Thankful in All Things

Last night, I was the preacher for the Lakeview Ministerium's Community Thanksgiving Service at the Oak Grove Church not far from Clarks Mills. I repeated (!) a sermon I had used in 2006... Turns out the Bible hasn't changed since then!

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Thankful in ALL Things

Philipians 4:4-8

Thanksgiving. I love this holiday. It's one of the most peaceful, deeply spiritual holidays for me. Yeah, I know Christmas and Easter are the biggies in the realm of religious holidays, but this one is SPIRITUAL.... there's no big religious festival, no ritual, no special call to worship prescribed in some book. In the Revised Common Lectionary there's not even a special Thanksgiving set of passages like the other religious days.

It's not a religious holiday, because it's not one prescribed by the church... not the church throughout the ages, not the Roman Catholics, not the Eastern Orthodox churches, not the Protestant churches, not even my own United Methodist Church.

But it is a spiritual holiday... and for me it is a Holy Day.

Why? Because it calls each of us to consider our lot in life and to be thankful...But not even to just be thankful, but to go beyond being thankful and actually give thanks.  It's wonderful to be full of thanks, but you gotta do something with all of that thanks or else it means nothing except a warm feeling.

With Thanksgiving, as we have it here in America, our government asks us to give thanks to God....yes, I said the government asks us to give thanks to God.  They may not highlight that aspect, but that's where it comes from isn't it?  You go to Canada and this week is not Thanksgiving week. You go to Mexico and this week is not Thanksgiving week.  You go to Britain and this week is not Thanksgiving week. You go to Israel, the one place where God's religious holidays are still observed, at least in part, and you'll find that this week is not Thanksgiving week. Only in America, where we are ONE NATION UNDER GOD.

Why do we celebrate Thanksgiving?  If I ask school children, they might tell me stories of pilgrims and Indians and a cold winter and then a fruitful harvest and a big feast with plenty to spare and the pilgrims proclaiming a day to give thanks to God.  Yep.  That's part of what we remember this week.

After that first harvest was brought in, it was the Governor of the colony, William Bradford, in 1621, who proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer.

It was an American President over two hundred years years later that asked us...."to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November."  And he did not ask us to just to be thankful, but listen to President Lincoln's actual words about this day. He wanted us to have a day of thanksgiving: "...as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens..."

And every year since then, whichever President is in that office has asked us to do the same thing. And so we celebrate Thanksgiving... and we give thanks and praise to GOD, because our government has asked us to.

Separation of church and state? Yeah, right.

Now, before you think this preacher is getting too strange, I just want to clarify something here.  I am not complaining that the government calls us to prayer.  I happen to like that a whole lot. 

(Although I'm not convinced that even us Christians use it as a day of prayer and giving thanks.  Unfortunately for many of us, if you watch us on this Thursday, you would think the day should be called THANKS-PIGGING, instead of Thanksgiving.)

My concern is much more Christian.... not governmental.

You see, I am afraid that since we find Paul and others reminding us so often to "give thanks" and then even the government of the United States has to set aside a day for us to give thanks, that maybe it is a sad indicator that we, the Christians, instead of entering the gates of our Lord with praise and entering His courts with thanksgiving, are actually nothing more than an ungrateful bunch of hypocrites.

Let's take a minute, shall we, and just do a reality check. Now, being a good Christian pastor, I won't ask you to raise your hands, but just consider with me the following items:

Ø When we pray, are we praising and thanking God...or just asking for stuff and for blessings or healings or whatever? Are we thankful people?

Ø When we are at church, are we in an attitude of gratefulness and worship...or are we looking for what someone else does wrong or does that annoys us? Or checking to see if the preacher makes a mistake? Are we thankful people?

Ø When we meet with the other people in our town are we focusing on the positives and the good things, the things someone has done well and praising them for a good job...or are we sitting there like vultures just looking for a weakness so that we may attack? Are we thankful people?

Ø Do we look around us in this country where we have the right to select our leaders, worship as we desire, and even are encouraged unwittingly by the government to have days of thanks and prayer and to praise God for a great land where we still live as One Nation Under God...  or do we deliberately badmouth and curse our leaders rather than pray for them? Are we thankful people?

The passage of Scripture I read a few minutes ago that says "THINK ON THESE THINGS" isn't just a nice suggestion... It is Scripture. There is a life-giving, life-fulfilling dimension of following the principles of Scripture. If we were to look at all aspects of our lives through the glasses of this Scripture, we truly could give God thanks and praise in all of life... no matter what may come our way... Because we would see things as God sees them.

It all boils down to a pretty easy mind-picture for me:

Imagine with me that we are at the mall in some other community where no one knows us and we are walking into a bookstore. There's the magazine section off to our left. We walk towards it and there are all kinds of magazines there, aren't there?

I am waiting for my wife to shop for whatever it is she's shopping for. I am bored stiff and so I have come to look through the magazines.... If I find one I really like, I may even pay money for it so that I can keep it.

What magazine to choose?  

 I see some of the titles: People, Us, Seventeen, Biblical Archaeology, Reader's Digest, Billy Graham's Decision magazine, Guideposts, US News & World Report, Teenbeat, Newsweek, Playboy, Penthouse... and the list goes on, because there are hundreds of magazines.

Now, do I begin picking up each and every magazine, reading it cover to cover?  NO! Because for me, some of those titles are AUTOMATICALLY ruled out, because they are advocate and support behaviors and actions that are contrary to what I believe.  I won't even consider buying them and I won't even consider looking inside them. I do not want my mind filled with the images that are contained in their pages.

That's EXACTLY what Paul's saying here, my brothers and sisters.  Every single day of our life, in every waking moment, we will choose things for our mind to dwell on and to think about.  And Paul says we, as Christians, need to be keeping our minds on the things that are true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. The things that are worthwhile and worthy of praise.

To allow our minds to focus otherwise is a direct contradiction to what we as Christians are to do.

It would be just like you or I going into that bookstore and making poor choices in our magazine reading. 

