Archive for the ‘Grace’ category
May 8, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. May 8, 2016
It’s Mother’s Day, a day where we gloat over our moms and tell them how wonderful they are. Let’s be honest! Moms don’t get the credit or appreciation they deserve. We load up the applaud one day a year for them even though they took care of loaded-up diapers many, many days for many, many years.
I’ve had many unofficial moms through the years who have encouraged me, fed me, and hugged on me, but I’d like to pay tribute to three moms for different reasons.
The first mom would be my own…Virginia Wolfe! Yes, that was my mom’s name! She was possessed by stubbornness and gifted with compassion. Stubborn compassion, quite a mix. If there was someone in need that she could take care of she would do what needed to be done in spite of protests. With Mom there were no questions to be asked. If she decided to take a pot of chicken soup to Mrs. Swallow, our eighty-something next door neighbor widow in Williamstown, West Virginia, she did it. Our neighbors through the years were cared for. Growing up on a farm in Eastern Kentucky, my mom was used to having neighbors who took care of one another, no questions asked.
She was loyal. Her patronage of businesses was not based on who had the lowest price, but rather on friendship, being treated with respect, and loyalty. For years, she traveled forty-five minutes to have the same man do her hair, because that’s what you did.
She raised three children, all with vey different personalities, and, although we frequently didn’t agree with her, we respected and loved her deeply. She’s been gone now for two and a half years. I’ll visit her grave site next month and cherish the memories once again.
The second mom is my wife, Carol. What an incredible woman! In many ways she is like her own mom, Barbara Faletti. Fairly conservative, not prone to extravagance when it involved herself, but very giving when it involves others. The Mother’s Day card I give her today will cause her to scold me a little bit for spending the four dollars. The attached chocolate to it will simmer the scold a bit.
Even harder than being a pastor is being a pastor’s spouse. For thirty-six years, until this past December 31, that’s who she was. The number of evenings where she shared a meal with three kids but no husband can not be calculated. In the valleys and mountains of ministry she walked beside me.
Carol is a champion for those who are afflicted with diminished capacities of various kinds. She works with special needs middle school students. She hung out with a six year old autistic boy at Awana Club this year. She walks alongside a few of her friends who have suffered serious health crises. Although she enjoys watching some of the reality TV shows that I gag on, we’re on the same page in most of our preferences and likes. She loves her grandkids deeply. If you checked her cell phone you would find a video library of “grandkid clips” that include one year old Corin walking across the room, Jesse playing soccer or hurling himself at the player he’s defending in basketball, and Reagan singing, dancing, or just looking gosh darn cute!
Our three children love and respect her deeply. They know that the greatest gifts they can give her are the relationships they already have with her. She is a special woman who gets me to “wise up” in various ways. She’s the “clue” in my “cluelessness.”
The third mom is my oldest daughter, Kecia. Just as my mom had three children, and Carol has three children, Kecia is now the mom to a trio. She is the steady influence to the three. I see my mom in her in terms of keeping her kids on task, and I see Carol in her in regards to her compassionate side. I stopped by her fourth grade classroom for a few moments this past week and it was evident how much her students admire and love her. She’s like their “teacher-mom”, concerned for each one of them, thrilled with their progress, saddened by their heartaches.
Just as my mom and Carol have been steady influences and engaged parents, Kecia is that steady influence in a culture that often teeters on the the edge of chaos.
I am blessed to have lived, and now live in a home where laughter is as frequent as dancing granddaughters, and dressed-up super hero grandsons. “The Moms” are as essential to that as Miracle Whip on my hamburger!
Thank you, Lord, for the mom who has gone before me, the mom who walks with me, and the mom who is delighting me.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, love, marriage, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: blessed, caring for one another, fourth grade, fourth grade teacher, gifted, gifts, Miracle Whip, moms, Mother's Day, motherhood, Mothers, parental influences, pastor's spouse, positive influences, teacher mom
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April 22, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. April 22, 2016
I substitute taught in a fifth grade class this week. It was really an awesome experience, and I’m not just whistling Dixie! I found myself liking these kids! They didn’t try to tell me that their teacher gives them an hour for recess, or lead me down the wrong stairway, or shoot spit wads at me with their luncheon drinking straws…as some of us did a few decades ago to our substitute! (Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned!)
