Happiness or Joy?

Barbara tried to keep her balance as the bus lurched forward.  She had arrived late for work and work that day was very nerve wracking.  When she got on the bus to go home, it was so crowded she had to stand.  That added to her gloominess.  While she was holding on to keep from falling into a complete stranger, she heard a deep male voice boom out, "Beautiful day, isn't?"

She could not see the speaker or the one he was speaking to but he was the only one speaking on the whole bus.  Barbara continued to hear him comment on the spring day and for the first time she realized it really was a pretty day.  The voice commented occasionally on different things they were passing by and each time her attention was drawn outside the bus and outside of herself. The man mentioned a church as they drove by and the good work they were doing in the community.  As they passed by a park, he had positive comments on it.  It happened the same way as they passed a fire station and several other landmarks. 

The speaker seemed to know something positive, something not seen on the surface, about a whole lot of things.  Barbara found herself smiling for the first time that day.  When the bus came to her stop she just had to maneuver herself so she could see her positive bus ride commentator.  He was a plump man with a black beard, wearing dark glasses and carrying a long, thin white cane.

Barbara Johnson's story reminds me that sometimes we have to see the unseen to experience the joy that is possible in life.  If happiness comes or goes according to what happens, joy comes from how we choose to look at things.  Paul calls us to "Rejoice in the Lord always."  That may mean I have to look for what is present but unseen in order to rejoice.  We will look at that passage Sunday and Paul's call to rejoice, always.  I pray we all see things we have not seen before.

for the journey...

Tim

Death with Dignity?

I have heard much about Brittany Maynard and her plans as a 29 year old newly wed to end her own life.  If you have not heard of her chances are you will. You will probably not hear much about another young woman who is facing death but you need to hear about her story too.  Dr. Jim Denison addresses both in the article for which I have included the link below.  It is not long but I believe everyone of us needs to read this.  It is far better and more important than what I had planned to post today.  Please take a moment to read this.


http://www.denisonforum.org/cultural-commentary/1196-29-year-old-brittany-maynard-and-death-with-dignity

for the journey...

Tim

Rituals: Right or Rite?

Not long after I became pastor of one of my previous churches, one of the deacons came to me after a baptism and said, "Preacher, you are baptizing people wrong."  I asked what he meant by that, I was sure that I had gotten our last candidate totally immersed which I thought was pretty much the only real point for Baptists.  "They are facing the wrong way.  When we baptize people here they face the other direction" he said.  I wondered if there was some verse in Titus of Philemon that taught the proper direction to face when being baptized; perhaps I had been absent that day in seminary when they covered that.

I did not really understand what he meant and after a few more questions that only made me look worse in his eyes something dawned on me.  I asked him if my predecessor had been left handed?  The previous pastor had been there for many years and, yes, he was left handed.  I told him that I was right handed and wanted my right hand underneath people when they were baptized.  That was the reason they were facing the way they were when I baptized them.  That really wasn't good enough for him but we left it that this may in fact be a "disputable matter" not clearly spelled out in Titus, Philemon or even in the various interpretations of Revelation.

It is interesting what becomes a sacred to people and why.  I have had similar conversations with people when the Lord's Supper elements where not covered with a white sheet and when a baptismal candidate wore something other than white as they were being baptized.  It seems to often happen around our two "ordinances" that we observe as Baptists - baptism and the Lord's Supper.

This Sunday, we are going to do both and I will preach about both - how there is a common thread shared in baptism and the Lord's Supper.  From time to time we need to ask ourselves why we do what we do.  Is it out of ritual or out of a relationship?  

The truth is I think most of us who go to church often have some things that have become rituals to us.  We may not realize it until a new pastor comes in and baptizes people facing the wrong way.  Then what we have made sacred is revealed in our disappointment and we are forced to examine ourselves.  That self examination seems to be something I have read a verse or two about.

What is sacred?  What is not? What is right and what is simply a rite?  I hope you will be there.  I am sure there will be some comments.  I will even let you weigh in on whether our baptismal candidates faced the right direction or not.

for the journey...

Tim

The Squeeze of the World Around You

I saw on the news this week that a very creative farmer has been growing his pumpkins inside a precast mold this fall so that they grow formed to look like a "Frankenstein" head or some other Halloween associated character.  I tried to find photos for this blog but could not.  On the TV news video I saw, they looked like plastic but were in fact real whole pumpkins shaped like a head.

Let me say here that I am neither endorsing nor advertising Halloween decorations.  I personally don't like them but from my farm background though I do have to say this is a pretty inventive guy because he is getting $75 per pumpkin.  My hats off to his ingenuity though I will not ever pay $75 for a pumpkin no matter who it looks like.