That's how we can easily become thankful again... by deliberately choosing what we’re going to focus on in our minds, in our thoughts. Rather than looking for negatives (which is SO easy), we’re going to start focusing on the things in our lives the way God does...by looking for the good in each situation, the lovely, the pure… by looking for the “thanksgiving” moment in each situation… the part of the situation that we can turn into a praise to God.

Yeah, we'll still encounter people who annoy us and do things wrong...they may even do a job differently than we like.  And they may even do something in the church in a way that we think is ridiculous and so very inefficient. Oh well. Too bad.

God didn't ask you or I to be his efficiency experts, we weren't called to right all the other Christians in the world… let alone stand as their judge.

Rather, we were called to shine a light... so that everyone who sees us will want what we have.  If all we do is focus on the bad and focus on the faults of other people, then all the others will see in us is vinegar.... and instead of drawing others to our churches and to our God, we will see them staying away from us like the plague.

Paul hits this message pretty hard and pretty personal... because it's a message that we seem intent on forgetting.  God is to be approached with praise and with the giving of thanks... and we are to approach our very lives with praise and the giving of thanks... and that's pretty hard to do if we’re looking for the what’s wrong around us. 

Let's approach this Thanksgiving time, and then the season of Christmas which so quickly follows, with the positive, affirming, praising, thankful approach.

And maybe we won't need the government to remind us to give thanks.

This was my devotional for the September 2010 newsletter from our Reynoldsville church...

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Jeremiah 9:3-9 (New Living Translation) God explaining why Judah ought to be destroyed:
“My people bend their tongues like bows to shoot out lies. They refuse to stand up for the truth. They only go from bad to worse. They do not know me,” says the LORD. “Beware of your neighbor! Don’t even trust your brother! For brother takes advantage of brother, and friend slanders friend. They all fool and defraud each other; no one tells the truth. With practiced tongues they tell lies; they wear themselves out with all their sinning. They pile lie upon lie and utterly refuse to acknowledge me,” says the LORD. Therefore, this is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: "See, I will melt them down in a crucible and test them like metal. What else can I do with my people? For their tongues shoot lies like poisoned arrows. They speak friendly words to their neighbors while scheming in their heart to kill them. Should I not punish them for this?” says the LORD. “Should I not avenge myself against such a nation?”

As I write this devotional, the Mix house is in full swing getting ready to head back to school. There are preparations to make and things to buy: new clothes, crayons, pencils, a bookbag, and more. But ultimately, the most needed preparation for school cannot be purchased at a store: an eagerness to learn. As my son begins first grade, there is an abundance of that commodity, so we’re just about set!

This morning though, this idea of being an eager learner came back to me while getting ready to have my own devotions. I try hard to NOT have my own personal devotional reading of the Bible be the same as searching the Bible in preparation for a sermon or a Bible study, so as I poured my coffee and headed to the table I was thinking: “OK God, is there some passage you want to lead me to this morning?” And as I laid my Bible down on the table, it fell open to the ninth chapter of Jeremiah.

I started reading through the chapter and was literally drawn to the short little Hebrew poem in verses 23 and 24:

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their power, or the rich boast in their riches. But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD who demonstrates unfailing love

and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,

and that I delight in these things.
      I, the LORD, have spoken!’”

God warns that there isn’t a good enough reason in ourselves to boast to others. The only reason we ever really have to boast is that we know Him! And then He gives us another peak at what He’s truly like: a God of never failing love and mercy who will none-the-less make sure there is justice and righteousness. By our choices and actions, we determine which way He’ll respond to us: mercy & forgiveness for those who have repented of their sin and judgment in order to establish justice for those who do not.

Did you catch that? God WANTS to be known to you and to me as a God of mercy and forgiveness MORE than as a God of judgment!

The phenomenal thing about this little poem about God’s real desires is that it follows a very hard passage (Jeremiah 9:3-9) where He is laying down the law so to speak. It’s like He’s in a courtroom detailing for the jury (which is also Him) why judgment and destruction are appropriate for the people of Judah based on these horrible actions they’ve committed.

THAT’s when He throws in this reminder that even though they may deserve judgment and vengeance, HIS hope is that they will repent, turn their back on their evil intentions, and ask for forgiveness. Because God would rather be gracious and merciful.

And in the midst of this I am reminded it’s not just our school kids that need an eagerness to listen and to learn… it’s ALL of us!

 
 

What is the Church?

These are my notes for Sunday, July 7th's sermon at the Clarks Mills United Methodist Church (Clarks Mills, PA).

Please understand these are SPEAKING notes, which means they have commas, elipses, spacing, italics, and bold print to help me, the speaker, to remember to pause or emphasize certain areas. NO attempt has been made to properly punctuate or to use rules for proper grammar. 

ALSO, I refer to God in accordance with the rules of English which speak of masculine pronouns being used to denote masculine objects or objects which have no gender. (It is the same reason I use the Spanish la (the) with casa (house)... not that "the house" is a feminine object, but rather because that's what the rules of Spanish specify.) I do NOT believe God is a man or male in substance, any more than I believe a house is feminine, even in Spanish.)

SERMON: “What is the Church?”


There is a story about a new pastor who is just out of seminary at his very first church.
First week…preaches about helping the poor and reaching out to the needy…


PEOPLE'S RESPONSE?     “GREAT sermon…”


2nd week… again, a great sermon… but it’s word for word the same thing as week one…


3rd week…SAME sermon again…


Emergency board meeting is called to address this problem!


When asked, the pastor’s response: I didn’t want to move on until we had done the stuff from the first sermon… Wanted to wait until people “got it” & “did it”


OBVIOUSLY, the pastor and the people had different ideas about what the church was supposed to be about…

The people wanted a nice “presentation” each week… The pastor wanted to see people reach out. Nobody had moved from their seats… the gospel didn’t really affect them…

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One of the ongoing struggles between pastors and their people, between different denominations of churches, between the theologians and seminarians alike, is how exactly do you define “church.”

