The Invitational

Below is an article from the September issue of the Wheatland Parish newsletter:

            I have now been the pastor of the Wheatland Parish for about two months.  In that time, a lot of people have asked Wanda me how we like living in Gettysburg, as well as how we like having three churches:  Gettysburg, Agar, and Onida.

            The answer is that we like it a lot.  The people in all three towns have been very welcoming to us.  We’ve managed to get to know quite a few of you, although not as many as we’d like yet.  We’ll continue to work on it, and we thank you for your patience with us in that regard.

            It’s a challenge to get to know the people in three separate communities, of course, but it’s an exciting challenge.  We enjoyed going to both the Potter County and the Sully County fairs.  I’m enjoying being a part of both the Gettysburg Rotary Club and the Wheatland Lions Club.  I look forward to going to as many football and volleyball games for both Gettysburg and Sully Buttes as I can in the weeks to come.

            In that regard, let me reiterate something I said in my first newsletter article.  If there’s something going on in any of these three towns, don’t hesitate to invite us to it.  We’re taking both the Potter County News and the Onida Watchman, and we’re trying to keep track of everything that’s going on, but we’ll inevitably miss things sometimes.  If you’ll let us know what’s happening in each town, it’ll help us out a lot.  I’d rather have eight people tell me about the same thing than have nobody tell me about it.

            What we’d love even more, of course, is if you’d invite us to go with you.  I hope to find someone to sit with at the football and volleyball games, but it’s even more fun if I know there will be someone like that ahead of time.  If we go with you, you can introduce us to your friends and we can make even more connections in all three towns.

            That’s a good way to help a church grow, too.  While it’s a good thing to invite people to come to church, it’s an even better thing to invite them to come to church with you.  Offer to pick them up, walk into church with them, and sit beside them.  Ease them into conversation with the people around them (I understand that, in a small town, they may already know lots of people there, but the first time you come to a different church can still be awkward, and some help getting conversations going can be a huge blessing).  Help them with when we stand up and when we sit down.  Help them find their way through the hymnal.

            Whenever we’re going somewhere we’re not used to going, it can be awkward.  That’s true whether we’re going to a service club, a football game, or church.  Having someone help us through those first, awkward times is a wonderful thing.  You can be that someone for somebody when you invite them to come to church with you.  You can be a blessing for them, you can help the church grow, and you can help make disciples, just like Jesus told us to do.

Who Likes Being Preached To?

            The other day I was watching a TV program.  It was a program I can generally take or leave—if I happen to stumble across it, I’ll watch for a while, but I don’t make any particular effort to see it.  Anyway, this particular episode was one which had a message, and was intent on making sure everyone understood the message, to the point that it felt like I was being hit over the head with the message.  I thought, “Just tell me a story.  I don’t like being preached to!”

            Well, that’s quite a thought for a pastor, isn’t it?  If I don’t like being preached to, why should I assume that other people do?  And if most people don’t like being preached to, what’s the point of what I do every Sunday morning?

            I’ve written some things recently about the need for the church to change, but I had not really thought that much about changing the sermon.  It always seemed to me like the sermon was the centerpiece of the worship service.  If there’s one thing that a worship service needs, it seems like it would be a sermon.  Besides, I really enjoy preaching, and I feel like I’m fairly good at it.  I really would not want to give it up.

            On the other hand, as I’ve written before, the worship service is not about what I like or what I want.  The worship service is about making disciples of Jesus Christ.  If, in fact, most people are like me, and don’t really like being preached to, then perhaps we need to rethink the whole idea of the sermon.

            Now, in saying that, I’m not saying that we should stop talking about God’s word in church.  We need to talk about it there.  After all, if we don’t talk about God’s word in church, where are we going to talk about it?  I’m not advocating that we abandon the Bible, nor am I even advocating that we entirely abandon preaching.

            On the other hand, Moses did not get a command from Mt. Sinai that said, “Thou shalt listen to a sermon every Sunday.”  St. Francis of Assisi wrote, “Preach the gospel always, and if necessary, use words.”  The poet Edgar A. Guest may have had that in mind when he wrote, “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.”

