pandemic

06
Feb
2023

Not hiding from our own flesh and blood

We share love in a lonely, hurting world

February 5th / Epiphany 5

Readings: Isaiah 58:1-12, 1 Corinthians 2:1-16, Matthew 5:13-20


More than fifteen years ago, The Barna Group conducted a survey of non-Christians aged 16 to 29.  The predominant perception about church people was quite negative. 85 percent of church outsiders said they perceived present-day Christianity as hypocritical and judgmental.  I remember when the book from that study came out, called unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity…and Why It Matters.  I attended a study group that discussed the book and its implications. The group spent much of its time protesting conclusions the book presented. One participant kept objecting that survey respondents were using an incorrect definition of what “hypocritical” means. I found myself getting frustrated with the discussion. If we sat and debated whether outsiders’ perceptions of the church were unfair, we were failing to acknowledge what we needed to acknowledge. If churches and their members lived up to the calling we have in Christ, would public perception of the church be so low? Jesus said, “Everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). The corollary is also true:  If we are not known for the love we have for others, if we are not seen putting love into action, people will question whether we are indeed Jesus’ disciples.

Barna Group graphic from https://www.barna.com/research/christians-more-like-jesus-or-pharisees/

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (in April of 2020), religion writer Jonathan Merritt argued that some of the most visible Christians in America were failing the coronavirus test. “In place of love, they’re offering stark self-righteous judgment,” Merritt observed.  He followed up with David Kinnamon, coauthor of that 2007 book, unChristian. Kinnaman told him the Barna Group continued to monitor attitudes toward Christianity and perceptions hadn’t improved.  There has been a further erosion of connection by young people to churches. Kinnaman reported that “those who walk away from the church are most often struggling with the hypocrisy of other churchgoers” (The Atlantic, April 4, 2020). Many are viewing the church today the way the Pharisees were seen in Jesus’ day—as people who talk amongst themselves about being righteous, but do nothing for people in their communities. We need to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). We need a better sort of righteousness, keeping the highest command, to love our neighbors as ourselves (cf. Matthew 22:39, Romans 13:8-10).

The first generations of Christians put love into practice toward their neighbors—and it led people to think differently of Christians. As Christ’s followers let their light shine before others, others saw their good works and gave glory to God (cf. Matthew 5:16).   A writer about the church’s early history has said:  “At no other time in the history of Christianity did love so characterize the entire church as it did in the first three centuries.” As a result, “Christianity spread rapidly throughout the ancient world, even though there were few organized missionary or evangelism programs. The love they practiced drew the attention of the world” (EarlyChurch.com).  

The early Christians had a dramatic impact on their world by serving, in quiet, unassuming ways. They busied themselves with everyday actions of kindness and compassion. Some of the most prominent times when their faith-filled behavior was a blessing to others was when Christians served the sick and the dying during epidemics and pandemics (Barnabas Today, 4/19/2021). COVID-19 is by no means the first pandemic the world has seen, but now in our own lifetimes we have seen what a pandemic can do to society. Imagine the devastation in the ancient world, when there were no vaccines or antiviral drug treatments. For fifteen years, from 165 to 180 AD, the Roman Empire experienced its first pandemic. It was known as the Antonine Plague (named after the imperial dynasty in power during that time). Roman legion troops brought the disease back with them from the eastern frontiers of the empire. People died by the millions. The mortality rate is estimated by scholars to have been 7 to 10 percent of the population of the empire, in some places as high as 15 percent. One chronicler documented a year during the plague when 2000 people a day were dying in the city of Rome. What were Christians doing during those days? Early sources document that Christians did not abandon their neighbors or their communities. Rather, to quote Dionysius of Athens, they were “unsparing in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness. They held fast to each other and visited the sick fearlessly and ministered to them continually, serving them in Christ” (quoted in Barnabas Today). In the process, of course, many Christians lost their own lives to the pandemic. But their actions had impressed the world around them, and interest in their faith grew. 

Epidemics and pandemics continued to occur in the decades that followed that first plague. The conduct of Christians remained resolute in those difficult times, loving their neighbors even to the point of death. Within a couple centuries, even the most powerful opponents of the church had to acknowledge the love Christ’s people showed.  The emperor Julian, an enemy and persecutor of Christianity, wrote a letter in 362 AD to a high priest of the Roman religion. Referring to Christians as “Galileans” (because Jesus was from Galilee), he wrote that Christians were making his priests look bad. He said that while “the poor were neglected and overlooked by the [pagan] priests … the impious Galileans … devoted themselves to philanthropy. … [They] support not only their poor but ours as well, [while] all can see that our people lack aid from us” (Letter to Arsacius, quoted in BibleMesh, 3/20/20).  Julian, by the way, is known as “the last pagan emperor” in the Roman era.  He had tried to restore the old Roman religion to dominance, but by his time, Christianity had taken too deep a hold in too many people’s hearts. 

Photo by Chalmers Butterfield, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons

In today’s world (and rightfully so), we look to public health departments and medical facilities to carry the largest share of helping our communities through public health emergencies. That doesn’t mean opportunities are lacking for Christians to help and comfort people in need. There are so many needs of so many kinds across all our communities. There is, in fact, another sort of public health crisis calling out to us now, calling us to reach out to others with compassion and kindness. This health crisis afflicts millions of people. Research has shown it to be as bad for you as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. It’s a condition that creates a 20% overall increase in the chance of experiencing an early death (Michigan State University Extension). What public health crisis is this? Research by Cigna has shown that more than half of U.S. adults (58%) are experiencing loneliness. Researchers at Harvard, Columbia University, and elsewhere are calling it the loneliness epidemic. We are surrounded in our communities by people who are deeply lonely. Maybe we ourselves are affected by the same loneliness and isolation. Can we, as Christians in our communities and as church groups, become Christ to our neighbors who are lonely? The loneliness epidemic is not like smallpox (such as Antonine Plague) or a dangerous coronavirus (such as COVID-19). We won’t be risking our lives by making efforts to engage with persons who need befriending. If anything, our own spirits may also be lifted and encouraged by sharing life and love with others.

Many years ago, I did a year of internship in Houston, training for ministry. I was a northern boy in a big Texas city. The congregation where I served was wonderfully friendly, but I was many miles from home and away from familiar surroundings and classmates I had known. The congregation had set me up in an apartment of my own, and there were nights I would get lonely. First I felt sorry for myself, feeling like I was stranded by myself. Then I decided to make the most of opportunities that were, quite honestly, right in front of me. The church in suburban Houston had a long list of outreach contacts. My internship duties didn’t require me to go out visiting those persons as much as I did. But I learned that the best cure for my own loneliness was to take time to go out and visit with people who’d had some contact with our church. Making efforts to show friendship to other persons in the church’s neighborhoods brought benefits to me as much as to those I visited. We gave encouragement to each other.

My friends, you and I are “the salt of the earth,” as Jesus has told us (Matthew 5:13). We are here to preserve and extend the lives of others, the way that salt was used as a food preservative in Bible times.  We are also here to enhance others’ lives with flavor, making life less bland. As the apostle Paul said, “Conduct yourself with wisdom in your interactions with outsiders; make the most of each opportunity [treating it as something precious]. Let your speech at all times be gracious and pleasant, seasoned with salt” in the way that you relate to others in the community (Colossians 4:5-6, The Amplified Bible).

The prophet Isaiah described the sort of actions we will undertake as God’s people, striving to bring goodness to others in our world.  We will seek to “loose the bonds of injustice … to break every yoke” (Isaiah 58:6) that weighs on the bodies and souls of others.  As Scripture says elsewhere, “ Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2).  Isaiah urged us to share our bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into our homes, clothe those who are lacking clothing, satisfy the needs of the afflicted (Isaiah 58:7,10). 

Isaiah told us also: “Do not “hide yourself from your own kin” (Isaiah 58:7). “Our own kin” is more than our own immediate family or the relatives at our family reunion. God’s prophet was calling us to think of all our fellow human beings as our own flesh and blood, because, ultimately, “from one blood [God] made the whole world of humanity” (Acts 17:26, The Aramaic Bible in Plain English). So, we can’t hide ourselves away and ignore others’ needs, pretending we can’t see them or what they are suffering. All the people in our neighborhoods and communities are our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and countrymen. We want to see them, pay attention to them, be there for them.

I’m not saying you individually are going to take away the loneliness and needs of everyone around you in your communities. But each of us can do what we can do. We can start small. We can do the little things.  Let me make a proposal to you.  In a short time, we’re coming up on Valentine’s Day.  Valentine’s Day can be a difficult day for persons who don’t have the companionship in their lives that they wish they had, or who are missing family members far away or out of touch. A couple weeks ago, I got an email from Etsy (an online company) acknowledging the difficulty of such holidays for lonely people.  The email said, “We understand this time can be tough. If you would prefer not to receive Valentine’s Day emails from us, you can opt out by clicking below.”  I was reminded of an old Peanuts TV special from years ago, when Charlie Brown went to school hoping to get many Valentine’s cards from his classmates, and got none (Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, 1975).

