The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for September 11, 2023

9-11 is a day of remembrance. What does it mean for us to remember? To simply recall a historical fact? When I was in grade school, we had a textbook “Think and Do.” Remembrance means acting in the present.

“Remember” is a biblical command. “Do this in remembrance of me” Jesus said when He instituted the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:19). “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” shapes our weekly schedules (Exodus 20:8). There are some historical events that don’t touch our lives today, but not 9-11. Remembrance means acting.  

The first responders who went into the towers, the passengers who stormed the cockpit on flight 93… They willingly gave their lives for others. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). It’s easy to talk about the sacrificial service of others, and then I go on with my self-absorbed life. Sinful nature prompts us to put our own interests first. American hyper-individualism is idolatry of self, it’s rampant and weakening our nation.  

There can be many motivations to deny self and serve others, but for Christians there is only one motivation, the One who gave His life for us. “Holy Communion is the opposite of a festival of commemorating a dead man! It is a meal fellowship with Him who lives, and by reason of His resurrection victory, is actually present among his followers” (Peter Brunner in Gregory Lockwood, Concordia Commentary: 1 Corinthians, 393-394).

Martin Luther: “Christians live not in themselves but in Christ and their neighbor. Otherwise they are not Christian. They live in Christ through faith, in their neighbor through love. By faith they are caught up beyond themselves into God. By love they descend beneath themselves into their neighbor” (The Freedom of a Christian).

The Meyer Minute for September 1, 2023

“Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord…” (1 Corinthians 15:58). That’s a verse we won’t hear in the media as we celebrate work and enjoy this Labor Day weekend.

What is “the work of the Lord”? Does it mean serving on a committee in your congregation? Are you doing the work of the Lord because you give money to your church? Are retirees who volunteer at church doing the work of the Lord? Is the work of the Lord something especially done by clergy? Yes, all that is the work of the Lord…but the fact that we identify the Lord’s work with congregational activities shows how our culture deceives us. American culture compartmentalizes everything. Conventional “wisdom” confines religious life to participation in a congregation. I once heard someone say, “There’s the work me and there’s the church me.” To which Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).

Those Corinthian Christians didn’t have organized congregations like we have today. For them the work of the Lord was “to devote themselves to loving service to the Lord and others. The hope of the Gospel should energize them to labor diligently in their respective vocations, serving their families and neighbors wholeheartedly” (Gregory Lockwood, Concordia Commentary, 606). If Jesus is truly your Lord – is that a big “if”? – then you’re doing His work 24/7/365 and most of it will not be in church. You do it when your life and labor, your sleeping and waking, “is in the Lord.”

“In the Lord your labor is not in vain.” “You can never measure what God will do through you if you are rightly related to Jesus Christ. Keep your relationship right with Him, then whatever circumstances you are in, and whoever you meet day by day, He is pouring rivers of living water through you, and it is His mercy that He does not let you know it. When once you’re rightly related to God by salvation and sanctification, remember that wherever you are, you are put there by God” (Oswald Chambers, August 30). Happy Labor Day weekend!

The Meyer Minute for August 30, 2023

This morning’s Wall Street Journal shows an aerial view of Hurricane Idalia over the Gulf of Mexico. By now it has made its devastating landfall. Dear God, be with the people in danger. Today’s New York Times runs this headline: “Homes Lost, Maui Struggles to Save Its Schools. Dear God, how will those victims be sustained in these long months and years? Where are You in their lives?

“This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith” (1 John 5:4). God is with us in the moment, whatever might happen around us. “It is the world of space that communicates to us the sense for temporality. Time, that which is beyond and independent of space, is everlasting; it is the world of space which is perishing” (Abraham Heschel). The physical things of life don’t last. Sunshine gives way to storms. This old house needs repairs. Our bodies wear down. “Change and decay in all around I see…”

“O Thou who changest not, abide with me.” Whatever’s happening in the physical world around me, sometimes the world against me, whatever’s happening with my physical body, maybe illness and age, God and the Spirit of the Suffering Servant is with me. Look for God in time, not in space. “My times are in Thy hand” (Psalm 31:15). “I am with you” (Matthew 28:20). “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

It stuns me how deceived we are in so many things. Time is not a thing, as we like to think. “I’m running out of time.” No, time is my relationship with God my Father and Jesus. That will never run out. No storm or problem, nothing in life or in the time of death, can take His presence away from you. Dear God, “where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me” (Psalm 139:7-10).

The Meyer Minute for August 28, 2023

Friday, I sat with the faculty for the opening service of Concordia Seminary’s 185^th academic year. As I was watching the new students, bright-eyed and eager, I thought about all the myths people believe about our seminaries.

It’s a myth that the Seminary graduates pastors. We graduate men who have shown an aptitude for pastoral ministry, who have passed academic and practical requirements, and who have a first call to public ministry of Word and Sacraments. A great highlight for students during their last year of study is when the Faculty certifies them as ready for their first call. Ready to go out and do it. Ready to experience what ministry really is. You might say new graduates have a toolbox of knowledge and skills for the ministry, but it’s years of using those “tools” that matures them into real pastors, real “Seelsorgers” as the Germans say, pastors who know how to care lovingly for the souls entrusted to them.