I also found myself connecting dots! A fifth grade class is a lot like a typical congregation.
First of all, there was “the system”. Every church has a system, sometimes written down in documents, but most of the time unwritten but known by the members. When someone veers away from “the system” there is much consternation. Special meetings get called. Phone calls get made. Side conversations become more frequent. In many churches “the system” is sacred!
In the midst of the fifth grade math class that was dealing with something called “line plots” I foolishly veered away from “the system.” It was as if a dark family secret just got revealed on Jerry Springer. There were a couple of gasps, several confused looks, but then one “rescuer” brought me back under control before I drifted too far into math curriculum heresy.
Close call!
Systems are important to help the congregation know there will be order in the midst of the journey. It’s kind of like serving the salad and main dish before you can get to the dessert. There’s an accepted order, a process for getting things done, and…processes that “we don’t do around here!” As a pastor there were a few times I didn’t follow the system, didn’t follow the order, and those were the most gut-wrenching, stressful times of ministry.
Clarification! There are times to go outside the system, but the “trailblazer” better have a well thought out plan before that path gets taken. If the congregational road has become a rut it is a sign that the system has become a detriment to movement.
The school system I was a part of this week included “parts” of math, science, and literature. Since it was a state testing day I didn’t get to have a part on “social studies.” Each part had its advocates and opponents. That is, there were those who were excited and focused, and those who just wanted to get through it. The purpose behind all the parts was for them to work together to provide a well-rounded education.
In any congregation there are also a number of parts in the system. There is worship, education/discipleship, fellowship, missions, serving ministries, and a number of other parts. People get excited in and invested in different parts, and, just as in the fifth grade classroom, there are other parts that they just want to get through. The passion comes out as the focus comes to the part they are excited about. The disinterest surfaces when the other parts are emphasized. I remember a man from a congregation I pastored who would get up and walk out when praise music was being sung, but sing with passion when a hymn was happening. Interestingly enough, in my experience there were very few people who loved praise music but had a disdain towards hymns. They were the much more flexible group when it came to the “music sub-parts” of the worship part.
In part two of “The Fifth Grade Classroom” I’ll focus on “personalities and pecking orders”.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: 5th Grade Classroom, American Baptist Churches, belief system, church life, churches, classroom, congregational functioning, congregational life, congregational systems, congregations, fifth grade, flexible, learning, Passion, processes, substitute teaching, System, teaching
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April 19, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. April 19, 2016
One restaurant chain offered a special deal last Friday, April 15, where a customer could receive a free entree with the purchase of an entree. They just assumed that April 15 was Tax Day, like it usually is!
But, lo and behold, the Internal Revenue Service had delayed the income tax return filing date until Monday, April 18. The three extra days allowed millions of people to procrastinate even longer in paying up!
The extra days came as a result of Emancipation Day, a holiday that is celebrated in the District of Columbia to recognize when slaves were freed there. Since Emancipation Day is April 16, a Saturday, the day before (April 15) became a holiday for government workers in D.C.
Thus the three day stay of execution!
Consider the three days as the grace of the IRS. What is rightfully due to them was backed off for seventy-two hours. Across the country there was a collective sigh of relief, like when a snow day postponed that Algebra test we were scheduled to take at school. Our initial thought was “Thank God! Another day to study and prepare!”, and that thought soon melted away from our minds as we went sledding with the neighbor’s kids. That evening we prayed to God for a blizzard to descend upon us, or, if not that, that he might eliminate Algebra as a school subject entirely!
The IRS planned this three day grace period long before it arrived, but, you see, grace is not high on the IRS’s priority list. Monday came…tax returns were filed…and the money was due.
