The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for July 26, 2013

This London billboard, date 1881, may well apply to you and someone you know.

“Your lives are busy, useful, honest; but your faces are anxious and you are not all you want to be.  There is within you another life, a buried life, which does not get free.  In old days it got free through old forms of religion, and then men had peace and were not afraid of anybody or anything.  We cannot go back to the old forms—they are gone with the old times and in the presence of the new learning of our days.  Many therefore have given up religion altogether and carry about a buried life.  It is buried but it is not dead.  When it really hears God’s voice it will rise.  …I believe that in the quiet of a place full of good memories, in the sound of fine music, in the sympathy of fellow seekers, we may better wait God’s call….  It may be that as you listen to the silence, to the music, or to the worship of others, God will speak and that the buried life will arise and that you will have peace.”  (For All the Saints, I, 200)

I have speaking duties off campus all next week, so will not be putting out the Minute.  It’s not health; thank you for your concern!  It is about time, and there’s only so much.  God bless, Dale

 

The Meyer Minute for July 25, 2013

Ah, a baby!  Yes, but this is not just any baby in the nursery.  This is, hope I get this right, “His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge.”  Whatever you may think about the continuance of the monarchy in this day and age, there was something encouraging in the anticipation and celebration of Prince George’s birth.  Diane pointed it out to me: The news media never referred to him as a fetus but always called him a baby.  That’s how we should refer to all unborn persons, whether royalty or one of us commoners in the nursery.  Baby, not fetus.

“Opa!” “Who’s calling?  Oh, it’s all of you, Christian, Connor, Drew, Jacob and Nick.  What’s your question?”  “Opa, we don’t understand what you’re talking about.”  “That’s OK.  Someday you will.  For now, go play.   Opa and Oma are glad to watch you run and shout and play and do all the things you do.  We’re thankful you were born.” “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord.” (Psalm 127:3)

 

The Meyer Minute for July 24, 2013

You’re saved by faith, not by good works.  Some thoughts about good works from Martin Luther, a “faith guy” if ever there was one.

“Oh, it is a living, busy, active, mighty thing, this faith.  It is impossible for it not to be doing good works incessantly.  It does not ask whether good works are to be done, but before the question is asked, it has already done them, and is constantly doing them.  Whoever does not do such works, however, is an unbeliever.  He gropes and looks around for faith and good works, but know neither what faith is nor what good works are.  Yet he talks and talks, with many words, about faith and good works.

“Faith is a living, daring confidence in God’s grace, so sure and certain that the believer would stake his life on it a thousand times.  This knowledge of and confidence in God’s grace makes men glad and bold and happy in dealing with God and with all creatures.  And this is the work which the Holy Spirit performs in faith.  Because of it, without compulsion, a person is ready and glad to do good to everyone, to serve everyone, to suffer everything, out of love and praise to God who has shown him this grace.  Thus it is impossible to separate works from faith, quite as impossible as to separate heat and light from fire.” (Martin Luther, Preface to the Romans)

 

The Meyer Minute for July 22, 2013

Dear God, thank You for giving us another morning!  I should thank You every morning but how does it usually go?  I wake up, slowly start to think, and veer off to what I have to do today, what problems weigh me down, what aches and pains my body feels…all about me!  Still, Heavenly Father, You’re with us.  Through the night You protected us from harm and danger.  How few the times we think about what could happen while we sleep!  You awaken us to the wonderful creation all around.  How few the morning times when we look outside and think, wow, what an amazing world!  We awake as forgiven sinners, but how long does it take for us to turn in thanks to Jesus our Savior?  Help us live the gift of today with greater awe toward You.  Help us strive in our thoughts and words to please You in everything.  Let us see the duties and challenges of this day through the love and patience You have shown us.  The past is forgiven; tomorrow is up to You; today is Your gift to us.  Thank You.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.  

