January 2008

January 2

Let’s compare Christmas and New Year’s Day.  Christmas is dominated by things.  Sure, we strive to keep Christ in Christmas but still the manger of little Lord Jesus is surrounded by things.  New Year’s Day is not about things but about time.  Our new things have been put away and we celebrate…is that the right word?...time.  No, “celebrate” isn’t right because we’re not at peace with time.  You might have plenty of things but your time is limited.  Nicholas Berdyaev wrote, “The passage of time strikes a man’s heart with despair, and fills his gaze with sadness.”  (Solitude and Society, p. 134).  Happy New Year???

You thought Christmas is religious and New Year’s secular?  Negative.  The Creator put us into time, and His time is marching on.  “Here we do not have an enduring city….”  Into time the Creator put our Redeemer.  “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son” (Galatians 4:4).  We dominate things but we can’t dominate time.  It terrorizes us…unless we let the Lord dominate our musings about ever-fleeting time.  “Jesus Christ is Lord” (1 Corinthians 12:3).  “Here we do not have an enduring city,” begins Hebrews 13:14.  Here’s how it ends: “but we are looking for the city that is to come.”  Happy New Year!  You can make it a profoundly religious time.

January 3

Today Iowa , soon New Hampshire .  Who will come out ahead, Democrats or Republicans?  A little “bah, humbug,” is OK.  One dictionary defines cynicism as “a general distrust of the integrity or motives of others.” 

Is cynicism about the political process bad for America ?  If it leads you to dismiss politics, government and not vote, then yes.  But follow the process with a strong strain of cynicism, and you’ll ask questions vital to our future.  Has Mitt Romney recast himself to get votes?  Can we afford Hillary?  Is it wise to put a minister in the White House?   I’m not trying to be partisan.  I’m trying to be cynical about the whole lot of candidates.

Healthy cynicism understands that people by nature are selfish, that the word “politician” is in the same section of the dictionary as “pander,” that “deceive” and “evil” are close as well, that reasoning together doesn’t always restrain evil, that government should promote the good and let us go about our business without fear.  By the way, that list happens to be pretty biblical.  So, follow the political process, be as partisan as you will, but remember the key plank in the platform of godly cynics: “Unless the Lord builds the house they labor in vain that build it” (Psalm 127:1).

I’m Dale Meyer and I approve this ad.

January 4

Christmas at our house, probably yours too, wasn’t only about opening presents.  It was also about opening Pandora’s boxes of packing peanuts.  If you want an everyday illustration of sin, packing peanuts are pretty good.  “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8).

One gift we opened was an antique bird house, a big thing in a big box, built long ago to resemble a church, and packed with a ton of peanuts.  If packing peanuts can illustrate sin, then that’s what the church should be about.  A church that avoids talking about the sin that is all around us is a church for the birds.  But “If we confess our sin, God, who is faithful and just, will forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Those peanuts don’t clean up very easily.  Even now, almost two weeks later, fragments of pesky packing peanuts are still found, clinging to carpets, couches, clothing. Like static-charged Styrofoam, sin jumps at you, wants to cling to you.  One of our gifts packaged with peanuts is a new coffee maker.  Wake up, sleeper!  Be alert to the constant presence of sin.

This illustration may be cute, but it’s useless…unless you take for yourself the spiritual truth within.  

January 7

Yesterday was Epiphany and church-goers heard Matthew 2, the star leading the wise men to the child Jesus.  That star was a minor light in the biblical scheme of things; Jesus is the real light.  “I am the light of the world” and He says His followers “are the light of the world.”  (John 8:12; Matthew 5:14)

You haven’t seen the light.  I mean, your physical eyes haven’t seen that light, haven’t even seen Jesus the way the disciples saw him.  “You have not seen Him.” (1 Peter 1:8)

At select times Jesus let His disciples see His full glory.  “We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father.”  (John 1:14)   But for us, for now, it’s a mercy that we haven’t physically seen the risen and glorified Son of God.  “No one can see Me and live” (Exodus 33:20).

So, how do you “see” the light of Christ?  Jesus says, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples….  Whoever belongs to God hears what God says.”  (John 8:31, 47)  I suggest a new symbol of Epiphany, the otoscope, that light the doctor uses to examine your ear.  For the time being it’s through your ear the Great Physician shines His light into your soul.  We’re promised that someday our eyes will see the glory.

January 8

Hi, Christian here!  Love.  I will do anything to get love. 