And let’s be honest! The grace of the IRS, limited and distorted as it is, mirrors our own extended grace. We’re prone to back off from throwing the hammer down…for a while, and then we become stone-faced and legalistic.
One reason for that is that people take advantage of a grace-filled person. When someone hears that there is a grace period he often looks to see how he can personally gain from it. A person of grace is seen as being a soft touch.
And so, like the IRS, we offer limited grace, because…that’s just how it should be!
The more I comprehend the grace of God the more I am overwhelmed by it. It filters into my life and I know I’m not deserving. It confounds the minds of those who live by right-and-wrong boundaries.
In makes no sense to most of us, and yet, as followers of Christ, we trumpet its virtues.
This year we wrote a check to the United States Treasury that lowered the national debt a wee bit. What do you think the IRS would have said to me if I would have pleaded for mercy? Would compassion have been the response? If you believe that, I have some excellent shares of Krispy Kreme stock I’d like to sell you!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Nation, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: April 15, Emancipation Day, grace, grace period, income taxes, IRS, limited grace, taxes. tax returns, the grace of God, United States Treasury, unlimited grace
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April 17, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. April 17, 2016
Reagan, our delightful five year old granddaughter, has a creative side to her that emerges just about every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings at 11:55 when I pick her up from the “Little Sprouts” pre-kindergarten class. For the thirteen minute ride from Ms. Brianna’s place back to Grammy and Granddad’s house the unplanned spontaneous brainstorms of a very verbal and cerebral five year old take center stage…from the back seat.
Last Thursday she invented a new routine to run by me. Every time I said something to her she would reply “I can’t hear you because I have my ears covered.”
And then she would laugh!
We went on like that for a while. I played along by pretending to say something but remaining silent. The backseat voice: “I can hear that you aren’t saying anything!”
Reagan has a talent for getting the upper-hand in various non-competitive competitions. We went back and forth in this new listening game until we pulled into the driveway. She loved it, and I was exhausted!
My granddaughter teaches me as much about the silliness of the moment and the sacredness of life as anyone else. I’ve had to hide my copy of the book Killing Reagan when she’s around, just in case she gets the wrong idea.
In her childlike words and actions she shows me glimpses of my own relationship with my Father God.
I’m acutely aware of the fact that I often cover up ears to the whisperings of the Spirit and pretend that I’m deaf to the leadings and warnings. I surround my spirit with sound-proof avoidance and go on doing what seems comfortable and self-serving.
“I can’t hear you, God! I’ve got my ears covered!”
“Well, how do you know I’m saying anything, my child?”
“Because I just know!”
“Why not take your fingers out of your ears and listen then?”
“Because you might say something that I don’t really want to hear.”
“And in not hearing with your ears, does that keep your spirit from knowing?”
“You ask questions that are very uncomfortable to answer.”
“That’s because I love you more than you love yourself.”
Reagan pulls back the curtain and shows me some scenes from my spiritual journey even as she is living the life of a five year old. After all, a grandfather may have his ears covered to a conversation with God, but he will never close his ears to hearing the words of his granddaughter.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Grace, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: child games, conversations, conversations with kids, granddaughters, listening, not listening, pretending not to hear
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April 16, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. April 16, 2016
I remember my seminary days of studying theology, talking about it in non-personal ways, and writing papers about it that connected with my mind, but not my soul. A minister friend of mine recently referred to that period of our lives as “reaching for our theology.” That is, we reached for books on library shelves and wrote various statements in essays that were a mixture of what someone else believed and what we thought we believed. In those days, we were not adverse to do some name-dropping in these papers of theology. If a quote from Moltmann’s The Crucified God could be nonchalantly inserted into the pages we would go for it…whether we understood the run-on sentences or believed the doctrine.
Like flying in a plane at 35,000 feet and describing what Kansas is, our words were often “reaches’ for a grade, and not heartfelt beliefs. I confess…I was often in that place of reaching.
