The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for February 7, 2023

Cartoons can get you thinking. Today’s cartoon by Pat Bagley in The Salt Lake Tribune shows a man and woman looking at her phone. “Oh, no! This earthquake in Turkey…terrible!” Behind them looms the Grim Reaper, hooded in black, scythe in hand, and printed on his robe: Wasatch Fault. It could happen there. It can happen here. South of St. Louis is the New Madrid fault, the worst recorded American earthquake east of the Rockies, 1811-1812.

The possibility of sudden death fills us with fear. Martin Luther wrote a hymn, “In the very midst of life / Snares of death surround us” (Lutheran Service Book, 755). The Great Litany prays, “from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us” (Book of Common Prayer, 149). Serious prayers. Can we reduce or even eliminate our fear of sudden death?

“From dying suddenly and unprepared.” People told Jesus about Galileans slaughtered by Pontius Pilate. Jesus then brought up 18 people killed when a tower fell on them. “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:5). Think that through. Does that mean that if I confess my sins and receive forgiveness, I won’t die a sudden death? It can’t mean that. I suspect sincere Christians are among the 5000 dead in Turkey. Jesus’ thought is deeper. There is a life after death, an eternal life only for those who have repented.  

How can we shake off the fear of sudden death? Not by focusing on death or life but on Jesus. Christianity is more than a menu of how to deal with this fear or that. It’s more than a 12-step program to improve your life. The best Christianity locks in on God’s love to us in Jesus, whatever might happen to us. “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:37-39).

“Come when it may, He’ll shield me, / To Him I totally yield me” (The Lutheran Hymnal, 526:3).

The Meyer Minute for February 3, 2023

Today is Friday, for observant Jews the Day of Preparation before the Sabbath. That’s how I’ve come to understand retirement.

American culture presents retirement as a vacation from work, but when you’re on vacation, sooner or later you want to return home. “Volunteer, stay active,” we’re told. Fine if you can, but sooner or later you can’t. A classmate with medical problems says, “Old age sucks.” And my experience is the church hasn’t prepared us for this season of life. My fellow pastors and I prepared people for death, but what about the 5, 10, 20 plus years when you no longer have a job, are still active and above ground, but know death will eventually come? How do I spiritually understand these years between work and death?

“There remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” That's how Hebrews describes the life to come (4:9). In these years before our coming eternal Sabbath rest, we can vacation, volunteer, enjoy family, be healthy or not, and whatever else, but…and this is what American culture can’t teach us, only Scripture can…our mindset is that we are preparing for the Sabbath to come.

2000 years ago, “The Jew carried the thought of the Sabbath in his mind during the entire week…. Thursday was the market day on which Jews of the farms and villages of Palestine brought their produce to town, and merchants displayed and sold their wares. But the climax of the preparations for the sacred Day of Rest came on Friday. It was a day of hurry and bustle for all. It was considered a great merit to do work on Friday in preparation for the Sabbath. The Jews were so occupied on Friday, preparing for the Sabbath, that they were certain that the prophet Elijah would not appear with his message of redemption on Friday.” (Hayyim Schauss, The Jewish Festivals, 13; about Elijah: Malachi 4:5-6)

Through the week and most especially on Friday, a devout Jew looked eager to what was coming. Through the years and most especially in retirement, a devout Christian looks eagerly toward the eternal Sabbath to come. “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).   

The Meyer Minute for February 2, 2023

Beautiful, springtime tulips were on the cover of Mom’s funeral bulletin. Appropriately so, she was an avid gardener. We sun deprived, winter weary people look forward to another spring. “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). Old Earth is starting to tilt closer to the sun. Spring will come.

On the other hand, in the 1993 movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray was trapped in a cycle again and again and again. Is that a better image of how many people feel about their slog through life? I don’t think church always speaks to our endless cycles. Lent starts later this month, suffering, cross. Then Easter flowers, but it’s all so cyclical, so over and over again. Do those flowers on mom’s bulletin symbolize something more than spring?

Most certainly! “From very early times…some of the major religions centered their symbols, stories, and praxis (practices) on the cycles of nature” but Christian faith is different. “When the early Christians spoke of Jesus being raised from the dead, the natural meaning of that statement, throughout the ancient world, was the claim that something had happened to Jesus which had happened to nobody else” (N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, 80, 83). Springtime flowers are less about the rebirth of nature, more about the bodily resurrection of Jesus’ and the promised resurrection of our own bodies (see 1 Corinthians 15).

We Christians are peculiar people. As we go with others around the sun again and again and again, we radiate optimism and hope because we know God’s plan is linear. The repeated routines and cycles are leading to the revealing of Jesus Christ in glory and our own bodily resurrections to glory. “In this you rejoice” (1 Peter 1:6).

The Meyer Minute for February 1, 2023

Daughters Liz and Kate, I’d like to make a gift to your children. Every day I see this commercial on TV: “Help your kids learn the truth about President Trump and celebrate America with this ‘free’ patriotic gift bundle!” What do you think? I don’t know if it talks about porn star Stormy Daniels, his countless lawsuits, or his claims to be the greatest president ever. Whatever. Should I get this for your kids?

