Rescue Plans & Bailouts
November 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment
A couple of weeks ago I read an article detailing then presidential candidate John McCain’s links to Hampton Roads. It went into some detail describing his experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. That reminded me of an earlier article from Time magazine. This article highlighted the role that faith had played in McCain’s life.
Following his captivity, his mother told him that she would often hear his father praying for John’s safety. No one could have imagined how God would answer those prayers.
While being held as a POW, McCain endured hours tied into agonizing positions. His captors would “tie [his] arms behind [his] back and then loop the rope around [his] neck and ankles so that [his] head was pulled down between [his] knees.” It was not unusual for him to spend entire nights in this position.
Once, when he had been tied into this position, a guard entered his cell and put his finger to his lips. Without a word, the guard reached down, loosened the rope and left the cell. Before leaving his shift in the morning, the guard returned and refastened the ropes, so the other guards would believe that McCain had been in that position all night.
At the time, McCain could not explain this unexpected kindness. Why would this guard risk retribution from his peers in the name of giving comfort to an enemy?
A month later, on Christmas day, he got his answer when the same guard approached him in the prison courtyard. The guard did not smile at him or speak to him. He didn’t even look at him. But he did give him a message. With one foot he traced a cross in the dirt. McCain said of that encounter: “We stood wordlessly looking at the cross, remembering the true light of Christmas, even in the darkness of a Vietnamese prison camp[*].”
I can’t think of a better illustration of the meaning of Christmas. This week begins a series of Sundays where we’ll remind ourselves of the Good News of Christmas. When we were in prison; when we were in a dark place without hope; God sent someone to remind us that we were not alone or forgotten. He sent Jesus.
Celebration Sunday has been postponed until December 14th. And given the bleak state of our economy this doesn’t promise to be the most celebratory of Christmas seasons. But in spite of all of that, there is good news to celebrate, I hope you can do that this morning.
[*] “A Light Amid the Darkness,” www.time.com, August 7, 2008.
Giving Thanks
November 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
This story comes to us straight from the Good News/Bad News department. According to an article from Reuters, John Brandrick, a 62-year-old British Man was told a few years ago that he had pancreatic cancer, a form of cancer with a median survival rate of less than one year. Facing such a dire prognosis, Brandrick’s response sounds reasonable enough. He decided he was going to enjoy the remainder of his life as much as possible.
Brandrick stopped paying his mortgage, stopped saving money and spent everything he had living the good life. He took frequent vacations and dined out whenever he wanted. At the end of a year he owned little more than the black suit and red tie that he planned on wearing to his own funeral.
But time passed and, much to his surprise, Brandrick’s health did not decline. So he returned to his doctor to get a checkup only to find out that what had appeared to be a tumor was merely a temporary inflammation of the pancreas. Brandrick wasn’t going to die at all. That’s the good news. The bad news is that he had spent everything he had and was facing foreclosure on his home.
He told Reuters, “I’m really pleased that I’ve got a second chance in life… but if you haven’t got no money after all this, which is my fault — I spent it all — they should pay something back.” At the time of the report Brandrick was considering legal action against the hospital.
What an interesting predicament. To be given your life back only to realize that you have spent or given away the life that you had. Can we blame Brandrick for his mixed feelings? Of course it’s good news that he’s not dying. But that probably doesn’t keep him from being worried about his future now that his finances are in such bad shape.
This morning and next Sunday, in observation of Thanksgiving, we’re going to be talking about giving thanks. I think that Brandrick’s story is a good place to start, because I believe that most of us are like John Brandrick when it comes to gratitude. Perhaps you already see where I’m going with this. If not I’ll try to explain later on.
For now, let me just remind you how grateful, how thankful, I am for this congregation. We are blessed with another opportunity this morning to visit with each other and to remember the love of God. That’s a wonderful thing.
Behind The Scenes
November 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment
A recent AP article on MSNBC.com tells of a Yale Study which demonstrates that babies as young as 6 months old know which playmates to seek out and which ones to avoid. Psychologists showed a “googly-eyed toy” trying to climb “roller coaster hills” to a variety of babies age 6 to 10 months. They were then shown two types of additional toys. One type of toy would help the googly-eyed climber up the hill. The other would push it back down.
Finally each baby was given the choice of playing with the “helpful” or “harmful” toy. According to the article, “nearly every baby picked the helpful toy over the bad one.” Babies would also choose to play with neutral toys, but they preferred the helpful ones to either of the other ones. If researchers removed the eyes from the toys, rendering them less “life-like,” the children stopped making distinctions.
Of course scientists are divided as to how these data should be interpreted. Those who conducted the Yale study believe it to be evidence that humans have innate social skills that don’t need to be taught. Others argue that it merely indicates that children are learning social behaviors at an earlier age.
At the risk of being an arm-chair researcher, it does indicate to me that, even at an early age, we look for people who will help us rather than hurt us. There is something in us that is looking for a teammate, someone who will make life easier. And we choose people who show that kind of promise. Most people don’t really want to go it alone.