And then many of us upon graduation took positions on church ministry staffs and we soon discovered that there is a difference between “reaching” and reality. What we seemed to be able to stay a safe distance from- the actual experiencing of our statement of beliefs- suddenly moved into where we lived.
We went from explaining grace to having to live out grace in our ministries. We went from “reaching preaching” to “preaching from our life experiences.” In many ways it was good, but in some ways it was to uncomfortably close to home.
John Piper is a well-known author and, until 2013, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. I have several of his books in my personal library, including Desiring God and Future Grace (I just name-dropped, didn’t I?). In 2010 Piper took an eight month leave from his position for what he called “a reality check from the Holy Spirit.” He sensed that he had a growing disconnect between what he wrote about and who he was.
A reality check from the Holy Spirit! Many times in my years of ministry I sensed the Holy Spirit nudging my life. Sometimes I faced up to it, and other times…I just kept flying over Kansas!
One of the most difficult elements of ministry is connecting what we believe with why we believe it. It’s the knowledge getting married to the intimate, the distant God that we realize is close at hand, the words of God now being experienced with the breath of God.
In my “reaching days” I could quote from Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, but the reality of ministry is standing by the bed of a hospice patient and talking to him about the hope of the resurrection and what it means for each one of us.
There is a difference between preaching on forgiveness and being forgiving to the person who has purposely told a lie about you that has resulted in deep emotional pain.
I had many excellent professors back in my seminary days. One that I will always be indebted to was a theology professor named Tom Finger, not because I took pages and pages of notes in his classes, but rather because he kept asking me the hard questions:
“Why do you believe what you believe?” “
“What does that mean to you and for your life?”
“What difference does it make?”
He took me from flying over Kansas to having my feet in the dirt. People like that are God’s uncomfortable blessings upon our lives, because they help us figure out life. We see their handprints upon us as we gradually transform from “reaching preaching” to “preaching from our reality.”
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Grace, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: belief system, Beliefs, Desiring God, doctrinal statements, doctrine, Future Grace, John Piper, Jugen Moltmann, ministry, pastoral ministry, Preaching, reality check, reality check from the Holy Spirit, statement of faith, systematic theology, theology, Theology of Hope
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April 10, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. April 10, 2016
There is free photo editor available for computers called “Picmonkey.” It allows a person to touch up a photograph and make blemishes disappear. In effect, it brings the picture of a person’s face to perfection. It hides the imperfect.
If there was a “Picmonkey” that churches could use to cover up its imperfections it would be used as much as, or more than, the communion wine! A primitive form of it appears in the newspaper one day each week on the religious services advertisement page. Church slogans and pictures of smiling faces and praying people appear there to convince the reader that spiritual awesomeness is ready to be had at that location.
But the truth of the matter is that every church has at least three things: warts, pimples, and beauty marks. Forms of “Picmonkey” are often used to hide the warts and pimples and accentuate the beauty marks, but, believe me, the blemishes are still there under the make-up.
“Warts” are those things that just are! I’m speaking two Sundays a month at a very small congregation in a small community about forty-five minutes away from the city. Their pastor resigned in a bit of a church dust storm last fall. The congregation is a great group of people in a dated building trying to move forward. One of their warts is the placement of the women’s rest room. It is halfway down the stairway to the basement. Halfway! It is a wart that just is. There aren’t many women’s rest rooms that are halfway down a stairway, but, in this building, it would not easily be relocated, so…it just is!
A lot of church warts are related to the structure the congregation meets in. The church I pastored for many years had a leaky baptistry! Not a good thing for a Baptist church! Whenever we had a baptism we would have to bring in the fans for a few days afterwards to dry out the carpet. For $125 we bought a livestock watering trough that was smaller than the baptistry so it could fit right in the midst of that space. The leaky baptistry is still leaking, but the trough takes care of the problem. It was one of our warts that was humorous in some ways, and frustrating in others.
