that we need is a gift of God, not an obligation of God. It is a gift of God offered to us because he loves us.

And so to experience relief from guilt and to know the joy of forgiveness, first we must confess our sins to God, and secondly, ask for mercy.

Step three is to change.

In the Psalm, David said, "Restore to me the joy of salvation, and then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted."

He was thinking in terms of how he would be changed by forgiveness, how he would then go out and convert others toward God.

In our New Testament lesson, Jesus forgives a woman, who like David, has been caught in the act of adultery. She is about to stoned. Rescued by Jesus and forgiven by him, he tells her, "Go and sin no more."

For forgiveness to take root, it has to be accompanied by a change in ones lifestyle. One of the dangerous patterns that sometimes exist in a family structure is the tendency in some to forgive too freely without any real expectation of change.

Does it do any good for a wife to forgive a husband for an adulterous affair, but then NOT to expect the husband to change?

Is it right to forgive someone who has been abusive to another person without expecting an end to the abuse?

To forgive, without an expectation that there will be a change, does not do anything positive. On the contrary, it simply enables the person to continue the destructive pattern.

Forgiveness makes no demand upon the past. You can't change the past.

But it places a heavy demand on the future. There has to be a change.

We need relief.

We need God's forgiveness.

We find it by confessing our sin to God, asking God for mercy, and then, in the words of Jesus, going and sinning no more.

Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.NET

"It Is Well With My Soul"

2011-10-09T15:07:00.003-04:00

Isaiah 66:10-13
"Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her. For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance."
For this is what the LORD says: "I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; you will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem." (NIV)

Philippians 4:4-11
Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy-- think about such things.
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me-- put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it.
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. (NIV)

I can’t believe God almighty, in the Lord’s infinite wisdom, allowed this church to get struck by lightning.

But it happened.

And in God’s divine sense of humor, the damages amounted to $24 LESS than our insurance deductible.

The electronics in the organ were damaged.

The fire alarm was damaged.

And most aggravating, the Internet went off line. Now you would think that of all the damages, the loss of the Internet would be the one that was the least of our worries, but it turned out to be the most frustrating.

It wasn’t just that I couldn’t check CNN.com for the latest news, it was email from church members I couldn’t retrieve. The church database and directory was offline. And more than that, because of the way the Internet and the computers operate, when we lost the Internet, we also lost the ability to access computer files. Our computers could not communicate with the printers. The printer didn’t want to print more than 20 pages of anything.

We put up with this for a few weeks, and then came a couple of weeks ago when we had to put out not only the bulletin, but the newsletter as well. Try as we might, we couldn’t get the computer to communicate with the printer and finally our secretary Maryann took the newsletter files to her own home, used her own computer, ran off the master newsletter copy on her own computer, took a pair of scissors and literally cut and pasted everything, had to bring it back to the office, and even then there was a team of volunteers waiting – ever so patiently and graciously - for us to finish everything up so they could fold and stuff the newsletters for mailing.

It was an awful week. Filled with anxiety and stress.

And I got to the point that I was ready to quit Chapel by the Sea and become a Forest Ranger, an astronaut, an ice cream truck driver, or cowboy. There were times when I wanted to do those things when I grew up. Maybe now is the time.

And then just the other day it was time for me to work on today’s sermon, and since we had repairmen working on my computer one more and hopeful one last time, I had to come into the sanctuary and use the laptop computer in the media center where the sound and projectors are operated.

I’m sitting there in a dark sanctuary and I look up the Scripture for today’s sermon, and there is Paul in Philippians saying, “Do not be anxious about anything, but with prayer and thanksgiving present your petitions to God…I have learned to be content in any and every situation… Rejoice in the Lord always.”

Like that’s easy to do…

Well, we’ve all been there.

There are times when nothing seems to go right and in spite of what the choir sang a few minutes ago, “It is not well with my soul.”

In the television show THE MIDDLE, a middle class family is struggling through the years of raising three children. The wife of the family, Frankie Heck, reaches her breaking point. The oldest teenager keeps putting his dirty tennis shoes on the kitchen counter, the teenage daughter won’t get out of the shower leaving the mother to shower by using the kitchen sink sprayer, the youngest son gets into some junk mail catalogs and starts ordering junk over the telephone. Later in the day she comes home, sits down on the sofa to watch her television show, and finds a bag of chips open and laying on the sofa. And the bag is practically empty.

“I just bought these,” she shouts out, and then starts eating the tiny pieces left at the bottom of the bag.

And then her daughter comes in, looks at her mother in horror and tells her that one of the kids has put his toe nail clippings in that bag.

Mom rushes to the kitchen sink and begins to clean her mouth out with dishwasher liquid and SOS pads, and then declares, “I’ve had it, I’m out of here!”

And she leaves.

She walks out the door.

One of the kids finally breaks the silence by asking, “Are Moms allowed to do that?”

The mother goes home to her own mother who tells her, “Every woman eventually reaches the point where you have to leave the house, get in the car, drive across the state line, check into the Holiday Inn, and watch all three Smokey and the Bandit movies until you cannot stand Burt Reynolds and you finally go back home.”

There are times when it is not well with our soul.

One of the books I used to read to my son when he was a child was “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.”

The first page starts off this way, “I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

But we’ve all been there.

Bad days.

Bad weeks.

Bad months.

For all of us there are times when it has not been well with our souls.

You go to work to find that you no longer have a job.

You get a telephone call and learn that your best friend has died.

Your doctor tells you the very worst news imaginable.

You go to pay your bills and you have to decide – do I pay the mortgage this month, or do I pay the medical bills.

Bad days.

Bad weeks.

Bad times.

For all of us there are times when it has not been well with our souls.

And then you read in Philippians and there is Paul saying, “I have learned to be content in any and every situation… Rejoice in the Lord always.”

That’s hard to do.

It’s not easy.

But notice, Paul did not say, “I have been given the gift of being content in all situations.” He didn’t imply that it had come suddenly or immediately. He said “I have learned to be content.”

Learning is a process. It is often a painful one. It is often a long one. And it is always incomplete in that you can always learn more.

For example. My father taught me how to change the oil in my car. The first time I did it, I made a mess with the drive way – got oil all over the place. The second time, I did better. The third time it came a little easier. Now, decades later I know exactly how to change the oil in a car.

You get behind the driver’s seat and drive to Jiffy Lube.

OK, maybe that’s not a good example – but the point is that anything we do well in life, we do because we went through a learning process. Learning takes time. It takes practice.

And when Paul said, “I have learned to be content…” he was telling us that it had been a long process for him.

If you want to be able to rejoice in all situations, even those difficult times, you don’t learn it very quickly. It takes time.

The choir sang the anthem a few moments ago, “It is Well With My Soul.”

I love than hymn. It’s not a peppy hymn. It’s not what I would call a joyous toe-tapper.

But the words are so true and it reflects a sincere hymn of someone who has been through difficult times.

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows, like sea-billows, roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul!
There is a story behind this hymn.

It was written by a man named Horatio Spafford over a century ago. He lived a life that was at times filled with awful tragedy.

His only son died in 1871 at the age of four.

Shortly after that the city he was living in suffered a great fire – you know it as the great Chicago fire. It left him and his family financially destroyed. It took a long time to recover.

When he was finally back on his feet again, the family decided to take a vacation – one of those “dream vacations” of a life time. They were headed for Europe, and of course at that time the only way to get there was by sailing the Atlantic Ocean.

Horatio’s business forced him to stay behind and catch a later ship, but he encouraged his wife and four daughters to go on ahead as planned, and he would catch up later.

Tragically, the ship collided with another vessel and both ships quickly sank.

The mother and the four girls survived the collision and were thrown into the sea. The mother tried to keep the girls afloat, but they drowned, and only their mother survived.

Back in Chicago, Horatio received news of his children’s deaths.

He immediately sailed for Europe to be with his wife and during the voyage, the captain of the ship he was sailing on called him to the bridge. Pointing to the chart, the captain told him that they were just passing the spot where the ship with his family had gone down.

Many of us, in such a situation, would have been filled with grief and anger.

But as Horatio walked the deck in his sorrow, his faith was all that sustained him. He was overtaken by a feeling of peace that was beyond his understanding as he thought about how he would see his daughters again in heaven. As he watched the waves rolling on the ocean he recalled the words of our Old Testament Lesson from Isaiah, "For thus says the Lord, I will extend peace to her like a river..." and wrote the words that have come down to us as one of our most enduring hymns:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows, like sea-billows, roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul!

Sometimes things are not well with our souls. But with faith, we can learn the art of that sacred peace that passes all understanding. It is not always a gift given in an instant – it is more often a skill that is slowly nurtured and developed until at last you can say, as did Paul, I “have learned to be content in all situations.”

In May, 1996, I had just moved to Miami and was still living in a temporary apartment that was full of unopened boxes when I received a call from a Presbyterian minister in Tennessee. He wanted me to make a pastoral visit to some of his parishioners who were in a hotel in Miami.

The day before, Value Jet flight 592 had taken off from Miami on its way to Atlanta. Moments after takeoff the jet crashed.

The two or three witnesses who had been fishing in the Everglades at the time said the plane didn’t just crash, it nose dived head on into the Everglades. They knew exactly where the plane had gone down and when rescue helicopters arrived, they found nothing but fuel floating on top of the water. The plane going hundreds of miles per hour had pretty much disintigrated when it hit the concrete-like layer of coral rock under the shallow waters of the Everglades. There were no survivors, and not to be overly graphic, but there were no real bodies left to recover.

One of the families of a victim was Presbyterian and their pastor called on me to visit the family, who had, like all the other families, gathered in a hotel in Miami. Their son was returning home from his first semester at the University of Miami. He was going home for Mother’s Day.

The mother was so deep in grief. She was unable to eat anything at all, but she said that she thought that if I would serve the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, she might be able to eat the bread and drink from the cup.

So I brought my portable Communion kit to a hotel room, and we sat around and I began the simple service.

“The Lord Jesus Christ, on the night of his arrest, took bread, broke it, gave it to his disciples and said, ‘take, eat, this is my body, broken for you.’ And in the same way after supper he took the cup and said, ‘drink from it, all of you.’”

And the mother took the bread and ate it.

She took the cup and drank it.

And others joined us.

And then I joined this family and other families for the evening update. The workers from the crash site met with all of the survivor families twice each day. They very delicately and gently went through the latest news from the search process.

It was, as the children’s book would say, “a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

At one point, the mother whose son died on his way to celebrate mother’s day with her said, “I’ll never again know joy.”

Over the next few days, I met with that family daily frequently. And so many times she said, “I’ll never again know joy.”

Years later I received a letter from her.

“Dear Dr. Pittendreigh, I never thanked you for coming and being with us during our darkest hour. Recovering from our son’s death was a long and hard process. The days were filled with pain. The nights were often sleepless. You brought us the Lord’s Supper in our hotel room, and every time we celebrate that Sacrament in our church here in Tennessee, I think back on that day. I have learned through this God’s love for us was so great, he gave up his only child. I take comfort in knowing that God has experienced what I experienced, that God has felt sorrow, and that God has felt pain. And with each time I take Communion, I feel a little more love and joy, and a little less pain. I have even learned to know joy once again.”

And then she quoted Philippians, “I have learned what the Bible means when it says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

I shared that story a few years later. By that time I was no longer serving a church in Miami, but was in Atlanta. One of the people in the congregation that day was a nurse named Priscilla and after the worship service she came up to me and said, “I need to share something with you. At the door of my home is a frame, and whenever I leave the house, what’s in that frame reminds me how precious life is. No matter what happens in the hospital with equipment, or cost overruns, or staff problems, or the day to day drama that happens in every work place, that frame helps me keep everything in perspective."

Priscilla went onto say that a few years ago she was having to leave Atlanta every few days to visit her mother who was at the end of her life. Priscilla said, "She didn’t even know who I was any more, and she had become very difficult. After one visit, I was so tired and so angry. I’d had it with my mother and I just couldn’t go on any more. I packed my bags and promised I’d never come back. She was going to die and I just didn’t want anything to do with it.

“I got to the airport and just as I was about to board the plane a nurse from hospice called. My mother had a heart attack and was not expected to live through the night. I was told that if I wanted to be with my Mom in her last hours, I needed to come back to the hospice.
“I left the airport, and got into a cab and rode back to the hospice, and all the way all I could think of was having to spend money on another ticket home.

“Mom died within the hour, and as I was leaving hospice for the last time, walking through the lobby, people were gathered around a television watching the news. Value Jet 592 had just crashed in the Everglades. That was the flight I missed a couple of hours earlier. I was ten minutes away from boarding the plane. I have that unused ticket on the door of my house, it’s in a frame, and beneath it, a quotation from Philippians:

The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Copyright 2011, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.NET

Our Treasures

2011-10-02T11:16:00.000-04:00

Philippians 3:4-14
4 If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee;
6 as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
7 But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
8 What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
13 Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
(NIV)

Paul is writing to the Philippians and in his letter he talks about his system of values.
What is the most valuable possession you own?
What do you value in your life?

Years ago, I read in one of Ann Landers' columns an interesting story about a woman who had married a tightwad. This man married a real skinflint and she could never get any thing out him -- not even an extra quarter. He controlled every little bit of money in the household. And he would take his money and put 20% of all of the money he earned, and save it.

But he would save it by putting it under his mattress, because he did not trust banks.
Whenever the woman would ask for money from her husband, he would refuse, and would insist that the money was going to come in handy in their old age.

When the man was 60 years old, he was diagnosed as having cancer. Toward the end, he made his wife promise, in the presence of his brothers, that she would take the money he had stashed under the mattress and put it into his coffin so he could buy his way into heaven if he had to.
They all knew he was a little odd, but this was clearly a crazy request. But sure enough, the wife made the promise.

Then, when the man died, the first thing she did was to take the money to the bank and deposit it in a new account.

But she found a way to honor her promise.

The first check she wrote was for the full amount -- $300,000. She made it payable to cash, so that anyone could cash it, and then -- right before the burial -- she very quietly put it in her dead husband's casket. Let's see him cash that check.

She had the best of both worlds – honoring her husband’s request, and yet also having the ability to spend the money in that account.

We all value the strangest things. We go through life being told, "You can't take it with you," but this man sure tried.

What do you value? What commitments have you made with your life?

In 1923, nine of the world's most successful financiers met at Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel. Financially, they literally "held the world by the tail" -- anything that money could buy was within their grasp -- they were rich -- rich -- rich! Listen to their names and the high position each held:

1. Charles M. Schwab, not related to the Charles Schwab of the famous stock firm, but the president of the largest steel company.
2. Samuel Insull, the president of the largest electric utility company.
3. Howard Hopson, the president of the largest gas company.
4. Richard Whitney, the president of the New York Stock Exchange.

And on down the line. Each person a CEO of a great company, or a person who held enormous wealth and power.

A tremendously impressive group. But let's look at what happened to them a few years later, after the famous Wall Street Crash, the Depression, and World War II.
Twenty five years later, you'd find that
1. Charles Schwab was forced into bankruptcy and lived the last five years before his death on borrowed money.
2. Samuel Insull not only died in a foreign land, a fugitive from justice, but was penniless.
3. Howard Hopson was insane.
4. Richard Whitney had just been released from Sing Sing prison.

And on down the line. Many were poor, some had died, and several had died at their own hands.
Still impressed with this group? A vast amount of talent and potential went down the drain with these men. What happened?

Their lives were out of balance!

They valued the wrong things. They committed themselves to the wrong things of life. What do you value?

It is said that about 200 years ago, the tomb of the great bishop of Europe was opened. The sight the workmen saw was startling. There was his body in a sitting position, clothed in the most elaborate of kingly garments, with a scepter in his bony hand. On his knee lay the Holy Scriptures, with a cold, lifeless finger pointing to Mark 8:36: "For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

What do you value? That is an important question, because if you value the wrong things, you lose meaning to your life. You lose your very soul.

Paul's life, on the other hand, is in perfect balance and harmony, because he knows what he should value. He knows what he needs to be committed to.

Not the money.

Not the fine home.

Not the car.

Not the CD player.

Not the clothing.

Paul said, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
For Paul, nothing was more important than Christ.

Most of us think of Christ as important to our lives. But for most of us, Christ is NOT the most important aspect of our lives.

But for Paul, he said everything else in life was rubbish compared to knowing and following Christ.

Sometimes it takes a crisis in our lives for us to think about what is important -- really important -- in our lives.

Fred Craddock tells a story about friends of his who were missionaries to China many years ago. At one point all missionaries were being forced out of the country. Fred Craddock's friends were told they had 24 hours to leave. Each adult missionary would be allowed to take with them 400 pounds of luggage, but nothing more.

So the missionaries began to ask themselves, what is it that we value? What are those things that are most important to us?

The typewriter? No. Too heavy and too easily replaced.

The vase that has been in the family for generations? Yes. Pack that.

The family photos? Sure.

The candlesticks the church had given them in honor of their work? Hard to say. They mean a lot, but they are so heavy. Set them aside, we'll decide later.

