The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for August 31, 2016

“Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it” (Mark 4:7).

This week new seminarians, our future pastors and deaconesses, are being oriented to study and life at Concordia Seminary. Yesterday they got their heads filled with information. Today they get onto busses to go pull weeds. That’s part of the orientation ritual. Every year new students along with faculty and staff go into the city of St. Louis to clean up community gardens.

Jesus said, “Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word. …Others are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (Mark 4:13-14, 18-19).

You understand this part of the parable, don’t you? The circumstances of your life can choke out your consciousness of living before God. Let circumstances be your lord and you will be unproductive for God’s purposes. “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25).

Our aspiring pastors and deaconesses want to be productive for God. Ultimately that depends upon intimacy with The Sower. “Privately to his own disciples he explained everything” (Mark 4:34).

The Meyer Minute for August 30, 2016

An opinion piece in yesterday’s New York Times laments the loss of courses in American political history. “Three-quarters of colleges and universities now lack full-time researchers and teachers in the subject.” “One can earn a doctorate in American history with little exposure to politics.” Fredrik Logevall and Kenneth Osgood draw a sobering conclusion: “The drying up of scholarly expertise affects universities’ ability to educate teachers – as well as aspiring lawyers, politicians, journalists and business leaders – who will enter their professions having learned too little about the nation’s political history.”

Our shallower culture has impacted theological education as well. 55% of seminaries in the Association of Theological Schools are struggling with lower enrollments in their Master of Divinity programs. This isn’t because of distance education, which can be very rigorous, but because many aspiring ministers don’t see value in the academic study of theology. Hence they’re tempted to easier ways to hang out their ministerial shingle.

“Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Romans 15:4). Versions of that can be said of history and all the disciplines that guide nations, churches and people through these most trying times. “Knowledge of our political past is important because it can serve as an antidote to the misuse of history by our leaders and save us from being bamboozled…. Judging by the state of our political discourse during this dismal campaign season, the change can’t come soon enough” (A17).

The Meyer Minute for August 29, 2016

Before yesterday’s first service yesterday in Downers Grove, Illinois, the pastors showed me an old photograph. It’s the head table at a banquet, and a Boy Scout is sitting next to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. After the third service, that Boy Scout, Mr. Frank Hemler, told me the story.

It’s 1937. Mr. William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor, invited 15-year-old Frank to play taps at a special event in New York and then attend an evening banquet. The day came, he played taps, and later was seated at the far end of a long banquet table. Mayor LaGuardia was supposed to sit next to Mrs. Roosevelt but city business came up. Who will sit next to Mrs. Roosevelt? Politicians and wannabes would, but if the mayor returned, the self-seeker would have to give up that seat of honor and be embarrassed. So the organizers moved the Boy Scout next to the First Lady. No shame to the scout if LaGuardia came and he had to give up the place of honor. The Mayor never did return, and Mr. Hemler said Mrs. Roosevelt was warm and engaging, paying him special attention all evening.

“When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ‘When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 14:7-11; NIV).  

The Meyer Minute for August 26, 2016

Faculty are gathering, putting final touches on class preparation, and yesterday heard and talked about science and theology.

“You Lost Me” by David Kinnaman tells that many 18 to 29-year-olds have left church because they perceive the church to be anti-science. “Every week,” Kinnaman writes, I am contacted by young Christians who tell me that their faith cannot survive their interest in science. They feel the church has forced them into an either-or-decision – they can either stay true to the Christian faith or become an intellectually honest scientist” (132).

Dr. Joshua Swamidass deals with students like that. An M.D., Ph.D. and committed Christian, he is Assistant Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University. Some quotations from his time yesterday with the Faculty: “There is no way to be a Christian in this world without thinking about science.” “Voices that young people are hearing in science are not pointing them to Jesus.” “There’s a real curiosity in this world about who Jesus is. Scientists are more curious about Jesus than our arguments against evolution.” “Let’s not turn to science for our confidence, security and truth. Let’s turn to Jesus.”

What might that mean as you go to church on Sunday? Science, Dr. Swamidass said, isn’t a set of ideas that deserve angry arguments. “Science is a community of people Jesus loves.” Wouldn’t that be interesting for our young adults to hear!

The Meyer Minute for August 25, 2016

“Time, like an ever rolling stream, soon bears us all away.” It takes buildings as well.

Its first radio broadcast was in 1924. Three years later the cornerstone was laid for the studios and offices of KFUO on the campus of Concordia Seminary. Several years ago the owner of the station, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, moved the studios and offices to Kirkwood, Missouri. Demolition of the 1927 building is scheduled to begin today.

The homes Diane and I grew up in were sold. The parsonage we lived in from 1973-1981 was taken down to make room for a fine new parish hall. Some buildings are kept for decades, even centuries; others are taken down. The feelings we have about buildings show how bound we are to time and space, how in the eons of time and the vastness of the universe we are attached to some particular place dear to us. The grief felt at the loss of dear buildings is a reminder of eternity. “Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).

“‘Look, Teacher, what wonderful buildings!’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” And then the Lord of time made a promise. “The gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations” (Mark 13:1-2, 10). The Good News continues to be proclaimed.

“O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come!” (Lutheran Service Book, 733)

The Meyer Minute for August 24, 2016

You’ve seen the pictures of Omran Daqneesh. Bare feet, left side of his head bloodied, the 5-year-old boy looks dazed as he sits in the back of an ambulance. Omran had been hurt last Wednesday in an air attack aimed at Syrian rebels in Aleppo.  

