Pastor’s Page

In a country that continues to lose its moral bearings, is it any wonder that it is increasingly more difficult to distinguish between those who really need help and those who do not?

In the years I lived and worked in Chattanooga, I cannot begin to recount all of the times that I was approached by someone on the street asking for money. On one occasion, a man in an wheelchair popped a wheelie and ended up tipping over backwards. I quickly went over to ask him if he was okay, thinking he could have hit his head on the pavement. He rolled over onto his knees, looked up at me and asked for money. A friend who was with him promptly smacked him on the head.

On another occasion, a friend of mine and I were coming out of the movies and were approached by a fellow named “Kevin Smith.” We listened to his story, and decided to give him a ride to the Salvation Army. They would not take him in, and when we planned to leave him there he got a bit upset. Finally, we agreed to drop him off at a restaurant, and gave him a few bucks for something to eat. My friend invited him to church, and over to his house for a meal on Sunday after church. He offered to pick him up, and told him where to be and at what time. He never showed. Some years later, “Kevin Smith” approached me while I was on a lunch break. He did not recognize me, and before he could begin his story I simply said, “I don’t have any money for you.” He walked away without a word.

The other night I was on my way home from a meeting, and coming around the exit ramp noticed a man standing outside of his car trying to waive someone down. I pulled over and rolled down the passenger-side window, and, boy, was he happy to see me. I am not going to attempt to recount everything he said, but his basic claim was that he needed money for gas, and TDOT would be there in about 20 minutes with a gas can. Shortly after I gave him some money, he drove away.

Many of you will recall that the final episodes of the TV sitcom Seinfeld were centered around an incident when Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer all witness a car-jacking, and make no attempt to come to the victim’s aid. Shortly thereafter, they are arrested for not adhering to the newly passed “Good Samaritan Law.” Their indifference (and the history of their indifference) becomes the focal point of the story, allowing for clip after clip from previous seasons to be shown again. Their self-centered lives ultimately prove to be their undoing, and the last laugh is on them. What an interesting cultural commentary upon our society this provides, and how ironic that our societal decline is even evidenced by those claiming to need the help of a Good Samaritan.

Perusing my old blog today and thought this quote from John Calvin was worth re-posting.

“But we must realize that at whatever time we are baptized, we are once for all washed and purged for our whole life.Therefore, as often as we fall away, we ought to recall the memory of our baptism and fortify our mind with it, that we may always be sure and confident of the forgiveness of sins. For, though baptism, administered only once, seemed to have passed, it was still not destroyed by subsequest sins. For Christ’s purity has been offered us in it; his purity ever flourishes; it is defiled by no spots, but buries and cleanses away all our defilements.

“Nevertheless, from this fact we ought not to take leave to sin in the future, as this has certainly not taught us to be so bold. Rather, this doctrine is only given to sinners who groan, wearied and oppressed by their own sins, in order that they may have something to lift them up and comfort them, so as not to plunge into confusion and despair” (Institutes,Book IV, XV, 3, emphasis added).

This story is commendable on a number of levels. http://www.rabbitroom.com/?p=5046

Horace Doss was buried today in an Alabama countryside. He was a beloved husband, father, granddaddy, and great-granddaddy. Cancer overtook him suddenly, and he died on August 25, 2009 at 1:30 PM. Surrounded by his children and their spouses, he opened his eyes wide, looked around the room one last time, smiled, and breathed his last in this earthly life. He was a man whose faith was firmly fixed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fruit of that faith is evident in the legacy he leaves behind in a believing wife, believing children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Mr. Doss steadfastly served the Lord, and during his years of Gospel ministry he even baptized his granddaughter, Denise, who is a member of St. Mark – a moment with her grandfather she will always cherish.

On the same day of Horace Doss’ death, Senator Ted Kennedy also succumbed to cancer. Likely, you have read the reports, or seen the coverage on various news stations recounting Kennedy’s legacy. He was known as the “Liberal Lion” – a political appellation which is ironically fitting. According to a recent Time magazine article, Senator Kennedy was a man of quiet Catholic faith and prayer. While I am not willing to discount that the Lord uses Obadiahs for the purposes of His kingdom (see 1 Kings 18), it does not appear that the Liberal Lion qualifies for such status. Dated August 3, 1971, Ted Kennedy closed a letter with the following statement:

When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception (emphasis added).

Mr. Kennedy’s pro-abortion voting record indicates that his conviction on the responsibility to children from the moment of conception did not last.