Finally, they had their luggage. Each adult missionary had packed 400 pounds each. They had measured and remeasured and they had left no room for error.

They got to the boat docks and they were being checked out by the authorities when one of the Chinese officials said, "Did we not explain this to you? The 400 pounds includes your children."
So much for the candlesticks, the vase that belonged to great grandmother and many of the other items they thought they had valued.

In the moment of the crisis it had become clear what they really valued most.

We live in an age that seems to value all of the wrong things.

We put great value on the home, but not on the family within the home.

We take time for golf, but not for Christ.

We want to be served by others, but we've forgotten how to be servants of God.

We really don't know what we value most.

There is a point in the Gospels when people are ready to make a commitment to Christ, but Christ turns them away.

Why? Because to be committed to Christ is an all or nothing experience.

You can't make half a commitment to Christ.

It is all or nothing. Because God's commitment to us, was all and total.
In Luke's Gospel, (Luke 9:57-62), Jesus encounters a man who says; "I will follow you wherever you go."

Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

"He said to another man, "Follow me." But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family." Jesus replied, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

I think we all value Christ; otherwise we would not be here today.

We have a commitment to Christ.

But how deep is our commitment?

We cannot follow Christ with half of our heart.

We cannot be half way committed to him.

Christ himself rejected such followers, telling them that it was better for them not to follow at all, if they could not follow all of the way.

What do you value?

If you do not value Christ above all things,
if you have not committed yourself to Christ above all things,
then you have no commitment to Christ at all. Your life is out of balance.

It is an easy thing to value Christ.

It is a difficult thing to value him above all other things in our lives.

How can that be possible?

Tom Long is a friend of mine who served a church in Georgia as a pastor. A man came into his office he hadn't seen in years. A high school buddy he'd lost track of.

Tom greeted his friend with open arms. The laughed and talked about old times. They talked about this. They talked about that. And finally, they talked about IT.

Tom's friend said, "You know I'd heard you'd become a minister, so I thought I'd look you up. I really need to talk to someone about my life. I don't seem to value anything. Nothing is important to me. And that bothers me. I've been thinking about it, and I've come to the conclusion that my problem is that I'm not committed to anything.

Tom told me that he had just written a stewardship sermon, and he was tempted to preach it to his friend right then and there. "You better believe your life won't count for anything, so you'd better get your life in order and find something to be committed to." But then, it dawned on Tom that this might not be the right approach. He looked at his friend and said, "I hear you saying you don't believe you are committed to anything. I'm wondering if what you're really feeling is, 'no one is committed to you.'"

Paul was not committed to anything, until he learned how committed Christ was to him.
Paul is in the midst of a crisis. He is in prison. He is writing a letter to the Philippians and he says, "Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him."

Christ is fully committed to us.

Therefore we need to be -- we are able to be -- fully committed to him.

Most of us are not.

We value our CD collection, we value our car, and we value our home.

And we value Christ -- but He is way down the list of priorities. There are things in our lives that are more important than Christ.

Which is sad, because Christ is so fully committed to us.

The Apostle John wrote in his letter (I John 4:18-19), "We love because he first loved us."
Elsewhere, John says, (I John 4:10), "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."

What do you value?

What are you committed to?

Before you answer that question, you need to know how deeply committed God is to you.

What does God value?

You.

What is God committed to?

You.

The most familiar text in the entire Bible comes from John 3:16, where it says, "God so loved the world that He gave his only son so that whoever believed in him would not perish, but have eternal life."

God did not wait for you to commit to him.

He made that commitment to us long ago.

And for Paul, his commitment comes as a result of knowing that God values him.

And for John, his commitment comes as a result of knowing that God loves him.

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011All Rights Reserved

“Enemies at the table of God”

2011-09-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

Philippians 2:1-13If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-- not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-- continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (NIV) As time moves on, we see great new things in our culture, and we also grieve over the loss of other things.

One thing that is nice for parents today is that kids in the car have hand held computer games, and phones to keep them occupied on long trips. Many have DVD players in the cars so the kids can watch movies on long trips. Oh how I wish they had been around when my son was younger.

I wonder – do kids still yell out from the back seats, “Daddy, how many more miles?”

But with that great new thing, we also grieve over the loss of other things. When I was a child, we would tell stories in the car on long trips – and we would sing.

Today no one sings on long trips, but that was one of the highlights of family vacations in the 1950s and 60s. Singing in the car.

I still like to sing – much to my wife’s dismay.

Every morning while getting ready for work, I’ll break out in song. Do you ever do that?

Well, that is basically what is happening in our New Testament lesson.

Paul is breaking out in singing, singing the words of what is a familiar
hymn to that congregation in the city of Philippi.

Part of our Scripture lesson for today is actually a hymn that Paul is quoting.

Scholars know this part of the letter to the Phillippians is a hymn for several reasons. It has, in the Greek language, the meter and style of music.

Now, why would Paul do that. It is more than just a simple point he wants to make. Why quote a song?

Well, whenever you quote anything, music or otherwise, it conveys facts and information. They also convey something emotional.

For example.

In Texas, if you hear the phrase, "Remember the Alamo," that conjures up not only a historical remembrance, but an emotional one as well, as people remember the soldiers who fought at the Alamo.

Or take the phrase, "Read my lips, 'no new taxes,'" and what comes to mind is a recollection of a presidential candidate and broken promises. And perhaps the emotion that is evoked is that of cynicism.

And that is what Paul is doing. He is not just communicating some facts, or information. He is trying to convey something emotional.

He writes a letter to the church of Philippi, and in the middle of the letter, he begins to sing a familiar hymn.

Oh, it's not familiar to us. The tune has long been lost. But it would have been familiar to these Christians.

Let's imagine for example, a young man leaves home and goes into the Navy. He is far from home and is having a difficult time. He misses his home. He misses his family. He misses his friends. In a few days he will be going to sea and will be gone for a long time, and this magnifies the loneliness.

Day after day he waits for the mail, hoping for a letter from friends and family, but on most days, there is none.

Then one day, gets a letter. A real letter.

The letter is from his youth leader back in his home church.

"Dear Jimmy," the letter begins. "I know these are difficult times for you. I know you feel lonely and far from home. I want you to remember that I am praying for you, and so are all the other members of the youth group. As you begin your tour at sea, remember our prayers are with you.

Eternal Father, Strong to Save,
Whose arm has bound the restless wave,
Who bade the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep.
Oh hear us when we cry to thee,
For those in peril on the sea.

Now, what that does for Jimmy is that it transports him back into the worship service. It produces not just a picture, but feelings of being back in his home church, standing in his own pew. In his mind, she can hear the organ cranking out the notes. He can hear his great Aunt Lucille singing beside him. He hears the song. He's back in worship. No matter what Jimmy does for the rest of the day, he has that tune of the Navy Hymn stuck in his mind.

When Paul begins to sing a hymn in the middle of his letter, he is not just trying to convey information. He is transporting them to the worship service.

At this point in the letter of Paul to the Philippians, the apostle is addressing concerns he has about the conflicts and divisions that are taking place in the church of Philippi.

We're not sure what these conflicts and divisions were all about, and I'm not sure they matter. Because on one level or another, almost every church has them at times.

So Paul tells them, "Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ... Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:"

And then Paul beings to sing.

"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

What Paul is doing is telling the Phillippians to treat each other as if they are always in the midst of worship.

That's good advice.

Imagine how differently we would treat each other if we always acted as if we were in the House of God.

I had an interesting experience in a church sanctuary some time back.

I had been asked by the Presbytery to visit a church that was in serious conflict. I was part of a team of several ministers who attended a congregational meeting. The meeting was very intense.

The sad part of that meeting is that Presbytery had sent us into that church not only to try to resolve the conflict, but to fire the pastor.

The congregation was clearly polarized with half the members on one side of an issue, and the other half on the other side. Each side had collected a long list of grievances against one another and had built up resentment and bitterness and anger.

Well, we tried our best during the meeting, but I'm not sure we accomplished anything.

I was thankful when the meeting was over and was walking past the Lord's Table, on my way toward the closest exit, when one of the church members walked right up to me and blocked my path.

He had become angry because I had refused to take his side during the congregational meeting. He was one of the supporters of the pastor and he was angry that Presbytery had stepped in and terminated the pastor's job. This member not only expressed his anger verbally. He actually began to threaten me.

For a brief moment, I knew this man was going to assault me, physically, right there in the Sanctuary.

The thought went through my mind that I could try to defend myself.

But we were right there beside the Lord's Table, and the picture of a minister and an elder fist fighting in the Sanctuary was so offensive, I decided to follow Jesus' mandate to turn the other cheek.

Besides, I consoled myself, if I don't hit back, maybe he'll only hit me once and it'll be over with.

Just then, in an instant before the elder hit me, the very pastor whom I'd been responsible for firing a short time earlier, stepped between us and came to my rescue.

All he said was, "You are in the Lord's House. He is watching every move we take. He is listening to every word we say. He is aware of every thought we have."

With those words, my adversary stepped back and let me leave.

Paul tells the Philippians, "think about being in the worship service. Listen to the organ music. Imagine the feel of the pews as you sit. Hear the words of the songs the choirs sing.

"And once you imagine that you are in the House of God, experiencing worship, remember this...

"Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus."

That's a tough order Paul gives the Philippians -- and us.

We have to be like-minded?

We have to have love for one another?

We can't do anything out of selfish ambition?

We have to consider others better than ourselves?

That's easy to do, in here.

We're not breaking out in fights, in here.

We're expressing love for one another, in here.

We're considering other peoples interests, in here.

But, out there in the world, it is different.

Look at the way we drive. We don't drive defensively. We drive offensively. We drive selfishly.

Look at the way we treat our neighbors. If they are in need, we ignore them. If they are different from us, we ridicule them.

We are driven by anger, selfish ambition and vain actions.

But Paul says we shouldn't do that.

We should treat each other the same as we treat each other in here, in worship.

I had two elders in my first pastorate who had some sort of a falling out. I was never sure what happened between them, but they absolutely detested each other. It was awkward because during session meetings, they would often ignore each other. When they didn't ignore each other, they were putting each other down and being very insulting and degrading.

Finally, one day they were both scheduled to work together in serving Communion to the congregation. This was quite by accident, because they usually refused to serve together, and the worship chairperson knew this and never, ever scheduled them together.

But one Sunday, by mistake, they were both scheduled to assist in the Communion service. They both came forward to help pass out the elements, without noticing each other until they were actually at the Table.

When I saw them both come forward, I became very anxious, because I really believed one or the other of them would actually walk out, and refuse to serve with the other.

But neither made a scene. Neither one walked out. They both picked up the plates and passed the bread. Then they both took the trays of wine and passed them around the congregation.

With much relief, the service went smoothly and when it was over, everyone went home.

Except for the elders. Because in that church, we had session meetings on Sundays after church. And it so happened this was the Sunday the session was meeting.

And a strange thing happened that Sunday. It was the best Session meeting we'd had in months. The two elders who hated one another, began to talk to one another, and work with one another.

They weren't about to hug one another, but it was a definite improvement.

As time went on, the relationship continued to slowly improve.

A few months later, the two of them came to the church office together and began to tell me about this idea they had been working on to start a new ministry. They wanted to organize a monthly outing for the youth of the church, and they wanted to be the ones to organize it.

Well, I couldn't contain myself any more. I asked what had happened to change their relationship.

"Well, preacher, it all started one Sunday when the two of us were scheduled to serve Communion together. It suddenly dawned on me that when we are both dead and gone, and sitting in heaven, God would probably make us sit together at every Communion Service. So we'd better start working things out."

That was Paul's point entirely.

We need to treat each other OUT THERE, the same way we treat each other IN HERE, IN WORSHIP.

It is a tough order.

We'd rather live out our lives out there, as if God is in here, and not out there.

As if God doesn't see us.

But he does.

When you are rude, hateful, or disrespectful of someone out there -- would you act that way if the two of you were standing next to the Lord's Table?

When you are selfish and vain and self centered out there -- would you be that way when you are standing at the Lord's Table?

It's easy to behave yourselves as godly people while you're in the Lord's House.

We need to carry that attitude out there, into the world.

As Paul said, "Make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus."

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011
All Rights Reserved

Stand Firm

2011-09-18T13:46:00.001-04:00

Philippians 1:21-30
For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me. Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you. This is a sign to them that they will be destroyed, but that you will be saved-- and that by God. For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him, since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have.

If there is one person in the Bible who seemed to have a firm faith, it is St. Paul. Paul in his writings in the New Testament is always talking in terms of “I am convinced.” “I am persuaded.” “I know.”

But strangely, there came a time when some of Paul’s friends were worried that he might develop a crisis of faith.

His friends were in the church of Philippi. And they were very concerned about their brother – their father and mentor in the faith.

Paul was in prison for preaching about the Christian Faith. Now they know that Paul has been in prison before, but this is different. In fact, Paul may well be near to death by execution for his faith.

So in their concern for Paul, and in order to encourage him, they collect some gifts, possibly in the form of money, to be sent to him by one of their own members.

And it works. Paul is encouraged by the actions of the Philippians, and he in turn tells the Philippians that they should also stand firm in the faith.

That is a strange reversal.

The Philippians are worried about Paul standing firm in the faith because he is in prison.

But Paul, in turn, is worried about the Philippians standing firm in their faith because they have to live out their faith in the day to day world.

And Paul tells the Philippians church, "Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then ... I will know that you stand firm.”

It is hard to stand firm in the faith.

Day after day after day.

I mean it’s one thing to come to church and sing the old familiar hymns.

1. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in God's excellent Word!
What more can be said than to you God hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

But on Monday morning, it may be different.

How do you live a Christian life in an unchristian world?

How does a young person stand firm against taking drugs?

How does a person maintain integrity at work?

How do you stand firm?

It is interesting that Paul uses this phrase about standing firm twice in this very brief letter to the Philippians.

First, he uses it here in the first chapter, and then he uses it at the end of the book, in the last chapter. And at the end of the book he says, “Therefore, my brothers ... that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!"

By using the phrase that way, it is as if Paul is saying that the entire book of Philippians is concerned with how to stand firm in the faith.

How does one stand firm in the faith?

First, Paul says, "Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you."

To follow that example and that pattern is to follow the Word of God.

There is a verse from the Old Testament which asks the same question we are asking today. How does one stand firm? Or as Psalm 119 expressed it, "How can a young man keep his way pure?" And the answer the Psalmist gives is, "By living according to your word."

How does a teenager with raging hormones within, crying out for sexual fulfillment, stand firm against sexual temptations?

There is a Proverb in the Old Testament in which a father warns his son, "For the lips of an adulteress drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil; but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword." (Proverbs 5:3-4) Then the father goes on to exhort the young man to listen and not forsake the teachings of the Word of God.

How does a person in business resist the easy, unethical practices that everyone else seems to do? In the Old Testament book of Leviticus, God instructs the people to use honest business practices. "Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. Use honest scales and honest weights ... Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the LORD." In other words, don't forget God's Word when you go to work in the morning.

When workmen began to renovate Theatre London in London, Ontario, they were determined to save the theatre's greatest glory -- its splendid arch with its hand-painted murals. During the project's early stages they discovered that one side of the arch was supported by nothing more than a broken brick standing on loose sand. A steel support was hastily erected before the arch collapsed!

That's the Word of God in our lives. We can survive without it, just like that arch building in Ontario did fine without having a strong support. But if any significant stress would come along, everything would be in danger of collapsing.

And life has stress all the time – and that’s when we need the Word of God to keep our lives from collapsing.

Keep focused on the laws and decrees of God. Keep focused on the Word of God.

That is the first thing we must do in order to stand firm. Look to the Word.

A second thing we need to do is to Look to Home. I don't mean our earthly home, but our heavenly home.

Paul says, "For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven."

I heard an account of the Freedom Riders on NPR radio not long ago. The Freedom Riders were those groups of people who would ride the busses through parts of the Deep South during the early 1960s as part of the Civil Rights movement. In one town of Alabama the people were removed from the bus by the police and taken to jail. Now the eyes of the entire nation were on this, so the police were very discrete in their attempts to demoralize the group. The first thing they did was to bring the Freedom Riders food, but it was so heavily salted, no one could eat it. The second thing they did was to taunt the prisoners. The salty food didn't break the spirit of the group. The taunting didn't break the spirit of the group. But then the police came up with another plan. One by one, the police removed the mattresses, so there were more prisoners than bed spaces. As time passed, the group began to compete for the mattresses.

The morale was just about to be broken, when someone began singing, "Amazing Grace."

Then another joined into the singing.

And another.

Until the whole jail block was singing in unison, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind, but now I see."

The police officers came in to see what the problem was.

And then someone took one of the remaining mattresses, and pushed it through the bars.

And then another, and another until there were no mattresses left.

In the interview, one of the Freedom Riders reflected on his experiences from those many years ago and said, "We started thinking of ourselves as prisoners. We started thinking that we belonged in prison. That was our mistake. Once we were able to remember that we were just passing through, we didn't care if we had mattresses or not. After all, we weren't going to need them to sleep on a week down the road. Remembering that we were just passing through helped us put up with anything the police could throw at us. You can salt my food, you can taunt me, you can take away the mattresses and do whatever you can think of to make my life miserable, but you cannot take away the faith on which I'm standing firm."

