Welcome Table

In 1922, the Florida Normal Quartet introduced a song with Biblical roots that connected with a related African-American spiritual.  The song was reintroduced numerous times, and is currently on YouTube recorded by Courtney Patton's Southern Gospel Revival.  It is a great song with lots to say.

Two Scriptures come to mind when you hear this song.  The first (and what the original song was based upon) is the wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation 19:6-9.  Christ's bride (the Church) has been brought to the wedding feast and is referred to as "Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9)!"  The other passage is the Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14:15-24.  In the parable many of the invited guests are too busy with their lives to attend the great feast.  The owner of the great house is angry that the 'invited' are so self-focused that they must make excuses and beg out of the feast.  So, the owner says, "Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the town and bring the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame (Luke 14:21)."

Lots of 'meat' in these two passages.  First, we have a myriad of people who feel they are 'invited,' in fact guaranteed, a place at "The Table."  And it is true that many are invited to God's table.  I would venture to say that we (the Church) are to invite everyone to God's table.  But the point of the parable is that being invited isn't choosing to be at the table.  Our free will, our pension for being self-directed and our propensity for placing our priorities before God's priorities can have eternal implications.  To sit at the table, to enjoy God's company and to join in the wedding feast, we must choose God over other stuff.

Second, God is pretty good at calling our bluff.  He hears us sing the songs about 'the land over yonder' and he watches us on Sunday morning as we worship.  But God looks deep.  Is our worship 'in Spirit and Truth' as God clearly desires ("God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth [John 4:24]")?  So, God, in the parable and in the verse from Revelation, calls us to account.  Will we be able to meet on God's terms at God's place in God's time?  The big question here is, "How are YOU prioritizing God right now, today?"  Are you checking out property, buying oxen or focused on personal events?  God is asking, "Tell me where I fit in!"

Finally, God isn't a respecter of our categorizations of people.  God values our brokenness more than our stature.  I wonder if this passage is saying what Matthew 11:28 is saying ... "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden."  I wonder if the invitation to these two banquets have a little note at the bottom of the invite-card that says "The unbroken need not come."

Back to the song.  The lyrics say, "I'm gonna sit at the welcome table ... I'm gonna sit at the welcome table one of these days!"  That table requires me to place God before self.  That table requires me to confess brokenness.  That table is for those who need God.  In Matthew 5:3-11 God (I believe) lists many of the requirements for that welcome table ... go read them.  Many of us wouldn't place much value on the people God views as "blessed."  But I guess that table, the banquet hall, pretty much everything, doesn't belong to us.  It is the owner's house.  Wanna go?  Randy

Protect and Serve

When you read the words "Protect and Serve" you may think of law enforcement ... and rightly so.  In 1955 the Los Angeles Police Department sought departmental input regarding a motto that could be both remembered and foundational for their department.  The winner was named and in November of 1963 Protect and Serve was adopted and the motto for the LAPD.  I like it, and we see that same motto appear on law enforcement vehicles all across America.  But what I discovered last week was even more informative.

In Genesis 2:15 God's word uses 2 Hebrew words ... avadh and shamar.  Shamar means to protect and avadh means to serve.  While these words are meaningful coming from the perspective of law enforcement, they mean so much more coming from God, especially since God is using these words to describe human responsibility and purpose.  Let's unpack them a bit!

Why would God ask Adam to protect (shamar) the garden?  What can he do?  If you look deeper into the word, you find that the word here is a little like tending a flock or being guardian over something that is unable to fully protect itself.  My brother is one of the people in charge of forest-protection in California.  They have been working, through proper management and control-burns, to have enough fire-breaks and underbrush-control to keep forest fires at bay.  But California is a massive state, and it has been virtually impossible for them to achieve even minimal protection for the forest there.  Wildfires have been disastrous.  Solutions have not been easy.  The garden is big ... our efforts are small.  I wonder, in Genesis, if God is pre-warning Adam of other intrusions into the garden, such as serpents?

