The Grumpy Servant

I have to admit that on the morning of Thanksgiving Day I was in a bad mood. To start things off I was homesick. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and we always went to my beloved aunt and uncle’s house for the day. This was the first Thanksgiving in my entire thirty-four years that I haven’t been with some part of my (or Danielle’s) extended family on Turkey Day. Also, Danielle had agreed to be on mashed potato duty as a part of our church’s “Thanksgiving Miracle Part IV,” which consisted of making and delivering about 85 hot Thanksgiving meals to anyone, mostly shut-ins, who had requested a meal. The only questions we asked when someone requested a meal were to get a name, address, phone number, and how many meals. As the good Lord said, “Freely you have received; now freely give.”

So Danielle’s shift starts at 8:00 am, which means that I have the kids by myself from the moment I wake up. Wyatt is pretty good, but demons have possessed Josselyn and no matter how many times I scream, “The power of Christ compels you!” they will not be exorcised. So she throws fit after fit, but, alas, I think, Danielle just needs to go make some instant potatoes then she’ll be back to share in the bliss of parenthood with me any moment now. Nearly three hours later I get a call from Danielle, “Have you gotten the kids dressed yet? It’s time to go deliver the meals.” By that time I have a pounding headache, Wyatt is upstairs making a ton of noise, and Josselyn is running around without a thread of clothes on. “I thought you’d be coming back home,” I say in a defeated tone. “Oh…I didn’t tell you?” she responds. “That was never the plan.”

George Bernard Shaw was right when he said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

So I send Wyatt over to the church building while Josselyn and I negotiate (i.e. she refuses to wear anything and ends up pounding her fists on the ground while I give up and tell her that I am going to watch TV until she’s done acting like a baby). Finally Josselyn and I make it over to the church—a journey of only forty yards or so which involves her not paying attention where she’s going and falling into mud and leaves after I finally got her dressed. We hang out in Persinger Hall for a little bit, get our food, and then the whole family piles into the car to deliver meals to six homes. As we pull out of the church parking lot, my head is about to explode and Wyatt asks, “Do I have to go? This is going to be boring.”

The first delivery is unsuccessful as the person isn’t even at home. “Ugh! Why ask for a meal if you aren’t even going to be home?” I grumble. The next house is across the street. As the couple opens the door a cloud of cigarette smoke engulfs my family. “Quit spending all your money on cancer sticks and maybe you’d be able to afford your own food!” I think to myself as I hurry the kids toward the car. “I’m hungry,” Josselyn yells from the backseat. “I want to go home,” Wyatt complains. Danielle is noticeably agitated by her beloved family. As we drive up the street, trying to figure out where the next house is, Wyatt asks me, “Dad, why are you so sad? Or mad? What’s wrong with you?” That delivery goes just fine—uneventful. When we get back in the car Danielle says, “Maybe you should just drop us off at the house. Or maybe we should drop you off at the house.” I refuse. No, we're doing the Lord's work here! Can't you tell!

The next two deliveries go well. We meet some nice, appreciative ladies who may not have seen another person that day had we not come by. At the last house, nobody is home. Once again I think, “Ugh! Waste of time!” At that house Josselyn announces to Danielle that she has to pee—not soon, but at this very moment. There’s nowhere to take her so she ends up peeing in the grass on the side of this person’s house. Wyatt and I are watching from the car, mortified. “I think we should just go home,” Wyatt announces, with wisdom beyond his years. After trying to call the two deliveries that weren’t home (to no avail) we did just that—we went home. “Boy, that was a real joy!” we said sarcastically as we got out of the car. Then we ate two of the meals that we’d brought home (they were extras) and realized how good the meals were that we’d delivered to the shut-ins. This was a top notch Thanksgiving meal. After we got some food in our bellies, peace was a lot easier to come by. Then a few hours later, when we were all in good moods, we shared a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with the Glasses and Prestons.