I was at day care.  I was up on the table.  Carmen was changing my diaper.  I was not embarrassed…but I got jealous.  Mommy came to get me.  Mommy loves wonderful me.  Who wouldn’t?  While I was up on the table, Jackson walked up to Mommy.  Jackson hugged Mommy, my Mommy!  I saw it happen, that Jackson muzzling in on my love!  Carmen, finish this diaper job!  I’ve got to get down there.  I’ve got to pry that twerp away from my Mommy.  I showed him.  Carmen put me down.  I toddled over.  I pushed Jackson away.  See?  I will do anything so I get love.

You big people, isn’t that how love works?  Get all you can.  Don’t share love.  If you share love, you will have less love for wonderful you.  Opa says, “Christian, Christian.  With your name, you must learn that love is for giving more than getting.  When Christians give love, love isn’t less; love grows.”  Opa says, “Christian, what if you got a brother?  Would Mommy and Daddy’s love be divided…or would it multiply?”

I don’t know what you’re talking about Opa, but Mommy sure is getting big.

January 9

Knowing the correct password doesn't guarantee success.  Coming out of the Iowa caucuses, the password was “change.”  Every candidate claimed to be a change agent, some who don’t know enough about D.C. to find a restroom and others who’ve been sitting there for decades.  Yesterday New Hampshire voters decided which candidates said “change” correctly.

Judges chapter 12 reports the Gileadites defeated the Ephraimites in battle.  “The Gileadites captured the fords of the Jordan leading to Ephraim, and whenever a survivor of Ephraim said, ‘Let me cross over,’ the men of Gilead asked him, ‘Are you an Ephraimite?’  If he said, “no,” they said, ‘All right, say “Shibboleth.”’  If he said, ‘Sibboleth’ because he could not pronounce the word correctly, they seized him and killed him.”  Don’t get the password right, you’re dead.

In January, 41, wicked Emperor Caligula gave the day’s password to the Roman version of the Secret Service.  Caligula picked a password that made fun of the effeminate leader of his guard, a man named Cassius Chaerea.  That was the last straw for Cassius.  Instead of protecting the emperor, he and the guard assassinated Caligula.  Passwords can kill you.

Back to the word “change.”  Who knows what is to come?  So here’s the best password I know: “Change and decay in all around I see.  O Thou, who changest not, abide with me!”

January 10

I never thought about it, but there are businesses that sell ring tones for cell phones and those sales are big business.  Or were.  Not long ago analysts predicted that the sale of ring tones would hit $11 billion by 2010 but it’s not going to happen.  Sales have been declining steadily, down now to 9.3% of people who use cell phones.

Good, I thought.  I like silence, like Henry Higgins said, “silence like an undiscovered tomb.”  Quite biblical: “The prudent hold their tongues,”  (Proverbs 10:19 ).  “The prudent keep quiet in such times,” (Amos 5:13 ).  “Be still and know that I am God,” (Psalm 46:10).  And Jesus was no babbler.  Of His suffering, it was predicted, “He did not open His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7).  Along that line and against declining sales, one ring tone selling well is a voice blurting out, “Why don’t you just shut up?”

Alas, the reason sales are down is only because there are other ways to get ring tones, like making your own tone on your computer.  So the world isn’t going to provide silence for you or me.  We’ve got to seek it out ourselves.  When I wondered about the attentiveness of a co-worker, he said, “I chose not to listen.”  Sometimes you’ve got to do that.  “In quietness…is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15). 

January 11

“The Bucket List,” opens today throughout the country.  So far this movie has been seen only in selected cities, but today it opens in all the boonies.  From the commercials I’ve seen on TV, it’s about two older men who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses.  They decide that before they “kick the bucket” they’re going to do all the things that they’ve been putting off, “the Bucket List.”

How does their approach compare to a Christian approach to life and death?  The men parachute out of a plane, and Christians do fun things too.  But is a believer in Christ, are you, trying to squeeze fun times in because death is the end?   Even deeper: Is your attitude to get your thrills throughout your life, even before you’re diagnosed, or is your attitude to find joy in serving others?  Christians shouldn’t be a dour group but our real satisfaction should be lifelong service to others as God in Jesus Christ has served us. 

Here’s what J.S. Bach says about it in his cantata 166.  “I think about going to heaven and about not giving my inmost self over the vanities of this world.  If I go there or remain here, this question sticks ever in mind: Man, O Man!  Where are you headed?” (BWV 166)  Remember, we all have a terminal illness.

January 14

The generation that conceived and built the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus on the campus of Concordia Seminary did well.  It is a large space, large enough to remind us of our smallness in the great scheme of things eternal, and high enough to remind us that the God of heaven looks down with mercy.  To enter the chapel you pass by the baptismal font, placed in the vestibule to symbolize that baptism is the sacrament of entrance into the church.  A feature of this font is its constantly circulating water.  That too is a symbol, the newness of baptized life in Christ.  “We were buried…with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”  (Romans 6:4). 

