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As a part of my annual pledge to my new church, First United Methodist, Montgomery, I pledged to pray for the church its staff and ministries on Mondays. With God’s help, I begin the satisfaction of that pledge today.

I noticed in going through my contacts list that there are

about a dozen ministers, missionaries, and church staff, so I created a group styled “Pastors.”

You are on the prayer list. You come from different denominations, ages, seniority of staff appointments, missions, locations, and seasons of life.

Please know that I am praying for you today.

Holy Father, today in this writing I offer up to you publicly the men and women herein above described as I have named them in private prayer as between You and me.

Holy Father, they come to you each individually different in circumstance but alike in calling and devotion to you. I pray today that you will take special notice of them and the ministries they represent.

Give them open hearts to feel Your Presence, open ears to hear Your still, small voice, open mouths to speak Your truth, and open arms to receive that which You offer to them for this day.

“In Jesus’ Name we pray, AMEN. ”

Matthew’s gospel speaks of situations that you probably have encountered in your ministry: labor and tribulation. But Matthew also speaks of rest. “Come into me, all you who are weak and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28. KJV.

What does it mean, “I will give you rest? How can we define “rest?” To whom is this promise applicable? Does this promise mean the same thing to people in different circumstances and different seasons of life?

Of Matthew 11:28, Mathew A.T. Robertson, in” Word Pictures” records:

Come unto me (deute pro me). Verses 28 to 30 are not in Luke and are among the special treasures of Matthew’s Gospel. No sublimer words exist than this call of Jesus to the toiling and the burdened… [He tells us that the phrase is a] perfect passive participle, state of weariness) to come to him.

[Christ] towers above all men as he challenges us. “I will refresh you” (kago anapausw ma). Far more than mere rest, rejuvenation. The English slang expression “rest up” is close to the idea of the Greek compound ana-pauw. It is causative active voice.

My special prayer for you today, then is “rest,” rest from the weekend’s labor and rest to strengthen you for the week to come.

REST.

“Over There” was perhaps the signal song from WWI. The lyrics told of the “Great War” over there (Europe,) and how the Yanks would come over and set things to right. The operative phrase for our purposes is the title.

There was an Armistice, but nothing was really fixed. In fact, twenty years later, Part II of the “Great War” began unleashing an evil unparalleled in its scope.

Sitting in our safe homes with a fireplace burning and a golden retriever napping at our heel, we like to think that the war is perpetually “over there.” It is not. It’s here.

By this, I do not reference America’s “endless foreign wars” or the violence pervading our streets, rather, I refer to the war that rages in our culture, the “us vs. them” war to which we have become accustomed, and with which we may even have become comfortable in a perverse way.

More so, I refer to the personal war that rages in the very hearts of many of us. “Peace, peace,” we cry, but there is no peace.

Francis Schaeffer said that above all, we have come to value comfort and security. Maintaining these two goals, we think, gives us peace – assures us of peace. But, it does not. For there is a nagging within us that says, “All is NOT well.” It is NOT “well with my soul.”

When we hate or worse, dehumanize the “other,” whoever he or she may be, all is not well.

When we tolerate this hatred in our fellows, all is not well.

When we lump that which we fear into a homogenous glob of “just alike-ness,” all is not well.

When we subdivide our “tribe” over issues that do not possess the greatest eternal significance, all is not well.

When we say with the Apostle Paul that our stomachs churn in our gut knowing what we should do, but our hands won’t do it choosing to do differently, all is not well.

Thus, the “Great War” is, in fact, not “over there,” but over here – here as close as the cartoonist little devil sitting on our shoulder urging us not necessarily to do wrong but to do nothing. No, all is not well. It never really has been.

But it can be, and life does not have to be this way. Jesus said, “I come not to bring peace, but a sword.” May I suggest that while He meant that he would, in fact, bring a sword, that sword, that instrument of death and destruction, would bring life and would bring peace by His wielding of that sword.

For He would be welding the sword not against the strange people “over there,” not against the toughs who haunt our streets, not against our former friends who revile us and speak all manner of evil against us, but against our own hearts and minds.

I view Jesus’ “sword” not as a Gladius Hispaniensis, a Roman long sword in the hands of a killing – machine – like Legionary, but as a tiny scalpel held in the hands of a Master Surgeon, a surgeon Who is able enough and skillful enough to perform a necessary surgery upon OUR hearts and OUR minds.

He alone can cut out the Evil that so quickly besets us. He alone can remove the “war gene” with which we are all born. He alone can cauterize the wound of the virus of hatred with which we live. He and He alone.

