A Most Dangerous Book

Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

For some the Bible is considered a “most dangerous book.”  A couple of months ago, Linda and I went to visit a lady who was told that as she grew up. She was told that Christians had corrupted the Bible.  You couldn’t trust what you read there.  She was told,  “Don’t read that book.”  I wonder if that is not what God used to make her curious. Sometimes being told “Don’t” will lead you to do just the opposite.  Eventually there did come a time in her life, a time of illness and loneliness when she did pick up this book and read it.   It did turn out to indeed be a very dangerous and powerful book in her life but not because it was corrupted or told lies.  The danger in this book was the fact that the Bible told her the truth – the truth about her sin, the truth about her need for God and most importantly the truth about how God loved her so much that He gave His one and only Son Jesus to be her savior.   She would tell you that in reading this book God changed her life.  Because of what she read here she is now a believer in Jesus. 

Is this book truly dangerous?  It is if you don’t want to know the truth.  It is if you are trying to avoid God.  It is if you don’t want to change.  After all, here in these pages you meet the living God, the creator of the heavens and the earth.  The same God who could speak a word and call creation into existence speaks to you here.  St. Paul wrote that “all Scripture is God-breathed…”  Think about that.  God once formed Adam from the dirt and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life.  That God breathes through these pages.  The writer to the Hebrews calls this book a “double edged sword” cutting both ways.  Here God speaks His law and shows us the unpleasant truth about our sin.  More than that here He speaks to us the comforting news of forgiveness – forgiveness Jesus purchased for us by His life, death and resurrection.  Paul calls that message “the power of God unto salvation for all who believe…”  He promises that “faith comes from hearing the message, the message about Christ.”

I remember being asked a question by a member of my first parish in Nebraska.  He asked me, why I was always bringing my Bible with when I came to see him in the hospital or at home.  I answered his question with one of my own.  “If you hired a carpenter to build something would you ask him to leave his tools in his truck?  Would you ask him to build whatever it is without his tools?  No.”  That’s why I would bring my Bible with to visit that man.  That’s why I am sharing this with you today. This book is God’s tool. His Spirit promises to work in our lives through His word – to bring us to sorrow over sin, to give us faith, to comfort us with His forgiveness, to strengthen our faith and make it grow. 

I worry sometimes that many of us are scared of this book.  Oh we disguise that fear.  We blame our busy lives as the reason we don’t take time daily for the Word and for prayer.  I hear men make the excuse that “men” just don’t go to Bible Study.”  Are those real excuses or are we just afraid of what God might do through this book?  Are we afraid that He might change our lives?  Is that the reason that we too often ask God to leave His tools out in the truck?  Is it because we don’t want Him meddling in our lives?  Friends, God wants to do great things in our lives… to change our lives and through us change the lives of others.  This dangerous wonderful life-changing book is His chief tool.  My challenge to each of you is to have the courage of faith to dedicate your life to the study of this book… and to marvel at how God works in you and through you… changing your life and the lives of others through this most dangerous book. .  

Unpacking for the Trip

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in an steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven,

Where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in an steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:19-21

This is one of the things I do not enjoy doing.  I love traveling.  I love taking trips and going on vacation.  I just hate packing.  Sometimes it’s like pulling teeth for Linda to get me to pack for a trip.  I almost always wait to the last minute.  My biggest problem with packing is that I am always afraid I will forget something – a belt, a toothbrush, socks – or that I won’t have enough of something to make it through the trip.  The result is I always pack too much and can’t get it all in my suitcase.  Inevitably Linda comes into look at what I have laid out to pack and shakes her head.  You don’t need fourteen pair of underwear.  You don’t need two suits.  You don’t need this.  You don’t need that.  We’re going on vacation, not moving away permanently.  I like unpacking a lot better.  You just take all the dirty clothes out of your suitcase, and throw them in a pile to get washed.  Yes I hate packing but since I love going on trips, I have to do it.

There is however one journey where this all gets turned around – the journey to heaven.  Getting ready for that journey involves a life time of unpacking.  Why?  Because on that journey you can’t take anything with you.  Like someone once said, “There are no U-Haul trucks following the hearse to the cemetery.”  You would think, knowing I just said about packing, that I would be all over getting ready for this journey.  But I am not.  When it comes to my walk through life, I am a pack rat.  I am always wanting the latest gadget, the newest DVD.  I loved grilling so much, I once had three grills in my backyard.  I have a hard time unpacking that stuff.  I struggle to let go of things.  For a long time, I kept all of my dad’s tools even though I didn’t know how to use most of them.  It took moving to Germany to get me to start letting go.  I would imagine many of you are just like me.