Every church has its warts. Some are more visible than others. Some warts are the result of gifts given to the congregation years before that have now become part of the congregational facial imprint. Some warts are even people- the person who talks non-stop in a small group, the man who falls asleep every Sunday during the sermon and starts snoring. The warts of a church aren’t necessarily good or bad. They just are! They are like Cindy Crawford’s facial mole. It just is, and now we wouldn’t recognize her without it.
“Pimples” are those tensions in a church that are often under the skin and not readily visible. They aren’t pleasant, and have a tendency to rise to the surface after a while and, forgive me, spew on others. A number of years ago there was a situation where a young unmarried woman in the congregation I was pastoring became pregnant. There was an evident tension between those who did not want to help put on a baby shower for her, and those who wanted to express their love and caring to her as she went through this. Those on one side thought that putting on a baby shower would be condoning pre-marital sex, while those on the other side felt that the young woman needed extra support and encouragement during this time and, after all, the baby was coming! Those who visited our congregation probably weren’t aware of the tensions, but the stakeholders were! Every church has its pimples!
Pimples exist in areas of a church where there are territorial battles, like the organ doesn’t get used any more, but those “cotton-pickin” drums do! Or a pastoral search committee is divided in its support of a potential candidate. Some of the committee see the candidate as a visionary for the future, while others are afraid he/she will change “their” church too much.
Pastors and congregations often become a festering pimple that is in danger of becoming a cluster of blemishes. Like adolescent faces it takes time and effort to slowly let the zits run their course and be healed.
And pimples can arise in the most unexpected places, like what is served at the coffee fellowship time each Sunday? Folger’s (which was good enough for my parents and also for me) or Starbucks (Quality matters!)?
And then there are the beauty marks…the equivalent of cute dimples and stunning eyes! A church’s beauty marks are present regardless of what the board and committee structure is. In fact, the beauty marks usually are present outside of a committee’s decisions. For example, every church has certain people that are the embodiment of Christ. The church is enriched by their presence, not because of the things they do and the ministry positions they fill, but simply because of who they are. They are the unofficial spiritual mentors.
Sometimes a beauty marks is something distinctive about the building. One church I was Associate Pastor of had an incredible stained glass window in the sanctuary that was wondrous to gaze at. The way the light hit it seemed to make it come alive. For me it still is the most awesome stained glass window I’ve ever seen, and people from the city knew about that church’s “beauty mark.”
Every church has its beauty marks!
Warts just are, pimples need attention, and beauty marks cause gratitude.
A church with too many pimples needs to invite in a spiritual dermatologist. A church with a lot of beauty marks should bring attention to them and not take them for granted.
And the warts? Live with them and avoid the temptation to cover them up with “Picmonkey” touch ups!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Faith, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: authentic church, baptistry, beauty marks, blemishes, church drama, church grievances, church problems, church tensions, organ-playing, pimples, warts, Worship
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April 3, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. April 3, 2016
“You are the salt of the earth…” (Matthew 5:13)
I find it interesting that Jesus used the present tense in teaching a large crowd of people gathered on a hillside about what it means to be a person of God’s kingdom. In the church we are more prone to talk about “becoming a disciple.” Our language indicates that it is like a destination that we haven’t reached, like driving to Alaska. In the church’s approach it’s as if Jesus said “You will some day be the salt of the earth.”
But, intentionally…without a stutter or mixing up words…Jesus said this is who you are right now. The crowd, most assuredly, would have been almost all Jewish, if not all Jewish. They knew what it meant to be Covenant-followers. They knew the Mosaic Law and the emphasis on being the holy people of God. Being the salt of the earth, however, was a new spin for them. Salt added taste, and their religion had lost its flavor. Salt preserved the essence of what had been packed in it, but the passion for and love for God had been stifled.
When Jesus tells the crowd that they are salt he’s taking them with him on a new journey. As soon as he finishes speaking to the people the scriptures tell us that he encountered a man with leprosy…one of the unclean people to avoid…and Jesus touched him. He tells him “Be clean!” And the scripture continues with these words: “Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Then Jesus said to him, ‘See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’” (Matthew 8:3b-4)
Jesus didn’t discredit the Covenant of Moses. He simply dusted off the rigidness, the tastelessness, that had caused it to be mis-used.
