The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for November 24, 2021

Diane and I wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving. Setting aside the normal daily routines, be filled with the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7), experiencing again how good it is to be beloved children of God.

A quotation from C.S. Lewis. Senior devil Screwtape gives advice to young devil Wormwood. “The sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell, and we must keep them doing so.... We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun—the finely graded differences that run from ‘my boots’ through ‘my dog,’ my servant,’ ‘my wife, ‘my father,’ ‘my master,’ and ‘my country,’ to ‘my God.’ They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of ‘my boots,’ the ‘my’ of ownership…. We have taught men to say, ‘my God’ in a sense not really very different from ‘my boots…’ And all the time the joke is that the word ‘mine’ in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either Our Father or the Enemy will say ‘mine’ of each thing that exists, and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong—certainly not to them, whatever happens.” (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, in For All the Saints, IV, 1157).

Thanksgiving is much more than being thankful for what we have, something anyone can do. Thanksgiving is a sense of our utter dependence upon our Father, as Martin Luther said, “We are all beggars; that is true.” Above all, Thanksgiving is heartfelt gratitude that the Spirit of Jesus makes us rich toward God. My possessions, my family, my work, my worries, my health, my future… Not mine. I am Thine. “It is well with my soul.”

The Meyer Minute for November 23, 2021

Would you like to be as rich as John D. Rockefeller? The founder of Standard Oil Company would be worth $23 billion in today’s dollars. “You can be as rich as Rockefeller was in 1916 if you will consent to live in 1916.” “As a 1916 billionaire, you would be materially worse off than a 2017 middle-class American. An unhealthy 1916 billionaire would be much worse off than an unhealthy 2017 American…. In 1916, life expectancy at birth was 54.5 years (today, 78.8), and fewer than 5 percent of American were sixty-five or older…. There were four renters for every homeowner… Less than one-third of homes had electric lights. Small electric motors—the first Hoover vacuum cleaner appeared in 1915—were not yet lightening housework. Iceboxes, which were the norm until after World War II, were all that 1916 had” (Economist Don Boudreaux in George Will, The Conservative Sensibility, 288-290). So who’s richer?

This Thanksgiving, turkeys are being stuffed with commercials to buy this or that, turkeys filled with reports that the supply chain can’t get us enough stuff, turkeys filled with vain hopes government printing presses will save us. On and on it goes, ubiquitous consumerism trying to fill people’s emptiness but only multiplying dissatisfaction and envy. Do we church people see this?

“Take care…lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:11-14). “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matthew 6:21).

“When you have Christ as the foundation and chief blessing of your salvation, then the other part follows: that you take him as your example, giving yourself in service to your neighbor just as you see that Christ has given himself for you.” (Martin Luther, “A Brief Instruction,” LW, 35.120). “If among you, one of your brothers should become poor…, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8). Spirit of Christ, with more blessings than Rockefeller, lead us away from the creaking table of consumerism to share with those in need. Amen.

The Meyer Minute for November 22, 2021

Minds thinking Thanksgiving and Christmas, many churches did a great service to worshippers by observing yesterday as Christ the King Sunday. So much energy goes into observing the events and teachings of Christ’s ministry in the first century, like His birth and in a few months His suffering and death, that we easily forget reality: Jesus Christ is King now.  

“The modern world quite literally “manages” without God. We can do so much so well by ourselves that there is no need for God, even in his church. Thus we modern people can be profoundly secular in the midst of explicitly religious activities. Which explains why so many modern Christian believers are atheists unawares. Professing to believe in supernatural realities, they are virtual atheists; whatever they say they believe, they show in practice that they function without practical recourse to the supernatural…. The call to follow Jesus Christ runs directly counter to this deadly modern pressure toward secularization.” (Os Guiness, The Call, 149) 

Christ the King Sunday was decreed by Pope Pius XI on December 11, 1925. He cited troubling trends in that time, including the removal of Christ from public life in many nations, natural religion replacing revealed religion, “insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; (and) a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these” (24). Has the world gotten better in the almost 100 years since the encyclical?  