So what happened that morning? Should I have just not delivered meals since I was in such a crummy mood? After all, the Apostle Paul does write in 2 Corinthians 9:7, “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” While I didn’t deliver meals under compulsion, I certainly did it reluctantly (simply because of my bad mood) and it was most certainly not done in a cheerful manner. Does the fact that my family delivered the meals in a less than joyful way (we were nice and smiled to each delivery then stared daggers at each other in the car) mean we shouldn’t have done it at all? Maybe I should just speak for myself here. When I signed up to deliver meals I was looking forward to it, but I didn’t feel joyful about doing it when the time came. So should I have not done it because I couldn’t do it joyfully? And does the fact that I did it with a bad attitude negate the value of the act of delivering meals to shut-ins?

To answer these questions we turn to that wise old Oxford professor, C.S. Lewis. In Mere Christianity, perhaps the most influential book in my Christian walk besides the Good Book itself, Lewis writes, “Love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will.” I did not have the emotion of love for any of the people I delivered food to but I had made an agreement that I would deliver those meals. I needed to fulfill my commitment. The meals were hot. It was time sensitive. I couldn’t afford to wait until the feelings returned. The meals would have been cold (and maybe moldy) by the time those warm fuzzy feelings returned. I had to keep my commitment and keep it on time. I guess I could have been rude to the people I delivered the meals to, you know, take it out on them. While I did that a little bit in my head, it wasn't their fault so I was quite nice to each person.

I am convinced that a great problem in our culture is that we’ve made a grand idol out of emotions. Don’t get me wrong—emotions are extremely important, we should never manipulate or harm others’ emotions, and we should all have the opportunity to express our emotions in healthy way—but emotions are not the end-all-be-all when it comes to life. But our culture often acts as though they are. Here’s one example: a married couple falling “out of love” with one another. “I just don’t feel like I love her anymore. But I have such strong emotions for this new woman.” News flash! If your emotions ran dry for one person they’ll run dry for the next one too. As I heard a wise pastor say once to a couple on their wedding day, “Love will not always hold your marriage together. Quite often, the marriage will hold your love together.” He meant that their commitment would carry them through places where their emotions couldn’t. Love is a choice, an act of the will.

Do you think Danielle has strong feelings of longing for me every day? Ha! Fat chance! But, thank God, she chooses to love me every day, not just on the days when she feels the emotion of love toward me. So we do acts of love, like delivering a hot meal to a lonely person on Thanksgiving, even when we don’t want to at that particular moment. In fact, in another C.S. Lewis classic, The Screwtape Letters, the high ranking demon, Wormwood, says to the low ranking demon, Screwtape, that they know they have lost their “subject” (person) that they’ve been trying to lead to damnation when the subject gets to a point where he or she doesn’t want to do what God commands, but does it anyway. That's when they know God's won that person.

I’m not trying to hold myself up as an example of saintly behavior. “Never make yourself the hero of your own sermon,” my preaching professor warned us in seminary, and that probably applies to blog posts as well when they’re written as a pastoral act. I’m just trying to illustrate that all of us (even people who seem happy all the time) get in bad moods sometimes; we all have times when the emotions of love and joy are absent. This even happens with worship. “I just didn’t feel like worshiping today” is a poor excuse for not showing up at worship. I don’t even buy, “I just don’t feel like I believe anymore,” as a reason not to show up at worship. Sometimes I don’t feel like worshiping and sometimes I don’t feel like I believe anymore, and I’m the one leading worship! That happens to all of us, but the commitment to God in Jesus Christ carries us through those places where we don't have any emotions toward God. As one of my seminary professors told us that he said to a man who told him that he wasn’t coming to worship anymore because he just didn’t feel like he believed in the faith presented in the Apostles’ Creed anymore, “Keep coming to worship. Let the Church say the creed for you. We’ll profess our faith, the faith of the Church, for you… until you can do it again for yourself.”

“Not feeling it” neither excuses us nor excludes us from doing acts of worship toward God and acts of love and kindness toward others in Christ’s name. It is a problem, however, if we never feel joyful about it, if we always feel like we’re just doing our duty. Then there are deeper issues at play that may or may not include ingratitude and/or an unhealthy condemnation toward others (or in more extreme cases even clinical depression). But to put it bluntly, sometimes we just can’t muster the warm fuzzies. In those moments, we have to suck it up and serve anyway. Sometimes the warm fuzzies come during or after we serve instead of before. As our buddy C.S. Lewis writes, “Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.”