In that way I think Jesus was very definitely speaking to you and to me.  :Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in an steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, Where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in an steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Too often we let things take too prominent a place in our life… almost to the point where they become false gods in our lives. 

The problem with all the things we can’t live without – they don’t last!  Moth and rust destroy them  Thieves break in and steal them.  God, I believe has designed life to teach us this… to get us to unpack our suitcases to get ready for the journey to heaven.  The Lord used Linda and this move to Germany to help me to begin unpacking.  We sold, or gave away most everything we owned – our home, dad’s tools, most of our furniture, and so on.  I really struggled with this. What would I do without all that stuff.  You know what?  It has been a blessing!  I haven’t missed all of it.  Worries about “my things” has been lifted off my shoulders.  Unpacking my false gods, has left me with only one thing to hold on to – my God and Savior.

I saw this happen to my mom.  As she got older, she slowly had to unpack everything from her life.  First was her own home, selling it and moving into an apartment.  Then she unpacked her car and driving.  After that she unpacked her furniture and possessions and moved into an assisted living. Alzheimers ultimately unpacked her memory, to the point where she didn’t know anymore who I was.  I wondered, “Lord, does my mom have anything left?”  One day He gave me an answer.  I went to visit her.  I sat and prayed with her.  I started to say the Lord’s prayer.  She joined me.  That she remembered.  That’s what she had left – her faith.  That’s what you discover as you unpack for the trip.  When your suitcase is completely empty, you are not.  When all the things that don’t last are gone, you are left with the one treasure that lasts forever – your God and Savior Jesus Christ.   

A Taste of Home

O Taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Psalm 34:8

Yum.  I never realized a hot dog could taste so good!  But it does!  It is for a me a real taste of America.  People are always asking me, “How are you doing? How are you adjusting to life in Germany?”  My answer is usually pretty much the same.  We’re doing fine.  We  miss  our grandkids, our kids and our friends.  But other than that we are making new friends.  Trinity is made up of warm and extremely loving people.  Germany is a great place to live.    We really love Germany.  Yet there are moments when we really miss America and the people we love there. There have been ups and downs, good moments and bad moments.

At those moments, we try remember some advice our son Jon gave us.  He has lived internationally for 5 or 6 years now.  Jon told me, “When you get there, look for things that remind you of America.  On days when you get really homesick or miss America, go do one of those “American things.”  That has been really good advice.  For Linda and me, one of those things we do, is to eat something  “very American.”  I remember one day when I was a really disgruntled mood.  I was homesick but hadn’t put that name to it yet. That night Linda made hot dogs for dinner.  Boy did those hot dogs taste good.  They were a taste of home. They were just the cure I needed for my homesickness.

So now I ask all of you - “How are you doing?  How are you handling life a long way from home?”   I know that most of you don’t think of yourself as living a long way from home but you do.  For those who believe in Jesus our home is in heaven.   We live here as strangers and aliens.  We are in this world but not of this world.  There are going to be times in this life when we feel really out of place – when the morality or the beliefs of those around us is going to make us feel very uncomfortable. There are number of ways we can tend to react to that.  One is simply to get discouraged, and tired of swimming against the stream, wondering what we are doing here and so forth.   Another reaction might be that we compromise our own beliefs in order to fit in and be accepted - to go along in order to get along. A third reaction is to get angry and judgmental of the people around us.  “What’s wrong with them?  Why can’t they see things the way we see them?”  But that would simply shut doors in the faces of those whom God calls us to love.

Such moments of feeling out of place, are moments of homesickness.  We long for the home Jesus promised us in heaven.  The best cure for such homesickness?  A taste of home!  That’s why God invites us to His dinner table.  That’s what He offers us in Holy Communion.  He invites us to “Taste and see that the Lord is good!”  He gives us here a “foretaste of the feast to come.”  He gives us a taste of home.    He gives us a taste of His love, of the price He paid to forgive our sins. With this taste He reminds us of how He responded when we felt out of place with Him.  When we were in fact His enemies He loved us, died for us, adopted us as His own in baptism.  With this taste He says, “Love those around you, as I have loved you.”  With this taste He encourages us to keep on living for Him as strangers in this world trusting in His promises that He has a place for us, He will come again to receive us unto Himself that where He is, we will one day also be – at home. 