If we keep our minds focused on the fact that we don't belong on earth, but that we belong in heaven, we will stand firm in our faith.

Paul, in another one of his letters, wrote, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Cor 4:16-18)

If we want to stand firm, we need to keep our eyes fixed on our heavenly citizenship.

So, we need to look to the Word, and we need to look toward our heavenly home.

And finally, we need to look to the future.

Paul said, "And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."

James said in his New Testament letter, (James 5:8) “You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord's coming is near."

Peter tells us (2 Pet 3:10-14) in his New Testament book, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him."

When I was in college, one of my fellow students lived in the same dormitory, right down the hall from me, and I would frequently visit him in his room.

He was not a good student. Not because he didn't have the ability to study and learn, but because he enjoyed too many parties. He was having too good of a time at school.

One day I walked into his room and hanging in his room, in full view, was a graduation cap and gown. Right next to it, hanging on the wall, was a frame. But it was an empty frame. I asked him what that was all about.

"I hung those up there to remind my why I'm really here," he said. "More than anything, I want to graduate college, but at night and on weekends, I forget about a college degree and graduation and I think about having a good time. Someday, I plan to wear that cap and gown, and someday, I'm going to put a college diploma into that frame."

Standing firm is not easy.

It doesn't matter if you are fighting oppression and working for social change, or if you are a young person surrounded by friends who use drugs, trying to stand firm against taking drugs.

Or a teenager with raging hormones within, crying out for sexual fulfillment, trying to stand firm against sexual temptations?

Or a person in business trying to resist the easy, unethical practices that everyone else seems to do.

How do you live a Christian life in an unchristian world?

Look to God's Word.

Look beyond this world to your heavenly home.

Look into the future, when Christ will return and rule over this world.

Copyright 2011. All rights reserved by the author.

Where Was God Ten Years Ago?

2011-09-11T19:00:00.000-04:00

Isaiah 40:1-9

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD's hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: "In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken." A voice says, "Proclaim a message." And I said, "What message shall I proclaim?" "All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever." You who bring good tidings to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, "Here is your God!"(NIV)

Here it is September – ONLY September, and already we’ve had a year’s worth of disasters and tragedies.

In January 37 people were killed and 180 others were wonded when a bomb blew up at the International Airport in Moscow, Russia.

In March, over 15,000 people were killed and 8,000 remain missing after the terrible tsunami that struck Japan.

In July 76 people were killed in twin terrorist attacks in Norway after a bombing in Oslo, followed by a lone gunman shooting and young people at a camp.

A few weeks ago there were terrible floods in the northeastern states as states that are not normally hit by hurricanes had to deal with Irene.

Just a few days ago, seven people were killed in an IHOP restaurant in Carson City, Nevada when a gunman opened fire on a dozen people, possibly targeting a group of National Guardmen.

The world is a dangerous place.

Bad things happen in this world.

It is not safe. It is not secure.

And for the past few days, we have been reminded of that truth. There is a high security alert in our nation. New York and Washington DC are particularly being careful with the reports of a group of terrorists who may, or may not, have left Pakistan for US soil in preparation for something that may, or may not, happen today.

Today, of course, is a terrible anniversary.

The newspapers, magazines, blogs, television programs, have been examining how we have changed in the past ten years, and reflecting on what happened ten years ago.

Ten years.

For the most part the children who come forward for the Children’s Devotionals were born after the events of ten years ago. Or at the very least, they are too young to remember those events.

One plane crashing into a tower of the World Trade Center.

Another plane crashing into the other tower.

Another plane crashing into the Pentagon.

Another plane crashing into a field in Pennsylvania on their way to a target that, thankfully, they never reached.

Innocent people jumping out of windows, preferring death by falling over death by fire.

Brave men and women walking up stairways to do their jobs as fire fighters, and to give up their lives.

And for those of us who are Christians the world looks at us and asks – either with a sneer or with sincere hope – “What does your Bible say about this? What does God say when bad things like this happen in our world?”

Or to put it as was put to the Old Testament prophet in today’s reading from Isaiah put it, people want us to "Comfort the people. Proclaim a message."

And in response, most of us say to ourselves what we do not want to say to others – and it’s the very same response Isaiah had. “What message do I proclaim?" What can one say in times like these?

It is an old question. It was asked by Isaiah in our Old Testament lesson thousands of years ago.

As long as there have been human tragedies, there has been the demand, "Comfort them, encourage them, proclaim a message."

With that demand there has always brought back that crippling and paralyzing question, "What can I say? What message can I proclaim."

It is not just a question asked ten years ago at the terrorist attacks of 9-11, nor is it a question when we reflect on the somber anniversary ten years later about that sort of terrorist act.

It is a question to be asked in all too many national, and personal, situations.

At the dawn of time, two parents sit quietly. They wonder why their two sons have fought and why they could not have loved one another. Now word has come that Cain has killed his brother Able and the two parents sit and wonder.

Each wants to say something of comfort, but both are crippled by the question, "What can I say?"

Years pass. Not just centuries, but millennia pass by as nations and empires rise and fall, wars are fought, and discoveries are made, and the question still remains in the moment of every tragedy - "What can I say?"

It is a question you have lived out in your own lives.

A relative is fired from a job. What can I say?

The fabric of a marriage is ripped apart and your two best friends become enemies with each other. What can I say?

A neighbor's child has died. What can I say?

Later today there may be a terrorist attack. Or next week there may be a lone gunman killing students in a school. Or next month there may be a natural disaster killing hundreds.

And we will ask ourselves, “What can I say?”

The question in Isaiah is a living question and a haunting question. "Proclaim a message," declares the Voice.

"What message shall I proclaim," replies Isaiah.

What do you say in the midst of human suffering?

Maybe if we could understand the answer to the question of why God allows this or that to happen, then we would find comfort for our friends and neighbors.

"Why" is a natural question to ask when facing tragedy.

Frederick Buechner, in his book Wishful Thinking, has a brief essay on the life of Job, the Old Testament character who suffered so much.[1] His children die, his property is destroyed, and his health gives way to a painful disease. Buechner says that while Job never takes his wife's advice and curses God, he comes very close to it. What Job doe do is to ask some unpleasant questions.

"If God is all he's cracked up to be, how come houses blow down on innocent people? Why does a good man die of cancer in his prime while old men who can't remember their names or hold their water go on and on in nursing homes forever? Why are there so many crooks riding around in Cadillac’s and so many children going to bed hungry at night?”

Job's friends offer an assortment of theological explanations, but God doesn't offer one. God doesn't explain."

If we would try to comfort those in sorrow by trying to give some explanation as to why God does what he does or allows what he allows, then we have a problem. Beuchner is right about what Job discovers. God doesn't always explain.

In our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 40, there is a haunting phrase that reminds us, "No one understands the thoughts of God."

If you want to deal with tragedy and suffering by asking “why” then are asking the wrong question – because it is a question that cannot be answered. We will spend decades asking why a group of terrorists took over planes and highjacked them and flew them into buildings ten years ago. It’s been 12 years since the shooting at the Columbine school, and we still don’t have satisfying answers to that tragedy. Why did Martin Luther King have to die so young, or President Kennedy. Name any tragedy – personal or global – and trying to find out why God let these things happen is to ask the wrong question.

The “why” is a difficult question, and we are not always given clear answers. But there is another, more important question, that will always have an answer.

Not – Why did God let this happen?

But rather, a better question is – Where was God when this happened?

Elie Wiesel is a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust of the Second World War. In his book, Night, tells a story of one of the executions he witnessed. It was an hanging of three people. Two were adults, but one was a child. The three victims were forced to sit in chairs on the gallows. Nooses were secured around their necks. The two adults cried out to the witnesses "Long live liberty," but the child was silent. One of the witnesses near Wiesel asked quietly, "Where is God? Where is He?"

The chairs were tipped and the three were hung. The adults died quickly. The child survived for more than half an hour, his body too light to secure a quick death from the rope.

Watching this child struggle between life and death, Wiesel felt a voice within say, "Where is God? Here He is. He is hanging here on the gallows."[2]

While the question "why" often does not have an answer, the question of "where" always does. The answer is "here."

God is here with us and present with us in our suffering and in our tragedy.

That is the answer that the prophet Isaiah came up with in our Old Testament lesson. In verse nine we read, “Your God is HERE.”

Where is God when we suffer? He is here, with us, in our sufferings, waiting to lead us through the journey of grief to a destination of comfort.

The sad thing is that God is present with everyone, but not everyone realizes and experiences that presence.

The Amazon River is the largest river in the world. The mouth is 90 miles across. So much water comes from the Amazon that they can detect its currents 200 miles out in the Atlantic Ocean. One irony of ancient navigation is that sailors in ancient times died for lack of water--caught in windless waters of the South Atlantic. They were adrift, helpless, dying of thirst. Sometimes one ship would approach another and beg for help. “We’re out of water,” they would say. “Can you spare any water?” The other ship would simple tell them to drop their buckets, because the waters they were in were not salty, but still fresh water from the Amazon River. (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988 p. 242.)

The irony of our world is that we are all in the presence of God, but we don’t let ourselves experience His comforting presence. Like the ancient sailors dieing of thirst because they think the sea is salty, when all the time it is fresh water from the Amazon – we suffer alone without reason. God is right here in our midst, and many don’t realize it. So they don’t find the comfort.

In the Old Testament, Isaiah is told to comfort the people, and to proclaim a message. And Isaiah asks, “what message do I proclaim?”

And the answer is, “Your God is here.”

Believe in the presence of God. And be comforted.

[1] Frederick Buechner, WISHFUL THINKING. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1973,pages 46-47.

[2] Elie Wiesel, NIGHT. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972.

Lists, Lists, Lists

2011-08-28T18:57:00.000-04:00

Romans 16:1-16

1 I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Cenchrea.

2 I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me.

3 Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.

4 They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

5 Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.

6 Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.

7 Greet Andronicus and Junias, my relatives who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

8 Greet Ampliatus, whom I love in the Lord.

9 Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys.

10 Greet Apelles, tested and approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.

11 Greet Herodion, my relative. Greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord.

12 Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord.

13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me, too.

14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas and the brothers with them.

15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas and all the saints with them.

16 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send greetings.

(NIV)

There are many wonderful texts from the Bible.

There are texts from the Bible that inspire.

There are texts from the Bible that bring to the eye, a tear.

There are those texts from the Bible that answer so clearly our questions of life that we suddenly feel the presence and power of God with such reality.

Our Scripture reading from Romans is none of the above. It is not a wonderful, much beloved passage. Few have probably said "My whole life changed that night in a hotel room when I picked up a Gideon's Bible and turned to Romans 16:1 and read, "Say hello to Mary."

Do not feel guilty if during the course of reading this text, you did not feel inspiration, or emotion, or some spiritual insight.

I suppose that the best way to describe this text is to simply say that this is boring stuff.

But I believe what the Bible says about itself in

2 Timothy 3:16, when it says, "All Scripture is God-inspired and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness."

Now if we really believe that ALL Scripture is inspired by God, then we must believe that even those texts that ON THE SURFACE seem mundane, must have a great deal to teach us.

And yes, there are portions of the Bible that ON THE SURFACE may seem somewhat "dull."

After all, take a look at what we read. Romans 16 is nothing more than a LIST, and what could be more mundane and more boring than a list?

I can remember when I was in the 9th or 10th grade, I decided to read through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation.

I did pretty well at first.

There's the creation of the universe, sex, murder, the flood that wipes out everyone but Noah's family.

Then came chapter 10....

Gen 10:1-3

1 This is the account of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah's sons, who themselves had sons after the flood.

2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech and Tiras.

3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.

(NIV)

That's it. Dead stop for me.

Page 12, and only a 1,219 more to go and I'm finished. Can't make it through the list.

A few months latter, I'd rededicate myself to the goal of reading through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and I'd start once again at Genesis chapter 1 verse 1. And again, I'd do fine, until Page 12.

Gen 10:6-7

6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Mizraim, Put and Canaan.

7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.

(NIV)

This pattern repeated itself over and over until finally one day I realized, "Hey, I could skip this part." So I did and I found there were lots of things in the Bible that were interesting -- none of the interesting things were lists, however.

I come to Romans 16 and I think, "Oh man, not another list with a lot of hard to pronounce names. And if there is one thing I hate it is a name that is unusual and hard to pronounce."

Paul says hello to Priscalla and Aquila. Say

hello to Mary. Say hello to Rufus. Say hello to Asyncritus, Phiegon, Hermes, Patrobas, ...

Boring.

Sometimes, the phone book is not so boring. Sometimes, a list of names can be rather interesting.

A few years ago, a new memorial was built in this nation. We have so many memorials already. The Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Memorial to the Unknown. And a few years ago, there was another memorial built. And when it was unveiled, it was criticized. One columnist wrote, "Who wants to visit this memorial, after all, its just a list of names. Thousands of names. It's like reading a -- phone book!"

But these names were names of Soldiers who fought in the Vietnam War and who never returned. And this memorial that is simply a list of names is now one of the most frequently visited memorials in the nation. On any given day you see people visiting that list, that memorial. You might see a disabled veteran staring up from his wheel chair at the names of those friends he left behind.

A man lifts a child, and points to a name of an uncle the child never met.

A woman reaches out and touches a name of her husband.

An elderly man reaches out to touch the list, running his fingers down and across the list of names until he comes to one -- and his finger stops.

It is his son.

Sometimes, a list is emotional, and powerful, and filled with meaning.

You see, it all depends on what, or who, is behind the list. Names printed in a phone book are not that interesting, names chiseled into a granite memorial are dull -- until you connect a person to the name. And then the name becomes alive. And the list becomes interesting.

And the same is true with this list from Romans. It is boring, as long as they are simply names. But begin to

understand the people behind these names, breathe life into these names, and the list becomes interesting.

I'm sure you don't recall the names on the list from Romans 16, but if you were to read it again, you would find on this list a husband and wife, Aquilla and Priscilla.

There is a man and his mother, Rufus and his mother.

There is a brother and sister, Andronicus and Junias.

There are sisters, Tryphaena and Tryphosa.

There is an old man,

There is a single man,

There is a single woman,

There are men and there are women.

In fact one of the women is referred to as an apostle whose conversion preceded Paul's.

There are names which imply wealth. And there are names that were common for slaves.

It may well be that this is the most inclusive, multi-cultural, ethnically diverse gathering of people to be found in Scripture.

If anything, this list reminds us that God welcomes all people, regardless of educational background, economic standing, race or gender.

We are facing a historic election in this country. No matter who wins, we will have as Vice President a woman, or a President who is Black.

It is a first.

But it has raised within some of us fear, a reminder that the nation is changing. I’ve had so many people tell in recent weeks that they could not vote for a Black man to be President – they don’t consider themselves racist, but now they are facing a part of their soul that is, indeed racist.

On the other hand, others have shared with me that they could never vote for a woman to be Vice President, because they do not believe women to be capable of leading the country. They also have said that they don’t consider themselves sexist, but now they are facing a part of their soul that is, indeed sexist.

The fact is that this election is forcing us to face some of our biases, and America is growing up, becoming more American, in which all people are created equal.

We look at Romans and we are reminded in this list that God calls us to look beyond color or gender, beyond educational background or economic standing, and to see each other as children of God.

Romans 16.

A mildly interesting list.

But not for Paul, it is not mildly interesting. It is vitally interesting.

And it is not a list.

Don't call it a list.

It is the church.

Paul says to say hello to Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Two sisters, their names mean dainty and delicate. Sounds like twins, don't they -- Tryphaena and Tryphosa. I bet they always went places dressed alike.

Reminds me of two people in a church I served in South Carolina -- Reba and Ruth. One tall, one short, both in their 70's, but both always dressed alike. I had a hard time learning to tell them apart.

At the end of each week's service, I'd say, "hello Ruth," and she would look at me and say, "No, I'm Reba." Then the next week, I'd greet one of them with, "Hello Reba," and she would say, "No, I'm Ruth."

It took me a month to catch on. You see it didn't matter if I was right or wrong, the sister I was addressing would always claim to be the other one.

The whole church was in on it. And it totally confused me. To this day, I have to stop and think, is it Reba, or Ruth.

Oh, by the way, don't get any ideas about how to treat your still-new pastor!

Tryphaena and Tryphosa. I wonder if they played that same joke on Paul that Reba and Ruth had played on me.

Paul says to say hello to Aquilla and Priscilla. Husband and wife. Paul had met them when he was setting up the church at Corinth and they became missionaries with Paul, going with him to Ephesus. Now-- years later, this husband and wife team are still hard at work for the Lord. This time in Rome.

You know people like that -- husbands and wife teams -- both always at work for the Lord. I don't know anyone named Aquilla and Priscilla, but I do know other folks just like that.

