Monday, May 30, 2016

Just Say The Word

"Just Say The Word"
Luke 7:1-10

How many of you think you have the power to heal another person?

(Assuming none raise their hands). Why is that?  You'd think at least one or two might say they had such a power, such an ability.

What I want to try and do this morning is convince you that all of you have the power to heal.  You all underestimate yourselves and what you think you can do, under God's leading and power.  So, are you ready for this?

First, let's look at the Centurion in this story.  Here is a person of power and authority.  Because he's been in the circles of power so long, he's also skilled in recognizing other forms of power and authority.  He knows it when he sees it.

So what does the Centurion recognize in terms of Jesus' power?  What he perceives in Jesus is the power of his spoken words.  Or maybe, more accurately, the power behind Jesus' spoken words.  Words can be spoken, but they may be lacking the power behind them that has the ability to heal.

Proverbs 16:24 states, "Kind words are like honey--they cheer you up and make you feel strong." Another version says that kind words are "sweet to the soul and healing to the bones."  There's a Japanese saying, "One kind word can warm up three months of Winter."

Here's the pivotal phrase spoken by the Centurion:  "Just say the word, and my servant will get well."  All's you have to do is say the word, Jesus, and the power of that word--the power behind that word--will do the rest.  But, what's the word?  What's the word the Centurion wants to hear from Jesus?  "Yes, your servant is healed.". Or, "Go; it is done." Or, "Yes, so be it".  "Just say the word."

Are you able to speak such words?  Maybe not on your own.  That is, not without the Power that was also behind Jesus' words.  With the power of God--which is ultimately the love of God--we can speak a word that will have impact, and believe it or not, can heal.  There may be people who are sending us the message, maybe from a distance (or we to them), "Just say the word."

I want to share some words with you, that if you speak them with the Power of the Lord behind them, have the ability to heal others.

Here's the first word:  "I'm sorry."  How hard it is to say this word some times.  It is the truth that it is only the power of God that makes this word heal.  Spoken insincerely, spoken flippantly, spoken without God in it, there is no healing.  It is only a word.  But when it is spoken with God in it, what healing can take place.

Saying you are sorry is a leveler.  What has happened is some kind of awful imbalance in your relationship with another.  There's a power game going on in which one is trying to, in a sick or hurtful way, exert power over another.

At one time, J. Paul Getty was one of the richest men in the world.  He went into a Neiman-Marcus store and bought some clothes, but refused to pay the delivery charges.  "So," reported one of the stores founders, Stanley Marcus, "when I was in California, some time later, I bought gas at a Getty oil company station, but refused to pay the tax.  Instead, I gave the attendant my business card and told him to bill Getty personally.  'Tell Getty that Stanley Marcus has gotten even,' I said."

As this example shows, most of the power plays in relationships are really petty and small.  All's it would take would be the good word of, "I'm sorry" and everything would be taken care of before escalation happens.

When instances of hurt happen, the outcome can be much sadder.  A father and his son had had an argument, that escalated out of control.  In the heat of the moment, the father told his son to get his clothes and leave home.  The son gathered some of his stuff together and walked out the door.  In the years that followed, the family often wondered what happened to their son.  They hoped that one day he might come back, but he never did.

One night the pastor was visiting in the home and the mother asked if he would participate in a ritual they performed every night.  Then she stepped out the front door and put the door key under the mat.  She explained that when the boy was living at home, they always left the key under the mat so he could get in.  "Now," she said, "if he should come back some night wondering whether we want him back, all he would have to do would be to look under the mat and see the key and know he was welcome."

The pastor wanted to say, "How much more healing and powerful it would have been, if the father could have just said, "I'm sorry," brought restoration to the relationship, and the son would have never left in the first place."

Like I said, saying "I'm sorry" levels the the imbalance that's been created by the petty power play or the hurt.  When "I'm sorry" is said, each can regain equal footing.  Restoration of the relationship can happen.

But the power behind the "I'm sorry" must be a God-infused sincerity.   Some say, "I'm sorry" so often, it's not taken seriously.   They keep being power petty, or keep being hurtful, keep saying, "I'm sorry" but nothing ever changes.  Or someone pushes another to say, "I'm sorry," so that when it comes, it feels forced rather than sincere. God's power, in God's good words, are about change, and creating deep change in a person's heart.

Spoken in God's way, from a heart changed by God, the word, "I'm sorry" can bring so much healing to hurt and pettiness.  "Just say the word."


The second word that you can say, that will be able to heal, is, "I love you".  You probably guessed this one when you saw where I was going with this message.  This is probably the most powerfully healing word that can be spoken, but is done so seldom.  Singer Lena Horne, in an interview one time said, "My mother was either cold as ice or she couldn't do without me.  I couldn't stand her.  I wanted very much for her to love me.  But to the day she died she never told me."

We may think that the opposite of love is hate.  That when we tell someone we love them, that we are curing the disease of hatred.  But in the Lena Horne quote I just shared, her mother probably didn't hate her.  Instead, it may have been a cold indifference that caused Horne to say about her mother, "I couldn't stand her".  As playwright George Bernard Shaw once said, "The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity".

To be indifferent is to treat someone you know as if they were of no importance.  None.  That their existence is not going to effect you one bit.  It's to treat someone you know as if you have no concern about them at all.  That is the opposite of love.  It's making others invisible to you.

One of the biggest sicknesses of American society right now is it is a society where people are used but not loved.  A strong, self-reliant kind of man, who didn't very often express his emotions, had to rush his wife to the hospital with a ruptured appendix.  The operation was a success, but the woman's condition deteriorated from the fairly simple procedure.  Despite a blood transfusion and intensive care, she continued to lose strength.  The doctors were puzzled because by all medical standards she should have been recovering.