Pius XI: “It is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by an official pronouncement of the teaching of the church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faith; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year—in fact, forever. The church’s teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man’s nature.” (21) 

“Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.” 

The Meyer Minute for November 19, 2021

How close are you to God, or how far away? I don’t mean the omnipresence of God, that God is close to you. “‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24). Not that, how close are your thoughts, your feelings, and your attitudes to God? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:4). How do you measure such a thing?

Joy is one way. We all have glad times, our team wins, we get a pay raise, our family gathers for Thanksgiving. Many things can and do make us happy or…important point…people and events also give us reasons to be sad, totally down. When sadness fills the depths of your being, what about this? “Rejoice in the Lord always” (Philippians 4:4). Always.

“Always in the Lord.” When I don’t have “the joy, joy, joy down in my heart,” as the children’s song says, I’m letting things distance me from God. “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). “You by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necesssary, you have been grieved by various trials” (1 Peter 1:5-6). “In the Lord,” specifically Jesus. “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad” (John 8:56). “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). “Again I will say, rejoice…the Lord is at hand” (Philippians 4:4-5). It’s not just that the great God is omnipresent; it’s that God “is a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). “Thus says the One who is high and lifted up…, ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite’” (Isaiah 57:15).

Growing in faith means increasing in constant joy. I’ve got a long way to go! “May all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you!” (Psalm 70:4).

The Meyer Minute for November 18, 2021

Encouraging others is a quality of Christian living. Parents encourage their children when they’re disappointed. Friends sharing their personal challenges encourage one another. Church members encourage their pastors… I’m writing this as if these encouragements are normal. They should be, but we don’t encourage one another as we ought. New Testament writers often used the Greek word “parakaleo.” In Romans 12:1 it’s translated various ways, “I urge, I appeal, I beseech,” many nuances but it’s about encouraging, “I encourage you by the mercies of God.” 

The pulpit is where the church speaks publicly and the person speaking in the pulpit should be a great encourager. That’s not only because of apostolic example. It’s especially because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since God can raise the dead, he can bring you to a better situation than you are in now. But is Christ's resurrection the only motivation for our congregations? Might “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:26-27) offer us, and now I’m thinking about us who preach, even more to encourage our people? 

“Strive to enter through the narrow door,” says Jesus. “When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door…” The door is open now, but it will be closed. Obviously, Jesus is not talking about a physical door but about entering eternal salvation. He was responding to the question, “Lord, will those who are saved by few?” (Luke 13:23-25). Jesus lays responsibility for eternal salvation on each of us disciples individually. “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” No, you can’t save yourself, but you are the steward of God’s gift of salvation, no one else is. Salvation by grace through faith does not mean there’s nothing for you to do. 

We often speak about the resurrection of Christ, but leave it there, back in the first century. The Creed doesn’t stop at the resurrection. “He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.” That’s when the Master of the house will close the door. It’s coming, the earnest praying and meditation and worship of stewards serious about salvation will be over. Holding this imminent day before our people, not to scare them but to urge them to a salutary fear of God, is part of the essence of encouragement. “Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).    

The Meyer Minute for November 17, 2021

“You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently” (Psalm 119:4). 

Well, we haven’t done that, so we go to the Gospel of grace. At the Seminary we teach our future preachers to let the Gospel dominate their sermons. Not a new idea, the first president of the Seminary said, “You are not rightly distinguishing Law and Gospel in the Word of God if you do not allow the Gospel to predominate in your teaching.” (C.F.W. Walther, Thesis XXV, “Law and Gospel”) 

“I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word” (Psalm 119:16). 

We may not have forgotten the Law but in the reflections of retirement I’m convinced we in the church are not hearing the Law of God as we ought, and I add hear the Law for our own benefit. It’s the end of the church year, and the assigned readings talk about the end of all things. “In those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved” (Mark 13:19-20). That’s Law, but of course, I’m ok. I go to church.  