Tomorrow the coverage of the Senator’s funeral will be extensive, likely complete with aerial views. I doubt that Mr. Doss’ funeral today received as much fanfare in the press, if any at all, and suspect the procession was not followed by a helicopter. But who was the greater man? The one who leaves behind a legacy of death? Or the one who leaves behind a legacy of life? I never met Senator Ted Kennedy, nor did I ever have the privilege of meeting Horace Doss, but I look forward to meeting Mr. Doss in Glory.

For a recent book study at St. Mark, we read and discussed Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol. With Advent just a couple of weeks away, I wondered how reading this tale might influence our thinking, and impact our Christmas celebrations. Time will tell, I suppose, but it dawned on me some days after the discussion what might be the most important contribution that A Christmas Carol can make to our present generation; an obvious fact that initially eluded my contemplations of the story. What is it? Pictures. Pictures of real, meaningful and unapologetic celebration. Celebration that has a purity and essence that we moderns have lost, and desperately need to regain.

G.K. Chesterton contended that Dickens “was not only English, but unconsciously historic. Upon him descended the real tradition of ‘Merry England,’ and not upon the pallid mediaevalists who thought they were reviving it. The Pre-Raphaelites, the Gothicists, the admirers of the Middle Ages, had in their subtlety and sadness the spirit of the present day. Dickens had in his buffoonery and bravery the spirit of the Middle Ages. He was much more mediaeval in his attacks on mediaevalism than they were in their defences of it….

“In fighting for Christmas he was fighting for the old European festival, Pagan and Christian, for that trinity of eating, drinking, and praying which to moderns appears irreverent, for the holy day which is really a holiday. He had himself the most babyish ideas about the past. He supposed the Middle Ages to have consisted of tournaments and torture-chambers, he supposed himself to be a brisk man of the manufacturing age, almost Utilitarian. But for all that he defended the mediaeval feast which was going out against the Utilitarianism which was coming in. He could only see all that was bad in mediaevalism, but he fought for all that was good in it. And he was all the more really in sympathy with the old strength and simplicity because he knew that it was good and did not know that it was old. He cared as little for mediaevilsm as the mediaevals did. He cared as much as they did for lustiness and virile laughter and sad tales of good lovers and pleasant tales of good livers… . He had no pleasure in looking on the dying Middle Ages. But he looked on the living Middle Ages, on a piece of the old uproarious superstition still unbroken; and he hailed it like a new religion. The Dickens character ate pudding to an extent at which the modern mediaevilists turned pale” (Charles Dickens, The Last of the Great Men).

It is precisely this ever-present spirit that sings to us throughout the carol. Who among is not drawn to the infectious, heart-felt joy of Scrooge’s nephew? Who among us would not thrill to throw ourselves to the dance with Old Fezziwig and his wife? Would we dare to be too serious, or claim we have not practiced enough? Who of us would not confess, with Dickens himself, the desire to be one of the children who “were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child conducting itself like forty?” And we have yet to mention the elaborate descriptions of food that can no more be supported on the page than the prize turkey by its legs. Can any of us approach the delight of the Cratchits in their goose, pudding, and each another? Would any of us venture not to join the revelry with Fred, his wife and their friends? Would we be too mature for their games? Or would we understand that “it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.”

We need these pictures, for they instruct us in the life to be lived. They give us glimpses of the life we have neglected, and need to restore. They are pictures of hearts that laugh, and know truly the meaning of “Merry Christmas!” Let us listen well to Dickens’ Carol, and hasten to join the song.

Another gem from Peter Leithart’s commentary on 1 & 2 Kings. Regarding the story of 2 Kings 16, he writes:

The account of Ahaz raises another challenge to contemporary Christian practice. For a variety of reasons, Christian worship in many contemporary churches has adopted liturgical styles from the worlds of entertainment or advertising. When success depends on copying the latest methods, the church’ apparently staid traditionalism, its claim to be the object of God’s special favor, its claims to be the Eden of God, the holy mountain, the house of the living God, can look quaint if not downright proud.

Better to adjust our worship and our language to the dominant cultural power, it is thought, than to keep up the arrogant pretense that we enjoy a special status. In adapting itself to the world, the church is departing from the pattern or model that should govern its worship. Only when the church follows the [model] of heavenly worship does water flow from the temple to the world. If the church adopts the [model] of Damascus, then the nations are on their own, and no water will flow to renew the parched land. Soon such a church will cease to have any purpose of being; ultimately, it will no longer be (248).

