An Inspiring Man

            Recently, after church, a member of one of my congregations told me that my sermon had made them think.

            I took that as a high compliment.  We should think about our faith.  We should never blindly accept what someone tells us, especially not me.  There are only four gospels, and that’s probably enough.  A “gospel according to Jeff” would get an awful lot of people in trouble.

            I think my grandfather, Joseph Nadenicek, would agree.  As I continue to write about my grandfather, one of the things that struck me in his eulogy was this passage:  “In his sermons, he preached the truth sincerely, as he saw it.  He taught his members to think for themselves.  He wanted them to be able to discuss the doctrines of the reformation in a knowledgeable way.  He wanted them to see the truth, and to know God personally as he, himself, did.”

            I don’t know that there can be a much better goal for a pastor than that.  To preach the truth sincerely as you see it.  To teach people to think about faith for themselves.  To encourage people to be able to discuss their faith in a knowledgeable way.  To help people see the truth and know God personally.  That pretty much sums up what a pastor is trying to do, doesn’t it?

           

He had five children.  He made plans for their future.  For his sons, he wanted one to be a minister, one to be a doctor or scientist, and for the third, who was less than a year old, he had not decided yet.  For his daughters, he wanted one to be teacher and the other to be a nurse.

           

Well, he got two of the four.  One of his sons, my Uncle John, was indeed a scientist, and my mother was a teacher.  He did not have a son who became a minister, but of course his grandson, me, did.

           

Think about those goals.  He did not dream of his children being rich or successful.  He dreamed of them becoming educated and going into professions that would help people.  Again, what better goal could there be?  This is not meant to criticize what anyone does for a living, but almost all of us want to feel that our lives matter, that we are contributing to something.  What better ways are there to do that than to teach people about God, to advance the cause of science, to educate children, and to care for and heal people? 

           

What struck me most about this was the plans for his daughters.  Remember, my grandfather passed away on New Year’s Day of 1929.  Women being part of the labor force was not that common at the time.  I assume my grandfather hoped his children would all get married and have children, but his plans for his daughters went beyond that.  He not only wanted them to work, he wanted them to be educated and to have a profession.  And again, he did not want them to have just any profession; he wanted them to have a profession that would help people and contribute to the future.  He wanted that for all his children.

           

The more I read about my grandfather, the more I realize what an amazing man he was.  With everything I read, he becomes more and more of an inspiration to me.

Taking Pride In Our Humility

The following message was given in the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg on August 1, 2012.  The scripture used was Luke 14:1, 7-11, which is below.

            "One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched.

…

            When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table,he told them this parable:  “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place.  But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”'

            Humility is probably one of the hardest virtues for us to have.  It certainly goes against what society tells us we should do.  We hear all the time about how we need to be proud of ourselves and the things we do. 

Watch a pro football game sometime.  Every time somebody makes a good play, or even an ordinary play, they have to dance around for about five minutes to make sure everybody saw what they did.  It’s a rare thing when someone scores a touchdown and just jogs back to the sideline.

Politics is the same way.  When’s the last time you heard a politician say, “You know, I really don’t deserve credit for this.  These other people are really responsible for the good stuff that’s happened while I’ve been in office.  I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”  It never happens, it either party.

I always get kind of a kick out of reading Numbers 12:3.  It’s talking about Moses, and here’s what it says about him.  It says, “Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth.”  The reason I get a kick out of that is that, by tradition the book of Numbers was written by Moses.  If you would actually write that about yourself, it pretty much by definition cannot be true.

That’s one of the things that makes humility so hard.  It’s really hard to be aware of our own humility.  Once we start think about being humble, we’re tempted to be proud of it, and then we’re not humble any more.

Because of that, it seems like humility is something that really has to come from somewhere inside of us.  And of course, when we say that a virtue needs to come from inside of us, what we’re really saying is that it needs to come from letting the Holy Spirit into our hearts, because that’s really the only place virtue can come from.

            What I think Jesus is telling us here, though, is that, even though humility needs to come from inside of us, we can still actively work on it.  It’s like a lot of things, I think, in that the only way to learn how to do it is by doing it.  With most things, we can read about them, we can think about them, we can listen to people talk about them, but the only way to really learn how to do them is to start doing them.  And that’s the way it works with humility, too.  The only way to learn how to become humble is to start practicing humility, even if it does not seem natural to us.

