How to Develop Patience - Why We are Impatient and What to do About It.

Proverbs 25:6-8; 15-17; Psalm 112; Hebrews 13:1-8, 15-16; Luke 14:1, 7-14

This is the second of ten sermons on Living the Christian Life. So much of the time, we know just what we are to do as Christians. We know that we are to become kind, to be patient. To love deeply, to break our slavery to addictions, to control our tongues, to trade fear for hope, to stop gossiping, to make good habits, to become joyful, and generally to follow Jesus. We know very well we are to do all of these things. But the problem is how.

How to become kind, How to develop patience. How to love deeply. How to break addictions. How to control our tongues. How to trade fear for hope. How to stop gossiping. How to make good habits. How to become joyful. How to follow Jesus.

That is the subject of this sermon series. It is a sermon series on How to live the Christian life. Last week we covered kindness.

Today, we’re going to cover patience. I didn’t want to make you wait very long for it…

Many years ago, I was the marketing manager of a 150-employee company near Buffalo, NY. The company had slowly grown over the previous thirty years, and then a pair of hotshot entrepreneurial types convinced the owner that they could grow the company in two or three years to double or even triple in size. They persuaded the owner to bring in an entirely new layer of management, which included myself and about a dozen other experienced managers. It was an exciting time, but there was considerable friction between the new managers and the older management, since we were all from different backgrounds. Many afternoons, we sat around a large conference table and hashed out a strategic plan and an entirely new way of doing business. Those meetings were very lively and loud as everyone fought to be heard over their other rivals.

But I noticed that one man, John, the 70-year-old financial vice president of the company never said anything during the loud parts of the meetings. Sitting there, calm and cool, John just listened and smiled. But after the arguments had been put forward, after the tempers had been raised and cooled down, the owner and president of the company would turn to John, who hadn’t said a thing. “John, what do you think?” the owner would ask.

John would say a few words, and that was what we would do. John, you see, had learned the lesson of patience and thus he had both the appearance of wisdom…and always had the wisest counsel because he had the benefit of listening to everyone else. In effect, John made the decisions because John had the patience to listen.

John also had the benefit of having attended church his entire life. And so John had read and heard our passage from Proverbs, especially the first couple of verses:

Do not exalt yourself in the king’s presence,
and do not claim a place among his great men;
it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here,”
than for him to humiliate you before his nobles.
John had also heard the parable that Jesus told that evening, as Jesus watched all these people pushing and shoving for the honored seats at the banquet:

 “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.”

Jesus said, “Be patient. Wait for your host to recognize you and bring you to the front. Don’t be impatient and grab the best seats right away or you’ll be embarrassed. Patience wins in the long run.”

Buried in this proverb and in this parable are the keys to helping us understand patience – and, in particular, why we have such trouble being patient.

Patience, you see, is not something that our world supports. Oh, we want other people to be patient, but we don’t want to be patient ourselves because we are told that life is a race, that we need to win the race, and that the key to winning the race is to get out in front early and stay there. We are always pushed to be in a hurry, because we know that the fastest worker is usually the most productive worker, and we know that our managers and supervisors and bosses and teachers are looking to see who is fast! The early bird gets the worm!

We start out in first grade. Some students read before other students do, and we label the early readers as “smart” and the late readers as “slow”. By third grade, we are studying multiplication tables and the students that memorize those multiplication tables quickly are said to be “good at math” and those who take their time or never quite get around to it are said to be “bad at math”. I know…I used to get both kids in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade algebra, and those kids and their parents still believed that the kids that memorized the multiplication tables early– a hundred specific facts – were good at math and those who took their time were bad at math.

And yet, as soon as we started algebra, an entirely different skill set was needed and taught and at Thanksgiving, my parent-teacher conference schedule was filled with the parents of those students who had memorized quickly wondering why Bobby was having trouble with math. You see, in algebra, you need to be patient and steady and put things down on paper to succeed, and so those hotshots who memorized those 100 multiplication facts so quickly and did mental multiplication quickly had trained themselves to fail algebra. Just like the tortoise and the hare, the slow and steady students were strong at algebra – as soon as I convinced them they actually were good at math. Because they were a bit more cautious, a trifle more thoughtful, and understood patience and persistence, they were more successful at algebra. Perhaps the early bird gets the worm, but we should also remember that the second mouse gets the cheese!

We get to college and speed and quickness are still taught. Maybe if you are smart and fast, you can take summer courses and graduate a semester, maybe even a year early. Don’t be one of the people who takes five or six years to get a four-year degree! Don’t be slow on the job. Bill, you’re slow – speed is important! Sell more – pack an extra sales appointment in each day and watch your commissions go up! Hurry across town! There’s customers on the lot! Who gets to them first? Who can sell six cars today instead of four? Get to lunch and back – fast food! Hurry up, Hurry up, hurry up!

Who has time? We’ve got to make sure the kids get to their music lessons and their dance lessons and their math tutor fast today, because you know there’s a game on Friday. Hurry, hurry, because we need to get out of work quickly on Friday if we want to get to the restaurant before everybody else. If we work on Saturdays, we can get ahead of the other department, so everybody come into work Saturday. And we don’t make it to church on Sundays because, honestly, there’s so much to do and Sunday mornings are the only chance we have to sleep in. Besides, we need to be back home by noon for the Steeler’s game. Our busyness makes us impatient.

So when we stand in line at the restaurant and the woman tells us that we have a 45 minute wait, we get angry. When we go to the doctor’s office and we sit in the waiting room an extra 20 minutes because he had to do emergency surgery to save someone else’s life, we get upset – our time is valuable. And when there’s a backup on the Interstate because the rescue squad is using the jaws of life on someone’s car to free them, we get very, very hot because we have things planned.

And so the problem that drives impatience, the problem that our culture puts into our lives, the root issue that sets most of us on the road to impatience is: Our desire to be successful by the world’s standards.

You see, the world’s answers to most problems is to work a bit harder and faster, to do more. That extra work puts more demands on our time and we no longer have the time to get stuck in traffic. We have become a slave to time. But there are ways to get free from this slavery.

Last Thursday, Saundra left Methodist Theological Institute in Westerville, OH around 4 pm. She looked at a map, (which is always dicey for Saundra) thought she was south of Columbus and headed south on US Route 23. Unfortunately, the seminary is actually north of Columbus. Five minutes later, she was stuck in rush-hour traffic on a road that went through the heart of downtown Columbus. A woman following her was impatient and headed for Interstate 70 – multiple lanes of traffic moving at five miles per hour.

Saundra, though, was in no rush – she calmly waited while traffic moved four car lengths every traffic light. You see, Saundra knew that this was a Thursday and the next thing she had on her schedule was Sunday morning preaching at 9 am. It was tremendously freeing for her. And so she just watched the people crossing the streets back and forth. And relaxed. And enjoyed the sights of downtown Columbus, the people, the houses, the restaurants.

So what do we need to do to develop patience in our character and remove impatience from our lives?

The first question to ask yourself is: What is pushing me? What am I afraid I’ll be late for? If there’s no time pressure in your life, why be impatient?

Let’s realize something. The personal clock was an relatively recent invention. The first portable clocks were not developed until after the year 1400, and the pocket watch didn’t come about until the late 1600’s, after all thirteen American colonies had been settled. And watches remained expensive until after 1900. So how did people tell time?

The answer: They didn’t bother to worry about minutes and seconds. Since ancient times, people had looked at the sun and decided, “Oh, it’s about sunup, it’s midmorning, it’s noon, It’s midafternoon, It’s almost sunset.” And so, when you made an appointment, you told your friend, “I’ll see you mid-morning” and it worked. The church bell rang and you knew church would start up in a "few minutes", so you started walking for church and when everyone arrived, the service began.

What a difference! I had a boss once who was so focused upon the precise time that he never scheduled appointments for 9:30 – always 9:25 or even 9:27 so you’d be right on time – He said that people who heard 9:30 might not show up until 9:35 or so.

Our farming ancestors didn’t care.

And so, as you move forward, begin to make appointments with those people you can the way the old farmers did: “I’ll be there this afternoon,” or “I’ll be there after supper.” That’s what I try to do. When I go to the hospital, I don’t hold to a tight schedule, for I never know who will be awake and who will need to talk. I don’t know if you’ll be in your room with relatives or whether you’ll be getting x-rays. And so I just tell you…”I’ll try to get there today.”