            There are lots of ways we can spread God’s word besides having one person stand in the front of the church and talk.  We can spread God’s word through music.  We can spread God’s word through drama.  We can spread God’s word through comedy.  We can spread God’s word through discussions.  We can spread God’s word by getting out of the church and into the community.  We can spread God’s word by finding ways to show love to the unchurched or underchurched who are all around us, right here in the communities in which we live.

            I’m not saying that we’re not going to have a sermon in church next Sunday.  I would like us to think about this, though.  The fact that I enjoy preaching does not mean that it’s the best or most effective way to make disciples of Jesus Christ.  Remember, in this and all matters, that’s always our goal.

Strength Through Weakness

Below is the message preached in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, September 4, 2011.  The scripture was Romans 5:1-11.

            One of the things most people agree on about God is that God loves us.  So, one of the biggest questions we have about God is why, given that God loves us, there’s so much suffering in the world.

            There’s no doubt that there is.  We see it on TV every day.  In fact, we see it among our friends and neighbors every day.  We all know someone who’s going through something pretty tough in their lives right now, whether it’s a health issue, a financial issue, a family issue, or something else.  In fact, for some of us, the someone we know who’s going through that is us, ourselves.

            It does not seem right.  It does not seem fair.  Even we don’t specifically blame God for the suffering, we think, “Why does God not stop it?  After all, God is all-powerful.  God sees everything, and God can do anything.  If God loves us, and God sees us suffering, why does God not do something about it?”

            Well, that’s a question that people have been asking for thousands of years, and I’m not going to give you the answer this morning.  I think it’s interesting, though, to look at what Paul says about that in our reading from Romans today.

            Paul talks about suffering, but Paul does not address whether our suffering is fair.  Paul tells us that, rather than complain about the unfairness of our suffering, we should boast in our sufferings.

            What’s that mean, to boast in our sufferings?  Well, it does not that we’re supposed to make sure everyone knows how much we’re suffering so we can get sympathy for ourselves.  That’s a temptation, you know.  I’ve done it, usually to Wanda.  I’ll get sick, and I’ll want Wanda to know how bad I feel so she’ll give me some sympathy, maybe do a few things for me, that sort of thing.  When we were first married, that sort of thing would work sometimes.  Now, I get sick, and Wanda just says, “stay away from me so I don’t catch it.”

            That’s not what Paul’s talking about when he says we should boast in our sufferings.  What Paul says is that, instead of thinking of suffering as unfair, we should look at the benefits of suffering.

            That’s kind of a hard concept for us to deal with, especially when we’re in the middle of something.  When we’re having serious health problems and don’t know how we’re going to come out of them, if we’ve lost a job and have bills to pay and don’t know where the money’s going to come from, if we have a family member who’s going down the wrong path and it seems like there’s nothing we can do about it, it’s pretty hard to hear, “Well, hey, look at all the benefits you’re going to get from your suffering.”  When we’re in the middle of suffering, we just want it to be over, and if we cannot make it be over by ourselves, then we want God to do something to make it be over, and we want God to do it right now.

            If we can look back on times we’ve suffered in the past, though, we can see that what Paul says is true.  Paul does not say we should look forward to suffering or that we should be happy about it, but Paul says that we can boast in our suffering because of what suffering leads to.  He says that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.

            If you think about some of the things you’ve suffered in your life, you know that’s true.  If we’ve gone through tough financial times before, that helps us get through tough times now.  If we’ve had a serious illness or injury in the past and beaten it, that help us put up with a new physical problem.  If we went through life never having a problem, never having anything go wrong, we’d not be able to handle it when something bad inevitably did happen to us.  Suffering produces endurance.

            Endurance produces character.  When we know we can endure our problems, whatever they are, we’ll be able to do the things we need to do to work our way through them.  That does not mean our problems will magically go away, but it does mean we’re more likely to be able overcome them, because we won’t let ourselves give up the way we would if we’d not endured suffering before.  Endurance produces character.

            That character, that belief that somehow, in some way, we’ll be able to work through our problems, leads to hope.  Hope does not mean that we’ll get everything we want, of course.  Hope means believing that, if we do what we’re supposed to do, God will do what God does, and things will go the way they’re supposed to go.  Hope means trusting that, no matter what happens, God is in control, and trusting that, in the end, God always wins.

