Calm Before the Storm

Last week I was out on the deck at the parsonage, talking to Lee on my cell phone.  When we ended the conversation, I looked to the west, and dark clouds were looming.  It was calm, but it was clear a storm was coming.  That is the context and attitude of Palm Sunday. 

Jesus has just made His final circuit around the Holy Land.  He had been to Samaria, across the Jordan to the East, up through Jericho, and to Bethany (home of Lazarus).  Now, He enters Jerusalem for a week that begins with "Hosanna ... blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord."  A seeming triumph will be turned on its head, and betrayal, torture, mocking, denial, and death will follow.  Palm Sunday is the calm before the storm.

There are so many lessons of Holy Week.  Lessons about the person of Jesus.  Lessons about us and our nature.  Lessons about the amazing forgiveness of God.  Lessons about seeing the storm and seeing through the storm to God's good and holy plan.  Here are a few takes from a country preacher:

1. Shallow sense of false security - Some Jews thought they were about to be delivered from Roman occupation by Jesus.  Judas was one of these, and he was quick to sell Jesus out after Jesus didn't fit his political agenda.  As I look at our current political structure and parties, I don't see a lot of Jesus there.  I wonder how many are willing to sell Jesus out, following their ideology, and ditching the Jesus who is the source of their salvation?

2. Sitting in the seat of mockers - "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scoffers (Psalm 1:1)." Jesus was mocked by some (including the Pharisees) for entering the city on the back of a donkey.  Because people were looking for a mighty warrior on a charger, they missed the Savior who came to fight and win a battle they didn't even perceive.  They missed their blessing.  

3. Raising a hallelujah - Some looked past the donkey, past the meek itinerant preacher, and saw what the rocks, the earth, and all creation saw.  "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:3-5)."  They saw the one who made them, and the God who was light itself.

These are 3 of the responses on Palm Sunday.  Which will you choose?

Reprise

In music, there is a term for a repeated passage.  That term is "reprise."  In Scripture (Bible study), there are several terms for repetition.  They include:

Refrain: One or more lines repeated at intervals, such as in Psalms.

Inclusio: A "bookend" structure where a passage begins and ends with the same phrase, highlighting the material between them.

Chiasm (or Chiasmus): A structure where ideas are repeated in reverse order (A-B-C-B-A), often focusing on a central, crucial point.

Anaphora: The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or verses, commonly found in poetic sections and the Beatitudes.

Leitwortstijl (Key Word Style): The deliberate repetition of a key word or root throughout a narrative to emphasize a theme.

In life, there are things that warrant repetition.  We 'reprise' each Sunday as we live out the rhythm of life in the Church using liturgy (the Apostles Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Church year).  But there are some daily life-related 'reprise' moments I find myself both needing and applying.  And Lent is just the time for me to remind myself about these things.

This morning, I am reflecting on two 'reprise' moments I need to remember often.  The first of these is one that is posted in the church office.  It was coined by John Wesley, and it is as applicable today as when it was first penned by John Wesley.  Methodists are called (by Wesley's instruction) to follow 3 Methodist Rules.  They are 1) do no harm (don't hurt others in your words or actions), 2) do all the good you can (Galatians 6:9 says don't get tired of doing good), and 3) stay in love with God (I'll address this with the 2nd reprise moment).  Reflect on these active and positive things, and consider how YOU are doing.

The second reprise moment is caught up in what we will speak about in the Maundy Thursday service.  The word 'Maundy' comes from the Latin word mandatum, meaning not discretionary.  John 13:34-35 says, "A new commandment I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another."  Not a suggestion for Christians ... a commandment.  We are not given an out for those we do not like.  We are not given permission to exclude those who annoy us or push our buttons.  Reflect on this good word, and consider how YOU are doing.

This is a hard word, and an uphill struggle for us these last few miles in our Lenten journey.  Let's unpack and apply this as we follow Jesus ... not our hearts, desires, feelings, and/or emotions.  Love as Jesus loved ... not my words, but those of the one we say we follow.  This is ESPECIALLY important to remember when we are stressed, struggling, and going through personal crises.