And you know…for most people that works. I respect you by not demanding you be ready to talk to me at 1:15. If you can’t talk then, I’ll come back after I see someone else. So set your appointments so you aren’t under time pressure. Be less precise about your appointment times and those relaxed times will work in most cases.

Now in other circumstances, when I am dealing with people who live by the minute. I plan to arrive in plenty of time for these people for I know that they will be very impatient with me if I’m late – yet will usually not be ready to see me if I’m early. But, you see, that’s their problem. Take this one doctor I know of in another town…His office is a mess, always running 2 hours late by 1 pm. Your appointment is for 2 o’clock, you’ll be lucky to get seen by five. But I have a solution for these people, also.

Part of my job involves reading. You may not realize it, but I probably read a book the size of the Bible every month or six weeks. I’m reading articles, theology, the Bible, books on preaching, novels, mysteries, and pretty much whatever I can get my hands on.

And so, when someone is running late, I’m reading. I plan to do it. You’ll even see that when I arrive here early for a meeting, I’ve got my phone or my Kindle out reading when the next person shows up. And so, I don’t feel like I’m wasting time – I’m just doing a different part of my job, a part of my job that can be done almost anywhere I am.

I learned this trick years ago when I was traveling on business. I’d hurry up and get to the airport only to find that my plane was delayed two hours because of equipment or weather problems. There was nothing I could do about it, so I read. I recognize that God is in control, so I make plans to be productive while I wait on God to act, the way any good servant is productive while waiting on the master of the house to come home. I want to be a good servant of God.

And that’s a key part of conquering impatience. Impatience is that feeling you have that you can control the world around you and make those other people do what you want when you want them to, as though you are a little god. And it is frustrating because the real world steps in and tells you that the real God is in charge and no, you aren’t able to control this situation, and that makes you, the little god, angry because you can’t get your way.

Developing patience is when you realize that there already is a God who loves you and is controlling everything.

Go back to the airport. Zig Ziglar told the story of one evening he walked up to the airport counter in Pittsburgh, and said, “I’m booked on the seven o’clock flight home to Dallas.” The ticket agent looked back at him and said with a wince, “I’m sorry, that flight is delayed.” Ziglar said, “FANTASTIC!”

The ticket agent must have looked somewhat surprised, and said, “You’re not angry?”

Ziglar continued, “That flight must be delayed for some good reason. Maybe there’s bad weather, and I don’t like to fly during bad weather. Maybe there’s a mechanical problem on the airplane and I really don’t want to fly on an airplane with mechanical problems. Or maybe there isn’t a qualified crew ready to fly the plane, and I certainly don’t want to be flying on an airplane without a qualified crew. So FANTASTIC! I assume you’ll page us when it’s ready to go?”

Ziglar, who taught a huge Sunday School class at First Baptist of Dallas for many years, understood two things that are critical to develop patience. First, he understood that every person is an image of God, so when you are rude to someone, you are being rude to the image of God.

And second, Ziglar understood that God is in control. Every delay, every traffic light, every grounded plane is part of God’s perfect plan to bring us good in this life, and when we learn to go with God’s flow, we will be happier, and secure, and say “FANTASTIC” to the delays in life, like the delays that kept certain people from boarding the 9/11 airplanes.

Patience.

Jesus had patience. Do you realize that Christ and God the Father had worked out the entire Good Friday and Easter plan before the Universe was started? And Jesus had to wait until it was time. Do you realize that Jesus was born as a little infant and had to wait another thirty years before He began to teach us and the disciples? Do you realize that Jesus had to wait and teach three years before He could go to Jerusalem, be arrested and beaten and executed on the cross. And then do you realize He had to wait three days before He could come back and talk again to His friends, His mother, His brothers, and tell them that He was ok, He was actually more than ok, He was better than before, with a glorified body now? And then, Jesus had to wait another forty days or so before He was able to go back to His Father in Heaven, to sit down beside the Father, and now He has been waiting for His Kingdom to form for almost two thousand years, waiting, waiting, waiting for that trumpet to sound and for His enemies to be crushed? Even now, He is waiting for your to make a real commitment to follow Him. He's been waiting for you for years.

Don’t tell me about waiting until you have waited since before the beginning of time for a victory, as Jesus did!

And when He went to the cross, was sacrificed, and was resurrected, something else happened that can completely destroy your impatience, that can give you tremendous patience, that will calm your heart whenever you are waiting in line, anywhere…

Jesus destroyed death. And this means that those of us who follow Jesus have eternal life. And if we will live forever, please tell me again why you are in such a hurry today?

There are two voices that speak to us every day. There is the voice of the world that tells you to hurry - and the voice of the Holy Spirit that reminds you of God's truths. Which will you listen to?

When I remember that I have hundreds and thousands and millions of years ahead of me, it puts things into perspective. Who cares if I am a few minutes late? Why does it matter that I’ve been in the McDonald’s line for thirty minutes? What difference does it make if I finish this sermon by eleven o’clock or not?

For I am no longer concerned about time in my life. As an adopted child of God, I can afford to be patient. My only concern with time is the effect of time on your life and other people’s lives. I know that I have eternal life ahead of me, because I am following the Patient One, the Jesus who waited for me from before the beginning of the Universe and whom I will follow beyond the end of the Universe. I have within me the Holy Spirit of God, that was given to me at my baptism. How about you?

Are you following Jesus and have you announced that fact in public, perhaps up front at a church in a profession of faith? Are you listening to that Spirit that was given to you at your baptism? Do you know for sure that Jesus and you have a leader-follower relationship, which takes away all concern for time in your life? Have you been baptized?

For time is running out for that decision. The buzzer may ring, the trumpet may sound, time may run out at any second. Will you be standing on the floor of life’s basketball court, still dithering about committing to following Christ completely, like a player holding a basketball, not sure whether to shoot or pass the ball when suddenly the buzzer sounds? “Shoot!” we are saying. The fans are shouting “Shoot the ball!” And you are standing there, looking back and forth between the altar and the world that enslaves you, while the seconds tick away. Today you need to shoot the ball and come to the altar, kneel down, and ask Christ to take full control of your life before the buzzer sounds. You need to be baptized. You need to declare that even though you have been coming to church for years, you never understood until recently, maybe even today, that walking away from the world and following Jesus is the only thing that is eternally important in this life. It is the key to patience in this life. It is the key to eternity.

By all means, love your friends, your neighbors, and your family by helping them see that this world is passing away, by helping them see that choosing to follow Jesus and being baptized with Him and receiving the eternal Holy Spirit is the only way to eternal life. For that love, to help them secure that eternal life, impatience is a virtue. Ask your friend today, maybe even right now…Do you want the patience that Christ can give you?

But for everything else, be patient and accept life at the pace our Heavenly Father sends it to us. Accept that baptized followers of Christ live forever and relax. For you have all the time in the Universe – and beyond.

Kindness - How to Develop the Trait.

Isaiah 58:9-14; Psalm 103:1-8; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17

There was this little boy and, this being more modern times in the suburbs, he had a pet cat rather than a pet dog. A couple of grown-up men were watching when he let the cat out and told the cat “now follow me to the tree and then remember to come back home!”

Well, the boy walked to the tree in the back yard and the cat, as cats do, decided to walk around the house and under the fence to the neighbor’s yard.

One of the men said to the boy, “You need to teach that cat to follow you better. He might not come home.”

The boy answered him. “Oh, he knows how to come home. He comes home every evening about the time the sun sets. He just doesn’t know how to do what I want him to do when I want him to do it!"

Just like the cat, we often do all the good things that Christ asks us to do. We just don’t do them when He wants us to do them – which is all the time.

This is the first of ten sermons on Living the Christian Life. So much of the time, we know just what we are to do as Christians. We know that we are to become kind, to be patient. To love deeply, to break our slavery to addictions, to control our tongues, to trade fear for hope, to stop gossiping, to make good habits, to become joyful, and generally to follow Jesus. We know very well we are to do all of these things. But the problem is how.

How to become kind, How to develop patience. How to love deeply. How to break addictions. How to control our tongues. How to trade fear for hope. How to stop gossiping. How to make good habits. How to become joyful. How to follow Jesus.

That is the subject of this sermon series. It is a sermon series on How to live the Christian life.

Today, we’re going to start with being kind.

In Galatians 5:22, Paul tells us that "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. “

In this passage, there nine different good attributes listed that are the fruit of the Spirit. Those nine attributes are how we know that someone has the Holy Spirit in them and are listening to that Spirit. Today, we’ll talk about the fifth attribute – kindness.

In the original Greek, there are several words that are translated from time to time as kindness. In this passage, the word used is xrēstótēs (chrestotes) – which means “useful kindness”.