Jesus gives an example of how to do that.  He says when we’re invited somewhere, we should not just go ahead and assume we deserve a prominent place and therefore take it.  He says that if we do that, we might get asked to take a worse place, and then we’ll be humiliated.  Instead, he says, we should take a low place and let someone invited us to move up to a better spot, because then, we’ll feel honored.

I think the reason Jesus tells us to do that is because a lack of humility can get us in all kinds of trouble.  It really gets back to what we talked about last week.  Whenever we achieve something, it’s really tempting to start thinking we achieved it ourselves.  It’s really tempting to give ourselves the credit for it, rather than giving God the credit.

What we think about it that way, when we take that place of honor that Jesus describes in his story, what we’re really doing is taking the place of honor away from God.  We’re putting ourselves in the most prominent place, and putting God in the less prominent place.

Whenever we do that, we are making a big mistake.  God loves us, but God’s sense of honesty and justice will not allow us to put ourselves ahead of God forever.  When we become too arrogant, when we put ourselves in the most prominent place, we will eventually fall.  When that fall comes, it can come in very sudden and unexpected ways, and it can be a very long fall.

We see that in the sports world all the time.  Think about Joe Paterno.  Think about Tiger Woods.  Think about Michael Vick.  Going back further, think about Pete Rose.  None of these people were evil people, at least not intentionally so.  In fact, before they got into trouble, each of them was thought of very highly.  They were held up as role models, people we should try to be like.

What happened to them?  They thought too highly of themselves.  They started thinking their success was all due to themselves, rather than to God.  They started thinking that the rules of society did not apply to them.  They thought they could do whatever they wanted to do because of who they were.  They thought that, because they had achieved so much and were so good, that nothing bad could ever happen to them.

It happens in the financial world, too.  Look at Bernie Madoff.  Look at the Enron guys.  It happens in politics.  Think about Richard Nixon.  Anthony Weiner.  Gary Hart.  It happens in religion.  Look at Jim Bakker.  Look at Ted Haggard.  Again, I don’t think any of these people were purposely trying to do wrong.  In fact, sometimes they thought they were doing right.  They did not set out to be evil or bad. 

What happened to them, though, is that they put themselves and their own success ahead of everything else.  They thought that, because they were so successful, or so good, they no longer had to answer to anyone.  They thought they could make up their own rules.  They thought they could do whatever they wanted and no one would ever know or care and nothing would ever happen to them as a result.

It’s something they never intended to do.  It’s something very few of us intend to do.  The thing is that praise can be such a tempting thing to fall for.  We do something right, and people tell us how well we did.  It makes us feel good.  So we do something else, and it goes well, and more people tell us how good we are.  It makes us feel better.  We do something else, and lots of people tell us how good we are.  Eventually, if enough people tell us how good we are, we start believing it.

You know what else happens?  When people start thinking we’re good, they’re more likely to give us a pass when we mess up.  We do something that should get us in trouble, but because people like us and think we’re trying hard, they make excuses for us and we don’t get into trouble.  And somewhere inside, without even realizing we’re doing it, we think, “Gee, I got away with that.  Nothing happened to me.  I wonder what else I could get away with.”  And we’re down that slippery slope, without even being aware of what’s happening.

The thing is, if there was ever anyone who was subject to that temptation on earth, it was Jesus.  Jesus actually was better than anyone else on earth.  Jesus had more power, more knowledge, more wisdom than anyone on earth.  He had lots of people telling him how great he was.  Jesus was able to resist that temptation because he spent lots of time with God.  Think of all the times Jesus went off by himself to pray.  I have to think part of that was so Jesus could remind himself that everything he could do, and everything he was, came from God the Father.  We need to remind ourselves of that, too.

Jesus is telling us that if we practice humility, it can give us that reminder.  Because, think about this.  Jesus said to take a low place so we can be invited to move up higher.  But what happens, if we’re not invited to move up higher?  What happens if we take a low place and everyone thinks that’s where we belong?

That’s a reality check, right?  That’s a wake-up call.  All of a sudden, we realize that we’re not that great person we thought we were.  We realize we’re not above the rules.  We realize that, after all, we’re no better than anyone else, and in fact there are plenty of people who are better than we are.

            That can be a blow.  It can hurt our pride to find that out.  But it’s a lesson we need to learn sometimes, and it’s a whole lot better to learn the lesson that way than the way Joe Paterno or Richard Nixon or all those other people learned it.  It’s a lot easier if we never put ourselves on a pedestal in the first place than if we put ourselves up there and then get pushed off.