Whom do we hold up as worthy of imitation? Politicians, TV celebrities, sports stars? In our cultural time of attention deficit, our wandering eyes and desires easily “follow” people who cleverly manage their media presence so that they look good. We do the same. Our own social media posts often present ourselves in the best light, but disappointment is inevitable. “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was one of the greatest baseball players of all time, but he got caught up in the 1919 Black Sox scandal. In the movie, “Eight Men Out,” a schoolboy looks up at Jackson and pleads, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” Be it contrived images in media or you and I, disappointment is inevitable. We’re all deeply flawed sinners.

St. Paul, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Paul wasn’t perfect, but he had this strong character trait of faith: He admitted his sin and weakness. He did that to point to Jesus. “We have this treasure (the Good News of Jesus) in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). You and I should think of ourselves as role models, not by how we posture ourselves before others but because people see Jesus through our lives and words.

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,

Christ in the ear that hears me. (St. Patrick)

Liz and Kate, now that I think about it, forget that “free patriotic gift bundle” up. My bad.

The Meyer Minute for January 31, 2023

“My wish for you is that you will come to a time when you’ve raised the kids, paid the bills, and have become best of friends.” I often said that to couples as we wrapped up pre-wedding sessions. “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18).

Yesterday, at the end of the afternoon, Diane and I were reminiscing about several events back in Venedy. Venedy was where we spent the first seven years of our marriage and ministry, a wonderful place we still hold dear. Back then, we were starting a family, living on the best salary the congregation could do, and still learning about each other. After Venedy, the kids grew in both years and cost, the workload became heavier, and we didn’t have as much time to sit relaxed and talk. There are seasons to life.

“Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing.  You cannot make it the basis of a whole life…. But of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love.  Love in this second sense—love as distinct from ‘being in love’ is not merely a feeling.  It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both parents ask, and receive, from God.  They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself.  ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.  It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it.”  (From Mere Christianity, quoted in For All the Saints I, 271f.)

Courtesy of our daughters, we have an app that tells them where we are and vice versa. They’re most often at work, but the app usually says Diane and Dale are at home. Maybe we’re sitting together chuckling over old Earl and Opal in the comic strip “Pickles.” For everyone, there is a season.

The Meyer Minute for January 27, 2023

The spring semester begins Monday at the Seminary and I’ll be teaching the second-year preaching class. Sometime or other, the students will hear me say that a preacher should be like a combine. “A what?” Young people increasingly know little about farming. “A combine is a harvesting machine that gathers everything in its way. The grain it keeps; the rest is discharged out the back. A preacher should be like that, observe everything. Read all you can. Something you take in will preach and help your people.”

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 78 years ago today, January 27, 1945, Soviet troops liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp. When Nazi troops knew the end was near, they began shooting prisoners and destroying ovens to destroy evidence. The Soviet army found 648 corpses and 7,000 starving prisoners. (Data from History Channel).

“Tell me how you can use the holocaust to get into hearer’s hearts.” Predictable silence until someone brings up sin. Trying to be Socratic, I ask, “What comfort would you bring to people shocked by the murder of Tyre Nichols by five Memphis police officers? What would you preach for the victims of domestic abuse or overseas, the horrors in Ukraine.” These are teachable moments! “You’ve got to get into the hearer’s heart. If you don’t, you’re not helping them grow in faith.”

My own take on the Holocaust and other atrocities is this. Jesus Christ, the victim of injustice, is now exalted at the right hand of God and will come with divine judgment upon all people. Jesus isn’t in the manger, not on the cross. Humanity’s cries and laments about injustice… read the Psalms, read the Prophets. Give us justice, O God! Righteous judgment IS COMING. That’s Law and that’s also Gospel. “In a world of systematic injustice, bullying, violence, arrogance, and oppression, the thought that there might come a day when the wicked are firmly put in their place and the poor and weak are given their due is the best news there can be. Faced with a world in rebellion, a world full of exploitation and wickedness, a good God must be a God of judgment.” (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 117).

Can you tell I get frustrated with sermons that don’t bridge from Scripture to today? Into the harvest field! So much to preach, so little time!

The Meyer Minute for January 26, 2023

Car jackings, mass shootings, fraud, politicians saying anything for power… Disgusting, isn’t it? But should we escape by not following the news? No, a good citizen wants to be informed. Or should we practice a religion that is compartmentalized away from the world, that doesn’t teach us how to follow Christ “out there”? No, because we have an obligation of good works to this dysfunctional society. We are in the world but not of the world.

It’s like a Venn diagram. “A Venn diagram uses overlapping circles or other shapes to illustrate the logical relationships between two or more sets of items. Often, they serve to graphically organize things, highlight how the items are similar and different” (Lucidchart, online). So, picture one circle as the ways of the world, a second circle as the ways of God, and where they overlap is where you and I are, trying to follow Jesus in a world that crucified Him and discriminates against us.

The super-duper biggest difference between the two circles is this, “homo incurvatus in se.” That Latin phrase is attributed to St. Augustine, the fifth century church father. It translates, “man turned in on himself.” That’s a great way to understand sin, a great way to interpret so much that we see in the news, and not only the news. What about everyone taking and posting selfies? People in our society are turned in on themselves as never before. And that explains so much that is wrong.