Last week something happened and the water stopped circulating.  A maintenance man was summoned, couldn’t get the water moving again, and so he attached a sign to the font, “Out of Order.”  Sometimes our faith lives stop functioning the way God intends.  When “Out of Order” describes your faith life, no need to be rebaptized.  Just fix it.  Go into the sanctuary with repentance and be open for the forgiveness and  help that will come down from on high.

January 15

W. Frank Scott tells a story about John, the disciple of Jesus.

A hunter once found John playing with a pet partridge.  The hunter asked John why he was busying himself with such a trivial thing.  John asked, "What's in your hand?"  "A bow," was the answer.  John asked, "Why don't you carry it bent, ready to shoot?"  The hunter replied, "If I did that, the bow would lose its strength.  The continual strain of being bent would make the bow useless."  Now John made his point.  "Don't be perplexed by my simple and brief relaxation.  Without it, the spirit would flag from the constant strain and fall when the call of duty comes."  (In "For All the Saints," III, 146)

We're under almost constant strain.  Jesus once told John, and I believe he is telling us today, "Come with Me to a quiet place and get some rest."  (Mark 6:31)  He's in this world and knows your pressures but at the same time His kingdom is not of this world.  With Him there's forgiveness, assurance, peace.  Isn't that the place you want to be?

January 16

"I have scarcely ever read a letter that displeased me more than your last.  I have not only put off my reply, but I had determined not to answer you at all."

How would you feel reading something like that?  In this day and age an honest exchange of feelings would end many a relationship.  We just don't handle diverging opinions too well in our self-obsessed society.

What I read comes from a letter that Martin Luther wrote in 1521 to a man named George Spalatin (This is Martin Luther, p. 236).  Spalatin die on January 15th in 1545.

In our busy, over-committed lives it takes an effort to develop an open, lasting, and honest relationship with someone, even in marriage, perhaps especially in marriage.  Luther had that open, soul-satisfying relationship with Spalatin.  He wrote him more than 400 letters, often opening his soul to his friend.

"Jonathon became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself" (1 Samuel 18:1).

Anyone can be friendly but it's far more difficult to be a friend.  The commandments instruct us how to love others and there's no better an avenue for eternal love to touch a life here and now than through true friendship.

January 17

The lack of civility in politics is all over the place, said one congressman, "I think we've hit an all time low."

It reminded me of a conversation several years ago.  I was standing with a veteran Republican activist who was talking with the lawyer who defended President Clinton during his impeachment trial.  They spoke about just this subject, lamenting how things had become more divisively partisan.  Their conversation was sincere, demonstrating a tie that binds us together as humans and Americans, something greater than the partisan disputes that divide us.

There is civility in Washington but it doesn't sell newspapers or deliver customers to TV news sponsors.  In today's abundance of political news, the Iowa caucuses, the State of the Union, New Hampshire, the media flitter to the divisive like moths to light.  We may have to suffer with it, but we don't have to mimic it.

Your smoldering grudges, your bitter disagreement with a family member, your anger at a business associate or competitor...Isn't there a tie that binds?  God made each person just as He made you.  God loves that person just as He loves you.  "God is no respecter of persons" (Acts 10:34).  "Upon thy lips then lay thy hand."  (John Kelly)

January 18

"Back in Jesus' day..."  That's a common way to refer to Bible times, "back in Jesus' day," back in the first century.  When I once used that expression in a radio broadcast, a listener wrote and gently reminded me that every day is Jesus' day.  "I am with you always," says Jesus who is not dead but alive, alive now.  Today is Jesus' day as much as back in Bible times.

Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King.  By one estimate almost 10 million slaves were brought to the Americas between 1451 and 1870.  How did they cope?  For many slaves the Bible wasn't just history.  They saw themselves in the story of Israel's patient suffering and hope.

"Go down, Moses

'Way down in Egypt land,

Tell ole Pharaoh,

Let my people go."

"Dey crucified my Lord,

An' He never said a mumbling word.

Dey crucified my Lord,

An' He never said a mumbling word,

Not a word-not a word-not a word."

(American Bible Society, "The African American Jubilee Edition;" p. 10,22)

Jesus' day was their today.  Is Jesus' day your today?  "This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it" (Psalm 118:24).