They finally were convinced of the reason for her deterioration:  she was not trying to get well.  The surgeon, a long time family friend, went to her and said, "I would think you would want to be strong for John."
She replied, weakly, "John is so strong, he doesn't need anybody."
When the doctor told the husband what she had said, he immediately went into his wife's room, took her hand and said, "You've got to get well!"
Without opening her eyes, she asked, "Why?"
He said, "Because I couldn't live without you."

The nurse who had come in to check vitals on the monitor, noticed an immediate change in pulse and blood pressure.  The wife opened her eyes and said, "John, that's the first time you ever said that to me".  A couple of days later she was home.

When someone is in the grips of the sickness of feeling used for what they do, rather than loved for who they are, then there is the need to hear the healing word, "I love you".  To be able to say, "I love you," heals the feelings of living in a void, of feeling like you live in a society of relationships where everyone takes, but no one gives, to live feeling faceless--until someone needs something from you.

In one of the most profound fortune cookies, I got a fortune that read, "'Tis wisely put--exchange the love of power for the power of love".  The truth behind this fortune cookie quip is that the love of power makes people things.  The power of love makes people human beings.

The power of this kind of love is the power of God--who is, as the letter of John tells us in the Bible, love.  God is love.  To share the power of love with someone is to share the very person of God with that person.  This kind of love has the power to create personal dignity and identity, rather than creating puppets as our slaves or playthings.

How many people in your life need to be healed by this word, "I love you"?  Or maybe for your own healing, to hear this word from someone else.  Just say the word.


Here is the third and last word that you can say that will heal another:  "Way to go!"   Think of all the negative messages we receive that all carry the theme that some how we just don't measure up.  But most of all, how many of those negative messages get flipped off our tongues to or about others?

Christian author Joyce Landorf has written a book titled, Irregular People.  In the introduction to the book, Landorf highlighted some of the irregular people she has known.  She wrote about one:
There were the irregular parents who never attended any of their daughter's swim meets while she was in competition.  They were blind to the fact that she broke all the swimming records, in every event, her first year of high school.  Later, as a senior, she became the secretary of both her class and the student body, but at no time would either parent acknowledge her accomplishments.
She said of that time, "I tried so hard to make my parents see that I was good".  Then, when she had won the title of homecoming queen her senior year, she recalled thinking, Now they'll be proud of me!  But again, out of blindness, her mother's only cryptic comment was, "I guess it pays to be cheap with the boys".  Receiving no affirmation or approval from her parents wreaked havoc in this young girl's heart.  She eventually worked through this, but as a teenager she could not understand the blindness of her irregular parents.

The trouble is, there are varying shades of affirmation.  Sometimes it looks like affirmation, but is just a transfigured slap.  Negative statements may not be so blatant.  They may be along the lines of, "You're OK, but..." Or there are plastic complements.  Those are the kinds of complements that start out feeling good but end up making us feel fake and hollow.  Such as saying something like, "That looks nice considering you made it". 

We all want to do well in other people's eyes and be affirmed for doing something well, or for some admirable quality in us.  We want that so badly, at times, we are more hard on ourselves than others are on us.

Walt Disney seldom surveyed his animator's work while they were creating.  He understood the fragile nature of the creative process, and he wouldn't intrude.  But there was nothing to stop him after his animators left for the day.  Walt's nighttime visits to the offices became legendary, and animators often left their best work on the drawing table overnight, anticipating that Walt would inspect it.  But sometimes they arrived in the morning to find crumpled sheets of paper rescued from wastebaskets and pinned on a story board with the notation in Walt Disney's unmistakable handwriting, "Quit throwing the good stuff away."

There is a great sickness in our society that can be healed with a word that contains the message, "Way to go!". There is such a need for sincere affirmation, encouragement and compliments.  In a world that can be a place of pummeling degradation and negative messages, imagine the power the words of positive affirmation can have.  Just say the word.


I have mentioned just three words you can say that hold within them the power of healing.  I'm sorry.  I love you.  Way to go.  There is this wonderful symbiotic relationship that God has created between the ones who need to hear such words, and the ones who can utter them.  Luciano De Crescenzo put it best, I think:  "We are each of us angels with only one wing.  And we can only fly embracing each other".

The power of God is the ability to make each other fly through encouragement, love and being sorry for things we've done.  Imagine all of us walking around, still half winged angels, heads hanging low.  God is looking down on such a scene hoping and desiring that two of us would just get together and say one of these great words to each other, and then watch the embrace and flight that then happens.

I'll close with this poem:

Oh, that my tongue might so possess
The accent of His tenderness
That every word I breathe should bless.

For those who mourn, a word of cheer;
A word of hope for those who fear;
And love to all both far or near.

Oh, that it might be said of me,
"Surely thy speech betrayeth thee
As friend of Christ of Galilee!"

Monday, May 23, 2016

"One Thing Leads To Another"

"One Thing Leads To Another"
Romans 5:1-5

Everyone wants to grow to their fullest human potential.  At least I think they do.  I may be making a false assumption about that statement.  I just think, deep down, people want to know how to grow into the best person they can.

There’s all kinds of self-help books out there to help you achieve that.  There’s a book titled, The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life.  Such as, Confucius say, “A bird in each hand make it hard to blow your nose.”  Or, there’s a book titled, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One.  If you’re into using a psychological model that was popular 35 years ago, you could read, Rethinking Everything: Personal Growth through Transactional Analysis.  Transactional Analysis is that model that says we act out of three different personas:  parent, adult, or child.  I’m sure this book has lots of information about helping you out when you’re acting like a child and you should be living like an adult.  But, if you don’t like that one, there’s, The Other 90%: How to Unlock Your Vast Untapped Potential for Leadership and Life.

I could go on and on.  All’s you need to do is go to amazon.com and click on their book section, find the list of categories of books on the lefthand side of the screen, click on self-help, and Bam! you have 125,300 of such books to choose from.  That’s a lot of advice.