Is it that simple? The Law should scare the bejeebies out of us church people. “For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And ‘If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?’” (1 Peter 4:17-18). About some people killed in an accident, Jesus says, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4-5). “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness; seek humility; perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord” (Zephaniah 2:3). 

“The Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good” (Romans 7:12). The only thing church people should desire more than the Law is to escape judgment, reprieve from a Rescuer, Jesus our Gospel. “Make me understand the way of your precepts, and I will meditate on your wondrous works” (Psalm 119:27). 

The Meyer Minute for November 16, 2021

It’s energizing to see the mission of Christ progressing, sometimes in big, often in small ways. “MIssionsblatt,” the magazine of the Bleckmar Mission Society in Germany, recently published this report from its work in Mozambique. What jumps out to you? 

“God’s mission in Mozambique surprises us every day! …We now are amazed by actual statistics. In 2015 there were 10 congregations with some 1,000 members. In 2019 there were 80 congregations with about 8,000 members. The new statistics for 2021 point to about 120 congregations and 43,974 members, some 9,000 families! It is God, acting through His Word and the work of the Holy Spirit in the witness of each individual Christian in Mozambique, who gathers His people in worship services among trees under the sky, in huts and little chapels of mud and wood, and in walled churches. Despite difficulties because of the misery in which the land lives, and natural catastrophes that destroy its harvests and cause hunger, these people do not stop coming together to praise God, hear His Word, and pray. 

“The leadership of the Church through lay people plays a very important role in this growth, for there are only a few ordained pastors. Not only students in theological education programs – future pastors, as they will be known – do their part, but also local elders in each new mission start gather people around the Word. Each new worship site receives Bibles, the Small Catechism, and the Bible readings and liturgy provided for each Sunday. Despite their limited knowledge because of a lack of education, what they hear from the elders is sufficient to rouse their faith in Jesus and to gather themselves in the name of the Triune God. We thank you all for your prayers and gifts for God’s mission in Mozambique. God bless you all. Pastor Carolos Walter Winterle” 

What jumped out at you? Certainly, the amazing grow of congregations. That it happens in a very poor land should give us much to ponder in our materially super-blessed country. And shouldn’t we reflect on the witness of laypeople in the growth of the Church? The message of the church is the cross, and so the church goes to wherever there’s want and suffering, be that Mozambique or close to home. Lifting our sights to the worldwide progress of the Gospel is energizing, and how great if every congregation is charged for mission! 

The Meyer Minute for November 15, 2021

The beginning of yesterday’s Gospel lesson got me thinking about a congregation going through a tough, divisive time. Their old traditional church building was declared structurally unsafe. Some members want to build a new church; others want to do whatever it takes to repair the old building. As I hear, the members are sorely divided against one another. 

“As Jesus came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down’” (Mark 13:1-2). Sure enough, except for the small western wall, nothing remains today.    

Our big church buildings make no economic sense. Unused for most of the week, utility bills still need to be paid, custodial care is needed, and code upgrades are necessary as the building ages. Congregations pay insurance on a building that is a target for storms and vandals. If I were starting a mission church, something I wanted to do but life didn’t turn out that way, I would urge the congregation to keep using rented space rather than obsess about building a church. I suspect I’d lose because the notion is a mission congregation hasn’t really arrived until it’s self-sustaining and has its own building, but it’s not the building that makes the church. Jesus does. He told the disciples, my inadequate paraphrase, “You will go through very, very tough times because You follow Me. When that happens, don’t be sidetracked by the troubles or by other saviors. Stay true to Me, and when this temple goes down, this earthly institution ends, you will be saved.” 