They go by names such as Barney and Martha. Or Frank and Elizabeth. I've met them in every church. I've met them here. Two of them were here yesterday – on the day of their wedding anniversary, they were here working with Larry, vacuuming the church, cleaning the church, preparing the church for worship. I won’t embarrass them by sharing their names, but I don’t need to – you see husband and wife teams working for the Lord all the time, and you know who they are.

Say hello to Stachys, says Paul. An interesting name. It means "an ear of corn." Farm boy I bet. The kind who never goes anywhere without wearing bib overalls.

Reminds me of Bill Wilson. It would always make his wife Etrulia so angry, because every Sunday she felt like he ought to dress up to go to church, but there he'd be in his bib overalls. One Sunday, she put her foot down. She insisted that he wear a coat and tie. So he went to the closet and pulled out a coat and tie that were 20 years out of style, put them on and went to Church. There he was on the front pew. Wearing his tie, his coat, and his bib overalls.

Say hello to Stacys, "ear of corn."

And then, on the very same line, Paul says, "say hello to Urbane. Urbane, the Greek word from which we get our English word for urbane. It means "city bred" – “city slicker” and I bet he was. Someone who would feel uncomfortable outside of Metropolitan Rome. Someone who can't stop thinking about work, who today would carry the latest cell phone in his pocket, who would always be checking his email.

When I was attending Seminary in Atlanta, I was invited to attend a business men's prayer breakfast. When it came time to close the meeting, one of the business men stood and offered a prayer.

It was good prayer. It was a COMPLETE prayer. It was a very, LONG prayer. And I guess this man forgot where he was. I guess he forgot to whom he was speaking. I guess his mind had begun to wander back to the office, because instead of ending it, "in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen," he ended it with, "sign it, yours very truly, W.T. Martin type it and get it on my desk to sign before lunch."

And yet, there they are, listed side by side in Paul's letter. Urbane and Stachys. One in bib overalls with his mind on milking the cows, the other in a three piece suit with his thoughts on giving dictation. What a contrast.

Such different people. Not much in common. From Rome, from Corinth, from Persia.

Slave and free.

Rich and Poor.

Young and old.

Married and single.

City slicker and country bumpkin.

Not much in common.

Nothing in common.

Except one thing. They do have ONE thing in common.

Jesus Christ and his church.

It is the one thing that unites them. The church of Jesus Christ.

Of all the things that separate them, it is Jesus Christ who brings them together.

Of all the varied interests and concerns they have, it is Jesus Christ who is their only common interest.

Of all the differences they have, it is Jesus Christ they agree on.

When your name is put on a church membership roll, your name it is not simply on a LIST,

But you become a part of each other. A part of the

church. With all the differences you may have, it is Jesus who unites you.

I met a man a while back who made a significant change in his career. He is a Methodist minister, and he had always served as an associate pastor in churches in the metro Atlanta area. Then one day, he decided to take a completely different kind of ministry, and to work with some of the poorer, smaller churches in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia. Three weeks into his new ministry, he had an interesting experience which he says started off with him thinking he should have stayed in Atlanta, but that ended up wonderfully.

He was invited to do several adult baptisms. Now, many of you may come from Methodist backgrounds and you know that baptisms in the Methodist church is much like it is in the Presbyterian Church. The baptism is of infants or adults, and takes place in a sanctuary, using water from a small bowl.

Not so in that Methodist church in the mountains of Virginia. That church was over 200 years old and they had always baptized only adults, and they had always baptized them in the Watauga River.

My friend did his first baptism in March. Now you have to understand that if you do a baptism in a river, the minister does not get to stand on the river bank. You have to go into the river and take that person under.

And oh, by the way, in March, up Virginia, the water in that mountain river is pretty cold!

That's where they would baptize folks -- in that icy water.

They'd set up a couple of tents so that after the baptism people could change into dry, warm clothes.

In keeping with their custom, someone would build a fire, and everyone would gather 'round and get warm.

Everyone except my friend from Atlanta who said he could not get himself close enough to that fire to get himself warm.

Then, finally someone spoke up and addressed the new member who had just been baptized.

"Hi, my name is Fred, and if you ever need anyone to work on your plumbing, give me a call."

Then another voice in the circle. "Hi, my name is Sally, and if you ever need any sewing done, come by the house, be glad to do it."

Then another voice. "Hi, my name is Jane, and if you ever need anyone to look after your kids for a while, drop them on by the house."

And so on, all around the circle.

All around --- the LIST.

Then, the people, one by one would go home until the only ones left were one of the church's older members, and my friend, the minister, who was standing by that fire STILL trying to get warm.

Standing around the fire, watching it die down, the member looked at the minister and said, "Son, I know this is a lot different from what you find in your home back in Atlanta, but I don't care where you go in this world. You will never find people any closer than this."

There is a name for that closeness.

It's called "Church."

It’s what we are called to be – the church.

The Parable of the Weeds

2011-08-21T16:53:00.002-04:00

Matthew 13:24-30

Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

"The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'

"'An enemy did this,' he replied.

"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'

"'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.'"

Matthew 13:36-43

Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field." He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

"As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear. NIV

The movie, “No Country for Old Men,” is a great movie with a disturbing message – and in a sense, a very biblical message.

In the movie, Tommy Lee Jones plays a sheriff. At the beginning of the movie, you hear his voice talk about how he comes from a family of law enforcement officers. He has given his life to being a cop. But he’s had it. He doesn’t want to do it any more. The world has become too evil. And he just can’t take it. He says he’s not afraid to die – being a cop, he has to live in expectation that something might happen to him. But he says he doesn’t want to give his life for something he can’t understand, and just doesn’t understand this evil world anymore.

Later on, in the middle of the movie, Tommy Lee Jones visits one of his uncles, who has become disappointed that the character played by Jones is retiring. Jones explains that he’s retiring because he is tired of how bad things are getting. The world is just too evil. He says, “I feel over matched. I always figured when I got older God would show up. He didn’t.”

His uncle begins to tell his nephew about the death of another lawman in the family. He was gunned down on his own porch. Seven or eight men arrived at his house one day, Uncle Mac went to get his shot gun, but they were ahead of him and shot him right there in the doorway. Aunt Ellen tried to stop the bleeding. Uncle Mac kept trying to get to his shot gun, and those men just sat there on their horses watching him die. After a while, one of them said something and the men rode off as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

“When did he die,” the nephew asks his uncle.

“Nineteen and zero and nine. What you got ain’t nothin’ new. This country’s hard on people.” There’s evil in the world. There always has been. There always will be.

Now as movie goers, when we pay our money for an overpriced ticket, sit down with our overpriced popcorn and overpriced soft drink and settle into our cushioned seat – what we want in a movie is a good ending. We want the story resolved.

Now not to spoil the movie for you if you haven’t seen it, but at the end of this movie, nothing is resolved. Everything feels unfinished. Evil is – very literally – still walking the streets.

But personally, I liked that movie because even though it didn’t have a tidy, pleasant ending, it was so honest, and so biblical.

The Bible tells us that the world is like a garden growing, with beautiful flowers, and ugly weeds. And the weeds keep growing. And no one is pulling up the weeds.

This world is evil. It always has been. Nothing changed yet. The evil is still out there.

On September 11th, 2001, our nation was attacked by terrorists. In the days that followed, I found myself in the office of the church where I was serving at the time. My Associate Pastor was there, and a few church members, and we were just talking, trying to process what had happened to our nation.

My Associate Pastor was a young man, fresh out of college and seminary, and he was full of anger and said he wanted to make sure this never happened ever again. One of the volunteers laughed at him and said, “Son, when I was your age, our nation suffered from a surprise attack at Pearl Harbor. And when your daughter grows up to be the age you are now, we may well be attacked by some enemy we cannot yet imagine. This is an evil world and it always will be.”

The weeds are still growing in the garden -- which is frustrating news to hear, but true.

We have soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and elsewhere. They put themselves in harm’s way. Just a few weeks ago, we lost a lot of good American soldiers in one of the worst attacks in what has become our longest war. The weeds are still growing in the garden.

In recent days we’ve seen disturbing scenes from the United Kingdom with riots and fires and looting. Prime Minister David Cameron has blamed these riots on what he calls a “slow-motion moral collapse ... in parts of our country.” Cameron listed problems including “Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers. Schools without discipline. Reward without effort. Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control.” Or simply put, the weeds are still growing in the garden.

Pick up the newspaper any day of the week. Drugs in our communities. Murder in our towns. Road rage leading to someone’s death. Embezzlement. Bank robbery. Neighborhood break in.
The weeds are still growing in the garden.

When the Cohen Brothers produced their film, “No Country for Old Men,” they weren’t telling a new story.

Look at the oldest stories in the English language and you will find the story of Beowolf, in which brave Beowolf defends the innocent and the weak from evil, which comes in the form of a monster named Grendal.

It’s the same problem that people had with Jesus in the New Testament Lesson. When is God going to do something to fix this world and get rid of all of the evil?

When is God going to show up?

As Jesus tells his answer to this question, he tells what has become for many church folk a familiar parable with a familiar setting.

In the parable, a man sowed good seed in his field; but during the night, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. So the weeds and the wheat grew up together. The servants asked the man a logical question. "Do you want us to pull up the weeds?" His answer was "no, you might pull up the wheat with the weeds. Let them grow together. Then at harvest time, I'll tell the harvesters to pull both up. The weeds then can be bound together in one pile and be burned. The wheat can be gathered and put in the barns."

Now on the surface, it sounds like this parable is teaching us, among other things, that Jesus truly was a carpenter and not a farmer. No one farms this way. You do everything you can to get the weeds out of your garden. In my home state of South Carolina, I’ve seen people plant gardens full of wonderful crops, and every day you can see them on their hands and knees pulling up the weeds.

But in that part of the world, there is a type of weed that looks just like the wheat until it is time to harvest the crop, so you cannot pull anything up until harvest.

So here is Jesus telling his parable that the way to deal with weeds in the garden is just let them grow – otherwise, you might pull up the good stuff with the bad stuff.

But when the urbanites listened to Jesus tell this parable, they didn’t know about this particular type of weed. So their response was to tell Jesus, “No, you’ve got to get rid of the weeds. Don’t let the garden go to pot.”

And today, we are begging God, “Don’t let our world go to pot.” We are waiting for God to show up! When are you going to show up and fix this world?

So – what does Jesus offer us in this parable?

First he offers reality. Like it or not, we’re not in charge of this garden, this world. We might want to get rid of all of the evil, but evil is here and we need to face it. That means that when we walk out of our homes, we have to be careful – as good as this place is, there is also evil here.
When we invest our money, it is nice to work with people we trust and know, but be careful. There is evil growing here as well as good. Someone in the garden might take advantage of us and rob us blind.

When we raise our children, we have to teach them to love, and to trust, and – to be cautious and aware. There is evil as well as good growing here.

The weeds are still growing in the garden.

Or as Jesus told his disciples earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.” You need to be “as innocent as doves,” he told them, but as smart as a snake.

But Jesus is doing more than just giving us a dose of reality for the present.

He is also giving us hope for the future.

We will not always have evil around us. There will be a time when God will establish his kingdom on earth. There will be a time when good and evil are separated. A harvest, to use the words of the parable, will someday happen.

When we think about terrorists, when we think about drug pushers in our schools, when we think about a father who kills his daughter, we need to believe that things will get better.

This parable gives us hope, because it tells us that there will be a day of reckoning, a day when the weeds of this world, the evil of this world is uprooted and destroyed.

But – the hope that Jesus gives us is a long, long way off.

What about now?

What about our garden, our world, our neighborhood right here, right now?

When we see war and violence and injustice, do we simply say, “Be patient, God will someday intervene and judge the world. He’ll pull up the weeds and burn them up and harvest the good produce. Just be patient.”

When we learn that drugs have found their way into our neighborhood schools, into the homes of friends, and our children and grandchildren’s friends – when we find drugs infecting our own family – do we just say, “Be patient. Let the weeds grow with the good and someday – someday God will take care of all of this.”

No – that’s not a satisfying ending to this parable. That doesn’t hold us up when we walk out of the chapel and go through the day to day routine of living.

True, Jesus is giving us hope for the long, long term. There will be a judgment day.

BUT, more importantly, Jesus is telling us how to live in this evil world right now.

We are in a world where evil prospers. And Jesus is telling us to be careful.

The weeds around us could strangle us. Don’t let them.

Don’t be destroyed by the crime, the injustice, the selfishness of others. Keep growing tall. Keep producing good.

We can’t do anything about the weeds – the evil. That is not our job. That’s God’s job. He’ll do it one day. Our job, right now, is to produce the good fruit.

In the Brian de Palma film, Casualties of War, Michael J. Fox plays a young and dedicated soldier, but he finds himself under the authority of someone who has been drafted into the war, who doesn’t care about the army or anything else – except himself. Fox becomes a witness to a brutal kidnapping and rape and tries to speak out against what is happening. At one point he tells another soldier, “Just because we could all be blown away everybody's acting like we can do anything. And it don't matter what we do. But I think it's the other way around. The main thing is the opposite. Because we might die in the next second -- maybe we gotta be extra careful what we do. Because maybe it matters more. Maybe it matters more than we even know.”

That character understands what it is like to grow up in the garden with the weeds.

This parable of Jesus tells us like it is for the present with a dose of reality – there is evil here.

And Jesus gives us hope for the future.

But he also gives us homework for today.

Now is the time to produce good fruit. Now is the time to live a moral life. Don’t be chocked out by the weeds. How we live matters more than we know.

Israeli Chainsaw Massacre

2011-08-14T08:15:00.001-04:00

Psalm 99:1-9
The LORD reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim, let the earth shake. Great is the LORD in Zion; he is exalted over all the nations. Let them praise your great and awesome name-- he is holy. The King is mighty, he loves justice-- you have established equity; in Jacob you have done what is just and right. Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy. Moses and Aaron were among his priests, Samuel was among those who called on his name; they called on the LORD and he answered them. He spoke to them from the pillar of cloud; they kept his statutes and the decrees he gave them. O LORD our God, you answered them; you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds. Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy. (NIV)

Judges 19:22-28
While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, "Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him."
The owner of the house went outside and said to them, "No, my friends, don't be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don't do this disgraceful thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But to this man, don't do such a disgraceful thing."
But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, "Get up; let's go." But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home. (NIV)

The Book of Judges is one of those books of the Bible that we do not read often, and yet, we are familiar with several of the stories in that book.

We find Samson in the book of Judges.

Gideon is also there.

But most of the stories in Judges are ones we don't remember well, because Judges is a book we don't often sit down to read or study.

Because we do not read the book of Judges very often, when we do read it we are absolutely shocked at what we find.

If you were going to pick the strangest story of the Bible, then the top ten finalists for that honor would have to come from the book of Judges.

It is in Judges you find the story of dainty little Jael. While a warrior who was on friendly terms with her husband was asleep, she took a tent peg and a hammer and drove the peg into his head. She drove it all the way through and into the ground.

Just as children of our age sing songs of Lizzy Borden who took an ax and gave her father forty wacks, so did the Song of Deborah sing about Jael being the Most Blessed of Women, and (unlike her victim) the Most Blessed of Tent Dwellers. Hopefully no wives here will get any ideas from Jael!

Then there is Jephthah, who vows before going into battle that if he wins the war, when he gets back home to the farm, he will sacrifice whatever he sees at the gate of the house. He wins the battle. When he goes back to the farm what he sees at the gate of the house is not a goat or a cow. It is his daughter.

He sacrifices her.

Then there is Jair. His story takes all of one verse of the Bible. We are simply told he had 30 sons, who rode 30 donkeys and who ruled 30 towns. There must have been more to it than that, but who knows what it might have been.

But the strangest story of all is the one that closes the book of Judges. It is about a man who had a concubine. A concubine was something like a wife, but not quite. She was something like a slave, but not quite. She was something like a mistress, but not quite. Well, this concubine gets fed up with the man and leaves him and goes home to Daddy. The man follows her and convinces her to come back to him. After a few days, she agrees.

But that's not the end of the story.

On the way home, they stay in a stranger's home. That night, a gang of violent men come pounding on the door, yelling, "Bring out that man, we want to have sex with him."

The owner of the house yells out to the gang, "That is a disgraceful thing to do. You can't treat this man like this. But I have young daughter, why don't you take her instead."

The men are not interested in the girl and begin to get angry. So the traveling man takes his concubine, and without asking how she feels about it, he throws her out the door. Then the traveling man and the owner of the house go to bed and sleep, while outside the house, the gang rapes and abuses the woman.

But that is not the end of the story.

At daybreak, the gang leaves the woman. She struggles back to the house. The door is locked and she just collapses at the door. The men inside the house wake up and according to the Bible this is what happened: "When the master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, 'Get up; let's go.' But there was no answer." The woman is dead.

This is a baffling story.

But that's not the end of it.

This strange story gets stranger as the master takes the body home. Once there, he does not give her a funeral. Instead he takes a knife and mutilates the body. He cuts off her arms and legs and sends pieces of her all over Israel with a description of what has happened.

