The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for February 22, 2017

I’ll start with this: Our goal as Christians is intimacy with Jesus. You can describe that with different words, but since Jesus is the only way God has given us for salvation (John 14:6), the goal is getting closer to Him. “I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father” (John 10:14).

Do we know ourselves in relation to Him or as a product of our circumstances? Jeff Cloeter, a pastor in suburban St. Louis, has written “Loved & Sent.” He shares his anxiety about going to a new high school. “They say that where you’re from is part of who you are. What happens when you’re not from anywhere? I departed my small boyhood town with a class of 30. I arrived in central Minnesota to a class of hundreds. I knew no one. I left everything that made me me. Who am I now?” (65-66).

Think about the events that made you. Your childhood, military service, college, marriage, health, sickness, successes and failures… I always get reflective when seminarians remind me that my experiences are not the experiences of their generation. Seeing divine purpose in change is key, be that going to a new high school, like Cloeter, or for us, finding ourselves in new times and new challenges. God uses change to draw us closer to Himself. Some people try to make their experiences normative for others, especially for younger people, but that’s destined to fail. “We fly forgotten as the dream dies at the op’ning day.” Jesus, the same yesterday, today and forever, uses anxious times to draw us closer to His voice. “Lord, to whom shall we go?” (John 6:68).

P.S. Diane and I will take a week off from the Minute. We’ll be back next Wednesday, Ash Wednesday.

The Meyer Minute for February 21, 2017

No inspiration for today’s Minute.

Should I write how dozens of headstones were pushed over in a St. Louis Jewish cemetery? How several Jewish centers in the country received bomb threats yesterday?

Or maybe the dismal and dangerous world of international relations? On TV retired Admiral James Stavridis hearkened back to President Reagan’s “trust but verify.” Now, said Stavridis, we’re in an era of “mistrust and investigate.” True in too many areas of life.

I think about how the deck seems stacked against belief in God. Science, technology, communication and wealth tempt the “haves” to live without God. The “have nots” are struggling to make it day-by-day. Is God more alive to them?

I usually write out of something that I feel; today I’m not sure what I’m feeling. William Barclay told about an Indian philosopher who “once said of preachers and theologians of the West known to him: ‘Your theologians seem to me like men talking in their sleep.’  On the other hand, we must not forget the witness of one: ‘I preached what I did feel – what I smartingly did feel.’”

I think what I’m really feeling is dissatisfaction with the generalities of church talk. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39). To go to work today loving others, first know that you are beloved by God. “That whoever believes in him….” (John 3:16). Day-by-day conviction must grow that “whoever” is me, is you. That I was baptized, that I’ve been given Body and Blood… that’s like a feeding tube to a weak believer in the intensive care ward that is today’s world.

I’m not in a bad mood. I’m just asking to know Jesus more personally today. You know?

“The preacher must feel the wonder of the Christian message. 

The Meyer Minute for February 20, 2016

The front page of yesterday’s St. Louis Post Dispatch blared, “A Mass Killer.” At first blush, I imagined there had been a shooting. Well, on further reading, yes there was. “A Mass Killer: St. Louis heroin deaths hit new high.”

My Sunday morning attention was grabbed by the photo under that headline. Caption: “Ashley Johnston and Richard Skinner shoot heroin in the kitchen of Johnston’s home in St. Louis on Feb. 6. Both have used heroin off and on for years. Johnston, who is pregnant with her fourth child, is trying to kick her habit with methadone but recently missed a few methadone allotments because of car problems. Skinner said he used his stints in jail to get clean. Johnston and Skinner have one child together; that child is cared for by Johnston’s mother, who also cares for two other children she has.”

The accompanying article by Jesse Bogan is filled with personal story after personal story about the rising number of deaths and devastation in the city of St. Louis from heroin and fentanyl, a synthetic drug 50 times more powerful than heroin. “A little bit on the tongue can kill you.”

This is the sad inevitability of life lived for self, not living under the Gospel, imagining ourselves as god. The true God says, “OK, see where it gets you.” “God gave them up to dishonorable passions” (Romans 1:28). Even we who confess the goodness of God in Jesus have our problems, our addictions, and personal sins that would enslave us. You and I know, should know how desperately we need Jesus in our daily life. How do we reach the Ashley's and Richard’s out there with the help and hope of Jesus? The church can’t act like a country club.