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH IS SET APART BY A FAMOUS DEFINITION THAT SAYS THE CHURCH IS WHERE YOU GO TO RECEIVE THE SACRAMENTS… That’s pretty much the definition you hear from the I.R.S. as well… a “real” church has the administration of the sacraments and a “real” pastor is one who has those “sacerdotal” duties… he or she administers the sacraments. If that’s it, then why do we have YF groups and PrimeTimers or daycare or United Methodist Women or missions? And why bother with sermons and music? Just come and receive the sacraments…

And the church would never be outside these walls around us.

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just the sacramental duties… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH HAS BECOME A SOCIAL GROUP… You go to church because that’s where you meet some good people that are fairly trustworthy and would make good friends… or future spouses… or potential customers for your business.

In reality, that’s not so much “church” but rather a group like the “Rotary” or the “Grange” or the “Lions Club” or any number of other very good, very respectable organizations organized for good friendships and community service…

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just friendships and community service projects… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH SEEMS LIKE NOTHING MORE THAN A ‘PROPER GENTLEMEN’S CLUB’ … the members of their group felt like they were “above” those who weren’t members… you had to have the right credentials and the right skin color and the right status to become a member… and if you were a member of the right club then you were really something…. Prestige, honor, respect… and power… were yours…

In some places, it seems the church has become like that… If you belong to OUR church then you’re REALLY going to Heaven… If you are baptized the right way or do communion the way we like it, then you’re on your way…. If you line up with our doctrines in the right way and If you say the right prayer with all of the right words in the right order, and know exactly when to stand up or sit down, then you’re one of us…

…AND IF YOU DON’T, then you’re obviously going to Hell… and it serves you right!

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just doctrines and beliefs and prayers… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

IN SOME PLACES, THE CHURCH IS DISTINGUISHED BY WHETHER OR NOT THEY WORSHIP IN THE RIGHT WAY… Do you sing the old songs or new songs… (and the “old songs” might be hymns or for others the “old songs” are more like Gregorian chants out of the Middle Ages… and “new songs” might mean choruses written last week or a 500 year old hymn like “A Mighty Fortress is our God.”) Do we have the right rituals? DO we do things in the right order? Do we use the right version of the Bible…

Is worship led by the right people… maybe it’s led by a liturgist, or the organist, or the pianist, or a worship team, or maybe even the preacher himself…

But in that kind of church, it had better be done right!

Thank God, there’s more to the church than just pleasing people with our rituals and music… Those things happen, but it’s not the whole reason we’re here.

I’D LIKE YOU TO TURN WITH ME TO THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW to the record of one of Jesus’ encounters with the Pharisees… and I believe we’ll see one of the main reasons we’re here as a church… Listen and see if you can spot Jesus’ example for the church in this passage… FROM Matthew 9:9-13...

SCRIPTURE READING: MATTHEW 9: 9-13
Now understand, it’s the Pharisees that really get rankled by Jesus when he doesn’t do things the way they think they should be done… They spend their time at the synagogue, and later the Temple, watching to see what He’s going to do wrong next… They’re watching for mistakes… They’re focusing on form alone… and they find exactly what they’re looking for… Because Jesus couldn’t care less about the form of their worship… Or their rules… Because Jesus is concerned about the relationship with God the Father. That’s supposed to be the focus of worship… Experiencing God… connecting with Him as we praise HIM… and as we pray to Him… as we meet with Him and turn our thoughts to Him.

And if someone comes into worship with a need… spiritually or emotionally or even physically, then as they connect with God the Healer, Jesus sees it as perfectly acceptable to heal them…

And if they show up and have made a mess of their lives and are broken hearted or have had lives full of sin, then Jesus welcomes them into his presence… Because that’s his specialty… He is known as one who hangs out with sinners…

Jesus’ answer to those Pharisees, the religious leaders of His day, when they accused Him of eating and drinking with sinners is one of my favorite Biblical images of the church. The writer of Mark tells of Jesus’ answer this way: His answer simply was: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17).

I used to be an orderly in the Olean General Hospital and worked a few months between terms of school at the St. Vincent Health Center in Erie. When I get to this passage here in Matthew, and the corresponding spots in Mark 2 and Luke 5, the questions and concerns about “what is the church?“ start to fade away… BECAUSE THE CHURCH, AT LEAST IN PART, IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE A HOSPITAL!

In a hospital, there are supposed to be sick people and they are tended for by nursing staff and doctors who are subject to the very same maladies and destructive habits as the patients… and yet the sick can still go to a hospital to find healing and hope.

In a hospital, often the healing doesn’t come about in the same way the patient expected it to at their arrival, and sometimes, some people never are completely healed.

The church is like that….

The church is supposed to be a place to meet the Healer…. The one we call the Great Physician…. And those of us who man the stations and work the desk, are like those doctors and nursing staff at the hospital… we DON’T know everything that will cure or help and we may fall into the very same sins and addictions that you have come here to seek healing for… But together, like at the hospital, we the ones who are experiencing healing can help reach out to those who still need healing.

And that healing might come in the least expected ways, through some of the least expected people… but in the church… there’s hope for healing!

If the church is like a hospital, then we are called to be both a welcoming community and a healing community. We cannot help heal, if those in need of healing don’t feel welcomed to come in.

As a pastor, like a doctor in the hospital, I see my task to be to help the “patient” recognize the extent of their illness or injury and how they might begin to be healed. And just like in a hospital, I can help to facilitate that healing, but it will be God and the sick person that actually do the healing.

A COUPLE OF OTHER SIMILARITIES JUMP OUT AT ME AS WELL… You see, in order to be treated in a hospital, a patient has to actually physically show up at the hospital. ALSO, the patient has to actually recognize and admit that they really are sick or wounded and in need of healing.

A patient healing in the hospital also has to allow, and participate with, the life sustaining and restoring remedies doled out by the physicians and therapists.

In short, the one in need of healing must be willing to be healed.