The thing is, of all the books I took a cursory look at in preparation for this message, none of those books said that one of the sure ways to grow as a human being is to suffer.

See, you have to start somewhere, if you are going to grow as a human being.  Once you’ve determined you are stagnating, or have plateaued as a person, and you’re ready for a change, the first thing you have to do is start.  Where do you start when you want to grow?

Paul has some very odd advice for us about this.  Paul wrote in this letter to the Romans, that the best place to start, if you want to embark on a path of human growth, is with your sufferings.  No self-help, human potential book I looked at said such a thing.

Suffering, Paul says, puts you on the path of human growth, faith growth.  It’s not a starting place that we would likely choose.  In fact, Paul wrote that we should not only start with our sufferings, we should “rejoice” in those sufferings.  The word Paul used could also mean, “boast.”  We not only start with our sufferings on a path to growth, we rejoice that we can start with our sufferings.  We can boast about the fact that our sufferings have been the best place from which to launch into a time of growth as a person and in our faith.  Odd.   Very odd.

The word Paul used for suffering literally means feeling the pressure, being squeezed into a ball, being squashed and flattened out, being hemmed in into a smaller and smaller space, finding yourself on a very narrow path with little to give you a foothold—like being on the narrow ledge of a cliff.  Rejoice when you find yourself in those kinds of places.  Boast about it, even.  You could be on the road to tremendous growth in your faith and as a person.

This kind of suffering could be caused by a number of life experiences.  Certainly persecution.  That may be the situation that Paul is addressing in this letter.  Christians, especially in Rome, were facing persecution on several fronts.

But this suffering could also develop from inner distress or sorrow.  It certainly is a part of anxiety and fear.  And most assuredly and ultimately, if you are staring death in the face.  Your questions may be on a very basic and intense level, along the lines of, “Am I even going to make it out of this situation intact as a person?”  You may not be thinking about human growth and potential.  You’re just worrying about survival when these levels of suffering hit.

To be told by Paul to rejoice or boast about this level of suffering, because they are great opportunities for growth, may elicit a response from us, such as, “I’d like to grow, just not in this way.”

What happens when we are suffering, is that our “flight-or-fight” mechanism is triggered in our brains.  It’s a normal response to any anxiety producing situation.  When your body or your psyche experiences some kind of major threat, you are also faced with a decision:  fight the threat, or flee the threat.  Either take on the suffering situation or attempt to put as much space between you and it as possible.

When this kind of suffering (making you feel limited, small, squeezed, flattened, with narrower and narrower options) when that kind of suffering hits, it feels like we are being chased down by some kind of predator:  cancer, psychological abuse, debilitating illness, being bullied, even old tapes that run in our heads from our past.  Our first impulse is to find a place of safety from those kinds of predatory situations.  We do that by either fighting or fleeing.

Here’s where Paul says we can start on the road to growth as human beings, with our sufferings as the initial springboard.  Suffering can lead to endurance.  Endurance can become our place of safety, if we so choose.

The word Paul used that we translate endurance, is a great word.  The root word means to stay in one place, to stand fast, to hold out, to remain calm, to stay in force—even if you are a force of one.  The whole word means to stay behind, when all others have cut and run.  It means to stand firm, but not just stand firm—stand firm with positive expectation.  It means standing with energy that leads to successful resistance.  It means, ultimately, to be heroic.  To be the hero of your own story, and just maybe a hero for others as well.

In the fight-or-flight spectrum, endurance as Paul is describing it, is not a flight word.  It is a fight word.

If you choose to fight rather than flee your suffering, and if you choose the way of endurance, Paul says that endurance will lead to the next level of human growth, which is character.

The word that Paul used for character basically means watching.  But here’s how it plays out.  The full word means to be tested by watching.  That is, understanding that as we endure our sufferings, we are being watched.  We are being tested by those who watch to see if we are reliable, valuable, and genuine.  We are under the scrutiny of others who are watching how we handle ourselves when life is hard and we are suffering.  That’s what determines our character, according to Paul.  Endurance, as Paul described it, has a way of demonstrating our character, or failing in character.

What is it that others are watching for?  What are some of the characteristics of character?

First, who you are is driven by the fuel you choose to run on.  So what others are looking at to determine our character is the kind of fuel we are choosing to run on.  Faith is a fuel you can run on.  That’s part of what God is watching to see if your endurance is leading to character.  Is faith in the Lord your fuel, or are you trying to run only on faith in yourself?

Faith, hope and love are the three main fuels of the Christian that Paul brings up time and time again.  I will say more about hope in a couple of minutes.  I think others are looking at this same “fuel” question to determine our strength of character.  What’s your fuel, and how are you, with your character, showing others how to fuel up?

Secondly, I think people are watching the choices we make to determine the depth of our character.  Life is about choices.  Our lives end up being the sum of all the choices we have made throughout that life.  Thus, our character is also summed up in all the choices we have made.

Like the Indiana Jones movie where Indiana and friends, as well as the Nazi’s are looking for the Holy Grail—the cup Jesus used at the Last Supper.  They have found the cup’s hiding place, but it is hiding amongst maybe 50 other cups of different styles.  One of the Nazi soldiers takes a cup from the many that are on the table, drinks from it, and immediately shrivels up, horribly, and turns to dust.  The Knight that has been guarding the grail for hundreds of years says, dryly, “He chose unwisely.”

That’s what people are looking at us to determine the depth of our character.  Are they having to say about us, “He chose unwisely, as he made his way through life.”  Choosing wisely throughout one’s life is a mark of positive character.  That’s what people are looking at.  Are the choices we are making, especially in the face of suffering, shriveling us up even more, and turning our lives to dust?  Or are our choices, made wisely, increasing our wisdom, and thus our character?  People are watching.