As a result, an army of 400,000 men gather and decide to destroy the Tribe of Benjamin. Now if you are wondering what the Tribe of Benjamin had to do with this, it was in the bounderies of that particular tribe that the woman was raped and murdered.

There is then a series of battles and all of the Tribe of Benjamin are killed, except for 600 men who hide in the hills. To insure that the Tribe would be destroyed, it is agreed that it will be forbidden to allow any survivor of the Tribe of Benjamin to have a wife.

But that is not the end of the story.

Israel begins to regret what it has done. The Tribe of Benjamin is on the verge of being wiped out. After all, there are supposed to be 12 tribes of Israel, and here they are about to destroy one of the tribes. There are supposed to be 12 tribes, but there is about to be only 11.

So they make peace with Benjamin, which is now a tribe of 600 men who have no wives. It is illegal to give these men wives, so what does Israel do? They throw a party. And they don't give the men wives, they let them kidnap some innocent women, to be dragged off to be wives for the tribe.

NOW it is the end of the story.

I read a good bit of Science Fiction and as I read this story, I feel that I am reading something out of Science Fiction. It is not because of some scientific technology in the story, but because of the alien-ness of this event. It is so alien, it feels as if it must have happened on another planet.

What kind of story is this? At first it feels like a love story in which there is a man whose lover leaves him. He goes after her. But no, its not a love story, because whatever this man feels for the concubine it certainly is not love that he feels as he throws her out the door to meet her fate.

It is a violent story, with rape, murder, even genocide.

It is difficult to know exactly what this story is all about. It is so alien to our way of thinking.

Then again, maybe this story and the behavior of its characters is not so alien after all. They may be more like us than we would like to admit.

When you strip away the outer layers of the cultural differences and work your way to the heart of the story, what you have is a people in search of justice. That's all.

There is no justice in their land. More than anything else, they want to see justice. That's all.

It is a commendable thing to want justice. It may be that this is the ONLY commendable thing that you can say about any of the people involved with this event. They want justice.

If there was justice, then a man traveling far from home would not be attacked by a threatening gang. So in search of justice, the man stays behind the safety of a locked door and throws out a woman to the crowd.

If there was justice, then a woman would not have been treated like worthless property to be thrown into the hands of a gang, like a piece of meat thrown into the jaws of a hungry animal. So in search of justice, the nation of Israel goes out to destroy an entire tribe of people.

If there was justice, a tribe of people would not face extinction. So in search of justice, their neighbors stand by and let the survivors kidnap women to serve as their wives.

These people in this story are all searching for justice, which is commendable, but they are so perverted in their understanding of what justice is, that they simply continue to make matters worse and worse and worse.

These people are looking for justice, and are unable to find it. The obvious reason as to why they cannot find justice is that they don't know what justice is. They would not know justice if it were staring them right in the face.

You want to find some justice in this world? Fine. The first step is to find out what justice really is.

This long biblical story presents a wonderful case study of three common misconceptions we have about justice.

The first misconception is that justice is something that protects YOU. In the story, the man is threatened. In a sense of what is just, he protects himself, stays behind the locked door as he throws the woman outside to meet her fate, while he goes to sleep.

The purpose of justice, so he thought, was so that he would be protected. That is not what justice is. But that is not so alien a way of thinking. WE sometimes think about justice in that way.

We think that if there is justice in the world, we will be protected from all harm. Forget about the poor, forget about racial hatred, forget about the poor slob who lost his job at work yesterday. If there is justice in the world, protect ME, and my freedom and my job.

Justice means God watches over me.

Now that is not true, but it is not that far from the truth. Justice is not God watching over ME. Justice is God watching over ALL of us.

In Judges, the people thought that justice was a way of getting protection for yourself. So the man in Judges feels it is right to throw the woman out to the gang to be raped and murdered, as long as he is able to lock the door, climb into bed and feel protected.

Psalm 99 speaks of a God who loves justice, who has established equity. Justice, must be for all, or it is perverted. Truly, that man in Judges had a right to feel that he should be protected from evil. BUT his mistake was that he felt so self centered, that he threw the woman out to meet her violent fate. Justice, to be true, must be for all people. The man had a right to be protected, but so did the woman.

If we want justice for ourselves, fine, but let's make sure that we do not gain it at the expense of another. As we work for justice for us, let's work for justice for the poor in our community, for the illiterate, for the powerless, for the other person. Not just for us.

The second misconception many people have about justice is that they have the impression that justice means permissiveness.

The Tribe of Benjamin becomes the focus of the anger of the rest of their neighbors not simply because the rape and murder happened within their boundaries, but because the Tribe of Benjamin let it happened and did nothing about it. The purpose of justice, so Benjamin thinks, was permissiveness. That is not such an alien way of thinking. WE sometimes think that this is what justice is. It's your thing, do what you want to do.

Permissiveness is not justice, but it is not too far off the mark. Justice is not permissiveness, but mercy. The two are not the same.

Mercy and justice go hand in hand. But mercy is not permissiveness. Mercy does not permit someone to move into the future unbridled, doing whatever he or she wants to do. Mercy reaches backward into the past and heals our broken souls of our past disobedience.

Again referring to Psalm 99, we read that God loves justice. “You have established equity, in Jacob you have done what is just and right..." And in verse 8, "You were to Israel, a forgiving God,

There is no permissiveness in justice. Only mercy.

The third misconception many people have about justice is that it is the same as revenge.

In the biblical story, the nation of Israel decides to destroy the tribe of Benjamin. Revenge, they think, is what justice is all about. Again, this is not so alien to our way of thinking. You push me, and I'll shove you.

Again, Psalm 99 says that God is a forgiving God, though he punishes the people for their misdeeds.

Some people don't see a difference in the two – punishment and revenge. What is the difference?

Revenge is getting even. Revenge is inflicting hurt. Revenge is done with a sneer and a fist, with meanness in one's heart.

Punishment, however, is meant to build up. It is intended to help someone move beyond their mistakes and errors. It is done with a love in one's heart.

This God, who is our king, is a God who loves justice, "You were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds."

You want to find some justice in this world? Fine. The first step is to find out what justice really is. Strip away the misconceptions and find the truth to what justice is about. It is for all people, it is mercy, and it is disciplining punishment.

In the book of Judges, every story begins with the formula, "In those days, Israel had no king." Then the tale is told. At the end of the story, the Scripture repeats the litany, "In those days, Israel had no king, and everyone did that which was right in their own eyes."

My friends, in these days Psalm 99 tells us we have a king. The king is God, and He is a king loves justice -- REAL justice.

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011All Rights Reserved

One Great Thing I Know

2011-08-07T19:58:00.002-04:00

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Psalm 44:1-3, 9-14

We have heard it with our ears, O God; our ancestors have told us what you did in their days, in days long ago. With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our ancestors; you crushed the peoples and made our ancestors flourish. It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them. But now you have rejected and humbled us; you no longer go out with our armies. You made us retreat before the enemy, and our adversaries have plundered us. You gave us up to be devoured like sheep and have scattered us among the nations. You sold your people for a pittance, gaining nothing from their sale. You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, the scorn and derision of those around us. You have made us a byword among the nations; the peoples shake their heads at us.

Romans 8:18-39

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Early in my ministry, I experienced one of the worst moments of my ministry.

I was visiting the home of some church members. The family had just experienced the tragic loss of a young member of their family. A nephew, six years old, had been on his way to school when a drunk driver ran over and killed the child.

It was one of those terrible moments that unites a community in its grief. A young child, bright and handsome, snuffed out in a moment by a dirty town drunk. There was no justice in the tragedy. There was no fairness.

When I visited the family who were members of my church -- the aunt and uncle of the child who had died, the uncle told me, "Well, preacher, it was God's will. I have to believe it was God's will, it is the only comfort I have."

I look back on that experience as a bad experience, because I know now what I was just beginning to suspect those years ago, and that is that this man's comfort was probably a lie.

For the life of me, I simply could not believe that God had been sitting in heaven and decided that what the world needed was for the Almighty to make a grown man become a drunk. For God to put that drunk behind the wheel of a car and to have that mortal drive down the road until he reached the child, whereupon God made the drunk turn at just the right moment and hit and mutilate the poor child.

"It is the will of God!" -- That is the comfortable lie.

A child is born with a serious defect.

"It was God's will," someone will say, but is that true?

A young father is killed by a disease that robs his heart of the ability to sustain his life, and he dies just days before his wife gives birth to a son "It was God's will," someone will say, but is that true?

A family business is bankrupt. God's will?

In the earliest teachings of the Old Testament, no one would ever look at suffering and declare it to be the will of God. It was, instead, the result of evil in the world. It was in every sense, something that was contrary to the will of God.

In the book of Job, the man Job suffers from a painful disease and is visited by friends, one of whom reflects this early theology that suffering is caused by evil. This friend tells Job, “I have seen people plow fields of evil and plant wickedness and evil. Like a storm God destroys them in his anger...Evil does not grow in the soil, nor does trouble grow out of the ground. NO! Man brings trouble on himself." (Job 4:8-9,5:6-7)

Why is there suffering? Is it God's will?

No, says the friend of Job, suffering is the result of the evil we do.

The purpose behind this kind of suffering was to draw people BACK to God.

In Jeremiah, the voice of God is heard saying, “I will abandon my people until they have suffered enough for their sins and come looking for me. Perhaps in their suffering they will try to find me." (Jeremiah 6:15)

There are times when suffering is caused by the evil we do. Our sins bring the suffering upon us.

So forget about saying “it was God's will that poor Joe Blow suffered.' Now we can say, “Poor Joe must have sinned mighty badly. Wonder which commandment he broke to suffer this badly."

But is this always the case with suffering?

The child on the bike who is killed by the drunk driver --- what sins did he commit? Or did his father commit some sin that caused God to kill the son in order to draw a wayward sinful father back to the Almighty.

That is not an original question. In Luke’s Gospel, a group of people approached Jesus with this issue. Reminding of the time when a group of devoted Galileans went to make a sacrifice to God and Pilate decided to sacrifice them, they wondered if this meant that they were worse sinners than anyone else.

"No indeed,” was Christ’s answer. (Luke 13:lff) In fact, referring again to Job's situation, while one of his friends declares that people suffer because of their sins, we know that Job was not suffering for such a reason. The opening passages of that book take us behind the scenes so that we can read about the conversation between God and Satan.

Job is described as a good man; "careful not to do anything evil" (Job 1:1). God himself tells Satan, "There is no one on earth as faithful and good as Job is. He worships me and is careful not to do anything evil." (Job 1:8)

And yet, Job suffered terribly -- suffering in ways few of us must endure.

Which raises an interesting question. If suffering is caused by the evil we do, why do the righteous have to suffer and why do the bad guys often end up on top of the world?

In the Old Testament, the psalmist sang "I nearly lost confidence; my faith was almost gone because I was jealous of the proud when I saw that things go well for the wicked. They do not suffer pain; they are strong and healthy. They do not suffer as other people do; they do not have the troubles others have." (Psalm 73:1-5)

You see, this thing about suffering is a complicated matter -- as complicated as life itself. Why do we think that there is a simple answer to the issue of human suffering? Why do we think that there is simply ONE answer as to why terrible things happen to us?

It is the will of God," someone will say. And they may be right. Or they may be terribly wrong.

"It was because of the sins they did," someone will say. And they may be right. Or they may be terribly wrong.

"It is because of the nature of evil in the world," someone will say. And they may be right. Or they may be terribly wrong.

We look at suffering and we want to know WHY this had to happen. Maybe it was God's will. Maybe it was Satan’s. Maybe it was my own fault and no one else’s. When get out of bed in the middle of the night and I stump my toe in the darkness it was not so much God's decision or Satan’s --it was due to the fact that I was just too lazy to turn the light on.

We want to know something about suffering. And the one great thing that we want to know is WHY.

And it is the one great thing that we cannot always know.

When a child is hit by a car driven by a drunk, and the child with a flash of understanding knows that he is about to breath his last breath -- that child does not know why. It is one great thing he will not know.

When the mother hears the news from the police officer that her child is dead, she and her husband will have a lifetime to consider the question that their son may have considered in only the last instant of life --why? But they will not know. They may find comfort in saying, “It was God's will." Or they may inflict a greater pain upon themselves by producing a needless guilt, believing that it was their own sins that caused their child's death. But the fact is, this is one great thing they will never know.

God’s will, result of evil, product of sin?

Who knows? All they know for sure is that their child suffered, and they now suffer.

Suffering is a part of our life. It is woven into the fabric of our being and into the texture of human history and none of us avoids it. The Old Testament Psalm says, "Seventy years is all we have --eighty years if we are strong; and yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow; life is soon over and we are gone." (Psalm 90:10)

A life full of trouble. Even the best of us have friends who die. Relatives who are sick. Even the wealthiest among us have financial fears that keep us awake at nights.

And each of us is being stalked by death. At some future time, we will die.

We suffer. Our loved ones suffer. And there is never any certainty as to why these things happen. The Bible gives many reasons behind the issue of human pain, and any one of these reasons may apply to our particular troubles -- but who is to say which reason?

In the Old Testament lesson for this morning, the psalmist cried out in despair: "Wake up, Lord! Why are you asleep? Don't forget our suffering and trouble." (Psalm 44:23-24)

It seems sometimes that God is indeed completely unaware of our agony.

But in our New Testament lesson from Paul's letter to the Romans is a message of comfort to everyone of us who has ever lost a loved one, or received a distressing report from our own doctor, or struggled with the pain of day to day living.

There is one great thing that Paul is able to know. In the midst of suffering, he may not know why -- God’s will, or Satan's temptation -- but there is one thing that Paul does know -- there is one thing that he can know -- one thing that we can know.

In his letter Paul says, "I am certain that nothing can separate us from God's love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below. There is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)

This beautiful statement comes at the conclusion of a section in which Paul deals with suffering. He begins that section by saying, "I consider what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us."

Easy for Paul to say, we may think to ourselves. After all, Paul was a saint of a man. What did he know of suffering? Did he ever lose a child to the careless driving of a drunk, or be told by a doctor that the spot on his x-ray is cancer, or have his marriage dissolve at the end of years of discord?

No.

But Paul did know what he was talking about when he used the word "suffering." In one of his letters, Paul `I am happy about my sufferings” (Colossians 2:24), and indeed, Paul had experienced many sufferings. Different from ours, true. But painful still.

He listed them in one of his letters... "I have worked ... I have been in prison

· ... I have been whipped

· ... I have been near death

· Five times I was given the 39 lashes by the Jews

· ... Three times I was whipped by the Romans, once I was stoned.

· I have been in three shipwrecks, and once I spent 24 hours in the water. In my many travels

· I have been in danger from floods and from robbers,

· in danger from fellow Jews and from Gentiles;

· there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers on the high seas, and

· dangers from false friends.

· There has been work and toil,

· often I have gone without sleep;

· I have been hungry

· and thirsty;

· I have often been without enough food,

· Shelter or clothing.

· And not to mention other things, every day I am under the pressure of my concern for all the churches."

Paul knew suffering. Perhaps not the same pain as you, or me, but that is true of anyone. Each of us lives a different life, and we each suffer in a different manner.

Paul suffered greatly. And yet, he still wrote in our New Testament lesson, “In all things, God works for good with those who love him." (Romans 8:28).

You see, Paul knew that knowing WHY he suffered was not nearly so important as something else to be known. There was one great thing to be known in the midst of his suffering, and Paul knew what that one great thing was.

Paul might not be able to discern whether his suffering at a particular moment was caused by the will of God, or the temptation by Satan, or by Paul's own stupidity -- that did not matter. For in all these sufferings, God could produce something good, because behind all the troubles of Paul's life -- and your life -- stands God.

In the poem, "Once to Every Man and Nation,” there is a stanza reflecting this truth.

"Though the cause of evil prosper,

Yet `tis truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold,

And upon the throne be wrong,

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And, behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch above his own."

You see, to ask the question WHY must we suffer, is not nearly so important to resolve as it is to know the one great thing to know: that behind that dim unknown, stands God within the shadow keeping watch on us. God himself -- whose own Son has suffered so for us -- is with us in the midst of our own suffering.

The one great thing that we can know is that God is with us in our suffering, therefore, good may come out of our pain. The Scripture for this morning said, “In all things God works for good with those who love him” (Romans 8:28).

The one great thing that we can know is that God is with us in our suffering, and therefore, our suffering cannot defeat us, separating us from the love and comfort we can have in Christ. Again, our Scripture this morning said, “What can separate us from the love of Christ? Can trouble do it, or hardship, or persecution, or hunger or poverty or danger or death? No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! I am certain that nothing can separate us from his great love." (Romans 8:34-38)

There is an old hymn that asks the question...

Ask ye what great thing I know,

that delights and stirs me so?

What the high reward I win?

Whose the name I glory in?

Jesus Christ the Crucified.

Who defeats my fiercest foes?

Who consoles my saddest woes?

Who revives my fainting heart,

Healing its entire hidden smart?

Jesus Christ, the crucified.