We all like to hear applause.  We all like the approval of others.  The only one whose approval matters, though, is God’s approval.  If we do what Jesus did, if we spend some time with God and remind ourselves that everything we can do and everything are comes from God, we can stay focused on earning God’s approval, rather than the approval of others.  That will help us practice humility, and will keep us closer to being the people God wants us to be.

Love Done Stays

Below is the text of the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, July 29, 2012.  The scripture used is 1 Corinthians 13:1-13.

            I presided at a wedding yesterday.  I like to do weddings.  It’s wonderful to see two people committing themselves to stay together forever, for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, until they are parted by death.

           

We all know, though, that there are a lot of times when it does not work out that way.  I don’t need to stand up here and tell you the statistics on divorce.  You all know them.  For most of us, it’s not just a statistic anyway.  I’d bet that every person here knows someone who’s been through a divorce.  Some of you have been through them yourselves.

           

If you have, please understand that I do not intend anything I say today to be a criticism of you.  There are divorces in my family, too.  Divorce happens for a lot of reasons.  It’s not my place to judge you, and I don’t intend to.  If I say anything that comes out like I am, please come and talk to me about it, because that’s not what I mean to do.

           

Because the rate of divorce is so high, and because it has been high for quite a while now, the way our society looks at love and marriage has changed.  As we continue our sermon series “This is Country Music”, I think our song today illustrates that.  As we’ve said before, songs become popular because they have something to say that makes sense to people.  The song for today is called “Love Done Gone” by Billy Currington.  It’s a really catchy tune, and I like the melody and the instrumentation and stuff, but think about what this song says about love.  As we’ve been doing, we’ll listen to the song, and then we’ll talk about it.  The words are below:

Don't worry, baby, sometimes things change

Nothin' we can do about it now, no way

This doesn't come easy, but that's just life

We can't keep pretendin' everything's alright

We told each other it was love before

The simple truth is it just ain't no more

The bells stop ringin', the music won't play

The crazy little feelin' that's faded away

Like snowflakes when the weather warms up

Like leaves on the trees when the autumn comes

Like the dogwood blossoms in a late spring rain

All the disappearin' bubbles in a glass of champagne

Like a red kite lost in a blue sky wind

I don't know where the good times went

It ain't nothin' we ever said or ever did wrong

It's just love done gone

I don't regret a single thing that we did

Any time together we ever spent

I wouldn't change a thing, baby, you know

Sometimes we gotta just go with the flow

Like snowflakes when the weather warms up

Like leaves on the trees when the autumn comes

Like the dogwood blossoms in a late spring rain

All the disappearin' bubbles in a glass of champagne

Like money in a slot machine

Don’t know what happened to you and me

It ain’t nothin’ we ever said or ever did wrong

It’s just love done gone

It's just love done gone

It's just love done gone

There’s nothing in that song about love lasting forever.  There’s nothing there about staying with each other for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, until we’re parted by death.  This song does not define love that way at all.

This song defines love as something that, by its very nature, is here for a little while, and then it’s gone.  Think about what love is compared to in this song.  Snowflakes when it gets warm.  Leaves in the fall.  Bubbles in champagne.  Money lost in a slot machine.

That strikes me as really sad.  This song seems to have given up on the whole idea that love can last forever.  It’s like that’s not even a possibility.  The singer really does not seem particularly sad about the fact that love has disappeared.  The song takes the attitude that love ending is inevitable.  There are no regrets, it’s no one’s fault and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.  Love just goes away.  That’s just the way it is.

I think that attitude is really prevalent in society today, especially among younger people.  They see marriages that have lasted fifty or sixty years or more, and they think that’s really neat and all, but they don’t see it as a possibility for them.  It’s not that they would not like to have a marriage like that, they just don’t see it as one of their options.  That kind of marriage is a leftover from an era that’s gone, like rotary dial telephones and 45 rpm records.  It may have had its place once, but it’s just not the way the world is any more.

I think one of the reasons we’ve come to look at love that way is that we’ve come to look at love as an emotion.  Look at what the song defines as the ways to tell love has gone:  The bells stop ringing.  The music won't play.  The crazy little feeling has faded away.

           

That’s not what love is.  It’s part of love, of course.  Love cannot be completely unemotional, and I’m not saying it can.  But think about our reading from First Corinthians.  That’s one of the most famous passages in the Bible.  In fact, it’s called the Love Chapter.  It’s the Apostle Paul giving us a definition of love.

