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Sunday Night Church and Ed Sullivan

October 26, 2024

“Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts…” (Acts 2:46)

Back in the really old days…like the late 50s and early 60s…my family’s Sunday routine was consistent: Sunday morning Sunday School and Worship, Sunday dinner (served instead of lunch), playing outside, and then getting in the car again for the drive to Sunday Night Worship. We were Southern Baptists, the lights aglow in the evening while the Methodists across the street stayed dark. Sunday nights at church were more relaxed. I didn’t have to wear my dorky bowtie or dress pants created to cause itching and torture. People seemed to be more engaged in light conversation and even laughed from time to time.

When we came home from church, my parents would turn on The Ed Sullivan Show, pop popcorn, and we’d gather in the living room. We’d laugh at Jonathan Winters, be amazed by some unique balancing act, and treat the performance of any vocalist as an opportunity to go to the bathroom.

It was family time, where we watched together, munched together, and talked together, Mom and Dad sitting on the only couch and the kids sprawled out on the floor.

Ed Sullivan has been gone for fifty years, passing away in 1974, while, in the meantime, “the family being together” has become a rare occurrence. Social networking, off as it sounds, has disconnected us; multiple streaming devices in the same household have separated us, and the disappearance of church gatherings has isolated us.

“Community” has been redefined as a chat room, a bowling league, and a gathering in a sports bar to watch the favorite sports team of a group of people who are all wearing team jerseys and/or hats.

“Community” in the first church in Jerusalem involved the weaving together of lives in sacrificial ways. They were a learning community, a sharing community, a prayerful community, and a serving community. Perhaps we can’t recover “community” to that point, but there’s got to be something more than a fellowship that rarely sees one another or a family that is staring into cell phones.

It’s disturbing that we, a nation of more than 350 million people, are more distant from one another than we’ve ever been.

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The Battle to be the Greatest Server

October 11, 2024

 “Then they came to Capernaum, and when he (Jesus) was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. (Mark 9:33-34, NRSV)

The chaos and tragedy of Hurricanes Helene and Milton have startled us. We’ve seen scenes of stranded people, houses being toppled, and communities being changed in a matter of minutes. The number of volunteers who have appeared on the scene has been gratifying, as folk who have no connections have offered assistance to the suffering. The amount of aid that has poured in gives us a sense of hope about the generosity of our fellow man.

Interestingly, in the midst of the care, several battles have surfaced that hint at territorial rights, like who is allowed to offer their assistance unconnected to an organization and who gets the credit. It’s reminiscent of the number of casseroles that appear at the home of the bereaved and the side conversations about whose was the best.

It’s also an oft-repeated story that mirrors the conversation that Jesus’s disciples had as they walking on the road to Capernaum. The gospel of Mark tells us they were arguing about who of them was the greatest. They were all disciples, but some of them seemed intent on proving they were on a different disciple-level than the others. When Jesus asked them what they were arguing about, there was silence. No one wanted to fess up to the topic of discussion. Jesus knew. He didn’t need to be told, and no one was telling him.

They were just like us!

Each of us has a craving for recognition. Charitable organizations have discovered that, so they create systems to give extra pats on the backs for levels of giving. There’s the Platinum Club, Gold Club, Silver Club, President’s Club, Distinguished Giving Club, Holy Cow Club, and Emerald Club. Organizations understand that they need to keep givers giving. I’ve received certificates from different organizations with a nice gold seal in the corner, telling me how awesome I am. It makes me feel good while creating the potential for me to lose sight of why I contributed in the first place.

The destruction of the recent storms has, excuse the comparison, blown away the sentimental surface and revealed layers of jealousy and hardened hearts.

Meanwhile, a number of ravished folk have become pawns in a game about power and prestige. They couldn’t care less about the name on the truck or the person carrying boxes of supplies. They just need clean water, food, shelter, and clothing. Their world has been turned upside-down. When that happens, it’s hard to read the name on the side of the vehicle no matter how large the letters are.

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The Sometimes Awareness of Jesus

September 17, 2024

My Honda CRV has “awareness helps.” If I begin drifting into the next lane, the steering wheel slightly shakes and a warning light comes on. If another vehicle pulls up in a lane beside me, a light on the rearview mirror on that side of the vehicle flashes to make me aware “I am not alone!”

