CCC Blog

Ordinary and Extra-Ordinary

In yesterday’s message, we focused on the figure of Lydia (Acts 16:11-15).  One of our take-aways was that the sensational is a often a by-product of the ordinary.  That is, God can break into the midst of our doing ordinary things and reveal something extra-ordinary.  But if we are not in the habit of doing those ordinary things – with eyes, ears and hearts open – we might miss that extra-ordinary gift from God when it comes.  What follows is a reflection on Psalm 1 I wrote last summer during my sabbatical that echoes this same theme.

Every day we have a choice.  We get to decide what kind of people we want to become.  What kind of parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends, colleagues and neighbors we want to be.  Do we want to reflect more of God’s character in the many different roles we play?  Or not?  If we do, God stands ready to work with us, as v. 6 says, “… the Lord watches over the way of the righteous.” 

It has been said by different leading theologians throughout history that every day is a mini-Easter for us.  Each day is a chance to “die” to the people we don’t want to be and “rise to live” as the people we do.  At the end of every day, we can review the day, hour by hour and examine how we fared.  But regardless of how well or poorly we performed, we arise the next day with that same choice in front of us.

This is the essence of Psalm 1.  There are two paths to take in life.  One that leads toward God and one that does not.  The way toward God must be        consciously chosen.  The path away from God is the one that takes hold of us if we do nothing.  Clearly, the desirable path is the first one.  Psalm 1 calls the end result of this path “Happiness,” which is not an emotion as much as it is the state of someone who is firmly attached to God.  It is a path of slow growth, but the only one that endures.  Mighty trees with deep root systems don’t spring up overnight. 

The path away from God is one of fleeting-ness.  It is the path of quick-fixes, and treating the symptoms of the problem and not its deeper cause.  For a brief  moment there may be relief, but once that moment is gone what is left are new problems to go along with the original problem that existed in the first place.  That is what “chaff which the wind drives away” (v. 4) looks like.  

Very few people in their right mind want to take the path that sinners tread (v. 1), but we find ourselves on that path if we do nothing consciously that avoids it.  According to Psalm 1, the most important thing we can do to stay on the path that leads to God is “meditate on his Word day and night” (v. 2).  Spending time in God’s Word on a regular basis matters.  God may not reveal some grand insight every day.  God’s voice may never be booming or heard as clearly as a person’s standing a few feet away.  But in the practice of reading God’s Word, over and over again, we will hear God speaking to us.  We will learn more of God’s will for our lives and how we can be part of the life-giving goodness God desires for our world.

Prayer: God of wisdom, guide me by your Holy Spirit to seek your scripture every day.  Every time I open your Word, open my eyes at the same time to see, learn and understand what it is you would have me receive that will lead me to greater attachment with you.  Amen.     

Something to Think About this Week - Comfort Food

I love drinking a particular brand of coffee every morning – or as often as I can.  Traverse City Cherry flavored, produced by the “Our Family” line of grocery stores.  It’s a Michigan company, and the product is not available in Decatur.  So every time we go up north to our cottage on Crystal Lake, I hit the two grocery stores in the county and load up on as many bags of it as I can.  I then dole it out, drinking it sparingly, so as to make the batch last until I get back up north again (if you’re wondering why I don’t order some online, believe me, I’ve tried).  I started drinking it decades ago, and doing so reminds me of cool summer mornings, listening to the birds, and watching the sunrise over the lake.

Our family still uses Andria’s steak marinade too.  It’s made in O’Fallon, IL and we first started using it when we lived in Centralia.  For the 8 years we lived in Baton Rouge, where it could not be found in our chain of Albertson’s, we had friends ship bottles of it down to us.  The same could be said for “Slap Ya Mama,” a Cajun seasoning that we came to adore when living in Baton Rouge.  Until we discovered that Walmart in Decatur sells it, we had friends from down south ship it up to us in Central, Illinois.  And since living at the I-10/I-12 split, we can no longer think of spending the winter months between Christmas and Lent without homemade King Cakes, thanks to a fantastic recipe Amy learned which uses Crescent Rolls for the dough.  

We’ve had three significant moves in our family life and each time, it has been hard to change some food habits we developed along the way.  It shouldn’t be surprising.  It really is called “comfort food” for a reason, because we are biologically hard-wired to form strong memories around food.  Flavors that we taste are tied to the areas of the brain where emotional memories are storied.  No wonder, then, that the food we consider “comfort food” is the kind of food that not only makes us feel good, but very likely is food that reminds us of enjoyable parts of our past.  If we eat a plate of “Mom’s Meatloaf,” we are likely to be flooded with a host of memories from our childhood.  

I understand that any conversation about food can be triggering to some who live daily with challenges related to this.  But I lift this up to illustrate how profound a thing our spiritual ancestors did; something described in Acts 15.  In building the church and growing the Christian movement in the years after Jesus left them, the early Christians essentially abandoned some long-standing food practices.  Certain foods they previously avoided eating were now considered acceptable.  Ways of eating and ingredients used in meals, which had been acceptable previously, were now considered unnecessary.  If the saying is true that “Old habits die hard,” imagine how much harder it would be to change them if they were related to food and the memories we associate with them and… if the habits were part of food-related rituals believed necessary for salvation.  That would really be something.  And it was.  