You are probably saying, "I've heard that before."  Yep ... you have! AMEN

A Word About Holes

Haggai 1 describes a society that has gone off the rails.  The society has forgotten what is important.  They fill themselves with emptiness, and they hope their stones will be turned into bread.  My Bible Study had a good discussion today about this.  We all remembered those times that we wanted God to bless our plans, our stuff, our choices, and our priorities, even when they are outside of God's plan.

The nation is Judah, the southern kingdom of Israel.  It was 520BC, and the people had returned from exile in Babylon.  God had delivered them out of exile, and He had given them some level of prosperity.  They had crops to plant, food to eat, plenty to drink, warm clothing, and wages to put into their pockets.  Still the people seemed to live hand-to-mouth.  "You have planted much but harvest little. You eat but are not satisfied. You drink but are still thirsty. You put on clothes but cannot keep warm. Your wages disappear as though you were putting them in pockets filled with holes (Haggai 1:6)!"

Here are some statistics.  A 2025 debt.com survey reported that 69% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.  Another report said that 41% of Americans couldn't cover a $1,000 emergency without borrowing.  This is in a country that ranks 2nd in affluence after accounting for cost of living.  It seems Haggai 1:6 describes us!  

The "Lord of Heaven's Armies" (our Lord) says, in Haggai, there is a reason for this.  It isn't more money, crops, stuff, and/or wealth.  God calls the people of Judah to account for neglecting the God who brought them out of exile, stood by them while they were strangers in a foreign land, and heard their cries of despair.  God's clear message is ... "get outside of self."  How do we do this?

Here are some ways we can respond to God's call in the days ahead:

1. We can invest in things that require time, energy, money, effort, and inconvenience.  God's house is built when we place His Church above our comfort.

2. At our Mission's Auction this week, we can give generously, and we might just get something we want in the process.  Bid online, and/or buy a ticket and be at the auction in person.  This auction thrives when we (as the Church) show up.

3. We can be alert for needs described by our Trustees, as they faithfully work to maintain the facilities of the Church.

In Haggai, the people placed their needs 1st, leaving God's house with the leftovers.  El Roi is the Hebrew name for "the God who sees."  God sees our hearts, and He certainly sees our priorities.  I have heard people say, "God understands my circumstances."  Yes, he does.  And He calls you, me, and all of us to do what John Wesley did all his life ... make all you can, so you can save all you can, so you can give all you can.  Lent and Missions week are great times to look outside of ourselves and give to what God is doing.  I hope God can count on you!  Maybe the holes in your pockets can become mended and whole!

Come To Jesus Meeting

In Matthew 5 we find an introduction to the Sermon on the Mount ... you know, that message where Jesus compares what the "Law" says to what He says.  So we begin the Chapter with these words ... "Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them (Matthew 5:1-2)."  Did you see it?  Can you imagine what that was like?  Would you have gone?

Many of you might be saying, "That is only an introduction ... let's get to the meat of the passage!"  And, there is a lot of 'meat.'  The Beatitudes ... Jesus fulfilling the Law ... Jesus' take on murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, revenge, and loving our enemies.  But (like Julie Andrews sang in The Sound of Music) "let's start at the very beginning, it's the very first place to start."

Four profound things happen at this very important Come To Jesus Meeting.  Let's unpack them.

1. "Jesus saw the crowds."  In Scripture, the crowds are often at a distance.  They are present, but they are doing the kinds of things crowds do.  Milling about ... chattering ... using a lot of words but not saying much ... idle chatter that fills time.  Crowds are seldom viewed positively.  Moses went up the mountain and returned with God's Law, but the crowds "stood at a distance."

2. "Jesus went up on a mountainside."  Jesus creates an obstacle ... a decision ... a distance that must be crossed.  The commercial series, "Jesus Gets Us" seems to be designed to create a view of Jesus that is attractional.  Do you see the subtle, but meaningful, action here?  Jesus might be saying, "If you are interested in what I am saying, you need to move away from the crowd ... away from the distraction ... away from idle chatter.  You need to climb (by the way, Jesus DOES get us)!