           

What’s interesting about that definition is that nowhere in it does Paul talk about emotions.  Nowhere in it does Paul talk about feelings.  For Paul, and for us as Christians, love is not about stuff that selfishly makes us feel good for a little while.  Love is not about temporary feelings and emotions.  Love is about actions and commitments.

           

The first two things Paul says we need to do when we love someone is to treat them with patience and kindness.  Patience and kindness are the exact opposition of selfish feelings and emotions.  Most of us are not instinctively patient and kind.  Those are things that involve our heads as much if not more than our hearts.  We can only treat someone with patience and kindness if we’ve made a commitment to that person and have decided that we are going to act in a way that shows that commitment.

           

The next three things Paul says about love is that it does not envy, it does not boast, and it is not proud.  Again, these are things that are the exact opposite of selfish feelings and emotions.  When we think someone else has a better deal than we have, it’s hard not to envy them.  When feel like we’ve done something pretty good, it’s hard for us not to brag about it.  It’s hard for us not to be full of ourselves when we think we’ve accomplished something.  We can only get rid of our envious, boastful, prideful feelings and emotions when we’ve made a commitment to put someone else ahead of ourselves and have decided that we are going to act in a way that shows that commitment.

           

Paul goes on.  Love is not self-seeking and it is not easily angered.  Again, the opposite of selfish feelings and emotions.  Most of the time, when we get angry, it’s because we’ve put ourselves ahead of someone else.  Not all the time, but an awful lot of the time.  We want things to go our way.  We may have the best of intentions in wanting things to go our way, we may truly believe that everything would work out better if we got our way, but we’re still putting getting our way ahead of loving someone else.  Again, we can only get past that when we’ve made a commitment to put someone else ahead of ourselves and have decided that we are going to act in a way that shows that commitment.

           

Now, we need to point out that this commitment needs to run both ways.  If one person is committed and the other is not, that’s not going to work.  At the same time, we cannot always be testing someone else to see if their commitment is as strong as ours.  That’s what Paul means when he says love keeps no record of wrongs.  We cannot use what we see as someone else’s lack of commitment as an excuse to not act in love.

           

I could go on with the other things Paul talks about, but you get the point.  Here are the most important things Paul says about love, though.  Love always perseveres, and love never fails.

           

In other words, Paul says love is the exact opposite of what our song says it is.  Love is not something that is here today and gone tomorrow.  Love is something that is permanent.  Love never ends. If it ends, it was never really love in the first place.  That’s true even if the relationship comes to an end.  If you truly love someone, there’s a part of you that always loves them.  You may not want them back, you may decide you’re better off without them, you may have found someone or something else better, but still, if it was really love, there’s a part of you that loves them, because real love never completely goes away.

           

Our love for each other is supposed to be like God’s love for us.  God’s love for us is not like snowflakes in the sun or bubbles in champagne.  God’s love for us lasts forever.  Our love for each other is supposed to be forever, too.

           

It can be, if we make the commitment to make it that way.  If we are committed to putting someone else ahead of ourselves, and if we act in a way that shows that commitment, love will never be done gone.  Love will persevere, and love will never fail.

A Man of Integrity

            I’ve been writing about my grandfather, Rev. Joseph Nadenicek.  I mentioned last time that he was an avid reader as well as a writer.  What I don’t think I mentioned in that regard is his love of poetry.

            My grandfather loved poetry.  His eulogy says that he read the most accomplished poets of his time.  He also wrote poetry.  His eulogy also says that was very particular about his poetry.  If anyone wanted to use his poetry, he insisted they use it exactly as he wrote it, with all words and phrases unchanged.  He often used poetry in his sermons as well.

            I’ve been trying to see what similarities there are between my grandfather and me.  I don’t write poetry, although I married a woman who does.  I write songs sometimes, which I suppose is a form of poetry.  I can certainly understand my grandfather’s desire to keep his creations exactly as he had created them.

           

            I’ve been trying to say “his eulogy says” in regard to what I’m learning about my grandfather because one of the things his eulogy says is that my grandfather hated plagiarism.  In addition to reading a lot, he apparently had an incredible memory, because he could frequently spot when someone had stolen something.  His eulogy says he would write letters to editors of newspapers to point out examples of plagiarism he saw there.  In fact, it says “he enjoyed being able to expose critics and high officials on their literary errors.”

            I suspect the reason he was so strong on the subject of plagiarism has to do with his personal life.  He is described as a man of complete openness, honesty, and integrity.  It’s a eulogy, of course, and the author is hardly going to say bad things about him, but I don’t doubt that it is true.

