Soul Searching

Soul Searching - note to myself

Late Sunday[i] afternoon I was returning from a clergy meeting when I passed a church sign that said, donate shoes for lost souls. Now I confess, I sometimes over analyze things, especially church signs.

So I asked myself what do they mean? Shoes for lost souls or did they mean to write soles. Which means they have soles without shoes? If this is what they mean, then they want shoes without soles so they can put them together to create a complete pair of shoes. If this is what they are asking then I cannot help since all my shoes have soles.

Or are they talking about people? We are Trinitarian beings. We have a physical body, a spiritual body, and a soul. So does the congregation want shoes for souls?

But our souls are the essence of our being, that which connects our spiritual self to God and I do not believe for a second our souls wear shoes. So surely that cannot be what they are asking.

So perhaps the church is not in the cobbler business at all, which means they do not have shoes without souls nor are they looking to provide shoes for souls since souls do not wear shoes.

So what do they mean? Was it just a pun, a witticism to catch our attention? “Shoes for lost souls”. Well, it got my attention, but I still do not know what they are going to do with the shoes. I suppose I can assume they are going to give them to people who need shoes. However, I do not like making assumptions. I would rather make a decision based on deductive reasoning, but that says more about me than the shoes.

Shoes are an interesting topic – they are important for our feet and if you know someone who needs shoes or soles for their shoes; I am sure you too would like to help.

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[i] August 3, 2017

A Sermonette … A Trail of Tears – Luke 24:13-35           May 2017

Thanks to the gospel stories we are able to do more than imagine the agony the disciples endured after Jesus’ crucifixion. One such story occurred on The Road to Emmaus.

In this story, two disciples are walking back home from Jerusalem. Their hearts and minds overflow with what happened the preceding week. As they make their way home, they talk, attempting to make sense of it all. The entry into the city, the uproar of the crowds, the garments and branches scattered on the road in front of the donkey Jesus was riding. They remembered thinking that their dreams were coming true.

So much happened in that city in just a few days. The culmination was Jesus nailed to the cross, dead. With his last breath, their hope had died. They had seen his lifeless body on the cross; they knew it had been taken down and buried. All that was left for them to do was to brush aside the outlandish reports that he was alive again and trudge their weary way back to Emmaus.

So the story of the disciples on the Road to Emmaus begins with the appearance of a mysterious

stranger. He walks beside them, a fellow traveler, and invites himself into their conversation. They explain their ill temperament and are astounded that the stranger knows nothing about the events. After all, Jesus had been the talk of everyone in Jerusalem, the city; a short distance behind these wearied travelers to. The pair continue on, talking about how their hope had been in that man Jesus. Sadness clouded their vision, so they did not recognize the face of the one who walked beside them.

There's plenty of roads still left to travel, and so the stranger begins to question the travelers. “Did not the prophets say the Messiah would suffer and be killed before he entered into glory?” The travelers remember as the stranger explains the scrolls of old about the messiah and they listen with increasing interest.

Is the story familiar because it happens only once, on the road to Emmaus on a spring day shortly after the original Easter? Or does it happen repeatedly, in the course of our lives?

Our destination may not be Emmaus, but often enough we walk our own trail of tears. We were not in Jerusalem to see Jesus crucified, but things happen in the course of our lives; things that shatter our faith, break our hope, violate our love. We walk home again, retreating like a defeated army. We don't want a home so much as a place to hide, where we lick our wounds, turn our backs on life, and nurse our cynicism.

Yes, each of us walks this trail of tears from time to time. Sometimes we walk together, driven by our pain, but achieving no resolution.

Then something cosmic happens. Jesus appears beside us. But like the disciples of old, we don't recognize him! He looks so ordinary. Just another traveler made weary by the road. Somehow he gets inside our conversation and hears what we have to say.

His response is not rejection. Nor is it sympathy, a patting of the hand. Jesus takes the situation and hoists it up to a new level.