Without that initial desire to be healed, to be made whole, no healing can happen, no matter how open and welcoming the hospital is.

I find the same to be true in the church. The church has opened its doors and welcomed all to come in.

For the one who suffers because of their own sin, repentance and a willingness to change will be the starting point for healing.

For one who has suffered a woundedness through the sins of others, the healing process will be more complicated, yet still possible, as issues of justice and forgiveness are sorted out and resolved.

Either way, healing can be painful, and still requires a willing participation by the ‘patient.’ But without a recognition of the need for healing and a willingness to participate in the healing process, there is little the church really has to offer that one.

That doesn’t limit anyone’s coming to the church, any more than not admitting illness or injury block’s one from visiting a hospital. There just simply is no way for the hospital to treat a visitor with its healing remedies, because the hospital visitor doesn’t allow themselves to become a patient.

To be healed, requires participation, not visitation or spectatorship.

Likewise, in order to receive all that the church has to offer, we must participate, in the remedies of repentance and forgiveness, (Ps. 51: 16-17).

As a pastor then, like that doctor, I must recognize that sin is a reality and not turn a blind eye when I am aware of sin, whether it is done by, or to, one of the “patients” or in our case, one of the parishioners.

Now understand, there’s a stark warning goes hand in hand with this view though: if you do not like being around people who are sick or wounded, then you really should never plan on going to a hospital for any reason... or to a church for that matter.

For these are places where the ill and injured are not only welcome, but they are the very ones who are expected.

The very existence of the church, like the hospital, is designed for the weak to become strong, the wounded to become well, and the sick to be restored.

Hospitals are not associations of whole people trying to keep from being injured, weak, or sick, although there are ways the hospital can help facilitate those very activities after healing has begun.

In the same way, the church is not designed to be a place where “good people” avoid sin, sickness, and woundedness, although once healing has begun, the church can assist each other in remaining free from inflicting or receiving the negative effects caused by sin.

But rather, a hospital, and a church, are both designed as places where sick people go.

A further comparison is possible between the church and a hospital. In a hospital, because virtually all are there have something wrong with them, it is almost always a place where you can accidentally be infected with someone else’s sickness, and where the wounded become even more susceptible to developing illness along with their injury.

Staff and patients alike must be on guard against the further transmission of disease. The church as well, being filled with sinners, runs the risk of “rubbing off on someone else” with their particular sinful tendency, thus creating more sickness, hurt, or injury from within the very midst of the healing community we call the Church.

So what does that mean for us today?

It means that we have to be very intentional about our ministry… Our focus can never be just about details of worship services or particular programs… Our focus must always be experiencing God ourselves and helping others come to that place too… For that, my friends, is a place of healing.

It also means that church is “messy” sometimes…. Things don’t go as planned… just ask an emergency room nurse about how often things go as planned in an E.R… but by their very flexibility to help each person wherever they are, in whatever situation they are in, they are agents of healing…

Can we as the church, be that flexible? Can we meet people where they are… or must they line up with the way we want to do things? Can they come “Just as I am” like we’re always singing?

Ultimately, there is more to the church than just being like a hospital, but one of our traditions I’m told is to not have three hour worship services… so this is enough for this day. But on and off, as the Holy Spirit leads, we’ll be talking throughout this next year about God’s leading and God’s expectations for us as a church… and for every church. I haven’t been here long enough to know what does and doesn’t apply to us yet, so be assured I’m not throwing darts at anyone…

But it just seems fair from the very beginning of our time together that you know and understand that part of the vision and burden that the Lord’s placed in my heart, is to see the church as a place of healing where people are accepted and where all can encounter this Healing God we serve.

For that is WHAT the church is… people worshipping God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And as we do that, we will also find healing.

How do we make sure people see us as a place to find healing… rather than just a place to play softball or eat great food or to take care of kids?

How can we reach out and make everyone feel welcome here?

I believe it is by doing all of those other things WITH A HEART OF DRAWING PEOPLE INTO THE CHURCH ASSEMBLED SO THEY TOO CAN FIND THE HEALER.

Jesus offered healing… and people who needed healing came to him because they knew him… and people who needed healing knew him because he hung out with those people… And hanging out with Jesus as one of his followers was like being in a hospital emergency room… never predictable, never boring, always surrounded by the injured and the sick… the really, really sick…

And that’s what I believe we the church are to do in order to really be the church.

And that’s not just a preacher thing… any more than a hospital is just about one doctor… Rather, we all together, open our hearts, and our minds, and our doors to those who need Jesus… and in so doing we find ourselves welcoming those who need help and there’s room there for you and me as well in that group isn’t there?

WHAT is the church?

The church is a lot like a hospital!

The Dam That Could Not Break

from  "The Flame" (Clarks Mills, PA United Methodist Church newsletter)

    Today marks 100 years since the failure of the Austin Dam not far from my hometown. My daughters & I had a chance to visit the ruins a few summers ago. Growing up just about 30 or so miles away, I had vaguely been aware of the September 30, 1911 failure of the dam & the ensuing flood. But I had never stopped to see the remains.

     In 1909, on the wisdom of the latest experts, the dam was deliberately designed backwards from conventional wisdom. The flat side of the dam wall was built to face the water & the dam’s sloped section faced downstream. The idea, supposedly, was that this would provide an even greater strength to the structure. It was claimed that this would be a “dam that could not break.” In fact, when flood survivor Marie Kathern Nuschke wrote her eyewitness account of the event almost 50 years later, she entitled it: The Dam That Could Not Break.

     When people would question the logic and/or the safety of the dam, the engineers & owners (& even other residents) would simply laugh & say things like: “That dam will stand when you all are dead.” Nuschke wrote that there were two people who were adamant in their concerns about the dam, Sarah Willetts & William Nelson. Not only were they summarily dismissed, but most of the community laughed at them as well. And despite their misgivings, they stayed in Austin. Later, when the flood did in fact come, they too were killed.