He comes not with fog horns blaring in the hold of the troop carrier, but He comes in the self-same “still small voice” heard by the prophet Elijah. He does not disembark unbidden upon our heart’s rocky shore with wave upon wave of fresh-faced idealism. Rather, quietly He knocks and gentle upon the believing heart’s door. And He waits… He waits until we are ready to receive Him.

Oh, but when He enters, He comes not for tea and a brief chat. He comes to stay and to dine, to dine as He did with the tax-gatherer Zacchaeus, with the prostitutes, with all the “sinners” of the age.

He sups with us, He persists with us, and He brings to us peace, His peace – not as the world gives, not the mere absence of conflict, not a passive peace, but the kind of peace that can sleep the sleep of an innocent in the stern of a wooden boat in a Galilean wind storm.

Are you possessed of that peace? I pray you are. Along with the various needs of which I am aware in your week, I am praying for this peace to come in and “sup with you.”

Now, may the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. “In Jesus’ Name we pray, AMEN. “

The final chorus of the 1967 Shel Silverstein’s song, “The Unicorns,” later made popular by the Irish Rovers, reads as follows:

You’ll see green alligators and long-necked geese,

Some humpty-backed camels and some chimpanzees,

Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born,

You’re never gonna see no unicorns.

The song says that God made unicorns at the time He created the other animals and that they were His favorites owing to their beauty. However, when Noah’s flood came, the unicorns didn’t make it on the ark. And that’s why today there are no unicorns.

The poetic truth of that notwithstanding, some of us spend the greater portion of our lives believing in unicorns, hoping against hope that the beautiful perfection they embody will come to the fore in our lifetimes. Fruitlessly we think that we will discover it or better still, bring it about.

Last week, as I was cleaning out a badly neglected room,  I found hanging on the wall, a lovely framed artist’s rendering of a unicorn. I don’t know why I even had it or when it was acquired. For a then-undiscovered reason, I decided that it was time to give the unicorn away to my 7-year-old granddaughter as she is in a “unicorn period.”

Usually, I am loathe to throw things away, and the discard weighed on my mind. Upon reflection, I wondered if my giving away the unicorn was less for hygienic reasons and more for psychological ones. Was I just tired of looking at it, or had I finally quit believing in unicorns?

Here, the unicorn represents either something that is believed in but does not exist or alternatively, it represents something that once existed but is now no longer believed in.

Could it be that the Apostle Paul wrote about unicorns millennia before Shel Silverstein? Let me explain and re-frame the question beginning in the theological and ending in the practical.

In the famous chapter on love, I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul wrote:

Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 1 Corinthians 13: 8-10 NASB.

The perfect has been variously translated by scholars much more learned than I. However, may I suggest that in a sense, the perfect could refer to the unicorn?” To explain this bizarre translation, may I submit the following?

Some of us erroneously believe that the perfect will come in our lifetime, a time when everything will be fixed, all the ills of the world will be healed, and all of the mean people will be changed into veritable angels. We will experience Heaven on earth – Nirvana.

Experience, hard-won and scarred physically, emotionally, and spiritually dictates that this is not the case. This is a difficult pill to swallow because to come to the realization that this is not the case is to admit to ourselves that we are failures, that nothing we have done counts for anything in a lasting sense, and that the world will be as it is when we are gone – unchanged and unapologetic. That conclusion compels us to abandon our belief in unicorns.

Or…

To conclude that we won’t fix everything is to come to the “grown-up” realization that we are human. We are not God. We did not, in fact, create anything, we have no control over anything, we cannot fix anything.

The Apostle finishes 1 Corinthians 13 thusly:

When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; [but] when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.           1 Corinthians 13:11-13 NASB.

In his earlier life, Paul believed in unicorns, but when he met the LORD that day on the road to Damascus, his eyes saw the world differently forcing his beliefs to make a radical shift. More importantly, Paul saw himself differently. He realized that he was a broken man living in a fallen world, knowing with the prophet Isaiah, that he was living “among a people of unclean lips…” This realization came only because his new “eyes [had] seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5 NIV.

But God didn’t leave Paul (or Isaiah for that matter) mournfully singing the song from “Hee Haw,” “Gloom, despair, and agony on me; Deep dark depression, excessive misery…”

Rather, God gave Paul, Isaiah, and us a vision of reality, the reality the sense that He, God, is in charge, we don’t have to try to be. It’s not our job to create, control, or fix anything. It’s our job only to look to Christ and to realize that “13… now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV.

