BUILD YOUR LIFE ON THE ROCK

Psalm 37:25
"I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor His seed begging bread."

Martin Luther King, Jr. at Clayborn Temple, in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 3, 1968, the evening before his assassination said: "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go the the mountain. And I've looked over, and I've seen the promised land...so I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. "

Benjamin Disraeli was much more pessimistic: "Youth is a blunder; manhood a struggle; old age a regret."

Cicero said: "Old age is the crown of life: the final act in the play of life."

Life is like a journey across the ocean. There are some whose fortune it is to hardly leave the shore. Others make it to mid-ocean where they perish because of some disaster -- either caused by an external force, or by themselves. There are others who weather the journey, through storms and high seas, until they see the shore of the intended destination beginning to loam on the horizon. Into a lovely and commodious harbor they sail with flags unfurled. Lining the shore are those familiar ones who completed their journey at earlier times. The journey is not optional - each must make it. How one fares during the journey and how one arrives is a matter of one's own determination. Many are those who spend their time on the SHIP OF FOOLS as depicted by the artist Hieronymous Bosch depicting a group of individuals aboard a small boat. Amidst various activities that suggest indulgence and moral lapse, the occupants appear oblivious to their direction or purpose.

When we are younger we have an excess of answers. The problem is that we usually do not know what the questions are. Jeremiah 12:5 says, "If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?" We complain a lot about trivial things; how will we do with great, important issues?

I have noticed a twinkle in the eyes of some of the elderly ladies in this church, faithful ladies in the winter of their life.  I have an idea that they know that each of us must walk through some life experiences just as they have done, and were they to give their testimony I'm sure they would be most positive. But that is their testimony - not yours or mine. To me these ladies convey the impression that they are wonderful and marvelous proofs of the presence, mercy, and grace of our Lord, for I have witnessed a sweet calmness in each of them, probably born during times of adversity.

Have you listened to them when they speak? Their voices never raised, words carefully measured, no rush to speak but reserving time to do a bit of thinking along the way. When one goes to serve one of these ladies, you will invariably come away with a feeling that is they who have done the ministry. It is rather humbling. Now you will begin to notice, especially when they are all together here in the church.

What will you do in times of extreme need? Tragic loss? Shattered dreams? Tested faith? The end of relationships? The death of a child? Disappointment in people you trusted? Loved ones who leave God out of their lives? Profound financial hardship? A wavering and persistent doubt within the church one loves? Accepting the reality of what "is" instead of what one "hoped for?"

The dewy-eyed and excited faith of young people is inspiring. However, it must be grounded solidly upon The Rock, for the winds and storms will surely come. What will be the course and conduct of your life? If Jesus is the rock, what is the sand? Well, as Jesus defines it, it means building your life on anything other than his words. He warns that there are a thousand ways you can build your house - your life - apart from the Word of God; a thousand ways to conduct your life that seem satisfying and fulfilling - but yet not built upon the Rock.

G.K. Chesterton, an English writer and theologian said this: "The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried." In today's world, we seem to hear much about radical individualism which espouses the belief that every person has the right to set the conditions under which they live their own life.  It is a challenge to live up to Christian ideals in a world largely dominated by individualistic pursuits.  Proverbs 21:2 says, ""Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart." Christian teachings, the "old, old story of Jesus and His love," offer a solid foundation for life.  They are all too often set aside because they demand rigorous adherence and even personal sacrifice, which are at odds with this radical individualism. 

Jesus warns us that there are countless ways to construct our lives away from the teachings of God - a life built on shifting sand. We can choose paths that may seem "right in our own eyes" and offer satisfaction, fulfillment, and stability, especially when we are young and not yet fully tested by the storms of life which invariably come. However, He urges us to build our life upon the solid foundation of the Rock of our Salvation, that is Jesus Christ, ensuring we stand firm against all life's trials and tribulations. The young person who is taught that by their family, Sunday School teachers, from the pulpit, and through other believers that God brings into their lives, and continues to build on that solid foundation, will have stability and resilience when the storms of life come, when the temptations of sin surround them; they will be able to remain standing against trials and tribulations. Then one day, if God gives them long life, they will be as these faithful wise women in our church, and have that twinkle in their eye and a bearing of sweet calmness, and be received into heaven's glory with the words, "Well done, good and faithful servant."

Matthew 7:24-29

"Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and does them, will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house. But it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them, will be like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. And when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes."

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Amen.