3. "His disciples came to Him."  Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily, and follow Me."  Do you want to be Jesus' disciple?  Make the climb.  Go where He goes.  Get close so you can hear His voice!

4. "He began to teach them."  They left the crowd.  They watched where Jesus went.  They followed Him.  They were taught by the Master.

There are so many directions I could take this blog.  But here is what I am hearing from God today.  We are choosing to live life in "the crowds."  It is chaotic.  Our community has been rocked by arrests that none of us can fathom. "How can these things happen here?"  We seek the source of the problem and point the finger elsewhere.  But while one is caught up in the crowd, it is difficult to see the big picture.  CS Lewis said that Satan desires to "bring people like livestock to the slaughter (by the way, the exact phrase used in Ezekiel 34)."  But I wonder if we mill, chatter, and say/do many meaningless things, while missing the things of the faith.  We immerse ourselves in a culture that does not wish us well.  We make decisions to spend life in that which means nothing, while the source of our salvation climbs up on the mountainside and waits.  He is NOT attractive.  But look, the culture is selling its wares, and they look and feel and taste good.  They are stones turned to bread by a cunning and vicious adversary.  Jesus waits ... up on the hillside.  He calls His disciples to see the crowds, decide where they want to live life, see Him on the mountain, choose to climb up, and listen.  Jesus is calling us to a "Come To Jesus Meeting."  What is your choice?

Another Word on Time

Lent is upon us.  It is a 40-day period before Holy Week (not counting Sundays) in which we, as Wesleyan Christians, reflect, remember, repent, re-center, and rethink how we live out our faith.  Many view Lent as a time for giving up or sacrificing something to grow stronger in our faith.  In my reflection on Lent, I am focusing this year on a better understanding of time.

Last week, I used the Greek words Chronos and Kairos in my sermon.  Generally, Chronos is the measurable time we use to structure seconds into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days, days into weeks/months/years.  It is where we get the terms 'chronological' and 'chronology.'  It is the order/structure of time.

But this Lent, I am going to consider the more important word for time, Kairos.  Kairos is appointed, meaningful, or prophetic time.  In Mark 1;15 Jesus is beginning His ministry, and He uses the words, “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”  Jesus uses the word Kairos (in the Greek) here.  It is not a day, or week, or year.  It is a time fulfilled by God's perfect plan.  It is the coming of an event appointed and anointed by God.  So, here is the question for us.

First, has the Kingdom of God arrived in your life?  Whether you know it or not, you are either living in Chronos (in the South, we call this "the same old same old") or Kairos.  I spoke to a young man today.  He was stuck in the systems of law enforcement.  Jail, probation, times and dates he must be at a certain place, are his current reality.  He lives in the Chronos of the culture into which he has fallen.  He has learned that Chronos can, and will, enslave you in a cycle that, when viewed in reverse, seems like a repetitive pattern.  In fact, it is an unhealthy pattern that C.S. Lewis said makes people into "cattle for the slaughter."

Second, do you want to live in the freedom of Kairos?  Kairos is the time that is appointed by the one who made us, created us as His masterpiece, and gifted us for a beautiful purpose.  This time is freedom because it fulfills us, completes us, and brings us to life "on earth as it is in heaven."  Kairos allows us to live, love, and become what God has planned, and God's plans are ultimately beautiful.

This week we celebrated 2 big events in the life of the Church.  We saw our sister in Christ, Maegan Pinyan, become married, and we prayed for that marriage to be lived out in Kairos ... appointed, anointed, and prophetic time.  We want those 2 lives to bloom and grow in the light and purpose of the Living God.  We also celebrated the life of Myra Nell Brannon.  Myra Nell entered the glory of God on Sunday and we celebrated her life on Friday. What we know for sure is that Myra Nell was living in Kairos.  How do I know this?  Myra Nell was filled with God's grace, purpose, perseverance, kindness, joy, and love.  Even in her last days, she held the dignity and beauty of God's anointing and purpose.