I’ll leave you with this extended quote, once again from C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity:

“On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him. Nobody can always have devout feelings: and even if we could, feelings are not what God principally cares about. Christian love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will. If we are trying to do His will we are obeying the commandment, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.’ He will give us feelings of love if He pleases. We cannot create them for ourselves, and we must not demand them as our right. But the great thing to remember is that though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.”

Amen to that!

Read for God's Sake!

I am a reader. I absolutely love reading. I read all the time. Most nights it is very difficult for me to finally stop reading to go to sleep. That wise sage Dr. Seuss once wrote, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” I whole heartedly agree. Danielle also loves to read, granted we read very different kinds of books. She absolutely loves a good murder mystery. In our love for reading, we are modeling this literate lifestyle for our kids. Each Monday we go to the children’s section at the Carnegie Library and pick out around 30 children’s books for the week to read with the kids at naptime and bedtime. Now that Wyatt is able to read on his own, we keep finding him behind the recliner in the living room sneaking in a few pages of a book before dinner and he reads on his own for fifteen minutes every night after we are finished reading with him. It just warms my heart to see him devouring book after book.

In regard to reading to children, the organization “Reading is Fundamental” writes, “Reading books aloud to children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and prepares them to understand the written word. When the rhythm and melody of language become a part of a child's life, learning to read will be as natural as learning to walk and talk.”

Too many families do not read with their kids. It is so sad to me. Sometimes, though, the problem is much deeper than just not making the time to read with your child. Sometimes the problem is that the adults in the house can’t read either.

There is quite a connection, actually, between being an avid reader and being Presbyterian. That doesn’t mean that if you don’t care for reading that you don’t fit in this church. There is simply a connection that is undeniable. Presbyterians and other Reformed Christians have emphasized literacy since the 1500’s. While the dominant church in Europe had no problem, and may have even preferred, keeping the general populace ignorant and illiterate, John Calvin set to educating the population of the Swiss city of Geneva where he was reforming the church. He believed that willful ignorance was an affront to God as was allowing others to remain that way. Also, he and other reformers believed that each person should be able to read the Scriptures themselves (that was one of the controversial hallmarks of the Protestant Reformation).

Well, it is hard to read the Scriptures if you can’t read. So there was a very high literacy rate in Calvin’s Geneva. Teaching people to read was seen by the Presbyterians as a spiritual work, an act of discipleship. The same thing happened when the Presbyterians took the reins in Scotland. Europe’s most backward nation became a bastion of education and literacy. Presbyterians have been very influential over the centuries in the United States as well through advocating for better public education. One of the reasons that it is very rare to find Presbyterian schools below the college level is that Presbyterians, traditionally, put our efforts into providing better education for all, not just for the privileged few who can afford to go to a private church school.

I was so proud of the congregation I served in Newkirk, Oklahoma, when one year they devoted the entire week prior to the beginning of school in August to holding a “Reading Camp” for any child in the community who wanted to come. We had about 40 kids show up every day to read one-on-one for hours with a church member. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen a congregation do—and it wasn't my idea. That came from the congregation and they saw it as an act of discipleship.

Charles William Eliot once said, “Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.” I have found that to be true in my own experience. Pretty much everything I’ve been reading lately is in some way connected to my pastoral work. I haven’t read any novels lately, and I need to free myself up to do that. But I wanted to share with you the books I’ve read over the past month and then one quote from each book without comment.

The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ

“The maxim of ‘illusory religion’ is as follows: ‘Fear not; trust in God and He will see that none of the things you fear will happen to you.’ ‘Real religion,’ said Macmurray, has a different maxim: ‘Fear not; the things you are afraid of are quite likely to happen to you, but they are nothing to be afraid of.’”