There's more going on than meets the eye, he tells us. Our afflictions belong to a larger picture, some deeper mystery. Like the messiah's death, our afflictions do not have the last word but point beyond our suffering to an eternal hope.

Jesus seeks to present our story here and now as he presented his own on the original Emmaus road. He wants to reveal our affliction for what it is: not the final word, not meaningless pain, but rather the prelude to some bright glory, our own resurrection.

Our achievements and failures, our mistakes and injuries – none of these are the final report on who we are, and none is without significance. Instead, they are rags, scraps of material, which in our hands look poor, but taken up by God are accepted, and woven into a tapestry that glimmers with gold thread and a multitude of colors.

This God, Jesus tells us about, refuses to stop with the resurrection of Jesus. There is our resurrection to accomplish as well, not only after this world is done, but in all the little Easters along our span of life.

When you must walk your Emmaus road, believing him dead and your hope dead with him, dare to recognize him, a stranger walking beside you, a stranger who offers you broken bread, who lifts from you, your burden of hopelessness with his nail scarred hands.

And once you recognize him, and know that the fire of love inflames your heart, once the great cosmic comedy has made you laugh, then run, run through the dark sad night of this world, run like a fool for God, and let others know of your joy: that the Lord has risen and you are alive with Him!

Spiritual Growth

The first Sunday following the beginning of the football season is an exciting time around the church, especially when the regional rivals compete. The 'esprit de corps' flows through the hallways and into the Sunday school rooms as teams and/or players are praised or vilified.

I imagine it is the same in churches across the country. Sporting events often draw out a passion that is incomparable to other group activities.

 In the eighth grade I ran cross country (440-yard dash). I was not the fastest runner, but I enjoyed the competition and the comradeship of being part of a team. The only negative was that I had to walk 3 ½ miles after practice to get home. In my freshman year I got a job at a bookstore where I worked seven days a week 6:00 - 8:00 a.m. before school, so I got up at 4:30 a.m., so I could walk the 3 ½ miles into town. Needless to say cross country ceased to be important. My passion was about working so I could buy a car.

I sometimes tell folks I grew up fast, but in truth I am still growing up. I do not run as fast or as often as I used to, but I still enjoy running long distance. I enjoy spending my early morning hours reading scripture and in prayer. I believe we are who we are because of our history. Our passions are formed by life events that help create our personalities. My father instilled in me strong work ethics and he got me my first job at fourteen and I have been working ever since. I enjoy sports, but I am not passionate about sports or any team. I compete against myself, which is why I enjoyed running; however, age and bad knees have made running more difficult.

I see running as a metaphor for our faith journey. One cannot run a race if one does not practice running. We will cease to grow in faith if we stop practicing or faith. In fact, in both cases we will lose the gift. Faith is not something we receive and then just have to use when we need it. Faith is a gift that requires nourishment as well as practice. Our faith needs to be nourished so it can flourish just as a runner needs to practice to win a race.

Tom Cocklereece believes Christians move in and out what he calls the four stages of spiritual growth. His philosophy is based on scripture and he believes we all begin in a pre-stage period and unless we are intentional about spiritual growth (practicing our faith) we will regress to an earlier stage of development or to the pre-stage period, what he calls the Carnal Christian. Whether or not we are intentional about progressing through the stages of spiritual growth depends upon our passion or desire to nourish our faith.

“Carnal Christian—a spiritually regressed and stagnant Christian seeking little spiritual nutrition (1 Corinthians 3:1, 3).

Stage one, Babe in Christ—a newborn Christian feeding on the ‘milk of the work’ and often fed by others; regresses easily (1 Corinthians 3:2).

Stage two, Growing Christian—a growing Christian feeding on solid spiritual food learning to feed [self] but still vulnerable to regression (Heb. 5:12-14).

