Well, Whadya’ Know

 

You remember the boy standing in the alley looking up at his friend in the second story window. She was telling him about the letter her older sister had received in the morning’s mail. It had to be something very important, because she had never seen a letter addressed quite like this. She said it was addressed to her sister, with the house and street numbers, Harpers Corners, Wayne County, New Hampshire, The Unite Sates of America, The Western Hemisphere, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way, The Universe, The Mind of God. And all the little boy in the alley could say was, “Well, whadya’ know, whadya’ know.”

We have a great many addresses or ways to reference where we live and who and what we are. As a matter of fact, we are probably on the list of many mail order houses, charities, and mass mailing organizations. Sometimes we can even identify the source of the request for gifts by whether or not they spell our names correctly, include members of our family, or give some other hints in the address that helps us know who is writing. What if every reference to our identity would also add, “destined to live forever…” it would no doubt gain many a critical glance, and possibly develop quite an opposition. It would sound very sectarian and strident and announce perhaps more than others really wanted to know about a person.

Remember the early church, whose boldness and passion for the Christian gospel rested not so much on the “teaching” of Jesus as it relied on the Easter reality of his resurrection. When Jesus rose from the dead it was not to a world that rejoiced, but that at first was simply surprised, and then offended and ultimately hostile that such an impossible thing could ever truly happen. Yet at great cost the church kept the faith. Easter became the celebration that defined human identity, it has made us feel at home with the reality of life eternal and out of that message the world was not only granted a new lease on life on earth but a new context so we could now experience with holy abandon the fullness of God’s gracious intent for us all.

Pastor Jansen

 

Repentance

In childhood, repentance seemed so easy to understand. One would find out that a certain behavior or attitude was not what it should be, and then one way or another, we would find ourselves in a situation that required us to say, “I’m sorry.” And that was pretty much it.

As life wore on, repentance came at a higher and higher price. Repentance meant more than admitting a mistake. It had more the flavor of changing sides in the struggle over what would dominate my life. Changing my mind was not some easy act of the will, but an increasingly excruciating confrontation with a failed desire, or a squandered enterprise. I had become what I was by deliberate choices, and some very strong desires, some of which were not at all “good.”

Even if I repented I did not get to go back and get a fresh start. I had to deal with the unwanted momentum of a direction that had to be abandoned. I learned that my companions and my investment partners and others who “knew” me expected me to continue to keep going in the old directions. And there were some things that repentance did not reach. I could not have back the days I had wasted. I could not recreate the opportunities I had not engaged. Life turned out to be a once-only trip, and repentance did not mean that if I repented I would have my resources restocked for another try. Repentance is far more serious than that. Repentance is an experience far deeper that some superficial re-assessment of failure. It can be the first harsh, and sometimes desperately traumatic, realization that something in my life is repeatedly drawing me away from what I want myself to be before God, and that my efforts to make the changes needed appear to be futile.

This Advent season, let us celebrate the mighty work of God in Christ, as Jesus Christ exhibits the power of God that now frees us from the traps and entanglements of sins and flaws that we could not shake off, no matter how much we tried to be rid of them. This is not to be simply a “turning from sin,” rather it is a turning to Christ. It can indeed be hard to imagine how change is possible in the deeply ingrained patterns of modern life, but there is a surge of life-changing grace in Christ that waits for all who open their hearts and thoughts to his Holy Spirit. Advent lifts up the opportunity to be joined to the ancient appeal to repent… to change… and in asserting that ancient claim on this generation offer a way in Christ that leads not to futility, but to abundant life.

Pastor Jansen

We Offer with Joy and thanksgiving

The biggest Thanksgiving obstacle is the day after when Christmas shopping begins in earnest and we stop thinking about what we have and start thinking about what we want. Many of us like to peruse the Christmas catalogue looking at all the neat stuff we want. We ought to spend more time looking at the neat stuff we already have. Psalm 103 is God’s catalogue of blessings, not a Christmas catalogue but a Thanksgiving Catalogue.

I have discovered that the amount of joy in my life is directly related to my attitude of thankfulness. Even painful memories are softened by a realization that I have survived and learned, and for that I am grateful. When I think of the present with gratitude, my natural impulse is to live in the moment and enjoy it. When I look toward the future with gratitude, I expect tomorrow to be filled with wonderful discoveries and growth, just as yesterday and today have been.

 

 

Gratitude is not precisely the same thing as optimism. It’s more the attitude that makes optimism possible. It is essentially a habit of thinking, a way of understanding who we are and what happens in our lives. Life is a gift, a wonderful, miraculous gift. It’s not something we deserve or purchase with our efforts. It is simply there for us every morning, waiting for us to unwrap and enjoy.

In his song, My Tribute, Andrae Crouch sings to God: “How can I say thanks for the things You have done for me? Things so undeserved, yet You gave to prove Your love for me; the voices of a million angels could not express my gratitude. All that I am and ever hope to be, I owe it all to Thee.”