You see, a mark of a mature Christian is the presence of kindness. Not just a gentle word that we say, kindness in this sense is useful.

In our Luke passage, Jesus goes to the synagogue to teach because it is Saturday morning, it is the Sabbath, the time when the Jews gather to hear holy Scripture and hear a sermon about that Scripture. And there that morning, in the back of the synagogue, there was a woman who had been bent double. Luke tells us she had been bent over for 18 years, controlled by an evil spirit which kept her in that bent over, hunched position.

Jesus sees her and takes pity on her condition. Like a doctor who sees someone bleeding, Jesus sees this woman spiritually bleeding every time she takes a step. And so Jesus, like any good doctor, does what is in His power to do.

He calls her forward to the front of the synagogue. And slowly, carefully, with much agony she walks forward. “Woman, “ Jesus says, “You are set free from your infirmity.” And he puts His wonderful healing hands upon her and she straightens up and praises God! It was a wonderful, useful kindness that Jesus demonstrated. Jesus changed this woman’s life, He changed her entire outlook on life, He made a simple change in her life that allowed her to now work and survive as any other woman instead of staying bent over, forced to struggle just to walk.

And here is where we see the difference between those who are kind and those who are not kind.

The leader of the synagogue says to the woman and the other members of the congregation: “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

For this man, the rules were more important than being kind to the woman. And the rules said that you don’t work on the Sabbath, you don’t work on Saturdays, you stay unproductive on God’s holy day.

(You’ll notice this guy addressed the woman and the congregation even though it was technically Jesus who was working, but I guess he didn’t have the guts to speak directly to Him.)

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

Jesus makes the point that the men standing around Him treated their donkeys and cattle better than they would treat the woman now standing before Him.

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

Perhaps the largest barrier to being kind is our attention and focus upon the rules. We get so carried away in following the rules that we forget that we have people in front of us. How do we do this?

• The rules say that you teach your son to be strong and self-sufficient by giving him a task to do and then letting him do it. “Dig this ditch!” we say – and then, when we’ve finished our work and he hasn’t, we tell him to finish his work before he comes inside to the cool air conditioning because it is his job, right? The kind man would finish his own work and then shows kindness and grace and helps his son finish his ditch.
• The rules tell us to clean up our own messes. So when the daughter breaks a pitcher, the mother has the daughter get down and pick up all the pieces and sweep up all the shards, instead of helping her pick up the pieces, as the kind woman would do.
• The rules tell us to pick the best people for our teams, and leave the worst players for last. The kind person picks the players that always get picked last and then figures out how to give them a chance to run with the ball.
• The rules tell us that starting time is 8 o’clock, and if you are late three days, you’re fired. The kind boss understands that the woman needs a starting time of 8:15 because her teenage son needs to be driven to school and so the exception is made.

When we stop worrying so much about the rules and worry more about people, kindness and grace can flow from us more easily.

Today, we're told the best diets have us eating five or six snacks a day and avoiding big heavy meals. You may remember that there was a time when we were taught to only eat three meals a day and no snacks between meals? My grandmother Boley was a kind woman and listened to the Holy Spirit most of the time. After school, I often walked to her mobile home and spent a couple of hours there until my parents came home from work and picked me up. Not only did she listen to my stories after school, she almost always had warm biscuits waiting when I walked in. As soon as I opened the door, I could smell them! And if she didn’t have biscuits, she had buttered potatoes or warm oatmeal cookies. Her kindness, you see, was useful to a young, hungry boy after school.

A useful kindness.

My son Andy has that useful kindness. Just last Friday, we went to Sam’s Club to pick up some things for his dorm room, things like Styrofoam bowls for soup, Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup in 12-packs, and a couple of 36-packs of Raman Noodles. I guess that's what the well-equipped dorm room needs these days.

We left Sam’s and passed a woman begging at the entrance to the parking lot. Her sign said she had a couple of children and no job and needed food. We got another 100 feet or so, when my kind son said, “Turn around. I need to give that woman something.” And so we turned around. When we got back to the parking lot, Andy jumped out and took her one of those 36-packs of raman noodles. That is a useful kindness! He got back in and said, “Do you remember where Jesus says, ‘if you have two boxes of Raman noodles, give one to the person with none?’” Of course, Andy was referring to the passage where Jesus tells us that if we have two cloaks, we should give one to the man with no cloak. What goes for cloaks goes for noodles.

So we know what useful kindness is, but how do we develop this trait of kindness to the point where it becomes part of our character? We’ve already discussed one way – worrying about people instead of the rules. Here’s another way.

In Proverts 31:26, the wonderful wife of Proverbs 31 is described in this way in the New King James Version; “She opens her mouth with wisdom, And on her tongue is the law of kindness.”
Have you ever worked for a kind supervisor? Oh, we’ve all worked for unkind bosses, but have you ever worked for someone who takes the time to phrase things so that when you really, really messed up, you were lifted up and taught how to improve and you felt forgiven and good with your supervisor all at the same time? That’s the law of kindness on someone’s tongue. That’s one of the things we are shooting for. When you speak, have the law of kindness on your tongue. But that often involves changing our character. And that can be difficult.

Usually, changing our character is a matter of a three-step process.

First, we recognize what our character flaw is. The opposite of kindness is being harsh. Harshness is something we learn at an early age. Let me see if I can give you an example:

You break a glass. Your parent yells at you, “Why did you break that glass?” You paralyze in fear, for you suddenly realized from your dad's reaction that breaking glasses is bad. Really bad. And so, twenty or thirty years later, when you are an adult and married and your daughter drops a glass that costs 50 cents, you freeze up. You know in your gut that you didn’t train her right and she’s done something terribly wrong and your body waits for the other shoe to fall. And so you yell at your daughter.

But what your mind doesn’t take the time to do is to realize the facts:

The fact is that when your dad yelled at you over breaking a glass, glasses cost $5 each at a time when a good job paid $2.50 an hour, so a glass represented 2 hours worth of pay. The other fact is that now glasses cost 50 cents each and you make $25 an hour, so a glass represents about a minute and a half of pay.

Another fact is that your dad’s back was always aching because his job was carrying 80 pound bags of mortar back and forth all day in the heat, and you broke the glass in the late afternoon on a 90 degree day. Your job, on the other hand, involves sitting at a desk typing up reports with very pleasant people in an air conditioned office.

But if you realize these two facts, it is easy to be kind, isn’t it? Because the situation is very different for your daughter than it was for you and your dad. You can be kind instead of harsh.

So when you are harsh instead of kind, recognize the character flaw of harshness for the flaw it is and recognize the situation may be different than the one you remember from your childhood.

But what if you are the one living in difficult times? What if you are your dad, working in pain, in heat, struggling to pay the bills?

Then we take the second step. We make a choice. You see, the law of kindness says that every time we open our mouths, we will choose to say something kind instead of harsh. Every time we take action, the law of kindness says we will choose to do something kind instead of harsh. Easy to say, but hard to do. So how will we do this?

This takes a minute, so let me get into this.

We know that Jesus was perfect, sinless, divine. We know that Jesus came to our planet and remained kind. In fact, even his strong words that He said to people like the Pharisees were said to shock those very unkind men out of their death-dealing ways, to lead them toward the way of life. Jesus truly wanted them to have eternal life also! Jesus remained kind – even when He went to the cross. In fact, almost His last act was to think of His mother and to announce that the Apostle John would be her new son and she would be his mother, making sure she would be taken care of in her old age. He did not die bitterly spouting anger at His enemies; He kindly made sure His elderly mother would be taken care of.

How was Jesus able to remain kind?

I think it was because He was never afraid. For you see, it is easier to be kind to people and animals we see as weak and helpless than it is to be kind to the overgrown bully who is holding a gun at your chest. Our fear leads to harshness. Confidence leads to kindness. Despite what our cultural myths say, statistics show that wealthy people generally give a higher percentage of their income in charitable giving than poor people do. It is easier to be kind when we are confident and not fearful.

Kindness is an action which is generated by pity. When we look at a sick, crying child or a injured puppy, we can look upon them with pity and we can easily be kind. And so, the way to be kind is to see the weakness in other people and accept that weakness in them.

We all travel a faith journey toward Christian holiness and perfection. That journey often has us travel up and down mountains. But I’m convinced that there is not one single path that leads us to the summit. There are lessons we all need to learn, but we travel different paths getting there. You may learn more about how to deal with grief, far before I do. I may learn more about God’s love before you do. We each learn God's lessons in a different order. And so, when we look at another person and we see that they have just done something stupid or mean or nasty, we have a choice.