Maegan is heading East to a life in ministry.  Myra Nell is off to a new beginning in God's house, which has plenty of room for her ... and for you, if you choose to live in Kairos, a place for God's appointed, anointed, and blessed.  How can you get there?  We said it on Ash Wednesday ... repent, and believe the Gospel!

Missionaries of Beauty

We have the saying that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  While this is largely true, I prefer a more encompassing idea that is from Ecclesiastes 3:11, "God has made everything beautiful in its time."  I don't hold to the more Calvinist view that this implies that non-beautiful things are actually created/brought to us by God.  God didn't intend for Hitler, Stalin, and other dictators to kill millions of innocent people.  I do hold to the Wesleyan idea that God can make/turn negative and devastating things into something He can and will use for His good purposes.  But enough theological interpretation.  Here is the point of this blog.

First, God is into beauty.  God created beauty, and even creates our ability to see beyond the seen realm into the beauty of the unseen realm.  Isaiah 53 says, "There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance ...(Isaiah 53:2)."  If we are unwilling to look past appearances, we will fail to see the beauty of even the Son of God, our true and living Lord!  But, if we look closer, we see the beauty, the grace, and the true love of what Jesus said and did.  Jesus was a "missionary of beauty."

Second, from the above passage and many other passages, we can begin to understand that the source and author of beauty is God.

1. "And let the beauty of our Lord, our God, be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us.  Yes, establish the work of our hands (Psalm 90:17)."  God can make the work of our hands beautiful if He blesses that work.

2. "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring Good News (Romans 10:15, Isaiah 52:7)."  God can make our feet beautiful when they bring the saving power, goodness, grace, and forgiveness of God.

Finally, we understand that the world around us is not often in the mode of creating ... it is more into tearing down.  We feed our minds on reality shows that insult and tear down for the amusement of our negative attitudes.  We feed our emotions on videos, rhetoric, and "news shows" (please DO note the quotations) that are selling us the poison pill of hate, violence, negativity, self-righteousness, and victimhood, all so that we will drift further and further under the impression that our opinion, our perspective, our party, our ideology, and our 'group' is somehow better that those "lesser" people.  While we do this, I think God looks down on us and says what He said outside of Jerusalem ... "if you, even you (Jerusalem) had only known on this day what would bring you peace, but now it is hidden from your eyes (Luke 19:42)."  

God DOES make everything beautiful in its time by revealing the things we need to see, hear, know, and perceive.  It is beautiful when we see past the hopelessness to the beautiful hope of the Gospel.  It is beautiful when we see past the beaten, bloody man on the cross to the beautiful Savior who brings us life from death.  It is beautiful when we see a spark of Christ in another person and choose to lift them up from the pit, because of the Christ in us.  And here is some REALLY Good News that is the Gospel truth ... we can, by following Jesus instead of our culture, see and hear the beauty God sends every day!  Don Moen writes it this way ... "Lord, Your mercy is so great, that you look beyond our weakness, and find purest gold from miry clay, turning sinners into saints." AMEN

Where Does Yours Shine?

The Bible talks a lot about light.  Jesus and His disciples are both called light in the world.  And prophecy about Christmas says that "to those walking in darkness, a light has come."  As I write this blog, I have a flashlight beside me, ready for use in an emergency.  But, as we approach Youth Sunday (this Sunday, the 15th), I want you to reflect on a question.  Where does your light shine?

We worship the Son of God, who was the manifestation of all the things in the first paragraph.  But Jesus has given those responsibilities to us, His Church.  You and I have been given a light.  Where does this light shine?

Might I make a few suggestions?

1. How about your workplace, where some of us spend most of every day?

2. What about social media, where people are sometimes excused from the collateral damage of "shooting from the hip"?

3. Maybe your home, where familiarity doesn't have to breed contempt?

Let's remember Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, took His calling of lighting a dark world seriously.  Maybe we, who proclaim His name and announce His kingdom, should follow our Master, Teacher, and Lord.

Sunday, we will sing "This Little Light of Mine."  It is not just a children's song.  It is for and about all who want to change their world ... one little light at a time.