The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for June 28, 2019

“Forgot your password?” I paid two bills this morning but when I came to the third… “Incorrect password.” So I tried again, failed again, and decided to click for a new password.

Psalm 25 is a reset, one that I’ve come to treasure over the years. The psalmist was being criticized by people and was at a loss how to move forward, but he knew how to reset his attitude. “To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me” (verses 1-2). In the push and pull, the back and forth of dealing with obvious sinners, the psalmist looked up.

He knew ways forward, worldly ways, political ways, power plays to deal with his detractors, but he looked up for a better way forward. “Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me” (verses 4-5). “Lord, take my hand and lead me” (LSB 722, 1). Settle that prayer down into your troubled emotions. You don’t have to solve your problem, whatever it may be. Don’t ignore it but don’t imagine you’ll be your own Savior. “Wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14). In time the light will go on, the light from above. “For you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long” (verse 5). AKA, your situation may not be better when today ends, but you have the spirit to wait. The Father of Jesus your Savior knows your situation and knows all the players in your life better than you do.

“Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old” (verse 6). Note the plural, “they.” Mercies are many, the specific things that the unseen God of grace does for you. Little things, not heaven-rending things, just little acts of loving-kindnesses that do come down from heaven to you. Sometimes His mercies are delivered by others, sometimes perceived only by the eyes of faith, and many realized only in hindsight. Troubled soul, mercies to you!

Like my detractors, I’m also a sinner. “Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord” (verse 7). Since the Father has embraced you with the forgiving love of Jesus, “We are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). “Your password has been reset.”

The Meyer Minute for June 27, 2019

Many people identify themselves as “Christian.” That’s fine; “in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts 11:26). I’ve come to appreciate even more those who identify themselves as “followers of Jesus.” To step out the door in the morning knowing that you’re following Jesus means a day of interesting discipleship, something the static word “Christian” doesn’t convey.

Peter, James and John had no clue what was ahead when Jesus asked them to follow Him up on a mountain. “He was transfigured before them, and his clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, and they were talking with Jesus” (Mark 9:2-4). Think of yourself as following Jesus and you’re promised a radiant white experience some day to come. “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” (Revelation 7:13). The answer is they’re people who followed Jesus.

What to do in view of coming glory? The disciples on the mountain were terrified by the sight; they experienced the fear of God. “They were terrified, and a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud. ‘This is my beloved Son, listen to him’” (Mark 9:6-7). As you step out the door, follow wherever He will lead you today, and all the while you follow, “listen to him” in your mind and memory. He has the words of eternal life (cf. John 6:68). “And suddenly, looking around, they no longer saw anyone with them but Jesus only” (Mark 9:8).

Before they were called “Christians,” followers of Jesus were known as “People of the Way” (Acts 9:2; 22:4; 24:14). Who knows what God has in store for you today as you follow Jesus, “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6)? “No eye has seen or ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9). Step out the door following Jesus!

The Meyer Minute for June 26, 2019

Last week I had no speaking engagement, so I attended our church, obviously. That’s what followers of Jesus do, go to church. After the 8:00 service, I noticed about half-a-dozen clusters of people chatting with one another at various places in the sanctuary. They were all people who worship every week. When I went downstairs to the fellowship center, I saw the same thing but in bigger numbers. More clusters of people visiting and a line of chatty folks getting coffee. This is the picture of a healthy congregation.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reported, “Americans are going to church less often….” “The steady, long-term decline in church attendance is confirmed in the most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Just 29% of Americans now say they attend religious service once a week or more often. That is down from 41% in 2000. At the same time, the share of Americans saying they never attend religious services has risen to 26%, almost double the 14% who said so back in 2000. The rise in churchlessness is most dramatic among young Americans,” 18-34. “Now the share of these younger Americans who never attend religious services has more than doubled, to 36%”

Those clusters of people I saw? They were older people. Our congregation is blessed to have a parochial school, and many healthy congregations without a school have vibrant child and young adult programs. Are young people integrated into the weekend worship of the congregation? Or do they see worship as something for old people. If they’re not taught to cluster and chat in church, where will they do it when they’re older?

