The Pilgrim Pastor

Have you ever felt overwhelmed with commitments?  While I was online recently, conducting some unrelated research, I happened upon this little cartoon.  Now, as a former Marine it immediately caught my attention.  As a person who was at the time feeling ever so slightly overwhelmed with the to do list that I had created for myself that day, the humor of the cartoon helped to greatly ease my burden.  It reminded me of a couple of lessons that may be helpful for you in keeping a right perspective on your burdens, tasks, and work today as well.

1.      1. The task at hand is seldom as monumental as we see it. Consider the big picture.  Compared to what it took those Marines to get to the top of Iwo Jima to raise a flag, my tasks are pretty manageable.

2.      2. Interestingly enough, this little sketch is of the popular re-raising of the flag on Iwo Jima.  When I was a Marine Corps photographer, I was once privileged to hold one of the original first prints of the actual flag raising that we found in a very tattered and water damaged book of images.  The actual thing was far less interesting of an image so they staged one that was more interesting!  The real thing is often less interesting than the image we have of it.  Be practical.  Accomplish your task minus the dramatics.  When we complain too much, even to ourselves, we have a tendency to get derailed in stress, emotion, and confusion. Take a clear look at the actual task and make a plan.

3.      3. Life is full of challenges and jobs to be done.  When we finish today’s work, tomorrows will come.  Take a moment to breath and focus on what matters.  My wife and I are always fascinated at our children’s ability to demolish the cleanliness of our home.  She and I are neat people.  Well, I am very neat and she is very clean and together, prior to all the kids who have invaded my life… we were very neat and very clean people!  What matters more though?  A clean house or happy children?  While I’d like to have both, I seldom do.  Making memories is more important than making it into the bleach-clean hall of fame.  Focus on what matters.  There will always be chores and work.  Life has a lot in common with an assembly line.

Remember the words of Nobel Laureate Sir Rabindranath Tagore “God respects me when I work, but he loves me when I sing.”

Pilgrim Pastor… working when work needs to be done… focusing on the focus… singing God’s songs of love and laughter…  

The following is a contribution I recently made to the local newspaper of the community where I live and serve: 

It has been well said that not to have had pain is not to have been human. If there is anything that is common to all of human experience, it is pain, tragedy and loss. Recently our community has seen one of its lights extinguished as 39-year-old Deborah Wigg was apparently murdered and then, according to all of the evidence currently available, her killer ended his own life — leaving two small children without a mother or a father in this world.

While my heart aches for these children and our community, perhaps you, like me, are not as shocked by this as I wish that I were. Violence on this scale has sadly become a regular occurrence in our society. We are no longer shocked by matters such as this, and I am equally concerned that as a result of our callousness we no longer seek or find hope in such painful times.

I grieve for these children who have been orphaned, by all indications by the one who was supposed to protect and provide for them. Though my heart is broken, I remain hopeful that through this tragedy the same God who allowed His Son Jesus to suffer and die on that revoltingly beautiful cross has desperate compassion upon these children. My hope grows out of a conviction that one day He will bring beauty from the ashes of their broken lives.

I don’t blame God, because this is a consequence of the choice of his creatures. It is not His perfect will for them. I’m not disappointed with God, because in allowing His Son to suffer He identified with us and showed us in no uncertain terms that He is at war with the sources of suffering in this world. God hates injustice. He despises brokenness. Jesus conquered death and one day will consume it entirely! Even while the fog of tragedy clouds our eyes, there is hope.

There is hope when our community is grieved to the point of intolerance with all forms of such violence. There is hope when as a community we open our eyes to the needs around us and do our very best to prevent such and similar violence.

We grieve. And we should. Friends, I invite you to allow your grief to bring our community closer together across all that divides us. I believe that we are a people who will bring hope from tragedy as we turn our hearts toward God in sorrow for our own complacency with regard to violence in the home and in our community.

I trust that we are a community of people who will shower these orphaned children with more than a week’s worth of sympathy until the next tragic occurrence in the news takes our attention. I am hopeful that as we grieve together, we will learn that the only way to conquer evil is to smother it with love and drown it with hope.

Pilgrim Pastor... broken hearted but not despaired...

Here is a link to the article as it appears in the Suffolk News Herald.  