Truthfully, most of the time, I don’t need a flashing light to let me know what I already know, but once in a while, I’m clueless about the obvious until I’m reminded of the obvious.

Big chunks of my life are like that in my relationship with Jesus. I’m trudging through a situation and someone will ask a question like, “How did Jesus help you in that?”

Ahhh…searching…searching…”Well, He guided me through it.” In my lame response, it’s as if the rearview mirror has flashed, and now I’m conscious of the constant closeness of my Savior. Sometimes, it’s as if Jesus was an afterthought to the event, like a fill-in for a sudden cancellation.

Strange as it may sound, being a part of a church fellowship has the sneaky potential to insulate me from the awareness of Jesus. At church, we use Jesus-talk and hang around with other Jesus-talkers and do activities that are somewhat Jesus-related…without being aware of the presence of Jesus in our midst. I feel a little “Baptist guilty” saying that, yet I know it’s spot-on. I have this tendency to be so entwined with the world and those around me that I miss the Master. I was talking to my youth group about this last week. We had “talked around Jesus” for quite a while and then, like a campfire in the midst of our circle, we focused on Jesus.

I’m going back to Psalms and drawing close to the intimacy of their words. Some Psalms express the misery of the moment, while others, such as Psalm 27 speak with an assurance:

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
    whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
    of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1)

I’m also treasuring how relationships have the extraordinary potential to solidify my foundation. Last week, I met with a long-time friend who is on a journey with cancer, and we talked about the presence of Jesus with him as he walks it. Conversations with fellow believers have taken on new meaning as I am reminded of Jesus’s footsteps staying with me. As Psalm 23 reminds me: I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me…” (Psalm 23:4)

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My Willing And His Will

August 11, 2024

“Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness…” (Luke 4:1)

I get the “W’s” confused. In this later part of my life, when I have the potential for large blocks of unscheduled time, I’m often approached with requests to help, be hired, or develop a new idea. The danger is confusing my willingness with God’s will—or, to put it another way, assuming that if an opportunity comes my way, it must be the will of God.

It seems that if we enjoy doing something, if it sounds intriguing enough, or if it is profitable, we decide God must be involved in it. Like the young man who approached an attractive young woman from the church and told her that God had revealed to him that they were to get married. Her classic response was, “Great! When God reveals the same thing to me, we’ll do it.”

However, the will of God is not always a positive, uplifting experience…in the short term. Jesus was led into the wilderness. It wasn’t like going away to church camp for a week or beginning a scenic vacation amongst the Redwoods. He was led by the Spirit to face the temptations of the Deceiver, who has a talent for making bad decisions look like opportunities.

In the same way, the journey to the Cross was following God’s will. It was a passage that was punctuated with pain, suffering, death, and heartache in order to open the way for eternal benefits.

I’ve had to wrestle with the truth that God’s will does not always look like a stock market opportunity. Discerning its authorship is not always clear, which is often an indication in itself. The Deceiver is a great fabricator. There are clarifying questions that help me figure out whether the originator is the Almighty or the Impostor.

  1. Does the opportunity match my skill set? I’m good with words but have a hard time figuring out math (Dad Pun!). That talent and weakness is a guiding factor.
  2. Will I be able to have a positive impact on those I’m working with?
  3. Are my trusted friends shaking their heads or encouraging me?
  4. How will it affect my closest relationships (spouse, kids, etc.)?
  5. Will it affect me in detrimental ways, such as health, spiritual, and mental fatigue?
  6. Will God be glorified by it?
  7. If I was able to look back on it ten years from now, would I smile or cringe?
  8. Am I sensing God saying yes, no, or not yet?
  9. Am I being asked to do this because I’m a warm body or because others see me as the solution?

There are probably other questions that you would add to the list, but those are most of mine. Some days, I remind myself that I’m supposed to be retired, but more often than not, I think about all the experiences I now have that God could be leading me to use.

Besides the moans and groans in the joints, growing older is not a negative. In many ways, like a picked peach, I’m just ripening.