Gerald Seib commented on the WSJ/NBC poll. “For generations, churches and synagogues were among the main institutions around which Americans organized their lives. More than just houses of worship, they have been places where Americans unite, find identity and often educate their children. The decline of such communal bonds alters how many Americans identify themselves and find like-minded compatriots.” (WSJ, June 25; A4) That agrees with many social commentators I’ve read. The mission of a congregation today is more than dispensing Word and Sacrament, as eternally important as that is. More than before in our lifetimes, we go to church because this is the community we need in this bewildering, impersonal world, a safe, loving community in Him and with one another. Obviously?

The Meyer Minute for June 25, 2019

Greek began yesterday. New seminarians who didn’t have Greek in college have come to campus to learn how to read the New Testament in its original language. We take reading for granted but in the early days of the church most people couldn’t read or write. William Harris has estimated that about 10% were literate. “The written culture of antiquity was in the main restricted to a privileged minority—though in some places it was a large minority—and it co-existed with elements of an oral culture” (in “Books and Readers in the Early Church,” Harry Y. Gamble, 4). Are we better off today because we can read? Yes, but…

The Greek philosopher Plato, who lived in the fourth century before Christ, wrote this about the invention of writing: “This invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practice their memory. Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding. (“Phaedrus,” 275B)

Ponder it this way. Because we now print the Word of God, bind it in a book, and put it on the shelf, we are tempted to think of God’s Word as a source of information. Looking for some religious information? Got a problem and want a spiritual fix? Find something in the book. But God never intended His Word to be only a source of religious information. “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Since most of the first Christians couldn’t read, they would memorize the Word far more than people do today. That Word in them transformed their lives in ways words on the shelf do not. “These words that I command you this day shall be on your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:6). For the first Christians, the life of faith was oral. Key passages were on their lips because the Word was in their hearts and minds.

“Always (be) prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Or do we say, “I’ll get back to you as soon as I do some religious research?”

The Meyer Minute for June 24, 2019

“Oh, Connor. I’m so sorry.” “Thanks, Opa.” “Does it still hurt?” “Yes.” “Tell our friends what happened.”

“I fell out of bed.” “That’s an understatement. What kind of bed?” “I was on the top of a bunkbed.” “You cut your chin and sprained your hand, or did it break?” “The swelling is going down. I have to go back to the doctor today.”

“Strange, it happened at church camp, right?” “Huh, Opa?” “Well, church camp is about learning more about God, but His angels didn’t catch you. It’s a real adult situation. You’re going into sixth grade, but life is full of bad things happening.” “Opa, you’re not comforting me!”

“Adults wonder, ‘Where’s God when you need Him?’ We think He should do this, or should have done that, but that’s not what you find in the Bible. In the Bible God is with people who are hurting, people with physical and emotional problems, people who have suffered losses, people who have been rejected by others. Look at all the times Jesus spends with people who are down and out.”

“Down and out, Opa? You making fun?”

“Sorry, I’m trying to think this through. The only answer I know is that at every age we trust God is our loving heavenly Father, even when everything seems to be going wrong. ‘He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?’ (Romans 8:32). Jesus suffered, but rose, ascended and suffering is behind Him. We’re following Jesus; one day we’ll have no more suffering, no more pain, no more falls.”

“I’m tired, Opa.” “I see that, Connor. Lie down and rest.”

“Children of the heavenly Father / Safely in His bosom gather;

Nestl’ing bird nor star in heaven / Such a refuge e’er was given.

 

“Neither life nor death shall ever / From the Lord His children sever;

Unto them His grace He showeth, / And their sorrows all He knoweth.”

(Lutheran Service Book, 725, 1, 3)

The Meyer Minute for June 21, 2019

“I want that when you’re gone.” Daughter Katie was pointing to my Greek New Testament, the one book I use more than any other.