In the end, there is only one great thing that we can know about our suffering. We might learn why we suffer. We might be able to see what good God is able to work through our suffering. But we might not. But one great thing we can definitely know is Jesus Christ, the crucified, the one who suffered, is with us. And none of the suffering we endure can separate us from His love and comfort.

Hungry for a Blessing

2011-07-31T10:36:00.000-04:00

Genesis 32:21-30
So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?"
“Jacob," he answered.
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."
Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."
But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

Many years ago, I was in Jerusalem. I visited the Wailing Wall and at one point I was sitting on a bench, just taking in all of the sights of this ancient and holy place.

At one point, an old Jewish Rabbi came and sat with me. He had a long white beard and he was dressed completely in black. He could barely move and when he sat down, it was more like he just fell back into the bench.

He turned to me and asked, “What is your name.”

Well, being a good Southerner, I thought we were about to have an interesting conversation, so I told him, “Maynard Pittendreigh.”

What is the name of your father, he asked.

Well, I thought that was strange, and wondered “does this man know me?” But I told him, “Bill Pittendreigh.”

“What is the name of your mother?”

I told him.

“What are the name of all your brothers and sisters?”

I told him.

Then he raised his ancient hand and said, “Blessings. On your father, and all of his household.”

I didn’t know what to say, but I came out with a “Gee thanks mister, I sure do appreciate that.”

I don’t know what I was supposed to say, but the Rabbi looked at me with horror and asked, “Aren’t you Jewish?”

“No,”

“Are you sure?” “I’m sure.”

“Oh well, blessings anyway.”

You know, blessings like that aren’t part of our society. No one goes around pronouncing blessings on individuals, nor do we often seek someone’s blessing.

But deep inside, most of us long for blessings in our lives.

Which brings us to this odd story in Genesis.

It seems that throughout Jacob’s life, he was desperately hungry for a blessing.

We meet Jacob at his birth in chapter 25 of Genesis. Isaac, the son of Abraham, was married but he and his wife Rebekah had no children. Isaac prays for a child and the Lord answers his prayer – not with one, but with two sons.

Rebekah’s pregnancy was not an easy one. In fact she says, “I feel like I have two nations at war inside me.”

Esau is the first born, and then his brother Jacob is right behind, holding onto the foot of his brother Esau.

The two boys grow up and they are very different. Esau is a hunter, Jacob is a quiet man who stayed at the tents.

Esau was loved by his father, Jacob was loved by his mother. One day Esau comes in from hunting, and he hasn’t had any luck at all. He comes home tired and hungry, and he begs Jacob to give him some stew. Jacob responds by saying, “You give me the right to get the blessing from our father, you give me your birthright, and then I’ll give you some stew.”

Esau doesn’t think very far ahead, and never does. So he says, “Fine. What good is a birthright when you are hungry anyway?

Jacob, hungry for a blessing, gives his brother some stew and wins the birthright.

Now you would think that would make Jacob happy. He has the blessing. But no, it doesn’t make him happy at all.

He knows that just because Esau gave him the right to receive the blessing, his father would never agree. So Jacob stays hungry for a blessing.

So a few years pass, and the time comes for father Isaac to give the blessing. He is old and weak and almost blind, and so Jacob and his mother devise a way to fool father Isaac so that Jacob gets the blessing rather than Esau. She dresses her son Jacob in rough clothing, and they use all sorts of things to trick father Isaac.

And it works.

Isaac gives Jacob the blessing.

Now you would think that would make Jacob happy. He has the blessing. But no, it doesn’t make him happy at all.

Not at all. Because as soon as Jacob gets the blessing, Esau comes home and he is furious and he decides that as soon as father Isaac is dead, he will kill brother Jacob.

Jacob doesn’t wait for his father’s death, and instead packs up and sneaks out of the home and heads for the hills.

Jacob decides that what he really needs make himself happy in life is a woman. So in search of a wife, he goes traveling around and comes to some distant relatives and while he is hanging around this watering hole, this beautiful woman named Rachel comes along. She is a shepherdess and Jacob can’t wait to roll away a stone to open up a well for her and her sheep. It is love at first sight. He talks to the father and proposes marriage to Rachel.

Now you would think that would make Jacob happy. He has the blessing. But no, it doesn’t make him happy at all.

Rachel’s father agrees to the marriage, provided that Jacob work for him for 7 years.

Well, Jacob is in love, and these 7 years pass by very quickly.

The day for the marriage comes and it is a great wedding.

There is a great feast. Lots of partying.

Jacob gets married, wakes up the next morning, looks at his bride, and to his horror, it’s not Rachel with him – it’s Rachel’s less attractive sister, Leah.

Here’s good advice for any groom – stay away from the open bar until long after the ceremony.

It turns out that Jacob’s father-in-law planned this all along.

Well, back then, it was acceptable to have more than one wife, so Jacob is allowed to marry Rachel a week later, but Jacob is forced to commit to 7 MORE years of working for his father-in-law.

But, at least Jacob has the wife he wanted – Rachel. And he has an extra one as well in Leah.

Now you would think that would make Jacob happy. He has the blessing. But no, it doesn’t make him happy at all.

Leah, Jacob’s less favored wife, starts having babies, and keeps having them. But Rachel, his favorite wife, has no children at all.

So Rachel gives her husband her servant so she can have children through her. I know -- it’s a really strange world in the Old Testament. It’s an old fashioned surrogate mother. And the servant starts having children.

Then Rachel is really unhappy. And she makes Leah unhappy. And pretty soon, everyone is unhappy.

It’s just one BIG miserable family.

And finally – finally – Rachel has a son and names him Joseph.

Now you would think that would make Jacob happy. He has the blessing. But no, it doesn’t make him happy at all.

Jacob’s father-in-law begins to cheat Jacob in business deals, and Jacob cheats his father-in-law.

Everything spirals out of control, and finally Jacob decides he’s out of here. He gathers all of his sheep, all of his property, all of his servants, and both wives, all of his children.

They don’t tell anyone they are leaving, but they try to sneak away.

Well, I don’t know if you have ever tried to sneak out of town, but when Jacob does it, he has 2 wives, hundreds of servants, thousands of sheep. It’s hard not to notice a small nation leaving town.

And people notice.

And Jacob’s father-in-law shows up and reminds Jacob of how well he has treated Jacob. Which is nuts. Jacob has been treated like garbage. But the two finally come to an agreement. Jacob will go his way. Jacob’s father-in-law will go his way. And they say this to one another. “May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.” (Gen 31:49-50)

This is verse is sometimes referred to as the Mizpah Benediction. Friends and lovers often say this to one another, and you can even find jewelry with this benediction on it, with a medallion that seems to be broken in half, and the boyfriend wears on half and the girl the other half and each half having this verse on it.

Years ago, I went to an adult Sunday School class that always ended with the class reciting that apparently-wonderful verse before they walked out of the room.

But the meaning of that text is not a loving, “May the Lord watch over us while we are apart.” The real meaning for Jacob and his father-in-law was more, “I don’t trust you and you don’t trust me, but God is watching so we’ll behave.”

Well, Jacob leaves his father-in-law and is free. Free at last, free at last.

Now you would THINK that would make Jacob happy. He has the blessing. But no, it doesn’t make him happy at all.

Not ever having read a Thomas Wolfe novel, Jacob decides he can go home again. Then, with home just over the next hill, Jacob begins to reconsider. He realizes this might not be such a good idea.

He sends messengers out to greet Esau, and the messengers come back and tell Jacob that brother Esau is on his way.

Jacob figures his brother is coming with a small army to do battle and to get his revenge.

Jacob even prepares for defeat and divides his family, thinking that Esau will attack one group and the other can escape.

Jacob is not very optimistic.

So Jacob sends 220 goats, 220 rams 15 camels, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 30 donkeys, and sends them to Esau as a gift.

And Jacob does one other thing, he doesn’t send all of these gifts in one group. He divides them into more than 3 groups and tells them to keep some distance between the groups. That way Esau will get one flood of gifts after another, after another.

These aren’t just gifts. They are bribes. Like a weakling giving up his lunch money to the school bully, Jacob is giving these gifts out fear, not love.

And then the waiting begins.

And it is during this waiting that something strange happens.

Yep, even though everything in Jacob’s life is strange and bizarre, this event is really outside the box.

Jacob is waiting to see what effect his gifts will have on brother Esau.

He is alone.

And out of the darkness comes a stranger.

And the stranger begins to fight Jacob.

Who is this stranger?

It isn’t Esau, but is it someone sent by Esau? No.

Is it an angel? No.

The two fight until the sun begins to come up.

Jacob seems to have the stranger pinned down and defeated. And then with no effort at all, the stranger reaches and dislocates Jacob’s hip. It is as if the stranger has been playing with Jacob all night. He doesn’t hit Jacob, or use any sort of force at all. The Bible says, the stranger simply touched Jacob’s hip, and it was dislocated.

The stranger orders Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

Even now, after all these many years, Jacob is still hungry for a blessing.

“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The stranger asked Jacob, "What is your name?"

"Jacob," he answered.

Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

That is a strange thing to say.

First, Jacob has not overcome. He has not won. He is defeated. His hip has been dislocated. He is in pain. The stranger is victorious. But this stranger, who now reveals himself as God, declares Jacob victorious – and blesses him.

Jacob may well have his blessing he has been wanting so desperately to receive.

Or maybe not.

Throughout his life, Jacob has thought he was blessed, only to find out he was cursed.

The stranger disappears.

Esau arrives.

But Esau does not arrive with an army, but with a welcome.

Jacob finally has the blessing he has been searching for.

He is welcomed by his brother. The past problems are resolved. Jacob finds land and settles down.

How did he get his blessing?

He tried to deceive his way into getting a blessing, but that did not work.

He tried to succeed in business, and while he became very successful and wealthy, that did not give him the blessing he hungered for.

He tried everything – but only thing worked.

When he stopped struggling with God, when he finally submitted to God, that is when he was blessed.

Jacob lived a different life after that.

It still had pain. It wasn’t an easy life. A blessed life doesn’t mean things are easy. His daughter, Dinah, is raped. His son, Joseph, is sold into slavery, although Jacob believes for many years that his son is dead. A terrible famine devastates the land. But in all of his pain and joy, Jacob is never the same after this wrestling match with God. He no longer struggles with God like he did before. He submits to the will of God. And he is blessed.

We all hunger for a blessing.

We look for it in all the wrong places.

We look for more money, but that does not bless us.

We get the biggest car, the biggest house, the biggest debt – none of that has the power to bless us.

We don’t get our blessing from our father, or in-laws, or from anyone else, other than the One who has the power to bless.

We get our blessing from God.

When we stop struggling with God and we finally submit to his will, that is when we find the blessing.

Copyright 2011, Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
For copies of other sermons, visit www.Pittendreigh.com

The Great Conflict

2011-07-24T09:53:00.000-04:00

Romans 7:15-8:1
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Earlier this month I missed two Sundays here at Chapel by the Sea – I was in Washington DC for some continuing education. My wife went with me and she and I were able to take some time between the seminars and workshops so that we could enjoy some of the many things our nation’s capital has to offer.

One of the things I did was to visit the Holocaust Museum.

One of the most interesting things about being at this museum was the opportunity to sit down and talk one on one with a survivor of the Holocaust. Not as part of a room full of scores of people, but just one on one.

I had the opportunity to speak with a woman named Regina Gutman. She was born in Poland in 1926 to a very devout Jewish family. She was 13 when the Germans invaded. Her family lost everything and were forced to wear Star of David armbands. She could no longer go to school. When she was 15 years old, her family was forced into a ghetto, where the entire family was forced to live in a small, single room. Food was hard to come by. Regina was able to escape from the ghetto and went to live with her sister in a nearby town. There she was forced into slave labor, cleaning windows in a munitions factory. Eventually she was sent from one camp to another, always working at forced labor. Her last trip was to the infamous concentration camp at Dachau, but there was an explosion and the train was wrecked, turning over the railcars. Regina was able to escape into the woods, where she was found by Soviet soldiers and liberated. By that time she was just shy of being 19 years old.

I asked her about how much help she received from people of faith who believed in God and sought to be faithful.

She said that many people helped them in small ways, sneaking food to them, but there was so much fear. Then she went onto say that so many of the people she met seemed to want to do something good, but they just didn’t have the courage. She said she felt their guilt was greater than the guilt of the Nazis. The Nazis were just plain evil, she said, but these other people – they knew what was happening, they knew it was wrong, and yet they did nothing to stop it."

Many centuries ago, Senaca wrote of "our helplessness to do the necessary things of life."

This is a part of the problem that Paul dealt with in our Scripture reading this morning when he said, "I don't understand myself. What I want to do, I do not do."

Certainly, this is a problem that we face throughout our lives.

And this problem is not always in significant things – but often in the smaller things of life.

A customer in a store sees someone else shoplift a small piece of jewelry. The customer wants to do what is right, she wants to say something to the manager, but for some reason, the strength, or the courage, or what ever it is that it takes to speak up just isn't there, and she finds herself silently watching the thief walk away. And she remains "uninvolved".

Or take a conversation that we have all had. Someone makes a racist remark that we disagree with. Even though we want to speak out against it, we find ourselves silent, unable to do what is right.

Why is it that people are so helpless to do what is necessary?

Why is Paul's statement so universal---"I don't understand myself. What I want to do, I do not do."

There is a great conflict within ourselves. We know what we should do and yet we don't do it.

And on the other hand, we often do those things that we should not do.

We know its wrong to gossip but most of us enjoy talking about the shortcomings of other people.

We know we are called by God to be a people of LOVE, but we still despise some people and look down on them. We know that we are doing wrong by not loving them, and yet it is difficult to correct ourselves and to begin to love them.

Paul also spoke of this situation. In today's passage, he said, "What I hate, I do."

The great conflict in Paul is also in us. We all experience within ourselves the spiritual warfare of knowing something is wrong, but doing it never the less.

We are like the ancient poet who said, "I see the better things, and I approve of them, but I choose to do the worse."

Who among us is not aware of this inner struggle---this great conflict? Who among us cannot agree with Paul as he said "I don't understand myself."

Well, having posed the problem---the existence of the conflict within us all, Paul considered the cause of the problem.

It is NOT because of a lack of respect for the laws and instructions God has given.

For within this. passage Paul speaks very highly of the law, saying that the law is good and that he delights in it. is And yet he still had this day to day conflict of good and evil.

The cause of our conflict and wrong doing is much deeper than our attitude to the law.

The cause of our conflict is, according to Paul, sin---sin dwelling within us.

Why do we fail to do those good things we would like to do? Why do we do the bad things we don't want to do? We see the better and approve of it, and yet we do the worse.

Why?

It is sin, says Paul. Sin within us.

A simple answer to a difficult question.

Perhaps too simple.

One might even think that Paul is not dealing with the question honestly. Is Paul trying to escape the responsibility for his own actions by saying, "It's not me who does these things, or who fails to do what I should---

it is sin within me. It's not my fault."

NO---Paul is not putting the blame for his actions on a mysterious creature called "sin". Rather, he is identifying the cause of many of his actions on a PART OF HIMSELF that he labeled "sin".

You know, we, like Paul, also divide ourselves and our personalities into various parts.

A businessman might very well say that the objective part of him tells him to fire his worker for a major mistake she made.

But the understanding or compassionate side says that she should have a second chance.

That businessman regards himself as one united individual. But he is also aware of the many complex impulses within him.

And sometimes he may give labels or names to these parts of his personality.

The Jewish Rabbis in Paul's day also understood that there are many impulses in a person. They taught that there were basically two impulses---one good and one evil; and each of these are in conflict with the other.

Paul is agreeing in part with this teaching that he was probably brought up with.

There ARE two impulses with in a person. But the Rabbis said that the solution to the conflict was to become a devoted student of the law and to apply the law properly. With this point, Paul disagreed. He knew from his own experience that a proper observance of the law did not provide a complete solution to the conflict.

What then is the solution? Who will rescue us from this conflict? Or as Paul expressed it--- "wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from the body of this death?"

Paul's answer? "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord Christ." But what kind of an answer is this?

It does not inform us as to HOW we can resolve the conflict. This answer does not tell us how we can do the good we want to, and how we can avoid doing the evil we don't want to do. The answer is in no way one of instruction. But then, it wasn't meant to be. The answer is one of comfort.

We can realize the existence of the problem---the inner conflict within us.

And we can analyze and understand the cause of the problem---the nature of sin within us all.

But as long as we live in this world, we will NEVER be cured in such a way that the struggle will forever cease. The conflict remains with us until our death.

Even when we receive Christ into our lives and become Christians, we will still have the day to day struggle within us.

Paul wrote this morning's Scripture reading as a man who had been a Christian for a number of years. And still he wrote: "I don't understand myself. I do not do what I want to do, but what I hate, I do.

Where is the comfort of Paul's answer to this conflict? What is the meaning of "thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord?

The answer is in the last statement in this morning's Scripture passage. "There is now no condemnation to the ones in Christ Jesus."

What this means is that our conflict continues. The good we would like to do --very often we fail to do.

