The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for September 27, 2013

Imagine you’re living in the 15^th century.  Being religious, you decide you can best serve God by becoming a monk.  That’s not a vocational decision you’d likely make today, but remember we’re in the 15^th century when people did such things.  You’re assigned to live in cell number 5 in the Dominican Church and Convent of St. Marco.  Your cell has no creature comforts, except a bed and a wall painting of the nativity, Mary and Joseph adoring baby Jesus while cattle are busy feeding.  While they’re focused on what they see, above the stable the artist, known now to us as Fra Angelica, has painted angels.  Worshipping, watching angels, not in Mary and Joseph’s consciousness but still very present.  So you live in cell 5 and are reminded every day that God’s care is more than what meets the eye; He has provided angels to do His bidding and look after His children.

Sunday the church calendar observes the day of St. Michael and All Angels.

You’ll never be confined to the cell of a small spiritual mind so long as you trust the unseen care that God promises you.  “Bless the Lord, O you His angels, you mighty ones who do His word, obeying the voice of His word!  Bless the Lord, O my soul.” (Psalm 103:20,22)

The Meyer Minute for September 26, 2013

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

Some years ago Dr. Thomas Troeger spoke at Concordia Seminary.  He recalled slowly waking up in intensive care after heart surgery.  Not fully awake, he heard a loud pounding.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  “Oh, no!” he thought.  “I’ve just had major heard surgery and hospital construction outside is disturbing my peace.”  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Dr. Troeger prayed to God for the noise to stop.  But as he became more awake, he remembered that the surgeon had told him that the new valve in his heart would make a loud, banging noise for some time.  The surgeon assured him that with time the banging would quiet down.  “Dear God, cancel that prayer!”  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Dr. Troeger brought it home for us: Every beat of his saved heart was a gift from God.  Every beat comes to us from God’s undeserved grace.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.  Bam.   May your every beat today be a joy to you from God, a joy to share with others.  Bam!

The Meyer Minute for September 24, 2013

When I was working my way through school by delivering milk, an old co-worker named Pete Iverson told me this story about hope.

In those days of home delivery, if you could have asked the lady of the house where she was going in the darkness of the early morning, she would have said, “To the front door to bring in the milk.”

When you ask, “How do you know it’s there?” she replies simply, “I just know it’s there.”

“Did you hear the milk truck or the bottles clanging?”

“No; I just know it’s there!”  She brushes past you, opens the door, puts her hand out into the darkness and…sure enough…the milk bottles are there.

That’s hope. Whatever problems you’re facing, you can reach confidently into the darkness because God’s word promises you His unfailing love.

“In this hope (of Christ) we are saved.  Now hope that is seen is not hope.  For who hopes for what he sees?  But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”  (Romans 8:24-25)

Lord, give me hope that says, I trust that Your love will see me through.  Amen.

 

 

The Meyer Minute for September 24, 2013

Whoa!  Last Sunday this was read in many churches: A woman “will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control.” (1 Timothy 2:15)  The ultimate in male chauvinism, “saved through childbearing”?

Dr. Philip Towner of the Nida Institute of the American Bible Society explains that this verse is part of a passage addressing a heresy in the first century church in Ephesus.  Some wealthy wives and women were publically pushing a heretical view that marriage, sexual relations, and childbearing were not appropriate for a spiritually knowledgeable woman.  “Willingness to become pregnant was apparently a very real concern.  Bearing children will not be a means of earning salvation, and it is doubtful if ‘saving’ means simply physical safety through childbirth.  Rather, Paul urges these Christian wives to re-engage fully in the respectable role of the mother, in rejection of heretical and secular trends, through which she may ‘work out her salvation.’” (“The Letters to Timothy and Titus” in the New International Commentary on the New Testament, 235)

God bless mothers, God bless wives, God bless traditional families…and God bless scholars who explain strange passages!