“You are…”
Jesus was bringing the Covenant-followers to a new journey of being Christ-followers. It’s kind of like coming to Colorado and seeing the mountains, but then having someone invite you to come up with him into the mountains. Either scenario has the mountains as a part of it, but being in the mountains gives you a new perspective, a new level of intimacy and understanding.
As Christ-followers we are to be salty. Not “assaulting!” There are some Christ-followers, who although passionate, have a way of peppering their proclamation in ways that drive the herds away…like dumping the whole bottle of hot sauce on your taco! People run screaming to the water fountain!
Being salt is more about flavor, bringing flavor to a bland existence. It is a question that any church needs to be asking itself: How do we, as the salt of the earth, add flavor to this community and to the lives of people who live here?”
In my cupboard is a container of Morton Salt. Last week we feasted one night on steaks that were grilled. The salt came out and got sprinkled on the sirloin to add that little extra taste to it. To often the church is the salt in the container spending time with the rest of the salt in order to…what, make it saltier?
Being the salt of Christ means we’re touching the lives of those who need the flavor of hope and the taste of being valued.
“You are salt!”
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Grace, Jesus, love, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: being salt, bland, bland religion, Christ-follower, flavor, Jesus healing, Matthew 5:13, Morton Salt, Mosaic Law, religion, salt, taste, tastelessness, The Sermon on the Mount
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March 30, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 30, 2016
God has a way of surprising us.
Easter Sunday is an example of that…Christ-followers huddled together behind a locked door in fear, and then there is a knock from a woman saying that Jesus was alive! That was a surprise!
This morning I was reading the story of Rahab in the Old Testament book of Joshua. She was a woman with a reputation…and not a good one! She was a prostitute, and, obviously, known for that. The two Israelite spies went right to her house. The welcome mat was always out for Rahab’s business.
And God uses her to protect the two men! And not just that, she is in the genealogy of Jesus. Check out Matthew 1:5 if you don’t believe me! Someone with a bad reputation, someone who was on the other end of the spectrum from “the honored”, gets brought into the God-story.
Saul had a reputation for persecuting Christians, and then he got blinded by an encounter with Jesus and had the first letter of his name changed. The meaning of his name went from “asked for” or “prayed for” to “humble.” And who would have thought that the chief persecutor of Christ-follower would be used to be the main proclaimer? Paul, without a doubt, was humbled!
Chuck Colson was a scoundrel! There’s no better way to describe him. He was “guilty as sin”, as some of my Kentucky relatives used to say, of crimes committed during Nixon’s Watergate scandal. And then he came to know Jesus in a personal way, and through his conviction and incarceration the ministry of “Prison Fellowship” was started.
God seems to be accustomed to using the disreputable for his purposes. Who we often discard becomes his trump card (No, that is not a political reference!).
Granted, it does not always happen that way, but we mostly write-off those who God has written into the storyline.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Death, Faith, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Charles Colson, Chuck Colson, disreputable, God's purpose, God's ways, Joshua, Prison Fellowship, Rahab, The Apostle Paul, the unexpected, Watergate
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March 26, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 26, 2016
Today is Saturday, the day before Easter. It is a day of waiting for many of us. Being a Christ-follower, I know what tomorrow means. It’s a day where I’m between death and life…Jesus is laying dead in the tomb, not back alive…not risen…the rock hasn’t moved an inch.
Sunday is different. I’ll put my sweat pants and t-shirt to the side and put my suit on that will make me look fashionably alive. I’ll speak to a group of believers gathered at First Baptist Church in Simla about the hope that the day tells us about.
As a pastor I’m living in the Sunday event even today as I prepare tomorrow’s words. It’s a unique perspective. In essence, I’m speaking from inside the tomb, but also looking outward from it. What words might Jesus have to say to the mourners of his death? What are the words that the church needs to hear?
