Father's Day

A week and a half ago was Father’s Day.  That can mean different things to different people, of course.  Some people have a great relationship with their father.  For others, the relationship is more strained.  And of course, some people did not know their father, or have lost touch with him, for a variety of reasons.

I thought, though, that I would take this occasion to tell you a little bit about my father, Larry Adel.  He’s ninety-five now, and living in a nursing home in Armour.  But when he was younger, he was a very important man in our little community.  I don’t just say that because he’s my dad.  I say it because it’s true.

He was the chairman of the county hospital board for twenty-five years, and was instrumental in getting a hospital established in Douglas County.  He served on the local Coop board for many years.  He was on the school board.  He was the chairman of the Douglas County Republican Party for many years.  He held just about every office in the Delmont United Methodist church that there was to hold at one time or another.

And he was also on the Delmont Baseball Association for many years.  He coached for a few years, and helped in other ways as well, but one of his main jobs was to be the public address announcer.  He did the public address announcing at the Delmont ball park for over thirty years.  Teener games, Legion games, men’s amateur games.  He did the occasional midget or peewee game, too.

If I wasn’t playing, I would sit beside him there in the announcer’s booth.  I’d help him keep score--I learned to keep score of baseball games at a pretty young age.  I’d give the money to the kids who returned the foul balls--first dimes, later quarters.  I’d go get us a hot dog and a soda pop as the game wore on.

And we’d talk.  We’d talk about anything.  The ball game, of course--we’d root for the Delmont teams, second-guess the manager, second-guess the umpire, all the things you do when you’re watching a ball game.  But we’d talk about other things, too.  The farm, maybe.  Things that were going on in town.  Things that were in the news.  And just life in general.

We’d talk about all kinds of life things.  It’s funny how you can have a conversation during a ball game that you would never have at other times.  I suppose other people use other things for that purpose--fishing, working on cars, cooking, whatever.  But for us it was ball games.  I don’t really remember any specific conversations we had, but I remember the closeness I felt to my dad when we were sitting there at the little Delmont ball park, talking about life.

I said earlier that when he was younger, my dad was a very important man in our community.  It probably goes without saying, but he is still a very important man to me.  So I hope my dad had a happy Father’s Day.  We were not able to spend it together, but I’ll be down to see him and Mom again soon.  And I hope you some happy memories of your father, and had a happy Father’s Day, too.

Holiness and Grace

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday morning, June 24, 2018.  The Bible verses used are John 6:53-69.

             We’re doing a sermon series on our Communion liturgy, the words we say each time we prepare to take Holy Communion.  We’re doing this so that when we take Communion--which we’ll do again next Sunday--that Communion liturgy will have more meaning for us.  It won’t just be words that we say automatically.  It’ll be a time that changes our lives.  Because that’s what taking Communion is supposed to do--it’s supposed to change our lives.  It’s supposed to be a time in which we truly feel God’s grace entering into our hearts.

            We took the first part of it last week:  our need to give thanks to God.  So we’ll pick up from where we left off last week.  It should be on the screen.  It goes “With your people on earth and all the company of heaven, we praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest.

“Holy are you, and blessed is your Son Jesus Christ.”

So, having given thanks to God, we acknowledge who God is.  We acknowledge the power and might of God, but most of all we acknowledge the holiness of God.  God is holy.

That’s a word we use a lot, of course.  We talk about the holiness of God.  And we’d probably all agree that God is holy.  But what is it that we’re actually saying when we say that?  Do we know?  Probably some of us do, but I suspect some of us don’t.  What does it mean to say that God is holy?

Here’s what it means.  To say something is holy means that it is “exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness”.  That’s what we’re saying when we call God holy.  We’re saying that God is perfect.  God is perfectly good.  God is perfectly righteous.  God is perfectly sinless.  And as such, God is worthy of our complete devotion.  God is worthy of our complete loyalty and dedication.