A great book to read is “Man Turned in on Himself” by Heather Choate Davis. “A world filled with creatures each trying to be his own God quickly leads to chaos: if everyone is in charge, no one is in charge. This ever-mutating, self-created chaos ‘bounces back’ to the modern man in the form of increasing anxiety and depression. Our self-centeredness turns our fellow man into our competition…. This zero-sum mentality leads to greater distrust, which, in turn, ‘justifies’ our curving ever more inward... Online we can all be our own Gods.” (44)

More and more people are leaving the church, the “overlap” between the ways of God and the ways of the world. Maybe we’re not making God’s Word relevant to daily life.

The Meyer Minute for January 25, 2023

It’s snowing… so pretty, so peaceful outdoors. If your school is closed, if you can work from home, snow days are an escape from reality. 

About reality, yesterday scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds before midnight. Not a real clock, but figurative, the “clock” is scientists’ predicting how close we are to midnight, to worldwide catastrophe. The war in Ukraine, the end of the post-World War II era of relative peace, climate change, and biotechnology are major factors why the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has shortened the time earth has left. Which will last longer, peaceful snow or our problems? 90 seconds to midnight. 

The Bible calls it the “Day of the Lord.” Unlike the Doomsday Clock, the Day of the Lord is not about science and governments saving us from man-made catastrophe but it’s about mankind’s sin. “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it… I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless” (Isaiah 13:9, 11). “Who can endure the day of his coming?” (Malachi 3:2). 

“For you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts” (Malachi 4:2-3). That Day started with Christ’s birth. “Hail, the heav’n born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all He brings, Ris’n with healing in His wings.” And we’re promised to see the end, to “see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory” (Mark 13:26). That day we’ll be like kids off from school, outside playing in the snow, and no one will say, “It’s time to come in”!  

90 seconds to midnight? “Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11). 

The Meyer Minute for January 24, 2023

“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

My family and I thank all of you who shared expressions of sympathy upon our Mother’s home-going. Her visitation and funeral service were a real-life demonstration that when death comes into a family that has lived and breathed Christian faith, we “do not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). How do some people dismiss Christianity as not relevant to life?

“This is the day…” was my mom’s favorite verse. Pastor Stephen Starke spoke insightfully about the verse in his sermon. Many know Pastor Starke as a prolific writer of hymn texts. Mom knew him as Vicar Starke from his internship at St. Paul’s, Chicago Heights, over 40 years ago, and they kept in touch through the years. As you read the quotation, notice all the reasons TODAY is a gift from God to you. Because of the “grace God continues to daily pour out upon us, because of the rock-hard strength of God’s Word with its many precious promises to us, and because of the sure comfort of the Comforter who continues to call us by the Gospel, gather us together as God’s people, who enlightens us with His gifts, who sanctifies us in Christ and keeps each of us in the faith each day, because of ALL this, we say with great gusto and firm faith and give our ‘amen’ of agreement to the words of Norma’s favorite verse… “This is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Bible verses call us to act. One of the places she displayed that verse was over the kitchen sink, not a glamorous spot but a place of routine, and when you’re doing something routine, you’re free to fret and worry. As a kid, I remember her singing as she was working at the sink, “O du froehliche,” “O how joyfully…Christmas comes with its grace divine.” Whatever this day may bring, it is first and foremost a day of grace that God has given us. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

The Meyer Minute for January 18, 2023

I’m co-teaching the Sunday morning Bible class at our church. We’re talking about how the church interacts with today’s culture and, no surprise, Bible class members are very concerned about what’s happening in American public life today. But what can we do? Complain, lament, but we feel stymied.

“American’s Theological Beliefs Changed to Suit Post-Pandemic Practice.” That title caught my eye and suggests to me what congregations need to be doing. Lifeway Research surveyed changes in Christian beliefs since the pandemic. Here are two quotations that lead Lifeway’s report. “After months of quarantines and social distancing, however, Americans increasingly believe worshiping apart from a church is as good as attending church services.” “Additionally, most Americans (56%) don’t believe every Christian has an obligation to join a local church. Fewer than 2 in 5 (36%) say this is something all Christians should do.”

To be sure, there are biblical reasons for regular in-person attendance, but here’s a practical, make-a-difference-in-society-reason from another article. “Faith community is the foundation of societal good. It builds strong families, cultivates better mental and physical health, and provides for the welfare of communities and of the vulnerable in ways that no other entity does. Some argue that secular institutions can help provide this—antidotes to loneliness, or answers to the human search for purpose. Thus far, however, no secular institution has replicated what the church community does at scale.” (Erick Andersen, National Review)

How can we make whatever little difference we can make in today’s American society? One Bible class member asked that question, and I answered, “In my opinion, we first need to evangelize the members of our church.” Do we churchgoers think American culture has a speck in its eye but we’re not seeing the log in our own eye, Matthew 7:3-5? Why do WE join and worship regularly at our congregation? Habit? Salvation? For the good of our neighborhood and community?