The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for November 18, 2014

God speaks but do we obediently hear?   

Some of the most soothing words Jesus says to us are these: “Do not be anxious about your life...  Life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.  Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  Consider the ravens… God feeds them.  Consider the lilies…. Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Your Father knows…  Seek His kingdom and these things will be added to you.” (Excerpts from Luke 12:22-34)

Jesus wraps up those promises with something we easily skim over.  “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”  (12:34)   He doesn’t say, “Where your heart is, your treasure will be also.”  It’s our nature to put our feelings, our thoughts, our heart first, but the heart can be deceitful (Genesis 6:5).  In fact, Jesus teaches that the heart is the source of all evil; see Mark 7:21-22.  Instead of going from the inside out, from heart to treasure, Jesus says examine what it is outside of you that you value.  Whatever your external treasure, Jesus promises your heart will follow.

When I hosted the television show, “On Main Street” for Lutheran Hour Ministries, I interviewed a couple that was struggling with financial problems.  A financial adviser counseled the couple to cut up their credit cards and emphasized the point by pulling out a pair of scissors.  Well, they did cut up their cards but you could see on their faces that they didn’t want to.  They were caught between the ingrained habits of their heart and the treasure of living debt free.  Whether it’s money or time or some other worry, are you struggling between the habits of your heart and true treasure?  If you are, thank God and pray for more Spirit-led struggle!  Jesus promises that your Father knows.  He will provide.

 

The Meyer Minute for November 17, 2014

What a day of worship yesterday was!  I mean that in a much more expansive way than you might think.  Yesterday was Sunday, so yes, we went to church.  The music was great, the sermon about the end of the world was sobering, the communion was, as always, a “foretaste of the feast to come,” and the fellowship with long-time friends precious.  You probably expected something like that when I led off writing about yesterday’s worship but that was only the beginning.

Later in the morning it started to snow.  Most of the country is getting whacked by the “polar vortex,” temperatures below normal and snow earlier than most of us can remember.  Diane and I grumbled about it, but it is what it is, and so we went about our business.  I spent the day working on my Minutes (they’re going to be published in a few months; stay tuned) and watching football.  I sat.  Diane on the other hand, was active: shopping, house cleaning, and shoveling snow.  At the end of the day, I got up and we walked Ferdie through the cold and snow.  This all was worshipful too.

Proverbs 31 describes the woman who fears the Lord.  “An excellent wife who can find?  She is far more precious than jewels.”  “She is not afraid of snow for her household.”  “Her husband is known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.”  And there’s so much more.  The mundane things of life are truly the worship of God when Jesus Christ has come to you through word and sacrament.  “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” (1 Corinthians 10:31)  Read Proverbs 31.  She works; he sits!

 

The Meyer Minute for November 13, 2014

“Pay attention to what you hear,” says Jesus in Mark 4:24.  I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and my reflections tell me that one reason many people find Christianity irrelevant is because they’re not paying attention to what they hear.  Think about it.  All day long our ears are assaulted with words.  Studies show that we spend an excessive amount of time in front of TVs and monitors.  We walk or jog with buds in our ears.  We talk with people.  And then there are the e-mails, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, all the words that we let into our unguarded souls. Some of the words in you are, I hope, God’s words but the majority of words assaulting you are not.  No wonder many of us are strangers to solitude and silence, thinking there’s something unnatural about it. 

Exposing ourselves to so many words puts us in a position of judgment.  “I will decide what’s good and what’s not, what to do and what not to do.”  That, friend, is idolatry.  Lee Kwan Yew wasn’t writing about religion but wrote truly, “We can ill afford to let others experiment with our lives.” (Wall Street Journal, April 6-7, 2013; A13)  A Christianity that is relevant to daily life starts with a faith assumption: The Word of God in Jesus Christ is the story of my personal life.  If you take that as your starting point, then you’re going to filter what you hear.  You break the habit of watching this or hearing that.  You use media with discernment.  You pick your peers carefully.  You decrease the barrage of words and visual images and increase your time in silence with the Bible.  In short, you “pay attention to what you hear.”  “If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The Meyer Minute for November 12, 2014

Does your chest ever tighten when workplace pressures keep you from giving time and attention to people who need your help?  You want to be a Good Samaritan but the boss, the next meeting, the bottom line pressure you to pass by on the other side?

Life doesn’t fit into nice, tidy organizational and personal schedules. It probably never did.  The parable of the Good Samaritan is a story Jesus made up, but like His all parables it reflects real life situations.  The Samaritan is traveling, probably on business.  He happens upon the victim of robbers, has compassion, tends his wounds and takes him to an inn.  “He took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’” (Luke 10:35)  In other words, “On my way back home from this business trip, I’ll settle up with you.”  Compassion slowed him down a little bit, but it was the way he went about his business duties.

Jesus knows real life when He speaks to us.  “The people sought him and came to him, and would have kept him from leaving them, but he said to them, ‘I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I: was sent for this purpose.’” (Luke 4:42-43).  Jesus pursued His “business” but he went about it with compassion.  Read the sequel: On His business trip He showed compassion to many people.  He cleansed a leper, healed a paralytic, ministered to the rejects of society, and so on.  Acts of mercy slowed Jesus down a bit, but compassion is how Jesus did and still does business. 