Jesus said,

Come [unto] me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28-30 NIV.

When we allow God to give us the realization that an earthly unicorn, ie. perfect peace achievable through the efforts of people, including us, is an illusion, He shows us that “when the perfect (Christ) comes” there will be “peace on earth [and] goodwill toward men.”

Obviously, that time is not yet come, BUT IT WILL COME in God’s time. All we have to do is to love Him. How do we do that? By loving our fellow people.

Again Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, [the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the strangers, and the prisoners,] you did it for me.” Matthew 25:40 NIV.

It is true that we do not live in the “Age of Aquarius” with “sympathy and trust abounding” when “peace will guide the stars.” No, we live in a better Age, the Age of Christ, the King. The “now and the not yet.”

Believing that we live in a better age is infinitely superior to the belief in unicorns because it is reality, not fantasy. Christ’s reality renders that of man not only a lie but an unworthy lie. Realizing the truth, we can sing with Horatio G. Spafford:

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.

As we all know, Lent begins this week. I grew up in a church tradition that did not observe Lent. However, on the Sunday before Lent of 2011, my pastor, and good friend, suggested to the congregation in the sermon that we should consider giving up something for Lent and replacing that which was given up with something that would draw us closer to God. At the time, I did not pay much attention to the pastor’s suggestion and smiled to myself, “watermelon.”

As I was in the good habit of walking several miles every morning before work, I was also in the very good habit of praying during the walk. My prayer time with the Lord was a very intimate time of give and take. I considered him a friend with whom I could share my heart. It was generally as though he were walking beside me conversing.

On the Monday following that fateful Lenten Sermon, the Lord spoke to me in his usual casual voice, “So, what are you going to give up for Lent?” Since I was not in the habit of observing Lent, I blew the question off with my usual reply, “Watermelon, You know, I always give up watermelon for Lent.” I always picked watermelon because it is out of season.

The Lord was having none of that answer and persisted with the question. “No, I am serious. What are you going to give up for Lent?” I stopped in my tracks and said, “You are serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” He said, “I am as serious as a heart attack.”

“Ok,” I said, “I’ll play along, what would You have me give up for Lent?” His reply was like a punch in the gut. Immediately, I became sick at my stomach as though I had suddenly been caught in some great sin.” Matter-of-factly He asked, “What is the one thing that is the dearest to you?” That was a question that I did not expect and that I did not want to hear because the answer came into my head immediately.

“My job, that is the thing most dear to me.” It was not family, not friends, but my job. My job was who I am. It was my identity. It was the single thing on Earth that most made me… me.

He went on, “Then that’s what I want you to give up. I want you to retire from your job and give it to Me. One can imagine how stunned I was. Yet, I knew that he was deadly serious and I knew that I was compelled to give place to His statement. For the remainder of the walk, we talked quite thoroughly about His statement. Then, as I approached my house, I stopped in my tracks again and said out loud, “Ok, if that’s what You want, then I will give it to You, but you’ll have to help me.

He replied, “I will help. Have I ever not helped you? Have I ever let you down?” I had to admit that He had always been faithful to me even during my times of unfaithfulness. He continued, “There will be a push and a pull.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I went accepted what He said.

Within the next two or three days, one of my young lawyers was talking with me about an encounter he had with a state legislator. The stated that lawyer was attempting to explain the effect of a piece of legislation on our Department when the state legislator cut him off with “What do you know about it, you’re just a bureaucrat! ”

“A bureaucrat?” I was outraged and went back to my desk fuming. I said to myself but almost out loud, “You know, I actually could leave this job.” That was the first time such a thought had ever entered my mind. I had always assumed that they would just find me slumped over my desk one day – dead. But then I heard the voice of the Lord gently say, “That’s the pull.” I felt a chill sweep over me.

The next Sunday, the Sunday after lent had begun, my pastor friend said from the pulpit that he had been exploring the idea of hiring an assistant pastor to help with things at the church. A thought immediately came into my mind. “What if I retired from my job and volunteered to be the assistant pastor?” I asked the Lord, “What do You think about this?” Immediately I heard the voice of the Lord say, “And that’s the pull.” I asked Him what I should do about it. He replied to my “thought-prayer,” “Ask the Pastor.”

Within a few days, I made an appointment with my pastor friend and put the idea to him. I had expected with that my experience and qualifications, the pastor would jump at the offer, especially since I would work for free. I told him that I just wanted to help out and that I would do all the things that he did not want to do.