            He was considered a “liberal” pastor in his day.  He was very much opposed to narrow-mindedness and intolerance.  He supported changes in the Slovak hymnal, especially those changes that would make it easier to understand.  He wanted the people in his congregation to be able to read and understand and think for themselves.  His eulogy says that he “wanted them to be able to discuss the doctrines of the reformation in a knowledgeable way.  He wanted them to see the truth, and to know God personally as he, himself, did.”

            While he had opinions, though, he was also willing to compromise.  He had a strong concern for church unity.  He would defend his positions if he was convinced he was right, but he “always looked for and tried to understand opposing views”, and was not afraid to change his mind if he was convinced of a better plan.

            That willingness to compromise had its limits.  He was fully convinced that evil exists, and that Christians need to be able to recognize it so we can deal with it when confronted with it.  His eulogy also says that his integrity “would not allow him to compromise with sin and godlessness.”

            In regard to those personal qualities, I’ll leave it to others to say how much I resemble them.  They are an inspiration to me, though.  Openness, honesty, and integrity are qualities we should all strive for.  We all need to find a way to fight narrow-minded intolerance without compromising with sin.  We all need to read and understand and think for ourselves, so we can know God personally.

            We all have times when we tend to back-slide from being the people we should be.  I hope my grandfather can inspire me not to do that, but instead be the person I should be.

Not Just 'Good Enough'

This is the message from the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg July 25, 2012.  The scripture is Luke 16:19-31.

            This is really a tough story for me to preach on.  It makes me kind of uncomfortable.  I’m not sure I understand it, and I’m not sure what to do with the parts I think I do understand.

We have basically two characters in the story, three if you count Abraham.  The main two characters are the rich man and Lazarus, the poor man.

And that’s really all we know about them.  We’re not even told the rich man’s name—he’s just identified as “the rich man.”  We know Lazarus’ name, we know he’s a beggar, and we know he had sores.  That’s all we know about them.  Then, we know they both die.  We know Lazarus goes to heaven, and the rich man goes to hell.

And when we read the story, it sounds like the only reason Lazarus went to heaven was that he was a beggar who had sores, and the only reason the rich man went to hell is because he was a rich man.  You know, a lot of times, when we hear this story explained, the person doing the explaining makes assumptions that are not in the text.  They assume that the rich man must have been evil, or greedy, or have cheated or stolen or done something unsavory to get his wealth.  They assume Lazarus must have been a wonderful fellow who just never got any breaks while he was alive.

Jesus did not say any of that, or if he did it’s not recorded.  We are not told that the rich man was evil or that he did anything wrong to get his money.  For all we know, he may have worked very hard and earned his success.  He may have treated people well.  He may have even tithed, given ten percent of his money to God.  I’m not saying he did that, but there’s nothing in Jesus’ story that says he did not.  We’re not told that the rich man did anything wrong in getting his money.

We also don’t know whether Lazarus was a wonderful fellow.  We don’t know if he was a nice guy at all.  He may have been a jerk.  He may have never had a good word to say to anybody.  Again, I’m not saying that’s true, but there’s nothing in Jesus’ story that says it’s false.  We’re not told that Lazarus ever did anything nice for anyone.

The only things that seem to matter in Jesus’ story are that the rich man was rich and that Lazarus was a beggar.  Listen to what Jesus has Abraham saying to the rich man.  “Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony.”  The only reason we’re given for why the rich man is in hell is because he’d had a good life while he was on earth, and the only reason we’re given for why Lazarus is in heaven is because he had a bad life on earth.

Now, Jesus talked to a lot of poor people, and he had a lot of sympathy for them.  And remember, poor people back then did not get any government support or anything.  Begging was about the only thing a poor person could do, and it was not very profitable.  This kind of message would’ve given the poor people Jesus was talking to a lot of hope.  It would’ve made them feel like God did care about them, that God knew about their situation, and that they would get a reward in heaven.  It can give us hope, too, if we’re suffering in our lives on earth.

The thing that bothers me so much about this is that I feel like I have a lot more in common with the rich man than I have with Lazarus.  I mean, I’m not rich by our standards, but I’m certainly not in the Lazarus category, either.  I’ve never had to beg for anything.  I’ve always known I was going to have enough to eat every day.  I’ve always known I was going to have decent clothes to wear.  I’ve always known I was going to have a decent place to sleep. 

