Philip Yancey in What’s So Amazing
about Grace tells this story:

“A young girl grows up on a cherry
orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, just a bit
old fashioned, tend to overreact to her nose ring, the music she
listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times
and she seethes inside. "I hate you," she screams at her
father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument. And
that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of
times. She runs away. She runs to Detroit, the biggest city closest
to her. And the second day she’s there she meets a man who drives the
biggest car she’s ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch,
and arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills that
make her feel better than she’s ever felt before. She was right all
along, she decides. Her parents were keeping her from all the fun.
The good life continues for a month, two months, a year.

“The man with the big car, she calls
him "boss," teaches her a few things that men like. Since
she’s underage, men pay a premium for her. She lives in a penthouse
with room service whenever she wants. Occasionally, she think about
the folks back home, but their lives seem so boring and provincial
that she can hardly believe that she grew up there. After the first
year, sallow signs of illness appear. And it amazes her how fast the
boss turns mean. "These days we can’t mess around," he
growls. And before she knows it, she’s out on the street without a
penny to her name. She still turns a couple of tricks a night, but
they don’t pay for much. And all the money goes to support her habit.

Continue reading “How Do You Spell Grace? — Ephesians 2:1-10” →

Over two-hundred years ago Thomas Jefferson suggested that
we form a nation that protected our “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.” And pursued it we have. A storm bearing the name of Katrina reminds
us that we will sustain any place of fleeting happiness even if it lies below
sea level. The fleeting nature of that happiness fled before the wind, and the
rain, the storm surge, and the flooding. And yet in Katrina’s aftermath, amidst
the bitter and mournful cries, moments of God’s joy break through. In the ruins
of one of our United Methodist Churches in Mississippi last Sunday the
congregation gathered at the feast of the Great Thanksgiving, as the
congregation said together “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come
again” Bishop Hope Morgan Ward observed a butterfly resting on the cup of
blessing and concluded, “Best of all, God is with us.”

Continue reading “In Pursuit of Joy – 1 Peter 1:3-9” →

If as Billy Graham popularized, the preacher is speak with
the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other, then my life has been
very interesting. Consider the following:

• A television preacher suggests that killing the leader of
  another country is an appropriate response to their disagreement with the
  policies of our country.
• We see the wrath of a storm sweetly named Katrina pass over Biloxi, Gulfport, and New
    Orleans. 90,000 square miles of destruction are left
  behind.
• Our United Methodist sisters and brothers in Mississippi in Katrina’s path have lost at least 15 churches, a retirement home, 2
  community centers, the Seaside and
  Gulfside Assemblies.
• Katrina aftermath has us bickering about who thought inside
  and outside of the box, whose imagination failed, whose responsible, who failed
  to act promptly, and what do we do next.
• Overnight our nation lost the chief justice of our supreme
  court. I am already anticipating the storm that is brewing to our north.

This next week in Bishop Reuben Job’s A Wesleyan Spiritual
Reader we will pay attention to the subject of "God as Loving Parent." I gave our
administrative assistant the sermon title “Is God a Lover?” last week in the
face of a Christian leader calling for violent action, but the storms of life
that have raged around us still beg the question: Is God a lover?

Continue reading ““Is God a Lover?” – Psalm 23” →

I have been rereading some classics over the past few weeks. Actually, I am listening to several classics
while I work out at the fitness center. This week I have been engaging with C.
S. Lewis, that great English teacher of almost five decades ago, as he
describes what Mere Christianity is. Sometime on Wednesday or Thursday morning
– the pain all runs together sometimes – he uttered the following in a chapter
about the moral structures of society:

That brings us up to the real snag in drawing up of
blueprints for a Christian society. Most of us are not really approaching the
subject in order to find out what Christianity says: we are approaching it in
hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party. We
are looking for an ally where we are offered either a Master or – a Judge. [He
concedes} I am just the same (C.S. Lewis, “Social Morality,” in Mere
Christianity, (c) 1952, 87).

And there we have it don’t we? Lord I want to be a Christian
in my heart? But would you make it possible that I don’t have to change
anything too much? I mean loving my enemies and praying for those who hate me
is really inconvenient! The coins may say “in God we trust,” but Lord I know I
can manage my resources all by myself.

Continue reading “Where Your Treasure Is … – 1 Timothy 6:3-10” →

The good person out of the good treasure of the heart
produces good,
and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil;
for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks (Luke
6:45, NRSV).

When I have finally filed all the bills, caught up on my
email correspondence, and put my sermon to bed I usually feel satisfied. That
is, until I remember that the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus undertook the
task of and almost succeeded in organizing all of God’s creation. Linnaeus
devised the taxonomic classification system that botanists and biologists use every
day. This system has a precision and flexibility that has allowed it to stretch
to contain the insights and knowledge gained in the 200 years since Linnaeus
lived.

Linnaeus’ system breaks living things into smaller and more
discrete groups based on smaller and more discrete sets of characteristics.
Each division whittles away at the identity of a creature until finally you are
left with only one possible answer. For example a creature belonging to the
kingdom "Animalia," the phylum "Chordata," the sub-phylum
"Vertebrata," the class "Mammalia," the order
"Carnivora," the family "Canidae," the genus "Canis,"
and the species "Familiarus," is none other than the family dog. Paul
begins the 12th chapter of his Letter to the Romans with the injunction that
Christians should “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God–what
is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2). In Romans 12:9-21, Paul lays out the
characteristics of what it is to be a Christian.