We are awfully concerned about our outward image aren’t we?  I still remember how unsure of myself I was in the 8^th grade because of my $9.00 shoes from Payless.  I had just moved to a new city and felt awkward enough; minus the florescent “swish” that was an obvious fake of the Nike “Swoosh!”

We want to fit in.  We want to look like people deserving of respect or admiration.  My three year old son Ephram has taken to giving me a bit of a military style “inspection” every morning.  Before I can leave the house for work or to go to Church on Sunday morning, he has to make sure that I am wearing something that he can emulate.  This morning Ephram said, “Daddy, is that a yellow or white pastor shirt you are wearing?”  You see, he doesn’t have a yellow pastor shirt– that’s what he calls my dress clothes – but he does have a white one… and we absolutely MUST match.

He wants to be like his dad. At least he chooses good role models! Today is Sunday, the day when followers of Jesus have for centuries celebrated His resurrection and gathered to worship Him, teach the Scripture, encourage one another, and seek to grow in our ability to look more like our Heaenly Father, our Abba.

Jesus doesn’t wear pastor clothes though.  I sure wish it was that easy to look like Christ!  He wears the clothes of gentleness, love, and meekness – truth, mercy, and grace.  Friend, what are you wearing today?  Are you dressed like your Heavenly Father,who showed us what He looks like through Jesus Christ? 

“Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen theFather. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?” (John 14:9 NIV)

“Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” (Romans13:14 NIV)

Sincerely,

The Pilgrim Pastor… ripping at my tattered sinful natural clothing…trying to remember that they are covered with Christ… 

Recently my son Sebastian asked me, basically out of the blue as wewere getting dressed for bedtime, “Daddy, does God really have the whole world in His hands?”  Sebastian is only five and he also views the world in rather concrete terms.  Metaphor is sometimes difficult for childrento grasp and being a child with a form of Autism, one of Sebastian’s gifts is the ability to interpret language and the world in its most strictly literal sense.  Over the years of his young life,one of the things he has taught how incredibly silly our use of language oftenis.  We seldom say what we mean. Get a grip on yourself?  Do you really desireme to hug myself?   When I put him and his brother to sleep singing “He’s got the whole world in His hands,”apparently Sebastian must have been visualizing God literally holding the world in His hands!  This brought laughter to my voice and peace to my heart. 

How wonderful is the mind, the heart, and the simple faith of a child?!In Matthew 18:3 Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (NIV)  Does Jesus mean that in order to receive the kingdom of heaven we have to abandon reason, throw away our knowledge, orbecome unaware? 

Surely not!  In Mathew chapter 5 Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, and the pure in heart.”Our Lord is telling us not to become fools or to withdraw from learning.  The New Testament knows nothing of ignorant faith.  The message is that the only way to trust in God in a way that is complete, satisfying, and God-honoring, is to do so in humility, sincerity, and honesty.  While the song “He’s got the whole world in His hand” is not speaking of literal hands which actually turn the world on its axis, the message is nonetheless of immediate and literal importance.  

All that occurs in this world is well within the scope of the allowance or design of the God who created us in the beginning, recreates our hearts in Christ, and shall one day restore His creation to its intended perfection.  All that occurs, God either allows or designs. 

As a divine King, His sovereignty is absolute.  Friend, He really does have the whole world in His hands.

My three year old son - the superhero – has become incredibly concerned about who it is exactly that killed His beloved Jesus.  In his defense, the Easter narrative is not a very easy concept for a three year old to grasp.  Jesus, his Jesus in whose name we pray every evening, his Jesus who he knows lives in his heart, His Jesus who his daddy works for; you’re telling him that somebody killed Him… well, something has to be done about that!

My three year old, the one who sleeps EVERY night in a superman outfit with his superman doll nestled neatly beside him, asked his mother yesterday (Apparently having had enough time to process his Pastor father’s explanation of the Easter account), “Mom, who are those guys who daddy said killed Jesus?”  My wife, a little surprised by his question said, “Well, the Romans.”  The superhero’s response, “So the Romans are the bad guys?” (You see in his superhero universe there is always a bad guy super villain who needs to be dealt with) My wife… “Uhh, ya I guess the Romans are the bad guys…”

“Well then,” my three year old superhero said, “I’m gonna’ put on my superman suit and go over to Isweearl (Israel) and I’m gonna’ beat up those bad guy Romans and save Jesus!  I'm gonna throw 'em in the water with alligators and they are going to eat them!”