The evil we would like to avoid doing---we often do.

And the conflict continues---but for those of us in Christ---who are Christians---there is no condemnation. God forgives US.

Often when a politician wins a primary, but then goes on to lose the final election, it is often said that "He won the battle, but lost the war."

For the Christian, the opposite cane be said, "We can LOSE the battle, but CHRIST has already won the war for us."

The conflict within us continues. In one situation, we may be able to over come sin and do what is right. In another, we may be overcome and like Paul, do what we hate. "But thanks be to God --- for there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus."

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011All Rights Reserved

I Once Was Blind - Now I See

2011-07-17T10:29:00.000-04:00

John 9:1-12
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."
Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?"
Some claimed that he was. Others said, "No, he only looks like him." But he himself insisted, "I am the man."
"How then were your eyes opened?" they demanded.
He replied, "The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see."
"Where is this man?" they asked him. "I don't know," he said.
John 9:35-41
Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and when he found him, he said, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
"Who is he, sir?" the man asked. "Tell me so that I may believe in him."
Jesus said, "You have now seen him; in fact, he is the one speaking with you."
Then the man said, "Lord, I believe," and he worshiped him.
Jesus said, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind."
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, "What? Are we blind too?"
Jesus said, "If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

Lynn Williams is a professor of creative writing at Emory University and she has written a wonderful little short story called, “Personal Testimony.”

Personal Testimony is a story about a 12 year old girl who is the daughter of a fire and brimstone evangelistic preacher from West Texas, who every summer sends his little girl to summer camp. Not just any summer camp, but church camp. Fundamentalist church camp. Which means that during the day it is like any other summer camp – softball, sailing, archery, hiking, swimming – but at night, every night, there is a sweaty “Come to Jesus” sermon by some visiting preacher who seeks to woo children into heaven by scaring them out of hell. Hell is vividly described as a place of fire and brimstone and sulfur and demons and pain and agony.

The unwritten rule of the camp is that at sometime during the week every child will come forward and give his or her life to Christ. And not just that, but each child will give a personal testimony.

The problem is that most of these kids are just ordinary kids who don’t have a great story to tell during a testimony.

That’s where our 12 year old preacher’s daughter comes in because she has figured out a way to make some extra money at camp – as a ghost writer for Jesus. She fabricates personal testimonies for the other campers. For $5 she wrote a personal testimony for a boy named Michael which he delivered tear-stained before the congregation. It was all about how in his old life he was bad – so very bad. He would take the Lord’s name in vain during football practice, but now that he has met Jesus his mouth is as pure as a crystal spring.

Her best work, however, was for a young boy named Tim Bailey, and he was able to say that his life was empty and meaningless until that fatal night, when in a pick up truck accident in Galveston he almost met his death, but Jesus himself took the steering wheel and steered it away from disaster.

Now that one took imagination so she got $25 for that one.

I like that story because it sheds light on a truth about personal testimonies – and that is that in many churches they become so pat, so predictable, so cliché, that they all have the same plot.

“Once my life was in shambles, but I met Christ, and now everything is wonderful!!!”

“I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore, then the master of the sea lifted me, and safe am I. I once was blind, but now I see.”

And we love that sort of testimony – predictable, pat, formulas that never change – because we like a religion that is predictable, pat, and based on a formula that never changes. We like it simple.

And we like our faith simple.

We like a predictable God.

We like having a God who fixes things and makes everything nice for us.

But God is not always simple, or predictable. And He rarely “fixes things” for us so that everything is nice and easy.

Have you ever heard someone give a personal testimony by saying, “I was living a pretty good life. Had a nice job, nice family, had a nice home and car. Then Jesus came into my life and messed everything up.”

Actually, that is what we see in the personal testimony of this man in John chapter nine.

Here is a person who should have the greatest of all personal testimonies – in fact we have right here in John, chapter 9, verse 25, that wonderful phrase, “I once was blind, but now I see.”

But the interesting thing is that the one person in the world who could never give one of those pat, easy, cliché, formulated testimonies, is the person who said in John’s Gospel, “I once was blind, but now I see.”

Because the day he met Jesus is not the day his troubles ended.

The day he met Jesus was the day his troubles began.

The passage begins with Jesus walking into town. He sees a man who was blind from birth, and the disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents?”
In other words, the disciples want an easy, simple faith.

We want our faith to be simple. Why there is suffering in the world. We want a simple answer. Why did terrorists kill innocent people on that fateful day in September 2001? Why does grandma have cancer? Give us a simple faith.

The disciples buy into the cultural teaching of that day that said if you are blind, you are a sinner. So they want to know, since this man was born this way, did he sin or did his parents sin.

But Jesus refuses to give a simple answer – he says, “Neither sinned.”

He then begins to give a little sermon in which he says, “We must do the works of God while we are in the light of day, night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Then Jesus spits onto the ground, makes a gross little mud patty, spreads that on the man’s eyes and tells the man to go wash his face in a nearby pool. He does, and then he sees.

Now in a simple faith, what would happen next is that the man who once was blind would tell everyone the news. Everyone would then praise Jesus and accept him as Lord and savior and there would be peace in the valley.

But no.

There is never a simple faith with Jesus.

For the man born blind, once he sees, life gets very complicated and his troubles begin.

People look at him and ask, “Is this the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some said, “It is.”

Others said, “No, it’s just someone who looks like him.”

But the man kept saying, “I’m the one who was born blind. Now I see.”

They took him to church and had the clergy, the Pharisees, investigate.

“How did you receive your sight,” they asked.

And the man explained all about the spit and the mud and the pool, but the Pharisees said, “No, can’t be. He can’t do this on the Sabbath. We have rules. He didn’t observe the Sabbath. He’s a sinner.”

So the Pharisees call in the parents. “Is this your son? How does he see?”

And the parents distance themselves from this controversy, saying, he’s an adult. Ask him.

So they do, they call the man to meet the Pharisees yet a second time for an explanation, but the man has none to give. “All I know is that though I was blind, now I see.”

There is no simple faith here. No easy testimony. For the man born blind, once he sees, life gets very complicated and his troubles begin. He is hounded by the authorities. He has to give testimony over and over and over again about what Jesus did for him. He finds himself in conflict with the social order of his community – he was healed on the Sabbath, which is against the law. What a mess!

A few years ago Pastor Rick Warren wrote a book that became wildly popular - “The Purpose Driven Life.” When Rick Warren was on Larry King Live the pastor was asked to explain the success of the book, Warren said he couldn’t understand it. He said there is nothing in that book you can’t encounter in any church in America. Spend 40 days in any church, and you will encounter pretty much everything that book teaches. There is, Warren admits, nothing new in that book.

I’ve thought about this and I’ve come to believe that the success of this book is based on two things. First is the opening sentence, “It’s not about you.” The church has been teaching that for 2000 years, but that is a dramatic contrast to what our society is now teaching us. That opening line was so much of a contrast to what people see on television and in society today, that it drew people in. Second, the book is so, very, very simple. I think that once in a while Christians need to step backward and take a class in Christianity 101 and to hear the simplicity of the faith. Rick Warren’s book does that so well.

But there is a danger to that, and that is that we would just stay right there in the simple faith, and never move forward.

It may be a good starting point, but where do you go from there.

We like our faith to be simple.

We like it unchanging.

We like it unchallenging.

And if we have come to Jesus just for our lives to be easy and simple and for God to fix everything for us, then we’ve made a grave mistake. Because we have made our faith all about us.

And it’s not all about us.

It’s about God.

And if you really have found Jesus, then you know your life can never be simple, and you can never rest easy again.

You know how those medicines that are advertised on television have a disclaimer. The commercial begins by telling us what a wonderful product this is, and if we get our doctor to write us a prescription, then our blood pressure or cholesterol or whatever will be managed. Then at the end, there is a rapid succession of words about how this product may cause headaches, weight gain and in some cases death.

We never listen to that part of the commercial. We tune that part out.

Jesus filled his ministry with disclaimers. But we tune that part out.

More than once the Bible speaks of how a true disciple should be prepared to suffer.

In Matthew 16: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. “

Matthew 10: “I did not come to bring peace to earth, but a sword.”

Luke 21: “People will hate you because of me.”

When you get in the light of Jesus your eyes are opened and you no longer have a simplistic faith – you have a REAL faith. A faith that struggles with “why is there suffering” and yet has no easy answers. A faith that demands that you get up and work. A faith that often puts you at odds with society. A faith in which you can no longer rest easy.

Meeting Jesus does not always fix everything so that your life is now nice, and pleasant and simple and easy.

When Jesus opens your eyes, that’s not when your troubles end. It’s when they begin.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor whose eyes were opened to the oppression of the Jews at the hands of Nazi Germany. He stood up against the Nazis, spoke out against them, and even helped sneak Jews out of the country so they could survive. He wrote a book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship.” The world found out what he was talking about when the Nazi’s executed him in 1945.

You think it is easy being a Christian? Open your eyes!

It’s tough. If you want your life to be “fixed” so that everything is easy and simple, see a shrink. You want to become a disciple? See Jesus Christ.

Suzie Scott had a successful modeling career. She became the Miss May of Playboy magazine. She got divorced and then married her divorce attorney, who himself was a very wealthy person. They had a home in California and another in Miami, Florida. They traveled the world.

Then one day she and her husband found Christ.

And their easy life vanished.

All their problems began.

Suzie found herself moved by pictures of hungry children. You know the kind. We see their ads on television all the time – but we don’t really see them. Children with swollen bellies and some professional actor tells us that for a few pennies a day, this child can be fed and sent to school.

But she saw these ads. And she opened her eyes.

She found herself traveling to Ethiopia, and to the Sudan. She tried to use her status as a celebrity model to encourage other people to give money.

And one day she found herself in Haiti – where she and her husband bought a home. They opened a hospital for children in the poorest part of the city of Port au Prince.

Let Jesus open your eyes – and you can never rest easy again.

It’s a lot easier to stay blind. We can ignore the poor. We can forget those in need.

It is so much nicer to have a simple faith.

But remember what Jesus said at the beginning of this text? The disciples wanted a simple faith – an easy explanation to suffering. When asked if the man born blind was blind because he sinned or because his parents sinned, Jesus says, “Neither.” Then without offering a theological rationale behind the suffering in the world he goes onto say, “We must do the works of God while we are in the light of day.”

Open your eyes!

There is work to do.

A few years ago the Presbyterian Women of a tiny little country church decided to take on a new social ministry. One thing about the Presbyterian Women is that they have a long history of putting their faith into practice. Someone mentioned that their little town, being a beach resort, often had a lot of college students. And from time to time their little jail became host to some of those college students from out of town. Perhaps the Presbyterian Women could bake some cookies and make some nice baskets for those young boys who found themselves in a little spot of trouble.

Nice idea. They asked the police if they could do that, the police chief didn’t see any harm in it, so one Saturday night the ladies arrived at the prison to comfort some of the young, slightly misguided youth from out of town.

And suddenly, their eyes were opened.

These young people were suffering from abusive guards. One of the inmates was a young woman who told the church women stories of sexual harassment.

At first, the church women assumed that they were being sucked into wild tales that had no substance. They didn’t want to be manipulated by these people who had been arrested and were awaiting trial. But the more they looked into things, the more they found. The more they saw. Scandals. Abuse. Misconduct by officials.

So the Presbyterian Women began working to change things for the better, which resulted in the Police Chief being fired and himself facing criminal charges.

In anger, the corrupt police chief called the leader of the Presbyterian Women and said, “Why couldn’t you leave well enough alone? Why can’t you ladies just be Christians on Sunday morning?”

“We must do the works of God while we are in the light of day.”

Open your eyes!

There is work to do.

Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church is in New York City. It is a wonderful cathedral standing in the midst of the wealth of the city. The church’s neighbors include Sax, Tiffany’s and right across the street is the Trump Towers.

For years, many of the homeless of the New York would find a home at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. They would sleep there under the arches of the porch. On Sunday morning, members would arrive and would have to walk around the homeless.

Then one day, by the grace of God, their eyes were opened.

They decided to see the people in their midst.

They reached out to these poor and said, “Sleep at our church, we will get to know your names, we will protect you, in the morning we will offer you breakfast. Welcome to God’s house.”

That’s when the trouble started.

First there were the neighbors, “What’s going on at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, isn’t that the church that used to be blind?”

No it must be a different congregation,

No it’s the same one.

Then it got around to the authorities. On a cold night in December the police showed up to run the homeless off the porch and the church protested and the authorities said, you are running an illegal shelter on your porch and you can’t do that.

It went to court, and the court said, “You are licensed only as a house of worship. This is not your mission.”

And 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church said, “You ask Isaiah about our mission. You ask Jesus.”

And the judge decided the church was right and ruled in favor of the church.

The city appealed and lost.

Appealed again and lost.

It’s not over yet, but after the 3rd or 4th victory, some members of the congregation gathered on the porch with the homeless for a service of thanksgiving. And after a prayer of thanksgiving, one of the homeless guests spontaneously began singing Amazing Grace. You know it. We just sang it a few minutes ago.

“Once I was blind. But now I see.”

And when they finished singing it, one of the members of the congregation blurted out, “Look up! Look up!”

And when they looked up she said, “It’s a sign that the founders of the church knew we would be here tonight.”

And when they looked up they saw something the members of the church had never seen before.

In the roof of the archway overhead there was a beautiful mosaic of angels reaching down protectively, and the eye of God was keeping watch. Many of them had been through that doorway hundreds of times and had never seen it.

And one of the homeless men said, “Yep, we see that every night -- When we are flat on our backs and we open our eyes.”

When Jesus gives us our sight, it is not a comfortable thing – it’s a dangerous thing. It disrupts our lives and the lives around us. When Christians open their eyes and see, they can never rest easy again.

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011All Rights Reserved

Woe, Despair And Agony On End

2011-06-26T09:35:00.000-04:00

Psalm 69:1-16
Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God. Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal. You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you. May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, the LORD Almighty; may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel. For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face. I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons; for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me. When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn; when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me. Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards. But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me.
Psalm 69:33-36
The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them, for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there.

Romans 8:35-39
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Some people love to complain.

I was at a seminar not long ago and one of the participants was upset. The seminar was not what he had expected, so he raised his hand and complained to the speaker and then he picked up his notes and left the room.

He later posted on his Facebook page a more detailed statement of complaint.

Some people live to complain.

I was in Haiti a few years ago. I had escorted a group of doctors and nurses and we were doing work in the hills and villages – providing health care to people who had never been to a doctor before. The day we were about to leave, Haiti was hit by a hurricane and there were mud slides throughout the country. We were stranded there for an extra week or so. Everyone who was with me was either a doctor or nurse, and our attitude was “we’re safe, we survived, we’ve got work to do.” And everyone rolled up their sleeves and began providing emergency medical care. Except for one man – who complained daily. Hourly. By the minute.

When we were finally able to get air travel out of the country, he and I stood at the ticket counter and heard the sad news, “I’m sorry,” the lady behind the counter said. “Your names are not on the passenger list.”

Well, I knew how this worked. I handed my passport back to the lady, along with a $20 bill tucked inside.

“Check that list again,” I said. “I think I saw my name there.”

“Oh yes, here it is,” she said, handing me a boarding pass, along with my passport, and keeping the $20 bill for herself.

I told Bill, “that’s the way it’s done.”

Bill complained, “I refuse to bribe anyone. I bought my ticket, I demand to be given a boarding pass!”

I was get him on a flight that would leave six hours after everyone else left.

“I’m going to write a sternly worded letter to American Airlines,” Bill said.

The rest of us wanted to write thank you notes for getting Bill back home safely on a DIFFERENT flight that we were on.

Some people love to complain.

And sometimes people need to complain.

Sometimes, the management needs to hear our complaint about poor service.

We should complain at injustice.

Sometimes, we feel like complaining to God Himself.

In West Virginia family and friends gather in a church in a coal mining community. Word comes that by some miracle all miners have been found alive. People rejoice to God.

Then the joy turns to sadness when another messenger arrives to give the news that only one person has been found alive. The rest are dead.

The songs of praise become angry and bitter. “How could God do this to us,” people ask. “We trusted God and he failed us.”

A nation watches our communities hit with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and droughts. “Where is God,” is being asked over and over.

A family gathers around a grave of a child. Through their tears they ask, “Why did God desert us?”

Your family is torn apart by strife. You lose your job. Your teacher gives you a failing grade. Your children or grandchildren rebel. Your spouse suffers a loss of memory.

And your prayers no longer begin with a happy and joyous, “Praise God!”

It begins with a sigh of sadness, “O God.”

Many times we like to come into this Sanctuary and hear uplifting music and hear a positive message.

But there are times when that is simply not where we are.

We find ourselves angry at God. Confussed by God. Overwhelmed and depressed, it is not a prayer of praise we need, but a lament.

Whenever we are angry or bitter at God, most of us feel as if it is unchristian to admit those feelings to God.

But in the Bible, we can become witnesses to the lives of others and find that many angry people expressed their feelings to God.