The young married woman whose husband ran out on her… The husband killed in an auto accident… The couple who told me they were divorcing, never talked to me before but expected me to bless their decision… The grade school child with profound emotional problems after her only parent died… The confirmands who never come back to church… The ministry blunders I made… Yes, all these are my examples from my years in ministry. So often the congregation was supportive, but sometimes a member took me aside. “Pastor, were you right to handle the situation that way?” Successes, mistakes, maturation… that’s how a loving congregation under the grace of God helps form a pastor.

The Seminary welcomed 124 new students in all its programs. Waiting for the service to begin, I spoke with three new students. One was from Omaha, the second from Quincy, Illinois, and the third from Ithaca, New York. I wished them blessings as they begin their study. I pray that you and your congregation will one day—with God’s grace and patience, they’re essential—help form them into mature pastors, men who lovingly care for souls redeemed by Jesus.

The Meyer Minute for August 25, 2023

The photo of the day is the mugshot of former president Trump. He chose to put on an angry scowl. My question is what kind of face do I present to family, friends, and anyone I meet? What kind of face do you present?

There’s a genius in the order of the Ten Commandments. No, better I say there’s a divine truth in the words our Creator gave us for how we are to live. What’s in our heart, down in our inmost being (First Commandment), will show up on our face, our gestures, our words and actions (Second through Tenth Commandments). What do my face, my words, my gestures reveal about who I really am deep down?

New Testament scholar Dr. Jeffrey Gibbs wrote a booklet titled, The Myth of Righteous Anger. “The United States of America in the twenty-first century is a profoundly angry culture,” he wrote. Indeed we are, but of course, MY anger is different. MY anger is righteous. Or is it? Dr. Gibbs’ survey of anger in the Old Testament concludes, “The longsuffering man…is lauded as the true sage…while the angry man…is condemned as a fool.” The New Testament includes anger in lists of sins (2 Corinthians 12:20; Galatians 5:20-21; Ephesians 4:31). In Colossians 3:8, Paul tells us Christians, “you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.” “Those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Galatians 5:21).

“If American society currently extols ‘outrage’ and admires those who speak out of anger and who speak with angry words and insults, then believers must reject that cultural value. We have a responsibility to stand out and to be different, as salt and light. Even when we feel angry at the injustice or evil or immorality in the world around us, we are not to give free reign to that anger—and then justify our sin by labeling it ‘righteous anger’” (16). Thank you, Dr. Gibbs.

What face will I show to others today?

The Meyer Minute for August 23, 2023

When the Good Samaritan tended the wounds of a man beaten by robbers, he didn’t use a spray gun to apply the healing oil and wine (Luke 10:25-37). He dressed the actual wound. It should be the same when we go to the Scriptures. Where’s my wound that needs Jesus’ touch?

I saw a local news report that a good percentage, I can’t remember the exact number, of teenagers are ashamed of their body image. Our preaching the forgiveness of sins doesn’t directly touch that hurt. On the other hand, many people show no modesty in their conduct, no hint of shame. Shamed or unashamed, the forgiveness of sins is no longer the lens through which many Americans see life and truth.

Brene Brown: “The majority of shame researchers and clinicians agree that the difference between shame and guilt is best understood as the difference between ‘I am bad’ and ‘I did something bad.’ Guilt = I did something bad. Shame = I am bad.” Brown offers some examples. “Shame was my response to seeing my parents’ shame when I came out. Shame is covering up a mistake at work and getting caught. Shame is failing at my business after my friends invested in it. Shame is getting a promotion, then getting demoted six months later because I wasn’t succeeding. Shame is my boss calling me a loser in front of our colleagues.” (Brene Brown, Dare to Lead, 125-128).

The public life of the church and our private devotions should be like the inn where the wounded man recovered, a safe environment where we can be open about our hurts and shame. “I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh” (Romans 7:18). Just as an infection is treated from inside the body, the Gospel of forgiveness gives a new heart, a new identity. I am honored by God and by my fellow forgiven, or so the life of the Church should be. “No one who believes in him will be put to shame” (Romans 10:11). “Grace has the power to do what nothing else can do—rescue you from you, and in so doing, restore you to what you were created to be” (Paul Tripp, New Morning Mercies, June 19).

The Meyer Minute for August 21, 2023

Peter had a “come to Jesus” meeting, literally. A week or so after the resurrection, Jesus had breakfast with the disciples. Afterwards, Jesus said, my words, “Peter, let’s talk about your denying Me the night before I died. Peter, do you love Me?” “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (John 21:17). It’s easy for us to pass over the obvious. Jesus met Peter in the particulars of Peter’s life. Go through the relationship between Peter and Jesus in the Gospels, and Jesus is always meeting Peter where he’s at, but not leaving him there.

I made that point yesterday in my sermon in St. James, Missouri. Jesus affirms what you’re going through. You’re a widow missing your husband… You’re a child being bullied at school… You’re overextended financially… You’ve lost interest in church… Whatever it may be for you, when you decide to have a “come to Jesus” meeting, He begins by saying, my words, “I know what’s going on.” He doesn’t give you a sermon of religious generalities or a pep talk about brushing away your problems, nope. Gospel stories show that Jesus meets us where we’re at.