Currently reading Ralph C. Wood’s, Literature and Theology. A gem of a book.

An excerpt from the introduction:

Christianity is a supremely story-centered and story-borne religion. Christians are called to center their lives around the singular story of God’s ordering and reordering of the world. It is not surprising that, as a story-telling people, Christians would have followed the example of their Jewish forebears in being a People of the Book. Though it has many other qualities, the Bible is first and last the narrative of God’s people, the recounting of His dealings not only with Jews and Christians but with all the other peoples as well, from the original Creation until the final End. Nor is it any wonder that a people whose lives are sustainted by the Grand Drama of God’s work in the world should have produced yet more stories and books of their own. This little book of mine is an attempt to relate some of these later stories and books to the One Great Story and Book.

Beginning where a Christian’s life begins in the Church – at baptism, Dr. Wood delves into the baptismal imagery of “The River” by the ever-provocative Flannery O’Connor. He moves on to consider vocation through the lens of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, and the matter of compansionship via J.R.R. Tolien’s The Lord of the Rings. Further, the works of T.S. Eliot, G.K Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, and Walter Miller are brought to bear on other aspects of the Christian life. Hardly a work for pastors or theologians only, Dr. Wood’s collection of essays are engaging, challenging, and thoroughly edifying for a wide range of readers.

It is not unreasonable to suppose that the life of prayer will draw us into a genial camaraderie, so secure in God’s grace and confident in his beneficence that we are irresistibly carried along in the flow of the river of God, viewing everyone and everything with the cheeriest of feelings. But reason, at least reason inexperienced and untested in the life of prayer, isn’t the best guide in these matters. When we take the Psalms as our guide, we find that people who pray have a lot of enemies, and that they spend a lot of their praying time dealing with them.

Most of us would prefer it otherwise. We commonly indulge our preference by subjecting the Psalms to severe editing, cutting away any negativism that offends piety and disturbs the peace. The editing is usually unconscious, accomplished by the simple expedient of withdrawing the imagination and sliding over the offensive passages. Psalm 137 is on nearly everyone’s list for revision. Psalm 137 is the scandal of the Psalter.

– Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer

This Sunday is Trinity Sunday. For further reading on the history and meaning of this occasion, I recommend the following: http://www.stpaulskingsville.org/trinity.htm

Today marks the fortieth day after Easter, the day our Lord ascended to His throne in Heaven. I suspect that we are not nearly as excited about today as we ought to be. Granted, we will be celebrating the ascension this coming Lord’s Day, but today marks an amazing moment in God’s saving work and in the history of the world.

Not to state the obvious, but when you stop and think about it, we have been moving to this day since Advent and Christmastide. Our liturgical year begins anticipating the coming of the Savior, and then rejoices in the God who came in the flesh of man to deliver the world from sin. We behold Jesus’ manifestation in Epiphany; mediate on His engagement in holy war through suffering, which culminates on the cross, in the Lenten season; and then resoundingly declare His victory over death and the grave at Easter. And this victory celebration, lasting more than one Sunday, finds its climax in the risen King’s ascension to His throne.

Jesus ascended to the glory from which He came signifying that He accomplished the will of His heavenly Father; that God’s plan of salvation was successful; and that the “earthly” phase of Jesus’ work was complete. This is reason for celebration. Although we might think it would have been better for Jesus to stay on the earth, Jesus himself says otherwise. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you (John 16:7). Jesus is speaking of the giving of the Holy Spirit, evidence that the ascension has taken place. Quoting Psalm 68, Paul declares in Ephesians 4: When he ascended on high…he gave gifts to men. Our heavenly King has lavished upon the church what she needs to grow to maturity, to serve Him, to continue the kingdom work on earth, and chief among those gifts is the Holy Spirit. This is hardly a small thing! Hardly a meager gift! If Jesus had not ascended then He could only be in one place at a time, but the coming of the Holy Spirit dramatically changed that dynamic. As Laurence Hull Stookey notes, “the ascension is an affirmation that the Risen One is now bound by neither time nor space. Jesus of Nazareth dwelt some thirty years in a very small territory to the east of the Mediterranean. But through the power of the resurrection Christ is revealed as being present at all times and in all places. That presence is effected by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is nothing less than Christ filling all things.” So we celebrate the ascension, and eagerly anticipate Pentecost.