Now, I think that most of us, maybe all of us, would agree with all that.  We’d agree that God is perfectly good, perfectly righteous, and perfectly sinless.  We’d agree that God is worthy of our complete devotion, loyalty, and dedication.

So, if we agree on that, here’s the tricky part.  How many of us live our lives that way?  How many of give God our complete and total loyalty and dedication?

Yeah, me neither.  Now, I’m not saying none of us do.  I know there are people here who are very faithful to God.  If you can look at your life and honestly say that you give God your complete and total loyalty and dedication, that’s awesome.  I salute you, I really do.  In fact, I’d like to talk to you after church so you can tell me how you do it.

Because I don’t.  I’m not proud of that.  I’m just being honest.  I try.  But I don’t think I can say that I really succeed.  My life is dedicated to God, to a certain extent.  But I don’t think I can honestly say that I give God my complete and total loyalty and dedication.  And I don’t think I’m the only one who has trouble with that.

Now, it’s fair to recognize that this is a pretty tough standard.  Complete and total loyalty and dedication to God--devoting one hundred percent of our lives to God--is not easy.  So I want to make clear that I’m not saying that’s the standard to get into heaven.  I don’t think the Bible supports that.  We are saved, and we go to heaven, by faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  And we also are saved because of God’s incredible love and grace and mercy.  We are not saved because of how great and perfect we are.  I’m not saying that at all.

But still, when we read our Communion liturgy, we say that God is holy.  We say that God deserves that complete loyalty and dedication from us.  So, how can give that to God?  Or at least, how can we move toward giving it?

Well, I think in broad terms there are two ways we can go with this.  One of them is to focus on the things that keep us from giving God our complete loyalty and dedication.  We can look at all our distractions, all the things that get in our way, all the things that keep us from dedicating ourselves to God the way we should, and just completely and totally get rid of all those things.

There’s nothing wrong with doing that, if that’s what you choose to do.  And there are times when we need to do that.  There are times when we engage in harmful or even destructive behaviors.  There are times when, quite frankly, you and I need to clean up our act.  We need to recognize when those times come and step up and do something about it when they do.

But the thing about that is that it’s kind of a negative approach.  It’s an approach that tries to get to God by eliminating the things that are getting in our way.  That may be a good thing to do, but it’s not enough.  If there’s a barrier between me and where I want to go, just getting rid of the barrier will not get me there.  It’ll help.  It’ll clear the path.  But I still have to travel along the path.  I still have to take positive steps, positive action, to actually get to where I’m going.

The way we do that is to focus on love.  Love of God and love of each other.  What Jesus referred to as the two greatest commandments.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That’s what will get us down the path.  The main thing God wants us to do is love.  So if we focus on that, we’ll be going a long way toward giving God the complete and total loyalty and dedication we’ve said God deserves.

But here’s the thing.  That focus will take us a long way, but it won’t get us all the way there.  Because we cannot get all the way there on our own.  We cannot do this just by the force of our own will.  Even if we try, even if we’re sincere about it, even if we do everything we can do to live our lives in a way that shows we love God and we love other people, we’re going to fail sometimes.  We all are.  No matter how hard we try not to be, you and I remain human beings.  And as human beings, you and I will continue to be flawed, weak, fallen, sinful people.  Anything we do on our own we do imperfectly.  That’s true whether we’re trying to eliminate the things that get in the way of being dedicated to God or if we’re focusing on love to get us close to God.  If we try to do it by ourselves, we’re doomed to fail.

That’s why God does not ask us to do it by ourselves.  God asks us to allow God to help us.  God tells us that we don’t need to rely on our own will, on our own strength, on our own goodness.  We can rely on God’s will, on God’s strength, on God’s goodness.  The only way we flawed, weak, fallen, sinful people can completely and totally dedicate our lives to God is by relying on the one who is perfect, strong, righteous, and sinless.  We can only do this by relying on God.