And thirdly, I think people are watching we Christians to see how much we lean on Jesus with our lives.  If we don’t lean on Jesus, why should they?  If we aren’t drawing on the strength of the Savior, but only trying to go at life on our own, why should they?

In all these three, catch the vision that character isn’t just a one time event.  Character is a course we travel, a current that we flow with, a singular direction that we constantly follow.  Character is a consistency and constancy of behavior.  That’s what people are watching for, as they look at us and try to gauge our character.

Then Paul writes that if we have started with suffering, and chosen to fight with endurance, and in that fight, built our character, that character will lead to hope.  Hope is ultimately where we want to end up when we are in the middle of some kind of pressure cooker of suffering.  It's the expectation that we will come to some good outcome, even though we can't see what that is at the moment.  We're counting on it.  We trust it will happen.

That's why I think hope and conviction are linked together.  Conviction is your driving force.  Conviction is why you do what you do.  When you are in the middle of some kind of suffering, your conviction and hope is what drives your endurance.  Once you have decided to endure—that is fight instead of flee in the face of your suffering—it is your conviction and hope that builds the character of a genuine person.  It's what makes you the hero of your own story--the hero that others are watching, and gaining strength from their watching your handling of your suffering.

All that leads to hope, because, really, one of the best ways to find hope is to give hope, or provide hope to others.  As others are watching you, and your depth of character is providing them hope for their own lives, that in turn gives you hope.

Here's an example.  While reading about hope this week, I found an article, I think on the Psychology Today site, about the Chilean coal miners.  Remember all those men trapped in the coal mine for several days, and the whole world watched to see if they would get rescued.

There was this tent city that was build all around the collapsed mine site.  Remember the name of that tent city, filled with reporters and workers?  I had forgotten it.  That tent city was named, Camp Hope.  Not, Happy Village, or Think Good Thoughts Town.  It was Camp Hope.  Hope is such a powerful word.

The Chilean coal miners (or any miners for that matter) descend into the dark of the mine every day, and hope to come back out into the light of day.  There is never that full assurance that that will happen.  But it is a great picture for all the "coal mines" that we may find ourselves descending into, the darkness of suffering with all its dangers and twisting and turning tunnels where you can easily get lost, once that suffering is upon you.  Once down in that mine of suffering, isn't your only and driving conviction your hope that you will get out of it and see the light of day again?

"Seeing the light of day" is a great term for the journey of human growth that we go through when we start out with suffering.  "Seeing the light of day" is another way of saying "hope."  After the miners were reached and rescued, there were so many stories of how different ones followed that path of endurance, leading to the kind of character that was shown when the whole world was watching.  And out of that character, hope was built--the good expectation that they would see the light of day again.  Which they did.


I hope you don't think me flip to say that you can grow greatly when you're suffering.  That you can start with your suffering experience, fight instead of flee with endurance, let that fighting endurance build your character as others have their eyes on you, and move from the strength of that character to a hope that has conviction behind it.

I know that some of you are suffering.  When you are suffering you think the opposite of what I'm trying to say--what I think Paul is trying to say.  When you're suffering you think you are being demeaned, or decreased as a person.   That everything about you is being squashed or flattened, and there is no hope for finding the light of day again.

But I'm convinced Paul is right about how one thing leads to another.   I have taken his advice in a couple of my lowest lows.  I am living testimony that suffering is not the end of you, but just the beginning of what God can do, to bring you out into the light of day, as a whole new you.  And it all started with suffering.

Monday, May 16, 2016

More Than A Prairie Chicken

"More Than A Prairie Chicken"
Acts 2:1-15, 22-24, 32-33, 36-41

This description of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is like something out of a Steven Spielberg movie.  It is mysterious.  It is surreal.  It borders on the bizarre.

First, there is the noisy wind from heaven that blows only through the house where the disciples are gathered.  No wind outside, just inside.  Then there is a fire that descends and splits into many little fires, coming to rest on each disciples head with no hair being burnt.  And the little fires are in the shape of tongues.  Then everyone starts talking at once, but in a different language.

There was a Steven Spielberg type of character who lived back in the 16th century named Lorenzo D’Medici.  They called him “Lorenzo the Magnificent” because he really knew how to create a pageant and public spectacle at religious festival times.  All the people in the city of Florence, where he lived, would become involved in the celebration.

On one occasion, D’Medici decided to stage the pageant of Pentecost in one of the city’s great churches.  He liked realism in his drama, so he arranged for a system of wires and pulleys to make it look like the fire was swooshing down from above.  And he used real fire.

On the Day of Pentecost, as the great pageant unfolded, the fire came flitting down right on cue.  But some of it brushed against some flimsy stage hangings, igniting them.  The church burned to the ground.

Sometimes it’s best to just leave the miraculous to God.

The real Pentecost, the unusual, almost weird occurrence, when the Holy Spirit was given to the disciples, giving birth to the church, is evidently an unreproducible event.  But shouldn’t it be so with God’s amazing acts?

Even though the spectacle makes us scratch our heads, we can’t let the bizarre side of it cloud our vision from what God was doing.  There was something even more amazing than the wind, fire, and different languages going on there.  All those elements were just the means God used—but they were not the end God was trying to achieve.

William Sloan Coffin, the one time minister at the Riverside Presbyterian Church in New York City, once said, “As is often the case in the Bible, it is the invisible event that counts most.”  If we look beyond the out-of-the-ordinary way in which the Holy Spirit was given by God, I think we see that “invisible event”:  a group of people become the church—the new community of God—the new Chosen People.  What we see is a number of disheveled disciples becoming the Spirit empowered church of Jesus Christ.

Think of what kind of people were gathered in that house on Pentecost.  Those whom Jesus had chosen were everyday people—hard working laborers and professional people.  They, at the time of Pentecost, 40 days after the Crucifixion and Resurrection, were a lost bunch, without vision, without courage, feeling powerless.  Even some of the 12 disciples were abandoning the cause and going back to fishing, including Peter, James and John.