            The thing is that this endurance, this character, this hope, all starts with suffering.  But why?  Why do we need to go through all that in order to get our hope and our trust in God?

            Listen to what Paul writes next.  He says, “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly...God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.”

            When we’re in the middle of our suffering, we often feel weak.  We feel helpless.  We feel like there’s nothing we can do.  It’s at that moment that Christ comes to us.  It’s at that moment that we become reconciled to God.  It’s at that moment that God’s love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.

            When you think about it, it has to be that way.  If God never allowed us to suffer, if we never had to endure anything, would we really appreciate what Christ did for us?  Would we really believe and accept that God’s in control?  Or would we start thinking that we’re the ones in charge?  We’d start feeling like we’re the ones with the power, like we’re the ones in control.  If we never suffered, we’d never need to depend on God’s strength.  We’d think we could depend on our own strength.  If we acknowledged God at all, we’d feel like anything that God gave us was nothing more than we deserve, and start demanding more, rather than beginning to understand that everything we have is an awesome gift from our incredibly loving God.

            By allowing us to suffer, God allows us to see the truth about ourselves.  God allows us to see that we’re not in charge, that we’re not powerful, that we’re not strong.  Then, when we see how weak we are, God comes to us in the form of Jesus Christ.  God comes, and God’s love is proven to us through Jesus’ death. 

At the time when we can do nothing for ourselves, Jesus comes and does it all for us, by dying for us, by taking the punishment for our sins.  Then, having done it all, Jesus does even more.  Listen to what Paul writes:  “For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life.”

God, through the death of Jesus Christ, took away our punishment for our sins.  That’s an incredible thing, an incredible gift.  It’s a greater gift than we can imagine.  God, though, wanted to do still more for us.  So, Jesus was resurrected from the dead, so that we can have our relationship to God restored.  Not only do we get to escape punishment, we get to feel God’s love, to feel God’s presence, to have the Holy Spirit poured into our hearts and be saved for eternal life.

It’s so amazing the way God works.  We wish we never had to suffer.  We do everything we can to avoid it.  Yet, it’s only because of our suffering that we can even begin to appreciate the incredible love and grace of God.  It’s only when we feel weak and helpless that we can recognize God’s great strength.  It’s only when we feel lost that we can be reconciled to God and be saved.

None of this takes away the pain of suffering when we’re going through it.  None of it makes suffering easy or pleasant.  If you’re going through a tough time right now, I’m not trying to minimize what you’re feeling or tell you that you should not feel it.  Pain is pain, and suffering is suffering, and I’m not trying to pretend otherwise.

Even so, we can still do what Paul says.  We can boast in our sufferings.  Not because we want them, but because we know God comes to us in our suffering.  God comes to us, and we can live in God’s presence.  We can rely on God’s love and God’s strength.  That’s a hope that will never disappoint us.

Is suffering fair?  Maybe not, but neither is God’s love.  We can never earn it or deserve it.  God just gives it to us, as an incredible, undeserved gift.

Well, After All, It Happens

            A group of Franciscan friars in Florence, Italy has been plagued with a series of thefts of Bibles from their church.  In response, the friars put up a note in full view of worshippers.  The note said that they hoped the thief would see the error of his ways, but that if he did not, they hoped the thief would be stricken with diarrhea.  That’s not the exact language; if you want to see the exact language, you can go here.

            Well, that’s one approach to stopping crime, I suppose.  It certainly gives a whole new slant on Jesus’ statement to turn the other cheek.

            A spokesman for the friars said that they had acted out of frustration and were confident the act would be forgiven.  He said, “It is not exactly clean language, but we couldn’t put up with it any longer.  The Lord and the faithful will understand.”

            I won’t speak for the Lord, but speaking just for myself, I do understand.  Haven’t you ever reached a point where you just felt like you’d taken all you could take and you had to do something?  I have.  I think God does understand that, too, and does forgive it.

            Saying God will understand it is not the same as saying it’s okay, though.  Frustration, by itself, is usually not a very good motivation for an act.  Most of the time, when we act out of frustration, we not only do something that doesn’t help, we often do something that’s actually counterproductive.  When we act out of frustration, not only do we not make the situation better, we often make it worse.