And that’s why our Communion liturgy emphases God’s holiness.  Because sharing in Holy Communion is one of the ways in which we learn to rely on God.  Again, it’s one of the ways in which God’s grace comes into our hearts and into our lives.  The sharing of Holy Communion is a gift God has given us to help us completely and totally dedicate our lives to God.

Now, don’t take that the wrong way.  Holy Communion is not magic.  It’s not a golden ticket into heaven.  If you and I choose to shut God out of it, God will allow us to.  If we decide that, for us the bread is just bread and the juice is just juice, it will be.  God allows us free will.  God does not force Himself on us.  We are allowed by God to shut God out if that’s what we choose to do.

That’s why we read the Communion liturgy before we share in Holy Communion.  We would not have to, you know.  We could just hand out the bread and the juice.  But we don’t.  We go through the liturgy.  We give thanks to God.  We acknowledge the holiness of God.  We talk about the things we’re going to talk about in the rest of this sermon series, too.  These are things we do to prepare ourselves for the act of sharing in Holy Communion.  These are things we do to help us open our hearts and open our souls and allow God’s grace to come in.

God is holy.  God deserves our complete and total loyalty and dedication.  We need to get rid of the things that are getting in the way of giving God that loyalty and dedication, and we need to focus on loving God and loving each other.  But we can only do those things by relying on God.  Let’s open our hearts and our souls to God’s grace.  Not just when we take Communion, but every day of our lives.

Giving Thanks

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 17, 2018.  The Bible verses are Luke 22:14-20.

            Today we begin a new sermon series.  We’re going to take a deeper look at our liturgy of Holy Communion.

            By liturgy, I mean the words we say on the first Sunday of every month when we prepare to share in Holy Communion.  They start on page thirteen of the hymnal.  We put them on the screen.  We say these words every time we have Communion.  But how often do we really think about what they say?

            In asking that question, I’m not criticizing anyone.  It’s just human nature.  When we say something numerous times, over and over again, the exact same thing, there’s a natural human tendency to stop thinking about them.  Our attention wanders.  Almost all of us do that.  Whether it’s the Lord’s Prayer, or the Pledge of Allegiance, or anything else, it just becomes automatic.  Our minds go somewhere else.  It’s just how we are.

            So, in this sermon series, our goal is to break down the Communion liturgy.  We’re going to look at it in parts and really think about what it says.  And I hope, when we do that, that it will make our Communion liturgy a lot more meaningful to us.  So that when we take Communion, it won’t just be a ritual.  It won’t just be absent-mindedly saying words.  It’ll be something that truly does have meaning and power.  In fact, I hope it’ll make taking Communion something that changes our lives.  All of our lives, including mine.  Because that’s what Holy Communion is supposed to do.  That’s why we call it one of God’s means of grace.  The act of taking Holy Communion is not supposed to be something that we just do once a month out of obligation.  It’s supposed to be something truly does change our lives.

            So let’s look at the start of the liturgy.  It should be on the screen.  It starts out, “The Lord be with you.”  “And also with you.”  “Lift up your hearts.”  “We lift them up to the Lord.”  Then it says, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.”  “It is right to give our thanks and praise.”  “It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere, to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth.”

            Giving thanks.  That’s the first emphasis of our Communion liturgy.  To give thanks to the Lord, our God.

            Now, giving thanks to God is one of those churchy things we talk about all the time.  And we just accept it.  But remember, the point of this sermon series is to get us thinking about things.  So let’s ask the question:  why?  Why does our Communion liturgy tell us to give thanks to God?

            Well, the liturgy itself gives us a couple of reasons.  The first thing it says is that we should give thanks to God because “it is right”.  It is right to give our thanks and praise.

            And you know, maybe we could just stop right there.  Because, when you think about it, maybe that should be enough for us.  I mean, do we really need reasons to do the right thing?  Maybe it should be enough for us to do the right thing for no other reason than the fact that it is the right thing.  Maybe we should just give thanks to God because it’s the right thing to do, and not go any farther.