His response shocked me. He replied that he already had someone in mind for the job and besides he didn’t want someone to merely do his dirty work. He wanted someone who would do God’s work. After he allowed that to sink in, he said, “However, if you are really serious about this, why don’t you go back and ask God what He wants you to do? Why not make a list of some things that you and God agree upon?”

I went home crestfallen. I wondered if I were an idiot. I wondered if I had let my hubris get the better of me. I even wondered if God had led me astray. Was He was playing a joke on me? As I reflected, I realized that what was going off in my head was my balloon-like ego that had just been divinely popped.

At that moment, God humbled me. He allowed me to stew in my own juices for a couple of days. Then, I reconsidered and got back to work with Him making the list.

Within a few days, I had a list of about ten topics that I believed God would allow me to address. I went back to my Pastor with the list. He said, “Good, now you are ready to let God work.” He asked if I would be interested in serving on the staff of the church doing “Special Projects.” I was ecstatic.

The next week at work, I called my staff together and announced my retirement. After 35 years, the season had changed.

Over the next eight years, the Lord allowed me to accomplished almost everything on that list. In addition, He allowed me to serve on the staff during the transition time my Pastor was called to other fields, and we had to find a new pastor. During that time, I managed our home school covering and began a tutoring program in a nearby school. The Lord even privileged me to teach ESL to a group of Korean women as they formed a church within our church.

As the new pastor came on the field, I began to grow restless. The Lord directed my interests away for the church specifically and into working the county denominational association where I became involved in a church-plant among an indigenous Mexican community in Montgomery called the Mixtec. I led the music, much of which I translated, and I continued to teach ESL and to tutor. This time the teaching centered on members of this community.

This year, the season changed again and the Lord called me on to other things, to start a new life in a new church of a different denomination. I have been more blessed than I could have imagined.

* * *

Now, I pose to you the same question that God posed me, and I add a question of my own. “What are you  giving up for Lent, and where do you think that will lead you?

Please know that I am praying for you, your church, and the ministries with which you are involved. If you have specific prayer requests, I’d be glad to pray for them. In fact, I need to pray for them.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

In ancient times, shepherds needed a system to keep track of their flocks. On some days, they would go out to pasture with a flock of 30; on others, a flock of 10. Memory was an unreliable way of keeping tabs on the number of the flock. As a result, the shepherd would carry a sling over his shoulder, and in it he would keep the number of pebbles that cor­responded to the number in his flock. That way he could at all times have an accurate daily count.

Fast forward a few years. The Book of Kings tells us that David became the Champion of Israel and went out into the field of battle with only his sling and five smooth stones. He was to mee the giant Philistine, Goliath.

We all know the story. Goliath insulted and David slung (silinged, slang?) a stone, hit Goliath in the forehead, and rush to him, taking his sword and cutting off his head.

But, why did David take 5 stones? Answer: Goliath had 4 brothers.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

A young man I met on a recent mission trip emailed me with a question about American politics. He is a Chinese National with an advanced degree in science from the University of Florida. At the time, he was volunteering with a Sweedish church group ministering to Syrian refugees confined to camps near Erbil, Kurdistan, an autonomous province in Northern Iraq. Even though our time together was brief, we connected, and he and I had some in-depth conversations about the state of modern Christianity and especially about the United States.

At the conclusion of this post, I will mention his request that I give him some assistance in finding him a place of volunteer service. Please see that request and provide any ideas or support you can.

It may be that during this season of Lent, we could consider giving up our need for comfort and security. To that end, I wrote to him as follows. May you find it useful.

Dear Friend, please forgive my tardy response. Honestly, I have no excuse. But God has convicted me that I need to respond as best I can.

To your first question about our present administration. May I suggest that the administration is not so much a problem as a symptom of a more significant problem. That many of our leaders are as they are may not be a good thing depending on one’s political persuasion, May I suggest that if we don’t like them, the more significant problem is that “We the People” chose them. In my view, this speaks volumes about the selfishness of the American people as a whole.

I am speaking in gross generalities, for there are many in America who value human life and who follow Jesus’ precepts to “love God and love our neighbors.” It may also be that our condoning or tacit acceptance of certain sad scenes that have happened in recent years is an indication that we, ourselves, are afraid.

Frances Schaeffer said that many Christians get in a position of valuing comfort and security more than they value Jesus. To be clear, such upside-down valuing is entirely wrong and contrary to Jesus’ teachings. I suggest that this valuation may be related to our general well-being and wealth. While we have our poor and needy, the general populace is relatively comfortable and secure, certainly as compared to world standards.