            This is not to say that frustration is always a bad thing.  What we need to do, however, is control our frustration.  Lashing out in an uncontrolled fashion rarely works.  It can be a good thing when frustration prompts us to act, but the action we take needs to be taken rationally and intelligently. 

            We all feel frustration sometimes, but when we do, we need to take a step back.  We need to take a deep breath.  Then, we need to pray for God’s help and God’s guidance.  We need to trust that God will show us a way forward that can help the situation.  Then, we need to act in a way that shows love to everyone concerned.

Time Marches On

            Have you heard of the Mindset List?  It’s a list put together every year by Beloit College.  What the list tries to do is give us information about the world in which each year’s incoming college freshmen live.  Here are some things from this year’s list:

            --The internet has always existed.

            --The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports.

            --There have always been at least two women on the Supreme Court.

            --“Don’t touch that dial”?  What’s a “dial”?

            --“LBJ” means LeBron James.

            --There has never been an official Communist Party in Russia.

            --Music has always been available by free downloads.

            --No state has ever failed to celebrate Martin Luther King day.

            --People have always been able to create wills and other legal documents online.

            --Michael Jordan is the guy who does underwear commercials.

            --They won’t go near a retailer who doesn’t have a website, and they have never shopped out of a catalog.

            --The first president they remember is Bill Clinton, and the first president they really remember is George W. Bush.

            Sometimes, older people (meaning people my age) look at a list like this and don’t like it.  We feel like a part of history is being lost forever, and we’re unhappy about that.  We think it’s sad that young people don’t remember the things we take for granted.

            Here’s the thing, though.  Whether we like these changes is irrelevant.  The world has changed, and we have to deal with it.  I’m not knocking history; it’s important that we understand the past, so we can know how we got to where we are.  We cannot live in the past, though.  We need to live in the present, with an eye toward the future.  The world our young people have grown up in is the world that exists now.  People my age and older need to understand that world and figure out how to relate to it, not lament the fact that the world is not the way it was when we were young.

            That applies to the church, too.  If we want young people to come to church, we need to understand the world young people live in.  We cannot conduct a 20^th century church service and expect 21^st century people to come to it, because most of them won’t.  Whether they should or not is irrelevant; they won’t.  If we want to attract 21^st century people, we need to develop a worship service that fits a 21^st century world.

            That’s not something that’s going to be easy.  I’m not claiming I have all the answers for how to do it.  It’s something we’re going to need to work on together.  One thing we’re going to need to do is ask some of these 21^st century people what would attract them.  We cannot assume we know the answers; we need to find them out.

            People my age and older can lament the fact that the world has changed, but we cannot change that fact.  The world I grew up in is gone, and it’s not coming back.  We need to live in the world that exists now.  We need to make disciples of Jesus in the world that exists now.  The only way we can do that is by learning to relate to the people who live in that world. 

Not What We Signed Up For

Below is my message in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, August 28, 2011.  The scripture is Matthew 16:21-28.

            Our reading from Matthew for today is one of the less comfortable scriptures we have.  First, Jesus tells the disciples that he’s going to be killed.  Then, Jesus tells the disciples they need to be willing to follow him completely, wherever following him leads, even if it leads to death.

            It was an uncomfortable thing for the disciples to hear, too.  When Jesus told them that he was going to be arrested and killed, Peter’s response was “God forbid it, Lord!  This must never happen to you.”  He did not want to hear it.  This was not the way he thought things were supposed to go.  We’re not told about the response of the other disciples, but I think we can pretty safely assume that they’d have agreed with Peter.