I’ve also always known that, if something happened to where I might not have one of those things, that there were people who’d help me.  I have a loving family, both on my side and on Wanda’s side, and I have friends who I know would not let me sleep on the street and would not let me starve, no matter how bad my personal situation might get.

Not only that, I’ve had a pretty wonderful life in a lot of ways.  I grew up in a loving family.  I have an incredible wife.  I had a career that I love.  I have wonderful people to work with.  I’ve been blessed in an awful lot of ways.  In many ways, I’ve received the good things in my lifetime, just like the rich man did.  Does that mean I’m going to receive bad things in the next life, like the rich man did?

           

Also, I wonder how to square this with all the times in the Bible where we’re told that our salvation depends on our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and on nothing else.  Because in this story, we’re not told anything about the faith of either the rich man or Lazarus.  We’re not told that Lazarus had faith and the rich man did not.  We’re told that the rich man went to hell because he’d gotten good things during his life, and Lazarus went to heaven because he’d gotten bad things during his life.  How does that make sense?

           

I don’t know that I have the answer, but I’ll tell you what I think.  Feel free to disagree.  As I was thinking about this, it occurred to me that, in a way, it’s easier for us to rely on God when we have nothing than it is when we have everything.  What I mean is that someone in Lazarus’ position has nothing, not even decent health, and most likely never will have anything.  In that situation, we sometimes throw ourselves on God’s mercy because there’s nothing else we can do.  We ask God to help us because we know that we have no ability to help ourselves and never will, and we know there’s no one else who’s going to help us either.  We turn to God for help because we have nowhere else to turn.

           

When we have some money of our own, though, we do have somewhere else to turn.  If we have a thousand dollars in the bank, we don’t have to rely on God for our next meal.  We can rely on ourselves.  If we have ten thousand dollars in the bank, there are a lot of things we don’t have to rely on God for, because we can do them ourselves.  If we have a hundred thousand dollars, there are even fewer things we have to rely on God for.  And if we have a million dollars, well, we probably don’t have to rely on God for much of anything.

           

I think this is what Jesus meant when he talked about how it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven.  I don’t think he meant it literally, that it’s impossible for a rich man to go to heaven, but he meant that it’s awfully hard.  It’s hard because the more we have, the more likely we are to rely on ourselves, and the less likely we are to rely on God.

           

I don’t think this story means that everyone who gets good things while on earth will go to hell.  What I think it means is that the more blessings we have while we’re on earth, the more we can be tempted to believe that we’ve gotten those blessings because of our own goodness, rather than by God’s goodness.  The more blessings we have while we’re on earth, the more we’re tempted to take those blessings for granted, rather than thanking God for them.  The more blessings we have while we’re on earth, the more we’re tempted to have faith in ourselves, rather than having faith in God.

           

If we truly have faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior, our lives need to show that.  That’s true whether we have a lot or we have nothing.  The more we have, though, the more chances we have to do things that show our faith.  And, of course, the more Jesus asks us to do things that show our faith.

           

I’m not saying that you don’t do things that show your faith.  The point here is not to make anyone feel guilty.  But we can all do more.  I know I can.  Jesus does not want us to just do so much and say, “well, that’s good enough”.  That’s not what Jesus did when he was on earth.  Jesus did not settle for “good enough”.  Jesus does not want us to settle for “good enough”, either.

           

As I said, this is a tough scripture.  But it’s an important one.  As Jesus makes pretty clear, our life in eternity depends on it.

Hearts Like Ours

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish Sunday, July 22, 2012.  The scriptures are Matthew 7:1-5 and Matthew 18:15-17.

           Today, we’re picking back up with our sermon series “This Is Country Music”, as we listen to some contemporary country songs and look at what they have to say about faith and society.

           

The song we’re going to listen to today is called “Heart Like Mine” by Miranda Lambert.  I’m not saying that I agree with everything the song says, but I do think that it shows how a lot of people in society tend to look at the church.  I also think it shows what a lot of people see as a disconnect between the love they see in Jesus and the judgmentalism they see in the church.  So, let’s listen to the song, and then we’ll talk about it.  The words are below.