So, maybe if you want to reach out to someone this month, someone who may be lonely, someone who may be hurting, or maybe someone you just haven’t connected with for a while, you don’t need to make it about Valentine’s Day. You can reach out just because. You can take time to connect with others in a variety of ways.  You can send a card—a general friendship or encouragement card.  You can write a letter, sharing with someone what you have appreciated about them. You can go knock on someone’s door, say hello. As one Christian writer has said, “Showing love needn’t be that involved: a compassionate phone call made, a greeting card sent, a door held. If you bake, make a batch of cookies or brownies for a friend. Provide an ear and heart to listen. All these gestures communicate love” (Warner Press blog). We can apply to our own witness what the apostle Paul said of his:  Our speech need not be with “persuasive words of human wisdom” (1 Corinthians 2:4, Young’s LIteral Translation).  We need no fancy language or elaborate efforts. Our simple words and acts of kindness will be “a demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). 

If you’d like some resources for ideas about showing kindness or helping the lonely, here are some worthwhile ones: 


Very early in the Bible, we are told, when God created human beings, that it is not good for a person to be alone (Genesis 2:18). “That statement of need actually predates the first sin” (Christians for Social Action). Think about that. Even when the world was perfect, loneliness would have ruined the joy and beauty of the Garden of Eden. How much more difficult loneliness can be in our fallen, fragile, imperfect world! We need each other. The people around us need us.

As Christ’s people, filled with the Spirit of fellowship in our hearts, let’s reach out in fellowship to others. “Whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all” (Galatians 6:10). “Let mutual love continue” (Hebrews 13:1)—not only within our own family of faith, but also showing hospitality to strangers (Hebrews 13:2). And perhaps let’s focus our efforts by thinking about those who may be lonely, those who may be isolated, those who might be the Charlie Browns of our neighborhoods, not receiving many encouragements or greetings. Let’s pick up a pen and write, pick up the phone and call, step outside of our comfort zone and visit people we may not know very well. May the light that has brightened our lives in Jesus be like a lamp on a lampstand, (Matthew 5:15), bringing light to our neighbors in our communities by each small act of kindness that we can do. 

—

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
17
Apr
2022

An Easter message

Life is eternal in Jesus

  • If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died (1 Corinthians 15:19,20).

Maintaining our hope in life can be extremely challenging. In my own circle of contacts, I have known a family (mother and two daughters) that died in a house fire. I’ve sat in the ICU waiting room with a soon-to-be widow, whose husband’s body was shutting down and whose kidneys were failing after a lifelong struggle with diabetes. I knew a young bride-to-be whose fiancé died in his sleep before they were married, for no apparent cause. I’m sure each of you has known families and individuals who have experienced heartache and struggle and loss; likely, you’ve experienced tests of faith in your own household. Life in this world has many days of joy, and many days of ordinary routine …  but, all too often, also has so many problems and so much pain. It can be hard to hold onto hope in day-to-day affairs. Where is hope when your car gets stolen by thieves whose only purpose is to post reckless driving videos on social media? When the job you worked in for decades tells you they’re downsizing and you’re done? When your spouse or life partner walks away, abandons you? When your doctor tells you the prognosis is not good? When wars and pandemics can turn our world upside down in a matter of days? Well-meaning friends may try to console us, saying, “Whenever God closes a door, he opens a window.” But we want to shout back, “All I see are boarded-up windows everywhere. And if there is a window, it’s a hundred feet off the ground; if I try to go in that direction, I’ll fall and be crushed.” When the worst happens–when a life ends and we lose a loved one–we want to hope for a reunion one day in the next life. But we have our doubts about that too.  It’s just so hard to believe. 

Think of what it was like for Jesus’ friends and followers when he died. Even though they had witnessed the astonishing miracles he had done, his death had crushed their hopes. They’d seen him multiply a handful of food into enough to feed thousands. They’d seen him give sight to the blind and cure incurable diseases. They’d seen him bring dead persons back to life. He gave a dead girl back to her father alive (cf. Luke 8:49-56). He gave a dead son back to his widowed mother, turning a funeral procession into a celebration of life (cf. Luke 7:11-17). He restored his friend, Lazarus, to his sisters Mary and Martha, after Lazarus had been in the tomb already four days (cf. John 11).  Jesus’ disciples had every reason to be confident in Jesus’ power over everything, including death. But their confidence was shattered when they saw Jesus arrested, tried, beaten, whipped, convicted as a criminal, crucified, dead, and buried. The disciples of Jesus were devastated. On Sunday morning, when women who had gone to the tomb reported that the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty and they had seen angels who said Jesus was alive again, for Jesus’ apostles, “These words seemed an idle tale, and they did not believe them” (Luke 24:11).  In the evening on that day, the disciples of Jesus were still not sure what to think. They met behind locked doors out of fear (cf. John 20:19). They feared the same sort of horrors that Jesus suffered awaited them from a hostile community. Jesus needed to appear to them personally, alive and well, before they were able to believe the good news of the resurrection–even though Jesus had told them in advance this is what would happen. The experience of Thomas, who was not with them when they saw Jesus, was essentially the same experience all the disciples had. Thomas said, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in [the spear wound in] his side, I will not believe” (John 20:25).  They all had been that way. The reality of the resurrection was so unbelievable, they needed to see to believe.

We struggle in that way too. We don’t visibly see the souls of our loved ones being welcomed into the arms of God in heaven. We haven’t personally witnessed anyone come back from the dead. We want to believe that decayed or cremated remains can be remade and reinvigorated by God, resurrected to life everlasting. But believing is so, so hard.  

The message of Easter is the message that Jesus gave a week later when he appeared to his disciples again, this time with Thomas there too.  Jesus said to Thomas, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20:29).  Those who have not yet seen and yet have come to believe–that’s us.  It was hard for the friends and followers of Jesus–who knew him in person as a human being on this earth–to come to believe in him as the eternal Son of God and as the Lord who could come back even after he was brutalized, lifeless, and buried. But they saw Jesus, who “presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs” (Acts 1:3), and the unbelievable became the rock-solid foundation of their faith. By the Spirit’s power to change hearts and minds, Jesus’ disciples’ faith in the resurrection became a witness to the world of the reality of Jesus’ power.

It is hard for us–as believers in Jesus today–to hold onto hope and faith in the face of the death of our loved ones, in the face of the struggles of our lives and the troubles of our world. But we rely on the word of the apostles who saw Jesus alive.  Peter said, “We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we had been eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16). And Peter assured us, “Although you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:8-9).  We have confidence in the testimony of those who were led by Jesus, who witnessed his death, and saw him alive again, and watched him ascend back into the sky (cf. Acts 1:6-11).  Those first disciples of Jesus were threatened, persecuted, and even killed because they stood by their confession of his resurrection with confidence. That’s how sure they were. We have those sure promises of God, which the apostles and prophets have shared with us (cf. Ephesians 2:19-20). God guarantees his promises of life forever are true. God’s promises are our reason for hope when life becomes a struggle, when death overtakes persons that we love, when the events of our world are more chaos than calm.

“We believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died” (1 Thessalonians 4:14). That is our hope. That is our faith. That is what enables us to keep going from one day to the next, and what enables us to face even our last days with confidence. We have been given “a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3).

Lord, we believe; help us overcome our doubts (cf. Mark 9:23-24).  

Prayer:  Lord of heaven and earth, help us when we experience pain and loss in our lives here on earth.  Help us to have a view that includes all of life—all the way to eternal life in heaven with you.   Enable us to endure sadness and tragedies by clinging to the living hope that you have given us—the hope of an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for us (cf. 1 Peter 1:4).  Trusting in Jesus’ resurrection, we pray.  Amen.

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
22
Feb
2022

Why church?

I initially sketched out the thoughts of this post as a conversation starter for a church committee. I’ve reworked the thoughts for sharing here.  Feel free to join the conversation here via comments, or to share with others if you find the thoughts useful.

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Why church?

Our mutual need for spiritual encouragement

Attendance at church services was dropping year by year before COVID happened. Getting people back into church settings after pandemic lockdowns added further challenges. When anyone can access anything they want online, including spiritual videos and writings, who needs church?