Ted Engstrom started his bestselling book, The Pursuit of Excellence, with the following story:

There was a native American who found an eagle’s egg.  He put it into the nest of a prairie chicken.  The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. 

All his life, the changeling eagle, thinking he was a prairie chicken, did what the prairie chickens did.  He scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat.  He clucked and cackled as best he could.  He would fly in a brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers, no more than a few feet off the ground.  After all, that’s how prairie chickens were supposed to fly.

In time, the changeling eagle grew up.  One day, he saw a magnificent bird far above him in the cloudless sky.  Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.

“What a beautiful bird!” said the changeling eagle to his fellow chickens.  “What is it?”
“That’s an eagle, the chief of birds,” one of the prairie chickens clucked.  “But don’t give it a second thought.  You could never be like him.”

So the changeling eagle never did give it another thought.  It went on thinking and living as if it was a prairie chicken.

The coming of the Holy Spirit was like seeing the eagle in the sky for those disciples.  But, unlike Engstrom’s story, instead of taking the advice of the other prairie chickens, the disciples became inspired.  They inhaled the breath of God.  They became invigorated.  They found a new strength in their wings to fly the coup and see what the sky was like with the power of the wind to lift them.

God had inflamed them with a passion to be something they had no idea they could become—to become what they were meant to become all along—transformed from timidity to boldness.

The Holy Spirit came upon Christ’s followers and, in effect, told them, “You aren’t just a bunch of prairie chickens.  You are eagles, and you were meant to fly to great heights for God.  Recognize who you are!  Recognize what you have now been empowered by the Holy Spirit to become and to do!  Spread those mighty wings and fly!”

They were an ordinary group of people, whose lives had been touched by Jesus Christ, but, before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, had somehow lost any idea or vision of what they were supposed to do beyond their time with Jesus.  They were not in touch with their gifts, nor did they recognize how they were endowed by God with eagle-like qualities.  All they needed was the second touch—the second empowering—by the Holy Spirit, and the world has never been the same since.

This is what we celebrate at Pentecost—the time when God’s Spirit empowered the church to do great things.  But, we don’t worship the past.  We, as the church today, don’t look back and think, “Wow, that was cool for them, and we celebrate that once a year on Pentecost Sunday, and leave the sanctuary after worship, ho hum.”  Instead, we look for the ways that God’s Spirit continues to come to us in order to empower us as individual Christians and together as the church.

There is the story about the man who always seemed to bring home a stringer load of fish.  It was uncanny, and people wondered how he could be so successful.  A stranger asked to go with him in order to check out the fisherman’s reputation.

They started early and boated across the lake to a secluded area.  The stranger noticed that the fisherman didn’t have a fishing pole.  Just a rusty old tackle box.  They got to the man’s fishing spot.  The fisherman opened the box and pulled out a small stick of dynamite, lit it, and tossed it into the water.  There was thumping explosion underwater, and the stunned fish rose to the surface.  The fisherman began dipping his net into the water and pulling the fish into the boat.

At that point the stranger reached back and revealed from his back pocket the credentials of a game warden.  Calmly, the fisherman opened the tackle box again, got out another small stick of dynamite, lit the fuse and handed it to the game warden.  As the fuse burned down, he said to the game warden, “Well, are you going to fish or are you just going to sit there?”

I think the Holy Spirit, at Pentecost, and at several points in the life of the church, has handed the church a lit stick of empowerment.  It’s ready to go off and we are being asked if we are ready to get to work and take advantage of that dynamite potency we’ve been handed and the effective capabilities that are now in our grasp.

One woman wrote, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble…For the world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the combination of tiny pushes of each worker.”  You know who wrote that?  Helen Keller, and I think she of all people would know what she was talking about.

Let us be empowered by the Holy Spirit.  Let us be heroes of the faith, and let us be the ones who add the tiny pushes that combine for heroic spiritual change in our community.  But most of all, let us, like eagles, soar to the heights of where we were meant to be, rather than be content in a Spirit-less prairie chicken existence.

Sunday, May 8, 2016

Mothers Are People, Too

"Mothers Are People, Too
Genesis 3:20

How do you define, "mother"?

In some respects that has been done for us, way back when the first people were put upon the earth.  The name of the first woman had to do more with her role as mother than anything else:  "...Eve, because she was the mother of all the living."

In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, each word has a root or base word.  The root word for "mother" in Hebrew literally means, "to be wide, or roomy."  Isn't that an uplifting thought?  It had to do with pregnancy and child-bearing.  Although I'm sure there must have been some less roomy women who wished another root word would be chosen.

So, since the Garden of Eden, child-bearing is the main prerequisite for motherhood.  A group of first graders were asked by their teacher to draw a portrait of their mother as they saw her.  The art was displayed at an open house. One mother was drawn standing on a sailboat.  Others were hauling groceries, cutting grass, or talking on the telephone.  In each picture, the mothers had one thing in common:  they were all pregnant.  Even kids seem to recognize the age old association.

Peter De Vries once described the mother's lot by saying, "A mother's role is to deliver children--obstetrically once and by car forever after."

But most women would not want themselves defined by child-bearing alone.  It is not the only thing that makes a woman, and on some days, is not the most favorite thing.  Like one woman who was getting on the bus with 11 children.  The bus driver looked at her and her brood and said, "Lady, are they all yours, or are you going on a picnic?"
"They are all mine," she replied, "and believe me, it's no picnic."

On good days and bad, part of how we define womanhood is going to do with child-bearing.  Not only child-bearing, but also child raising.  Certainly the dreams begin early concerning "what this child will grow up to be."

