The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for November 30, 2015

Do you think of your life as an adventure?

Probably not, our adult lives are often routine, sometimes ho-hum. Remember when you were a child? Wide-eyed, you couldn’t wait for Santa to come. It was an adventure then, but now you’ve graduated into maturity, and perhaps the routine of adult life has rubbed ho-hum into Advent. How can that be if you’re a child of God? Might this new Advent be a time to rekindle your child-of-God sense of adventure?

“Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand” (Romans 13:11-12). The theme this first week of Advent is this: Jesus has promised to return to take you and all His followers to Himself for eternity. Imagine the sight. Child of God, the best is yet to come, and it will be even better than Christmas! “Though you do not see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9).

“Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins and saved by Your mighty deliverance.” Welcome to ADVENTure!

The Meyer Minute for November 13, 2015

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God” (1 Peter 5:6).

Do you ever feel that invisible, heavy hand of God upon you? We attribute our hard times to many things, to other people, and to unwelcome circumstances, but in some mysterious way God is involved. You can’t escape God. “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5). Whatever earthly thing I may blame, God’s hand is somehow in it, weighing down on me, reminding me to be humble.

We reach down our own hands to a small child. Perhaps you hold the child’s hand as you walk, if the child lets you. When you see need to strengthen your hold, to pull the child back, to change direction, to guide the child in the way it should go, your hand gets heavier than the child may like. Is God only our Father when His hand is light upon us? “For we know, as children should, that the cross is for our good” (The Lutheran Hymnal, 226, 4).

Father’s hand is always on us in love. “Gently He leads us with a true father’s care … Daily His blessing, His love, attends us” (The Lutheran Hymnal, 28, 4). You are secure in the hand of the Father; Jesus promises it. “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (John 10:29). His promise helps us bear the present. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7).

PS. This Minute is from “Timely Reflections,” available at www.tripillarpublishing.com.

PPS. My brain is crying out for rest and study. So…. Diane and I will take two weeks off from the daily Meyer Minute. Need to recharge the gray matter! 

The Meyer Minute for November 12, 2015

A fellow pastor told me he went to his first church with the notion that he was to be the answer man. His seminary education had filled his head with theology and now his job was to dispense the correct intellectual answers. To his credit, he quickly realized he didn’t have all the answers.

Our faculty is revising the Seminary’s curriculum. One goal is to instill in future pastors a life-long love of learning. Lest this Minute be about other people, do you have a life-long love for learning, especially about Jesus? If you don’t, you may well be in trouble.

Three passages from Mark chapter 4. First, “For those outside (the kingdom of God) everything is in parables, so that they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven” (4:11-2). God will harden the hearts of people who persistently reject Jesus. “Great is the mystery of godliness” (1 Timothy 3:16), or do you think you’ve got this religious thing down pat?

Second, “Pay attention to what you hear” (4:24). Jesus told his disciples to be discerning when they listened to religious leaders. The Pharisees’ lives contradicted the teaching of Jesus, and religious talk today, even talk about Jesus, can do the same. “Pay attention to what you hear.” Take Jesus’ own words into your heart more than other peoples’ words about Jesus.

Third, “With many such parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything” (4:33-34). Jesus is more intent upon forgiving than upon condemning. He wants to talk us through religious opinions to truly be His disciples. He has a life-long love of teaching us. Do we have a life-long love of learning from Him?

The Meyer Minute for November 11, 2015

I woke up at my usual time, still dark outside, and went to sit on the front porch with my first cup of coffee. That’s one of my favorite spots and favorite times, easing into the day while many people are catching their last hour or so of sleep. The caffeine takes me from my own slumber to thinking about the day ahead. Today is a full day of meetings and appointments, thankfully nothing stressful, just a normal day.

Across the street is the American Legion post. It’s been our neighbor for almost 35 years, what we see when we step out of our house. In the early morning darkness, it’s quiet around the Legion. Sooner or later a worker or two will come to clean up the hall after last night’s event, but for now the parking lot is empty. At the west end of the Legion’s property, where our street meets a state highway, to my left as I sit in my rocker, the veterans have made a nice little park. It’s lit up, displaying the flags of the branches of service. You can also see reminders of battle, an old helicopter, a howitzer, and an anchor. In the darkness a few cars and trucks pass by on that highway, and that too is normal for this early hour. Later the highway will be much busier. The people who drive by don’t think much about it, and most days I don’t either, but today is different. Today is Veteran’s Day. We are able to do our normal things because men and women put on the uniform to protect our American way of life.