There is no sin in comfort or the desire to be safe. However, the obsessive desire for comfort and wealth can be a disease that robs us of our humanity. This disease opens our hearts to allow selfishness to rule out lives to the point that we view life and people through the selfishness lens rather than through the lens of Jesus.

I believe it was a German pastor in the NAZI era who said that all that needs to happen for a society to fall is for “good people” to remain silent, to do nothing. We see where that led.

While I certainly do not compare our present times to those, and no inference of such should be drawn, I do suggest that we are on the wrong course. We may be on a path to isolationism to protect what we have or to which we believe we are entitled.
Unfortunately, that behavior defines who we are much more than anything we say.

In my prayers, I ask God to grant that Americans will see the error in narrow – minded, self-centered thought.

Further, I also pray that the people of God will act like the people of God regardless of who governs. We Christians can still be Christ-like in our devotion and our treatment of the strangers among us, the poor, the down-trodden, the hopeless, the voiceless ones, and especially the lost ones.

We cannot expect the government to be “Christian” for us, no matter who leads. It is given to us, to Christians, to actually and actively follow Jesus in our daily lives. If enough of us do that, we will force our collective national thought to come to a reckoning.

Politics goes through cycles in America. We’ve seen extremes on the left and right only to be corrected back to the center. This particular time of disharmonious discourse will pass. But “that which is perfect” will not come until Jesus, who is “the Perfect,” comes again, and that may be a long time hence.

Advice:

1. Act like a Christian in your conversation. You cannot convince people that they don’t need so-called comfort and security (especially if you are yelling at them.)

2. Pray for God’s will to be done in America and in the world.

3. Live like you believe the He, and you can make a difference.

4. Do what you can for as many people as you can. You are responsible for yourself, not others. Nevertheless, I submit that you ARE your brother’s keeper.

5. Give people the Gospel, not a political point of view. Look to the example first of Christ and second that of the early Apostles. They did not advocate for a political solution to the problems they saw. They acted to show love, most of them giving their lives for the sake of that love.

6. Be prepared to give your life for that Gospel, either literally or figuratively.

7. Lastly, heed the admonition of Paul in Ephesians to cease worrying about things and instead to pray about everything. Remember Paul’s promise that if you do that, God may not fix the situation, but He will give you the “peace that passes all
understanding.”

“HOLY FATHER,” I bring before you, my friend who is distressed about the state of the American nation and our rejection of the stranger, the poor, the prisoner, and the powerless. I share his concerns as do many other Christians whom I know personally and by reputation.

“HOLY FATHER,” I ask that You first change my heart, then turn the hearts of Christians and then the American people. Teach us to look to You and Your true Word, Jesus, for guidance.

“HOLY FATHER,” Help us to be the Church you called us to be and to have the impact on our society that you called us to have. We are few, but You don’t need an army to bring about Your will.

“HOLY FATHER,” we pray for our president, our congress, and our courts that they would act in a manner worthy of You.

“HOLY FATHER,” we would be not Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, progressives or moderates, but rather Christians, “Christ-Followers.” We know that You hold the lives of people in Your hands from the poorest and most down-trodden sexual or economic slave to the high and the most powerful. You can change actions. You can change minds. You can change hearts. We ask you to do that beginning with my friend and with me.

“HOLY FATHER,” thank you for my friend and his concern for people. Give Him peace and a place of service. Strengthen his faith, calm his fears, and set him on the right path that leads to Your Glory.

“In Jesus’ Name, we pray, AMEN.”

Anglican tradition, per N. T. Wright, states that interpretation is a “three-legged stool.” Text, Church tradition, and reason. Wesley adds a fourth (disputed by Wright) “experience.” Thus, the “Wesley Quadrilateral.” Henry Blackaby, writing for the Baptists in Experiencing God, says that “God speaks to us by the Spirit through the Bible (text,) prayer, circumstance, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.”

According to the Book of Discipline

Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason. Scripture [however] is primary, revealing the Word of God ‘so far as it is necessary for our salvation

What does Wesley mean by “experience?”

Apart from scripture, “experience” is the strongest proof of Christianity. “What the scriptures promise, I enjoy”. Again, Wesley insisted that we cannot have reasonable assurance of something unless we have experienced it personally. John Wesley was assured of both justification and sanctification because he had experienced them in his own life. What Christianity promised (considered as a doctrine) was accomplished in his soul. Furthermore, Christianity (considered as an inward principle) is the completion of all those promises.