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Leader Prayer Support

July 24, 2024

“Make the Master proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God’s emissaries for keeping order. It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity… Respect the government.” (1 Peter 2:13-15,17, The Message)

My longtime friend in ministry, Chuck Moore, wrote a piece about praying for our leaders. He makes the point that scripture commands us, pleads with us, to pray for those who govern us. He goes back to the Old Testament story of David when he had his chance to slay King Saul, but refused because Saul was God’s anointed. In fact, David felt guilty for even curring off a small piece of Saul’s robe.

“ He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” (1 Samuel 24:6)

Amid heated political rhetoric and an increasingly weird election cycle, my guess is that a small percentage of us have remembered to pray for our leaders and candidates-to-be-leaders. Those leaning left have not been prone to pray for the right, and the right, in like negligent manner, have not been praying for the left. The biblical mandate to pray is not dependent on who a person supports. It’s not even affected by who you DISLIKE! Just as we are told to respect our parents, we are commanded to respect our leaders. It is not dependent upon what their policies are, even if our faith beliefs don’t see them as morally right and unbiblical.

If we believe that prayer makes a difference, shouldn’t we pray for our leaders to be injected with the wisdom of God? And, hard as it is to believe, shouldn’t we pray that our own positions on issues would be scripturally correct, as opposed to, as citizens of this nation, what we think?

The unrest in our country has as much to do with elevating entitlement as it does with patriotism and allegiance. In New Testament times, the apostles and followers prayed for peace. Besides the 23 times Jesus uses the word peace, the other New Testament writings use it 70 times. Most of those are in greetings and goodbyes. “Peace be with you,” and “May the God of peace…” are a couple of those examples. It was a time of unrest and persecution, not a physically safe and secure times for the Jesus-followers. And yet, they prayed for peace. They knew Jesus was the Hope for their time. He is still that Hope who calls us to be peacemakers and prayer warriors. I love those words of Peter:

“It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society.”

No matter who you vote for, God gives you permission to pray for all those who lead us or seek to lead us. He gives you permission to do good even when those around you say it will do no good.

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Winning The Battle and Losing Respect

July 23, 2024

“But in your hearts, revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (1 Peter 3:15)

On July 21, 1925, John Scopes lost his trial and was fined $100. His offense was teaching evolution in school. The trial, taking place in the small Tennessee town of Dayton, attracted national attention, even being broadcast on radio coast-to-coast. William Jennings Bryan was the prosecutor. He had run for president in three different elections and served as Secretary of State. Nationally-known attorney Clarence Darrow, was the lead person for the defense. He wanted to force the issue of teaching evolution in order to make a point about the closemindedness of fundamentalist Christians.

The court case known as “The Scopes Monkey Trial” had two effects that were opposite from each other. The fundamentalists won the battle but lost the people’s respect.

Ninety-nine years later, the battles continue. They’re disagreements over issues of conscience and faith. Struggles that take in gender, individual rights, government interference, neglect, how the United States is involved in skirmishes around the world, and the absence of morals at home. Social media and instant communication make them larger in stature than they are. People talk about it not being like it used to, but it really is. We just find out faster. The names of the issues have just been changed.

And just like The Scopes Monkey Trial, Christians sometimes win the battles but look somewhat idiotic as a result of it, like children having temper-tantrums instead of reflections of Jesus.

The words of 1 Peter remind us to be ready to give an answer but to do it with gentleness and respect. Answer without minimizing the intelligence of those who hold a different position. Converse without slamming, discuss without condemning, chat without belittling.

Our tendency is to win at all costs, but at what cost? Although my position on controversial issues may be unpopular with the cultural mainstream, I’m commanded to respond in ways that probably won’t win the argument. That last word, “argument,” should not be the scenario I seek, but it often is. Instead, I’m called to be the reflection of Jesus, my words and demeanor guided by the Holy Spirit. After all, as the scripture says, I have “the reason for the hope.” And yet, many followers of Jesus seem to operate out of a hopelessness that is infected with anger, arrogance, and a lack of empathy.

Honestly, there are a number of disrespectful, angry, cruel, mean-spirited people we, who strive to be reflections of Jesus, have to deal with…and that’s just some of the folk inside the church.

Ouch!