Sandra Wolcott Willingham had an heirloom Bible but gave it away. It had been passed down through the family from her great-great-grandfather, Rev. Noyes W. Miner, a Baptist minister who lived in Springfield, Illinois, across the street from Abraham and Mary Lincoln. Mrs. Lincoln said Miner was “very much beloved by my husband.” The Bible was given to President Lincoln in 1864 when he attended an event to raise money to care for wounded soldiers. Inscribed on the cover, “Presented to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by the Ladies of the Citizens Volunteer Hospital of Philadelphia.” The next year, 1865, President Lincoln was assassinated. Seven years thereafter, Mary Lincoln gave the Bible to Rev. Miner. Now it’s been given by his descendants to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, and yesterday went on display.

Concordia Seminary has a Bible you can see when you visit campus, the personal Bible of Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s large, three volumes, because it’s actually a Bible with commentary by scholar Abraham Calov. Bach died in 1750, and somehow this Bible came to a family in Michigan. The family had no idea of this Bible’s history, only that it was old, but when they showed it to a minister, he recognized on the title page the handwritten initials of Bach. It was the early 1930’s, Hitler gaining control of Germany, so the idea of sending the Bible back to Germany was nixed. Instead, the family gave it to Concordia Seminary where it’s been treasured for decades, safely kept in our rare book room.

When Katie said she wanted my Greek New Testament, I thought, “Fine, I’ll be dead and won’t know.” True enough, but reflecting on the Lincoln and Bach Bibles, I’ve a fuller view of heirloom Bibles. A Bible handed down in your family, or your own Bible that will be treasured by your children or grandchildren, is your witness about your faith to future generations. Bach jotted some notes in his Bible that testified to his faith. Lincoln was a Bible reader, and Rev. Miner related that Mrs. Lincoln said her husband at Ford’s Theater told her he desired to visit Jerusalem to “see the places hallowed by the footsteps of the Savior.” (New York Times, June 20; A23) Is there a Bible your family knows you use, an heirloom they’ll want as a witness to your faith?

The Meyer Minute for June 20, 2019

A word of appreciation for First Responders…

I woke up earlier than usual this morning, and went out to sit on the porch with my first cup of coffee. Our house sits across the street from the American Legion post, usually a quiet street except for the Legion’s Friday Fish Fry and an occasional wedding reception. Quiet this morning, until 3:47 am when the Legion’s alarm went off. The alarm was loud enough to scare away any would-be burglar, not to mention waking up the neighborhood. Within five minutes two police cars arrived, in ten minutes a Legion member arrived, and after 15 minutes it appeared that nothing was wrong.

Police, fire department, paramedics… First Responders are essential to a community and nation’s well-being. When a First Responder arrives, chances are you won’t know him or her personally but you welcome them as friends because you know they’ve come to help. When holidays bring family and friends together, First Responders often aren’t present because they’re on duty for us. And if they are able to join the party, they’re on call and can’t totally relax. Over the years I’ve spoken with several of these dedicated people and they’ve shared stories, always leaving me to ponder the different kind of life and work they have. Most of us haven’t gone into the situations they regularly encounter, but we know it’s our duty to be grateful and appreciate the service they give us all. They are another evidence that the Creator loves and cares for all He has made.

Merciful Father, we commend to Your keeping all who work to bring rescue and relief. Give them courage in danger, skill in difficulty, and compassion in service. Sustain them with bodily strength and calmness of mind that they may perform their work to the well-being of those in need so that lives may be saved and communities restored; through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (“Pastoral Care Companion,” 516)

The Meyer Minute for June 19, 2019

A group of men here in Collinsville get together every Tuesday afternoon. When I get into my car to go there, my phone pings and tells me how long it will take to get there. On Sunday mornings when we get into the car to go to church, the phone by itself tells us how long to get there. A friend just had a device implanted in her heart. It’s wonderful what modern technology can do, but here’s something revealing. That device regular transmits data about her heart to… to whom? The doctor? Probably to some computer someplace. In catechism class we learned that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. Those are increasingly the qualities of technology in our lives.

With that in mind, take a look at Psalm 139. “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up” and so on (verse 1). Change the words, “O Lord,” to “O Technology,” and you see the huge challenge to faith. If you read verses 1 through 12 as if they were addressed to technology, you sense the deceit of Satan. Technology can be great, but we’re tempted to put it in God’s place in our lives. Does the psalm give us a reason for old-time faith in God?