We can respond harshly. Or we can respond with a useful kindness.

And if we look at the other person and realize “Heh, they haven’t been through that particular lesson yet” , then we can look on them with pity, the way a graduating senior looks back at the sophomore who still has to read Shakespeare, the way the chemist looks back at the student who still has to take organic chemistry, the way the sergeant major looks back at the private who has never been in battle.

Only Jesus did not make mistakes. And when we remember the mistakes we’ve made, the weaknesses we’ve shown, the troubles we caused other people like our parents and bosses --- then we can look at those under our care and who work beside us with eyes of pity and we can then say words of kindness and do acts of kindness for those people.

So to be kind we look at the people instead of the rules, we look at the differences in our situations, choosing to react differently than people reacted to our mistakes in the past, and we look at people with pity when they make mistakes, and so through practice we acquire the law of kindness in our tongue.

I was at Ruby Hospital visiting a man this week. There was a line of people waiting at the information desk – all of us were hot because it was one of those days when the heat index was 110 degrees. And the woman behind the desk was on the phone trying to find a patient for the man in front of her and she had been on the phone for several long minutes. The second guard tried to help the next man in line and that man took probably four or five minutes telling a long story about how he had been treated before they finally decided that he wanted to talk to a patient advocate on fifth floor and so the next couple of people were harsh with the woman behind the desk as it became their turn.

At first, standing there in line, I began to lose my patience, ready to lash out, but then I remembered: I’m not in a hurry. And I relaxed. And then, when I finally got to the front of the line, I was able to say to the woman, “Busy day for you, I see.” I had a smile on my face. And she smiled back. That was all it took for me to be kind. I had simply acknowledged that she was a person trying to do a difficult job rather than treating her as a machine that was performing slowly, the way we often treat people in service positions.

Being kind takes some work, but if you practice it becomes easier. Show people that you know they are people, images of God, instead of machines. Perhaps there is one last story that will help you with your kindness:

There was a woman who was terribly upset about things and the way things were going in her life. Her job was difficult and her boss was mean. Her co-workers were nasty to her. When she got home, the house was a wreck and her children were of no help cleaning up. They were making messes faster than they were helping. Her husband had been on the road all day and got home late, and she was complaining about how the children in the neighborhood had left trash on the lawn.

So her husband told her to walk down through the neighborhood to the cul-de-sac, stopping at each house and telling the neighbors what they were doing wrong. And then, she should tell her children what they were doing wrong, then call her boss and co-workers up and tell them what they were doing wrong, (“This sounds good!”, she said, relishing the prospect of speaking her mind.) and then come out back onto the deck, where, he said, “I will have everyone waiting for you and then they will kill you.”

“HUH!”

“You see,” the husband said, “That is exactly what Jesus had to do. He told us all what we were doing wrong, and then His Father had everyone waiting to kill Jesus – and Jesus knew this all ahead of time and yet He was still kind to everyone - all of the people who called for His execution!”

That ability to be kind, even knowing what people were going to do to Him, my friends, is one of the reasons I worship Jesus.

In our Galatians 5:22 passage that I mentioned at the beginning: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. “ it is important to notice that all these good characteristics fruits of the Spirit. They are what people see in us when we have the Holy Spirit in us and we listen to that same Spirit. They are not characteristics we achieve by our own hard work.

There is no way to be consistently kind without being filled with the Holy Spirit of God. And the gateway to the Holy Spirit is belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, choosing to follow Christ as our Lord and Example, and becoming cleansed in the holy waters of Christian baptism. Truly, we cannot become kind by ourselves – only by the actions of the Spirit working through us. And that Spirit is given to us during the ceremony of baptism.

Is there someone you have trouble being kind to? Are there situations in this life which set you off and lead you to act or speak harshly instead of with a useful kindness? Perhaps you need a closer relationship with Christ, a relationship of trust and humbleness, which can only come through baptism. And if you were baptized as a young child, but have never stood up in front of a church and made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ, or have never been confirmed, it is also time, for if you are to become a person who is kind all of the time, you will need the heart of Christ, which is given by the Holy Spirit of God.

Isn't it ironic that the kindest person who ever lived, who is our Example, should be so kind as to share His Spirit with us who resist being kind naturally? Be glad. Praise God!

War in the Household

Jeremiah 23:23-29; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19; Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

About twenty years ago, I went on a sales call in the Atlanta area. My customer was a machine shop owner who had recently acquired a new cutting laser. I walked into that shop, met the owner, was handed some safety equipment, and the owner proceeded to show me how his new piece of equipment worked.

The laser was mounted above a half-inch thick piece of steel plate. When it was turned on, the laser began to move back and forth over the place in an intricate pattern. After about 30 seconds, a flower-petal shape of the steel plate fell down and hit the floor. The laser clicked off for about two seconds, then came back on. Thirty seconds later, a foot to the left, another flower-petal shaped piece of steel plate hit the floor. And this repeated for the next ten minutes. At the end of ten minutes, about twenty flower-petal shapes had been cut out of the steel plate, and the plate looked like a piece of dough from which flower-petal shaped cookies had been cut with a cookie-cutter.

The owner wanted me to provide him with some sensors to make the laser movement even more precise than it was already, which I happily did. But it struck me how something as physically insubstantial as a beam of light could cut right through that steel plate, with no shavings or lubricating oil spray like a cutting tool would require, none of the large melted blobs that a blowtorch would use, and it worked continuously – only pausing to move from one cut to another. And this was in the mid-1990’s. Something as insubstantial as a beam of light was cutting steel.

And so it does not surprise me when Jeremiah the prophet reports the Lord has said,  “Is not my word like fire,… and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”

Something as insubstantial as a word can cut and burn and destroy the hardest materials. Even the words of one human to another can destroy someone emotionally, can lead a person to despair, can lead a person to murderous anger. A few words chosen carefully and spoken in malice can separate a man and wife, a father and son, a mother and daughter. The speech of a gossip can destroy a family, can wreck a career, can devastate a church. But a few well-chosen words can also separate a woman from her sin, a man from his shame, a boy or girl from a feeling of failure. And these are human words. How much more intense is the Word of God?

In Jeremiah’s report of the Words of God today, God is upset that people don’t recognize that He is both right here – and everywhere else. People speak of dreams that God has supposedly given them – and ignore the true prophets who speak the words of God to the people. Why does this happen?

For some reason, when we begin to touch upon the things of God, people want to turn off their minds and operate completely without touching facts, without reality, overwhelmed by emotion. For some reason – and this goes back into ancient times – everyone believes that they must turn their lives over to experts on everything in their lives except when it comes to God and God-things. When it comes to God, everybody has an opinion which is based upon their feelings. And the less people read the Bible, the more they like their own opinions about God.

This isn’t really true in most parts of life. If someone has a problem with an automobile, something a lot of people have personal experience with, they still study their car engines or they ask an expert car mechanic for advice. If you need someone to put your shoulder back together, you don’t ask your wife to sew it up, but you go to an orthopedic surgeon. If you want a brick fireplace, you don’t lay the bricks yourself. Instead you call in a skilled mason. But whenever a question comes up about God – everybody has an opinion because deep down, most people – especially those who never read their Bibles – most people believe that God isn’t really real, but is a matter of opinion. And they create in their minds the God they want.

And this is what God says. God tells us that people who relay God’s word on the subject are to be trusted, but people who just tell us their own experience, their own visions, their own opinions aren’t to be followed. You don’t need to go to seminary to talk to people about God, but it is really important to use God’s word about God when you want to talk about God!

Go into the field and take some wheat. There are two parts to the wheat. There is the long straw and there is the grain. Both are part of the wheat. Both are found together. Both can be called wheat. Cows can eat either part – and will! Cows can eat the straw. Cows can eat the grain. Cows can eat them both mixed together. But people need the grain!

God says that the straw is what people have to say about God’s word and the grain is the word of God.

In poor countries, everything gets used and reused. In poor countries… some of you may remember the story told by Pearl S Buck about how the Chinese lived a hundred years ago, the novel “The Good Earth”. The Chinese harvested the wheat. They cut down the wheat by hand with sickles and with scythes. They took the wheat and they separated the grain from the straw by hand threshing it. But they kept the wheat. They kept the chaff, the part of the head that surrounds the grain. They kept the grain.