Adam is also asked to serve (avadh) the garden.  Isn't it interesting that God asks Adam to place himself in the position of a servant in relation to an inanimate garden?  Or is it inanimate?  Does God view the garden, even the world, as something that has order, life and purpose?  God does tell Adam to subdue or govern the garden.  But in Hebrew the idea of rule and governance is caught up in the idea of being responsible for the welfare of the thing you govern.  Judges were to provide for the welfare of their people.  Micah described God's 'Great Requirement' as loving justice, doing mercy and walking in humility with God.  Jesus said, in Matthew 22:11 "The greatest among you will be a servant."  Do you think God is (through the fabric of His Holy Word) trying to tell us something profound about His intention for us?  We are not bigger that our garden, the world we live in, the people we are given, the context into which we are placed!

Someone asked Nick Saban why his process of leadership worked so well.  He said ... "Don't think about winning the SEC championship.  Don't think about the national championship.  Think about what you need to do in this drill, on this play, in this moment."  Translation ... "Do your job!"  I wonder ... if Adam, Eve, Randy, Sally, Nicey, Angel, Jason, Tina, Ryan, Andy, Jane ... all of us ... just kept this mantra before us ... "protect and serve the garden" ... how would that impact our little part of God's creation?  The truth is (whether you agree or not) God's instruction to Adam has implications about every one of us.  Environmental implications.  Social implications.  Spiritual implications.  Business implications. Life implications.

We have been given governance over 'the garden.'  We are to protect and serve.  Maybe if we took this task seriously and, on every play, just did our job, we could make a difference.  God seemed to think so!  So should we!  Randy

Work and Order

I know you are looking at the blog title and saying, "Wow, what a fun topic!"  Most today don't seek out work and don't like the perceived restriction of order.  We have convinced ourselves that freedom is somehow connected to "doing what I want."  But do you ever wonder if we are all somehow connected to a larger plan, a larger purpose and a bigger dream than our own wants?

If you start the Bible from the beginning, you will find that it doesn't take long for God to proclaim some of the reasons He created humans.  In Genesis 1 we find that we are made in the image of God.  I have thought that if we somehow took all of the good things in all of the people who have ever lived and put them on display, we might get a small peek at a reflection of God ... like the moon reflecting the son or a child reflecting a bit of its father/mother.  This is, by God's account, a good thing.  But there is another thing happening in Genesis.  The story of creation is being told in simple terms so that we might grasp some of what God is like and what people are like ... how God created us.  That calls me to one verse in Genesis 2.  "God took the man and set him down in the Garden of Eden to work the ground and keep it in order (Genesis 2:15, The Message)."  So much about God and people is contained in that short verse.

1. God's placement - Did you note that God "Set him down in the Garden of Eden?"  God, in His purpose and wisdom, placed the man in the garden.  The Bible talks about God moving nations, kings and events ... and we find a singular person, Adam, placed by God into the garden.

2. God's priority - God has 2 things Adam is supposed to do.  First, he is to 'work' the garden.  The Hebrew word is Avadh.  It implies both toil and serving.  The King James Version uses the word 'dress.'  I understand this well, since, as a child, I worked many hours in my father's garden.  I hoed clods, pulled up weeds and sweated in the hot North Carolina sun.  I liked the fresh vegetables, but wasn't so keen on the work it took to get them!  The second priority we find is 'order.'  Keeping the garden in order means that God had a plan and an intent as He created the garden.  It wasn't random.  God seems to want order.  The very first thing that happens in Genesis 1 is God brings order to what the Bible calls, "formless and empty."  God fills the emptiness and gives order to the formless.  And God gives Adam instructions to 'keep it that way.'

3. God's beautiful plan - I remember planting, working, growing and picking vegetables from my own garden.  It was hard work.  But if you worked hard enough and came to the garden as a servant of something bigger than yourself, it would produce good things.  You might even come to the realization that God had created the things you were planting to have the right amount of care, the right amount of water and the right amount of sunlight.  The plan for a good garden is something designed long before you were born ... it goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden.