OUR BURNING BUSHES (Psalm 19:1-6; Exodus 3:1-6; Romans 1:18-23)

There is a word from the Lord for everyone. There is even a word from the Lord for the unspoken for whom "every day with Jesus [isn't] sweeter than the day before," those who are scarred by what political commentator Walter Lippmann once called "the acids of modernity," describing trends that have had a significant impact on the Christian faith and whose sensory apparatus is semi-numbed by the routine sights and sounds of the day after day after day routine - unbroken by even a glimpse of the tip of an angel's wing or a whispered monosyllable from the Holy One. It is a word being spoken in Exodus 3, the initial encounter between God and Moses which reflects a remarkable mixture of ordinary elements of human experience and the extraordinary.

God comes to Moses in a setting compounded of a mixture of ordinary elements of human experience and the extraordinary. What happened happened on a humdrum, everything-as-usual sort of day.  The story is described:  One day while Moses was taking care of the sheep and goats of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Michan, he led the flock across the desert and came to Sinai, a holy mountain.

And that was it; no twenty-four hour prayer vigils. No crystal cathedrals and massive choirs. No cultic pomp-and-circumstance. Just a plain old ordinary day and a man doing what he'd been doing every day for forty years. It was another in a long line of dusty, sandy, rocky, days watching over someone else's sheep and goats, like yesterday and the day before that - months on end. Continuity is the picture with more than a little monotony.  It wasn't a day brightened with happiness or rapture. It was just the moderately pleasant, wholly bearable and tolerable, lukewarm days of a middle-aged man with no particular pains, no special cares, without any specific worries or despair... That's when IT happened! Moses lifted up his eyes from the grind of another day and saw a bush - not a special bush, just one of thousands desert bushes common to the area - except this bush was burning and was not being consumed by the flames.  So Moses, being reasonably curious said, "I will turn aside and see this great sight; why, the bush isn't even burnt." The Lord was watching and when he saw Moses turn aside, He called to Moses from out of the burning bush, 'Moses; Moses!" That's when he told Moses he was sending him on a "mission impossible", to go to Pharaoh in Egypt and demand he let the Israelite slaves go free. Moses had fled from Egypt in fear for his life. He had been hiding out from Pharaoh, met his wife, had some kids, and was working for his father-in-law, and now God wanted to sent him back!

We all hide from so many things.  We hide because we don't want to have to change. We don't want to leave our comfort zones.  We hide because we fear rejection, or failure,  or we don't want the responsibility. We hide because we've become apathetic and comfortable. But we can't really hide from God who sees all and knows all. One day it'll happen. It might be for you the elderly neighbor from across the street who waves and smiles from the driveway. Or you meet a stranger and exchange cordial words. Or you see a homeless man clutching his soggy bag and he weaves along in the rain. Or you write one more check, sell one more widget, sweep the kitchen floor one more time. You hear a bird singing happily, or you sit at dinner with your family like you do every evening sharing a meal, asking about the day. A friend dies and you grieve. The news tell you more than you want to know about drug cartels and drug deaths, the latest news from some country in South America, news about the Presidential campaign. Bushes - common elements of our daily human existence. Bush after bush dot the landscape of our lives. Then one day, another ordinary day, when we are reading a book or playing with the baby, or talking on the phone to a friend - we do something extraordinary. We wonder about the "bush" and we draw closer, close enough to see what had always been right in front of us but somehow we never saw it. What had always been present for our hearing, but we never heard. A bush, but it's on fire and yet not consumed, and from it we hear our name being called - and the "common things are made holy and a glory on them laid."

Was the Apostle Paul (among others) correct when he insisted so vigorously that, "Since the creation of the world, God's invisible nature, namely God's eternal power and deity, has been clearly visible in the things that have been made?"  Is it possible that our problem is primarily one of perception? "He sees many things," said God's prophet Isaiah, "but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear." Should this be the case, it is a serious if not fatal flaw, for as the saying goes, "What you see is what you get." Isn't it true that we mostly see what we want to see. And isn't it truer still that we see only what we have been taught exists for our sight" That's the way it is with us; our perception is as much a matter of sociology as it is physiology. More often than not we see only what our class and clan sees and tells us is present for our sight and worthy of it. We see what our teachers have taught us to see, and little more than that. We do what everyone else around us does. "There are none so blind...," "We see through a glass darkly." We see only that which lines up with our belief system and personal priorities- be they right or wrong. We turn a blind eye so easily. "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." 