The Sacred Wilderness of Pastoral Ministry by David Rohrer

“Our [pastoral] office calls us to the simple act of giving off the scent of Jesus (2 Cor 2:15-16) as we live among a particular people at a particular time. In the course of going about this work, there will be times when the smell of Jesus makes people mad and times when their response to this scent bears the fruit of gratitude and approval.”

The Courage to Grieve by Judy Tatelbaum

“Since pain unexpressed does not dissolve spontaneously, we may suffer severe consequences from pretending to be super-human.”

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John M. Gottman, Phd.

“In the strongest marriages, husband and wife share a deep sense of meaning. They don’t just ‘get along’—they also support each other’s hopes and aspirations and build a sense of purpose into their lives together.”

101 Things I Wish I Knew When I Got Married by Linda & Charlie Bloom

“If you can’t do something without expecting something in return, you’re probably better off not doing it at all. A marriage is not a business deal. Keeping score may work in sports and finances, but it’s folly in a relationship. Rather than keeping track of whether or not the ledger is balanced, work instead to cultivate trust and a spirit of goodwill. That which is given from a selfless intention is always rewarded.”

In a minute, click on this link: "Melody's Dream." It will take you to the "Stewardship" portion of our church website. Within that "New Fruits. Deep Roots." stewardship section click on the tab in the upper right hand corner of that window that says "Videos." Then you can watch the video entitled "Melody's Dream," which has a connection to this blog post.

Happy reading!

Grace and Peace,
Everett

People Are the Heart of a Building

Here at First Presbyterian Church we are in the midst of our stewardship season entitled “New Fruit, Deep Roots.” So I believe it is only fitting for me to touch on a major aspect of our stewardship as a congregation—the usage of our building. As usual, in doing this I’m going to tell you more than you ever wanted to know. But my justification for this is that just because we didn’t want to know it, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know it.

Contrary to the way we use the word “church,” as in “Do you want to go to church with me?” or “Meet me at the church,” the church is not a building at all. The Church is the people. What we often call the church is really just the building where the Church meets. That’s why I really like how many Church of Christ congregations, at least in Oklahoma, will have on their sign, “The Church of Christ Meets Here.” That’s really more biblical than the idea of the building being a church. Think of 1 Peter 2:5-6, “As you come to [Jesus Christ], the living Stone--rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him--you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

The English word “church” has evolved from the Middle English word “chirche,” which can be traced back through the centuries to coming from the Greek word “kuriakos,” which means “belonging to the Lord.” So the literal meaning of “church” is “belonging to the Lord.” So when English speaking people were looking for a way to render the Greek word “ekklesia,” meaning “called out [people],” which is the word that the Bible uses to refer to Christian believers collectively, they used the word that would eventually become “church,” which gave the sense that this people belonged to the Lord. So ekklesia (called out by God) was translated as church (belonging to the Lord). Again, whether we use “ekklesia” or “church,” it still is all about people—the people who have been called by and belong to God in Jesus Christ. Over the years, although it covers up the original and more powerful (and empowering) meaning of the word “church,” the building where the church meets started being referred to as a church. This is so ingrained in our culture that, in my opinion, it takes constant reminding that we don’t go to church; we are the church.

The original Christians did not meet in a building that was specifically set aside for use as a place for worship. It appears that the church in Jerusalem may have met, at least occasionally, at the Jerusalem Temple, but most of the time the gatherings of Christians met, often secretly, in private homes for worship, fellowship, and for a shared meal. As far as we can tell, these early gatherings of the church often met in a private home before dawn on Sundays, shared the Lord’s Supper every time they met, and then went to work. The idea of Sunday as a day dedicated to worship and rest was still a long way off. The first evidence that archaeologists can find of a structure devoted specifically to Christian worship is from about the year 240 AD, around 210 years after Jesus' death and resurrection. It was unearthed near the Euphrates River in an ancient city very near the current border between Syria and Iraq. Even this structure, however, is appended to a house. It appears that someone built a gathering place for the church onto the side of a house. It is unclear if a family lived in the other part of the building or if the entire structure was used by the church. Two rooms were combined to form an assembly room and there was a separate room with a baptismal pool in it. In the baptistry room there were murals painted on the walls—of Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Jesus healing a paralytic, Jesus and Peter walking on water, the Good Shepherd image of Jesus, and the Marys coming to the empty tomb on Easter morning. It wasn't until after 313 AD that church buildings became more popular.

