The Importance of Being Average

John 1:40 (ESV)

^“One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.”

When did being average become something bad?  All that being “average” means is that you are normal.  Yet we live is such a highly competitive culture that to say someone is “average” at something that is seen by many as a huge insult.  Everyone wants to be thought of as “above average.”  When I taught at Concordia, when someone earned a “C” grade that was often a huge catastrophe in that student’s eyes.  I was like that too. In my fourth year at the Seminary I received a “C” on a sermon I had written.  Prior to that I had always received an “A.”  You would have thought the world was coming to an end.  I went up to the professor after the class… so worried about “what I had done wrong.”  He simply looked at me and another student and asked us, “What? Your last year at the seminary and you think you should already preach like the Apostle Paul?”   

Think for a moment with me.  If everyone is “above average” that becomes a meaningless statement.  After all, if everyone is “above average” then there is no such thing as average.    If everyone has to be considered “above average” then it becomes almost impossible for anyone to admit they have a weakness or struggle or addiction in some area of their lives.  Then you find it hard to admit that struggle or to seek help.  Why?  Because you think you are the only one who has that struggle.  Then, instead of getting help with whatever our particular struggle is we deny it, hide it, cover it up.  The more we hide our struggles the worse they become.  Shame only grows when kept in hiding.  The sad thing is that such suffering and isolation is needless… because to have struggles, and weaknesses is normal.  It’s average.  Everyone of us has them in different areas of our lives.  For such people, the discovery that you are normal is one of the most freeing, healing moments in life.  “I’m normal.  I have the struggle.  So do a lot of other people.  It’s okay to admit it.  It’s okay to get help.” 

Being average is actually a good thing.  It’s average people, like you and me, whom God uses to make life happen in this world.  A great example of this in the Bible is the Apostle Andrew.  Did you know he is the first disciple to follow Jesus? Yet He was not one of the leaders.  There are no great, outstanding sermons by Andrew recorded in Scripture.  In fact, almost every time Andrew is referred to in Scripture he is called “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother.”  He was so “ordinary” that he only stood out because of his relationship with Peter.  Otherwise people took little notice of him.  Most of us chafe at being referred to as the brother or sister of… We want to be noticed because of who we are, not because of who our sibling is.  Yet Andrew never seems to complain.  He seems fine with being average.  And Jesus seems fine with having average Andrew as one of His disciples.  Indeed think about this, without average Andrew, there would be no Apostle Peter.  Andrew is the one who says to Peter, “We have found the Messiah.”  He is the one who introduces Peter to Jesus.  When the disciples are worried about feeding the huge, hungry crowd, Andrew is the one who tells Jesus about the boy who has some bread and fish.  When the Greeks come wanting to meet Jesus, Andrew is the one who brings them to Jesus. 

My point is, being one of God’s “average Andrews” is a blessing.  God does most of His work through ordinary believers like you and me, not the Billy Grahams or the Apostle Paul’s of the world.  Attention is so often focused on the Pastor who preaches or the soloist who sings.  But it’s the ushers, the altar guild members, the lay readers, the acolytes… the “Andrew’s” of the church who make the service happen.  Where would the great doctor be without the nurses, the lab techs and the receptionist?  It used to drive me crazy when the “professors” took for granted all the staff people who make the University run.

Yes there is something special about each one of us.  But none of us is above average or exception at everything, or even at most things.  In most areas of life you and are average.  We are simply “normal.”  For all of us there are also areas where we are weak and perhaps “below average.”  Just ask me about chemistry. It’s okay.  God loves, calls and makes great things happen through average people like you and me… gave His son for us… has prepared a place in heaven for us… knows our names and counts the hairs on our heads.  Indeed the Bible tells us that by working through average people like you and me, God makes it crystal clear that “the all surpassing power is from God and not from us.”  Being average, normal people in God’s service means God gets all the glory He deserves.  That’s the importance of being average. Amen

Thank You to Those who Serve

Romans 13:4 (ESV)

^“for he is God’s servant for your good.”

I want to say right off, this is not intended to be anything more than what the title says – a “thank you to those who serve.”  Obviously. I, like most of you, have been horrified by the racist deeds we have as a nation been witnessed to in recent weeks.  There are bad policemen, just like there are bad pastors, bad doctors, bad lawyers. Indeed, we are all sinners capable of evil.  I do not intend to deny that.