Like the old temple, a church building is a powerful symbol. This architecturally different place focuses our faith and devotion in a heavenly minded way. When your dear church building will be destroyed, and it will be, God will usher in a new heaven and a new earth with “no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22). These buildings are symbols for us, but I wonder what they symbolize to our community in these times when people think they don’t need the church? My prayer is we never be so focused upon property and buildings that we give non-churchgoers valid reasons to criticize the Church of our Lord Jesus. 

The Meyer Minute for November 12, 2021

Some great new restaurants have opened in downtown Collinsville, and one is the “Old Herald Brewery and Distillery.” The name comes from the building, the old home of our defunct local newspaper, the “Collinsville Herald” or “Herald Journal,” through the years it went by several names. As a pastor here in the 1980’s, I often took news stories about our church into the Herald building.  

I think about the old Herald because of something Timothy Snyder, a professor at Yale University, said. “What I would say is missing is ‘local reality,’ local news. If local news were stronger, we’d all have a stronger sense about how the elections actually happened. And if local news were stronger, people would have an easier time talking to one another about the things happening to them, rather than everything becoming a national spectacle” (“Reliable Sources,” CNN, January 3, 2021). Diane was an election worker for many years, she knows how it really works. Beyond elections, the lack of one major source for local news, like the old Herald, has created a void. Local Facebook pages are fine, but limited, not a one source for all local news. The void is being filled with national news, dysfunction, headstrong partisans, tragedy after tragedy, and in it all little me, little you, don’t count. 

Nothing God-centered or neighbor centered in the national news. “Individualism tends to weaken mediating power centers that stand between the individual and the nation as a whole—from families to local communities (including local governments), (and) religious institutions…. In their place, it strengthens individuals, on the one hand, and a central government, on the other, since such a government is most able to treat individuals equally by treating them all impersonally. For this reason, a hyper-individualist culture is likely to be governed by a hyper-centralized government, and each is likely to exacerbate the worst inclinations of the other.” (Yuval Levin, The Fractured Republic, 99-100). 

Which is why, I think, the local congregation is more important to the community than ever before. Yes, it’s the place where God’s Word and Sacraments come to us, and that should always be foremost, but the second great commandment is, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Local newspapers are not likely to come back, but a congregation can be a caring, outgoing presence that is aware of community needs and interests, and in the name of Christ strives to help. We're not in the church world of the 1950's anymore.   

The Meyer Minute for November 11, 2021

Across the street from our house sits the local American Legion Post, its building and parking lot complemented by a small park with a pavilion and picnic tables. Every day there’s some activity at the Legion. Fridays are busiest with the weekly fish fry, Saturdays often bring a wedding reception, but Veterans Day is special. After today’s parade on Main Street, many veterans and their families will gather at the Legion across the street and also at the VFW a block to the north. You who saw combat, mechanics, engineers, doctors, nurses, cooks, accountants, communication specialists, lawyers, chaplains…all the skills and professions within the military that have contributed to our national well-being. We thank you.  

Even on slow days, you can be sure some cars will be in the lot. Why do they gather? It’s a home away from home. It’s a place where veterans can gather and reminisce. They can discuss the latest local and national news. They can speak their minds, their opinions challenged or endorsed by others. Yes, they do it over a beer and maybe playing a video game because it’s also a place to relax and socialize. The Legion and VFW are what sociologists call a “mediating institution,” a place where individuals know they belong, a place that helps them see their role in our bigger, impersonal society. As we honor veterans for their service on active duty, their continued gathering, support for one another, and contributions to our communities continue to contribute to our well-being.  

The greatest military before ours was the legions of the Roman Empire, “the largest permanent organization in the western ancient world, one without which the Roman Empire could not have existed, let alone been created; of the men who made it work and the women and children who shared their lives” (Guy de la Bedoyere, “Gladius: The World of the Roman Soldier,” 2). Roman legions, active and veterans, without any doubt helped make possible the peaceful conditions in which Christianity grew. As in the first century, today we pray “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:3). Our veterans provided that for us when they were on active duty, and they continue to do so for us today as they gather, support one another, and contribute to our communities.