They put the grain in bowls to eat during the next year. They baled the straw and the chaff, and they stacked those bales. Why did they keep those bales of straw? They didn’t have any cattle, they didn’t have any horses, they didn’t have any livestock except a pig and it would eat almost anything. They kept the straw in bales because there was no wood. They burned the straw during the year to make their cooking fires. They were so poor they had no gas, they had no coal, they had no wood, but they had the straw, so they burned the straw to cook their food. The mother fed straw to a fire to boil soup.

God’s word is the grain. What people’s opinions are about God’s word is the straw. It’s only fit to be burned up so you can eat the good Word of God that is the grain!

And in fall, when it was good and dry, before the snow fell, but after the harvest, the ancient people, Pearl S Buck’s Chinese of a hundred years ago, they set a fire in the fields and they carefully burned the wheat stubble that was on the ground because it became ashes and those ashes along with the ashes from their cooking stove and the manure from their pig, when mixed into the soil gave it nutrients and the heat of the fire killed weed seeds and bacteria and so they could then plant the new wheat to grow in good, fertile soil so the new wheat would grow fruitful and bear another harvest and so fire was good! Fire purified the ground and fire fertilized the ground. It was good to destroy the worthless with fire.

Fire.

Jesus said,  “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

In the old societies, after the harvest, the waste was destroyed by fire so the ashes could become fertilizer for another good harvest. And Jesus said He had come to bring fire on the earth and He wished it were already kindled, that the fire was already burning, that those who were not part of the harvest were already gone, burnt to a crisp! He wanted the fire of the Holy Spirit to take over the earth! So why didn’t Jesus destroy the earth with fire?

He said. “ But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed!” There were things Jesus wanted to do, there were things Jesus wanted to say, there was so much but Jesus could not do it until He underwent his baptism but Jesus had already been baptized at the Jordan by John so what was He talking about? If Jesus had been baptized at the Jordan River in water already, what baptism did He still need to undergo? I’ll tell you – Jesus had to be baptized in His own blood, the way every Christian needs to be baptized in both water and the blood of Jesus.

The water puts us right with God, but we have to take on Jesus’ blood. He shed His blood for each of us for the forgiveness of sin. We have to accept His blood, to wallow in His blood, to get it all over us because His blood is eternally life-giving, His blood is eternal, His blood is saving. In your mind and in your spirit, let the blood of Jesus be sprinkled over you, let it be poured over you, lay down in the blood and immerse yourself in His blood and understand how it is the Holy Blood of Jesus that is your only hope because He is our only hope.

Jesus is the Word of God. He is the grain. He is the bread of life. He spilled His blood for us! He gave His Body for us! He gave everything for us that we might be able to become like Him and live eternally with the Father in Heaven.

But we would just as soon stay away from that blood. Blood’s too messy! It’s too contaminated. And you know? We know that blood in this world carries danger. Blood has parasites, blood has disease, blood is bad stuff. But not this blood. Not the blood of Jesus. This is the pure blood from the sinless lamb of God. This is the blood that gives eternal life. This is the blood that gives salvation. This is different.

We would just as soon stay away from that grain. We’d rather play with the straws than eat the bread of God’s Word directly. We get freaked out with the thought that Holy Communion is eating Christ’s body, drinking Christ’s blood, some people have likened it to cannibalism.

But that body is the grain-bread. That body is God’s Word – Jesus Christ is the Word that dwelled with God. From John 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

And He came to earth as a peaceful little baby sleeping in a manager. Silent Night, Holy Night. But He grew up. Thirty-some years later, He says: "Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.  From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three.  They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Jesus told us that He was going to divide the world. Jesus told us that He was going to divide families. Jesus told us that He had come to bring fire onto the earth!

We look around at the world today and we see that division. A third of the world is Christian. A quarter of the world is Moslem. A fifth of the world is Hindu. All the other religions and philosophies fill in the remaining quarter of the world. And in this country, about a quarter of the people go to church on typical Sundays, perhaps a third of the people are practicing Christians – the difference is that some people simply can’t come to church but would like to come. About a sixth of the people claim to be non-Christian or some other religion.

And half the people claim to be Christian but there’s no evidence of it in their lives, they don’t read their Bibles, they don’t talk about Christ except to cuss, they don’t pray, they don’t show the fruits of the Spirit, for they are of the OPINION that they are good enough to be saved without attending church because they say they believe in God but don’t want to be part of His Son’s Body. Honestly, it is usually because they don’t know any better, because they’ve listened to the false prophets that speak through Hollywood, that speak on television, that tell them that they can be spiritual, eating the straw but not worrying about God’s grain-word. But if you eat straw and no grain, you die.

And so, Jesus says that He’ll divide families. Some eat straw, some eat grain. I have members of my extended family that have wandered far, far off the path of following Christ, although they’ll tell you they believe in God. They’ve gone off and followed their own pursuits; Some of those pursuits have been very harmful to them, but they follow those pursuits because the world has told them that this is the proper and good and right way to behave. Others have not done anything the world would see as wrong – but they prefer their own pursuits to reading and listening to God’s Word.

We all have family members like that. People who are excellent, smart, wise people about most things, but they can’t see God at work. They don’t choose to see God at work. They are focused on other things.

 [Jesus] said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is.

The people of Jesus’ day were very practical about most things. But Jesus had a few words for them – and for us.

Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?
The Messiah had come to earth and they did not know it. The last decades of Israel were upon them, Jerusalem would soon be destroyed, and they did not recognize the signs. Jesus will be returning some day and the people today make no preparations. They don’t eat their grain; they don’t read the Word of God.

And so, there is war on earth.

In case you haven’t noticed, we are in the midst of a war between the followers of Christ and the radical followers of a particular branch of Islam. In America, we are in a cultural war between the followers of God’s Word, and those who say “do what is best in your opinion”. On Facebook….I’m glad that most of our political discussions are on Facebook, because I’m convinced that is why this election hasn’t disintegrated into mass violence already. Of course, the techies are probably busy creating a way to reach out through your computer screen and punch someone.

The division is here. The fire that Jesus talked about is here…households are divided, countries are divided, the world is divided. There are those who desire the true grain-Word of God – and those who settle for straw, like cattle. That straw might be a chemical they prefer, it might be money that they pursue, it might be a desire for another’s body, it might be vain pursuits like fashion, like celebrity, like following celebrities. Whatever it is, if it is not grain, but is instead straw, they are soon empty inside and need more to eat. And a diet of straw kills people. It is only fit for cattle.

And our fascination with straw is not limited to people outside the church. What straw do you munch on? How much grain have you eaten recently? When was the last time at home you sat and read a book of the Bible yourself and let it fill you with a life-changing warmth?

The writer of Hebrews talks of all the people who had a deep faith in God and what they endured that they might one day see Christ in the flesh. Those who were persecuted and those who were mistreated. But they had faith, because they had heard the true Word of God, they had eaten grain. Through their actions, they gave a witness to the truth that Jesus Christ brought.

It is such a sad thing that American Christians have often reduced our faith to merely a system of morals and ethics. It is so much more than that, for following Christ is the key to life itself.

When Andy was born, he was born C-section, so Saundra spent some time in the hospital. A man who had been a doctor in his home country of the Sudan was acting to draw blood at the hospital in Atlanta when Andy was born. Saundra talked with him; He told how he had seen the Christians rounded up by enemies, and chained together, they marched off, singing hymns and songs of praise, joyful that they would soon be counted among the witnesses, which in Greek is the word martyr. The man – at that time a 10-year-old boy – said something changed inside him that day, for he knew that what they believed MUST BE TRUE because of their joy, their attitude, their martyr-witness. And so he became a Christian and eventually came to the United States. That group of witnesses made a difference in that boy’s life. And they never told him what was moral or ethical. They just showed him what led to life.

As the writer of Hebrews wrote:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Shall we throw off the world that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles us? Shall we, with joy, run in the marathon of life, eating the wonderful grain of the Word of God, being filled, following closely upon the heels of Jesus? Shall we stand before Him at the right hand of the throne of God? Or will we simply be burnt to a crisp with the rest of the straw, the empty straw that will kill us like cattle who are slaughtered by Satan?

As Asaph the Psalmist asked in our Psalm:

Restore us, Lord God Almighty;
make your face shine on us,
that we may be saved.

Faith and Trust - How and Why to have Faith in God

Genesis 15:1-6; Psalm 33:12-22; Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40

I remember watching the Bob Newhart show. Not the Bob Newhart Show where he owns an inn in the mountains, but the first Bob Newhart show, where he lives in Chicago, he’s married to Emily, played by Susanne Pleschett, where Bob is a psychiatrist with a host of zany characters that he knows, such as his friend Jerry the dentist, his neighbor Howard the airline pilot, and Mr Peterson, the short bald-headed little man who has more neurosis than you can count. Every Saturday evening, we watched that show.