However, I want to say very clearly, that I believe that 99% of those who serve in the police force, in the fire department, as EMTs and in all other professions who seek to protect us – that 99% are good honorable women and men, of every race, color and creed.  They seek with all their hearts to serve and protect us.  Now, I am not one who likes to speak or write in in generalities, like the one I just shared with you.  So, I will speak from my own personal experience.  I am an Uncle to one police officer.  Over the years I have been a friend, neighbor and pastor to many who serve as policemen, policewomen, firemen, EMTs, soldiers and more.  Everyone one of them is a good honorable person, who seeks to serve and protect the rest of us.  I have one friend, a fireman, who last year propelled down an elevator shaft in a skyscraper to rescue someone stuck in that elevator.  Last year, I met a policeman who, in response to a school shooter, ran towards the shooting while everyone else was running away.  He did that to protect the teachers and students of that school.  Where would you and I be without such courageous men and women?   I have grave doubts that I would be capable of doing either of those things. 

I was reminded of all this by something I read this morning. The following quote is from a book on Christian vocation – God at Work - by Gene Edward Veith.  Here is what he wrote –

“When the planes smashed into the World Trade Center, thousands of office workers rushed out of the building. Against the stream, police and firefighters were rushing inside. When the towers collapsed, hundreds of them, who had gone into the doomed buildings to rescue whoever they could, lost their lives. Afterwards the firefighters, police, and rescue workers worked round-the-clock in the wreckage, desperately trying to find someone alive, engaging in backbreaking, exhausting physical labor to find clues and recover the bodies. Here is real heroism, everyone agreed. Professional athletes and movie stars, accustomed to adulation, said with one voice that they are nothing—those cops, firefighters, and other workers at Ground Zero are the heroes. Interestingly, when the heroes took a break long enough to be interviewed, they modestly put aside the praise. They said, “We are just doing our jobs.” That is the doctrine of vocation. Ordinary men and women expressing their love and service to their neighbor, “just doing our jobs.”

Paul’s words about those in authority, written to the Roman Christians seem so appropriate – “for he is God’s servant for your good.”  I would challenge all of you to find a way to say thank you for this service.  Therefore, to all the good, honest, honorable men and women serving to protect us – especially to those I know – Thanks be to God and thank you for “just doing your jobs!”  

The Only Way to Change the World

1 John 1:8–9 (ESV)

⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I have been very frustrated the past couple of weeks – angered by the terrible acts of racism and violence and looting we have seen, as well as upset by the way the press and the politicians exploit all of this.  I have wondered, “What’s wrong with all these other people?  Has everyone gone crazy?”  Its been easy to point fingers of blame and judgment at others. Its been easy to throw up my hands in exasperation, wondering, asking, “What after all can I do about all of this?”

Then yesterday someone showed me an article about the names of some of the streets in the neighborhood where I live.  There are  streets in my neighborhood with names like  “Plantation Drive” and “Confederate Drive.”  The point of the article was that these street names should be changed because they were an example of systemic racism.  I am sharing this with you, not in order to advocate one way or the other for changing or keeping those names, but rather because of the thoughts this article raised in my mind.  I began to wonder, “How come I never noticed that some of the streets in our neighborhood had names related to the old confederacy?  Why did it never occur to me that such names might be offensive to those who have been victim of racism?  For that matter, why did I never think that naming a team “the Redskins” might be offensive to native Americans?”

Those thoughts brought me back to one point that I have shared before in this blog.  There is only one way to change the world – that is if God fist changes me.  It’s the same with you.  While it may or may not be a good idea to tear down statutes in Richmond, Virginia or to change street names in Richmond, TX – such actions will not erase racism or end violence or stop injustice in the world.  That kind of change can’t happen in the world, until God first works that change in me (and in you.)  Pointing fingers, blaming, judging others, pointing out faults in others, means nothing until I recognize, confess, repent of my own sin and with God’s help daily become a new man in Christ.  Jesus tells us this in the sermon on the Mount, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.