Looking outward changes your view. It’s impossible to forget the primary purpose of the place you are standing in, but it also intensifies the excitement of the outward opening. Like the welcoming of a new breath of air for someone emerging from a deep dive into a lake, an opening in the tomb signals a path from death back to life.
So often I live for Jesus inside the grave. I turn my back from the hope and become the walking dead in Christ. I go through times of doubt, just like his disciples, and wallow in the self-pity of the demands of my faith. There is a tendency to close the story on Saturday and communicate the faith of a cranky, embittered Christian.
On the other hand, I see Christ-followers who detour past the tomb and live out a faith that seems to jump from the sweet, cuddly baby Jesus to the glorious glowing resurrected Jesus. Pain and suffering don’t make the cut in the abridged story of the messiah.
I’m becoming more convinced as I grow older that Jesus desires that I view life as a tomb person looking outward. That death is not the conqueror…that hope emerges out of hopelessness…that life follows death…these are the words to remember and the message to proclaim.
From inside the tomb I can speak about what is no longer true. I am able to tell my own story, that once I was the walking dead, but now I am spiritually alive. I understand who I was and, by the grace of God, who I now am.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Death, Faith, Grace, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Easter Sunday, Holy Saturday, hope, hopeless, Jesus' tomb, looking outward, open tomb, pain and suffering, perspective, resurrected, Resurrection
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March 7, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. March 7, 2016
Yesterday I was blessed to be a part of a congregation that was welcoming back one of its pastors from a three-month sabbatical. Since I retired two months ago I’ve been on a sabbatical…sort of! I recommend it…before retirement!
The pastor focused his message on “rest.” Scripture talks about “sabbath rest”, a concept that we read about with a suspicious eye. One of the points he made that I typed into my iPhone was the fact that after Adam and Eve were created they started their lives with a day of unearned rest.
His point hit me! we view rest as something that is earned after a hard day of work, or a day at the end of a long work week. Rest, however, is like a breath of the grace of God. It comes to us because he loves us, not because we’ve worked hard for it.
Of course, our culture doesn’t think along those lines. We’re not sure if Sunday is the first day of the week to begin a new journey with rest; or the seventh day of the week to rest up after six days of battles and struggles.Most of us talk about Monday as being the start of a new week; Sunday is the end of the weekend!
One of the factors in my deciding to retire was rest, or lack of! Monday, traditionally, was my day off…my day of rest, noticeably at the end of my “pastor week.” On Tuesday when a new week was staring me in the face I wasn’t ready to go at it again. If I was an iPhone being charged I was only back up to fifty percent battery life. I did not rest well, or enough.
That thinking is hard for blue-collar Americans who go at it each Monday morning hard and long for forty plus hours divided over five or six days. To rest is too often seen as a luxury, as opposed to a necessity…or even a gift from God.
I’m now in the midst of that weird period- that time when I’m not required to do anything, but feel guilty if I don’t do something. “Doing something” is an affliction of our culture’s mentality. We connect value and meaning to it. When we rest the question that gets asked often is “how long are you going to rest before you get on with things?” Rest is seen as something we’ll get to do a lot after we die…R-I-P!
Personally, I recognize that I’m in a time of being redefined. People view me differently. I’m no longer “Pastor Bill”, even though it is a huge part of who I am. I’m enjoying this new journey, and yet I’m still a little uncomfortable with it. The book I’m reading that is laying beside me on the coffee counter here at Starbucks is entitled The 12 Week Year: Get More Done In 12 Weeks than Others Do In 12 Months. The pastor’s group I belong to is reading it. It w3ill be interesting to see if it has the effect of pulling me in to the fray once again!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Death, Freedom, Grace, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Adam and Eve, blue-collar workers, first day of the week, graceful rest, labor, recharging, rest, rest in peace, resting, Retirement, Sabbath rest, Sunday, the end of the week, the rest of God, Work
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Words from WW Blog 