Go with God,

Pastor Qualley

Grateful to God

 

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for a day of national thanksgiving. After recalling many of the desperate times of the Civil War and the tragic and violent warfare, he addressed the many ways in which the basic needs and necessities of the nation had remained intact, how the harvesting had produced food and, in spite of the war, so many blessings of “normal” life had continued. Then he proclaimed the following:

“No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.”

Thanksgiving, in our time, raises for us a challenge to look away from the many enhancements to much of our living. Never before has the mind of human beings been more able to describe and research and analyze the dynamics of humankind’s existence than the age in which we live. Never before has knowledge of the physical world been so available to so vast a portion of the human race. Never before has humankind been able to communicate and to travel and to exploit the resources of this planet as is possible in our time. How understandable it might be that we would begin to consider ourselves somehow superior to other populations of the planet who occupied the planet in “primitive” times.

We need to realize how fragile are human achievements, how subject to human passions and how dependent on natural forces far beyond our control. We live by the grace of God whether the year is 1863 or 2012.

President Lincoln’s proclamation sounds remarkably appropriate for our moment of history. It is easy to be so overwhelmed by the issues of our times that we lose our capacity to realize that God the Almighty has declared that his love for us is everlasting and his grace powerful enough to redeem the worst of us.

One man has said that for us. Thanksgiving ought to be more than a big meal and a football game. Hopefully, it will be a time of serious reflection on our many blessings, and a sincere outpouring of gratitude to our generous and loving heavenly Father.

Go with God,

Pastor Jansen  

Thanksgiving Peace

Peace is on our minds as we approach Thanksgiving this year. Some years ago a beloved Lutheran theologian, Joseph Sittler, described the common definition of peace “as if it referred to a disengaged and highly desirable virtue, achievement, or gift, hanging in splendid and beguiling isolation. Suggesting the notion of an exclusively interior and private serenity, a well-insulated tranquility achieved by detachment.” Later, in contrast, he continued with his scriptural characterization of peace “in the scriptures, peace has meanings so many and various that they cannot be condensed into a single statement; all such meanings operate within a context, and that context always involves discipline, choices, denials, sacrifices.”

Thanksgiving is that time in which our difficulties to be at peace with each other seem particularly to be in contrast to our grasp of peace with God. Throughout the scripture, as Sittler tells us, “…in our relationship to God, love, righteousness and justice swirl around and penetrate each other as they interact. The righteousness of God is not compromised by his love for us. God’s sense of justice is not weakened by his merciful love.” Somehow, in Christ these three uncompromised qualities of the Almighty have been joined to bring us life and peace. That may work for God, but out here in the world of history, politics, economics, treachery, brutality, and the rest of our demons, bringing together justice, love, and righteousness is not so readily accomplished. Instead of peace we argue in frustrated anger. Instead of peace we find no alternative but to choose for one side or the other of a conflict. Instead of peace we find ourselves becoming more indifferent to the rights of those who oppose or seem to threaten us.

Perhaps we can think of Thanksgiving as the springtime of God’s Peace, the plowing and planting. At Thanksgiving we attempt to come face to face with the wholeness of life that righteousness makes possible. We ponder anew the life energy of the love of God in Christ. We peek apprehensively, perhaps, at the call of our Lord to justice in our human relationships, knowing the rights that I claim for myself are also due my opponent, before God.

Thanksgiving is the plowing time, when we allow the wounds of Christ to dig deep into us, bringing us face to face with the cost of our peace with God. Peace comes to the human heart when the righteousness, love and justice of God are taken seriously as the seed qualities that Jesus also plants in us, making for our peace with God. Thanksgiving, for us Christians as we live in the shadow of the passion of our Lord can penetrate the hard surface of our defenses. Thanksgiving teaches us how to make peace with ourselves and our fellow human beings. Not by maneuvering for the most advantageous outcome for ourselves, but as those most willing to allow the ways of Jesus to grow and flourish in us, and eventually to make a difference in life.

Peace does not come by some haphazard tinkering with the dials of our life until we finally get a frequency that makes us calm. It comes as we deliberately respond to the call of the gospel, powered by the presence of Christ. Peace wakes in us our relentless need for his righteousness to work within us, to be aroused to the pursuit of a truly Christ-like love, and to make a renewed commitment to the rights and needs of those around us.

The way to peace with ourselves, and with each other, begins with our peace with God. It is in seeing how Jesus has made peace for us that we can find our way in the planting and sustaining of peace with each other. May Thanksgiving this year help us toward a harvest of peace with ourselves, our communities and our world.

In Christ,

Pastor Jansen       

Freedom

“…There lives in every man [person]

an unwritten memorial of deeds

of heroic valor, in his heart

rather than in pillars of stone

–Monuments to their heroism.”

(Thucydides 460-395 BC)

All around the world people dream of freedom. During the Second World War we heard often that we were fighting for the “four” freedoms. In the sixties we heard shouts for freedom, “NOW!” Even the gospel of John records that Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (John 8:32) Alas, how the quest for freedom has so often done little more than cut the bonds of restraints and bondage of one kind so that new tyrants could re-capture and ensnare people into new and more cumbersome serfdom. Freedom alone can lead to excess and hubris, to unbridled egos, self-deception and greed.