All this did remind me of this verse from J. B. Phillips translation of the book of Romans -
Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.  Romans 12:2

We live in a world that will squeeze us into its mold if we let it.  It will squeeze us financially, morally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally - any way that we can imagine being squeezed it will and often for someone else's profit. 

Those pumpkins don't have a choice but we do.  We have something strong enough to break the mold the world tries to put us into - the power of Christ in us.  If you are feeling like one of those pumpkins this week, I pray what we will look at Sunday will help you.  Let's all come to break our molds and be "unsqueezed."

for the journey...

Tim

One Thing

"There is more difference between 1 and 2 than there is between 2 and 10,000."  Elton Trueblood

I heard that in a sermon this week and as the preacher explained what he thought the Quaker philosopher Trueblood meant by that statement, my mind went in a different direction than his explanation.  Now I know all you engineers and math majors are going to say that statement makes no sense at all, but remember I am talking theology where Father (1) + Son (1) + Holy Spirit (1) = 1.

So what did my mind go to after the preacher quoted Trueblood?  It went to the story I had read earlier that a large, extremely rare 122.52 carat blue diamond sold for $27.6 million.  Stay with me here.  How does that relate to the statement above?

If you took that diamond and cut it into two, it would immediately loose its value of $27.6 million.  Oh each piece would be very valuable but probably not a total of over $27,000,000.  If you took the two pieces and cut them up until there were 10,000 each piece would be costly but not what that single, whole, huge diamond would be worth.  When something that precious is divided just once, that one divide makes a huge difference.  Perhaps that is not even what Elton Trueblood was trying to say but that is where my mind went.  A whole precious thing is worth more than many different pieces but that one splitting into two is where the biggest difference is and the the greatest loss.

What then is the cost of going from being single-minded to double minded?  From having an undivided heart and having a divided one?  How much is it worth to be single minded?  To have an undivided heart?  Again, we are talking theology where the numbers don't always work in ways we can quantify, but it is very valuable.

The Psalmist writes in Ps. 86:11, "Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name."  In Ezekiel 11 God tells the prophet in verse 19, "I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them;  I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh."  In both those places a whole, undivided heart sounds like it is something worth more than diamonds.

This Sunday we will look at where Paul talks about, "this one thing I do..."  He had found the worth of his life given whole and undivided to God.  He found great value in that, far above diamonds.  We can find it too.

for the journey...

Tim

Caught not just Taught

Good things as well as bad, you know, are caught by a kind of infection. If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, just hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very centre of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever?

C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

I have read that quote often recently and it keeps speaking to me.  I seem to see something new in it every time I read it.  It helps me understand I cannot work my way to God but if I spend time with God, He works His way into me.

I also get the thought that this is what Paul was talking about when he says, "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, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."  Philippians 3:10

Paul is not being a masochist nor is he suicidal. He just knew that the high point of all human history was when Jesus suffered for us and died for us out of his great love for us.  Paul wanted to know that kind of love and that kind of life.  It seems to me Paul is saying he wanted to be near enough to it to 'catch it by a kind of infection.'

Let's get together with God this Sunday, look at this more carefully and see what we catch.

for the journey...

Tim

Washing Windows

Recently we had a new glass storm door put in on our back door.  As I looked out of the new, clean glass and then looked at the windows near it, I saw how very dirty my windows were.  I needed to do something about this so I set about to wash our windows on Labor Day.  They looked pretty clean after I got through but since they have dried I have found numerous streaks and spots I missed.  I have gone back to clean them and I still see more!  It has become a little obsession of mine, when I look at a window, I look for spots.  This is very discouraging because I am realizing I can never get them completely clean.

One day this week while I was looking from the inside and seeing more missed spots, streaks and some new things that had blown onto a window, it is like the Lord tapped my shoulder and said, "You cannot get anything completely clean yourself, not your windows, not your life."  As I thought of that it also hit me the purpose of windows is to see out and let light in, not to only look for spots. 

It is that way in my spiritual life as well.  There has to be some sort of settling in my mind that I cannot get myself perfectly clean and never will.  I don't have to live with dirty windows in my spiritual life though because 1 John 1:9 tells me "if I confess my sin, He is faithful and just to forgive my sin and cleanse me from all unrighteousness."  My spiritual life needs to include this "cleaning of windows" but that is not all their is, there is so much more.  There are spiritual windows that are meant to be seen through to things on the other side.  There are spiritual windows that let in light. I can get obsessed with just cleaning my windows and never seeing what is on the other side. That is not how I was meant to live.

This Sunday, we are going to look at "Two Paths to God?"  Can we get so caught up in the rules of righteousness that we never see the One on the other side of our spiritual windows?  Yes, we can and we do.  But if we let Jesus take care of this, we look through those windows and see the One who wants to clean us up and show us great things on the other side.  He also wants to shine in His light.  Let's pray we see things clearly.

for the journey...

Tim