Continue reading “Wholly Holy – Romans 12:9-21” →

"It is a serious thing when a relationship gets broken.
Someone you count on to be there for you is suddenly not there for you. Someone
you trust proves unworthy of your trust. Whenever it happens, however it
happens, when a relationship gets broken, your world gets broken too. There is an empty place where someone
precious once existed, and injustice where there was once harmony” (Roger Nikosha
with Judy Kuo, “Forgiveness,” in Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens,
Upper Room: 2002, page 217).

I was on retreat at Avila Retreat Center
this past week when we were invited to take a walk to observe the parables of
nature. I chose a trail that led away
from the center and immediately encountered a spider web blocking the trail. I
recoiled and tried to peel the new mask that covered my face while wondering
where the spider was. And so it is so
often in life. We are going along our
way when a comment or action brings us into a new relation with those around
us. Often times we find ourselves peeling a web away and watching for the
spiders.

Take a moment with me now in prayer to think of a
relationship with someone or something that has left an empty place in your
soul. … Now also take a moment to lift in prayer someone in whose life you left
an empty place with a harsh word, an abrupt response, a betrayal of small or
large portion, or just plain disappointed them. … Let us lift those prayers to
God who knows the desire of our heart.

Continue reading “Embodying Forgiveness – 1 John 1:5-10” →

I have noticed in the political news of the past week that
we are in a quandary with regard to our war on terrorism – what shall we call
it? Is it a war on terrorism or a war
against Moslem extremists? The latter is
more accurate while the former slips easily off the tongue. The latter metaphor is an ongoing war of the
“good guys” against the “bad guys” that has existed since the beginning of
time. A war, if that is a good metaphor,
that according to our Christian faith only God can win. How are we to speak of good and evil in civil
discourse?

The conversation came home to me as I watched three young
boys play tag in the swimming pool yesterday. Two of the boys were twins that conned the third child into playing
their game. First one would swim away
and when the odd child out would tag him would immediately “tag back.” After several minutes of “tag backs” the odd
boy out swim toward the other twin who unknown to him was standing on the steps
a.k.a. home base. These two twins used
every trick in the book to wear the other kid out. When he finally got frustrated and left the
game they pleaded for him to join the action again. They even promised to change the rules. That is until the game got started
again. Well I got frustrated and just
took my son home!

On the drive home I contemplated the evil manifested in
these twins and remembered the stories of three boys who joined the Wynnewood Park Methodist Church
in 1964. The word got around the
pre-school there that picking on one boy got you into a fight with all
three. Yes, the Bingham boys were a
terror in that church.

Continue reading “God’s Front Porch – Acts 16:6-10” →

Today’s lesson demonstrates the biblical understanding of
Truth as "non-concealment – the disclosure of the real state of
affairs."  After the crucifixion, Cleopas and another disciple are leaving Jerusalem for Emmaus when they are joined by a stranger who appears to be a rabbi.  The ensuing journey changes the disciples’
lives forever.

Robert McAfee Brown once described truth as transformed or
engaged knowledge (see “Emmaus … and Back Again: A New Way of Knowing,”
Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes, 1984, pp. 21-32). An example of
truth as transforming or engaged knowledge is the exchange between Jesus and a lawyer
that leads us to hear the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).  The lawyer asks an “academic” question:
"Who is my neighbor?"  He
assumes that an “academic” discussion defining a "neighbor" will follow. Jesus transforms the "academic"
question into an engaged question:  "Which
among them proved neighbor to the man who fell among thieves?"  Then Jesus closes the deal when to the
lawyer’s answer he responds “Go and do likewise.” As Brown puts it, "We do not really know
the truth unless we are doing the truth, and only in the doing of the truth
will we finally know the truth."

Continue reading “Searching-Listening-Embodying – Luke 24:13-27” →

Michael Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg UMC in Tipp  City, Ohio – an exurb of Dayton,
tells this story about his son’s high school baseball career. The winter of his senior year the youth
ministry went skiing and snow-boarding, but a scholarship stood in the balance – so to avoid injury Mike’s son sat out the snow-boarding and skiing.

That is, until later in the spring when the baseball team was playing at an out of town weekend tournament. The team had a break in the action and they
headed to the local mall’s food court for a meal. In the mall was an arcade and his son
immediately went to the snowboarding machine, strapped in, and maneuvered his
way down the mountain. And then it hit
Mike … this is just like church. We show
up on Sunday morning to worship, to risk being in God’s presence, but so often
we just strap in for an hour or so of virtual Christianity and then we return
to the safety of our homes. Paul
challenges us today to be real followers of Jesus as we navigate the slopes and
trails of the world’s mountains, not just virtual Christians hanging out at the
local religious arcade (buy Michael Slaughter’s Real Followers @ Amazon.com).

Continue reading “Virtual Christians or Real Followers – Philippians 2:1-18” →

Our nation’s Declaration of Independence makes this claim:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

This week we pause as a nation to celebrate our independence
from a foreign power fought and won over two and a quarter centuries. We do well to contemplate what this freedom
means for us individually and corporately as a nation.

Continue reading “Freedom-Responsibility-Obedience — James 2:1-13” →