There is a movement right now within the wider church, and there have been many similar movements over the centuries, to return church gatherings to private homes. There are many reasons for this, but the main two are that many believe church buildings breed complacency and cause congregations to become insular, not reaching out but expecting others to come to us instead of going out to them. The second reason is that many feel that the amount of money that is invested into building and/or maintaining a church building could go to better use in ministry and mission. In these congregations there are many networks of house church gatherings of about four or five families that meet together weekly for worship and a meal, and then all of the gatherings meet together once a month or so for worship and the Lord’s Supper in a rented space like a school auditorium. I have to admit that I am very sympathetic toward these views, as I was very good friends with folks involved in this movement back in Oklahoma. For them there was no such thing as a committee meeting or a budget—just Bible study, worship, shared meals, and lots of mission and outreach. They were all involved in mission and nearly 100% of the offerings went to mission. But as you will see in a moment, I also firmly believe that when we do have a building it can be put to good use for the glory of God.

Here at First Presbyterian Church, we have inherited a beautiful historic sanctuary built around 1890. Our educational wing was built sometime in the 1960’s. These are the buildings that over the years this congregation built and dedicated to God. In essence, these buildings belong to God, and we are the stewards of these buildings. So how are we doing as stewards of these buildings?

I have been around too many congregations that only allow their building to be utilized on Sunday morning by their specific congregation. Usually, when people are honest about it, the reasoning goes something like this: “We don’t know what other people would do to our building. They might mess it up. Really, do we want those people in our building?” Here’s where this reasoning breaks down for Christians: (1) more than it is our building, it is God’s building, (2) those people quite often happen to be those whom Jesus identifies himself with in Matthew 25 and to whom Jesus calls his church to care for in his name. Congregations who think like this have buildings that sit vacant all week. Granted, they save money on utilities and custodial pay, but the church isn't called to austerity; the church is called to the ministry and mission of Jesus. Remember Jesus’ parable of the talents. When God gives you something, don’t hoard it; let it grow!

Thankfully our congregation is not like this. One of the reasons I was drawn to this congregation was that I believe we are on the right track when it comes to stewardship of the buildings with which we have been entrusted. Not only do we meet for study and worship on Sunday mornings as well as holding office hours Monday through Friday, but our building is utilized almost every single day. Our building provides space for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Cub Scouts, the Fayette County Food Pantry, our Wednesday Night Soup Supper, Choral Society, the community children’s choral society, a community women’s Bible study, a group that resources teen mothers, all of our various music ministries, and many other groups that meet here occasionally. I truly applaud us as a congregation for being faithful, generous stewards of this building. We might ask, "But what about all that money we’re spending on utilities?" To that I will answer that hospitality is rarely free. If it was, then it wouldn't be so highly valued. Christian hospitality is a sacrifice on behalf of the other in Christ’s name.

Buildings were meant to be used. Buildings have no inherent worth. They only have functional worth. An empty building is worthless. A building that teems with life gains its worth from that which takes place within its walls. The heart of a building is the people inside it. Because of what happens here, this building on the corner of Market and Hinde Streets has great worth, it has a great heart.

Make sure that this week you stop by www.fpcwcho.org to click on the stewardship tab to explore all the resources that the Stewardship Council has provided for us as a congregation. And as we think about stewardship during this specific season in the life of this congregation, let us think of our building usage as a model for all areas of our lives. It is not our own, but it has been given to us as a blessing. It has been given to us not merely to bless us but to bless others as well. That is true of everything in our lives. Like our building, our time, our talents, our passions, our possessions, our financial resources, and our love and compassion, have been granted to us as generous gifts from our loving God. They are blessings to us and are to be blessings to others as well.

Here is the ultimate question of stewardship: How will we use all that we have been given to give glory to God and to bless others in Christ's name?

In Service to the Gospel,
Everett