Although traditional proof is complex, experience is simple: "One thing I know; I was blind, but now I see." Although tradition establishes the evidence a long way off, experience makes it present to all persons. As for the proof of justification and sanctification, Wesley states that Christianity is an experience of holiness and happiness, the image of God impressed on a created spirit, a fountain of peace and love springing up into everlasting life.

What is the place of societal change on scriptural interpretation?

I failed!

Have you ever felt this way? Please refer to last week’s post wherein I requested possible volunteer opportunities for a friend of mine.

See: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s478/nl/93885036/c8d28fe2-ce19-c629-7bcc-dbbcc318bf19/

I scurried around and found a possible place of service for him that I thought might be worth following up. I made some calls, and then proudly (yet humbly) emailed him back with the info.

Somewhat to my surprise, he wrote me back that helping plant a church wasn’t really his thing. He didn’t believe that his left-leaning political views and very “liberal” theology (whatever that is) would serve him well in Alabama. He said that he’d contact the pastor I suggested, but he did not think this work was for Him. He said he was more into hands-on service “like the Red Cross or something like that.”

It appears that I have failed in my objective, but… what does one do about one’s failures?

It’s easy to say, “Just turn it over to God. We’re not responsible for the results, we just give the message and pray.”

Of course, that is true, and as far as my friend is concerned, that’s exactly what to do. But, as with most things in life, I suspect there’s more to it than that. Have you ever heard it said that “life is not checkers, it’s three – dimensional chess?”

There are a multiplicity of issues with my friend. If I may presume to speak for that majority of evangelical Christendom, we Christians believe that if my friend truly hasn’t turned his life over to Jesus, he’s heading in the wrong direction. While that may or may not be the case, there are two things I can do. First, pray for him. Second, gently attempt to give him the Gospel and let the Gospel work in him.

But, that’s not the subject of today’s note. Another dimension of this problem (remember, this is “three – dimensional chess”) is my response and my reaction. How do I feel about it? In truth, what is my principal emotion?

Well, I feel for him, and I hope he gets on the right track, but I am also disappointed. More than that, (here we get to the bottom of the bottle) I am embarrassed about the situations. I have chronicled this case and my involvement. I feel that I have failed.

Counting the number of I’s in the previous paragraph yields 7. (Seven is the number of completeness. Hmmm, hold that thought.)

Another level of this problem reveals itself, my sin. The sin of “I.” The question arises then of how do I manage the sin in my life that wants to fix things, to “save” people, to appear to be spiritual. My friend may or may not have his own sin, but what do I do about mine? It’s an opportunity to learn and to grow.

I’m not the first to have the “Sin” issue. In point is the failure of the Disciples to cast out a demon soon after their experience on the Mount of Transfiguration. The account is found in Matthew 17.

14When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15“Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

17“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

19Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

20He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”  (NIV. )

May I suggest that their problem was my problem, the one named “iSin.” It may have been misplaced faith, ie, faith in their own power. Jesus said they had “little faith, ” little faith in Him, but not little faith in themselves. That sickness, that iSin afflicts me. The root of it is pride. When we are so full of ourselves, there’s no room for Jesus.

Of course, that “revelation” is not anything new. The question is how to move the revelation from truism to truth; authenticity to action. That’s where I’m bogged down. Perhaps, we could pin the label of “pride” on me, and perhaps I need to write it on a card and pin it to the Cross. What do you think?

For an excellent exposition on failure see Dr. Roger Barrier of Casas Church in Tucson, Arizona. he writes about the failures of the disciples around the time of Jesus’ passion:

Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning?[1]” a song penned by Alan Jackson after the events of 9/11, 2001, has been echoing through my head for the last several days. As I write this on the Ides of March, 20/20, the Coronavirus has spread to Alabama with at least 6 cases today and more, I’m sure, to follow. The Governor has closed schools,[2] Wal-Mart is out of bathroom tissue, and Nick Saban has canceled football.[3] In other words, “It’s serious.” About Thursday was when it all began to settle in on me – and I started getting scared.

As a former public health official and specifically as one trained by the CDC, the FDA, and the NTSB in disaster management, I know the drill quite well. Be that as it may, my first reaction was to make light of the seriousness of the situation. Our family exchanged memes and funnies we had seen on Facebook.®

That lasted a while until I realized and confessed to my wife, Susan, that I was genuinely scared. Our talk helped me to calm down a bit, but fear, like the spring cold I have, seemed to linger longer than one would wish, like an uninvited guest who won’t go home.