            Jesus gets kind of upset with Peter.  The part of this we tend to remember is when Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan”, but that’s not the most important part of this.  The most important part of this is the next sentence, where he explains why Peter has things messed up.  He says to Peter, “You are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

            The Bible leaves that scene there, and then goes on to Jesus talking to all the disciples again.  He tells them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”

            We’re not told what the Peter’s reaction to this was, nor are we told the reaction of any of the other disciples.  I’ll bet they did not like hearing this either, though.  They knew, of course, what “take up their cross” meant.  It meant they had to be willing to be crucified.  I suspect that, when Jesus called them and they became disciples, none of them realized they were signing up for that.  They may have known they were in for some tough times, they may have even known they would have to fight and risk death, but they were confident that they were going to win.  After all, they were following the Messiah, and their whole idea of a Messiah, as we talked about last week, was that the Messiah was going to be the conquering king.  This idea that Jesus was going to give up his life on earth, and that if they wanted to follow Jesus they each had to be willing to give up their lives on earth, too, was not how the game plan was supposed to go.  It was not what they’d signed up for at all.

            When we hear these words, we don’t really like them very much, either.  After all, Jesus did not just mean these words to apply to the disciples; he meant them to apply to us, too.  He said, “if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

            We do want to be Jesus’ followers, or at least we say we do. I wonder, though, when we decide to follow Jesus, if we really realize what we’re signing up for.  How many of us, when we decided to become Christians, thought about having to give up our lives to follow Jesus?

            What we sometimes do, when we get to this point in the discussion, is to talk about giving up our lives to follow Jesus as something that only exists for us in theory.  We talk about the Christian persecutions of the past.  We may even talk about places in the world where, right now, Christians can be killed for their faith.  We don’t think about having to give our lives to follow Jesus as something that could actually happen to us.

            The fact is that’s probably true.  As long as we live our lives here in rural South Dakota, we probably won’t have to give up our physical lives because of our faith in Christ.  The thing is, though, that Jesus was talking about more than that.  He said that, to really be his followers, we need to be willing to deny ourselves and follow him.  When we became Christians, is that what we thought we were signing up for?

            Now, in asking that question, let me recognize that I know that there are people here who have done and are doing a lot for this church.  You’ve taken time and effort to do things that you did not have to do.  There have been times when it would have been much easier for you to go somewhere else, to do other things, or to just stay home and relax, and instead you gave your time and your effort to the church.  I know that, and I appreciate it.  I don’t want this to be taken as me saying that nobody here does anything, because I know that’s not true.  There are a lot of people here who do a lot.

            Even so, though, we all have the tendency to do what Jesus said Peter was doing.  We all have the tendency to set our mind on human things instead of on divine things.

            I do, too.  You know why?  Because I really enjoy the human things I set my mind on.  I like them.  They give me pleasure.  I don’t want to give them up.

            The thing is that those human things are not necessarily bad things.  They can be, but not necessarily.  It’s not a bad thing to enjoy sports, for example.  It’s not a bad thing to like music.  It’s not a bad thing to enjoy visiting with people.  None of those are bad things.  In fact, some of them would be considered good things.  They can be bad, though, if we set our minds on them too much.  They can be bad if we value them so much that they get in the way of following Jesus.

            There’s nothing wrong with enjoying our lives, but we can put too much emphasis on it.  If our lives on earth become too important to us, we run the risk of doing what Jesus warned the disciples about:  wanting so much to save our earthly lives that we risk losing our eternal lives.

            Now, if anyone remembers last week’s message, you may think I’m contradicting myself here.  After all, last week I said that God wants our service to be joyful.  Last week I said that what we should do is take the things we enjoy doing, find others who enjoy doing them, too, and find a way to make that into a ministry.  Now, I’m warning against enjoying things too much.  Is that not a contradiction?

            I don’t think so, and here’s why.  What Jesus is warning about is enjoying things for their own sake, and enjoying life for its own sake.  If we find ways to make those things into a ministry, though, we’re not enjoying them for their own sake.  We still can enjoy them, but we’re taking those things we enjoy and using them to serve God.  Our minds may at first be on human things, but we’re finding ways to move them toward divine things.

            See, here’s the thing:  we cannot try to be someone we’re not.  I cannot stop being a sports fan; it’s part of who I am.  I cannot stop liking music; it’s part of who I am.  God created each of us with likes and dislikes, with various talents and abilities.  When Jesus told us to deny ourselves, he did not mean that we should deny who we are, because that would be to not be the people God created us to be.