We have a photo of our 3-year-old grandson Jacob being taken to the hospital on an adult-sized stretcher. What’s happening to me? Jacob had a home and family to go to. Not Omran. His home was destroyed and his 10-year-old brother Ali was killed in the same airstrike.

Twelve children under 15 were treated after that Wednesday attack. Two-year-old Ahmad Tadifi was taken to the same hospital with serious injuries. Although the doctors didn’t know his name at first, not uncommon, they operated on Ahmad and put him in intensive care with his father. Ahmad died Friday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 100 children have died on the rebel side of Aleppo, the east side, and 49 on the western side just this month. (New York Times, August 22; A6)

Meanwhile the world’s short attention span goes on to the next thing. So much is so vain, often in the church too. The horror of sin. Apocalypse now. What’s happening to me? “From whom may we seek comfort but from Thee alone, who for our sins art justly displeased?”

The Meyer Minute for August 23, 2016

Do you have a favorite sidewalk?

Mine is on the east side of the Planetary Sciences building of Washington University. Step onto this sidewalk, about 50 feet long, and you first see a small brass inlay of Pluto. A few feet further comes an inlay for Neptune, and so on. Pass Earth, Venus and Mercury, and you come to the Sun…and to the entrance to the building.  I always think, “Wow!” “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?” (Isaiah 40:26).

The church is in a different time of witness.  Many people today know nothing about Jesus and don’t care about sin, truth, and the Bible (“You have your opinion; I have mine. Who are you to tell me that I’m wrong?”). Jesus doesn’t change and the Word is forever the same (Hebrews 13:8; 1 Peter 1:24-25), but where can we find a meeting ground to begin talking? “Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these?” Greater fascination with the worlds which science explores can put us in that place.  After all, the first article of the Creed (“I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth”) comes before the second article (Jesus and our redemption) and the third (the Holy Spirit who works faith in us.

“How’s your walk going?” The planetary sidewalk reminds me, “O tell of His might, O sing of His grace, whose robe is the light, whose canopy space” (Lutheran Service Book, 804, 2).

The Meyer Minute for August 22, 2016

“Israel’s dead end is not the end of the road for God.” So wrote Martin Franzmann examining St. Paul’s grief that so many of his fellow Jews had rejected Jesus (Romans, 209)

It’s a great thought. Your “dead end is not the end of the road for God.” When Herod was persecuting the first Christians, he killed James and had Peter thrown into jail. An angel came in the middle of the night and set Peter free (Acts 12:1-7). When Paul and Silas were in prison, an earthquake at midnight set them free (Acts 16:25-27). You might tell of miraculous ways God brought you through an apparent dead end. Still, James was martyred, Peter and Paul eventually too. Sooner or later the road seems to end.

The understandable temptation is to despair, to give up hope, to give up trust in God. Apparent dead ends are a First Commandment challenge that need Spirit-given hope in God’s words of promise. “We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And when death itself draws near, the road of trust in Jesus leads through the valley of the shadow (Psalm 23:4). Our failure to see a way forward doesn’t exhaust the avenues of God.

Paul saw the conversion of Gentiles as an incentive for his people to find mercy in Jesus. Whether perplexing theological problems or our mundane problems, faith in Christ knows the “dead end is not the end of the road for God.”

The Meyer Minute for August 19, 2016

The Pullman Company was the preeminent manufacturer of railroad coach cars in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. In some of their cars the following sign was posted: “QUIET is requested for the benefit of those who have retired.” Because Diane grew up near Pullman on the south side of Chicago and her great-grandfather worked there – he did the fancy upholstery on the coach seats – our daughter Katie bought one of those signs and gave it to Diane in anticipation of her birthday later this month. “QUIET is requested”? Our recent visit to Katie and husband Charlie was filled with non-step energy of 5-year-old Drew and 3-year-old Jacob. Opa wanted them to sit on his lap, but nothing doing. I found the only way I could hug the boys was to wrestle with them. Nothing QUIET, and we loved it.

This week Jake got sick, one of his lungs was not functioning properly, and my little-wrestling buddy spent several days in the hospital. He’s home now. Thank you for your encouragements and prayers. It’s an indescribable feeling to see your child sick. Your maturity and knowledge mean little. Your career and portfolio become irrelevant. You’d trade places in an instant. That pure feeling is the most “excellent way,” the heart of God (1 Corinthians 12:31; 1 John 4:8). Love isn’t QUIET. Love doesn’t retire. “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).

The Meyer Minute for August 18, 2016

“Who did Jesus die for?” If you answer, “All people,” or “He died for the whole world,” you might be on the wrong side of Jesus.

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). In last Sunday’s Gospel, Luke 12:53, Jesus says He is the cause of division. “They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother…” And on and on Jesus goes, saying that not all are His people, not all will be saved.

“Have you ever heard the Master say a hard word? If you have not, I question whether you have heard Him say anything” (Oswald Chambers).

Jesus comes for you, singular, fill in your name. “Ashamed of Jesus? Yes, I may when I’ve no guilt to wash away, no tear to wipe, no good to crave, no fear to quell, no soul to save. Till then – nor is my boasting vain – till then I boast a Savior slain; and oh, may this my glory be, that Christ is not ashamed of me!” (The Lutheran Hymnal, 346, 5-6).