            But we’re going to go farther, for a couple of reasons.  One of them is that, well, this would be a pretty short sermon if I stopped now.  But the other is that our liturgy gives us more reasons than that.  It goes on to say that it is “a good and joyful thing” to give thanks to God.

            Think about that.  It’s not just a good thing to give thanks to God.  If that was all the liturgy said, it would just be another way of saying that it was the right thing.  But the liturgy goes on to say that giving thanks to God is a joyful thing.  It will make us happy, it will make us feel joy, to give thanks to God.

            Do you ever think of it that way?  Have you ever had it happen that way?  When we give thanks to God, does it make us happy?  Does it make us feel joy?

            For most of us, the answer is probably sometimes yes, sometimes no.  But what I suspect is that, in those times where giving thanks to God does not make us happy, does not make us feel joy, there’s a reason for it.  I suspect that, in those times, we’re not really feeling thankful to God.  We’re saying the words, because we know we’re supposed to.  We know that giving thanks to God is right and is a good thing to do.  So we do it.  But we don’t feel it.  We don’t really feel thankful to God. 

            It’s understandable.  Life is hard sometimes.  Life throws a lot of things at us, and some of them are not very good.  We all run into times when it can be really hard to give thanks to God.  We have times when we look at what’s happening and we don’t really see much reason to be thankful.

            I get that.  And God gets it, too.  God’s not going to beat us up if we have trouble feeling thankful sometimes.  The reason “it is right to give our thanks and praise” is not because God is so vain and conceited that God needs to hear us saying how great God is.  It’s not that God needs to hear it.  It’s that we need to say it.  And we need to feel it.  And it will make us feel happier and more joyful when we do.

            But how do we actually do it?  I mean, I know it says we should give thanks “always and everywhere”, but how do we actually do that?  How do we make ourselves mean the words we know we should say?  How do we make ourselves not just give thanks to God with our words, but feel thankful to God in our hearts?

            Well, I don’t have the whole answer.  But here’s something that might help.  I want to read just three verses of our Bible reading for today again.  It’s verses seventeen through nineteen.  It says, “After taking the cup, he gave thanks and said, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.”  And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

            Jesus took the cup, and he gave thanks.  He took the bread, and he gave thanks.  And before you say, “well, so what, he’s Jesus, that’s what he should do”, think about what was going on here.  There’s a reason we call this the Last Supper.  Jesus and the disciples were going to leave this room.  They were going to go to the Mount of Olives.  Jesus was going to be arrested.  He was going to be questioned.  He was going to be beaten.  He was going to be killed.  And Jesus knew all that was going to happen.

            If there was ever someone who had a reason to not feel very thankful, it was Jesus at that moment.  And yet, Jesus gives thanks.  He gives thanks not once, but twice.  He gives thanks when he takes the cup, and he gives thanks when he takes the bread.  Facing all that he was facing, Jesus still gave thanks to God.

            Did it make him feel joyful, do you think?  Well, we’re not told.  The Bible usually does not tell us what Jesus thought or how he felt.  I suspect Jesus kept that to himself most of the time.  But my guess is that it did.  Because Jesus was able to find things to be thankful for, even in that moment.

Not thankful that he was going to be tortured and killed, obviously--no one would feel thankful about that.  But I think he was thankful to know that God the Father was with him.  I think he was thankful to know that he was doing what God the Father wanted him to do.  He was probably also thankful to know that he had stayed faithful and was going to fulfill his mission, that he was going to conquer death itself and truly be the Savior.  And, perhaps, he was also thankful to know that his mission on earth would soon be completed, and that he would soon be re-joining God the Father in heaven.

In his darkest moments on earth, Jesus found things to be thankful for.  And in our darkest moments, we can find things to be thankful for, too.  Not thankful for the situation itself, necessarily.  But thankful to know that, no matter what our situation is, God will be with us.  Thankful when we know we are doing what God wants us to do, despite our situation.  Thankful when we can stay faithful to God in all circumstances.  And thankful to know that, someday, through our faith and because of God’s love and grace and mercy, we will join God in heaven.