In yesterday’s Gospel lesson (Matthew 16:21-28), a Canaanite woman initiated “the come to Jesus” meeting. Her problem was a demon possessed daughter. Jesus drew out her feelings.  “‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.’ She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’” Jesus didn’t sweep away her problem, and he doesn’t sweep away whatever you’re struggling with. He draws you to trust Him despite all that may be going against you. Your problems can become the stuff of greater faith. "When all things seem against us, to drive us to despair, we know one gate is open, one ear will hear our prayer" (Lutheran Service Book, 915:4).

Browsing the psalms is a great way to get into a conversation with Jesus about your problems, what Oswald Chambers calls, “your particular sainthood.” Take to heart, "your" is singular!

The Meyer Minute for August 17, 2023

Here’s the passage on my mind this morning. “Whoever has been born of God does not sin.”

Many years ago, I was speaking with an ecumenical group of believers. When I talked about sin, one man said, “I don’t sin,” and he cited this passage, 1 John 3:9, quoted above from the New King James Bible. “I don’t sin.” That threw me for a loop. Talk about sin is predictable in many Christian churches, and what’s also predictable, at least among us Lutherans, is the follow-up, “It’s OK. God forgives you for Jesus’ sake.”

Scripture is filled with many passages that should stop us, whoa! I don’t sin? How can I explain this away? Pastor, tell me that there’s some deeper theological thing here that let’s me go on with my life. Or maybe I won’t even ask. Or maybe when I read my Bible – if I read my Bible – I just keep skimming on. We’re so rushed. Can’t let Scripture hit me between the eyes.

I can give you a “deeper theological thing” about this verse. What was translated “does not sin” is in the original Greek a present active infinitive. “Uh, what,” you say? Never mind the technicality; the point is this. A more accurate translation is “No one who is born of God lives for the sake of sin.” That comes from Greek scholar Dr. Bruce Schuchard in his commentary from Concordia Publishing House. Newer translations agree. For example, the ESV: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning.”   

That actually turns the screws tighter. It’s not merely whether you say or do sinful things, or don’t. It’s Whom you’re living for. That section in John repeatedly says there’s a reason for the way you act. You live for God and Christ or your life is dominated by the devil. “Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, just as he (Jesus) is righteous” (1 John 3:7; ESV). Is your daily life, my life out of church, Christ-centered?

The Meyer Minute for August 14, 2023

The tragedy in Maui is unspeakable. Who could ever imagine being pursued by flames with almost no escape? Hellish.

At heart, I’m a Sunday School child. That’s especially true as life winds down. I want to know that God is good, but how is God good when horrific things happen? The church says, “Jesus died for your sins.” Yes, I believe that, it’s eternally important, but how does that speak to lives changed forever, homes destroyed, children traumatized? “There but for the grace of God go I”? That makes God capricious, not always loving. The Bible lessons appointed for yesterday were about nature (Job 38:4-18; Matthew 14:22-33). If your church had those lessons, were they applied to Maui, even in a few words or in prayer? An appeal to contribute to disaster relief?

There’s a crucifix hanging in our dining room. I brought it back from Israel decades ago. There is no explanation for Maui that takes away the unspeakable trauma. My thinking on all that is so wrong in our world – and I think about God-things a lot – always comes to one focus, the Man of Sorrows. “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from who men hid their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isiah 53:2-4). Relationship with Jesus. “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (Matthew 14:27).

So much talk in church doesn’t speak to me, and I hasten to say I’m a pro-church guy! When a child was scared to go to sleep in the dark, mom said, “Jesus is with you.” The young child answered, “I want Jesus with skin on.”

The Meyer Minute for August 9, 2023

Yesterday was “Taco Tuesday” at the American Legion across the street. So, Diane and I walked over, ordered a carry-out, and watched the people while we waited. The tables and bar were packed, an interesting collection of people. No, this wasn’t your Sunday morning church-going crowd, but I’m sure there were some followers of Jesus in the crowd. No halos above them; they were Christians hanging with the crowd at the Legion.  Oswald Chambers description fits them – and fits you and me as we follow Jesus in the realities of our lives –  “your particular sainthood.”

Is there a saint of old who is your hero? Someone whose legend makes you imagine that he or she was Christianity incarnate? The ancient people who now have a “St.” in front of their names were in fact just being faithful in their own particular lives. “Saint,” as you know, biblically is anyone who’s been made holy by the blood of Jesus. “You are a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). In God’s sight, you have “St.” in front of your name because God sees you through the death and life of Jesus. But, on this side of heaven, we’re still sinners, trying to follow Jesus at home, at work, at the restaurant and bar. We each have our story, we each have our struggles, temptations, sin, and in each of our lives can be forgiveness and hope.

The Spirit of Jesus holies us amidst all the mess of life. “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). He's "the holy and righteous one" (Acts 3:14). He puts His halo over you. Chambers: “Have you been wondering why you are going through the things you are? It is because of the relationship into which the Son of God has come in His Father’s providence in your particular sainthood” (August 7).