The Meyer Minute for February 17, 2017

Today’s eccentricity from Dale: Stop recycling church bulletins! You’ll walk out of church on Sunday and there’ll be someplace to get rid of your used worship guide. It even happens in the Seminary’s chapel: Come in, pick up the order of service, do it, drop it. Bugs me.

I’ll try to explain. The other day I started reading a scholarly article about Jewish public prayers in the first centuries B.C. and A.D. Scholar Daniel Falk writes: “The language of prayer is to a great extent conventional. Because of this constraint, a straightforward reading of a prayer text cannot always be assumed to represent accurately the pray-er’s theology.” (in “Justification and Variegated Nomism,” p. 7). That means the public prayers used back then, or the prayers and liturgy prepared for your worship this Sunday, don’t necessarily reflect what you and I, the pray-ers, believe about God. Makes sense, doesn’t it? I imagine three possibilities when we use conventional prayers and liturgy. 1. They may reflect what we truly believe (we’re into these words head and heart). 2. They may not (we’re just going through the motions). 3. Something in between.

Some pastors begin their sermons by saying, “The Word of God that engages us today is….” That’s the challenge of public worship, to engage ourselves with those conventional readings, prayers and liturgies. What does this mean? For me that means marking the bulletin when something strikes me. Think more about this, Dale. Use this thought, Dale. And so on. I fold the bulletin, put it in my pocket, and recycle the spiritual engagement in my head and heart during the week. There’s just too much in every order of service for me to drop it at the door. Thank you for letting me share my eccentricity as you prepare for Sunday’s worship!

The Meyer Minute for February 16, 2017

“Do we discern the difference between coming to Jesus and coming to a meeting?”

Like the stone that stopped Goliath in his tracks, that question from Stephen W. Smith stopped me this morning. Does it hit you, that doing the Lord’s work is not the same as being with the Lord? That activities in your congregation, that working or studying at the seminary, that being busy for Jesus is not being with Jesus? An imbalance of grace received and church works to be done will lead you to exhaustion.

Look how Jesus taught balance to His first followers. “Then he went home, and the crowd gathered again, so that they could not even eat” (Mark 3:20). “And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.’” (Mark 6:31-32). Oswald Chambers: “Spiritual exhaustion never comes through sin but only through service, and whether or not you are exhausted will depend upon where you get your supplies” (February 9).

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” (Matthew 11:28-30 in “The Message,” quoted by Smith, “The Lazarus Life,” 79-80).

David took five stones with him but needed only one to get into Goliath’s head. It seems to take more stones to get into my head; how about you? Church work doesn’t save you; only Jesus does.

The Meyer Minute for February 15, 2017

The day after Valentine’s Day… Where’s the love?  A sermon I preached in 1999 about the family life of Katie and Martin Luther answers the question.

“Katie had her hands full! Psalm 128:2 says, “You will certainly eat what your own hands have provided.” The Luthers ate what their hands had provided. Martin took care of the garden. I’m sure he wasn’t totally dependable. His work, his writing, his travels, must have made him often forget the garden. I’m sure Katie had to step in. She also took care of the orchard. She caught and cleaned fish from a nearby pond. She took care of the barnyard animals and actually did the slaughtering herself. Yes, she had her hands full!

“There were the bills. Martin was naïve when it came to money. He once said, ‘I do not worry about debts because when Katie pays one, another comes.’ They took in student boarders to help pay some of those bills. More work for Katie. Martin routinely invited guests into their home. Of course, he didn’t ask about that. We men haven’t changed much through the centuries! And he was often sick, requiring her attention and care.

“But isn’t it comforting for you to hear that? That’s the way life is for us too… full of problems. But it’s in those troublesome situations of daily life that the blessings of God are most truly appreciated. St. Paul was Luther’s favorite biblical author because he laid out so clearly the message of salvation by grace through faith. God through St. Paul says, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me’ (2 Corinthians 12:9).”

Where’s the love? In believing hands full of today’s problems!

The Meyer Minute for February 14, 2017

Valentine’s Day has a special significance for our family. Today is grandson Connor’s birthday, now nine-years-old. Some of you have seen the Seminary’s publicity photo of me walking hand-in-hand with my grandson. That’s Connor. He makes Valentine’s Day especially personal for us.

“Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (John 11:5). People weren’t objects to Jesus, not to be used, not manipulated, not obstacles but people for whom He had feelings. He even showed His heart for His opponents. “He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5). Immanuel, God with us, has personal feelings for people.