Indeed it does. God is personal to you, to me. “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (verses 13, 16). Behind your conception was the Creator of all things. In Baptism your name was written in His book of life. That’s more personal than calling up your medical records or business account in the computer. “You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). Body, soul and spirit, your name is in His book of life. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!” (verse 17).

One reason we study contemporary culture and the Bible is to reveal today’s subtle temptations to our Christian faith. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (verses 23-24). Who’s most omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent in your life?

The Meyer Minute for June 18, 2019

The tradition of reading the Athanasian Creed on Trinity Sunday produces numbness but also questions. One sure question is about these closing words, “Those who have done good things will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil things into eternal fire.”

“Pastor, how can we confess that? We know we’re not saved by our works!” A teaching moment. Consider other passages, passages we “saved by grace” believers can gloss over. “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). “‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’ And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” (1 Peter 1:6-17). Look at a concordance or a Bible with cross-references in the margins. You’ll find judgment by works through God’s Word.

I have two questions I sometimes use to explain works and grace. First question: Are sinners judged according to works? Church people nod their heads “no,” but I quote the passages cited above. Now I have their attention! Second question: Will you be saved by works? Heads strenuously nod “no.” Ah, wrong again. You will be saved by works, not yours but Christ’s.

“Thy works, not mine, O Christ, / Speak gladness to this heart;

They tell me all is done, / They bid my fear depart.

To whom save Thee, / Who canst alone / For sin atone,

Lord, shall I flee? (Lutheran Service Book 565, 1)

 

Put the troublesome quotation in its Christ-centered, faith context. “He suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose from the dead, ascended into the heavens, is seated at the right hand of the Father, from where he will come to judge the living and the dead. At his coming all human beings will rise with their bodies and will give an account of their own deeds. Those who have done good will enter into eternal life, and those who have done evil things into eternal fire. This is the catholic faith; a person cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully.” That’s saved by totally by grace, by God’s gift of Jesus, through faith. Take judgment by works seriously and you’ll cling to Jesus for dear life!

The Meyer Minute for June 17, 2019

Some years ago Diane said, “Dale, we’re old enough now that we don’t have to do what everyone else wants us to do.” I put that into practice some weeks ago when I stopped writing the Minute. The spring semester totally had exhausted me. Nothing bad, just grueling. So I heeded Diane’s advice. “The Sabbath was made for man; not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

Hello, again! Any day you’re alive is blessed, but happily yesterday was both our 46th wedding anniversary and Father’s Day. After church in Collinsville, we drove to Venedy, Illinois, the little country town where Diane and I spent our first seven years. On our way, we drove through New Memphis, Illinois, where St. Peter Lutheran Church, part of a dual parish with St. Salvator Lutheran Church in Venedy. “There’s Skip’s house.” “Oh, that’s new.” “The church looks good,” and similar comments the whole day. St. Salvator was putting on its Father’s Day Chicken Dinner. Special memory there: When we lived in Venedy, Diane suggested the church put on a chicken dinner. They liked the idea – Lutherans liked a new idea? They did; thank you, Lord! – and yesterday marked their 44th annual Chicken Dinner. Names tested our memories but conversations were precious, absolutely precious.

We saw the Scriptures fulfilled, “One generation shall commend your works to another” (Psalm 145:4). The third century church father Origen wrote, “However much obedience we offer (to our parents), we have not yet repaid the recompense of thanks for being born, for being carried, for drawing light, for being nurtured and perhaps educated and trained in honest skills. And perhaps by the same originators (parents), we came to know God and came to the Church of God and heard the word of the divine law.” (“The Fathers of the Church,” 216). We saw that in spades. People active in church because their fathers and mothers had passed to them “the one thing needful” (Luke 10:42).

“We don’t have to do what everyone else wants us to do,” is advice I’m trying to practice, but there are death and taxes. Some of us have our quarterly tax estimates due today; I’ve sent mine in. We wrapped up our visit to St. Salvator by walking through the cemetery. Memories. No need to describe it; you understand. It all made for a special wedding anniversary, a special time of looking back and seeing how good the Lord has been to us. “The Sabbath was made for man.”