The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for January 31, 2019

Why go to church every Sunday? Many of us grew up with that habit, and habit it is. Or was. Today many people have redefined regular church attendance as going once every few weeks. Attending less than weekly doesn’t mean you’ve lost saving faith and of course the ill and elderly get a pass. Our routines are busier than decades ago. Is there a compelling reason to go every Sunday?

Ancient Israel observed the Sabbath every week (Exodus 20:8-11; Deuteronomy 5:12-15), but that’s not enough to motivate most people from the heart. Biblical literacy has diminished, Americans don’t like the idea of obedience – Frank Sinatra sang, “I did it my way” – and so more and more people see no compelling reason to put church into their weekend plans. But there are reasons, and emotions and opinions are one.

Going to church every Sunday pulls a person back to the objective truths revealed to us by our Father in heaven. During the workaday week, people’s feelings and opinions reign supreme. You and I are constantly monitoring how we’re feeling. Eavesdrop on people’s conversations and you often hear them talking about how they’re feeling about someone or something. Daily devotions help keep the Word before us, but tally your time in daily devotion versus the emotions and peer pressure put on you day-in and day-out. On this side of eternity Christian life is a constant back-and-forth between emotions and opinions during the week and God’s revealed truth through preaching, teaching and fellowship on Sundays.

When St. Peter wrote to believers who lived in a non-Christian society, he focused on feelings versus God’s revealed truth.
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.” “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” We are “to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.” 1 Peter 1:14; 2:11; 4:2).

Back-and-forth between emotions and opinions and the call on Sunday to God’s truth. You can answer the call of the church bell every few weeks, but I’d find it scary to give my feelings that much freedom.

 

 

 

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The Meyer Minute for January 30, 2019

“Hey Opa, what are you doing?” “Oh, hi, Connor. Just looking at Facebook.”

“Opa, you always tell us you don’t like smartphones. You say, ‘Put down that darn thing and look at me.’ And here you are with your face in the phone!”

"Yeah, Connor, but I’m looking at one of the videos you put up. Listen to it. ‘Thank you to the people who donated to me and made me half-way to my goal. Some people who donated are Great-grandma Aunt Pam (and others)…. So I’m shaving my head on Thursday the 31st for St. Baldrick’s. The money I raise will help kids who have cancer. Thank you.’

“Connor, you’ve got a good camera presence, and I’m proud of you. Proud that you’re doing St. Baldrick’s. But you know what really makes me feel good?”

“No, Opa. What?” “That you’re saying, ‘Thank you.’ You’ve put up several videos about St. Baldrick’s and you say ‘thank you’ in every one of them. In one way or another, everything we have has been given to us, and so we are thankful, especially to the people who are donating to help fight childhood cancer. I can’t begin to imagine how thankful for your help are the kids fighting cancer.”

“Opa, are you getting your head shaved?” “Yup, I’ll be with you. Tomorrow afternoon, around 5:00 or so.” “How much money have you raised?” “Uh, not as much as you. In fact, my mother, your great-grandmother gave to you and not to me, her precious little pumpkin!”

“Get over it, Opa. It’s not about you! See you tomorrow!”

PS: Here’s a link to St. Baldrick’s.

Dale https://www.stbaldricks.org/participan…/mypage/1000911/2019…

Connor

https://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/998636/2019…

The Meyer Minute for January 29, 2019

Yesterday five police officers were shot in Houston. When terrible shootings happen, and sadly they’ve become all too common, people in places high and low encourage us to pray, and we do, praying for those devastated by the violence and praying for peace. After deadly shootings in San Bernardino several years ago, the headline in the New York Daily News blared, “God isn’t fixing this.”

Of course, God isn’t fixing this! God is saying, See how your life goes, America, if you don’t live in true fear of Me. Read what Paul said about the worldly wise people of his day: “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks for him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…. Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind…” and then follows a catalog of sins that plague our lives still today (Romans 1:21, 22, 28-32).

Do you think gun control is the solution? Or the opposite, every citizen armed? Both solutions are superficial because they presume humanity is OK, that we can fix this, ignoring that these horrific crimes are symptoms of a problem between us and God. God has a fix, but as long as we imagine we can fix evil on our own, God will keep giving us over to our self-willed ways. Everything will stay imprisoned under sin (Galatians 3:22) until more and more Americans shudder in fear before the Creator and Judge. That’s the start of repentance, not just sorrow but sorrow spoken to God. Then God speaks His fix, and we are changed for life.

“If people desert God, God must desert people. The only way He could avoid this ‘divine necessity’ (if we dare call it that) was to place our sins on His own dear Son and desert Him in our place” (Francis Rossow, “Preaching the Creative Gospel Creatively,” 31). There’s God’s fix, and you and I need to be in it.

“Stir up Your power, O Lord, and come, that by Your protection we may be rescued from the threatening perils of our sins.”