Some mothers are good at putting their intuitions to work about how their kids will turn out.  Others aren't quite that perceptive.  For example, one day, Mrs. Washington was overheard saying, "George never did have a head for money."  And Mrs. Morse finally got fed up one day and said, "Samuel, stop tapping your fingers on the the table--it's driving me crazy!"  And Mrs. Armstrong once said, "Neil has no more business taking flying lessons than the man on the moon!"

We could adapt the old saying to read, "Behind every great man is a great...mother."  Always pushing, always prodding their children, mothers want the best for their kids--to grow up to be decent human beings who wear clean underwear everyday.

I like the story of the mother who accompanied her son to his college registration.  She wanted to make sure that he had the right kind of roommate.  She also wanted to make sure that the college didn't tolerate foul language, dirty movies, or alcoholic beverages.  She wanted to make sure that her son was exposed to a totally wholesome atmosphere, she told the registrar.  "After all," the mother continued, "this is the first time he's ever been away from home, except for the four years he spent in the Navy."

Now, as we are trying to define what a mother is, we need to remember from whose perspective we are talking.  I think, so far, the definitions have been from an adult perspective.  But there are some variations when motherhood is looked at from a kids perspective.

I think one of the ways kids view their mothers is as a cook.  Certainly she is the one who hears the familiar lines from children and husbands alike, "What's for dinner?"  Or, "What's there to eat?"  From a kid's perspective, it is sometimes amazing how simply a mother can supply that request.

Once when the power went off at the elementary school, the cook couldn't serve a hot meal in the cafeteria.  She had to feed the children something, so at the last minute she whipped up great stacks of peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches.  As one little boy filled his plate, he said to a friend, "It's about time.  At last--a home-cooked meal."

Other kids, now grown, look back at the mothering they got and think of all the little wise sayings that spilled forth from mother's lips.  Motherhood, in this kind of remembering, is defined more with a very specialized brand of parental wisdom, accompanied, but not always, with a smattering of guilt.  One woman has recently capitalized on this by compiling a publishing what she calls, "momalies."

There's all kinds of these forms of momalies, often having to do with punishing a child.  One of the oldies but goodies, for example is, "This is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you."  Another one along those lines is, "I'll give you something to really cry about."  Or, "I brought you into this world; I can take you out."  One that became familiar in my house, bringing on the coldest shudders a child can feel, was, "Just wait till your father comes home."  Among the more philosophical double-binds is the classic, "If you fall off that swing and break your leg, don't come running to me."  Another good one along this line is, "Didn't I tell you not to talk with your mouth full!?  Answer me!"

A lot of the momalies had to do with the fine art of producing guilt in their children.  "I'm going to send all that food you left on your plate to all the starving children in China" has got to be the all time classic.  Probably a close second is the often used, "I'm only one person!"  Or, "I've only got two hands."  One mother, trying to work the Jewish mother routine on her son, said, "Every time you're naughty I get another gray hair."
To which the son, with a snappy comeback, answered, "Gee, Mom, you must have been a terror when you were young.  Just look at Grandma."

Even though some mothers may well be defined as those who inflict feelings of guilt, there is another side to that coin that children hardly ever see.  That is that mothers also feel guilt from just being a mother.  It is a side they seldom let their children see.  One mother wrote a poem and sent it in to Ann Landers.  It was titled, "To My Grown-Up Son."  It read:

My hands were busy through the day
I didn't have much time to play
The little games you asked me to
I didn't have much time for you.
I'd wash your clothes, I'd sew and cook,
But when you'd bring your picture book
And ask me please to share your fun,
I'd say, "A little later, son."
I'd tuck you in all safe at night
And hear your prayers, turn out the light,
Then tiptoe softly to the door...
I wish I'd stayed a minute more.
For life is short, the year's rush past...
A little boy grows up so fast.
No longer is he at your side,
His precious secrets to confide.
The picture books are put away,
There are no longer games to play,
No good-night kiss, no prayers to hear...
That all belongs to yesteryear.
My hands, once busy, now are still.
The days are long and hard to fill.
I wish I could go back and do
The little things you asked me to.

To be a mother is to participate in an inexact science.  Or, it is to be an artist in a field where not everybody's tastes are the same.  Criticism comes from all directions, but mostly, I think, it is most cruelly and devastatingly self-inflicted.  Thus, guilt and the self-doubt will mushroom at times like an atomic cloud.  That is the ache of motherhood.  It is part of her definition, and it is not easily fixed, barely with the application of some kind of band aid.

Another way kids define mother is "the one who is supposed to find things."  If you have ever lost anything, or have looked for something for at least two seconds and can't find it, who is the best person to ask?  Mother, of course.  One female comedienne once made the jest that children (and husbands) think that a woman's uterus is some kind of homing device that mysteriously locates lost toys and shoes.

One last category of defining motherhood is mother-in-law hood.  A little boy said to his grandmother, "Oh, boy; I'm so glad you came for a visit.  Now maybe Daddy will do the trick he has been promising us."
The grandmother was curious, and asked, "What trick is that."
The little boy replied, "I heard him tell Mommy that if you came to visit again, he would climb the walls."

So, what is a mother?  Probably the wisest words came from the guru of motherhood, the late Erma Bombeck.  In her introduction to her book, Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, she wrote:
"Mother" has always been a generic term synonymous with love, devotion, and sacrifice.  There's always been something mystical and reverent about them...They're the Walter Cronkites of the human race...infallible, virtuous, without flaws and conceived without original sin, with no room for ambivalence.
Immediately following birth, every mother drags herself from her bed and awkwardly pulls herself up on the pedestal provided for her.
Some adjust easily to the saintly image.  They come to love the adulation and bask in the flocks that come to pay homage at their feet on Mother's Day.
Some can't stand the heights and jump off, never to be seen again...
Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world.  It never questions age,  height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience...
Motherhood is not a once-size-fits-all, a mold that is all-encompassing and means the same thing to all people...
Some mothers cry when their thirty-year-old daughters leave home and move to their own apartments.  Other mothers sell their twelve-year-old son's bed when he goes to a long scout meeting.
I've always felt uncomfortable about the articles that eulogized me as a nurse, chauffeur, cook, housekeeper, financier, counselor, philosopher, mistress, teacher, and hostess.  It seemed that I always read an article like this on the day when my kid was in a school play and I ironed only the leg of the trouser that faced the audience, knitted all morning, napped all afternoon, bought a pizza for dinner, and had a headache by 10:30...
Anticipating the question of which mother am I in this book, I will tell you.  There's a little bit of all of them in me...
All of them are real in every sense.  They are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set to prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how.