Here is our disconnect.  We think our freedom is the license to place ourselves wherever we want doing whatever we want.  We are in charge of placement and we even tell ourselves, "I can go anywhere I want!"  We establish our own priorities, ignoring the things that are important to God.  We have our own plans and forget the plans of one who desires to give us a hope and a future.

I say all this to remember the Biblical beginning and end of things.  If you read Revelation carefully, you will see that God brings things full circle.  In Revelation 22, the chapter begins with "The Restoration of Eden."  It is a stark reminder that God will bring to pass what God desires and has designed.  God has a place to which He brings His people (His Bride), a priority that will certainly be realized and a plan that will happen.  So ... will we serve/dress God's garden ... will we work to make God's plan happen ... will God's priorities become our priorities?  In the formless, orderless void we see swirling in this world, will we be agents of working God's fields so that God's order will be restored?  Randy

Power and Proclaimation

There was a mighty struggle happening.  The Egyptian Pharaoh was intent on keeping his slaves, his workforce and his power over Israel.  God had called Moses, a flawed, stammering and less-than-perfect spokesperson, to demand that the Hebrew people be released from captivity.  I am sure the people were asking, "What is going on?  What is God's purpose in the plagues (they were right in the midst of God's real/physical plights on the Egyptian leader and people).  Why is God doing this and what is God's plan?"

I think we ask some of these same questions.  "Why are events unfolding like they are?  Why are evil people and evil happenings rising up?  What is going on?  Why is God allowing this and what is God's plan?"  We ask, pretty much, the same questions.

Exodus 9 provides a clear, concise and direct answer to the questions above.  "But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth (Exodus 9:16)."  This little passage says volumes about why we are here and the purpose of a great and awesome God.  Let's break it down.

First, all of this ... our world, events, history, future, people, nature, and even our deepest thoughts are all about God.  God's plan (according to Jeremiah 29:11) is for goodness and a future for us.  But it is God's plan.  It is for us, to benefit us, but it originates from God.  The lesson?  Find God in God's plan and find freedom, blessing and purpose there.  Henry Blackaby repeats this often in the book and study series "Experiencing God."  He would say, "If you want to find God or be found by God, jump into God's plan."

Second, God wants us to understand that He desires for us to see/know/experience/believe/trust His power.  To the Hebrews in Egypt, God is saying ... "You see what is happening around you.  Do you believe?  Does any of this show you My nature?  Do you see how I have come to rescue you?  Do you trust Me enough to leave the familiar and enter the unknown?  Do you think My power is sufficient to rescue, sustain and deliver you?"  These are the embedded questions in the theophany, terror and wonder of what is happening in Moses' Egypt.  They are the same questions God might ask about today.  We sing about our belief, but do we really see/know/experience/believe and trust God?

Finally, God wants to be known by the proclamation of His mighty deeds and the praises of His people.  Sunday we will enter the Family Life Center (9am) and the Sanctuary (11am) and proclaim and praise.  We will do this by singing.  We will enter His presence in prayer.  We will give to God's cause.  We will invest our voices, our thoughts, our attention and our hearts.

"Lord ... we hear Your voice in these words from Exodus.  We understand the call of freedom.  We acknowledge we must leave the familiar to find the extraordinary.  We know the dangers, and yet we will still choose to go ... deeper into Your word ... deeper into Your plan ... higher toward your kingdom.  We will look for You, seek to know You, hunger to experience You, faithfully believe in You and, with childlike devotion, trust You.  Help us Lord, for all of these things are difficult for us.  In the words of Rich Mullins we ask .. 'You who live in radiance, hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin.'  Thank you for listening Lord.  Let us, in our lives and in our actions, show Your power and proclaim you to all of the nations of the earth."  AMEN