If church people don’t show love, then our witness is empty talk, hypocritical. Much happens in life that hardens believing hearts. The reason is simple, God is pure love to us but the sin still lingering in us rejects God’s loving way for our lives (1 John 4:8; 3:4). Hence we Christians easily default to hardness of heart, coarseness, manipulation, being impersonal. The only corrective is physical, getting the purity of God’s Word down into our being. “Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22).

The Roman poet Virgil wrote, “Love conquers all.” God’s love transforms hardening times into occasions of love. “We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).

Happy Valentine’s Day to all, and Happy Birthday Connor! “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).  

The Meyer Minute for February 13, 2017

If you’re an active church member, how old are you? If you’re older, then your impression of the church was probably shaped in the 20^th century. If so, you may be frustrated when you see the institutional church struggling. If so, let’s try to put your frustration into perspective.

Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for President Reagan. In her latest column in the Wall Street Journal, she reflected on a book written by Dean Acheson, Secretary of State under President Harry Truman. World War II was over; no one knew what was ahead. Quoting from Noonan: “Everyone’s in the dark looking for the switch. When you’re in the middle of history the meaning of things is usually unclear…. In real time most things are obscure…. ‘Only slowly did it dawn upon us that the whole world structure and order that we had inherited from the nineteenth century was gone.’” (February 11-12; A13). World War II, Cold War, Post-Cold War, and today a new normal is emerging; we just don’t know yet what it is. “In the dark, looking for the switch.”

Page through the Old Testament and you see God’s people at the whim of governments. Wars, exiles, persecutions… Jesus Himself judged by the government. Social commentators agree that we are in a time of deep and profound change. Declining memberships, declining loyalty, declining dollars…some new normal is emerging. If I may venture my opinion: Church people sin to imagine that we are in the dark looking for the switch. “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105). The church needs to be in the word as never before! “Save us from weak resignation to the evils we deplore!” (“God of Grace and God of Glory”).

The Meyer Minute for February 10, 2017

The kerfuffle over Kellyanne Conway interests me from a pastoral point of view. Ms. Conway, an advisor to President Trump, gave a plug on Fox for Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. That goes against government ethics rules and now some congressional leaders want to investigate.

What’s puzzling, at least to me, is that people sin all the time. Set Ms. Conway aside; think about your fellow believers. They sin; you and I sin as well. That’s what we do, even Jesus-believing Christians. How do we deal with the sins of fellow believers? Generally we let them go. Someplace I’ve read Martin Luther said God gave us two eyelids so we’d sometimes close an eye to the sins of other people.

However, some sins need to be called out. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matthew 18:6). Jesus is talking about sins that cause a fellow believer to sin. Paul pleaded with the Corinthians because in “sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:12).

What to pass over and what to confront? Jesus teaches us to seek discernment in an atmosphere of forgiveness. “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone” (John 8:7).  Seek discernment humbly, prayerfully, through conversations filled with Scripture where all know Jesus is in the room with His forgiveness. These troubling cases make us yearn for heaven. “From sorrow, toil, and pain, and sin we shall be free.” Until then, “keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

The Meyer Minute for February 9, 2017

Claiming to be Christian carries responsibilities, and a chief duty is to obey the words of Jesus. St. Paul says that grace brings about “the obedience of faith” and St. Peter says Christians are people “having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth” (Romans 1:5; 1 Peter 1:22). However, we often follow our impulses and rationalize our disobedience.  

If you go to church Sunday… Why go? It’s so irrelevant! But if you go, here are some words that we would have liked Jesus to say. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ You haven’t murdered, so you’re good with God. I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother should post his anger on Twitter and Facebook. Whoever insults his brother should carry a grudge. And whoever says, ‘You fool’ should be celebrated for courage. Don’t come to terms quickly with your adversary, lest your anger turn into bitterness so deep-seated in your soul that it may be impossible to repair the damage your anger has done. Truly I say to you, go with your impulse and do not fear being handed over to the Judge.”

Jesus didn’t say that, did He? You can review His real words in Matthew 5:21-26, part of Sunday’s Gospel reading. Anger, grudges, slamming others on social media, going public when something should be private… Washington D.C. is putting the worst on display, further degrading our life together.  Sin multiplies sin. People who follow Jesus are different. The Spirit takes His words down into our being and changes us. Or does it? If it hasn’t yet, His word can. Who says church is irrelevant? It’s not, if you come in “the obedience of faith.”