God created us each of us with those likes and dislikes, with those talents and abilities, for a reason.  We’re expected to use them in God’s service.  If we keep the things we enjoy to ourselves, if we use our talents and abilities selfishly, then we’re setting our minds on human things and failing to deny ourselves.  On the other hand, if we find a way to use the things we enjoy to serve God and others, if we use our talents and abilities to serve God and others, then we’re setting our minds on divine things.

           

It’s kind of ironic, when you think about it.  Jesus told us to deny ourselves and follow him.  Yet, it’s only by denying ourselves that we can become the people God created us to be.  In other words, it’s only by denying ourselves that we can truly become ourselves; not the selfish selves that we’re sometimes tempted to be, but the Christian selves that we want to be and that we can be.

           

When we hear Jesus tell us to deny ourselves and follow him, we don’t want to hear it.  It scares us.  It does not sound like what we signed up for when we became Christians.

           

The truth is that for most of us it’s probably not what we thought we signed up for.  The good news, though, is this:  it’s something better.  There is no greater feeling than the feeling we have when, even if just for a moment, we feel that we are where God wants us to be and are doing what God wants us to do.  When we deny ourselves, and follow Jesus, we truly become what God intends us to be.  Then, we can have that great feeling, not just for a moment, but for always.

Change, Part 3

            I have just a little more I want to say about change.  I promise next time I’ll move on to something else.

            One thing we can be sure about is that, whenever a change is proposed, people will have opinions about it.  Some of those opinions will be favorable.  Some of them will be unfavorable.  Some people will not understand what’s going on or why.  Some people will be afraid of doing things differently.  Some people will be eager to make changes.  Some people will see change as the solution to our problems.

            None of these opinions is necessarily right or wrong.  The point is that everyone is going to have an opinion.  That’s a good thing, especially when it comes to the church.  Each of us should have an opinion about what’s going on in the church.  If we didn’t have an opinion, it would mean we don’t care, and that would be a bad situation to be in.

            The important thing, when we have an opinion about what’s going on in the church, is that we don’t keep those opinions to ourselves.  We need to talk to people.  We especially need to talk to the people who are in a position to do something about the situation.  Talk to me.  Talk to the people on the church council.  Talk to the lay leader.  Talk to the people on the relevant committee.

            Sometimes, people get the impression that their opinion doesn’t count.  That’s not true.  Your opinion does count, but it only counts if the people who have been entrusted with making decisions know what your opinion is.  Those people can only know what your opinion is if you tell them.  It would be nice if they taught a seminary course on mind-reading, but they don’t.  They don’t have that course for people on church boards or committees, either.  The only way for the people entrusted with making decisions to know your opinion is for you to tell them.

            Those people want to know your opinion.  No one wants to do something in the church if the people of the church don’t support it.  It won’t work that way.  For the things the church does to succeed, we need to move forward together.

            We won’t always have unanimous agreement on everything, of course.  Nor should we.  There’s an old saying that if everybody’s thinking alike, somebody’s not thinking.  We need to hear from a lot of people with a lot of viewpoints.  That’s the way the best decisions are made.  We need to be respectful in our disagreements, recognizing that others want what’s best just as much as we do, but we still need to be willing to state those disagreements and not sweep them under the rug.

            The fact that each opinion counts, though, does not mean that each opinion will be followed.  That’s not possible.  It would be wonderful if everything could be compromised so that we all felt we were getting our way, but it’s not possible.  Sometimes we have to make choices.  We can either do A, or we can do B, but we can’t do both.  Or, sometimes we’re choosing between doing A or not doing A.  If you believe one way, and a decision is made to go another way, that doesn’t mean that your opinion didn’t count.  It just means that a different decision was made.

            It’s good when we have opinions, and it’s good when we make our opinions known.  At the end of the day, though, each of us needs to remember that the church is not about what any individual wants.  The church is about doing God’s will.  Once a decision is made, even if it didn’t go the way we thought it should, we need to get behind it and help the church move forward.  If the church is doing something we were skeptical about, we need to do all we can to prove our own skepticism wrong and help the church succeed.

            Everyone involved in the Wheatland Parish wants what’s best for the church.  If we remember that, if we pray, and if we resolve to stay united, we can handle whatever changes may come our way.  Then, we can move forward to make this parish the parish God wants it to be.