Stage three, Advancing Christian—a growing Christian feeding [self] the ‘deep things of God,’ consistently led by the Holy Spirit, and less susceptible to regression (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).

Stage four, Maturing Christian—a growing Christian feeding self, others, and “bearing fruit,” and unlikely to regress” (John 15:8). (Tom Cocklereece, Simple Discipleship, How to Make Disciples in the 21^st Century)

Words to ponder…

Original publication in "The Morrow Mirror, Words to Ponder… September 7, 2014

Discipleship

How does one become a disciple of Jesus Christ? Christians have been asking this question since the Apostle Paul began sharing the gospel message throughout Judea and the known world in the first century. Paul dedicated his life to following Jesus’ command, “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything that I’ve commanded you” (Matt.28:19-20). 

Drive-by evangelism was popularized in the 60s and 70s when church members would drive through a neighborhood, go house to house asking residents if they believed in Jesus, while handing them a religious tract; which was written by someone who believed the best way to get sinners’ attention was to scare the “H-ll out of them. The tract of course would have the church’s name and address stamped on the back so the sinner could find the church the following Sunday. This was the strategy for getting people to church so they could be baptized and then join other believers walking the neighborhoods to seek the lost for the Lord.

Drive-by evangelism may have been popular in the early-mid twentieth century, but I find it difficult to believe the success of the twentieth-century church, or any church throughout the generations had much to do with passing out tracts to strangers or by scaring them. I believe it had more to do with individuals sharing the gospel stories and how the stories changed their lives. These individuals were not trying to make disciples, they just wanted to share what they truly believed with people they truly cared about.

“More often than not, investing in authentic relationships precedes personal evangelism and is a key element in effective witnessing. People are open to the gospel when presented in the context of a genuine relationship by a Christian they view as authentic, because they have had the opportunity to get to know and trust the messenger. People desire friendship and authenticity and tend to reject the messenger who is simply trying to reach his [or her] evangelism quota.” (Tom Cocklereece, Simple Discipleship, How to Make Disciples in the 21^st Century)

How does one become a disciple of Jesus Christ? This is a good question but the question I want to address is how does one become an authentic Christian. A Christian who has a passion for sharing the gospel story with family and friends as well as their neighbors, because this is how we not only make disciples, it is how we truly become a disciple for Jesus Christ. Next week we will begin by looking at what Tom Cocklereece calls the four stages of spiritual growth. 

Original publication in "The Morrow Mirror, Words to Ponder… August 31, 2014

Love

Some people believe life would be just great if they could only do as they pleased. You know, get up when they want to, go to bed when they want to, work only when they want to, and of course still have enough to eat, a place to live as well as plenty of toys to play with.

I wonder what the world would really look like if we lived in the Star Trek world Captain Jean-Luc Picard aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise describes. You know the world where people only work to edify themselves, because everyone has a place to live and plenty of food to eat and no one needs or wants silver or gold (money). Don’t get me wrong I pray for the day when poverty is removed from all cultures upon the earth. But I wonder if society as a whole would really work hard, sometimes even putting one’s life in danger to accomplish the great tasks required to improve the world or to help their neighbors. I want to believe “I” would and that others would work hard to make life better for others out of love for neighbor, but I still wonder.

Several years ago a religious writer asked this question, what does it mean to “love, and do as you please”? This is an interesting question but is it a logical question considering our human tendency to protect what we determine to be our own, whether it is family or our stuff. Even though love is an action verb, it is also a powerful emotion, for good or ill it has great power over us. So can we really do as we please when it comes to love?

“We could think of the attitude of a mother caring for her sick child whom she loves. She is not concerned with doing her ‘duty’ or merely fulfilling a parental obligation. Is she thinking, ‘What am I required to do for my child in this situation?’ No! Motivated by love she does not want to know the minimum she is obliged to do, but rather the maximum she can do for the good of her child. She looks for the most competent doctor, consults other parents, and obtains the most effective medicines. Why? Because she is motivated by love and not mere obligation.” (Thomas Williams, “What does love have to do with it?” Regnum ChristiWeb Site, regnumchristi.org, September 2, 2004). Love motivates us to do the impossible, to work harder then we normally would for self and to jump in front of a bullet for those we love.