 

 

 

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The Meyer Minute for January 28, 2019

Jesus “looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart” (Mark 3:5). When I wake up, it takes time and a cup of coffee to get my mind focused. This morning my thoughts eventually settled on “hardness of heart.” Jesus experienced it and so do we.

Yesterday marked the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945. Vanessa Gera of the Associated Press writes, “Recent surveys show that knowledge of the atrocities during World War II is declining generally.” A study in Canada “found that 52 percent of millennials in Canada cannot name even one concentration camp or ghetto and 62 percent of millennials did not know that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.” “One in twenty adults in Britain do not believe the Holocaust took place.” Ms. Gera says studies in the United States have similar findings. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, A6).

There’s something deeper here than not knowing history; it’s denying what’s before your eyes. Eyewitnesses and photos show atrocities, but you can deny what you see. Denying what you see – this is important – is about far more than historical events. It is also about our religious attitudes.

After the resurrection, “the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted” (Matthew 28:16-17). That wasn’t the first time Jesus encountered hardness of heart. He encountered it regularly in the scribes and Pharisees. When “he looked around at them with anger,” Jesus was grieved because the Pharisees preferred their religious legalisms to His compassion for all. He encountered hardness of heart so much so that He seems to have thrown up His hands in frustration. “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn” (Matthew 11:17).

We are supposed to live by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7), but it’s also quite biblical that what we sees drives us to see our need for a Savior and to trust God’s promises in Jesus (Galatians 3:24; 2 Corinthians 1:20, 24). “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside 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’” (Mark 4:11-12). Dear God, let not my heart be hard!

The Meyer Minute for January 25, 2019

Does the news out of Washington D.C. reassure you that our government works?

We get three newspapers, and today’s headlines are not reassuring. “Two Plans, No Deal.” “Senate Bills Fail, Raising Urgency of Impasse Talks.” “Talks Resume As Bills to End Shutdown Fail.” Having relatives not being paid because of the shutdown, the sooner this ends, the better.

As unsettling as the D.C. drama is, it is also reassuring. James Madison, one of the most influential of our founding fathers, asked, “What is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” We’re seeing human nature as it really is, combative, self-serving, ineffective, and whatever other adjectives you’d like to add. And it’s not just in D.C. You can see the ugly side of human nature in the circles in which you live and work.

Madison and the other founders foresaw this. Hence, they designed a constitution, as Madison wrote, with a “necessary partition of power among the several departments.” The federal government was structured so “its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.” “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.” We’re seeing that in spades, and it’s the way we the people are protected from factions.

I’d encourage pastors to consider this as we prepare sermons and Bible classes for Sunday. To merely say, “We’re sinners and Jesus died for our sins” is true but doesn’t bring Law and Gospel home. To point to what we’re seeing in government, “the greatest of all reflections on human nature,” is a real life illustration of our fundamentally flawed sinful nature. “Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (Romans 7:18). The Gospel reassure us personally and as the Body of Christ that we’re made new creatures in Christ. It’s another reason why weekly worship is so necessary in our dysfunctional times. “It is well with my soul.”

Madison: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government” (Federalist Paper 51).

The Meyer Minute for January 24, 2019

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 Lutheran Hour Ministries 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 cuddly 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.

Never toss the Bible! It’s the book of God’s promises, played out in the stories of ancient people and now at work among us, even when our feelings about God aren’t warm and cuddly. Read the promises and patiently trust God will keep His good words to you. “If we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

The Meyer Minute for January 22, 2019

A headline from the Wall Street Journal: “The Week Resolutions Die: Look for Gyms to Get Less Busy; What It Takes to Make a New Routine Stick.”

That’ll preach! Long ago, a line from a prayer got into my head. “Our deeds do not perform what our words promise.” Are your Sunday professions matched by your sanctified life during the week? “Although we know that we are weak and our deeds do not perform what our words promise,” the prayer adds, “give us faith’s courage and hope to try anew.”

Can you identify the gap between your Sunday professions and how you live during the week? To help, Martin Luther says, “Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments: Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done any harm?” (Small Catechism, Confession).

The gap between what we say in church and do in our workaday life is forgiven by God for Jesus’ sake. That’s forgiveness but not full repentance. Repentance becomes full when you change your behavior. Jesus said to a woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11). But how do we do this, especially when we’re caught up in the pressure and emotions of weekday living? For this amendment of life, since “we are weak and our deeds do not perform what our words promise,” we put biblical words of life direction into our heads and hearts, and ask the Spirit of God to enable us to live by them. After Jesus forgave the woman and told her to sin no more, He taught about freedom from sin. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

“The Week Resolutions Die” also reported “People who falter on their resolutions in January don’t necessarily wait a year to start over. Last year, gym check-ins on Facebook in March surpassed even those for January.” That’s an encouraging sign.

“Give us faith’s courage and hope to try anew.”
Lord Jesus, think on me / And purge away my sin;
From worldly passions set me free / And make me pure within.
(Lutheran Service Book, 610, 1)

The Meyer Minute for January 22, 2019

A headline from the Wall Street Journal: “The Week Resolutions Die: Look for Gyms to Get Less Busy; What It Takes to Make a New Routine Stick.”