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Lesser Things Than Good News

July 20, 2024

“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (Luke 15:31-32)

Church business meetings are a necessary evil. However, evil is frequently the dominant feature of the gathering of the saints, and the salt that can become salty. Instead of direction and vision, the meetings have a way of diminishing into an analysis of the finances, what is being spent to pay the staff, and how the church constitution and by-laws are not being followed.

Doing business has its place. The healthy church deals with the necessary business, trusts and empowers its shareholders and volunteers to minister and serve, and talks about what it looks like to be a church driven by the Good News, the gospel.

Honestly, I can’t remember many meetings where the main, consuming conversational point of the saints was Jesus’s good news. It makes me wonder if we’re so uncomfortable with the gospel that we focus on lesser things. Or you might call it “non-eternal business.”

The gospel takes in the hard-to-believe news that the unloveable are loved, the unforgivable are forgiven, and the unworthy are redeemed. It’s much more comfortable to talk about the lack of quality in the restroom toilet paper rolls and the sad state of the local high school football team.

I confess that there have been many times when I have detoured from the good news to a topic that doesn’t penetrate my heart. It’s easy to steer away from the love story of God to an event that will be forgotten in the next few minutes.

I think of the configuration of most evangelical church sanctuaries, where the pews or chairs are arranged to face toward the pulpit. It’s a visible picture of who we have entrusted the telling of the Good News to…the preacher. He or she has been trained and educated to tell God’s story, and we’re comfortable with that scenario or, maybe better said, it’s more convenient that way.

It seems that those most comfortable with talking about the gospel are those who were as far away as the prodigal son, realized their lostness, and then found their way back to the arms of the Father. It’s hard to continue to talk about the pastries being served when you’ve been eating the scraps that even the pigs didn’t want.

Finally, it’s uncomfortable to talk about a God Who operates out of grace when we’re dealing with our personal vindictiveness, a God of love when we can’t even stand the person sitting in front of us in worship, and a God Who forgives when we crave revenge and ill on our neighbors.

Lesser things monopolize our time and focus and crowd eternal matters out of the agenda. We don’t have to be religiously weird, but there is more to life than the Sunday sports lineup, even if your team is called the Angels or the Saints.

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What Would Offend Jesus?

July 17, 2024

I’m at church camp this week. A mass of hyper-active, high energy, squirrel-ish kids and youth who are wondering if they can survive for a week without social media, AirPods, and other noises they’re addicted to.

We’ve already experienced a few things that are the norm for the younger culture: Flatulence at that climactic point in the message where Jesus is about to say something eternally important, squished up sickly-looking faces at the creamed broccoli on the dinner plate, and kids jumping and dancing as they sing an “active worship” song.

They discover at camp that there is very little that offends Jesus…at camp. Many wonder why so many things in their home churches are viewed as offensive. For example, why do some old-timers at church get all worked up when a young person wears a hat in worship? What difference does a hat make? After all, they take their hats off at the high school football game when the National Anthem is played but wear it for the rest of the night. Why can’t they wear their hats in church, take them off during a prayer, and then put them back on? Does the absence of a hat make them more attentive during the ten minutes of announcements, twenty minutes of singing, and thirty minutes of the pastor’s message?

So, what exactly does offend Jesus? Jesus was irritated by people who looked pious but were void of spiritual hunger and humility. His words in Matthew 23:27 caused a stir. He said, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.“

Woe, doggies!

Right before that, he said, “Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”

That’s the thing about Jesus. He didn’t mind a little bit of mud, as long as the yearning of a person was for inner cleansing and transformation. In fact, he spit into some dirt, made a couple of mud eye packs, and put them on a blind man’s eyes. Interesting, he used an unsanitary method to heal a man’s inability to see, and wash away the limitations of his life.

What offends Jesus? Our blindness to the dirt in our souls.

The ways we are offended are so often based on culture, how we’ve been raised, and what looks good. Back in the 1900s mostly in Tennessee and Kentucky, many rural Baptist churches had a few holes cut in the floor of the sanctuary (worship room). Men sat on that side of the room, women on the other. The holes were for the tobacco chewers to spit during the service. No one was offended by it. It was a natural part of their culture. I doubt that Jesus was offended, either.