     As I stood there in the midst of those remains reading names of those who died in this tragedy, I was reminded of how many times such conceit & overconfidence resulted in equally disastrous effects.

     I’m reminded of the arrogance & pride of the builders of the Titanic who claimed that “Even God couldn’t sink this ship.” And yet, sink it did. The lack of concern over the safety of the local residents in Austin reminds me of the stories of the owners of the South Fork Club that disregarded safety warnings & their dam eventually burst & wiped out much of Johnstown, Pa. just two decades earlier in 1889.

    What started as a chance to stretch our legs on a long trip, turned into a time of hearing the Lord speak to me about three things. First, just because experts claim something is safe or “everyone else agrees” with an idea, neither makes it safe nor right. After all, following the crowd and going with the majority assures you of Hell, not Heaven. Secondly, Proverbs 16:18 says “Pride goes before destruction, & haughtiness before a fall.” Unbridled arrogance & pride, especially without compassion, is a disaster just waiting to happen. Third, I sensed a great deal of grief for those two people who had seen the danger & had tried to warn others, & yet did not escape. It reminded me that it’s not enough to know of the danger or even to tell others. We need to also take care of ourselves. Spiritually, it’s the same way. It’s not enough to know that there is a Hell, or even to warn others. If we haven’t accepted Christ & established our own place in eternity, then we won’t escape either.

     Finally, as we left, I stopped at the little bridge that leads into the park and snapped this picture of Freeman Run, the water source the Austin Dam had tried to block to harness the power of the water. Yet without the proper respect & attention to its dangers, this tiny little brook caused the death of dozens. It was a reminder to me of the effect & importance of paying attention to the seemingly little decisions in our lives, for they can have grave consequences later.

     As I drove away from that memorial that day, I found myself comparing my attitudes and decisions to those of the ones behind the disastrous failure of the Austin Dam a hundred years ago. How about you?

Standing In The Gap

    “Fed up, God decided to get rid of them— and except for Moses, his chosen, he would have. But Moses stood in the gap and deflected God’s anger, prevented it from destroying them utterly.”   

                                           — Psalm 106:23 (The Message)

    “I looked for someone to stand up for me against all this, to repair the defenses of the city, to take a stand for me and stand in the gap to protect this land so I wouldn’t have to destroy it. I couldn’t find anyone. Not one.”     

—Ezekiel 22:30 (The Message)

     Oh God, how many times are we, your chosen people in this day and age, the very ones you’re waiting for so that we can “stand in the gap” to turn away your anger like Moses did? Like you kept wanting someone to do in Ezekiel’s day, and you never did find someone who would?

     Is this the explanation of how it is that you could “change your mind” in the Old Testament stories? I wonder if in every situation where people faced Your judgment, that it was always your intention to grant mercy to them IF someone would simply “stand in the gap” in order to “turn away your anger.” The judgment is deserved, but you’d rather offer grace and mercy and forgiveness… if someone would just intervene and intercede.

     You judged the people in the desert and they deserved to die...but Moses intervened, he stepped in and pleaded desperately for them… and for his sake, you showed them mercy. You didn’t give them what they really deserved….

      You judged the people in Ezekiel’s day and sent Ezekiel with your message and kept waiting for someone on the receiving end of that message to step in and plead for mercy for your people… and no one did… and so the judgment was carried out.

      Today, the world around us clearly has walked away from your ways. If you’re truly a righteous and just God, then You have to judge us… our people, our land, our nation… You’ve sent your warnings. Is the seeming pause we sense just a God-given chance for us, your chosen people, to “stand in the gap” and plead for our friends and neighbors and relatives? To plead for mercy? To pray for forgiveness?

     O God… we modern American Christians are more likely to condemn those around us than we are to be an advocate for them. We see their sin and think “God’ll get you for that!”

     We are SO wrong! Forgive us O God and change our wicked hearts! Give us the compassion and love of Moses that he felt for his friends and neighbors and relatives. Teach us to stand in the gap!

—from Pastor Dayton’s devotions for the Reynoldsville Men of Promise breakfast, March 21, 2007

Where Were You?

IN HONOR OF THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF SEPTEMBER 11th, I ADAPTED AND RE-PUBLISHED AN EARLIER REFLECTION AS MY SEPTEMBER 2011 PASTOR'S NEWSLETTERS.
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     Country singer Alan Jackson sings a wonderful song that asks a powerful question:  “Where were you when the world stopped turning?” about the events of 9/11/2001.

     Here we are about to face the ten-year anniversary of that horrific day and people will be asked that very same question again: “Where were you when you found out about the terrorist attacks?” Personally, I was in the Patton church office on the phone. The person I called told me about the planes crashing… and the terror. We quickly finished talking and I left to watch the news. How about you? Where were you? And what were your initial reactions? Your first thoughts? What did you do next?

Jackson runs through a series of questions asking what people did next: “Did you dust off that Bible at home?” Did you “Open your eyes and hope it never happened, close your eyes and not go to sleep.” Did you turn off the TV violence, give blood, buy a gun, or go home and cling tight to your family…

You know, this ‘singer of country songs’ is really on to something… we each had choices to make following those events. In the book of Job, the Bible teaches that even when our world crashes around us, we still have choices as to how we respond. We couldn’t control what those terrorists did, but we ARE in control of how WE respond… We make the choice of how we deal with fear and terror, uncertainty and anger, just as we’re responsible for our choices in every other situation in our lives.

As this song says, some people did respond by turning for protection by buying a gun. Others responded by wishing the whole thing had never happened, or being overwhelmed by such fear that they couldn’t sleep at night. Some responded by seeking for ways to help, by giving blood or sending money. Where we lived (about an hour from Shanksville where one of the planes went down), there were some that went to our United Methodist Camp Allegheny to serve meals to the officials and investigators. Some did, in fact, turn to God in prayer, at church, and by reading their Bibles.