I like that last line. Let me read it again.

Mothers are first and foremost, women.  It seems it should be obvious to us, but we seldom see people beyond their roles.  Why should women be any different?  Eve was certainly the first woman, created in the image of God, filled with the breath of God, before she was ever the first mother.  Her identity, then, is primarily in personhood rather than in motherhood.

One mother was telling stories of the time she was a little girl.  Her son listened thoughtfully as she told of riding a pony, sliding down haystacks, and wading in the brook on the farm.  Finally her son said with a sigh, "I wish I had met you earlier, mom."

What that little boy found out, and what every son and daughter needs desperately to see, is that mother is a person, too.  She is a person who has a story of her own, including childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.  She is a woman who has hopes and dreams beyond motherhood; who has an identity beyond being a mother; and whose personhood is not determined solely through her physical attributes--being "wide and roomy"--which leads to child-bearing.

However we define them, we are making them less than they are if we do not see them as vital individuals, gifted by God for all kinds of living outside the realms of motherhood.  They deserve our respect not because of the roles they fulfill (mothers, wives, cooks, chauffeurs, homing devices), but because they have within them the image of God.  We can see the likeness of God in them, and that is the main definition of her personhood.  Having the likeness of God gives a woman a sure and certain dignity far above any role she may take upon herself or be given by others.  Her recognition should be everyday because of who she is rather than for what she does.

Women are the mothers of all the living, as Eve was.  Yes.  But mothers are people, too.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Take Two Aspirin and Call Me In The Morning

"Take Two Aspirin and Call Me In The Morning"
John 5:1-9a
Luke 5:27-32

"Take Two Aspirin And Call Me In The Morning"
John 5:1-9a; Luke 5:27-32


A doctor came in and asked the patient, "Do you have any aches or pains this morning?"
"Yes, doctor," said the patient.  "It hurts me to breathe.  In fact, the only trouble I have now seems to be with my breathing."
"All right," said the doctor, "I'll give you some that that will stop that."

A doctor was talking to a new patient the other day.  In great alarm, the patient mentioned a rare and deadly disease of the liver and claimed to be suffering from it.
"Nonsense!" protested the doctor.  "You aren't suffering from that.  In fact, you wouldn't know whether you had it or not.  It is a disease which gives no discomfort at all."
"That's just it!" gasped the patient.  "My last doctor told me that.  And that's how I know I have it--I feel great!"

In the doctor's office, the patient asked, "Just how much are you going to charge me for this operation?"
"$10,000," the surgeon said blankly.
"Well," said the patient, "how about if I give you $50 and you just touch up the x-rays?"

When we go to the doctor, because of some ache or pain, we may get all nervous and anxious.  What if it's something serious?  We want to hear two things from our doctor:  1) it's not serious; and, 2) it's treatable.  In other words, we are going to be OK.  We don't want the doctor to look at our x-rays or test results and say something like, "Hmmmmm."  Or worse, "Oh, oh."

Usually, the whole trip-to-the-doctor thing follows a general pattern.

First, we feel some kind of symptom.  Something aches or hurts.  Or there is the sense that something is just not right.  Or you've fallen and you can't get up.  You have to feel something is wrong before you even think about going to the doctor.

For the lame man in this story in John 5, the symptoms were obvious--he had been sick or paralyzed or lame for 38 years.  The actual word that John used to describe the man is "weakness."  It obviously covered a wide range of meanings, including sicknesses, lameness, or even sin.  So the man had some sort of weakness that was chronic.

There there were the Pharisees in Luke 5.  They also had a weakness, but were oblivious to its symptoms.  Up to the point of talking with Jesus, they were out-to-lunch concerning what "weakness" they themselves were dealing with.

So the first step in dealing with illness is simply recognizing some symptom.  Something isn't right.  But, as Jesus pointed out, there are some forms of weakness that are insidious and may be unrecognized by the person.

The second step is when we go to the doctor.  We ask the doctor to diagnose what it is that's making us feel bad.  What are the symptoms?  Where are they located?  What could be causing them?  If you're having chest pains that are also causing pain down your left arm, it's probably not appendicitis.  Other symptoms are not as clear.  For example, a high fever and chills could be an infection, but where is the infection and what's causing it?

For the lame man in John 5, the cause of the "weakness" is not clear.  At least it's not described with any detail.  In that day and culture, a person with signs of physical weakness (lame, crippled, or paralyzed) as well as illness of any kind, was believed to be cause by a spiritual condition.  The person was sick because they were being punished by God.  Or they were sick because they were demon possessed.

The lame man probably had some kind of illness that resulted in his inability to walk.  But the spiritual interpretation put on the symptoms created a certain social and religious stigma for the man.  Thus, the diagnosis was done not only by a physician, but also by a Jewish priest.  When a person got well, they'd have to go back to the priest for an "all-clear" diagnosis.

For the Pharisee's in Luke 5, they hadn't seen a physician because they didn't see any symptoms.  They didn't recognize any weaknesses.  They didn't think they needed a diagnosis, because they didn't see anything wrong with themselves.