As I remember, one episode involved Bob giving marital counseling to his patients. Part of the therapy was for the man and woman to develop faith in each other, and the way to do this was for the man to stand behind the woman, the woman to close her eyes, and then fall into the man’s arms, having faith that he’d catch her. Then, the two would change places, and hopefully the couple would now trust each other more.

Bob decides to demonstrate this at home with his wife Emily while Howard the airplane pilot looks on. Emily falls into Bob’s arms just as it’s supposed to be. Now they switch. Bob is supposed to fall into Emily’s arms, but just as Bob starts to fall, the phone rings and Emily turns to grab the phone. Boom! Bob hits the ground. They try again. Howard says something which distracts Emily and Boom! Bob hits the ground again! Now, Bob is supposed to trust Emily for a third time.

You know, it’s hard to have faith when you are allowed to hit the floor time and again. Yet faith is what we are told to have in God.

But faith in God is something that is very, very difficult. How do you have faith in someone you can’t even see? How do you have faith in someone who isn’t human? How do you have faith in the God that everyone talks about but who doesn’t answer the simplest prayers, such as “would you give me an ice cream cone right now?”

Yet the answer is actually pretty simple: You choose. You make a choice to have faith. And that choice is easier when you have developed a relationship with God, a relationship that has developed because you have talked with God through prayer, you have read about God’s deeds by reading pages and pages of the Bible, when you have looked around you at the world with the assumptions that God exists and God is doing things just for you every day. You choose to have faith in God."Fake it til you make it?" It works, because as you fake your faith, assuming that God exists, you will begin to see God at action in the world. Faith comes through familiarity.

In our reading from Genesis 15, we find Abram. Abram means “exalted father”. At God’s request, Abram has traveled far from his home in southern Iraq and is now leading his flocks and herds in the area of modern Israel. His flocks have grown so much that Abram and his nephew Lot have to divide up their flocks, with Lot going down into the plain around the Jordan River, and Abram staying on the hills above. Abram has become very prosperous because he trusted God and moved to the Promised Land.

But a couple things are missing in Abram's life. First, Abram has no son. One night, Abram has a vision. Abram is in his tent, lying on his blanket and God speaks to him:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”

Abram replies back to God:

“Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” My closest relative is a cousin who lives far away. “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
You see, Abram really wanted a son. He wanted a son that he could teach and lead and pass all his knowledge and wisdom to. Abram wanted a son who would take over his flocks and herds – all of his wealth. Abram wanted a son who would take care of Abram in his old age. But Abram was getting old and he did not have a son. And Abram, to his great credit, understood that God gives us children.

Then, Abram heard a still, small voice. Out of the night wind, there came a voice and the voice talked about Abram’s servant. The word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”

The Lord lifted Abram up from his blanket and led him outside into the clear, dark desert night, a night centuries before street lamps and electric lights, a night that was dark and clear and the stars blazed forth, even the dimmest could be seen, and the Lord said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” You will have as many offspring, as many descendants, as many children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and so on, as there are stars you can count in the clear night sky of the desert.

Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord credited it to Abram as righteousness. The Lord took Abram’s belief, his trust in the Lord, his faith in the Lord, and the Lord said that this was proof of Abram’s righteousness, for it is when we trust in God’s capacity and goodness that we have become God’s followers. And following God’s will, doing what God our leader asks, becoming God’s subjects is what makes us righteous, for God will never ask us to do evil, because whatever God asks is good, always good. When we follow God, we will do the right thing.

Years passed, decades passed, and Abram’s wife gave up, but Abram still believed in God’s promise. Finally, when Abram was 99 years old and his wife was 89, God came back to visit and told Abram he would have a son in a year. God changed Abram’s name to Abraham, which means “father of many nations”. And a year later, Isaac was born. Isaac then later had a son named Jacob – who later had his name changed by God to “Israel”.

It is from Jacob that all the Israelites are descended. Abraham was the father not only of all of Israel, but also all of the Arabs through his other son Ishmael, as well as the people of southern Jordan, known as Edom. And so, when the 600,000 Israelites returned from Egypt, led by Moses and Aaron some 500 years later, there really were as many descendents as the stars that Abram could count.

But there is a lasting point to this story. For you remember I said that for Abram, there were a couple of things missing. First, he wanted a son. But what was the second thing?

The writer of Hebrews tells us.

Throughout their lives, Abraham, his son, and his grandson lived in tents. They did not live in a city – only in a movable camp. And the writer of Hebrews points out that people who live in such ways, people who live in tents, people who say they are foreigners and strangers do not have a home they can return to, especially since Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob could have returned to Iraq if that was what they were looking for.

No, when you feel you don’t belong in a place, in a time, in a location…when you feel like you are living in a tent, a temporary home, a place where you are not settled…then, as the writer of Hebrews says, "they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." Christ Himself is waiting to bring us home. Abraham wanted a home.

Jesus told his disciples a story, a story about a group of servants who know that their master has gone away for a wedding banquet, a wonderful meal. The master has gone, but when will he return home? The servants don’t know, but the good servants wait up, they stay dressed, they are ready to serve the master as soon as he arrives home, whether at midnight, at 3 am, or when the sun comes up. And what happens when he comes home and finds them waiting for him? He’ll become the servant, have the good servants sit at the table, and because of his joy, he’ll feed them supper and treat them well. He may even bring home wonderful leftovers from the feast!

In all of this, Jesus was telling us that although he has gone away, we need to have faith that he will return. He tells us to sell our possessions and give them to the poor, to be focused upon doing good, on becoming close to God, to understanding Jesus’ mind, for when Jesus returns, he may return at any time – it may be many, many years – or it may be in the next hour. We are to be ready to travel, ready to serve Him, ready to get up and go.

You know, soon after we moved here, I injured my back and it hasn’t been quite right since. Where I used to be able to benchpress nearly two hundred pounds, now twenty pounds held the wrong way can get me. But, thanks to the Lord and the YMCA, my back is getting better. But there was a time when carrying things across slick snow from the parking lot to the house, or up the stairs inside the house to the kitchen was just too tricky for me. And so Saundra and I would go to the grocery store. When we left the store, we’d call Andy and tell him to be ready for us to be home in ten minutes or so. And most of the time, as we’d pull into the drive, Andy would come running out to help carry in the heaviest groceries. What a blessing!

So be ready when Jesus returns. If you know you have a sinful habit, get working on it today – Imagine that every sinful habit you have is a shirt or blouse with horrible looking spots and dirt on it. If you are like most people, you are wearing layers and layers of those hideous clothes. Our leader and master will be returning someday. Maybe we have years to work cleaning up those clothes – maybe we only have ten minutes or ten days. The world is falling to pieces around us this year, so I lean toward the earlier return. So it is time to begin taking off those layers of hideous sin cloths. It is time to ask God for help taking off the shirts that you cannot get off by yourself, like a child whose shirt is stuck coming off because she has grown too big for that small shirt. Like a growing insect, split your skin of sin – grow out of it and walk forth clean!

We are to be clean when Jesus returns. Be awake, be ready, be knowledgeable of the things of God. Just as the Israelites were to be ready to leave Egypt quickly the night of the Passover when they received their deliverance from the world of slavery, we are to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice this world of evil.

As Jesus pointed out, work on storing up treasures in Heaven where thieves cannot take your goods, where your purses and wallets and pants pockets cannot wear holes in them through which your treasure will fall out, and where moths and rot cannot destroy the things you have waiting for you. Turn toward Christ and do His will! Leave the world behind and let Satan have it. But instead, look toward your friends, your neighbors, and your family and help them to understand the love of Christ.

Robert A Heinlein, a former navy lieutenant and science fiction writer, once wrote: “Never own more than you can carry in both hands at a dead run!” I suspect Jesus would have been please with Mr Heinlein’s thought.

Does this sound radical? Of course it is. For it requires that we must truly have faith and trust in God’s provision, and in the Gospel story. It is easy to say from your easy chair in your nice, warm home, with all your comforts about you – “I trust God to take care of me, look around!” But it is another thing to voluntarily reduce what you own and give it to the poor, especially when what you are giving away brings you comfort and security.