Even as Christians, we faced those same kinds of choices didn’t we? We had to choose who to run to, who to talk to and share our feelings and emotions with, and what to do next. And like everyone else, we immediately felt alone… And that’s where we Christians have our first advantage over others; for we believe in Jesus, who is called “Emmanuel,” which means: “God with is.” (Matthew 1:23). People are again asking “where was God?” The truth is that He was there in the planes, He was there in the towers and in the Pentagon. He was there with YOU when you first heard and then walked through those mind-numbing next few days and weeks. Jesus said “I am with you always.” (Matthew 28:20)

Secondly, our protection in this sin-sick world, is never going to be found in guns or more violence. Even our military attempts at silencing this or that particular terrorist will never be completely successful, but God reminds us that He is our “refuge” and our “strength.” He is the “ever-present help” we can turn to in times of trouble and not be afraid. (Psalm 46:1-2)

Third, Jackson’s chorus echoes words of truth we read in the Bible that say “perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18)  and of “faith, hope, and love.” (I Corinthians 13:13) Our fear will give way to peace, even in the worst of circumstances if we can get closer to our God; about whom the Bible says “God is Love” (I John 4:8). Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

As we remember the tenth anniversary of that horrific day, let’s go to Him, get closer to Him, read what His word has to say. Let’s pray and talk with Him and feel His peace. In fact, how about joining us on Sunday, September 11th at 10:45 a.m. when we as a congregation do those very things together as we worship Him!

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way.”

 (II Thessalonians 3:18)

Civil War, Ku Klux Klan, and anonymity

      In the aftermath of the Civil War, there were some in the south who felt powerless because they had lost and their desired way of life was no longer available to them (i.e. owning slaves and getting to act like the GOD over those slaves). When they lost that, they resorted to going out at night, hiding their identity with white hoods and sheets, and trying to bully the ones they used to be able to intimidate as slaves. They started intimidating and bullying their own neighbors when the neighbor did something to irk them. And people never talked about those things because you never knew who was, or wasn't, a member of the Ku Klux Klan organization. They just kept the town secrets to themselves for fear that they would be the next one on the receiving end of the intimidation.

     Nowadays, as far as I know, it's not the KKK that does the bullying. Even in the church, there are the "anonymous" letter writers who hide their identity in order to bully others. And most of the time, the letter recipient is so devastated that they never tell others and so nothing ever changes. And the church of Jesus loses another person that Christ himself died for.

     A friend of mine recently got two anonymous letters telling her what to do and what not to do, even going as far as telling my friend she could no longer attend her church. The authors of these letters apparently are ticked off about something that happened (or didn't happen) and feel they "just have to" take action to set things right. And so they hid their identity by calling themselves a "Concerned Parish member" and a "regular [church] attendee."

     As a pastor, I've received my share of anonymous letters. And they're worthless! There's a reason that newspapers specify that they will not print letters to the editor that aren't signed. Because if there is something important that needs to happen, people will own up to the idea or the critique and help DO SOMETHING about whatever problem there is. Those who are just ticked off because they don't get their own way, and know they'd be wrong if they openly confronted someone about their concern, try to be anonymous. Folks, if your beef isn't worth YOUR name and YOUR time being associated with it, then it's not worth our time and attention either.

     JESUS taught us, in Matthew 18:15-17, that if we have a problem with someone else WE are to GO TO that person that offended or hurt us... alone and in person. That way, you can hopefully get things worked out and a friendship is maintained. If that person doesn't respond by making things right, then you get a couple of other people to go with you next time. In my religious tradition, that quite often is either the pastor or the Staff-Parish Relations Committee (SPRC). If the person STILL doesn't make things right, then you treat her or him like you would a common sinner.

     HOWEVER, if YOU remember that YOU are the one who has hurt someone else by your words or your actions, then Jesus explained in Matthew 5: 23-24 that it is up to you to go approach the one you hurt to try to make things right. That doesn't mean they forgive you (some will, some won't), but you must do your best to make it right if you want God to bless what you do.

     As Christians, we ARE in a Civil War today. Those who ought to be subjects of the Almighty King (Satan & his demons) have rebelled and refuse to bow their knee to their rightful King and Lord. Furthermore, when Jesus died on the cross, and then was raised from the dead, he defeated Satan completely. JESUS WON THAT WAR!!!

     However, in the same way that the KKK was unwilling to admit defeat and tried to intimidate those who had been made free, so it is with the devil and his hordes of followers. When we are following what Christ taught us, we are dangerous to them and we become targets for the evil tactics of a frustrated, defeated enemy. Since Satan cannot get at God, he sends his remaining demons to try and make life so difficult for the believers that maybe, just maybe, he can get us to give up on church and on God.

     OH, by the way, there is one more concern to take into account for those who would jab and fight from under the cover of anonymity: you are NOT anonymous to God. He sees what you do and knows the evil you intend, whether you burn crosses or send unsigned nasty letters.

     FOR THOSE OF US who know someone who's been on the receiving end of a bully's evil efforts, there are a couple things we can do.

     First, PRAY! Pray that God would cover the letter recipient with his love and comfort and grant them the courage and peace they will need to be able to deal with such evil.

     Second, find a way to let that person know how much they ARE loved and how little that bully speaks for the group. Talk, listen, spend time with him or her. (And facebook, twitter, and my space don't count! The one you are trying to encourage needs to be able to hear the empathy and love as you are with them... online doesn't allow that and even great thoughts can seem hurtful at times).

     Third, don't just react to them. I mean, they need to feel loved and connected, but if you and I just get MORE offended and take his (or her) problem on as our own, then we can't help as much. Usually, it ends up sounding like a gripe session where EVIL is the only topic of discussion and the God of love is left out. (Again, that's another reason to avoid the online treatment of such an important matter.)

     GOD knows who is a bully and a coward trying to destroy one of his loved ones. Let's make sure that can NEVER be said about us.

A Deeper Understanding of Worship... It Even Smells!

My wife, my son, and I went to an AWESOME worship experience!

Held at the Galloway UMC near Franklin, PA, it was a little bit concert, but a lot more of worship… yet not like a “contemporary” or “traditional” worship service.