With that training in mind, I executed my disaster plan. I went out to exercise in my driveway. My usual practice is to go through a stretching routine resembling . . . umm … (Yoga) accompanied by my cell playing an Audible® book or some music on YouTube.® Today, I listened to a lecture by Anglican Bishop The Reverend Dr. N.T. Wright[4], one of my favorite Christian authors who was lecturing at Wheaton College on the subject of the “Jesus and the People of God.”[5]

A line he said began to auto-repeat in my head joining the chorus of the song referenced supra. Bishop Wright said that while it is true that Jesus came to save each of us, He also came to save the collective “us” – humankind. The Bishop said that Jesus came not only to save the “me’s” of the world but to save “the World.” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal like.” John 3:16.

Somewhere in my South Alabama Evangelical upbringing, I missed the Bishop’s point. I’d believed what I had been told, or at least surmised, that “If I were the only sinner on earth, Jesus would still have come to save me.” As, I suspected, “it’s all about me.”

This is not to trivialize that point or to deny the truth of it, but to proclaim that there’s more to it than that – much more.

A humorous bumper sticker I once saw read, “Jesus Loves You – But then, He Loves Everybody.” I suspect, there’s more truth in that that than the writer imagined. Jesus loves me, but Jesus also loves the whole world? Really, people who aren’t like me; people who aren’t in my social circle; people who don’t smell or talk like me; even people who don’t believe in Him? That rattled around in my head for a while as I held a pose.

Later that evening, I watched a movie on Amazon Prime®, “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,[6]” with Tom Hanks.[7] According to Rotten Tomatoes®:

. . . A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, [is] a timely story of kindness triumphing over cynicism, based on the true story of a real-life friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. After a jaded magazine writer (Emmy winner Matthew Rhys) is assigned a profile of Fred Rogers, he overcomes his skepticism, learning about empathy, kindness, and decency from America’s most beloved neighbor.

It is said in the journalism business that Fred Rogers was a particularly difficult interviewee in that he had such empathy for and love for the interviewer that interviews frequently became counseling sessions. Such was the case with Tom Junod, the interviewer in the movie.

Mister Rogers’ pure love for and interest in this broken man, Mr. Junod, led Mister Rogers to become involved in Junod’s family troubles and to visit him and to minister to Junod’s estranged and dying father. As you may remember, Fred Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister.

After the movie was over, and after I wiped away the “feel-good” tears, and conjoining Wright’s and Rogers’ words and deeds, I began to understand an inkling of what Bishop Wright was talking about concerning the love of Jesus for the world.

Moreover, I was convicted that I did not possess a speck of such a love even though Jesus told us in John 13:34, “A new command I give you: Love one another.” Further, He said, “If you love me,” keep my commands.” John 14:15.

I don’t love the world. Some days, I don’t love my neighbor even as the Pharisees defined the word. This thought bought me down. But then I remembered something else Bishop Wright said.

He was commenting on the colloquy between Jesus and Peter by the seashore after Jesus’ Resurrection. Jesus asked Peter if Peter loved Him. Jesus used the Greek word agapeo, but Peter answered that he, Peter, loved Jesus, using the word phileo.

 

Again, Jesus asked Peter the same question, using the same word, agapeo, and again Peter answered with the same word, phileo.

Finally, Jesus descended to Peter’s level of love and asked, (please forgive my terrible construction here) “Peter, do you even phileo me?” When Peter, full of shame for his lack of agapeo, answered affirmatively, Jesus, did not lecture, did not condemn, did not chide. Instead, Jesus gave Peter an important mission.

May I submit that such is what Jesus does with us. He descends to the level of love we have, and He works with it. If we will but work with Jesus at that level, Jesus will, no doubt, raise our level of love.

Now, perhaps more than ever, we have a mission. The “World has stopped turning” for many people. We cannot just make it start turning again, but we can show the world who can make it start turning again.

Perhaps, we should not cavalierly deny that anything has happened, that anything is wrong. Perhaps, we should not self-pitifully wallow in our world-stopping sense of “poor me’s.” No, rather, we should begin to just love, agapeo, the world in the same manner as did Jesus.

In the live-streamed and televised (only) service of First United Methodist Montgomery Church today, Pastor Gillian prayed for us as we should pray for the world. (As I remember it, thus a paraphrase,) she admonished us through her prayer to remember that:

If we are wondering if the food we have hoarded will hold out, some people didn’t have food in the first place.

These are serious times, but Jesus is a serious Savior. We, likewise need to be serious Christians in these times and seriously (but compassionately) show the love of Jesus to the people on the wrong side of the comma.