We do need church … although not necessarily in the sense of buildings we meet in. Martin Luther reminded us that a building “should not be called a church except for the single reason that the group of people assembles there.” Those who gather give the house of worship the name “church” by virtue of their assembly (Large Catechism: Apostles Creed). We gather in order to connect with each other and with the Lord, to keep “encouraging one another” (Hebrews 10:25). The first Christians (in the first century) didn’t have church buildings to meet in. They gathered in each other’s homes. They met wherever they could meet, knowing that holding onto hope and living in love wasn’t easy (cf. Hebrews 10:23-24). Like those first century believers, we still need community with each other and communion with God. As another writer on this blog has attested: “The benefit of having a close community with your church is immeasurable–a family of believers who all look out for one another in love, support each other in faith, and build each other up” (The Electric Gospel, 6/13/2014).

Image credit: Liturgy.co.nz

As Christians, we want to share the life and fellowship that we have with others. We invite others to join us in church–to be included in our prayers, in our songs, in listening to words from God together with us. At the same time, we seek to extend Christ’s message outside the church walls too, in every form of outreach available to us. Technology has been a blessing, allowing us to connect with persons near and far through blogs, emails, videoconferencing and live streaming. Where the ancient church used letters (“epistles”), disseminated from congregation to congregation, we rely on the information technologies of our time to stay in touch.  If you’re reading this as someone outside the church, and you’re not yet comfortable stepping inside a church, by all means explore, browse, stream, investigate from where you are. Look for ministries that convey Christ’s love and welcome for all people. Listen for the warmth of Christ that says, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). I pray you will find a gospel-focused ministry in your area that could become a church home for you.

I’ve known plenty of people who have been uneasy about churches and ministries, as they had been deeply hurt by religious institutions and individuals. There are now institutes and studies examining religious trauma, which usually stems from struggles within an authoritarian religion or religious group, and then persons begin to “question the true extent of what they’ve been taught to believe” (Apricity Behavioral Health, 2020). There are podcasts, such as Cafeteria Christian, for listeners who want a connection to Jesus but have been disillusioned by the actions of many professed Christians. It’s understandable for non-churchgoers to be skeptical of the church. It’s imperative for those of us who are churchgoers to show our neighbors that they truly are welcome in our community.  The church is to be a place for mutual spiritual uplifting, a place where Jesus guides how we treat one another: “Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37).   When someone is in need of encouragement and seeks spiritual guidance (whether by attendance at church or accessing ministries online), we want them to know they have a friend in Jesus–and in us.

Let people come together–inside the church and through the extended outreach of the church–in ways that provide mutual spiritual encouragement in the spirit of the Savior.

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Just as I am, though tossed about
with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Just as I am, thy love unknown
has broken ev’ry barrier down;
now to be thine, yea, thine alone,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

– “Just As I Am,” Charlotte Elliott (1835)

Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
13
Dec
2021

Living in hope (though life is difficult)

We wait for the Lord — hopefully, patiently, responsibly

Message for 3rd Sunday of Advent
by David Sellnow

Readings for the day:  Zephaniah 3:14-20, Philippians 4:4-7, Luke 3:7-18


Stephanie grew up under the weight of demanding, overbearing parents. Their way was always the right way, and their children were going to toe the line and become obedient, upstanding, model citizens. Stephanie’s older sister fit the model perfectly. At the strict religious school their parents enrolled them in, Stephanie’s sister got all A’s and was considered the impeccable child. Stephanie lived in her sister’s shadow, got mostly C’s, and was seen as far less than ideal. Later in life, Stephanie gave up on church, because the sternness of the church in which she was raised made her feel that who she was and how she was always was wrong. Her parents were mortified when she stopped going to church, and they distanced themselves more and more from her. Stephanie lived her life, but she lived with a sense of shame, felt like an outcast from her family, and was haunted by a lingering sense of judgment looming over her.

Derrick had labored diligently year after year. He always had a job, sometimes a couple of jobs at a time. He would do whatever he could to keep shoes on his kids’ feet and food on the table. He didn’t give a lot of attention to his own needs, because he was too busy taking care of the needs of others. If he could do that, he was happy. Then one day, the manufacturing plant where Derrick worked shut down. He found himself out of work for the first time in his life. The town where he lived with his family was shrinking. Derrick was in his mid-50s. Finding a new job was no easy task. The bills began to pile up while Derrick kept applying for any and every position (but not getting hired). He told employers in the bigger city 40 miles away that he could commute. They looked at him skeptically when he got as far as getting an interview … and that’s as far as he ever got, it seemed. Derrick began to feel worthless to anyone and a failure to his family. When he started feeling fatigued and worn down physically, he figured it was all part of how generally low he was feeling. But the physical symptoms got worse and worse. He wouldn’t go to the doctor because he no longer had insurance. He eventually did go to the emergency room–when his wife, who had struggled by his side during the difficult months, found him collapsed on the floor and had to call an ambulance. Derrick’s life had gone from stability to disaster in a short span of time. He needed help. He needed health. He needed to find hope again somehow.

Those are just a couple of stories of shame, of judgment, of disability, of disaster. What is your story? What is your shame? What makes you feel weak and lame and hopeless and helpless? What are the judgments against you that make you feel like an outcast? What difficulties and disasters have you encountered? I’m not asking you to give those testimonials here in comments/replies to this blog post.  I anticipate, though, that each of you has had (or now has or will have) tales you could tell of troubles and worries and woes. What do you do in the midst of your hurts and hardships and upheavals? Where do you turn?

Listen to the voice of a prophet calling out to you, telling you where to turn. Inspired by the Lord, Zephaniah said: 

  • The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has turned away your enemies. … You shall fear disaster no more. … Do not let your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst. … He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love. “I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors. … I will save the lame and gather the outcast,and I will change their shame into praise. … I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,” says the Lord  (Zephaniah 3:14-20 selected verses).

You may be unfamiliar with the context of the times in which Zephaniah was writing. His ministry was, after all, over 26 centuries ago, around 630 BC (Christianity.com, Bible.org).   Zephaniah’s ministry likely was very early in the reign of King Josiah. Josiah came to the throne as just a boy, and later in his career sought to institute religious reforms in the nation of Judah, because the people had lost track of the law of God (cf. 2 Kings 22, 23). But those reform attempts hadn’t happened yet. Zephaniah was speaking to a nation that had been living under God’s blessing for several hundred years and was growing distant in their hearts from God. They were worshiping other things, following other priorities, with individuals seeking their own advantage and ignoring their neighbor’s needs. Sound familiar? Sound a little like our own lives in our own times? Back in those Old Testament times, Josiah’s reforms were short-lived. A couple decades after Zephaniah, the prophet Jeremiah would be speaking out again, even more dramatically. When Zephaniah called for repentance and a return to God, regular, everyday people in Judah lived under the sway of the powerful and immoral in their own nation—and they were caught up in plenty of apostasy themselves. One commentator described the cultural context as a time “of great darkness … of violence and pain,” adding: “God never brings destruction to a place or a people that haven’t already destroyed themselves” (April Motl on Crosswalk.com). As Zephaniah (and later Jeremiah) foretold, there next would come a time when the regular, everyday people of God would live under the sway of other powerful nations and people, their fates held in the hands of first the Bablylonians and then the Medes and the Persians. 

At the same time as Zephaniah prophesied impending judgment from God, however, he also gave the people a message of hope. When God judges or destroys, he does so “for the purpose of protecting or rebuilding” (April Motl on Crosswalk.com). The hope held out by Zephaniah would find some fulfillment when Judah was restored from captivity under Babylon and Persia. Hope would be fulfilled still more when the Messiah would come, when Jesus was born and brought new hope to this world. Hope will be fulfilled ultimately when Jesus comes again at the end of time, vindicating the faith of those who have continued to trust in him through all the pains and shames and sins and disasters of this life.

We are called to hope as the people in Zephaniah’s day were called to hope. That same call to hope was issued by the apostle Paul in New Testament times. When Paul wrote his letter of encouragement to the church in Philippi, he was being held imprisoned in Rome, and the Philippian church members were facing an array of troubles and persecutions.  They had judgments against them. They had enemies. They were reproached. People in their community opposed and oppressed them. But, at the beginning of his letter, Paul told them, “[God] has graciously granted you the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but of suffering for him as well—since you are having the same struggle that you saw I had and now hear that I still have” (Philippians 1:29,30). Many of our churches and church members today are facing struggles and challenges of their own. You may be feeling insecurity about where things are at right now, and much uncertainty about where things are headed in the future.  But listen to the voice of Christ’s apostle calling out to you, telling you where to turn. Paul urges you, as he did the Philippians:  

  • Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:4-7). 

We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. But we do know what forever holds in store for us, through our hope in Christ.  And so as we wait for Christ—for Christmas in this season and for Christ’s return to us at the end of days—we strive to live with hope in our hearts. We encourage one another to be hopeful, even when the circumstances in which we find ourselves look bleak. We wait for the Lord hopefully, hanging onto his promises as the gospel truth.