I’ll bet the priest and the Levite who passed by didn’t have any tightening in their chests, those work machines.  If you compartmentalize your life, you will feel squeezed between production and compassion.  When you love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, compassion and productivity are not antithetical.  The love of God poured into you makes compassion the way you go about today’s business.  It may leave you a bit ragged at times but Jesus commends it.  “You go, and do likewise.” (Luke 10:37)

The Meyer Minute for November 11, 2014

Veterans’ Day.  Originally it was called “Armistice Day,” so proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919.  It was made a federal holiday in 1938 and in 1954 Congress renamed it Veterans’ Day.

We don’t associate the word military with the word love.  Quite the opposite.  What the military does seems to be the direct antithesis to love.  But imagine yourself in a foxhole.  Imagine yourself being shot at in an airplane.  Imagine your ship being torpedoed.  Whether you were drafted or enlisted, you’re putting your life on the line for others.  Now we’re not just talking about being a good citizen, voting, and the like, which, of course, are our duties and privilege.  Now we’re talking about facing death to save others.

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

In fact, our veterans demonstrated love when they put their lives on the line.  It shows how confused is our society’s understanding of love.  It shows that love is more than romance; it is selfless service, even to the point of death.  And it shows why today we thank a vet.

 

The Meyer Minute for November 10, 2014

Betty Evers was the first to tell me.  She caught me on my way out of church, and when I got downstairs for coffee, other church members told me too.  After a little sipping and chatting, I hurried out to buy a newspaper. You know that old joke about waking up and checking the obituaries to see if your name is in it?  The Belleville News-Democrat caters to our morbid interest by listing the names of newly deceased on the front page of the second section. One quick glance and you know if you’re dead or alive.  There it was among 14 names: “Dale Meyer.”

This is the gloom and doom time of the church year.  An emphasis these last Sundays before Advent is the end of the world and coming judgment.  Yesterday’s Gospel lesson was the parable of the Ten Virgins, 5 were wise and 5 foolish.  The moral of the story is to watch expectantly for the end.  Have oil in your lamps; be eager for Jesus’ return.  Since exhortations to be ready for eternity come every November, it’s easy to doze off like the 5 foolish virgins.  Then the end truly will be gloom and doom, but if you’re waiting and watching, “Zion hears the watchmen singing, and all her heart with joy is springing; she wakes, she rises from her gloom.  For her Lord comes down all glorious, the strong in grace, in truth victorious; her star is ris’n, her light is come.  Now come, Thou Blessed One, Lord Jesus, God’s own Son.”

Opening the paper to get the details, I learned that Dale C. Meyer was 56-years-old and lived in Albers, Illinois.  Besides sympathy, I express my appreciation for the personal wake-up call.   “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:11)  Maybe I’ll frame the page.  Anything to help me be ready for Jesus.

The Meyer Minute for November 6, 2014

Lil was on her deathbed when I visited her.  A lifelong, active member of our church, she knew her Savior.  Lil didn’t appear conscious, wasn’t speaking, but I was taught always to pray because the patient might very well hear what you’re saying.  I prayed and then went into the Lord’s Prayer in German.  She did hear!  Her lips started moving and she prayed in German with me.  Hospital visits like that bolster a pastor’s faith.

Visiting Roger is a dear memory as well.  Roger also was well along in years and the prognosis was not good.  He was alert, and so we talked about the Christian’s confidence in heaven. I said it’s ok to let go and let God bring you home. Those words brought a visible change to Roger’s face, a visible peace. He simply needed to hear that Christian death is a transition to everlasting life; it’s ok to let go.  A day or so later he passed on.

Louise was another visit I remember, even now over 25 years later.  When I walked into the hospital room, the family was present; they had been called in.  I took Louise’s hand and began to pray.  While I was praying, I sensed by her hand that her heart had stopped.  She had entered eternity with prayer.   A sequel: A church member heard of her death during my prayer.  He joked, “Pastor, if I’m in the hospital, please don’t come and pray with me!”

He was joking because people of faith want their hand held, want to hear words of hope, need an undivided heart toward Jesus as they begin, as we begin, the journey “through the valley of the shadow of death.”  Don was much younger when he went in for serious heart surgery. Don said, “Pastor, either way when I wake up, I’ll be home.” 

“‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him’ – these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10)

 

The Meyer Minute for November 4, 2014

Our divided nation votes.  There was another time when the country was deeply divided, and Christians set against each other.  From Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:

“Both (sides) read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other.  It may seem strange than any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces (slavery), but let us judge not, that we be not judged.  The prayers of both could not be answered.  That of neither has been answered fully.  The Almighty has His own purposes. ‘Woe unto the world because of offences; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.’”

Romans chapter 1 teaches that God lets us do what we want, at least for a time.  Whoever wins at the end of this long day can thank God but should not presume that heaven is aligned with his or her platform.  Today’s winners will have an opportunity.  Time will tell.  “The Almighty has His own purposes.”

The Meyer Minute for November 3, 2014

The ancient rabbis said that God felt so sorry for Adam and Eve when they trudged out of paradise that He gave them help to cope in their new, now sinful world.  He gave them the gift of tears.

Times of tears call for the sweetest religion.  So much religious talk focuses upon what God’s people should be doing.  Fine, the Bible is filled with many commands and exhortations.  Tears, however, remind us that this world is still broken, despite our Christian good works.

“Put my tears into Your bottle” (Psalm 56:8).  God has, always will.  “Come unto Me,” invites His Son, offering unconditional forgiveness and hope, love and encouragement. 

The day will come when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  From Isaiah 25:6-8, “The Lord Almighty…will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; He will swallow up death forever.  The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.” (See also Revelation 7:17). 

Until then, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have  received from God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).