This morning we’re going to look at a scripture that reminds us of this very fact. At the end of Colossians, Paul devotes some space to personal matters. He sends greetings from some of his companions to the church in Colosse. He greets some of the recipients by name. He asks that the Colossians receive the bearer of the letter as well as others who will be visiting them sometime soon.
All of this serves as a very important reminder to us. Even though Paul is the one who gets most of the credit, he was not working alone. He had a lot of help. Some of these helpers we know by name. But, even though we know their name, that’s all we know of them. The rest of their story has faded into obscurity. Surely there are other helpers of Paul who will forever be anonymous. I would hope that any of them would tell you that this is OK. What matters is not who gets the recognition, but that people hear the Good News about Jesus.
We all have a part to play. Most of us will not get very much recognition by others. I doubt any of us will go down in history for our contributions to the Kingdom of God. No matter. God knows the part we are playing. And the Kingdom is growing. Paul calls this fact a mystery. I pray that, this morning, God will pull you in and make you a part of his unfolding plan.
Add Salt
November 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.
–Colossians 4:6
In a Discipleship Journal article entitled “A Vessel of Grace,” Robert Hager tells about a father who received a letter in the mail explaining that his son had failed a class during his senior year. It had been the father’s hope that his son would be attending a prestigious university, so he was obviously upset.
But rather than express his disappointment to his son, the father chose to focus his wrath on the school and its representatives. He stormed into the teacher’s classroom after school the next day and demanded that the grade be changed. The teacher, believing the grade to be the right one, refused. The father threatened to have the teacher fired and marched from there to the principal’s office.
Once he was in the principal’s office, the father launched into a tirade. Already familiar with the situation, the principal told the father that the grade was fair and that there was nothing he could do. The father was livid. He screamed loud enough for everyone in the school office to hear that his next visit would be with the superintendant of schools.
At this point the principal could have done several things. He could have met anger with anger. He could have called school security and had the man removed from campus. Instead he said something that instantly took the wind from the father’s sails. He looked him in the eye and said, “You must love your son very much.”
The father was taken aback. From there he went on to explain how important it was to him that his son do well and how worried he was that the grade would adversely affect his son’s future. When he left the principal’s office that day, he was no less disappointed or worried about his son. But he had decided that he would no longer look seek to punish the school system for his son’s actions.
What the principal did was introduce a little bit of grace into the situation. Without compromising his integrity or undermining his teacher, he was able to show sympathy to a worried father. And because of that, he was able to call the father to a higher standard.
Paul’s command at the end of Colossians (see above) is a great encouragement for us. It’s also quite a challenge. Life is much easier when you don’t have to ask yourself, “What is the graceful thing to do here?” But don’t we also benefit when we can show others grace? After all, if we can be graceful to others, we can also be graceful to ourselves.
Watch Your Step
November 2, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.
–Colossians 4:5
There’s being smart and there’s being wise. I’m fine with smart. I can do smart. Smart comes naturally to me. My head just retains information. I like to think. I like to ponder. I like to read things that are difficult to understand. Book learning has always come naturally to me. But that’s smart, not wise. I don’t feel like I always do so well with being wise. Most of the time, when I get into trouble, it’s not because I wasn’t smart, it’s because I was unwise. I don’t think I’m alone in that.
Take, for instance, the case of Steffi Krause, age 17. Krause and a friend were serving time in a juvenile detention center in Germany for theft when the time came for her 19 year old friend to be released. Krause could not tolerate the idea of being incarcerated one moment longer. So she hatched a plan (a very smart plan) to leave detention with her friend. She hid in her friend’s suitcase and rolled through the doors right behind her. The guards later recalled that they had noticed how heavy her suitcase was, but it had never occurred to them to investigate. Krause and her unnamed accomplice are both still at large.
This is a prime example of smart but not wise. Both of these young women have exchanged a brief prison sentence for the fugitive life. They must now either run or be caught. And if/when they are caught they will serve a great deal more time. By the way, the remainder of the sentence that Krause just couldn’t bear to serve? Two weeks.
When I think about the grief that I cause for myself and for others, I realize that it’s because I’ve not been wise. Lack of wisdom is always a factor when I can look back at something I have done or said and ask myself, “What was I thinking?” Or, “How could I have thought that was a good idea?” The maddening thing, of course, is that no amount of book-learning has cured me of my propensity to make unwise decisions.
That’s why Paul’s words to the Colossians can be pretty daunting. He’s not challenging me to be smart; he’s challenging me to be wise. This morning we’ll talk about what it means to be wise in the way that we act. What does it look like? Where can we find wisdom? And how can we “make the most of every opportunity” to act with wisdom. May God grant us the wisdom that we can find in being smart.
Categories
Articles
Robert's Blog
Recent Comments
- Tom Hubert on GETTING DOWN AND DIRTY
- Lisa on Silent Monks Sing the Hallelujah Chorus
- Kara on Silent Monks Sing the Hallelujah Chorus