And we wait patiently … or at least try to be patient. We are, by nature, impatient people. We tend to want what we want and we want it now. If the package we ordered doesn’t arrive in a couple of days, we get irritated. If the trip to the store takes up too much time with too long of lines, we get irritated. If something we want for ourselves, for our house, for our farm or business, or for our church is not available to us right now or is out of reach of our budget or unrealistic in our present situation, we get irritated. We are impatient.

Life as it is, in the here and now, often doesn’t align with our ambitions or with the comfort and stability we want. Life is often painful and hard. Things don’t go our way. Things get in our way. Sickness interrupts health. Lack of resources limits our options. Other people don’t think the way we think they should think, or do what we want them to do. We turn from hopeful and happy to being frustrated and ornery. We may take out our frustrations against others, even those closest to us. Within our families and within our churches, each of us starts seeking our own interests rather than maintaining concern for one another and for the well-being of all. So we become less ethical, more self-centered in our own attitudes and behaviors.

Our impatience and frustrations lead us to become ungrateful, uncooperative, unyielding–all of which, of course, are the opposite of God’s call to us.  We are called to “lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and … run with perseverance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). Only by keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus as the author and perfecter of our faith (Hebrews 12:2) can we stay on a path of rejoicing always, displaying gentleness to everyone, not worrying about things but maintaining thankfulness. It feels so impossible for us to live in such an attitude, but we are assured: “The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard [our] hearts and … minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7). 

So we strive to live hopefully and to live patiently–hoping in Christ and his promises, patient with each other as we face life’s challenges, and leaning on each other as brothers and sisters. Living such a life together as God’s people calls us to live honestly, ethically, responsibly with one another.

Listen to the call of another of God’s prophets, John the Baptist. When the crowds asked John, “What then should we do?” (Luke 3:10) …

  • In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.”  [When] tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” [John] said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages” (Luke 3:11-14).

You get John’s point. Be ethical. Be responsible. Be thinking of others, not just of yourselves. “Do to others as you would have them do to you,” as Jesus said (Luke 6:31). Treat everyone with respect and consideration and caring as you interact with one another. That is our calling in our communities, with every neighbor in our world. That is equally and especially our calling also within our churches, as we plan and work and do ministry together. 

Many small and medium-size churches today are facing significant challenges as they seek to carry out ministry. A national survey of churches conducted just prior to COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 found that “half of the country’s estimated 350,000 religious congregations had 65 or fewer people in attendance on any given weekend … a drop of more than half from a median attendance level of 137 people in 2000” (Religious News Service, October 14, 2021).  The pandemic has reduced worship attendance even further, standing now at about three-fourths of pre-pandemic levels as of August of this year (Baptist Standard, November 4, 2021). 

Maybe the way you’re feeling about your own life or your congregational life these days is something like the feelings of Stephanie or Derrick (whom I described at the start of this message). Feeling like you’re the outcast, the down-and-out little sister, not as good as big churches somewhere else that seem to be flourishing.  Feeling like you have labored and toiled and worked hard for many years, and now are up against challenges that have you searching desperately for resources and answers that are nowhere to be seen. Again, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. We can’t cast our eyes into the near (or far) future here on earth and know exactly what plans the Lord is working out for us.  But we do have his promise “that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). And we do know what forever holds in store for us, through our hope in Christ.  And so as we wait for Christ—in this Christmas season and anticipating his return to us at the end of days—we will strive to live in dignity and love with one another. We will set our minds on thinking about things that are true and honorable and pure and pleasing (cf. Philippians 4:8), rejoicing in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4). And we will set our hands about whatever tasks we can take on–to advance our relationships with one another, our care for others in our communities, and our commitment to honoring Christ in everything we say and do.

Life on this earth is not easy. It was not easy in Zephaniah’s day, nor in the days of John the Baptist and the apostle Paul.  It’s never easy.  As Paul and his missionary companions said to the members of churches they had established, “We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22 NIV). But we have God’s promise that he doesn’t abandon us. So we will not abandon him in our hearts, but keep trusting and hoping and persevering. We will not abandon him in our actions, but keep loving and helping and befriending. This is the life to which we are called by the prophets and apostles. This is our calling in Christ. “And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).  Amen.

Scripture quotations, except where indicated otherwise are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotation marked (NIV) taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Posted by David Sellnow
25
Jul
2021

Time to Have our Hearts Checked

Hearts Full of Faith Beat Boldly in Christ

Ephesians 3:14-21, with reference to 2 Kings 4:42-44 and John 6:1-21;  9th Sunday after Pentecost

by David Sellnow


Ask kids what their favorite foods are. They’ll more likely say hot dogs, candy bars, and chips than tuna, spinach, or brussels sprouts.  We don’t always wise up and change our habits when we become adults. I had a roommate one summer after college who, as far as I could tell, ingested nothing all summer long except coffee and cigarettes and occasionally mooched slices of pizza. I wouldn’t say he was the picture of health, but then, with my pizza, neither was I.

Some years ago, a study was done on the blood vessels of presumably healthy young adults (between ages 15 and 34) who died from causes other than illness. Among those in their early 30s, they found that 20% of males and 8% of females already had advanced stages of plaque buildup in their arteries. The American Heart Association has recommendations on cholesterol intake, on what foods to avoid or eat only in moderation. But as a leading doctor on that research team said, “It’s a hard sell [to] teenagers …. I have a grandson who, despite all our family discussions, still orders the double cheeseburger with bacon and fries.”

As you probably can guess, this Electric Gospel post isn’t primarily about your cardiovascular health.  Each of us has a spiritual heart in us also, and what goes into our spiritual heart will determine our spiritual well-being. Let’s consider how hearts full of faith beat boldly in Christ; hearts that take in the love and strength of Christ will live in love and strength. 

Consider words from this day’s Epistle lesson, Ephesians 3:14-19:

  • For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 

When you begin a check-up on your spiritual heart’s condition, you realize that your spiritual heartbeat itself is a gift from God.  When Paul said “for this reason” he thanked the Father, the reason is a theme that runs through the whole preceding portion of his Ephesian epistle:  God’s saving activity for his people.  God gave Christ as the Savior of the world; God raised Christ from death to reign in glory; God brought these Ephesians to trust in Christ rather than in idols; God caused the church at Ephesus to begin and grow; God gave these people a unity of heart and mind to work together for Christ’s kingdom.  For all of it, God was responsible and God was to be praised.  He is the one from whom the Ephesians received their spiritual heartbeat; he is the one from whom his whole family derives its name.

The same is true for us. We were in a dead, sinful state before God brought our spirits to life in the miracle of baptism.  From that moment on God has been the one to strengthen and preserve faith in our hearts.  In order for us to stay healthy spiritually, we need a steady, nourishing diet provided by God’s Spirit. Soaking in all the stuff you can absorb from contemporary culture can progressively harm your soul, like junk food impacts our bodies. You can get temporary boosts to your emotions or thoughts with other things, like you can artificially stimulate your body with substances like coffee and cigarettes.  But there is just “one thing needful” (Luke 10:42 KJV) that can truly keep our spiritual selves healthy: the good news of love and forgiveness in Jesus.

Admittedly though, our sinful side doesn’t want the good things God gives.  When the children of Israel were fed by God with manna in the desert, suited to meet all their nutritional needs, what did they say?   “We detest this miserable food” (Numbers 21:5).   They wanted other things (cf. Numbers 20:5).  They got tired of what the Lord was giving them.  We do the same thing spiritually.  We look at what God is giving us in the Bible and in church, and we say, “Too much manna all the time!”  We gravitate toward video games over Bible reading.  We find streaming TV more interesting than sermons.  We follow sports events and statistics more diligently than we search the Scriptures. 

But it is through the gospel that Christ establishes himself in our hearts. We come to see how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ is.  We get to “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.”  Paul knew the amazing heights and depths of Christ’s love. He once wrote, “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy …. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost” (1 Timothy 1:13-15).    Christ died for every sinner, for the worst of sinners. That includes you and me.

Those who by God’s Spirit come to know this wonderful truth about Jesus’ love then overflow with that love. Hearts that are “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” will result in lives that are healthy, vibrant, and active in joyful service to others.

So, are you feeling healthy, vibrant, and full of love and joy and service? Or are you feeling a little tired, feeling worn down, feeling old? It’s not easy going through the stages of life–whether in our own individual lives or the shared life of a congregation. The Christians at Ephesus were in the first years of their church experience when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Ephesians. Paul had started the ministry in Ephesus in the late 50s. [Not the 1950s — just the 50s, the first century AD.] His letter to the Ephesians was sent back to them around the year 62. Another apostle, John, served in Ephesus later as part of his ministry. Around 95 AD, when persecution exiled John to an island off the coast from the areas he’d served, John had a different sort of letter to send to the Ephesian congregation. Jesus himself spoke these words: 

  • I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first (Revelation 2:2-5).