I wonder if we can draw a parallel between this story and the human divine relationship we have or should with God as our heavenly parent. Christianity, to my knowledge, is the only faith that sees God as a divine parent; as a parent who loves each of us in spite of our ‘sins’. If we believe, as our faith proclaims, then we should see God like the mother in the above story who would do anything for her children and we as the child should do likewise even sell everything we have to gain the prize (the great pearl) which is a loving relationship with God.

Christianity teaches that God sent his Son into the world to save us from all the dark forces that wish to destroy our spiritual essence, whether that force is the evil personified in the demonic i.e. the devil, or the force of our own selfish nature.  Jesus came into the world to save us; this is the teaching of our faith. It is not a teaching formed out of doctrine, or mandates and laws, but out of love. The love of God who would do the unbelievable to save humanity, even sacrifice His only begotten Son.  Words to ponder…

Original publication in "The Morrow Mirror, Words to Ponder… August 24, 2014

Salvation, A Lifetime Experience

Dwight L. Moody in a sermon on Grace told the following story:

“A friend called my attention to the fact that God has put the offer of salvation in such a way that the whole world can lay hold of it. All [people] can believe. A lame man might not perhaps be able to visit the sick; but he can believe. A blind man by reason of his infirmity cannot do many things; but he can believe. A deaf man can believe. A dying man can believe. God has put salvation so simply that the young and the old, the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, can all believe if they will.

Do you think that Christ would have come down from heaven, would have gone to Gethsemane and to Golgotha, would have suffered as He did, if [humanity] could have worked [his or her] way up to heaven.” (Dwight Lyman Moody, evangelist [1837 – 1899].)

The Bible says Christ died on the cross to save humanity from their sins.  On the cross Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them.” This is the Gospel story; on the cross Christ forgave all of humanity for their sins. All we have to do is accept Jesus’ forgiveness and we are saved, it is our choice, we call this “free will”.  

The questions I often hear are “if we are already saved then why do I need the church?  Why do I need to support the church with my gifts and talents? Why do I need to do service projects, support missionaries, or to help the poor? If all I have to do is accept Jesus’ forgiveness then I have my eternal ticket.  So why do I need to do anything else? Isn’t all this church stuff just religious propaganda?

I believe the church has failed to provide a good response to these questions. I cannot guarantee my response is any better. I do believe these questions are important, but I believe a better question to ask is, what do I do now, after I accept Jesus’ forgiveness.  The answer to this question may be simple, but the doing is not so simple.  

To accept Jesus’ forgiveness means we accept the reality that Jesus has the power to forgive us of our sins. Once we accept this reality we are also saying we believe Jesus is the Son of God, God incarnated in the world because only God the creator can forgive the created. In faith if we accept Jesus as God incarnate we are also saying we accept Jesus’ teachings as God’s teachings and Jesus’ call to love God and neighbor.

How do we love as Christ loves? We cannot love as Christ loves, at least not on our own. We need God’s help; a help that God provides with gifts of grace. Gifts that help us love as Christ loves. We call these gifts “the Means of Grace.” The power behind these gifts is the Holy Spirit. When we do a selfless act of service in Jesus’ name we grow more like Christ, when we worship God in community we grow more like Christ, when we study scripture with an open heart to the Holy Spirit we grow more like Christ. When practicing the Means of Grace the Spirit helps us grow in faith and into the image of Christ.

Salvation may be ours the moment we believe, but salvation is a lifetime experience of living out our belief as we grow into the image of Christ.  

© Edward E. Judy, Original publication The Morrow Mirror, Morrow First United Methodist Church. June 22, 2014