The Meyer Minute for September 23, 2013

I take my morning walk on the county trails and wonder.  Do the wildflowers know they delight me?  Do the fall berries turning red know?  Does the morning dew still on the leaves know it also refreshes me?  But as it dries, does it know the heat of the day can take away my idealism?  Does the hawk flying above know I admire its strong beauty, but does the hawk’s prey know that I feel sorry?  Do the towering trees know they lift my sights toward heaven, but do their broken limbs decaying on the ground know they remind me of passing?  Sometimes my path leads through dense shade.  Does the sun know that my life is in darkness?  Does it know that I yearn for rays of light?  There’s a hill before me; the trail rises.  Does the hill know that it blocks my view of what’s beyond?  Do I press on, trusting that my effort to overcome will open a greater vision? 

Do they know?  God knows, most certainly, but do I?  Do you?  Do we make our life’s way praying that the testimonies all around sink deep into our being?

The Meyer Minute for September 20, 2013

Today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch headlines, “Pope rejects a rigid church.”  Lead paragraph: “Pope Francis said the Roman Catholic Church had become obsessed by ‘small-minded rules’ about how to be faithful and that pastors should instead emphasize compassion over condemnation when discussing the divisive social issues of abortion, gays, and contraception.”  How do people see the church?

From “To Change the World” by James Davison Hunter: “It is not an exaggeration to say that the dominant public witness of the Christian churches in America since the early 1980s has been a political witness.” (12)  How do people see the church?  Culture wars, politics?

Evangelism? A sincere church member told me she felt guilty because witnessing to strangers, “just isn’t me.”  What’s your dominant picture of the church?  Jesus says, “Whoever comes to Me I will never cast out.”  (John 6:37)  Following Jesus has profound ramifications for every area of life, but the greatest impression of the church on us should be the One whom others will see through us.  “I came to Jesus as I was, weary and worn and sad, and found in Him a resting place and He has made me glad.”  

The Meyer Minute for September 19, 2013

Some years ago I heard Mr. Larry Carlson speak at a men’s prayer breakfast.  He’s the director of Youth Haven, a Christian non-profit that operates two ranches, one in Arizona and the other in Michigan.  Those ranches minister to children ages 7 to 12 who come from the worst imaginable family situations. 

After hearing Larry Carlson talk about Jesus, one child came up and asked, “Why did His parents give Him a swear word for a name?”  Think about it.  Safe and maybe smug in our religious routines, we easily forget those who have no clue about God, Jesus and the essence of Christianity.  Mr. Carlson explained to us that everything in the lives of these children has been damned.  The name of Jesus Christ was used to cuss out the wife, cuss out the husband, cuss out the police, the company, the neighbor, and no doubt the name Jesus Christ was used to cuss out the young, impressionable child.  “Why did His parents give Him a swear word for a name?”

“Jesus” means “Savior.”  “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)  Do we get it?

 

The Meyer Minute for September 18, 2013

The sign of the First Baptist Church of Salem, Illinois caught my attention.  “Forbidden fruit creates many jams.

Jams are inevitable but what’s the cause?  St. Peter wrote, “Let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler.  Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name….  Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.” (1 Peter 4:15-16, 19)

If you’re going to suffer, suffer because you’re obeying the commandments, devoted to God and selflessly serving others.  “What credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure?  But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.  For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:20-21)

Lord, keep me from sin.  Then help me accept the fact that no good deed goes unpunished.  

The Meyer Minute for September 17, 2013

Two readings that may help you spiritually process yesterday’s terrible event.  From Psalm 7:

“Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may You establish the righteous—You who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God!  My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.  God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.  Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies!   He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made.  His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends. I will give to the Lord the thanks due to His righteousness.” (8-11, 14-17a)

From Martin Luther’s explanation of “Deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s Prayer: “We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.”

The Meyer Minute for September 16, 2013

What is your prayer as the workweek begins?  You might take your lead from St. Paul’s worry about the Corinthians: “I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure obedience to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3)

There’s a simplicity in following Jesus Christ.  “He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.” (2 Corinthians 5:15)  How easy to forget in all the complexity of our lives!  Every argument has a counter argument, every task can be done better, every generation tech device awaits something better, every meeting leads to another… we are swimming amidst sharks.  “The devil is in the details.”  He sure is.  True in faith life too.

Do what you will, my prayer this Monday morning is for “a sincere and pure obedience to Christ.”  “With the Lord begin your task; Jesus will direct it.  For His aid and counsel ask; Jesus will perfect it.  Every morn with Jesus rise, and when day is ended, in His name then close your eyes; Be to Him commended.”