In our individual lives, as we get older, it can be hard to maintain the passion and energy and zest for life that we had when we were younger. We may be stable and solid, but we can also get a bit stodgy, a bit stale, a bit set in our ways. Congregations can be that way, too, as they age. We can lose the love that we had at first. We grow weary. We become more mundane than spiritual, more routine than revitalized, more dreary than dynamic. 

We need a reminder of the refrain that Paul put at the end of his prayer for the Ephesian church, the final verses of today’s epistle lesson: To him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Too many times in our churches, we think small thoughts about our ministries. We want our congregation, our little corner of God’s kingdom, to do okay. We focus on scraping together what we’ll need to maintain what we’ve got, fund our budget, populate our programs and committees. Meanwhile, while we’re thinking about earthbound goals of that sort, God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. God has plans for our futures that we don’t even envision. Christ says, “My power is at work within you. My gospel is like dynamite for you, exploding with love and truth and joy and will accomplish more than you’d ever think could be done.”  

Consider the other experiences which were related in the Bible readings for this Sunday.  People didn’t think there was enough food to go around. In Elisha’s day, there was a famine in the land (2 Kings 4:38). Yet by the Lord’s grace, one sack of bread and grain became enough to feed 100 men in ministry training (the school of the prophets).  When throngs of people kept following Jesus and had no food other than one boy who had a handful of bread loaves and a couple of fish, Jesus had no difficulty in making sure all were fed (cf. John 6:1-21). Often we think like the servant of Elisha, who looked at the resources they had and the need in front of them and said, “How can I set this before a hundred people?” (2 Kings 4:43). We can be like the disciple of Jesus who saw thousands of mouths to feed and said, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little” (John 6:7). When we find ourselves in situations where it seems like our cupboards are empty, or our strength is gone, or storms are swirling and raging, our tendency is to think we are sunk, we will starve, we will wither away. But when we think there are no solutions, Christ creates solutions. The Lord calls on us to start with what we have and do our best. He calls us to use every opportunity and resource and talent we’ve been given and trust Christ to make it enough, to multiply it, to expand our realities beyond anything we ever thought possible. 

That’s how it has always been in the history of God’s people. When his people were held in bondage in Egypt, they didn’t imagine they could be rescued. Then plagues pressured a powerful ruler to let them go; God’s miracles enabled an exodus and a return of God’s people to their own land. When the earliest Christians were banned from the temple in Jerusalem and shunned from synagogues, when they had no church buildings of their own and were persecuted as if they were some dangerous cult, they could not have imagined that in time, the Christian faith would become predominant throughout the whole Roman Empire. When the organized church got sidetracked in the centuries that followed and became stuck in its institutionalism, in its rituals and rules, in its laws and legalism, the people didn’t dream there was much hope left in the church. Their hope grew fainter still after a horrible pandemic (the Black Death) had ravaged their communities and killed a third of the population, and the church’s highest-ranking clergy had no answers. (They were more likely to preach fire and brimstone than provide comfort or reassurance.) But then the Spirit of God raised up voices of reformation, voices such as John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, Martin Luther. The good news of Jesus and the riches of his mercy were proclaimed again with eagerness and energy and grace and renewal for everyone.

You may be at a time in your life right now where you are starving for sustenance and don’t know where it will come from. You may be at a time in your congregation right now where you have mostly questions and no clear picture of what’s on the horizon for your future. But be assured of this. Our God is “able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). The love of Christ is wider and longer and higher and deeper than you could ever measure (cf. Ephesians 3:18). Keep feeding on the Bread of Life, the spiritual food that Christ gives us, the life and truth that is Christ. He will fill your heart’s need, and he will revive your strength.

Lift up your eyes on high and see: .. [God]  is great in strength, mighty in power ….
Why do you say … “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint  (Isaiah 40:26-31).

—

Scripture quotations, except where indicated otherwise, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
28
Jun
2021

A suffering woman and a dead girl

Jesus is our Hope when Problems are Unsolvable 

[Readings for the 5th Sunday after Pentecost: Lamentations 3:22-33, Psalm 30, 2 Corinthians 8:7-15,  Mark 5:21-43]

Chances are, a number of you currently are experiencing or recently have experienced a loss, a hardship, some source of pain in your life. Just in terms of those who’ve lost a loved one, statistics say there are people reading this blog post dealing with that form of grief. “About 2½ million people die in the United States annually, each leaving an average of five grieving people behind” (The Recovery Village: Grief by the Numbers). In 2020, that number of deaths in the US was estimated at over 3½ million by the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System–the death toll expanded greatly due to COVID. An Associated Press poll conducted in March of this year found that 20% of people in the United States had lost a friend or close relative to COVID. “That means a potential bereaved population of about 65 million.” A psychiatrist at Columbia University warns that because of isolation due to the pandemic, a significant percentage of the bereaved could experience prolonged grief disorder, a condition of persistent grief that lasts longer and aches more deeply than the typical grieving process. Some studies have shown more than triple the typical rate of prolonged grief disorder have been occurring over this past year. (See “COVID Has Put the World at Risk of Prolonged Grief Disorder,” by Katherine Harmon Courage, May 19, 2021, in Scientific American.)

Those are some general truths, some national and international statistics. More than likely, some of you reading this are grieving over a loss, some are struggling with persistent pain, all know community members whose lives are hurting.

“Encounter” by Daniel Cariola, Magdala Chapel – https://www.magdala.org/

The Gospel account for this Sunday (Mark 5:21-43), from the days of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, shows powerful examples of persons dealing with grief and trauma … and their dependence on Jesus as their only hope. First there is the case of Jairus’ daughter, a young girl who should not become deathly ill, but who was deathly ill. Then, even as Jesus was on his way to Jairus’ home, the girl died. That did not stop Jesus from his desire or ability to help. We’ll say more about that momentarily.  Meanwhile, Jesus was the only answer for a woman whose problem just would not go away, and she was at the end of her rope. She had been suffering for twelve years with “an issue of blood,” as the King James Version put it. Our translation says “hemorrhaging.” Modern scholars, assessing what may have afflicted her, deduce it was menorrhagia — “abnormally heavy and long menstruation that causes enough cramping and blood loss … that it makes normal daily activities impossible” (Nigerian Biomedical Science Journal, August 29, 2017). We feel anguish for that woman, experiencing such a condition for twelve years. Now think also of the social stigma that it placed on her in her culture. Jewish cultural norms, following the laws of Moses, stipulated that anyone with a bodily discharge (bleeding or secretion) was considered “unclean” and was to stay socially distanced till after the bleeding or discharge stopped. It was a religious rule but also something of a public health rule for the Jewish people back before anyone knew much about bloodborne pathogens protocols. So, on top of a chronic, frightening health problem, this poor woman was supposed to remain in something like COVID-19 lockdown when the community around her was not in lockdown. Think of the isolation and abandonment and frustration she must have felt. She seems to have been a woman of some means, and had spent every penny she had going to various doctors, trying to find a cure for her problem. But none of them could help her. Her condition only got worse. Coming to see Jesus was an act of desperation, her last hope. She’d heard about Jesus. She’d heard he could do miracles. So she violated the social distancing policies that prohibited her from going out into a crowded space. She made her way through the throngs of people following Jesus, hoping just to get close enough, thinking, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well” (Mark 5:28).

Indeed, the woman was made well from the moment she came in contact with Jesus. But Jesus did not want her to remain in hiding (or to hide from him).  He stopped the crowd. He took note of the woman, who was afraid and confessed what she had done–which actually was a confession of faith. Jesus commended her and promised his ongoing presence with her. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease,” Jesus said (Mark 5:34).  Think a bit about the context too.  Jesus was on his way to the home of a high-ranking person, Jairus, who was a leader of the local synagogue.  And Jairus had a significant need for Jesus’ attention; his daughter was deathly ill.  But Jesus paused to pay attention to the woman who just wanted a quick, incognito encounter and nothing more. She was like a person who comes to a church hoping against hope for something, sitting in the back row, not wanting to be noticed, but the Lord wants her to be noticed and wants people to care about her.  No matter how insignificant we feel we are, no matter how ostracized or shoved aside by society, no matter how helpless we think our situation is, Jesus wants us to know we are  welcome in his presence, that we are worthy of care and attention.