Perhaps, we need to become difficult interviewees in our conversation with the world in that we have become more interested in the other person than in telling our own story.

Aristotle was the first one to say, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” In this world where I submit, there is an abhorrent vacuum of leadership, we Christians need to show the world who the real leader, Jesus, is and always will be.

The chorus of Alan Jackson’s song paraphrases the Apostle Paul writing in 1 Corinthians 13. Maybe we should take one minute, as Mister Rogers would, and reflect on it.

I’m just a singer of simple songs,

I’m not a real political man.

I watch CNN, but I’m not sure I can tell you

The diff’rence in Iraq and Iran.

But I know Jesus and I talk to God,

And I remember this from when I was young,

Faith, hope, and love are some good things He gave us,

And the greatest of these is love.

Remember that I am praying for you. So let it be written, so let it be done.

[1] See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq6f15u7MxA.

[2] See: https://whnt.com/news/coronavirus/state-of-emergency-issued-for-alabama-all-public-k-12-schools-to-close-for-2-1-2-weeks/.

[3] See article: https://www.al.com/alabamafootball/2020/03/alabama-postpones-spring-practices-slated-to-start-friday.html.

[4] Now retired to teach in the secular academy.

[5] See entire lecture at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCRMRKSiV2c.

[6] See trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VLEPhfEN2M.

[7] Tom Hanks has announced the he and his wife are infected with the virus.

My pastor, Jay, has been using as a theme for this Linton. The topic of labels. He points lamented that sometimes we are quick to label people and to label ourselves. When we place labels on people, he said, we see them as the label and not as the person they are.

Perhaps, we could add to that assessment of the “labeling issue” the notion that when we label a person or label ourselves, we dehumanize such person. Regrettably, for us, dehumanization is exactly the opposite of the reason why Jesus came to be with us and remains with us.

He, being fully God,  came to be with us becoming fully human. What label should we put on that? The only label that comes to mind is “love.” ” For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…” John 3:16.

Recently, I was talking with a therapist friend of mine in Birmingham, Alabama. We were discussing labeling, and she pointed out that labeling is the exact opposite of compassion. When we label someone, it is much more difficult for us to have compassion upon that person.

My pastor, Jay, has been using as a theme for this Lenten season the topic of “labels.” He lamented that sometimes we are quick to label people and to label ourselves. When we place labels on people, he said, we see them as the label and not as the person they are.

Perhaps, we could add to that assessment of the “labeling issue” the notion that when we label a person or label ourselves, we dehumanize such person. Regrettably, for us, dehumanization is exactly the opposite of the reason why Jesus came to be with us and remains with us.

He, being fully God,  came to be with us becoming fully human. What label should we put on that? The only label that comes to mind is “love.” ” For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…” John 3:16.

Recently, I was talking with a therapist friend of mine in Birmingham, Alabama. We were discussing labeling, and she pointed out that labeling is the exact opposite of compassion. When we label someone, it is much more difficult for us to have compassion upon that person.

Conversely, when we have compassion for someone, even ourselves, it is much more difficult to place a label on such a person. (And this from a psychotherapist!) While everyone else in the world knew this, it came as a revelation to me, Captain Obvious – at your service.

I tend to be an inwardly judgmental person even if I do not express the judgment to others. I’ve heard it said that if you remain silent, people may think you a fool, but if you open your mouth, you may remove all doubt.

That being said, I am even much more judgmental of myself than of others. Referring back to my therapist friend’s comment, this means that my capacity for compassion is limited. As we might say in politically correct jargon, I find myself “compassionately challenged.”

Over the years, I have blamed this on my mother and my grandmother, (true, hardcore South Alabama Southern Baptists from the old school. ) Thus, I reason, it’s not my fault.

My therapist friend, as well as most of you, would submit that while they may (or may not) have been a “labeling influence,” to label vel non, is a choice I have made. To put it into theological terms, while they may or may not have sinned, I bear no responsibility either way. Contra wise, if I don the righteous robe of the judge, I also snap the steel-shanked shackles of the sin.

The “Good News” that there is a remedy for both the sin and the psychosis. This can be remedied by volitionally choosing to see people as people and by choosing to have compassion on them. In other words to paraphrase an old wristband, “What DID Jesus Do? You all know the answer better than I. You have demonstrated that in your ministry time and time again.

When I have compassion upon someone, I will cease to be judgmental of that person.

God make it so.

So let it be written, so let it be done.