It dawns on us slowly how much sacrifice our veterans have made for us. I was born a year-and-a-half after the end of World War II. As a kid I had no clue how recent the terrible times of the Depression and War were.  It was only years later that the obvious dawned on me, that my normal childhood was made possible by the hundreds of thousands of men and women who took up arms. Decades later I’m awaking to a normal day. We begin to see the light. Thank you, veterans, and thank you, God of the nations.

 

 

The Meyer Minute for November 10, 2015

“The hell with due process” was Joe Scarborough’s analysis of events at the University of Missouri. Commentators on “Morning Joe,” a decidedly liberal talk show, were struggling to understand what led to the resignation of the president and chancellor.

While a seminary president is Little League compared to a big university system, my attention zeros in on three things. The first is economic viability, aka money. “President Wolfe has thoughtfully transformed our strategic planning process in a way that focuses our limited resources on priorities while reducing or eliminating waste and redundancies,” said Don Downing, chairman of the Board of Curators who renewed the president’s contract last year without controversy (New York Times, A18). Financial realism doesn’t endear administrators to faculty and students. My second administrative instinct goes to injustices, which at Missouri have included racial incidents. Systemic? I don’t know but there were highly publicized individual incidents.  So the cauldron was boiling. No campus, Mizzou or a seminary, is without ongoing issues but why did the cauldron suddenly boil over? My third instinct zeros in on rampant individualism throughout contemporary society. Individuals who feel aggrieved and gather together can be impatient with processes intended to deal with problems and work in an orderly way toward needed change.

You see these three in the church as well. Culturally ingrained individualism seizes on financial facts to pit people against one another. Add the ingredient of sinful situations, ungodly and wrong, and you heat up a devil’s brew to weaken the church. Whatever happened at Mizzou, it’s obvious to me that pastors and leaders need to raise this banner in the church, “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). John Thelin, author of “A History of American Higher Education,” says, “These little protests are popping up like brushfires around the country and presidents are nervous” (Wall Street Journal, A6). Missouri challenges pastors, seminaries, and our congregations to model a better way, the way of the Body of Christ. “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

The Meyer Minute for November 9, 2015

In 1961, communist leader Erich Honecker ordered a wall built around the city of East Berlin. That infamous Berlin Wall separated families, prompted East Berliners to risk their lives for freedom, and became a hated symbol of the Cold War. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” said President Ronald Reagan in a speech near the Brandenburg Gate. The wall did fall, on this date, November 9, 1989. Today you have to look hard to find anything left of that wall of separation but, if you’re old enough, the joy at its unbelievable fall is still remembered.

St. Paul used the image of a broken-down wall to describe the unity that Jesus Christ brings to Jews and Gentiles. The Good News of Jesus can reconcile people who have dealt with one another only on the basis of the Law and its demands and threats. “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:14-16).

The world still has its dividing walls of hostility – real and virtual. So also does our nation. And the Church’s sad divisions don’t model the better way, the way of unity that Jesus Christ brings between people. “There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call – one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). What if the world saw that in us? Spirit of God, tear down these walls!

P.S. Christmas gifts? Today’s Minute comes from “Timely Reflections,” which might make a good present for someone on your list. Proceeds benefit Concordia Seminary. The book is available at www.tripillarpublishing.com .

The Meyer Minute for November 6, 2015

I was going through my books, tossing some I don’t need. For a book lover, that’s hard. Anyway, I came across “Every Mother’s Nightmare” by Charles Bosworth. It describes a savage attack on Stacy, the teenaged daughter of Jude Govreau and on Mari Winzen’s three-year-old son Tyler. Stacy was babysitting Tyler when an intruder broke in and brutally murdered the children. This book didn’t get tossed; it was a significant moment in my life.

I met Jude when she appeared on a TV program I was hosting, “On Main Street.” The program explored the dimensions and benefits of faith in life. When I asked Jude how that indescribably horrible experience impacted her faith, she answered, “It took it away.” I can understand that.

We’ve all had experiences that weakened, maybe took away warm and fuzzy thoughts about God. In the Bible the word “faith” has two aspects. One is our feelings toward God. Nothing wrong with that. How many of us tear up when we worship on Christmas or Easter? That’s our emotions, our feelings; it’s subjective. But in the Bible there is another aspect to faith, and in fact it’s even more important than how we’re feeling about God. This aspect is objective, not subjective. It is outside of us, external, not within us, internal. This other aspect of faith wasn’t born in us, as our feelings are, but this other aspect of faith comes to us from outside, totally from outside of us. This fundamental aspect of faith is the promises of God to us in Jesus Christ. When our feelings toward God are weakened because life is hard, sometimes brutal, God’s promises to us in Jesus Christ cannot be weakened because they’re from God who never changes and is true to His word.