The reason we go to a doctor, especially when we think there's something terribly wrong with us, is because they have been trained in diagnosis.  They have the knowledge and the tools it takes to give us a name for the symptoms we are experiencing.  Once we know the name of what we're dealing with, there's a certain level of relief.  The physician is the one we go to because she knows the names.

In Luke 5, Jesus links himself to the work of a physician.  "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick?" He asks.  "I'm here for the sick," Jesus said, in effect.  He is also making a slam against the Priests, who think they are the best at diagnosing weaknesses.  What does Jesus' question force the Priests to question about themselves?  It forces them to examine their own vocation as "physician/healers."  If the priests are giving people the wrong diagnosis to the symptoms, they are not only doing the person no good, they may be making everything worse.

The obvious answer to Jesus' question is:  the sick are the ones who need a physician.  If that is so, then why--according to Jesus' line of questioning--are there so many people showing signs of "weaknesses"?  Why aren't they being attended to?  Who's really being the physician here, Jesus or the priests?  And if the priests aren't, what are they doing?  Who are they attending to?  The healthy?  Are they only diagnosing the health of the healthy?

In John 5, Jesus' diagnosis, or at least part of it, seems to be that the man with the 38 year old weakness may not want to get well.  It's easier being sick--being weak.  People carry you around.  Not much is expected of you.  Being sick/weak can be an easy and cushy life.

It has been proven that there is a significant drop in mental illness during wartime, or during some other national crisis, such as the Depression, or 9/11.  The study stated that there needs to be enough leisure time to spawn mental illness and other forms of weakness.  The man by the pool had 38 years of leisure.  So, Jesus' diagnosis is, "Leisure time/sick time is over; is that what you really want?"  What if the man answered Jesus' question, "No, I don't want to get well?"  My guess is Jesus would have just left him there and done nothing for him.

The third stage in dealing with illness/weakness is accepting the diagnosis of the physician.  Sometimes the doctor only confirms what we already know:  You're pregnant; your leg is broken; you had a heart attack; you have a virus."  Other times we may get told news we didn't expect or didn't want to hear:  There's a lump; high blood pressure; or, even, you eat too much and don't exercise enough."

Two men were talking.  The first guy said, "My doctor told me to play golf for my health."
"Well, what if you already play golf?" the second guy asked.  
"He tells you to stop."

Or there was the guy who went in for his annual physical.  He had a reputation for being a bit wild.  As he put his shirt back on, the man asked, "Well, Doc, do I have to give up wine, women, and song?"
"Not exactly," said the doctor.  "You can still sing all you want."

We have become big on getting second opinions of a diagnosis, and not just for insurance purposes.  It's also because it's a form of denial about the original diagnosis.  We don't want to accept it, so we hope we can find some other doctor to tell us something we'd rather hear.

Or, like the man by the pool in John 5, we make elaborate excuses rather than accept the facts of the diagnosis.  "I don't think you really want to be healed," Jesus said to the man.
"No, it's not that," the man replied.  "It's just that there's this angel that stirs the water every once in a while.  The first one in after the water's been stirred, gets healed.  I never make it.  I'm too weak.  I can't do it by myself.  No one helps me into the water.  So I just get someone to carry me here each day, waiting for another chance."

The Pharisees in Luke 5 didn't like Jesus' diagnosis either.  In fact, it says they were "greatly offended."  When we go to Jesus for help, we need to be ready to accept his diagnosis.  Jesus is going to be straight up with us and tell us exactly what our problem is.  If we're not ready or willing to hear it, then we may not, like the lame man by the pool, be ready to become well, either.

The last two stages of dealing with some sort of ailment go together.  Once the problem has been discovered, once we have gone to the doctor, once the doctor has diagnosed the illness or injury, and once we have accepted that diagnosis, then comes the prescribed treatment.  You may get medicine.  You may need surgery.  You may need physical therapy.  The doctor will prescribe some kind of treatment.

And then you have to accept and do the treatment.  It's no use going all that way, getting medicine that will aid your healing, and then not take it.  To the lame man by the pool, Jesus gave the prescription:  "Get up, take your bedroll, start walking."

Imagine a pause at that point.  Imagine what was going through the lame man's mind during that pause.  "I've done everything I could to get better.  I'm even sitting here by the pool waiting patiently--38 years patiently--for the miracle.  That's all that's left to me.  And here comes this guy, ragging on me because he's not sure I really want to get well.  What does he know about what I've been through?  I see him for maybe 20 seconds and he tells me all I have to do is get up and start walking!?  What kind of prescription is that?  And what kind of quack would tell me to do such a thing?"

But, still, at that moment, the man must decide if he will accept Jesus' prescription or not.  He has to decide if he will get up and try what Jesus was asking or not.  He may have all sorts of reasons why he shouldn't.  They all may sound like good reasons.  But he still has to decide if he's going to stand up and accept Jesus' word.  Only then will he find out if Jesus knows what he's doing or if he is some kind of quack.  Only if he does what Jesus asks, will he know.

Jesus said to the Pharisees in Luke 5 that he is the doctor--he is the one healing people inside and out.  He is the one who can change your life.  He is the one who can heal you.  The Pharisees weren't convinced.  Nor did they let Jesus try.  They only went away greatly offended.  But for them, like the lame man, they needed to accept Jesus' diagnosis.  They needed to accept Jesus' prescription and do what he asked.  But I guess it's kind of hard when you don't think there's anything wrong with you in the first place.

A wife said to her husband, "If you don't stop overdoing it, you're going to get an ulcer or have a heart attack."
The husband paused for a moment and said, "You mean I get a choice!?"

I don't know if we have a choice about the ailments that come our way.  I think sometimes we do.  But in terms of the cure or the treatment, that is entirely our choice.  How we deal with the ailment is our choice.  Jesus said he is available when we are feeling weak.  When we have been infected by sin.  When we feel life is out of control.  When we lie down and just don't feel like getting up--for 38 years.  Jesus is available.  If you'll let him.