So when those early Christians, stuck and in danger of splitting and being divided over food practices, came together, discussed these issues together, and agreed together that everyone should make changes to help the church move forward as one body, they really did a powerfully, inspirational thing.

                                          Blessings – Michael    

A Reflection on Psalm 6

1 O LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger,

or discipline me in your wrath.

2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing;

O LORD, heal me, for my bones are shaking with terror.

3 My soul also is struck with terror,

while you, O LORD—how long?

4 Turn, O LORD, save my life;

deliver me for the sake of your steadfast love.

5 For in death there is no remembrance of you;

in Sheol who can give you praise?

6 I am weary with my moaning;

every night I flood my bed with tears;

I drench my couch with my weeping.

7 My eyes waste away because of grief;

they grow weak because of all my foes.

8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil,

for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

9 The LORD has heard my supplication;

the LORD accepts my prayer.

10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and struck with terror;

they shall turn back, and in a moment be put to shame.

Too often in our world today, we try to go it alone and are made to think that asking for help is a sign of weakness.  With each passing year, layer upon layer of practiced  self-sufficiency covers the most basic instinct within us – the unrestrained asking for help. Think about how a baby’s first action is to cry for help.  When it is hungry, it cries; without calculating beforehand what others might think.  Even as a toddler, when a child is hurt, it runs crying to mom or dad with arms held high, never once thinking how it is perceived by others.  Unabashedly asking for help – throwing heads back, sending arms skyward - is our most basic human characteristic.

The apostle Peter gives us an ideal example of this.  When Jesus stood on top of the stormy water and invited Peter to walk on the water toward him, Peter momentarily did so (Matthew 14:29-30).  But when Peter began to sink, he threw up his arms and cried out “Lord, save me!”  Without giving a second thought to what the other disciples might have thought, or how history would perceive him, he unashamedly asked for help.  This is the courage expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 6.  Brutal honesty brings forth the words, “I am languishing” (v. 2).  Not stopping there, they confess how they are shaken to the core, physically and spiritually, by whatever it is that plagues them.  Maybe they feel as though they are drowning in a stormy sea of guilt and shame; caught in the undertow of regrets and wished-for do-overs.  Whatever it is, things are so bad that they spend every night crying themselves to sleep and can barely see straight due to the grief that engulfs them.  Psalm 6 is honest – brutally honest – about the pain we feel in life.

Yet the psalm ends with a declaration of certainty.  Just as surely as Jesus’ hand was there to lift Peter up from the drowning waters pulling him down, the psalmist reassures themselves, and us, that the Lord hears our cries for help; our pleas; our prayers.  There is no shortage of messaging in the world today encouraging us to believe in the nobility in going it alone.  But for those that would be disciples, there is no greater expression of faith than to throw caution to the wind and arms up in surrender.  There are no two more powerful words than “help me!”  Whatever it is that may cause your body and spirit to be grieved or pained, may you find the liberating power of the words “Help me.”  Our loving God, who hears the sound of our weeping and accepts our prayers, stands ready to offer the only help that can truly save us.  

God of healing help, thank you for hearing my cries and accepting my prayers.  Grant me the courage to confess my need for help.  And may I, through the grace of your Holy Spirit, experience the help that only you can provide.

Did You Know... Week 2

Did You Know… that the only thing needed to become a member is a confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Savior?  Both our primary founders, Alexander    Campbell and Barton Stone, believed that the church should structure itself on the practices found in the New Testament.  That is, if the New Testament gives evidence of the early Christians doing something, the church of today should do it.  Likewise, if there is no evidence of the earliest Christians doing something, we should refrain from doing it today. 

When Campbell and Stone looked around, on the western frontier of the    United States 200 years ago, they saw people joining other churches  (e.g.    Lutherans and Presbyterians) on the basis of that church’s creed.  A creed is a document that spells out that church’s beliefs.  Stone and Campbell were not against the substance of a creed.  That is, all creeds said that there was one God and that Jesus Christ was the son of that God.  No one would dispute that.  But Stone and Campbell felt that the Holy Spirit couldn’t be contained in the words of any one creed.  The Holy Spirit cannot be restricted and confined in this way.  Moreover, they saw how these creeds were used to divide Christians when, in essence, all Christians believed in Jesus as the way of salvation. 

Most important, however, was the fact that when our founders read the New Testament, they didn’t see people coming to Christ by means of a creed or an explanation of their faith.  Rather, they were saved by a confession of their faith.  They pointed to Matthew 16:16 where Jesus asks the disciples “Who do you say that I am?”  Peter replied, “You are the Christ (the savior), the son of the living God.”  That was enough for Jesus and it was enough for Campbell and Stone.

As the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) today, we still base membership on this Great Confession of Peter.  We are more concerned that you believe in  Jesus as God’s chosen instrument of salvation than we are with in what way you understand him to be simultaneously fully human and fully divine; or with how you think Jesus relates to the other members of the Holy Trinity (Father and Holy Spirit).  Should you come forward one Sunday to join the church, we will ask you one question – the same question Jesus asked Peter in Matthew 16:16.  We believe this is what God intends – an emphasis on what unites us more than the distinctions of how we articulate our faith, which can divide us. 

Blessings – Michael