Gabriel von Max, “The Raising of Jairus Daughter” (1878) – Wikimedia Commons

And Jesus will care about us even when our situation is more dire than twelve years of incessant bleeding. For example, when a twelve-year old girl is dying–and even when she dies–Jesus does not turn away from helping.  To everybody else in the situation with Jairus’ daughter, her death was the end of the story. People came from the family’s house to say Jesus need not be bothered anymore, because the girl was dead. When Jesus came to the house anyway and told the mourners the girl was only sleeping and he would wake her, they all laughed at him. But we see the ultimate power of Jesus and the reason he had come to be with us on this earth. Death is the ultimate problem that plagues us as human beings. The sicknesses we have point to our mortality, to the eventuality that we all die. The death of a child points out the cold reality of death in a particularly harsh way. But the shocking finality of death is the very reason Jesus became incarnate as a human being, to reverse that curse. As Scripture says, Jesus came down to our level “so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Since we are beings of flesh and blood, he “shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death” (Hebrews 2:9,14,15). Jesus’ actions healing the suffering woman and raising the dead girl are evidence of the healing and salvation he came to bring to all of us. 

Maybe the problems you experience in your life aren’t exactly like the cases we looked at today, a woman hemorrhaging blood for twelve years, a family mourning the death of a child. Their experiences are examples within the range of so much human suffering that occurs.  So many people experience deep hurts of so many kinds. In my years in the church, I’ve known …

  • dear souls who bore the scars of childhood sexual abuse for years and years in their adult lives …
  • dear souls who struggled with addiction …
  • dear souls who lost their jobs and struggled to maintain self-respect …
  • dear souls who experienced excruciating pain from terminal diseases …
  • dear souls who lost loved ones in senseless ways — in a car accident that occured on the way home from attending a funeral, or in a plane crash that occurred while attempting a stunt for a military air show.

In the work I’m doing now in human services, I encounter persons …

  • who need skilled nursing care and hospice care …
  • who need mental health hospitalization …
  • who have all manner of disabilities and need ongoing care and supports …
  • who are challenged by poverty and have little or no resources ….

So, while I don’t know exactly what you’re going through in your lives right now, chances are, there are losses, hardships, and no shortage of sources of pain. Maybe you feel like your soul has been bleeding for years and you don’t know how to make it stop. Where do you turn when the hurt in your life is constant, when the aches of your heart never really go away? Maybe you’ve tried everything–self-help books, practicing self-care, seeking professional help, any kind of help from anywhere and everywhere. And some things help some, but nothing is a complete cure.  Only the hope we have for resurrection in Jesus can keep us going through the pains and losses and devastations that are so much a part of life on this earth. Jesus is our hope when our problems are otherwise unsolvable.  Like the woman pressing through the crowd for even just a touch of the hem of his garment, we reach out to Jesus as our only eternal source of hope.

And how does that work–to reach out to be touched by Jesus when Jesus isn’t physically walking through the streets of your town?  Certainly one way is in coming to church, where you gather to hear Jesus’ words and receive his touch through the sacraments. There’s another way, too, that I’d like to say a little something about before concluding this message. I’d like you to think about today’s Epistle lesson also (2 Corinthians 8:7-15), which maybe seemed to go in a different direction than the other readings of the day.  Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth: “As you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in your love for us—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking” (2 Corinthians 8:7). The generous undertaking going on at that time was a special gathering of financial support for Christians elsewhere, particularly in the regions of Judea and Syria, who were experiencing food shortages and famine conditions.  Actually, the original statement in Paul’s letter simply says, “We want you to excel also in this grace” — the Greek word charis (from which we get our English word “charity”).  It’s somewhat limiting that in English we use the word “charity” (charis) mostly in terms of financial gifts.  Scripture uses the same word not just for gifts of financial support but for the ultimate grace, God’s gift of his Son Jesus, the One and Only, to be our rescuer.  Jesus now calls us to be gifts of grace to each other–with financial contributions, yes, but more than financial contributions. We become embodiments of Jesus to one another in our times of need.

At a church I was associated with in Texas some years ago, the congregation was in a bit of a financial crisis. A series of cottage meetings were planned, gathering members together in small groups at host members’ homes, to talk about how to address the financial crisis. At the first of those meetings, before getting to the stewardship agenda for the evening, there was an icebreaker activity planned, just to get people talking. Each person could respond to a prompt on the icebreaker card, which had prompts such as, “The most embarrassing moment in my life was ___________” … “One of my favorite vacations was _____” … “Something I’m praying about right now is ______,” and others. The first person at that first meeting started the conversation circle, choosing, “Something I’m praying about right now” and saying, “I’m praying for my daughter, who was just diagnosed with cancer.” There followed many minutes of fellow members showing concern for the woman, for her daughter, for her daughter’s husband and children, and actually engaging in prayer right there as a prayer circle.  The next person in the circle then also chose to share something heavy on her heart, something she was praying about, and the members listened to her hurt and ministered to her as well. For over two hours that evening, the members shared their needs, consoled one another, prayed for one another. They never did get to the planned agenda about the church’s financial situation, and that was okay. They did what was important. The other cottage meetings that occurred in the days and weeks after that first one all followed the same pattern. The gathered members all focused on the prompt about what was heavy on their hearts, what they were praying about, and they acted as missionaries of gospel to one another, encouraging each other.  Oh, and by the way, the church’s financial situation turned around too–because for the first time in a long time the members of the congregation began to realize the value of their ministry to one another and to others and, like Paul said, they began to excel also in that grace and in the generous undertaking of gifts to support needed ministry.  

In the midst of famine and hunger, in the midst of grief and abandonment, in the midst of sickness and death, in the midst of all this world’s problems and pains, Jesus is our hope. And as brothers and sisters to one another in Jesus, we become miracles of grace and hope to one another as well.

Brothers and sisters, may Christ be with you as you endure whatever hurts or sorrows are happening in your life today and whatever troubles you may face in days to come. And may you be with one another in Christ, supporting each other, praying for one another, reminding each other of the gospel hope we share. We know our Redeemer lives, and that he will be with us when we are on our deathbeds, and that at the end, he will stand upon our graves, and that even after our skin has been destroyed, we will yet see God, we will be raised by Christ to be with Christ forever. How our hearts yearn within us!  (Cf. Job 19:25-27.)  Amen.

—

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Posted by David Sellnow
19
Apr
2021

Raised up with Jesus

From fear to hope and newness of life

Bible readings for 3rd Sunday of Easter:  Acts 3:12-19,  1 John 3:1-7,  Luke 24:36-48

————

Are you afraid? A more precise question would be: What fears do you have? We all have fears to one degree or another. A lot of us have a lot of fears that dwell in our hearts and dominate our thinking. The past year of pandemic and political turmoil has pushed fears to the surface even more than before.

I’m afraid of COVID-19. People close to me have died due to that disease. So many people have died overall. I’m not a young man, and I have other risk factors. I’m grateful that I’ve been able to be vaccinated. But I fear we’re not out of the woods yet in dealing with the health threat of the pandemic. I also have other, underlying fears that keep bothering me.  I worry about job security. I wonder if I’ll have sufficient funds when I get older and am no longer working. I want to know that my kids all will have stability and happiness in their lives and careers–and so much about the future is uncertain. I fear for our country. I fear for our world. There seems no end of economic uncertainty, societal controversies, international pressures and tensions … and the planet itself seems to be groaning and convulsing with environmental problems along with all our human problems (cf. Romans 8:19-23).

There have been studies and surveys done about what fears are troubling people the most. One survey showed that 83% of Americans fear that the next generation will be worse off than we are today. 76% are afraid we are losing democracy in America. 58% fear climate change will cause harm in the area where they live. A survey in another country, conducted during the pandemic, found that the vast majority of young adults feared losing a relative. More than half expressed a general anxiety about the future. A third of young adults said they were seriously or very seriously afraid that the worst was going to happen, with almost all the rest saying they moderately or somewhat felt that way. Less than 10% said they never feared that the worst was going to happen.

Beyond fears about the external world, we have deeper fears too, that linger in our souls. We have fears caused by our sense of guilt and shame. We’ve heard the news that we are forgiven, but we struggle to believe that news. We can’t shake the feeling that our past sins will come back to haunt us–maybe even eternally. Maybe we still have our doubts about eternity itself–if there is really life after death. 

And when we do manage to hold onto faith, we waver in expressing our faith. We’re afraid that the people of this world and the powers in this world are set against us. We fear we’re not up to the challenge of living our beliefs openly in the community. We fear opposition. We fear ridicule. We fear being thought of as naïve or out of touch. We worry about our own inadequacies. We are immobilized by our uncertainties.