The Meyer Minute for July 19, 2013

The city of Detroit filed bankruptcy yesterday.  I vicared (interned) in Detroit, actually right next to Detroit in Lincoln Park, in 1971-1972.  The city’s population then was 1.5 million.  Today it’s 700,000.  40,000 vacant buildings and empty lots, 36% of residents below the poverty level and the violent crime rate is the highest for any city over 200,000.  (Wall Street Journal, July 18; A5)

Detroit reminds me how my denomination has left the city.  I’ve heard the city of Chicago once had some 75,000 Missouri Synod Lutherans in church every Sunday.  Now it’s under 5,000.  Other denominations probably tell a similar story.  Yet it was in the city of Jerusalem that Jesus died, rose and Pentecost happened.  Antioch, Corinth, Athens, Rome… the growth of the early church was urban.  Today metropolitan areas are growing.  “Every month 5 million people are moving into sizable cities – the equivalent of a New San Francisco is established every month.  The church is not even beginning to keep up with this new reality from a spiritual perspective.”  (The New York City Leadership Center)

“Seek the welfare of the city… and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”  (Jeremiah 29:7)

 

The Meyer Minute for July 18, 2013

“The problems of the world are out of hand; the ideological and practical solutions being offered are all ineffectual… the car is stuck in the mud, the wheels are turning at top speed but cannot pull the car out; the problems are so universally human, both in their scope and in their nature, that some quite fundamental remedy has become necessary.”

That sounds like a comment on today’s world but no, it was written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the early 1940’s.  “Nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Bonhoeffer goes on: “Is it really the task of the church today to offer the world solutions for its problems?  …The kind of thinking that starts out with human problems, and then looks for solutions from that vantage point, has to be overcome—it is unbiblical.  The way of Jesus Christ, and thus the way of all Christian thought, is not the way from the world to God but from God to the world.”  (Ethics 352-356)

World problems aside, you and I go at our own problems of this day.  Bonhoeffer reminds us to encounter everything today with the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5-11).  

The Meyer Minute for July 17, 2013

Racial reactions to the Zimmerman verdict, gangs in our cities, political partisanship, hatreds in the office…  It all reminded me of Rev. Uwe Holmer. 

Erich Honecker was dictator of communist East Germany.  When he was deposed in 1989, sick with cancer and a liability to the new regime, the government asked the church to take Honecker and the church turned to Rev. Holmer.  A long story short, though Rev. Holmer’s family had suffered personally because of Honecker, they said, “Yes,’ and hosted Honecker and his wife Margot in their home for three months.

I asked Rev. Holmer, “How were you able to do this?”  He said in his daily devotion he recounted his own sins and need for forgiveness.  That was the only way he found strength to deal with the despised dictator.  Had he not done that daily, he said the poison of not forgiving would have consumed him.

“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  This is not about condoning the wrong done to you.  It’s not about abandoning the justice system.  It is about this: In your inner being, are you going to let that person and the wrong done to you continue to poison your thoughts, your emotions, your very self ?

The Meyer Minute for July 16, 2013

Endurance, to keep on keeping on despite the barrage of terrible news…

While spending way too much time in my recliner, I read and watched the news.  Depressing.  Savage.  Insane.  Genesis 6:5 – “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakastani teenager shot by the Taliban.  After extensive medical treatment in the UK, she addressed the United Nations on her 16^th birthday.  “Let us pick up our books and our pens.  They are our most powerful weapons.” (Associated Press)  President Bush 41 encouraged volunteerism.  Yesterday the 5000^th “Daily Point of Light” award was given to Floyd Hammer and Kathy Hamilton for founding an organization that now delivers free meals to children in 15 countries.  Inspiring, these people who keep on keeping on. 

Followers of Jesus call this cross-carrying.  “The one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.  And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” (Galatians 6:8-9)

The Meyer Minute for July 15, 2013

Several years ago I was diagnosed with “atrial tachycardia,” a heart condition that needs attention but isn’t “grave,” pun intended.  Trouble started last spring when the cardiologist increased the dosage of medicine.  Of all the unpleasant side effects, the worst was fatigue, so much so that several weeks ago I could hardly put one leg in front of the other.  The doctor has reduced the dosage and the side effects are not as severe.  Still don’t have the energy I would like, but I’m up and out again.  Here’s what I learned.

First, when you’ve got energy, use it.  “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might.” (Ecclesiastes 9:10)

Second, when you don’t have energy, think.  Reflect on your life before God, realizing that you’re mortal and God alone is immortal.  “Ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.” (Psalm 4:4)

Third, you are not indispensable but you are loved.  “You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11)

Do our health experiences teach lasting lessons to our souls?