The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for February 10, 2012

How is it with you and Jesus?

A leper goes to Jesus, that’s the Bible story many of us will hear on Sunday morning, Mark chapter one.  A leper goes to Jesus and asks to be healed.  It was wrong on many counts, at least by the rules of that time.  Lepers were outcasts, not supposed to approach “normal” people.  No bother to this leper.  This untouchable crosses the line, kneels right before Jesus and says, “If you are willing, You can make me clean.”  Do you cross the lines to go to Jesus?  Busy schedules crowd out prayer time, media and peers fill our minds with everything but Jesus, and we easily discount Him because we cannot see Him.  How is it with you and Jesus?

“And Jesus, moved with compassion, put out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”  “O Savior of our fallen race!” The clean touches the unclean, the Son of God touches a hurting brother, hurting sister.  Is it healing you most desire…or Jesus?  Isn’t it enough to be with Him on life’s journey, to hear His word, to know He has compassion for you, whether you’re healed now or later?  How is it with you and Jesus?

 

The Meyer Minute for February 9, 2012

A prayer from Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall is as earnest today as when it was first offered, 65 years ago in 1947.

“Lord, Thou wilt still be here after this prayer is said, and we would have it so, for we know deep down in our hearts that without Thy help we can do nothing abiding.  Without Thee we shall discuss more and more and settle less and less.  Unite, we pray Thee, the leaders of our nation behind the right way to achieve a just and lasting peace in our land and in all the world, that we may win it together, lest we lose it apart.”  (“The Senate Prayers of Peter Marshall,” p. 57)

How that applies today!  “Thou wilt still be here after this prayer is said.”  Do we citizens and leaders see ourselves as creatures of a day?  “Without Thy help we can do nothing abiding.”  Are today’s politics building a better tomorrow?  Vain glory will accomplish nothing lasting.  “Unite the leaders of our nation…that we may win (peace) together, lest we lose it apart.”  Are leaders hearing, are citizens praying…prayers for unity?  God, persuader of hearts, who sees us so divided, move us together, not by pandering to voters but in awed reverence before You our Judge.    

 

The Meyer Minute for February 8, 2012

Sometimes it simply makes me wonder; other times it bothers me greatly.  Why do some people talk so much in meetings while other people sit silently?  Scientists at Virginia Tech studied “expression of IQ,” why intelligent people clam up or open up in small group settings.  Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, they studied how we process information about our social standing in small group settings.  They found that quiet people “were more attuned to group social dynamics, subconsciously worrying about their performance and evaluating themselves in relation to others.” (WSJ, February 7, D4)

In today’s public culture, the loudest voices win out.  The church, however, claims to be different.  In a helpful new book, “Holding Up the Prophet’s Hands,” Dr. Bruce Hartung writes, “We celebrate the gifts Christ gives each of us for the good of all of us, and we work to help one another enhance and grow the gifts Christ as given.” (59, 117)  One of the ways we do that, Hartung writes, is “encourage and allow the space and freedom for everyone to have voice at our meetings.”  (59, 117)  

But given that some people dominate meetings, will that happen?  Not if you and I don’t raise up the theme of hearing from everyone.  It’s Body of Christ behavior.

 

The Meyer Minute for February 7, 2012

Since I turned 65 in January, I read with interest the review of a new book about aging.  The book by William Miller has a depressing title, “Losing It.”  Reviewer Henry Allen wrote: “If I may dare to sum up: Old age is an annoying, ridiculous and pathetic decline toward the state of a turnip softening in a compost heap, if death is not kind enough to intervene first.”  Well, that just doesn’t help me.  Don’t think I’ll buy the book. (WSJ, December 31, 2011; C9)

 

Miss Gioninni, our high school Latin teacher, made us learn a Roman boy’s song.  Also not helpful now.

Let us rejoice, therefore,

While we are young.

After a pleasant youth

After a troubling old age

The earth will have us,

The earth will have us.

 

Mr. Allen began his review, “In 1981, five days before cancer killed him, the life-loving writer William Saroyan told the Associated Press: ‘Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case.  Now what?’”  “Now what” is the only thing left, staking our lives on God keeping His promises.  “We live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)  “Faith shall cry, as fails each sense: Jesus is my confidence!” (Lutheran Service Book, 490, 5)  

 

The Meyer Minute for February 6, 2012

Susan G. Komen decided not to grant $680,000 to Planned Parenthood because Planned Parenthood, an abortion provider, was being investigated by Congress.  The announcement brought an instant barrage of criticism from the left. “It’s unclear whether Planned Parenthood has actually brought Komen to heel. Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute argues that the wording of (Komen’s) latest statement reflects no actual change in policy.  Eligibility to apply for a grant does not necessarily mean eligibility to receive one.” (WSJ, February 4-5, A14)  

Commentator Bill McClellan wrote, “It seemed like just another example of partisan fighting. When you have a chance to take a shot, take it. In this case it was conservative Komen taking a shot at liberal Planned Parenthood.”  (St. Louis Post Dispatch, February 5, A15)  Lock both sides in a room but they won’t come out with the problem resolved.  The issue isn’t women’s health but abortion, that cultural divide that exposes people who put themselves ahead of the defenseless unborn.

It wearies me, conservative versus liberal, loud bullying voices, but a hymn put steel back into my spine.  “Fight the good fight with all your might; Christ is your strength and Christ your right. Lay hold on life, and it shall be your joy and crown eternally.”

 

 

The Meyer Minute for February 3, 2012

Go to church?  Boring!  Super Bowl Party?  Exciting!

That’s the way many young people raised in the church size up their options for this weekend.  31% of 18 to 29-year olds told the Barna Group, “Church is boring,” 24% say, “Faith is not relevant to my career or interests” and 23% say, “My church does not prepare me for real life.”    Remember, these are young people raised in our churches.

So what’s a pastor and church to do?  This from Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Every day brings to the Christian many hours in which he will be alone in an unchristian environment.  These are the times of testing.  This is the test of true meditation and true Christian community.  Has the fellowship…transported him for a moment into a spiritual ecstasy that vanishes when everyday life returns, or has it lodged the Word of God so securely and deeply in his heart that it holds and fortifies him?”  (For All the Saints, I, 286)

Two more stats affirm what Bonhoeffer wrote.  23% say, “The Bible is not taught clearly or often enough” and 20% say, “God seems missing from my experience of church.”  Compare how many people will watch the Super Bowl to how many people will go to church.  Why?

 

 

The Meyer Minute for February 2, 2012

“Your heavenly Father knows what you need.”  (Matthew 6:32)

What do you need today?  Something better at work?  Just need work?  Something better in a relationship?  Just need a relationship?  Something better in your finances?  It’s not really a thing, something outside yourself that you need.  You are the object of need.  You need someone to know you for who you are, the good and the bad, and someone who will still say, “I’m with you unconditionally.”  Externals are a distraction.

“Your heavenly Father knows what you need.””

A few years ago I had a stress test.  Got on the tread mill and all that.  The official report was OK.  I saw the images of my heart.  There it was, doing its God given thing, beating.  These heart images were a new look for me but something God has seen all my years…and for all your years.  “O Lord, You have examined me, and You know me.  You are all around me – in front of me and in back of me.  You alone created my inner being.  You knitted me together inside my mother.”  (from Psalm 139)

“Why spend the day in blank despair, in restless thought the night?  On your Creator cast your care; He makes your burdens light.”  (Paul Gerhardt)

“Your heavenly Father knows what you need.”