Finally, we need to realize that this world has been put back on course and the curse of sin undone. Paul declares that Jesus is the firstborn from the dead that in all things He may have the preeminence. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Col. 1:18-20). Jesus’ ascension has made a way for man to enter into God’s presence, even as we ascend each Lord’s Day to the very throne room where Jesus now sits. Further, Jesus’ ascension foreshadows the future to come. The promise of the new heavens and the new earth is sure because there is already resurrected dust of the earth in heaven. The old creation has been exalted and transformed, joined to the new creation begun in Christ Himself, culminating in the perfect joining of heaven and earth at the last. Therefore, in the ascension of Christ, we not only find assurance for the redemption of our souls, but also encouragement for the kingdom work that is our calling. We are joined to Christ. He is victorious. He has given us the Spirit, therefore our labors are not in vain.

This is an insightful and challenging quote taken from Laurence Hull Stookey’s Eucharist: Christ’s Feast With the Church.

It is tragically ironic that for many earnest contemporary Christians, heaven is dismissed as something that distracts us from reshaping life on earth. In this view, heaven functions as an escape hatch, a refuge for those who refuse to deal with practical realities. This is a grievously debased understanding of heaven – and one alien to the New Testament teaching. For the first Christians, heaven was a hope to be instituted already on earth of the grace of God at work in the community of the faithful; for this reason the church perpetually prayed, ‘Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ The church still so prays without unceasing – but often uncomprehending of the meaning of the petition. These are no idle words spoken in between the affirmation of the holiness of God’s name and the petition for daily bread. They are instead a profound assertion of the coherence of divine righteousness and daily life.

The church that would proclaim true and enduring good news to the world necessarily first grasps the vision of the Great Feast in heaven and prays and labors endlessly for the effecting of feasts of love on earth, radiating from the Table of the Lord. ‘Labors endlessly’ does not imply we shall achieve this by human effort alone. Community is given by God, but it is never given magically or imposed upon the unwilling. Those who were compelled to come to the feast in Jesus parable (Luke 14) were not the ones who declined the invitation.

Laboring endlessly means, rather, this: So much in human nature seems to override commonality and to work for splintering that people of faith are called to resist deliberately and aggressively all inclination to isolate persons from persons, classes from classes, races from races, and nations from nation. Apart from conscious and courageous decisions to seek out and to extend community, nothing important or lasting is likely to happen. Just as the gracious God seeks us, luring us to a sumptuous banquet at a common board, so we are also called to embrace divinely given community by answering the invitation in order that God’s house may be filled – not merely by us, but by all whom God has made and longs to reunite in a feast perpetual.

Tomorrow is Pentecost, the third great festival of the Christian year. Although transformed by the Church since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as recorded in Acts 2, Pentecost was originally celebrated by Israel. Along with Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, Pentecost (also known as the “Feast of Weeks” or the “Feast of Harvest”) was one of the three annual festivals when all of the men of Israel were required to appear before Yahweh. The word “Pentecost” itself means “fifty days,” derived from the Greek used in Leviticus 23:15-16: You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath. Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the LORD (ESV, emphasis added). Fifty days prior to Pentecost was the beginning of Passover.

So Pentecost has been around for thousands of years, but what about its celebration in the Church since that momentous event recorded in Acts 2? Sources vary, but there appears to be ample evidence of a fifty-day festival season dating back to the end of the second century. Pentecost is considered “the oldest season of the Church’s year…. It is a fifty-day long Sunday – the Latin version of St. Athanasius’ letters actually calls it magna dominica, the great Sunday – and consequently neither fasting nor kneeling was allowed during it” (cited by Cobb in The Study of Liturgy, 463). By the fourth century the celebration of Pentecost began to take fuller shape. Pentecost and Ascension were initially celebrated on the same day, but then a separate Ascension feast emerged on the fortieth day. As a result, Pentecost focused upon the descent of the Holy Spirit for the constituting of the Church of God, and the fifty-day celebratory season was continued by some.

Based on the historical evidence, it is clear that Pentecost had a prominent place in the calendar of the Early Church, and that more than a single day. Pentecost needs to have greater significance to the Church today as well. Beginning at Pasch (Easter), this is to be a season of joy and triumph, a fifty-day Lord’s Day in which the resurrection and dominion of Christ are celebrated. We need to capture the spirit of the Early Church and so declare to the world, and the Church herself, that we have great cause for celebration. Jesus, the ascended King in Heaven, sent the Holy Spirit to make for Himself a new people and a new world. What better reason to have a party!