What does Jesus say to all our fears?  You know what he says: “Peace be with you” (Luke 24:36). “Don’t be afraid,” (Matthew 28:10). He said such words when he appeared to the women who found his tomb empty and to his disciples when he appeared to them inside a locked room. I’ve heard it said that the phrase, “Fear not” or “Don’t be afraid” occurs 365 times in the Bible, once for every day of the year. Actually, if you account for the various Bible translations and many different words that describe our fears (anxiety, worry, trepidation, alarm, dread), the Bible actually talks about fear far more than 365 times. It is a constant theme of God’s word to us. He is our God; his love is our strength. So the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, melts our fears and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (cf. Philippians 4:7).  That doesn’t mean our fears aren’t real. It doesn’t mean fears cease to exist and we live blissfully unaware of any threats or worries. There is plenty to make us afraid, day after day. But the presence of the living, breathing, miraculous Savior Jesus enables us to overcome fear.

Think of the disciples as they cowered in hiding and did not know what to do in the days after Christ’s crucifixion. They weren’t out in the streets protesting the brutality of the Roman guards who had beaten and killed Jesus. They feared the Romans, and they feared their own community members who had demanded that Jesus should die. They didn’t know what to think when friends of theirs came hurrying back to Jerusalem to tell them Jesus was alive and had been with them while they were on the road. And when Jesus appeared again right there among them, they thought they were seeing a ghost. Jesus had to ask them for a piece of fish and eat it in front of them to convince them he was real and they weren’t hallucinating (cf. Luke 24:36-43).

Now think also of those same disciples some weeks later, at the festival of Pentecost and in the days thereafter. Having seen the risen Christ and being strengthened by his Spirit, they became bold enough to stand up and speak out about Jesus and his resurrection. Peter, who had bragged that he would never fall or back down (cf. Matthew 26:33), had crumbled into curses and denials when Jesus was put on trial. But then Peter saw Jesus risen from death (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:5) and was assured by Jesus that he remained in Jesus’ love and still had a place as an apostle for Jesus (cf. John 21:15-19). A new boldness took over in Peter–not one from his own bravado or self-confidence. Now he lived and spoke as a new person, changed by the power of Jesus’ resurrection. And Peter offered to people who had participated in the killing of Jesus the same path of redemption and forgiveness that he had experienced himself.  Peter said to the people: “You handed over and rejected [Jesus] in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. … You rejected the Holy and Righteous One … and killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. … And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. … Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out” (Acts 3:13-19). 

When Peter told his fellow Israelites, “You killed the Author of life,” he wasn’t preaching from some high and mighty perch, seeing himself as better than his hearers. He knew well his own shame and guilt. He wanted others–even those complicit in the death of Jesus–to know the rejuvenating power of Jesus’ life. Those who believe in Jesus are brought to new life by Jesus.

We are believers in Jesus’ resurrection. Our confidence that there is a heavenly future for us comes from knowing that whoever believes in Jesus will live, even though we die (cf. John 11:25-26). We stake our lives–our eternal lives–on that promise of Jesus.

I wonder how much, though, we realize the power of Christ’s resurrection in our lives already now. From the moment we first believed, we crossed over from death to life (cf. John 5:24). From the moment we became baptized members of God’s family, our lives changed. We are not just called children of God; that is who and what we truly are, as John reminded us (1 John 3:1). Another apostle, Paul, said this also:  “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4). 

So, sin and death are no longer the dominant forces in our lives. The life of Christ is the power that is at work within us. The resurrection of Christ empowers us, enlivens us. If we ponder that, what does it mean for our current lives? 

It means we stop seeing faith as if it is just knowledge, just a way of thinking. We come to understand that faith is a way of being. It is a life of faith that we lead, inspired and moved and guided by the Lord who went before us into death and came out alive again. Living by the power of Jesus’ resurrection means we are new creations (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17). We don’t hang around in our old patterns of sin and shame and falling short. “No one who abides in Christ sins” (1 John 3:6). We strive now to do what is right, just as Jesus is righteous (cf. 1 John 3:7).

And if you think, “I’m not strong enough to do that, to be that person” … let me remind you that the “immeasurable greatness of God’s power,” the same power that God put “to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand” (Ephesians 1:19-21), is also the power that is now at work in you by faith.

So, what will it look like if our lives are empowered by Jesus’ resurrection? What will our character and conduct look like as witnesses for Jesus? Peter, who spoke the powerful words we heard earlier to his fellow people in Jerusalem, described well our life of witness in one of his letters to the church: “In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame” (1 Peter 3:15-16). 

You don’t need to stand with a megaphone outside a busy coffee shop, haranguing about the evils in society and how all the coffee drinkers on the patio were causing the deaths of innocent souls. (I saw someone doing that on Saturday of Easter weekend, and he was not winning any converts for Christ by his methods.) Your witness for Christ comes from who you are in your daily life and how you speak with others in your daily life. When it is evident that you are warm and caring, that you are alive and eager, that you are full of hope and active in love, people will be drawn to you as a living witness for Christ, and you will have opportunities to speak with them of your faith in Christ.  As Jesus himself urged us, everyone will know that we are his disciples by our love (cf. John 13:35).

We have our fears–and plenty of them. Things that cause fear and alarm keep coming at us relentlessly.  Inevitably, in this world, we will have trouble. But we take courage in Jesus, who has overcome this world and its trouble (cf. John 16:33). We have life through Jesus and his power over death. Even when sick and ailing, even in the midst of fears and problems, even when facing death itself, we are alive through Jesus. That is our living hope (1 Peter 1:3), our constant way of being because of Jesus. And that will always be our strongest witness to the world–that we exude joy and hope and peace that rest in knowing Jesus.  We are “convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, nor from the life that we have now and eternally with him.  

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Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Image credit:  Newness of Life by listentothemountains on Flickr, Creative Commons License

Posted by David Sellnow
06
Sep
2020

Work is essential

by David Sellnow


When the COVID-19 pandemic began, state governors issued orders identifying essential workers whose labors were needed for community health and sustenance and safety. As pandemic conditions have persisted, we’ve come to see how work is essential for everyone. Those who’ve been forced into unemployment are painfully aware of how much their work mattered, especially as extended unemployment benefits ran out.

Even in Eden, work was provided for Adam and Eve. We may sometimes think of work as a necessary evil, but meaningful labor is actually an ongoing good that God intended for us in this world. Being on a perpetual vacation with nothing to do would not be paradise. Vacations provide needed respite from overwork. A weekly day of rest (sabbath) is a divinely designed time to withdraw from busyness and renew our spirits in communion with our Creator. But work itself is a vital part of our human experience. Anyone who has ever lost a job and been out of work knows what a blow to personal identity and security and hope it is.

Work is God’s way of providing for our needs in daily life, as well as the needs of our neighbors and communities. Studies have found that job loss and insecure employment have damaging effects on individuals’ emotional well-being and overall health. A 2009 study found that “unemployed workers died more than a year earlier than average” (Houston Chronicle, 2/1/2019).  As to community wellness, a study published in 2001 in The Journal of Law and Economics found that “a substantial portion of the decline in property crime rates during the 1990s [was] attributable to the decline in the unemployment rate.” When work is unstable, our own health and the stablility of whole communities is threatened. .

All work that has a beneficial purpose is godly work. A devoted church worker, Martin Luther, labored hard to teach this truth about work outside of church. In his era, clergy persons were held to be somehow holier than ordinary people simply by virtue of the religious positions they occupied. Luther reshaped the outlook on vocation or “calling,” assigning honor to all community members who were doing good work for their neighbors.  

In his address To the Christian Nobility in the German lands (1520), Martin Luther wrote: “A cobbler, a smith, a peasant—each has the work and office of his trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops. Further, everyone must benefit and serve every other by means of his own work or office so that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the community, just as all the members of the body serve one another.”  Luther also has been quoted saying, “Every occupation has its own honor before God. Ordinary work is a divine vocation or calling. In our daily work, no matter how important or mundane, we serve God by serving the neighbor and we also participate in God’s ongoing providence for the human race.”   Marc Kolden, writing in the Lutheran Journal of Ethics (2001), emphasized that Luther’s thought wasn’t so much about what formal occupation you might have. Any and every role in which you labor for others–even “the most mundane stations” and lowest tasks–”are places in which Christians ought to live out their faith” and help others by their efforts. In his writing On the Estate of Marriage (1522), for instance, Luther highlighted the noble duty of a parent changing diapers as an act of faith and love and service.

As COVID-19 began to ravage the United States, healthcare workers were hailed by members of their communities, from the banging of pots and pans each evening at 7:00pm in New York to residents going outside and howling at 8:00pm each night in Colorado. This was welcomed as recognition of essential efforts. I pray that through this present crisis, we learn to applaud work and workers in all sorts of needed roles, and also respect and remunerate workers appropriately for what they do to hold our communities together. Many of those considered “essential workers” under governors’ orders are in positions that are paid minimum wage or not much more. In my state, someone working full-time at minimum wage must spend roughly half their income to afford a one-bedroom apartment. They’d spend quite a bit more than half their income on rent in a metro area. According to government-defined standards, households that spend more than 30% of their income on rent are defined as “cost-burdened” and qualify for public assistance. Those spending more than 50% of their income on rent are “severely cost-burdened.” Something does seem amiss when persons doing work that we consider essential to community life have a hard time making ends meet as residents in the community.