It is right to give thanks to God.  It is not just a good thing, it is a joyful thing, to give God our thanks and praise.  It’s joyful thing always and everywhere, to give thanks to God.  Because no matter what happens, God will be with us.  And if we stay faithful to God and do what God wants us to do, God will see us through.  The next time we share Holy Communion, and at all other times, too, let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.

We're Back!

I was at United Methodist Annual Conference last week.  All the pastors in the Dakotas get together, along with a certain number of lay people and the Bishop and District Superintendents.  We do all kinds of things.  We worship together, we pray together, we learn together.  There are lots of speakers and lots of music.  We listen to speakers together.

And the yearly appointments are made.  As you may know, in the United Methodist system pastors are not hired by the local church.  They are appointed by the United Methodist cabinet, which consists of the Bishop and the District Superintendents.  That’s why I’m here--because they appointed me.

Now don’t take that the wrong way.  Wanda and I are very happy to be here.  We hope to stay here for many more years, and we’ve made that known to the cabinet.  And they try to be accommodating when they can be.  But the point is that it’s not, in the final analysis, my call.  It’s up to the cabinet.  And so, I am pleased to be able to tell you that Wanda and I have officially been appointed to serve the Gettysburg, Onida, and Agar United Methodist churches for another year.

This will be our eighth year here.  That’s a long time for a United Methodist pastor to stay in one spot.  And in some ways, we feel like we’ve been here a long time.  That’s because all of you have been so good to us and have accepted us and have cared for and about us.  You made us feel welcome from the day we came.  This parish felt like home to us immediately, and it continues to feel like home.

In some ways, though, it feels like we just got here.  Even in our eighth year, we continue to meet new people.  We continue to make deeper connections with people whom we only knew casually.  And we continue to try to find new ways to reach people for Jesus Christ.

That’s what our new Sunday evening worship service is about.  The Gettysburg United Methodist church will be holding services at 7:00 every Sunday evening in the fellowship hall, starting June 24.  This will be in addition to our Sunday morning service.  It’ll be an informal service.  It’s open to everyone, but it’s especially for people who can’t make it to church on Sunday morning, for whatever reason.  We want, again to meet new people, to make deeper connections with people, and to find new ways to reach people for Jesus Christ.

That’s something that will never stop, of course.  No matter how long we’re here, and no matter how many people we reach, there will always be more.  That’s true of all the pastors and all the churches here.  It’s what Jesus told us to do--go and make disciples.  And we need to continue to try to find new methods and new ways to make those disciples.  We need to find ways to share God’s word and to show God’s love to everyone we can.  That’s the job of everyone who claims to be a Christian.

So, we’re glad to be back.  And one of the reasons we’re glad to be back is that there’s still work to be done.  So let’s get to doing it, together!

Listen

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, June 3, 2018.  The Bible verses are 1 Samuel 3:1-10.

            All pastors have certain themes we return to on a regular basis.  Those themes are the things that define the way we look at God and our faith.

            One of the things I tend to talk about is that we all need to open our hearts and souls to God’s Holy Spirit.  God is speaking to each of us.  There are certain things God is calling each of us to do.  It’s not the same things for each of us, of course.  The Apostle Paul wrote about that.  He used the analogy to a human body.  He said that just as each part of our body has a role, and each part of our body is important to our overall health, so each one of us has a role, and each one of us is important to God’s plan.  We don’t all play the same role, but each of us has one.  Each of us has something that God is calling us to do.  And it’s by opening our hearts and souls to God’s Holy Spirit that we hear God speaking to us and learn what that role is.