Until I recognize the logs that I have in my own eye, I do more harm than good trying to pick out the specks in the other person’s eyes. Apart  from that confession, I am being arrogant and hypocritical in judging others.  I am simply lying to myself, to others and to God.  That’s the point of 1 John 1.  “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

You have heard of the “Serenity Prayer” – “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”  Let me share with you a little different version of that prayer that illustrates what I am writing about here – “God grant me the serenity to accept the person I cannot change, the courage to change the person I can and the wisdom to recognize that I am the only person I can change.”  Changing the world starts and is only possible if God first changes me.  Changing the world starts with this – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  Before we start pointing fingers of blame at statues or at other people, stop first and ask God to remove the log from our own eyes.  He will.  Indeed that is why Jesus was born.  Amen. 

The Problem is Worse than We Think and the Solution is Better

Ephesians 2:4–5 (ESV)

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…”

A little over three years ago, my brother in-law Tim started to have a chronic cough, that the doctors couldn’t explain.  Then about two years ago, the discovered he had anemia.  What did the doctors do?  They treated him for the cough and the anemia.  The trouble was that these were only the symptoms.  They were not the real problem.  He had cancer.  Unfortunately, by the time they figured out the real problem, it was already too late.  Tim died in May 2019. 

I share that because right now there are a lot of terrible things going on in the world – racism, murder, looting, rioting, hatred – and those are just the one’s in the headlines.  There are all sorts of other terrible problems out there – abortion, alcoholism, addiction, divorce, abuse, greed, and the list goes on.  In addition – there is a great deal of dissension, division, arguing, blaming, and finger pointing going on.  I was reading a Facebook post yesterday about the terrible things that have happened recently.  What troubled me was all the anger and division expressed in the comments being added to that post.  People weren’t just expressing different viewpoints; they were angry with each other for disagreeing. 

What in the world is happening?  Why are all these bad things happening?  Why are people so divided and angry with each other?  What can we do?  People want someone to blame… someone to solve all of this.  The trouble is the problem is worse than we think.  Yes, racism is absolutely horrible, but the reality is its only a symptom of a deeper problem.  The same can be said of all the other problems I list above.  Murder, alcoholism, hatred, all of them are terrible.  Yet, and this is the scary part, they are all only symptoms of the real and deeper problem.  The worst part of this?  We all suffer from the real problem.

What is it?  Well, where I go to church we name the real  problem every Sunday with words like these “I a poor miserable sinner...” or these “I am by nature sinful and unclean…”  The problem is that simple and that horrible – you and I, all of us, are by nature sinful!  Murder, adultery, racism, greed – you name the sin – they all come natural to me and to you.  Like my brother in-laws cough and anemia, these are all symptoms of the problem that afflicts us all – sin.  The truth is no law, no national guard troops, no riot or protest can solve that problem in you or me.

Only God can and God has.  That’s why I choose the verse for today’s blog.   “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved…”  He loves this world so much… is not willing to let us destroy ourselves – that He intervened.  He came in flesh and blood.  He was born of Mary, lived our lives, died to pay the price for our sin, and then rose to destroy all that would destroy us – sin, Satan and death itself. Yes, the real problem is horrible but the solution is better – Jesus.

What do we do? We begin, each of us, with repentance – with admitting the truth – the real problem is in here… in me – I am, you are, we are sinners.  That’s why there is racism… murder, and all the other sins – because, as Jesus warned us, those things come out of each of our hearts.  Yet repentance is more than admitting sin.  It’s turning away from sin and towards God.  Its looking to the cross… Its not just dying to sin, but also being “made alive together with Christ.”  It’s being forgiven, cleansed, made new.  Pointing fingers at each other, blaming, arguing – won’t help.  Accepting my responsibility will and then holding up before my own eyes as well as yours – the God who loves us and gave His son for us. 

Does that mean that protesting and seeking to change the injustices we see around us is wrong?  Absolutely not!  God calls us to do those things. They are an essential part of His command to love our neighbors and even our enemies, as He has loved us.  Yet, they are not enough by themselves.  Its not enough to just treat the symptoms.  We know the truth.  We, who follow Jesus, know that the real problem is in here… in each of us… and we know that God’s sweet solution… His gift to the world’s troubles is to love us and give His Son Jesus to be our Savior. 

Do you wish to change the world?  It begins with you and me… with repentance… with holding up and giving witness in our words and actions to the one and only Savior Jesus.