So, as we observe Labor Day, let us pray:

  • with deep thanks for our own employment if we continue to have employment;
  • with passionate concern for all who are facing unemployment or reduced employment and income;
  • for generous gifts to churches and charities who work with persons in need; 
  • for strength and hope and help if we ourselves are financially burdened and at risk;
  • for recognition of all workers’ worth and the value of others’ work on our behalf;
  • for a willingness to share in supporting one another as neighbors in society;
  • for wise leadership in our nation and world to guide economies through difficult challenges;
  • for personal commitment to do all forms of labor and service as acts of faith in answer to our calling as Christ’s people.


“Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms“ (1 Peter 4:10).

“Brothers and sisters, never tire of doing what is good” (2 Thessalonians 3:13).

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Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

Posted by David Sellnow
26
May
2020

Pray for good government

Give wisdom to those who govern

by David Sellnow

An account has come down to us from the ancient world. The pharaoh ruling over Egypt had a pair of dreams that frightened him. In one dream, seven healthy, well-fed cows appeared. Immediately afterward, seven scrawny, starving cows came up out of the Nile River and devoured the healthy cows. The second dream was similar. Seven healthy ears of grain were consumed by dry, withered heads of grain. 

The pharaoh sought someone to give meaning to his dreams. He found Joseph, who had a prophetic gift. Joseph said, “What God is about to do he has declared to Pharaoh” (Genesis 41:25). Seven years of abundant harvests were coming. Then seven years of desperate famine would follow. Joseph advised the pharaoh to collect and store twenty percent of the kingdom’s harvests over the next seven years to prepare for anticipated years of food shortages. The pharaoh followed Joseph’s advice and put Joseph in charge of the kingdom’s emergency preparedness program.

We may wish a prophet had predicted our current crisis in the modern world. Had we known a deadly pandemic would be unleashed, we could have done more to prepare. Then again, there were voices that gave advance warning. They weren’t divinely inspired, but they were quite prescient in their projections. After the Ebola scare of 2014, Bill Gates gave a TED Talk in 2015 titled,  “The Next Outbreak? We’re Not Ready.” In 2016, the National Security Council developed an extensive Playbook for Early Response to High Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents.  In September 2019, the US Naval War College ran a pandemic wargame that foreshadowed much of what we are experiencing now with COVID-19.  There is a human tendency, however, to avoid dealing with things we hope won’t happen. When the novel coronavirus began its global spread in recent months, governments around the world were challenged beyond their readiness.  And people who normally didn’t want governments to play too large a role in their lives found themselves wanting and needing government agencies to do more.

Another human tendency–during good times–is to want government off our backs and out of our pocketbooks. We don’t like high taxes or a proliferation of regulations. It’s easy to see government as an obstacle that gets in the way of personal liberties and the pursuit of profits. But when a crisis comes along, then we expect government to be there, protecting citizens, preserving stability, providing basic necessities. Even politicians who typically have fought tooth and nail over the purpose of government came to quick agreement when pressed by a pandemic. An enormous rescue measure passed by a vote of 96 to 0 in the Senate, and subsequent aid packages passed with similar wholehearted support.  The fourth such bill was passed in the Senate by unanimous consent and a vote of 388 to 5 in the House of Representatives. When the situation is dire, the need for intervention by government becomes immediately apparent.

In my days teaching history and religion, I used to assign the following take-home question to ministry students:    In explaining the Lord’s Prayer petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” Martin Luther said one of the things we pray is that God would give us “good government.” Using examples from history, compose an essay that attempts to answer the question:  “What constitutes good government?”

Respondents to that question tended to focus on key common factors such as:
– Providing equal justice for all persons, without favoritism;
– Showing concern for the people and acting in the interests of all the people;
– Leadership and guidance during times of stress and crisis;
– Keeping citizens safe (criminal justice, national defense, public health);
– Building and maintaining infrastructure (roads, utilities, etc).

Their answers echoed things said by ancient prophets. Amos decried those in positions of power who abused the people under them. He said, “Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts” (Amos 5:15). Moses stated these basic principles for government officials: “You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality. You shall not take a bribe …. You shall follow that which is altogether just” (Deuteronomy 16:19,20). Governing authorities are servants of God, set in their position for the good of the human community (cf. Romans 13:4). We are grateful when government serves its purpose well. We pray “for kings and all who are in high places” (1 Timothy 2:2), so that we can live peaceful lives on this earth.

When Solomon became king in Israel after the death of his father David, he prayed for his own capability to govern.  He asked God, “Give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people, that I may discern between good and evil” (1 Kings 3:9). The Lord approved of Solomon’s prayer. “God said to him, ‘Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked for yourself long life, nor have you asked for riches for yourself, nor have you asked for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice … I have done according to your word. Behold, I have given you a wise and understanding heart” (1 Kings 3:11-12).

Let us pray today for wisdom as we face a difficult test of people’s mental, physical, financial, and social well-being. Pray for local leaders in towns and cities and counties. Pray for those serving at the state level, supervising laws and programs and human services. Pray for national officials who provide oversight for countries–our own as well as other nations. Pray for the work of global institutions in guiding collaboration to develop strategies and solutions. And pray for yourself and your neighbors, that we all may learn to love our neighbors as ourselves and do our best for one another. As we are being reminded often during this international health emergency: We are all in this together.

**********

Prayer:  On Memorial Day, we remember those who have died in active military service. Lord, fill us with gratitude for such dedication by members of the armed forces that serve and protect our nation. At the present time, make us mindful and thankful also for essential workers in healthcare, food production and grocery work, mass transit and other roles, hundreds of whom have lost their lives to the coronavirus pandemic. Help our communities, country, and world to find wisdom and strength to navigate the present challenges. May governments do the work you have established for them to do, good Lord, in the interests of all people. Amen.

[Bible quotations taken from World English Bible.]

Posted by David Sellnow
20
Apr
2020

Got Gospel

The Power is in the Word

by David Sellnow

I’ve had a tune running through my head a lot lately. It’s an old tune, attributed to an English organist of the 18th century:

By the waters, the waters of Babylon
We sat down and wept, and wept, for thee, Zion.
We remember, we remember, we remember thee, Zion.

If you’re not familiar with how the tune goes, you can listen to Don McClean’s version from his American Pie album (1971). It’s a haunting canon that may begin playing in your head perpetually now too. The song gives melody to the thoughts of Psalm 137. The Jewish faithful, living in exile far from their home, longed for their worship place, the temple on Zion hill in Jerusalem.

By the rivers of Babylon—
    there we sat down and there we wept
    when we remembered Zion.
On the willows there
    we hung up our harps.
For there our captors
    asked us for songs,
and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
How could we sing the Lord’s song
    in a foreign land?
If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand wither!
Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy.    (Psalm 137:1-6 NRSV)

Jerusalem had been besieged and pillaged by the empire-building Babylonians. The great temple built by Solomon had been torn down too. Thousands of people from the Kingdom of Judah were taken into exile in Babylon (some before Jerusalem fell, some after). It was hard for God’s people to sing songs of faith in a far off land, especially knowing their home city and temple had been destroyed.

In recent weeks, with churches closed in the midst of a pandemic, many of us have been feeling a sense of longing to be back in our houses of worship. We are in a better situation than the Jews in exile. We are in our homes. Our churches have not been destroyed. (Though many ministries are encountering financial challenges during these present times; support your congregation if you can.)  We look forward to when we can come together again in person, in song and praise, in fellowship and prayer.

In the meantime, we have what we need the most. We have pastors streaming their Sunday sermons so that we can still hear the good news. We have podcasts and blogs. We have devotional books and church magazines. We have our Bibles — in print, on e-readers, online. We have the good news.

Whether we receive the gospel in our accustomed church setting or through other means, God’s grace in Jesus is conveyed. The gospel remains the same.  The gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Romans 1:16 NRSV). The power isn’t in the venue or format in which or through which the gospel is heard. The power is in God’s word itself, in whatever way it is delivered. The “got milk?” campaign for getting bodily nutrition doesn’t ask, “Got carton?” or “Got jug?” or “Got pitcher?” The milk is the thing, not the container it comes in. So too with “the pure, spiritual milk” by which we “grow into salvation” (1 Peter 2:2). In whatever way we receive the message, the power is in the “still, small voice” of God speaking his truth (1 Kings 19:12 KJV).

Posted by David Sellnow