            So that brings us to our Bible reading for today.  Samuel is living with the high priest, Eli.  Maybe you remember the story.  Samuel’s mother, Hannah, had been unable to have children, and so she prayed that if God would give her a son, she would dedicate that son’s life to God.  God answered her prayer, and Hannah kept her word.  So, when Samuel was very young, Hannah took him to live with Eli.  Eli took him in and Samuel learned to love God and learned how to be a priest.            

So Samuel is living with the high priest Eli.  And Samuel’s still pretty young at this point.  We’re not told how old he was, but he’s still referred to as a boy, not a man.  It’s night.  Both Eli and Samuel have gone to bed.  And Samuel hears a voice, calling him.  He assumes it’s Eli and goes to see what Eli wants.  Eli says, What?  No.  I did not call you.  Go back to bed.  Samuel does, and he hears the voice again.  Samuel again assumes it’s Eli, and Eli again says no, it was not me.  Go to bed.  And it happens a third time.  Samuel again hears a voice, and again Samuel assumes it’s Eli.  And this time, Eli figures out that something must be going on here.  He figures out that it must be God calling Samuel.  He tells Samuel that if it happens again, just say, “Speak for your servant is listening,” and God will tell you whatever it is God has to tell you.  And of course, it does happen again, Samuel says “Speak, for your servant is listening,” and God gave Samuel God’s message.

            But think about this.  God had to call Samuel four times before Samuel responded.  The first three times God called Samuel, Samuel did not recognize God’s voice.  And in fact, Samuel might never have recognized God’s voice if Eli had not told him it was God’s voice.  Why would it take that long?  Why was it so hard for Samuel to figure out that it was God who was calling to him?  

Did God’s voice sound just like Eli’s voice, so that Samuel could not tell the difference?  I suppose it’s possible, but I doubt it.  Was Samuel asleep when this happened, so that he did not really hear the voice very well and was not really thinking clearly?  I suppose that’s possible, but that does not seem like much of an explanation, either.

I think the reason Samuel did not recognize God’s voice is that he was not expecting to hear God’s voice.  After all, Samuel is still a kid at this point.  He might have thought that, maybe, God might have something to say to him some day.  But not now.  Not when he’s so young.  Not when he’s not even a priest yet.  Maybe someday, when he’s an old man like Eli, God might speak to him.  But not now. 

Samuel did not expect God to speak to him.  He believed in God.  He worshipped God.  He prayed to God.  But he did not expect God to actually respond to any of that.  And so, when God did speak to him, when Samuel actually heard God’s voice, he did not recognize it.  And if not for Eli, he’d have missed it entirely.

How many of us go through our lives like Samuel?  We believe in God.  We worship God.  We pray to God.  But we don’t actually expect God to respond.  Not now, anyway.  Maybe someday, God will have something to say to us.  But not now.  

And I do that, too.  A little while ago, after our time for praises and concerns, I said a prayer.  I talked for a while.  I said, “Amen.”  And then I went on with the next part of the service.  I did not take any time to see if God might respond to my prayer.  I did not stop and listen to hear whether God might have anything to say.  I said “Amen” and I went on.

We need to listen.  And not just listen for God to respond to us, but listen for when God wants to initiate the conversation.  We need to say, as Samuel did, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

There are certain things God is calling us to do.  Each and every one of us.  And yes, God may sometimes do things to show us the path God wants us to take.  But God also has things to say to us.  God has things God wants to tell us.  And if we don’t live in the expectation of that, if we don’t listen to hear what God might have to say to us, if we don’t create some space in our lives to listen for God’s voice, we’re going to miss what God has to say to us.  God will call us, and we won’t hear it.

Because God does not force his way in.  God does not give up, either--God kept calling Samuel, time after time--but God did not force his way in.  God waited until Samuel was ready.  God waited until Samuel was willing to listen.

So again, we get back to where we started.  We need to find a way to open our hearts and open our souls to God.  We need to open our eyes and open our ears, too.  We need to be aware that God may have something to say to us, and be ready to listen when God says it.