That’ll preach! Long ago, a line from a prayer got into my head. “Our deeds do not perform what our words promise.” Are your Sunday professions matched by your sanctified life during the week? “Although we know that we are weak and our deeds do not perform what our words promise,” the prayer adds, “give us faith’s courage and hope to try anew.”

Can you identify the gap between your Sunday professions and how you live during the week? To help, Martin Luther says, “Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments: Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done any harm?” (Small Catechism, Confession).

The gap between what we say in church and do in our workaday life is forgiven by God for Jesus’ sake. That’s forgiveness but not full repentance. Repentance becomes full when you change your behavior. Jesus said to a woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more” (John 8:11). But how do we do this, especially when we’re caught up in the pressure and emotions of weekday living? For this amendment of life, since “we are weak and our deeds do not perform what our words promise,” we put biblical words of life direction into our heads and hearts, and ask the Spirit of God to enable us to live by them. After Jesus forgave the woman and told her to sin no more, He taught about freedom from sin. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

“The Week Resolutions Die” also reported “People who falter on their resolutions in January don’t necessarily wait a year to start over. Last year, gym check-ins on Facebook in March surpassed even those for January.” That’s an encouraging sign.

“Give us faith’s courage and hope to try anew.”
Lord Jesus, think on me / And purge away my sin;
From worldly passions set me free / And make me pure within.
(Lutheran Service Book, 610, 1)

The Meyer Minute for January 21, 2019

“Bid Thou our sad divisions cease.”

That prayer from the Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” haunts me this Martin Luther King Day. The popular hymn is based upon the ancient “O Antiphons,” used by the Church on the days leading up to Christmas, to the birth of the Prince of Peace. Juxtaposing that prayer for unity with the countless controversies reported and unreported this Martin Luther King Day, you have to wonder.

“Bid Thou our sad divisions cease.” Jesus has done that, has asked that our divisions cease. “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceable with all” (Romans 12:18). “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God” (Matthew 5:9). The problem is on our side.

Some quotations from James Davison Hunter of the University of Virginia. There is “a tendency toward the politicization of nearly everything.” “The amount of law that exists in any society is always inversely related to the coherence and stability of its common culture: law increases as cultural consensus decreases” (“To Change the World,” 102). Simply, America has lost its center. Trying to fill the void are partisans who use law and political maneuvering to achieve their own vision of how things should be. How is it turning out?

“O King of the nations, and their desire, the cornerstone making both one: Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.” In many ways the Christian church and its congregations reflect our culture’s divisions, but the church has the central focus, unless we lose our first love (Revelation 2:4). “O King of the nations, the cornerstone.” God makes peace with us through Emmanuel, through His Son Jesus. That peace broke down the dividing wall between Jew and Gentile in the New Testament is the potential contribution of today’s church to helplessly divided America. The church playing in American politics is not the answer, read Hunter, but your congregation can contribute, in your community and in your own personal relationships. “Bid Thou our sad divisions cease.” It starts at home, starts for Christians with Jesus.

The Meyer Minute for January 18, 2019

I learned a great new thing this morning. Writing about the pro-life cause, Rachel MacNair described “cognitive consonance.” That was new to me.

I understand “cognitive dissonance,” that internal conflict you feel when things aren’t fitting together nicely in your mind. Saul McLeod gives an example of cognitive dissonance, smoking. “When people smoke (behavior) and they know that smoking causes cancer (cognition), they are in a state of cognitive dissonance.” (“Simply Psychology” on Internet). Life is filled with unsettling contradictions, cognitive dissonance.

But now Ms. MacNair describes a dynamic I find very enlightening. “People have a drive to have their thoughts match what’s going on. They don’t like cognitive dissonance, seeking instead cognitive consonance. If they see that their actions and the actions of those around them have changed, then they’re inclined to change their beliefs or attitudes to fit those actions.”

That describes what’s been going on in the pro-life cause in recent decades. Ms. MacNair documents that the number of abortion clinics has declined, the total number of abortions has declined, the rate per 1000 women has declined, and “The number of women having abortions for the first time has fallen even more dramatically. The proportion of women getting a repeat abortion has been steadily rising. At last report, it was around 45 percent of the total.”

“As social trends move toward abortion reduction, people can regard the adoption of a pro-life position as joining a positive trend.” That’s cognitive consonance. A person learns what more and more people are thinking and finds it inviting to become pro-life. That’s why Ms. MacNair’s article is titled, “Our Pro-Life Future” (“First Things,” June/July 2018; 41-44).

“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). What a banner for the cause! The words come from Jesus, and His word to us all is forgiveness. Many women feel guilty about their abortion. Many men come to realize that it’s wrong to leave a woman to struggle alone with pregnancy. And how many people have casually bought into “a woman’s right to choose?” Not only statistics, but the Spirit of our Lord Jesus can turn cognitive dissonance into cognitive consonance. “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17).