In my first parish, I had a shut in named Faye Werner.  She was bedfast, paralyzed from the waist down.  Every time I visited her, she would ask me, “Pastor, Why am I still here?  Why won’t God take me home?”  Faye was homesick. So I would take her Holy Communion.  In this meal God gave her a taste of home, He reminded her that His home was real and that one day He would come to take her there.  That’s why this meal is so delicious.  That’s why when you are discouraged, tired of feeling out of place, ready to give up, or perhaps even angry at the world around you, He invites you to His table.  Here He forgives you.  He encourages you.  He calms your heart.  He gives you hope. Instead of judging you, He loves you so that you might do the same.  He gives you a taste of Home.  Yum!

Rights, Rulings and the Mind of Christ

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men."

Philippians 2:5-7

This past couple of weeks it has been really strange living here in Germany, reading and watching news reports from America. In the USA the hot topic has been the Supreme Court Ruling about same-sex marriage.  For a while that seemed to be the subject of every other posting on Facebook.  I have wondered, “Should I make some comment about this?”  Two things have held me back.  One is the fact that no one here in Germany, not even the Americans I know here, has raised any concerns, asked any questions or made any comments about this ruling. Second, the purpose of this blog is primarily devotional in nature – to cause people to pause and think about life from the perspective of Scripture, through the prism of law and Gospel.   My solution is this – to comment on all of this through a devotional thought.  How should our faith inform how we as believers speak to the world, to each other and to our neighbors about this or any other issue?  . 

Here are a couple of thoughts to reflect on.  First, we all need to be careful. There seems to be more than enough self-righteousness coming from all sides of this issue.  Speaking words of judgment is all too easy.  I have seen it in my own reactions.  That’s why the words of Jesus have been troubling my conscience these past two weeks.  “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.”  (Matthew 7:1-5) Every time I have gone to make some comment on the issue of the day, this text has troubled me.  Is there a log in my eye?  This morning God showed me the answer.   As I went out to walk Molly, our new neighbor headed out of her doorway to go to work.  As we walked down the street, I asked her where she worked.  “At the hospital,” was her answer.  So my immediate question was, “Are you a nurse?”  She laughed, “No, I am an Eye surgeon.”   Now she wasn’t wearing a nurse’s uniform.  My only reason for assuming she was a nurse was that she was a woman.  As she walked on I thought, “Wayne, how sexist was that?”  It was a great reminder.  I do have logs in my own eye – too many of them.  We need to be careful about the log in our own eyes before we going poking around in someone else’s eye. 

The second thought is related to the first one.  Have you ever noticed that the people who seemed most drawn to Jesus were the very people condemned by the “religious leaders” of His day?  He ate with tax collectors.  In the home of a Pharisee Jesus honored the prostitute who washed His feet with her hair.   In addition, have you ever noticed that our Lord’s strongest words of condemnation were spoken to the “religious leaders?”  He spends a whole chapter calling them “scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites;” a whole chapter pointing out that their self-righteousness was standing between them and God.  Their self-righteousness “shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces.”  (Matthew 23:13)  What strikes me is that our Lord’s goal with both of these groups was to love them.  If He was hard on the Pharisee, it’s because He is a God who does not desire the death of a sinner but that He turn from His ways and live.  If he seemed easier on the tax collectors and other sinners, it was because they already had so many condemning voices in their lives.  Think of John 8 when they brought Jesus the woman caught in adultery.  He challenged them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” When they had all left, He then said to her, “Neither do I condemn you.  Go and sin no more.”  Notice He did not condone her sin.  He simply forgave her.  That’s His goal.  That’s what He does for us.  He loves and forgives us.  Is that not what He calls us to do… to love and forgive as we have been loved and forgiven?

That brings me to my last thought.  In this whole conversation you hear a lot of concern about rights – marriage rights, gay rights, religious freedom rights.  I have heard myself express this concern for “my rights.”  I know people’s rights are important.  Believe me I love the freedoms and rights I have as an American.  However, protecting “my rights” is not the mission to which God has called me.  I have a Lord watching over me, no matter what happens to me and “my rights.” As a believer I am called to love my neighbor as myself.  God wants me to be very concerned and protective of the rights and dignity of others.  St. Paul calls this having the mind of Christ.  “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”  That’s what our Lord Jesus did for us.  He gave up His rights. Think of the foot washing. By all rights one of the disciples should have washed His feet.  Yet knowing He had come from God and was going back to God, He got down on His knees to wash their feet. The next day He emptied Himself to die on a cross for our sins.  The He rose again that we might have the right to become the children of God.  He came not to be served but serve and to give His life as a ransom for many.   We don’t’ need to worry about our rights.  After all, In Jesus, we are just passing through this life on our way home to our Father.   He sends us to pass by this way for one purpose - to love everyone we meet… to share with all of them His invitation to join the journey home.