I know the impact of this myself. When we owned our home in Ohio, I had a job offer to become a teacher on a small island in the Persian Gulf between Dubai and Qatar. It was an emotional struggle for us – we really weren’t sure we could swing it because we knew that we owned the house, had the house payments, and all the things in the house. Our house, that pile of wooden beams, asphalt shingles, and plaster, was more important to us than the opportunity to win souls for Christ in the heart of Islamic territory.

God is gracious – He gave us a second chance to serve Him here. But last year, we sold that home, which removed a tremendous burden from us. Now we’re trying to give away other things we own to people who need those items.

Jesus Himself set the example. He gave away every heavenly power to come to earth as an infant. He lived a nomad’s life, not having a home, not owning anything other than what He could carry. And then, He gave away His life for us so that we could have that life, that life that lives eternally, that life that was all He had. Jesus gave away everything for us. And God rewarded Him with new life, a new life Jesus promised His followers would also have – He has given that away also. Is it any wonder we worship Him?

Can you really trust God to take care of you? Do you have faith in God? Or is your faith and trust in other things, things like 401 k plans and Social Security payments, things like a home, a cellar full of canned goods, a freezer full of meat, a barn full of extra lumber, spare tools, and equipment, things that can disappear in a night if a thief or an arsonist were to target you, money that could evaporate in minutes if a hacker transferred your money away, things that are eaten by moths and rust? Or is your treasure in heaven and are you devoted to storing up treasure in heaven, “where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

And it is where your heart is, where you place your trust, where the One you have faith and trust in resides – that is what makes you righteous before God – or not.

Come to Heaven. The cost of a ticket is quite simple. Mentally and spiritually give everything you own back to God. Now. And then over time, physically give it to those that God leads to you, to those who need to see God’s kindness through you. to those who need to see how much God truly controls the Universe…through your example. Live as Abraham. Live as though you live in a tent, ready to move to your Heavenly home at a moment’s notice.

Have Faith and Trust in God. And God will credit you with righteousness.

Let It Go! - Thoughts On Less Obvious Types of Greed

Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23; Psalm 49:1-12; Colossians 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21

When I was young, my parents, my sister, and I went to Myrtle Beach. Every year, the last two weeks before school started, we would hook up the camping trailer to the pickup, head down I-77 from St. Marys to Charleston, down the Turnpike, and then we’d get stuck in traffic in Virginia because I-77 was being still being built through Virginia and North Carolina. We’d travel over winding roads up and down the mountains, and then eventually, we’d hit a wonderful straight, flat road that took us through Conway, SC, when the stench of the swamps would hit us and then, after some more traffic, we’d be sitting there at the traffic light in front of Mammy’s Kitchen.

We camped in several places, but we eventually settled in at Apache campground, a few miles north of where the mall is today, just above the Rice Planter’s restaurant.

And then began our routine. We’d go to the beach in the mornings, go to some air-conditioned place in the afternoons, eat out for dinner, and play miniature golf in the cool of the evenings. But every morning, there was the beach.

We’d go out swimming and playing in the waves, taking along a float, and then we’d come into the sand when we got tired. And there in the damp sand – never in the dry sand because that was too hot – there in the damp sand, I’d begin to build a sand castle.

I was never the type that built a manicured sand castle using molds. My castles were functional – they were built to protect the center from the approaching waves and tide. And so I’d dig a big moat, build a big wall, and put a small, decorative castle behind the wall, using wet sand. My castles looked like little sandy worms had piled up together to form cones and spires of wet cement. I’d get several other kids to help me build those walls so that that little castle would survive the waves.

And as the morning wore on, the waves would come closer and closer as the tide steadily came up the beach. And I’d build the walls higher and higher, sometimes building two or even three walls to protect the castle against the waves. But eventually, every day, we’d have to go eat lunch and when we got back to the beach, the castle was just a rough spot which the waves were smoothing out. The castle was quickly disappearing into the flat beach that the power of God’s waves was removing. All the morning’s work was gone, hopeless to begin with, gone!

And sometimes, the castle would be overrun while I was still building. But I could often repair the walls if I moved quickly enough, because at first only an occasional wave would break over the walls, and if you moved quickly and moved enough sand, the gap could be repaired. But eventually, the waves that broke over wall became every fifth wave, and then every third wave, and every other wave and you just couldn’t move fast enough. And so I learned that there is a time when you just have to stand up and say, “Let it go!” There is a time when the forces of destruction overwhelm what you can do. And so I learned to walk away from my castles when the waves were too strong for me and my crew of workers. “Let it go”, I said. And we watched the castle melt into the water.

King Solomon is the author of our first reading, the Teacher of the book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon, who ruled Israel for many years and led her to her greatest extent, was declared to be the wisest ruler ever of Israel. And so, what does Solomon say?

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

20 So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun. 21 For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it.
In this book of the Bible, Solomon tells us that he tried all sorts of things. He looked for purpose in warfare, he looked for purpose in enjoying life, he built things, he became wealthy, he looked for purpose in learning knowledge and in the gaining of wisdom. In all of these, he discovered that everything was ultimately meaningless, because ultimately everybody dies. And yet, seeking wisdom was still significantly better than the other pursuits, for wisdom leads to happiness.

And Jesus tells the story of a wealthy farmer. If you will, allow me to retell this parable in a modern style:

There was a man who had worked hard. He eventually started up his own business and he worked very hard. One week, he gained wonderfully profitable contracts with Walmart, with Sears, with Penney’s and with Kroger’s. His products were flying off the shelves, and in the course of one year, his struggling company made a profit of $50 million.

The man did some calculations and realized that he could put the money into savings and retire, living very comfortably for the rest of his life no matter what happened to his business. So he did this and hired a manager for his business, and put the $50 million into various CD’s, mutual funds, savings accounts, and annuities, so he would have a million dollars a year to live on for the rest of his life. He was set for life and never needed to work again! So that evening, he decided that he would travel the world, buy a home in the Bahamas for the winter, a home in the Canadian Rockies for the summer, and a nice house in his home town for whenever he wanted to be there. He planned to put 70 inch televisions in each home, hire a gardener and a housekeeper for each home, a gourmet cook to travel with him, and he decided that the next day, he would buy some new cars. He was all set.

“But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

And the man clutched his chest and died that night. He was buried four days later.

Jesus told a similar story when he was teaching one day. A man in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

Jesus answered him. “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Jesus then goes straight to the heart of the matter: He said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” The man in the crowd thought that he was just trying to get his rights. But Jesus disagreed. For you see, the man in the crowd was greedy. He was more concerned with how the land and homes and cattle and grain from the inheritance would be divided – what was his share? He was more concerned with his dead father’s wealth than he was with his brother - or in understanding God.

And then Jesus told the story of the rich farmer who sat up one night counting his financial blessings from the wonderful harvest God had given him. The man planned to build brand new barns to hold all his grain from his wonderful harvest. Yet he died that night. And Jesus pointed out:

“This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

As much as our culture and other people will tell you to fight over money, to fight for your rights, Jesus tells us to be on the guard against our greed to protect our souls. Do you really think that the same Jesus who tells us to give our spare cloak to the man with no cloak will tell us to fight over an inheritance, over a legacy, over who gets Grandma's favorite teddy bear? No, let it go, for it is all greed – “which is idolatry”, worshiping the money and the land and the house and the possessions rather than God.

And I’ve seen this greed in churches I’ve attended. Because other non-Christian organizations are very protective of what they own, for some reason, we think that we who attend a church - or we who are on certain committees - own everything in the church or a particular part of it. We’ve all made fun of the people who claim ownership of a particular pew – but I’ve seen this greedy attitude go well beyond that point at some other churches I’ve attended or heard about.

At one church I know this was particularly bad. One committee, who decorated the sanctuary and the wall outside the sanctuary, believed that they owned everything inside the sanctuary. Oh, they never said that – they talked about "protecting" things or “controlling” things. For example, the church had a beautiful grand piano. The committee insisted on keeping the piano locked, holding onto the key, only allowing the pianist to play the piano on Sunday mornings. The pianist wanted to give piano lessons on the beautiful piano so that children would understand how beautiful what they were learning could be, but she was banished to the parlor to give lessons on the cheap, out-of-tune piano there because the committee did not want children touching their piano – after all, some of those children did not even attend the church!

(As a pianist, I've noticed that many people are afraid children "banging" on a piano will harm it. Here's the news: Pianos are made strong enough for adults to pound upon! People call this "playing loudly". The pianos are designed to take a beating from strong hands. It is actually our more delicate ears that are the best reason for children to not "bang" on a piano - the piano will be ok.)