You can understand the Bible as a book of God’s promises, played out in the lives of ancient people and offering you instruction, correction, and encouragement. Indeed, that’s the fundamental aspect of faith, hanging onto the promises, especially when everything is pummeling our good feelings about God. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). More than any other book, the Bible is for keeping…and using.

 

 

The Meyer Minute for November 5, 2015

When Charles Gliniewicz was killed on duty in northern Illinois, an extensive manhunt searched for the cop killer. Yesterday: “This investigation has concluded…that this is a carefully staged suicide. He had been stealing and laundering money from Fox Lake” (Wall Street Journal, November 5; A6). Gliniewicz concluded that suicide was his only way out.

Actor and comedian Robin Williams committed suicide in August 2014. Recently his widow Susan said that he struggled with depression, Parkinson’s, and Lewy body dementia, an illness that leads to declining mental ability (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, November 4; A18). Again but for different reasons, Mr. Williams saw no way out.

“Death rates are rising for middle-aged white Americans, while declining in other wealthy countries and among other races and ethnicities. The rise appears to be driven by suicide, drugs and alcohol abuse” (New York Times, November 3; A15).

Whatever sad reasons lead someone to choose death, suicide goes directly against the God who gives life and promises hope (Psalm 42:11). “Thou shalt not murder” (Exodus 20:13). So it’s a sin against God but a sin for which Jesus died. While God only knows the eternal destiny of the suicide, we who survive can know suicide is temptation to be avoided, by you, by me, and by those around us. Easily said, but overcoming the temptation when you’re in emotional or physical despair seems insurmountable. Each of us in our individual and sometimes lonely lives needs to be in a safe place where support and love are dependably present to help us overcome the temptation. Does our family, our congregation and our presence at work and in community promote a culture that cares for the weakest? Even if we do, sin is so insidious that all of us can rely on only one guarantee.

“When the righteous cry out for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the broken-hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:17-19).

“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). God, help us all. 

The Meyer Minute for November 4, 2015

Watch people at a coffee shop and you don’t see them reading from papyrus scrolls. You have to wonder if books, real books with paper, are going into the dust bin of history.

“20% of 1-year-olds own a tablet computer. 28% of 2-year-olds can navigate a mobile device with no help. 28% of parents said they use a mobile device to put their children to sleep” (USA Today, November 2; 3A). I add that when the grandkids come, Opa and Oma sometimes let the iPads do the babysitting for us.

Strategic planning is part of life at Concordia Seminary. Should we plan on converting our library (270,000 volumes, the 2^nd largest Lutheran theological library on the continent) into a museum?

“While analysts once predicted that e-books would overtake print by 2015, digital sales have instead slowed sharply. Now, there are signs that some e-book adopters are returning to print, or becoming hybrid readers, who juggle devices and paper. E-book sales fell by 10% in the first five months of this year” (New York Times, September 23; A1). I was shocked when I read that, but also comforted. Opa’s old ways aren’t going away but even Opa is adapting. Right now I’m reading two books, one on my iPad and the other a “real” book.

“‘People talked about the demise of physical books as if it was only a matter of time, but even 50 to 100 years from now, print will be a big chunk of our business.’ said Markus Dohle, the chief executive of Penguin Random House” (NYT, A3).

St. Paul wrote to Timothy, “When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments” (2 Timothy 4:13). I guess he already had his tablet.

The Meyer Minute for November 3. 2015

Sunday I was privileged to preach at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Austin, Texas. Redeemer is a vibrant church, over three thousand members, and occupies one city block. The street sign at one corner of that property caught my attention, the intersection of “Dale Drive” and “Lazy Lane.” That’s my vision of retirement, but before I settle into “Dale and Lazy” I have a few things I pray God to accomplish, including...

…increasing enrollment at Concordia Seminary. It’s been too low for too many years. As my classmates and I check into retirement and then check out of retirement, projections indicate a serious shortage of pastors in our denomination. Think of this personally. When your grandchildren and great-grandchildren need baptism, a wedding, spiritual guidance, a hospital visit, will their church have a pastor 10, 20 or 30 years from now? More heart-wrenching, should they walk away from church, as many young people are doing, will there be a pastor to lead a congregation into outreach to win them back? Mainline American denominations are in serious decline, and low seminary enrollments is one symptom.

Oswald Chambers, that penetrating spiritual writer, was principal of a Bible college. “One student a year who hears God’s call would be sufficient for God to have called this College into existence. This College as an organization is not worth anything, it is not academic; it is for nothing else but for God to help Himself to lives.” Today’s Seminary is God’s instrument for the future. Without iron determination now, our secular culture will seduce more and more people to live and die eternally without Jesus. When I leave “Dale and Lazy,” I believe Jesus will take me to heaven. What young person do you know who could lead people to know Jesus after you’ve left retirement?