Worship leaders Nic & Rachel Billman, of Shores of Grace ministries, were the primary vocalists, and Nic was clearly the team leader.

During the course of the evening, they shared from John 12:1-3, where Mary (the sister of Lazarus) came to where Jesus was and anointed his feet with a very expensive perfume. And Scripture says “The house was filled with its fragrance.” (NLT)

The Billmans explained that, as a church, we need to have our times of worship be like that time of anointing. Like Mary, what we do for Jesus so permeates the very air around us that even after we leave, people can still tell we’ve been with Jesus. What do we do in worship?? Is it about this person’s favorite hymn or that chorus those people like so much? Is it really supposed to be about the responses or the ways to commune or when the offering is taken?

NO! Worship is something WE do FOR Jesus! It is SO much like Mary anointing Jesus’ feet. She took a jar of “nard” (some kind of perfume) and lavishly gave it all for Him! In fact, I remember reading once that the cost of that nard probably would be akin to a year’s worth of paychecks for one of us now-a-days. She gave her all! She gave her best!

That’s the kind of worship we need in our times of gathering as the church. We so focus on him and expressing our love to Him, that there is a fragrance of sorts that clings to us as we go back to our everyday world after church services. But that requires that we give our best and give our all when we go to worship.

How? How about by doing what the Bible already tells us: Enter his gates with thanksgiving and come into his courts with praise?

Far too often, we have had a struggle to get out the door just to make it to the church building on time. (Especially if you have kids it seems!) We have had words with our spouse, or we had to jump the car battery, or ran into a grouchy person at the gas station en route. And of course there’s Mrs. McGillycutty who has that hideous hat on in the pew ahead of you. How can you enjpy worship with stuff like that going on?

And of course, then we bring all of that with us as we enter his gates and come into his courts. And so the worship experience is pretty flat for us.

The gathered worshippers in Galloway this evening were challenged to let all of that stuff go… and to offer our very best to God as we worshipped in listening and, occasionally, singing.

As we prepare for another Sunday morning worship time, let’s start the worship BEFORE we walk into the church building… Sing in your heart, think through (maybe even as a family) how God has been in your midst as you have travelled through this past week… and THANK Him.

Worship doesn’t come from a bulletin… it comes in with a worshipper. And as we lavishly pour out our worship on our Lord, we will walk away looking and talking and smelling like Jesus!

What is United Methodism?

In 2001, in Patton, PA, most of the town's churches (Protestant and Catholic) gathered during Lent, as they had done for years prior. But this year, 2001, the pastors agreed to them their 'devotional' message (given on the week their congregation served the soup & sandwich supper) around the beliefs and traditions of their Church. These are essentially my notes from that night 10 years ago. The only changes were spelling and grammar.

 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

DAYTON'S NOTES for Lenten Supper March 27, 2001

What is United Methodism?

So… What makes us United Methodists unique?


You see, in the early part of the 1700s, an Oxford student named John Wesley and his brother Charles, were part of a small group of college buddies that got together regularly to pray, read the Bible, and encourage one another in their Christian walk.


Their intent was to help each other be obedient to the Biblical command that called for holiness and holy living from the people of God.


And they knew that alone they were going to mess it up. The church of their day was filled with priests and people who simply went through the motions of religion when they were in church services and lived like the devil all the rest of the week.


So these young men banded together to try and help each other face the temptations and the distractions so that they might be “holy unto the Lord.”


They believed a set pattern of consistently immersing themselves in God's Word was needed if they were going to be Christian. They also felt that Jesus' instructions about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the prisoners, were to be taken seriously… and that we as Christians ought to be about Jesus' business in those areas.


At one point, they called their group a “holy club.” Other students laughed at them and called them names like “method--ists.”


The name stuck, and Methodist to this day is a good description of what this denomination of Christians believes.


We believe that we must be INTENTIONAL about following Jesus Christ. You can't simply be baptized and then never acknowledge Christ again. You can't simply claim to have “accepted Jesus” and then live like the devil from then on. You can't simply go to church and figure you've made it into Heaven.


The analogy of a newborn baby fits pretty well here. Just like a baby has quite a bit of time between conception and its birth, so Methodism teaches that God's grace is poured out on us even before we are “spiritually born” and that the church, like the mother of that baby in the womb, has a role in caring and nurturing the yet unborn child of God.


In the same way that the baby in the womb eventually reaches a critical moment when the mother's water breaks and the baby is born, so Methodism teaches that there will be a critical moment where each of us will be “born again,” consciously deciding to allow Christ to be our Lord, our Savior, our source of hope and life. The difference lies in the fact that as humans, we have a choice as to whether we will be born in spiritual birth.


Likewise, just as parents of that newborn baby must then spend years feeding and caring for the helpless baby, Methodism teaches that we must care for the spiritual babes, and discipleship and training are hallmarks of Methodism.


But Methodism also recognizes that that physical child will never be able to quit feeding on physical food and caring for his or her physical body, and in Methodism we find a belief that we, as maturing Christians, can never be satisfied with our past history of being a Christian, but must be intentional about regularly feeding on Gods' Word, serving Him, gathering together with His people, and talking and listening to Him in prayer.


So far, we could probably be almost any church group represented here… and that's part of the message of Methodism. Wesley never intended to make a new church denomination. Methodists were a small group accountability, discipleship and evangelism movement WITHIN the regular church that its members already belonged to… the Anglican Church.


You would go church on Sunday at the Anglican Church, receive communion, be faithful to the church, you would have been baptized there and there you go to receive Holy Communion.


But then, sometime during the week, a Methodist would then gather at a Methodist meeting and study the Bible, pray together, and ask each other nosy, penetrating questions like `What sins have you committed this week that you need to repent of?' and ‘How is it with your soul?’