The same committee was very upset when another woman in the church talked to the pastor and put up a tasteful painting on the wall outside the sanctuary. It was their wall and they decided what went up on it and what did not go up on it!

At another church, there were arguments about who was allowed to play on the playground – could outsiders from the neighborhood use the swingset? There were great debates about the supposed wasting of copy paper when a member asked to run 50 copies of a meeting notice. I knew of still another church where every use of the building had to be approved by a full meeting of the congregation to make sure the wrong people weren’t allowed in the church – meaning some families were allowed and some families weren’t allowed. Control of the keys was very important.

And in another church, the issue was the cheap old china plates that had been purchased thirty years before. Those plates were never to leave the cupboard except for Women’s circle events, because they were not the property of God, they were not the property of the church, they were the property of the Women’s circle that had purchased them so many years ago – when there were 50 women in the club, and now there were 8 women there and the plates were used once a year.

In all of these examples, the church members were showing greed – like the ten-year old boy saying “this is my ball and only I decide who can play with it!” And in each case, their greedy attitudes turned people off to the church.

They forgot, just like the man in Jesus’ story, that God owns everything. As Paul wrote to the Colossians -

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.
Notice that greed is singled out as being a form of idolatry, loving the created thing rather than the Creator.

You see, there are a couple of things we need to do to change our view of money and stuff from the world's view to a more Biblical, Christ-taught view:

First of all, ask yourself – why do I own anything? Why do I have money, why do I own a home, why do I buy little things for my house, why do I have tools? Isn’t it because of fear that you will not have these when you think you will need them? I own a house so I will never be homeless. I buy things for my house so I will never be uncomfortable. I buy tools so I will have them when I need them. I am reacting in fear. Faith will conquer that fear. Let me explain what I mean:

My parents live in St. Marys. When Saundra and I lived in Georgia, I began to acquire tools, because we knew very few people who lived near us, and I had no faith that those people had tools I could borrow - either because they did not have the tools, or I felt I couldn't ask to bottor them. But after we moved to Marietta, I stopped buying tools, because I had faith in two things: First, I had faith that my dad already owned every tool ever made by Sears, Roebuck, and Company, and second, I had faith that my dad would loan me any tool I needed. And that faith failed only a few times, such as when I needed a set of tile-cutting tools, for my dad had never had to cut tiles. You see, my dad could be trusted to have the capacity to solve my tool needs, and he had the goodness to solve my tool needs.

In the same way, both individually and as a church, we are told to have faith in God’s capacity and goodness. First, God owns everything. Scripture talks of God owning the cattle of a thousand hills. God has the wealth of the Universe at God’s disposal. So God always has the capacity to give us the wealth and items we truly need.

Second, God loves us deeply and is more good than any other person. And so, God desires to give us what we need.

Now don’t go away thinking that I’m some television preacher promising you that you’ll always have what you want. No, God gives us what we need. You may want but not need a 12 ounce ribeye steak this evening – you may need to eat an apple or even fast this evening. You may want a new Mercedes convertible, but God knows you need an $800 used Ford Focus with 130,000 miles on it so you can save up for other things.

You may want a new four bedroom home on five acres in the country – but God knows you need a three bedroom apartment because you are going to be so busy talking to your neighbors about God that you won’t have time to mow or maintain a larger place.

And God gives you what you need. Have faith in the capacity and the goodness of God.

The last couple of years our church has been losing money at the rate of about five to six thousand dollars a year. Someone asked me if I was worried about that, and I said, “No, because that will turn around as we begin to grow.” I learned this through my business.

Our business had grown to almost a million dollars a year in sales, yet we were not profitable. And then, as God had grabbed ahold of my collar and turned me to look at Jesus more and more, I added something to our ads and our website. Where before, we had been “Inkjet Ink by the Pint”, I now changed that to “The Christian Source for Inkjet Ink”.

Our sales growth stopped. Our sales began to fall slowly. But our profitability and cash flow improved. Instead of running up debts, we began to pay down our debts. And when prices in our industry fell as more people came onto the web, our customers continued to buy from us. Eventually, I went into teaching at a Catholic school, and then into the ministry. Our combined income today is less than half what we made at the peak of our business, but we are more financially secure today than ever before, I think because I trusted God to take care of us and focused upon doing God’s will. I have the same faith in our church’s budget.

And for the first six months of this year, our church budget has been balanced, and our attendance has been running about 5-10 people higher each week over last year, largely because as a church we have begun to focus more on what people outside the church need, what people new to our church need, instead of exclusively on what those who have been in the church for years need.

For God did not ask us to operate as a special club, like a country club where everything we do is for the benefit of the members, but instead we are to act as the representatives of Jesus Christ, moving into the world, doing things for others outside the church, sharing what we own individually and as a group with others, for we recognize that God owns everything and we are to use all we have for others. The church is to do God’s will, not be run for our benefit.

You have heard of people giving their lives to bring the Gospel to others. How much more should we use our worldly possessions to bring the Gospel to others instead of greedily protecting them, putting them in new barns just for ourselves?

Paul had strong words for the church at Colossae:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.

You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

You see, in the church at Colossae, there were factions. People did not trust everyone in the church, for different people were from different backgrounds, they were from different families, some were slaves and some were slave owners, some spoke Hebrew and some spoke Greek, some had been Jewish and some had worshipped many gods, some were from Colossae and some were from the lands beyond the Roman Empire, barbarians or Scythians, the people of the north.

They were much like us, who have people who grew up in Quiet Dell and people who grew up in other states, people from Methodist backgrounds, people from Baptist backgrounds, people from Catholic backgrounds, people who grew up, as I did, completely heathen. We have Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. We have owners and employees, men and women, young and old, healthy and sick. Yet, as Paul said:

Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

And so we are brothers and sisters in Christ, looking beyond our walls to find and adopt more brothers and sisters, for it is only because of the Christ within us that we have any purpose, any hope, any reason to live in a world full of meaninglessness.

There is an old story about a dog, a hound that was given a big piece of meat by his master. He was afraid the meat would be stolen, so, as dogs do, he set off to the field to find a place to bury that hunk of meat. But he had to cross a bridge over a brook to get to the field and as he crossed the bridge, he looked down and saw another hound carrying a big piece of meat. The old hound was so greedy for meat, that he decided he’d take that other piece of meat away from that other hound. So he opened his mouth to bark at the other hound and Splash! His own piece of meat fell into the deep water. As the water settled, a sad old hound looked down at a reflection of himself in the water, without any meat. He had traded the reality of what he had been given for the illusion of the meat that he worshiped and because of his greed, ended up with nothing.

As Jesus said, “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

One last story:

When we moved to a particular town, we heard on the radio about a terrible accident. A woman was driving a mini-van. In the van were her six children. And at an intersection, a tractor-trailer did not stop and t-boned the minivan. Two of the children were killed outright. The mother and the other four children were injured, one of the children with severe brain damage and neck injuries.

A few months later, we began attending a church and discovered that this family attended that church. Over the next few years, we grew to know the survivors. As you might expect, they were all emotionally scarred by the experience – they were still dealing with the one child’s injuries when we moved away, years later.

But perhaps the saddest thing was the way the lawsuit came to dominate the mother’s life. For years, this became topic A for the woman – nothing else happened in her life except the events surrounding the lawsuit. It wasn’t that she was overtly greedy, but winning the lawsuit became her entire life. For nearly a decade, her life was on hold until the settlement. And during those years, her children grew up – and we never heard any stories about them. Only the lawsuit. It was a grim reminder of how material things can grab your attention, how material things and finances can become a god to us, how the things of this world can distract us from the important things in life.

And so, when my hand was severely burned some years later in an industrial accident, and we encountered a host of medical bills without any medical insurance, I remembered that woman, and we did not sue the company where the accident happened. Instead, we praised God I was still alive, we returned to work and church, we continued to be thankful for our children. And one day, the bill was paid. We don’t know who paid it – we have a couple of guesses. But it doesn’t really matter, for while we don’t know who the agent was who wrote the check, we know that God paid the bills.

At the end of Solomon’s book, after reflecting on all this life has to offer, the wealthiest king that ever was, the man who had everything that could be had, the man who was also known to be the wisest king ever says:

Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the duty of all mankind.
For God will bring every deed into judgment,
including every hidden thing,
whether it is good or evil.
Friends, when you would greedily attempt to hold onto something, let it go, read your Bible, and talk with God. Fear God – seek God’s will – and keep his commandments. And in this way, your deeds will be good and God will feed you, just as He feeds the sparrows in the wild.