January 21

Catherine Hochmuth and her husband have not been able to have a baby.  “Some of my friends post sonogram images of their thumb-sucking fetuses on their refrigerators,” she wrote.  “We have sonogram photos, too, years worth, but there are no tiny hands or perfectly shaped noses in ours.  The sonogram image that’s furthest along features two promising little marbles that stopped growing at seven weeks…. The most recent is of a blank, black space with the caption: ‘Empty Uterus.’”  (New York Times, January 6; Styles, p. 6)

Yesterday our pastor preached a shut-your-mouth, let’s get serious sermon.  Rev. William Engfehr reminded us about what we’ve heard but forgotten, that 3,000 unborn children are aborted every day in the United States .  More children have been aborted in the last ten years than all the war deaths of American military in history.  There are biblical reasons why abortion is wrong and he shared them, but he also offered compelling rational arguments why abortion is so, so wrong.  Over the whole sinful mess is compassion.  Jesus Christ has compassion on the unwanted and has forgiveness for those who have caused an abortion.  Thanks, Pastor!

Mr. and Mrs. Hochmuth yearn for a baby… but we have killed more of our children in ten years than all American military personnel who have died in our wars.

January 22  

I confess, I’m not sure I get it. 

I serve on a church board that met last week at Concordia College in Selma , Alabama .  This college is old, going back to the early 1900s.  It’s small, about 400 students.  It’s predominately African-American.  And it’s struggling, college economics not being an easy thing these days, especially for a small, minority college.  But here I am, the president of a school that could be judged successful in the eyes of the world, a school that talks about mission and helping people…but maybe that’s all it is, talk.  In the mission of Christ, Concordia College Selma IS the real thing.

I stayed at the St. James Hotel , a grand place that goes back to the 1800’s.  Checking into my room, I looked out the window and saw a bridge, not any bridge, the Edmund Pettus Bridge .  On March 7, 1965 , Martin Luther King with 600 marchers approached that bridge demonstrating peacefully for voting rights.  State troopers blocked them, horsemen and tear gas attacked them, and over 60 people needed hospital treatment.  And I’m looking at this out of my comfy room while I’m on a comfy trip to talk, talk about church things.

I’m not sure that I get it.  How many of us comfortable Americans aren’t even trying to get it?

January 23

Things can get pretty intense in January.  Take house cleaning, for example.  It’s not just tidying up after all the clutter of Christmas, but it’s cleaning with determination.  There’s a place for everything and by golly we’re going to get everything in its place.  Another example is family finances.  We start putting in order all the financial records for the past year and are doggedly determined this new year will be better.  January can be intense.   Sometimes our relationships with one another take on an edge, angry at the world and flare ups of anger at one another.  Why all this intensity in January?  Sometimes it’s fear, fear that our financial house is on the brink of collapse. 

Jesus told a parable about a man who had done well and had no financial fears but the poor guy died suddenly. “This is how it will be with those who store up things for themselves  but are not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21 ).  Notice that Jesus doesn’t have a problem with things, nothing wrong with your dogged determination to get your physical and financial house in better shape.  Just do it “toward God.”   Does the weight of the world have you intense?  Pray that God take your fear-inspired intensity into His intense grace that will serve others lovingly through you.

January 24

Lee Zeldin is running for Congress from New York .  “Because of my love for my family, my pride in my nation, and a call to service, I am compelled to make this run for Congress.”  (Roll Call, January 16; p. 10)

From John McCain: “It is pretty clear that (my opponents) view me as their most formidable opponent and I agree with them.”

From Mitt Romney: “When things like this occur (turmoil in the stock market), I’d point out how important it is to have a president who has had a job in the private sector: I have been in the private sector for 25 years.”

From Barack Obama: “We need a president who knows that being ready on Day 1 means getting it right from Day 1.”  I wonder who he’s referring to?!  (New York Times, January 23; A18-19)

Because we’ve gotten used to such confidence, it’s hard to imagine how someone could get elected without self-promotion.  One special service you and I can render our country is to pray to the Almighty that these candidates don’t fully believe their own press.  “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”  (1 Peter 5:5) 

On this date in 1808 James Monroe wrote that he would not promote his own candidacy for president.  He wasn’t elected.

January 25    

Being in a public position, I get my share of criticism.  What strikes me is that critics, both the kind and the mean-spirited, don’t have a clue.  I know more against myself than they can imagine!  