When I was young, I would see a hawk soaring and soaring and soaring on it's great wings spread over the earth and sky, and I was enthralled. Or a solitary red cardinal on a snowy branch would capture my whole attention. Beauty flowed and flashed and filled the world and my own soul to overflowing. Then I became older and properly educated and socialized - and I don't see such things. "A spade is a spade," they told me, "and you must learn to call it that." A bird is a bird is a bird. A tree is just that - a tree. And a bush that blazed up suddenly and yet was not consumed, I would not report it for fear of being taken first to an opthamologist and then to a psychiatrist whose professional mythologies contain no stories of bushes on fire with the glory of the Lord.

But within the relative safety of these walls, I admit to knowing rare times when a bush blazed and was not consumed and from within it I heard Someone calling my name. There are some who would shake their heads and mumble something about subjectivism or sentimentality. So be it. But the bush did burn. I did hear His voice as he called my name. When that happens for you, will you answer?

WALLS (Scripture reference Ephesians 2:14-19)

My own reflections: I haven't yet decided how I feel about "the wall". It isn't cut and dried and for me ultimately isn't about politics. My considerations are for the safety of our nation from our southern border and the ability to keep terrorists and criminals from entering freely. It's about our economy, and jobs that should go to American citizens who need them badly. So in these considerations, I can see that tightening border security and allowing only legal entry is absolutely a good thing. But...

There is also something about The Wall, that feels wrong. Perhaps the political nastiness, political gamesmanship, and manipulative media coverage is what leaves a bad taste. My father was a Baptist minister and many years ago, my mother gave me his briefcase full of handwritten sermons from his many years of preaching so that I might put them into this blog. Daddy was also an intellectual, and a man of deep philosophical consideration. I can't help wondering what he would have thought of this wall.

I reached into the briefcase this morning (2/23/2019) and pulled a sermon out randomly and felt it directly related to this wall concept so wanted to share it for your consideration. I still haven't made up my mind, but this makes me think. He starts by drawing attention to a Robert Frost poem written in blank verse, called "Mending Wall." Forces of nature and of men are at work to destroy the wall. The landowners of each side meet and walk the boundary line each year to make repairs. Something there is fundamental in human nature and the American ideal, something there is at odds with rigid separation between neighbors. And yet something there is that compels neighbors to continue erecting fences and walls. This barrier seems unnecessary as there is no livestock to keep in or out - only trees. There are so many metaphorical "fences" in our society. - Cheryl

The Mending Wall (by Robert Frost)

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

'Why do they make good neighbors?

Isn't it where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me—

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The sermon continues: 

"Walls personal! Walls institutional! Walls that separate man from man, Christian from Christian. There is much in religion that clanks. There are walls of engrained thought and habit. There are walls of distrust from those who differ from us. There are walls made of shattered expectations - sometimes unsaid. There are church vs church walls. There are men and women walls. There are walls of tradition -- it must be done in the way it has always been done! 

The body turns away -- one feels alone.
The rejecting look on a face -- one feels judged
The unwillingness to hear what one says -- one feels misunderstood.
The multitude of nonverbal ways in which we speak -- one feels abased.
The harsh advice given in the presence of hurt and pain -- one feels as an object.

We all have this ability --
I on my side of the wall and you on yours.
We pick up the old stones with which the wall was built and we each put them back in place.
Do we even know what we are walling in and walling out?
Usually a lot of love -- An opportunity to be human to another.

THE MIND OF CHRIST

Philippians 2:5-11 (New International Version)
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,

10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

[Context is crucial in understanding this passage. This is not an isolated theological statement about the person and work of Christ. The previous paragraph (2:1-4) contains Paul's appeal to put aside selfish ambition and the pursuit of empty glory and to embrace self-sacrificial humility in the interests of others and with a view to unity in the body of Christ. 

Verse 5 is a transition from the exhortation in vv. 1-4 to the premier example of such a life in vv. 6-11. When Paul says, "Have this attitude in yourselves," he has in view the attitude just described in vv. 1-4. The most perfect illustration of "this" attitude or mindset is Jesus himself ("which was also in Christ Jesus"), whose self-giving for the sake of others is explained by Paul.]

How do we or anyone else know what we think? It becomes readily apparent by what we say, what we feel, and what we do (actions). Many are confused about what they really think. One may assume that he thinks a certain way without realizing that it is very easy to mislead even oneself.

The ordinary mind is not one with God. What do you think about during your ordinary hours? Does God occupy much of your daily thinking? Does His will and His way lead you in your daily activities?

Paul points to the mind of Christ as the absolute model of what we should aspire to be. (5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.)

 Jesus existed as essentially one with God (vs 6). He existed in eternity before creation. He was identified with the being, nature, and personality of God. This form of God Christ laid aside in His incarnation.

 He, in fact, thought it a thing not be be grasped.