In other words, we need to live with the expectation that God is going to speak to us.  But what does that really mean?  How do we put it into practice?  How, as a practical matter, do we live with the expectation that God is going to speak to us?  How do we say, as Samuel did, “Speak, for your servant is listening”?

            That answer will be a little bit different for each of us.  But one of the things we need to do is create a time and a way for ourselves to listen to God.  We need to have a time and a way when we clear our minds.  We need to have a time and a way to quiet our own voices and our own thoughts.  We need to have a time and a way to put away our worries, to relax, to focus, and to listen for God’s voice.

            It takes practice.  This may not work the first time we try it.  We may do our best to hear God’s voice and hear nothing.  God speaks when God chooses to speak.  Sometimes we have to be patient and wait for God to speak in God’s time.

            And it also takes humility.  Because sometimes we think we know what God should say.  We’re trying to hear God saying what we want God to say.  We need to be willing to accept whatever God chooses to say whenever God chooses to say it.  Again, what was Samuel’s response?  “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

            We need to work on it.  But now’s the time to start.  Let’s find the time to do this.  Let’s find the way to do this.  Let’s clear our minds and quiet our voices and our thoughts.  Let’s put away our worries.  Let’s go to God humbly, and keep going to God until we actually hear what it is that God has to say to us.  Don’t give up just because you don’t hear anything the first time, or the second time, or even the third time.  Keep trying.  Eventually, you’ll succeed.  If we truly open ourselves up to God’s Holy Spirit, if we truly are open to whatever God’s Holy Spirit may have to say, if we truly are listening, eventually we will hear what it is that God has to say to us.

            We know God has something to say.  Let’s listen.

The More Things Change

The Gettysburg United Methodist church had its Vacation Bible School (VBS) last week.  The Catholic church had theirs next week, with the Lutheran church coming the week after that.  I think Grace Bible church follows the next week, although I’m not sure about that.

Anyway, I hope everyone else’s VBS goes as well as ours did, because ours was great!  I say that not because of anything I did--I was a very small part of the VBS program.  But it was great because we had some great people involved in putting it together.  It was great because we had some great parents who brought their kids to VBS.  And it was great because of the kids themselves, because we had some great kids.

You know, a lot of times you’ll hear middle-aged and older people complaining about the kids of today.  I don’t think that criticism is valid.  Are there some kids today who maybe leave a little something to be desired?  Sure there are.  But was that also true thirty years ago, and fifty years ago, and a hundred years ago?  Sure it was.  And are there some really great kids around today?  You bet!

The world has changed since I was young, obviously.  Have all those changes been good?  No, probably not.  But a lot of them have been.  The technological revolution, while perhaps a mixed blessing in some ways, enables people to have the entire world in the palm of their hand.  Ease of travel makes it possible to get to know people from all over.  Social media is a huge change, sometimes for good, sometimes not.  Young people have to deal with a lot of things that were not even imagined when I was young.

And yet, there’s one thing that has not changed.  God.  God’s word is still available to us.  And God’s Spirit is still available to us.  God still loves us.  God still wants to lead us and guide us and help us through life.  God’s rules for how to live a good life are just as good and just as helpful to us today as they were thousands of years ago.  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Do to others as you’d like others to do to you.  Forgive so that you can be forgiven.  Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.  None of that has changed.  None of that will ever change.  No matter how long the earth lasts, and no matter how many other things change, none of that will ever change.  As the Bible tells us, God is the same today, yesterday, and forever.

And you know, people are pretty much the same, too.  No matter how much the world changes, people seem to stay pretty much the same.  All the human failings the Bible talks about are still around today.  I can’t think of one that we’ve gotten rid of.  That’s why the Bible is still so relevant to us, of course--we’re still the same flawed, imperfect, sinful people that people have been for thousands of years.

Young people are just as good as they ever were.  Just as bad, too.  And the same could be said of middle-aged people and old people.  We’re all sinners in need of forgiveness and salvation.  And that’s what we get when we believe in God and accept Jesus as the Savior.