In my years as a pastor, I had people in my congregations who were offended by praise music, MIDI music systems, coffee and/or donuts and/or cookies in the sanctuary, ushers not wearing suits and ties, women ushers, kids not being quiet in worship, moving the fake organ pipes, bulletin mistakes, using the New International Version bible, using The Message paraphrase bible, guitars, drums, new people serving in some capacity, and dried out communion bread.

On the other hand, I’d be hard-pressed to remember people being upset by pride, gluttony, greed, lust, and envy. It’s easy to focus on the outer things we don’t have difficulty with, but others do. That means each one of us has a different shade of whitewash that Jesus sees, and maybe…we’re blind to.

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Leaning Kinda

July 11, 2024

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

It’s hard for me to lean and not fall over these days. There are dizzy blondes and lightheaded seventy-year-olds. I fall into the last category. (I think that was an unintended pun.)

I can still lean, but leaning too far puts me out of balance and causes me to question my I.Q. I get light-headed when I lean over to tie my shoes. I think I’m about due to make the transition to slip-ons. In other words, for many reasons and in many ways, I’m a “kinda-leaner.”

If I translated that into spiritual terms, I would say that I lean on the Lord but mostly stand firm in my own understanding. The more I lean, the more uncertain my footing becomes. Excessive leaning increases the potential for looking stupid and/or weird.

Most of us, probably all of us, who characterize ourselves as followers of Jesus, have not leaned on the Lord at times…”too many to count” times…in our lives. The same can be said of churches as well. For example, church business meetings are more about the business than the leaning. Just as followers of Jesus are prone to being “kinda leaners”, churches are guilty of kinda seeking the leadings of the Lord.

Granted, there are throngs of people who mistake whims for leadings and would be willing to misinterpret Jesus having the herd of pigs jump off a cliff as a message from the Lord to go ahead and lean out over the edge. Let’s be honest! Sometimes, churches are a nesting place for whackos and fruitcakes.

Most of the time, however, as followers of Jesus, we’re just paranoid about learning. The Proverb says, “…in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” As I read that, it tells me that the Lord will direct me. It reminds me of a vivid picture I have in my way distant past of my dad teaching me to ride a bike without training wheels. Even though I couldn’t see him, he held onto the bottom of his seat cushion. I was as terrified of the downhill slope on the side of our house as a blind man on the edge of a snake pit, but my dad kept telling me that he wouldn’t let go. He told me to keep my hands on the handlebars and trust that he had me. He kept me going on a straight path.

May the Lord remind us to lean ahead as He holds us in His grasp.

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Scapegoats and Sacrifices

July 7, 2024

“When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat.  He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins— The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:20-22)

Scapegoats are biblical. They fulfilled a purpose. Someone or something had to take the blame for the bad judgments of the Israelites. In certain situations, individuals would take the punishment, but there were corporate sins and rebellious attitudes that cast a dark cloud over the whole nation. Enter the scapegoat, a goat that everyone could visibly identify as being “the one.” He took the blame so they didn’t have to. I suppose for a short time, the guilty felt unburdened and free. The scapegoat whio had become the focus of their problems had taken away their problems.

Of course, the problems would re-emerge after a while and the people would have to look for another scapegoat to take the blame.

Our culture has brought back the custom of scapegoats. From Steve Bartram’s interference with a foul ball that could probably given the Chicago Cubs Game 6 in the National League playoff series and taken them into the World Series, to who to blame for high inflation, to who caused the test scores of students to drop, we’re a society that looks for that one person or group of people to take the blame.

Of course, the blame game gets ramped up during political campaign season. In a recent Colorado congressional race, you would have thought each of the candidates from the same political party were the Devil Incarnate.

In Old Testament times, the scapegoat was taken away from the people and into the desert. He was left there, the carrier who took responsibility for the people’s sins.

When Jesus carried his cross to the place of the Skull, our sins were upon Him. He took them to the cross with Him. As Isaiah 53:6 tells us, “…and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” He carried our sins once and for all.

Unlike the scapegoat led out into the desert, Jesus had a choice about being the carrier of our sins, and He chose to take them with Him. As I said at the beginning, scapegoats are biblical. They are also relevant for life today. When something goes wrong, we look for someone to blame.

Jesus, who had no sin, took the blame for my failures. Romans 5:7-8 sum it up:

“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

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