Job was angry with God. He lost his family, his wealth, his property, his health, and pretty much everything else.

Job 30:20-22
20 "I cry out to you, O God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me.
21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me.
22 You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm.
(NIV)

For Job, as confused as he was about what God was doing, he still found that going to God in an angry prayer was the natural thing to do.

Hey – it’s not like you can hide your feelings from God.

If you are angry, God will know it.

So you might as well admit your anger, bitterness or confusion to God and start dealing with it.

The Psalms offer several wonderful examples of prayers we can use at such times, and they are called prayers or songs of lament.

These lament prayers are easy to find.

All you have to do is to look for the words “O God.”

Some people, when they suddenly find themselves in a troubling situation, might say, “O Boy.”

Or they might say, “O no.”

Or they might say, “O --- something else. Profanity perhaps.

The Psalmist is a man of God. What does he say?

O GOD... or O LORD...

Psalms of Lament always begin with the words, "O God" or "O Lord."

There are 150 Psalms and 60 of them have in the opening line, the words, “O God” or “O Lord.”[1]

So when you feel like lamenting to God, look for the words, “O God,” or “O Lord” in the opening words.

Psalm 16 opens with the words, “Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.”

Psalm 43 opens with “Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation; rescue me from deceitful and wicked men.”

Psalm 55 opens with “Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught at the voice of the enemy…”

These are prayers of hurting people.

These are songs that sad people sing.

These are words that sometimes become our words.

Our Old Testament lesson is an example of one such Psalm of Lament.

These are not happy words.

These are words of agony and pain – and sometimes that is exactly the way we feel when we pray to God.

Listen again to these words:

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.

Can’t you hear the pain in that person’s words?

Haven’t you been there?

You feel overwhelmed. Up to your neck in work or trouble or grief. There’s no foothold and you feel like you are in danger.

The Lament Psalms always open with that sort of direct address to God. These Psalmists are not just going around gripping and complaining, and mumbling to themselves. They are going straight to God with their complaints.

Isn’t it wonderful that we have a relationship with God in which we can be real. We don’t have to pretend. We don’t have to dance around the topic. We don’t have to hem and haw but we can dive right in and come straight out with it.

Most of us cannot be totally honest in all of our relationships.

If your wife asks, “Honey, does this dress make me look fat” you suddenly have to ask yourself just how honest you want to be.

Likewise, at lunch on Sundays when I ask my wife, “Honey, how was the sermon today,” I’m not sure I’m really looking for an honest answer!

But with God we have no secrets at all. So there is no reason at all to pretend with God.

Psalm 139 says, “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.”

So if we cannot hide our feelings to God, why not admit them to God so that we can work through our anger or confusion.

Now one important element of these Lament Psalms is not only that they are honest in presenting complaints to God, they also contain requests for help from God.
What good is it to complain if that is all you do? In the Psalms, when people complain to God, they ask for help.

Returning again to our Old Testament Lesson, we find this pattern in Psalm 69:

13 But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation.
14 Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink…
16 Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me.

These Lament Psalms that begin “O God…” They complain to God about important issues, then the writer of the Psalm asks for help from God, and finally these Psalms have an element of confidence.
Confidence!

There is always some confidence in God reflected in these Psalms. And this is a glimmer of the growth one can experience through stress situations.

Going back to Psalm 69, we see this confidence beginning in verses 30-36.

I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving.
… you who seek God, may your hearts live! The LORD hears the needy

You sense that kind of confidence in God when we read St. Paul’s letter to the Romans:

Romans 8:35-39
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36 As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(NIV)

That is the formula for a successful problem.

First - Don’t just complain and grumble – express your feelings to God.

Second – Don’t just complain, ask God for help.

Third – Have confidence that God is with you.

Copyright 2011, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com

[1] There are only 8 psalms that begin with “O God” that are NOT laments: These are 8 9 21 30 65 72 75 and 104.

Trying To Stay Awake In Church

2011-06-19T09:37:00.000-04:00

Acts 2:1-12
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.
2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.
6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.
7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?
8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?
9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome
11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-- we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!"
12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"
(NIV)

This never, ever happens at Chapel by the Sea, but in my last pastorate I had a member named Norm.

Norm could never stay awake for an entire worship service.

He would sit close to the front and I always had a direct line of sight view of Norm.

His head would slooowly tip back.

His eyes would slooowly shut close.

His jaw would fall open.

And he would stay that way until the end of the service.

One day, Norm brought his 5 year old granddaughter to church, and apparently, she had never seen anyone fall asleep in church.

So she stood up on the pew and with her face right in Norm’s face, she yelled out, “Granddaddy. Are you asleep, or are you dead?”

In this morning’s New Testament lesson, we read about a church service in which it would have been very difficult to have fallen asleep.

It was on the Day of Pentecost, the birthday of the church. Fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus and ten days after His ascension to heaven, the Holy Spirit arrived in a powerful and dramatic way.
It was an exciting occasion!

No body could sleep through something like that!I believe church should always to have an element of excitement!

The church was exciting when it was given birth on Pentecost Sunday.

The church remained exciting through its early history as seen in the Book of Acts.

The church should always be an exciting place where the Holy Spirit is alive and working.

Now what does that mean? Besides the fact that you should stay awake in church, what does that mean?

Does being in a church where the Holy Spirit is alive and well mean that we are an out of control church? Not at all.

To be a church that is filled with the Spirit means we are controlled by the Spirit.

Now, at the moment of Holy Spirit descended upon the church, there was a rushing of a strong and mighty wind. Then there was the appearance of tongues of fire sitting on top of everyone’s heads. And add to that everyone spoke in a different language and understood what was being said.

You can’t sleep through something like that!

Obviously, there are lots of interesting things here.

But as confusing as it may have appeared on the surface, there was a sense of order here.

From the outside, it looked as if the Christians were drunk. But Simon Peter had to tell some of the spectators that the church members weren’t drunk! (v. 15) They were "under the influence" all right, but it was the influence of the Holy Spirit!
As the scripture commands us in Ephesians 5:18 - "Be not drunk with wine...but be filled with the Spirit."
When believers get filled with the Spirit things will get exciting! Out of control? Never! Exciting? Yes, definitely!
Throughout the ages, one of the favorite Bible verses for Presbyterian theologians and preachers comes from I Corinthians 14:40 - "Let all things be done decently and in order.”

And earlier in that New Testament book, Paul wrote, “For God is not the author of confusion." (1 Corinthians 14:33)We also learn from our New Testament Lesson that being a church filled with the Holy Spirit means that the preaching and studying the Word of God must be central.
In the Second Chapter of Acts, after the Holy Spirit descended on the church, Peter began to preach. As he did, Peter was constantly quoting Old Testament scriptures in his sermon. It so impacted the hearers that they were asking "what shall we do?" (verse 37)
The Word of God remains the message of the Church.

We are moving through a study of the Book of Acts, and in one place in Acts (Acts 4:31-32) there is a description of a worship service. Acts puts it this way – “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. All the believers were one in heart and mind.”

Worship – the Holy Spirit – the Word of God – they all go together in perfect harmony.

You can’t have true worship without the Holy Spirit or the Word of God.

We also learn from our New Testament Lesson that being a church filled with the Holy Spirit means that all people are welcomed into the church.
In the Book of Acts we see a wonderfully multicultural gathering of people.

You can imagine the scene. People of different nationalities and races. Different cultures. Rich and poor. All gathered together.

In fact, this was one of the struggles that the Roman empire had with Christianity. The empire had a strong sense of classes – and a strong sense that certain people who belonged to one class had to actually live and function in that class. But in the Christian Church, a wealthy and politically connected Roman citizen might be a simple member of the Christian community, while a slave could actually become a bishop in the church.

In Christ, we are all equal.

In the Book of Acts, this morning’s story begins with the disciples of Jesus being in "one accord" and in "one place". But that was the easy part.
It’s fairly easy to get together and worship with folks like yourself.But to worship with people are different that takes the Spirit of God.

Some people find it difficult to worship with people of other races – for some, that diversity is a joy. For God it is certainly a joy when all of his children are together.

Some people find it hard to worship next to someone who has long hair, or tattoos, or (heaven forbid) a beard. Some people don’t like worshipping next to someone wearing blue jeans and a leather jacket, while others don’t like worshipping next to a person in a suit and tie.

But all of us are God’s children, and if we don’t learn to worship together HERE on earth, heaven is going to be a little tougher than expected.

Can you imagine what it was like at Pentecost when folks from at least 16 different locations came together for a cultural and linguistic encounter?
I’ll tell you what it is like – it is like the Kingdom of God. Because that is the way it will be when we get to heaven.

Every race, every nation, every language. Rich and poor. Well educated and the illiterate.

Some of us will have nothing in common except for the one thing that we will all have in common – Jesus Christ.
Martin Luther King Jr. observed that the most segregated hour in America was Sunday morning at 11 AM. He was right. But we’re not just segregated by color.
In many churches, whenever anyone comes in who looks different or dresses differently church members keep their distance. Anybody outside their little circle of friends threatens them.
But that doesn’t happen in a church that is filled with the Holy Spirit.

The church that welcomes the Holy Spirit, must also welcome all children of God.

One last thing about the church that is led and filled by the Holy Spirit. It cannot help but share the Good News of the Gospel.
In our New Testament lesson for today, what was the purpose for the gift of tongues? So folks from around the world could hear the gospel in their own language.
Jesus had told his disciples in Acts 1:8: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Think about that.

The disciples liked Jerusalem and Judea.

They did not like Samaria.

And the ends of the earth meant hard work!

But Jesus sent them to all of those places.

This is one of the great purposes of the church -- to proclaim the good news that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again the third day. And all who place their trust in Him for salvation have eternal life!
Peter proclaimed "...those who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." (verse 21)
Those who were saved on the Day of Pentecost were baptized and joined with the other disciples in spreading the good news even further!
Sadly, surveys today indicate that only one in four Christians even believe that they have a responsibility to share this Good News with others.
If we are not careful we can neglect the most important part of Spirit-led worship - the part where we expand the church by sharing the gospel!
I read a tragic story several years ago.

In the city of New Orleans, there had been an increase of drownings in the public swimming pools one year, so as the city approached a new summer season, the community leaders were determined to stress safety at all public swimming pools. Sure enough, that summer, with all of the emphasis on safety, the city of New Orleans had a wonderful summer – the first summer in memory of not a single drowning at any of the public pools.

At the end of the summer season, there was a celebration at one of the municipal pools. They threw a party at pool-side to celebrate and two hundred people gathered in honor of the momentous occasion, including about 100 certified lifeguards. But as the party was breaking up and the four lifeguards on duty began to clear the pool, they found a fully dressed body in the deep end. They tried to revive Jerome Moody, age 31, but it was too late. He had drowned surrounded by lifeguards celebrating their successful season. (United Press International, Aug 2, 1985)
In the church, we stand around and celebrate and worship – and sometimes forget one of the most important things that we are supposed to be doing – sharing the Gospel!!!!

We just fall asleep. We get comfortable. We forget.

The Spirit-led church never forgets – never neglects to share the gospel. And where there’s an atmosphere conducive to the new birth - there is excitement. Everybody stays awake!

Copyright 2011, The Rev. Dr. Maynard Pittendreigh
All rights reserved.
Sermons are available online and can be found by visiting www.Pittendreigh.com

“Worshipping God On The Golf Course”

2011-06-05T15:03:00.000-04:00

Psalm 19
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun. It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course. It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is deprived of its warmth.
The law of the LORD is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the LORD are firm, and all of them are righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the honeycomb. 11 By them your servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults. Keep your servant also from willful sins; may they not rule over me. Then I will be blameless, innocent of great transgression.
May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

Hebrews 10:19-25
Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Not long ago, I was talking with someone who told me that he could worship God on the Golf Course.

"Preacher," he said, "I go out on that course and it so quiet and peaceful. The grass is so green. The sky is so blue. The birds are singing and flying about. And whenever I go out there I can feel the presence of God."

Actually, he has a point.

I feel the same way sometimes.

I felt that way the other day when I was driving home and I was watching a sunset. The sky was filled with so many different colors, and it was changing constantly as the sun set.

I could feel the presence of God.

Some of you may know that I am an amateur astronomer and I enjoy going out to the Everglades and spending the night with my telescope. It is beautiful out there. In my back yard I might see 40 or 50 stars in the sky, because there are so many street lights that block out the night sky. But out on Lover’s Key or in the Everglades, I can see thousands of stars and it is so beautiful.

I can feel the presence of God.

I read a book about the astronauts of the Apollo program. One of the interesting bits of history about the Manned Moon Missions is that when the first men landed on the moon, and while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were waiting for the greenlight from NASA's Mission Control to step out of the Lunar Lander and walk on the Moon's surface, Buzz Aldrin took a moment to take out a tiny communion kit, given him by his church, that had a silver chalice and wine container about the size of the tip of his finger. During the morning he radioed, "Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last
few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way."

"In the radio blackout," he wrote later, "I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup." Then I read the Scripture, 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.' ... I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquillity. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements."

Many of the astronauts who have been into space have been moved by the presence of God. As one astronaut observed after a flight on the Space Shuttle, "You cannot look down at earth without realizing how small our world is, and how big our God is."

"I can worship God on the Golf Course..."

Or the hiking trail, or at a camp site in the Everglades, or on the boat at the beach, or in the mountains, or in Space itself...

Fill in the blank. You go out and communion with nature, and you feel intensely the presence of God.

And that is something the Psalmist in our Old Testament Lesson believed very much in.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”

There is not a single time I've ever been out with my telescope that I have not thought about Psalm 19: "The heavens declare the glory of God..."

But, it's not good enough. It is never enough to simply feel the presence of God.

There will always be something missing if we worship God only on the Golf Course, or on the boat at sea, or in the hiking trails.

We can see the presence of God, but that is not enough.

Psalm 19 makes a dramatic shift in the middle of the passage. It is such a dramatic shift that some scholars think that maybe there are really two different psalms here and that someone down through history accidently put these two psalms together. But I don't think so. I think that what we have here is one very united psalm.

In the first part, verses 1 through 6, the psalmist is outside, watching a beautiful sunset.

1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,
5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion, like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat.

Then in verse 7 there is a dramatic shift.

All of a sudden the psalmist is not outside on a hillside looking at a sunset, he is in the Temple, inside the sancatury.

7 The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the LORD are sure and altogether righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold; they are sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb.

The man on the Golf Course looks around and sees, "There's a God out there. But what God?"

The astronaut looks out into space and says, "There's a God out there. But what God?"

The poet sees the sunset and says, "There's a God out there. But what God?"

You can feel the presense of God anywhere, but you have to come inside the sanctuary to hear and understand, the word of God.

It is never enough to know that there is a God.

You have to learn about God.

Out there, on the golf course, or the everglades or on the beach, you can feel something of the presence of God, but you have to come in here to understand that presence.

This was made dramatically clear to me some years ago when I did two funerals in the space of one week.

The first funeral was a young woman who had died suddenly and tragically. She was in her car, sitting, waiting for a traffic light to change from red to green so she could move forward. The light changed and she began to drive forward, when suddenly a car, trying to make the yellow light, ran the red light and slammed into her car at a high speed. She died instantly. She was 29 years old, and left behind a husband and two children -- a 4 year old and a 2 month old.

The other funeral was just as tragic.
A family went on a picnic. While the adults sat at the picnic tables and talked, the children played at the lakeside. By the time the adults realized one of the children was missing, it was too late to do anything about it. A five year old child had died, he had drowned in the water.

Both families experienced not only a death, but a tragic death.

Both families believed in God.

Both families had the same questions, "How could God let this happen?"

Both families felt pain and sorrow and even anger.

But there was at least one major difference.

One family attended church regularly. The other attended at Christmas or Easter, and that was about it.

Both families understood the presence of God, but only one family had the Word of God.

That made all the difference.

For one family, there was healing.

For the other, bitterness.

You can go out on the golf course and know the presence of God, but you don't get the Word of God.

For the tired soul, watching a sunset is nice, but it's not enough. It takes the Word of God to revive the soul.

For the confused mind, playing a round of golf and feeling the presence of God in nature doesn't give guidance. It takes the Word of God to make wise the simple.

For the grieving spirit, it is not looking at the ocean or the stars that gives comfort, it is the Word of God that gives joy to the heart.

I'm glad that those of you who go out on the golf course can feel the presence of God.

I'm glad that when I go out in the Everglades for a night and see the stars, I can feel the presence of God.

But to experience the presence of God without experiencing the Word of God is like watching television without the sound, or listening to a song without understanding the lyrics. What you experience might be nice, but it is incomplete.

But it is never enough to simply know that there is a God.

You have to let your life be guided by the Word of God.

And that is why we're not all on the golf course today.

And that is why we aren't all camping in the Everglades tonight.

That is why we come in here to listen to the sermon, and why we attend out Sunday School classes and why we attend out Bible Studies.

It will never be enough to know there is a God.

We need to also know the Word of God.

Copyright Maynard Pittendreigh, 2011All Rights Reserved