           

I ain't the kind you take home to Momma

I ain't the kind to wear no ring

Somehow I always get stronger

When I'm on my second drink

Even though I hate to admit it

Sometimes I smoke cigarettes

Christian folks say I should quit it

I just smile and say, "God bless"

'Cause I heard Jesus, He drank wine

And I bet we'd get along just fine

He could calm the storm and heal the blind

And I bet He'd understand a heart like mine

Daddy cried when he saw my tattoo

Said, he loved me anyway

My brother got the brains in the family

So I thought I'd learn to sing

'Cause I heard Jesus, He drank wine

And I bet we'd get along just fine

He could calm the storm and heal the blind

And I bet He'd understand a heart like mine

I'll fly away from it all one day

I'll fly away

These are the days that I will remember

When my name's called on the roll

They'll meet me with two long-stemmed glasses

Make a toast to me coming home

'Cause I heard Jesus, He drank wine

And I bet we'd get along just fine

He could calm the storm and heal the blind

And I bet He'd understand

He’d understand a heart like mine

Oh yes, He would

            About six weeks ago, in a different sermon series, we talked about how most of us don’t like rules.  If someone tells us “you can’t do this” or “you have to do that”, we resist that.  We want to make our own choices.  We don’t want to have someone else tell us what to do.

           

I think that really comes through in this song.  The person singing it has made some choices that the “Christians” in her life disapprove of.  She admits that some of those choices may not have been the best ones.  What she says, though, is that she thinks Jesus would show her understanding for those choices, while the “Christians” in her life don’t.

           

Now, is that a caricature of Christianity?  Well, maybe, to an extent.  It’s certainly not true of all Christians all the time.  But we cannot say that it’s not true of any Christians any of the time.  There is a strain of judgmentalism that runs through Christianity, and if we’re going to get anywhere we need to acknowledge that this is true.

           

We also need to look at why that’s true.  I say that because as Christians, we walk kind of a fine line sometimes.  There are passages in the Bible where Jesus tells us not to judge others.  There’s no question about that.  We read one of them today.  On the other hand, we know that there are also passages where we’re told that certain things are right and certain things are wrong.  We’re told that we need to stay away from sin.  So what do we do?  How do we handle this?  How do we deal with behavior that we know is sinful without falling into the trap of judgmentalism?

           

Well, I think there are at least a few things we can do.  One of them is to make sure that things we consider sin actually are.  We need to make sure those rules we’re talking about actually are rules that appear in the Bible, rather than rules that we’ve made for ourselves.

           

For instance, let’s look at a couple of the things that are mentioned in this song:  drinking and smoking.  Now, I don’t drink, and I don’t smoke, and I’m not saying that I think either of those things is a good thing to do.  At the same time, though, I am not aware of anything in the Bible that says the consumption of alcohol is a sin, nor am I aware of anything in the Bible that says smoking is a sin. 

As the song points out, Jesus did drink wine.  In fact, we have the famous story of the wedding in Cana where Jesus turned water into wine.  There are passages that say drunkenness is wrong, but that does not mean all consumption of alcohol is a sin.

It’s the same with smoking.  Now, I don’t know that they had tobacco in Jesus’ time, but the closest I can come to something that says smoking is a sin is the times when the Bible says that we should take proper care of our bodies.

I agree that we should, of course.  The thing is, though, that taking proper care of our bodies involves a lot more than just not smoking and not drinking.  It means not eating too much.  It means eating the right things, rather than candy and ice cream and chocolate cake and sweet rolls.  It means getting enough exercise.  It means not going to the convenience store and getting the thirty-two ounce fountain Coke.  If we’re going to rely on taking care of our bodies as the basis for our judgments, we’d better make sure all of our own behavior is in order first.

            That brings me to the second point.  Even if the things we consider sins are recognized as such in the Bible, we need to make sure we’re not just recognizing certain sins, and conveniently forgetting about the things we don’t like so much.  After all, there are places where the Bible speaks out against gluttony, against eating too much.  There are places where the Bible speaks out against envy and jealousy.  There are places where the Bible speaks about how we’re obligated to give one-tenth of our income to God.  There are lots of things the Bible talks about.  This is what Jesus was meant when he said we need to first take care of the plank in our own eye.  If we feel like we’re qualified to judge the behavior of other people, then we’d better make sure our own behavior is all where it should be.

So what does that mean?  Does it mean we can never point out behavior that the Bible says is wrong?  Are we, as Christians, required to accept a philosophy of “anything goes”, because anything else would be judgmental and wrong?

Well, I don’t think so.  In fact, in our reading from Matthew 18, Jesus specifically tells us what to do if a brother or sister sins.  Jesus does not say anything goes.  Instead, Jesus specifically tells us that when a brother or sister sins, we need to do something.