Methodism was an accountability group… in fact, if you covenanted with these people to be a “Methodist” then you HAD to pay a set apportioned amount into the group coffers to be able to help pay for the ministries of reaching out to the poor with food and clothing. And if you covenanted with these people to be a “Methodist” you HAD TO be present each week. You miss more than a couple of times (without being sick or something) you were kicked out of the Methodist Society.


In fact, it wasn't until the American Revolution, when the Anglican priests were called back to England, that John Wesley finally consented to actually having “ordained” pastors in American Methodism. In so doing, the preachers, which had simply been lay ministers, were now able to become ordained and thus, able to officiate over the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.

The new American brand of Methodism, in 1784, was called the Methodist Episcopal Church, meaning we were Methodist in our beliefs and episcopal in our structure. (The word 'episcopal' means led by a bishop.) Today we are known as United Methodists, because the Methodists have united with others of similar beliefs through the years.

Methodism really is a lot like almost all other churches. Especially the Anglican Church and its American brothers and sisters, the Episcopal Church. Methodists and Anglicans both come out of the Anglican Church and our views on so many things are similar. We work together well.


Methodism shares a heritage with Catholicism, Roman and Byzantine, for it was Wesley's reading and consuming the works of church writers from both realms that helped influence his formulation of what it meant to be a Methodist. And we, like they, to this day find bishops discerning where its pastors will be best used in ministry settings.


Methodism shares a heritage with the Presbyterian's Calvinistic background. Wesley found he could agree with many of the ideas Calvin put forth about heaven and hell… although Wesley stressed that WE the individuals had free will to respond to God's outpoured grace.


Methodism then and now, believes strongly in the idea that EVERY believer in Jesus Christ is a minister. Agreed, some of those believer/ministers are called to some extra tasks in the church as ordained pastors, but the ministry of evangelism, nurture, outreach, and witness, is the role of EVERY Methodist.


The annual conference, made up of all the pastors and all the local churches in an area, sends pastors on a rotating basis, to help train and equip the saints in doing those various ministries. Sunday morning, to a Methodist, is supposed to be a weekly re-equipping time for them as a minister.


In fact, in Methodism, the highest a pastor can hope to go is to become an `elder', which in most denominations is simply a layperson who is in charge of leadership in the church… And as pastors, our highest call and greatest recognition is simply as one of the “everyday believers...” who has a specialized ministry.

The final hallmark of Methodism is again something set in motion by John Wesley himself when he said "I am a man of only one book." In reality, he read A LOT of books, but only one, the Bible, could be used as the reliable, authoritative source of knowing about God. Today, our primary source of knowledge and belief is still the Bible. Sure we use our reason, our experience, and our heritage to help us make sense of the Bible and how it can be applied to us today, but the Holy Scriptures are where we always start.

John Wesley, when answering a question about "What is a Methodist?" responded that a Methodist was simply a Christian who had the love of God in his heart. 

“Running Through The Thistles”

One of the key lessons of pastoral ministry, for me, came in the late ‘90s as I prepared to say goodbye to my first charge. My superintendent at the time gave me a small booklet called Running Through The Thistles by Roy M. Oswald.

While focused on a pastor’s departure from a congregation, Oswald actually starts with a story from his own childhood. He and two older boys would walk to school (back in the one-room schoolhouse days) barefooted. But there was a short cut through a field that took out a lot of travel. But there was a catch: you had to go through a briar patch if you went that way. Otherwise, it was no savings of time.

Oswald relates that they would usually just simply go around the long way to and from school. However, a few times, when the fish seemed to almost call to them and nothing stood in their way of going fishing once they got home, they would decide to take the shortcut through those thistles. He then explains how they would gather their courage, and then run as fast as they could until they got through those thistles.

The problem, he writes years later, was that once they hurried and got through them, was that they had to then sit down in the field and one by one, painstakingly, remove each and every prickly thistle… and it actually took longer than if they had simply gone around the barbed barrier.

His point in relation to departing pastors is that there are two choices of how a pastor says goodbye to a church and a church bids a pastor farewell. One is to do the hard work of celebrating relationships, reconciliations, and forgiveness; much like Oswald’s long way to school.

The other is to hurry and just ‘get outta there’ as fast as you can. That’s like running through the thistles. When we try to separate ourselves from the experience so that it ‘goes faster’, we actually leave a legacy of pain and hurt, distrust and hesitancy. Thus, when we meet the people in the next church or try to welcome the next pastor that comes, we’ll start with the same issues and concerns we thought we had left behind. We’ll be years trying to pull out the thistles, and those thistles will influence every relationship in the context of church from then on.

So, I choose to take the long way out. I want to celebrate the ministry we’ve been able to do together and grieve for the ones we’ve had to say goodbye to during our time together.

Already, there are some who have tears in their eyes as we talk about what’s yet to come. Others, not so much.

And for the sake of both groups, and for me as well, this is STILL a time to seek reconciliation, forgiveness, healing, and restoration. After all, we’ve been praying in worship for some five years together asking that God forgive us only as much as we have forgiven others. (“forgive us… as we forgive…”). When we feel offended or hurt, our response is like a requisition asking God to treat us the same way whenever we fail, mess up, and sin. And God has been listening all these years.

So how about it? Let’s take the longer, healthier path as I draw closer to my departure next month. Let’s make sure that there is nothing left for us to have to deal with years from now. Let’s talk together, let’s pray together, let’s forgive one another, let’s celebrate what we were able to do together in ministry… Because this isn’t the last time we see each other. Every single one of us is just one missed heartbeat away from eternity. And as ones who believe in Jesus, our plan is to spend all of eternity together with each other in his presence. Let’s get any unfinished business taken care of here, now.

The Staff-Parish Relations Committee (the old “PPR”) has set up a final informal gathering, set for Friday, June 17th at the church camp. And then, on that Sunday (6/19), we will worship together for the last time with me as your pastor.

God Bless!               

Pastor Dayton

“I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all…” (Romans 1:8a, NKJV)

(from Reynoldsville: First United Methodist Church's May/June 2011

newsletter: "The Sound of the Trumpet")