Today the church calendar remembers the conversion of St. Paul .  You can read about his Damascus Road experience in Acts 9.  Despite his conversion, some people kept doubting him or reproaching him for the rest of his life because he had persecuted the church.  But Paul’s conscience was cleaned, not by the opinion of people but by God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ.  “I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life.” (1 Timothy 1:16)  

Martin Luther: “Even the holiest of saints must confess: I have done what I could, perhaps, but I have failed far oftener than I know.  So our conscience stands against us all, accusing us and declaring us unclean, even though we have passed with the highest honors before the world or even now are passing.”  (“On the Sum of the Christ Life,” p. 276)  

So when critics pound you, hang your conscience on God’s promise of forgiveness.  Hang on, just like Jesus hung onto the cross to make your conscience clean.

January 28

Have you seen the initials “d.b.a.”?  They stand for “doing business as.”  For example, I work for Concordia Seminary but that’s a d.b.a.  Our legal name goes back to 1853 when the State of Missouri chartered the “‘ Concordia College ’ of the German Evangelical Synod of Missouri, Ohio , and Other States.”

That insignificant tidbit sets up a significant question.  What’s your d.b.a. as you go to work Monday morning?  Is your d.b.a. that of a corporate climber, cutting any corner, stepping on anyone, always ready for intrigue…anything to raise your profile?

Or is your d.b.a. that of a slacker, doing just enough to get by, not going out of your way for the corporate good, punctually out of the office at quitting time?

Is your d.b.a. that of an office affair?  Too little time at home and too much time at work has you falling emotionally into the arms of another?

Is your d.b.a. that of a person whose religious convictions are unknown, never bringing a moral perspective to work situations, never demonstrating the loving kindness of God, offering the excuse that you’re in a business environment?

The truth is you are chartered to follow the One who loves you and gave Himself for you.  “Be holy in all you do.” (1 Peter 1:16)

January 29

“Our deeds do not perform what our words promise.”  That line from a prayer certainly is demonstrated by politics.  President Bush said much in his final “State of the Union ” last night but will his words become reality?   And of the candidates running for President, most of us are resigned to believing their deeds will not perform what they are now promising. 

Are we like that, Sunday professions falling short during the week?  “Although we know that we are weak and our deeds do not perform what our words promise,” the prayer adds, “Give us faith’s courage and hope to try anew.”  (“Die Losungen,” February 18, 2008 )

Confessing the gap between Sunday promises and weekday actions is forgiven by God for Christ’s sake.  That’s forgiveness but that’s not full repentance.  Repentance becomes full when you change your behavior.  For that amendment of life, since “we are weak and our deeds do not perform what our words promise,” we put biblical words of life direction in our heads and hearts and ask the Spirit of God to enable us to live by them. 

When the Ten Commandments had been given, the people of Israel said, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey” (Exodus 24:7).  That expresses a spiritually healthy state of the union.

January 30  

When people ask if I’m enjoying my job, I say, “No,” or on a good day, “Not yet.”  They’re almost always surprised and sometimes do the “joy in Jesus” number on me.  Do Christian writers and speakers – and for that matter, bubbly common Christians – people who reduce everything to a smiley face, leave you feeling that’s not the way life really, really is?  

That’s on my mind because Professor Eric Wilson has written a new book, “Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy.”  Wilson sees great value in melancholy, in a sadness of heart that tells us all is not right.  So you know, he’s not talking about clinical depression and he’s not against joy, but he just can’t believe a survey that 85% of Americans are “very happy or at least pretty happy.”  About our obsession with happiness, he says, “Why are we pushing toward such a hellish condition?  Fear.  Most hide behind a smile because they are afraid of facing the world’s complexity.” 

Yes, joy is in Jesus, but it’s best known by acknowledging the brutal brokenness of our sinful life.  His joy is not the opposite of sadness as much as the hope of resurrection that springs up amidst all the weeds.  Wilson : “The porcelain rose is not as pretty as the one that decays.’  Which face on you is more authentic?  (“The Chronicle Review,” January 18; B11-14)

January 31

Have you noticed how much we speak about God, rather than to God?  Sermons, bible studies, testimonies of believers...all about what God has done.  To put it grammatically, we talk about God in the third person, the same impersonal way we talk about the weather, taxes, what have you.

So I found it strange years ago when I began reading St. Augustine's "Confessions" for the very first time.  "Great art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and Thy wisdom infinite.  And man wants to praise You, man who is only a small portion of what You have created..." and on and on Augustine goes, second person, talking directly to God.

I'm not writing here about prayer, about intentional times of talking to God, but rather about those times when we're thinking of whatever we happen to be thinking.  I've put myself under the mild discipline of phrasing those quiet, usually hum-drum thoughts in the second person, directly to God.  The result of that little grammatical recasting of my mundane thoughts has been a tremendous advance in my spiritual life.  I know His presence more than when I put Him off in the third person.  Try it; He'll like it!