Here’s what’s interesting, though.  When Jesus refers to a brother or sister here, what he’s talking about is a brother or sister in the faith.  He’s talking about our fellow believers.  When a fellow believer sins, we’re supposed to go talk to them.  If that does not work, we’re supposed to take one or two other believers along.  If that still does not work, we’re supposed to take the matter up with the church.

In other words, what Jesus is saying is that we’re supposed to point out the sins of fellow believers.  And we’re also supposed to listen when fellow believers point out our sins.  But Jesus does not say that we’re supposed to go around pointing out the sins of non-believers.  In fact, Jesus says that if people, “refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

Now, we read that, and maybe we think Jesus is telling us to be dismissive of believers who won’t listen when their sins are pointed out.  That’s not it.  Think about it:  how did Jesus treat pagans and tax collectors?  He loved them.  He spent all kinds of time with them.  He healed them.  He offered forgiveness of sins to them.  As our song says, Jesus got along fine with them, because he understood hearts like theirs.  He offered those hearts complete, total, and unconditional love.

Here’s what I think Jesus is saying.  He’s saying, yes, we do need to help lead people away from sin.  The way we do that, though, is not to start by walking up to people and pointing out their sins to them.  The way we do that is to start by treating them the way Jesus treated pagans and tax collectors.  In other words, the way to start is by offering complete, total, and unconditional love to people.

Through that love, over a period of time, with God’s help, we can sometimes bring people to Christ.  Then, we can start teaching them about how the Lord wants us to live.  While we do that, of course, we need to still speak and act in loving ways.  We also need to be mindful of the ways in which we, ourselves fall short of the way the Lord wants us to live.

            Bringing people to Christ does not mean changing their behavior.  It means changing their hearts.  If we give people unconditional love, no matter who they are no matter what they do, with God’s help we can change their hearts.  When our hearts are changed, our behavior will follow.  Then, we can all serve Christ together, knowing that Jesus understands hearts like ours.

A Reader and a Writer

            In my last blog entry, I referred to the January 15, 1929 issue of the Slovensky Kalvin, an issue dedicated to my grandfather.  Below is some information I learned about my grandfather from that issue.

            My grandfather, Joseph Nadenicek, was born in Nosislav, Moravia in 1884.  One thing I have in common with him is that he was also a second-career pastor.  He did not wait anywhere near as long as I did to become a pastor, of course.  In fact, while writing this, it suddenly hit me that he never even reached the age, forty-seven, at which I became a pastor.  He was initially a blacksmith, which was apparently his father’s profession in Moravia.

            He had already felt called by God to become a pastor by the time he came to the United States, which was in about 1909.  He attended Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, graduating in 1915.  I note with some amusement that, according to his eulogy, his seminary professors were not terribly impressed with his sermons, but his congregations loved them. 

I really enjoyed reading that, because I was always frustrated my preaching classes while I was at seminary.  It was nothing personal against the professors, whom I liked.  It’s just that my preaching classes had something in common with every other speech or writing class I ever took, whether in law school or in college.  They did not teach speaking or writing; they taught outlining. 

I can write an excellent outline, but I cannot write a sermon based on that outline.  As I’m writing, I get different ideas, and I sometimes take a somewhat circular route to get to my main point.  Sometimes I don’t even really figure out what the sermon is about until I get to the end, and I have to rewrite the beginning and the middle to fit it.  I’d end up writing the sermon first, and then writing an outline based off the sermon.  It was quite frustrating, and I have to think my grandfather would have understood that frustration.

My grandfather read an incredible amount.  He was said to have “the best and most up-to-date library of all the Slovak pastors.”  He did not just read religious books, either.  He read almost everything he could get his hands on.  He was very interested in science and philosophy.  He was an avid reader of newspapers.  He read the works of Victor Hugo and Rudyard Kipling.  He wanted to read about controversial subjects, and he especially wanted to read viewpoints that were different from his own.  He would stay up late at night, after the rest of the family (he was married with five children) had gone to bed, so that he could read in peace.  His eulogy says that he would spend several hundred dollars a year on books and newspapers, which was a huge amount to spend at the time, especially for a pastor with five children to feed. 

I get up early to read, rather than staying up late, but I love to read, too.  I have to believe that if my grandfather lived now, in the age of the internet, he’d love it.  Imagine all the books and articles and essays that would be available to him!  I can imagine him carrying a Nook or a Kindle everywhere he went, and any time he had ten minutes to spare, finding something interesting to read.

There is much more about my grandfather in this newspaper.  In the weeks to come, I will continue to share it with you.  It is incredibly meaningful to me; I hope it will be interesting to you as well.