We used to say that the freedom of your fist ended where my nose began, clumsy, but clear enough. Free speech is not without inevitable accountability. The laws of physics do not relax if I feel free to take the curve at 65 rather than 15 mile per hour. It is obvious, but often ignored, that being free to make choices does not also guarantee the desired outcome of those choices. This month our nation voted for our President, celebrating a moment in which a group of human beings in a wild and spectacular way put into action how they understand freedom. Of all the things that happen in the twenty-first century of the Christian era, very few have such a vast effect as the action that gives freedom legs, so to speak, in terms of government and public policy. It is far from perfect, but the spare and uncomplicated action has become, as Thucydides wrote, written more in hearts than any monument.

Martin Luther translated the Psalmists prayer (51:12) as: “…uphold me with a free spirit.” A modern translation reads: “…make me want to obey.” God rejoices in setting people free, with no strings attached. That’s the climate in which the true quality of life has its greatest expression; at the same time, it is also true that the exuberance of real freedom is not just the fireworks of liberation, but also the capacity to take the full measure of what that freedom means for those around us.

Thucydides tells us that while architectural monuments were usually built by tyrants, the glory of freedom had its “monument” in the human heart. So this election year, let us rejoice in the freedoms that are ours and also the blessings those freedoms can work for everyone around us.

Go with God,

Pastor Jansen   

  

Walking with God

A grandfather was discussing with his grandson the implications of Micah 6:8, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” The little boy said, “Grandpa, it’s hard to be humble if you’re really walking with God.” It is an interesting thought coming from a seven-year-old. When we begin to get a glimpse of the unlimited resources at our disposal, Christians claiming the power of God, then will we sense the assurance that we are fully equipped to do whatever it is that God calls us to do.

We might feel like the little mouse that was crossing the bridge with an elephant. When they got to the other side, the mouse looked at his huge companion and said, “Boy, we really shook that bridge, didn’t we?” When we walk with God, that’s often how we feel, like a mouse with the strength of an elephant. After crossing life’s troubled waters, we can say with the mouse, “God, we really shook that bridge, didn’t we?”

Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China said, “Many Christians estimate difficulty in the light of their own resources, and thus they attempt very little, and they always fail. All giants have been weak people who did great things for God because they lean on God’s power and God’s presence to be with them.” May we move with courage into each new day, no matter what it may bring.

Go with God,

Pastor Qualley

   

Disaster Relief

It is when disasters happen like hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and tornadoes that people often begin to question God and God’s role in the suffering that goes on in the world; people question whether God caused it to happen among other things. My faith tells me that God does not cause bad things to happen. Rather, God hurts when God sees His children experiencing pain and suffering. God weeps when people experience loss and sadness.

We are God’s creation and as such we belong to the natural world. Well-known Lutheran theologian Martin Marty writes, “Since we belong to the created or natural world, we are subject to all that goes with it, including birth and death, springtime and autumn, sunshine and shadow, some lives knowing outrageously more of the latter than of the former. And as we belong to created nature, we also live in a world in which accidents happen, unexplained good and bad things occur.” Unfortunately, pain and death is a part of life. Yet we have hope through Christ’s death and resurrection. God promises ultimate healing and eternal life to all who believe and while we are here on earth, we know that God does wondrous things, including bringing good out of bad.

I will always remember a conversation on a trip I took to Haiti when I was an intern at Lord of Life. One of the Haitian translators said to our group that our presence there gives them hope that God has not forgotten Haiti. Indeed, it is God who gives hope. It is God who gives strength and peace, and God the Spirit who works in all helping people to respond with love for others. We can help by making donations to help the people affected, praying for them, and continuing to lift the needs up in the world of those affected by disaster. God works through each of us to bring healing.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Percy

From Vision to Reality

A family was driving through Kansas on vacation. Five-year-old Tyler was looking out the car window. “Boy,” he said, “it’s so flat out there, you can look farther than you can see.” That’s a great phrase, “You can look farther than you can see.” In the early 1930’s an engineer named Joseph Strauss looked out over San Francisco Bay. In his mind he formed a picture of a beautiful bridge connecting the two sides of the bay. In 1936 the Golden Gate Bridge became a reality. He looked farther than he could see. The world looks to people with vision.

We are engaged in a presidential election process and we hope to elect a president who has vision. People of conscience look at our public healthcare system and cry for a vision of how to care for the uninsured, scientists look at the troubling signs of rising global temperatures and hope for a vision of how to stave off a potential crisis. That’s the power of vision. Nothing happens without vision. Vision helps people to look farther than they can see.

Vision and faith go hand in hand. The Lord said, “All things are possible to the one who believes.” May we continue to move boldly into each new day with the certainty that God will go before us to show us the way, beside us to befriend us, behind us to encourage us, above us to watch over us, and within us to give us peace.

Go with God,

Pastor Qualley