After I was able to dry my eyes from the tears of laughter at my son’s very serious desire to “save Jesus,” I realized that this little boy stumbled onto a rather profound question.  We don’t need to save Jesus.  He saves us!  The Romans didn’t kill Jesus, though they pounded in the nails.  The Jews didn’t kill Jesus, though their leaders asked for Him to be killed.  On one level, no person killed Jesus because He laid down His life freely in order to satisfy the sin debt that you and I owed and could never otherwise pay. 

On another level, we all killed Jesus and thus are all the “bad guys,” since it was the sin of the entire human race for which Jesus died.  In John 10:18 the words of Jesus are recorded, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (NIV)  In the ultimate sense, no one killed Jesus.  He laid down His life as a perfect sacrifice, a ransom, to satisfy the just wrath of God which our sin had incurred.

Friend, Jesus broke into our earthy existence, lived a perfect life, and died in order to trade His perfection for imperfection so that upon His rising from the dead, we, through faith in Him, could trade our imperfection for His perfection.  In other words, at the Cross Jesus allowed His life to be taken according to the divine plan of God both to redeem His people from sin and to put His awesome power, mercy, grace, and justice on display. Jesus blood covers our sin and washes it away in a sea of forgetfulness.  We don’t have to save Jesus.  He saves us! 

I applaud my son’s interest in “rescuing Jesus,” but the truth is that were the Cross an accident Jesus could have saved Himself! Jesus says,“Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?” (Matthew 26:53-54 NIV) 

Who killed Jesus?  He allowed Himself to be killed so that He could redeem you and me if we would simply receive Him by faith.

My son would give his all to save his beloved Jesus.  God gave His Son to save me, you, and my three year old superhero.  This Easter season, won’t you receive the one who came to save you? “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him,graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32 NIV)

There is a right way and wrong way to do things...  More specifically there is a thoughtful way and a hasty way to do things! My three year old son Ephram calls himself “Pastor Ephram.”  He has every intention, at least for now, of pursuing full time ministry when he grows up. He even has a complete wardrobe of “pastor clothes” as he refers to them.  When he is not wearing his latest superman or batman pajamas, he has suits and ties just his size, although he usually shows up to church wearing with one of my ties dangling just below his knee caps. 

Yesterday while he and my five year old son Sebastian assisted me in the grocery store, he proved my point about a right and a hasty way to things. Sebastian and I were calmly examining his shopping list to ensure that we didn’t forget the most important items – marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate for a backyard bbq round of S’mores.  Meanwhile Pastor Ephram, who is slightly taller than a parking stump, decided all on his own initiative to “gently place,” uhhh… I mean heave like a discus thrower, a carton of 18 eggs into the cart!  17 of them broke.  1 remained intact.

His reply to my rebuke, "Well daaaaaaad... we neeeeeeeded them..." Should the lord actually lead him into ministry, my advice to him then will be similar to my chastisement that day in the store.  Slow down and do it right. I've taught you that it is ok to ask for help. In other words, get training. Anything worth doing is worth taking the time to prepare for.  “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.” (II Timothy 2:15-16 KJV) 

We don’t need intellectual elites in the pulpit. However, we do need trained pastors who understand the difference being pleasing God and men; between proclaiming truth and earning favor; shaking hands after a worship service, for example, as an extension of the service of ministry to the people of God, not fishing for a pat on the back.  Not everyone is going to like every sermon.  Not everyone should like every sermon! While a preacher hopes for his sermons to be received on their own merit and used by God, some sermons should be challenging, exposited from challenging Bible texts, to the point that they bring conviction.  

Pastor Ephram, I will say, Seek respect as an honest expository preacher more than to be liked as a jovial preacher.  It is good to be loved but faithfulness is a higher virtue than likability.  Make Christ the center of your preaching because He is the gospel! I am afraid for my son though, in light of all of the abuses and lack of plain, honest, biblical preaching in our day.  It may well get worse before it gets better.  When that day comes, Pastor Ephram may have to stand in very short company in the gate of biblical faithfulness.  

Yet stand he must and so must we all.  Truth is immortal. (visa-vi Balthasar Hubmaier) 

(http://brad.chando.net/2007/01/28/truth-is-immortal/)