The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for May 29, 2020

Dear Father, thank You for being so close to us in our problems.

I confess my weak faith; so often we wonder, where are You in our problems? The violence erupting from the death of George Floyd, the deep pain it reveals in so many people, anguishes us for our common life together. You have said, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:24). We don’t see Your will being done. And this in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic covering America with the pall of death. We grieve the loved ones lost and lay-offs terrify us about our future. When will You “swallow up death forever and…wipe away tears from all faces” (Isaiah 25:8)? And other troubles in my life… Oh indeed, I live in this moment as if You are not near, as if You’re not leading me.

Father in heaven, Sunday we’ll be assured again of Your close presence. As You are omnipresent; Your Holy Spirit is omnipresent. “For the spirit of the Lord fills the world, is all embracing, and knows whatever is said” (Apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, 1:7; NABRE). Close by my side, You hear our words and sighs of pain, of grief, of fear, uttered in weakness of faith. That old Adam doubter still lingers in my being. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him” (1 Corinthians 2:14), but Your Spirit has given me new birth, has rolled over me with the justifying waters of Jesus. “But 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). Your Spirit hears my sighs, my words and speaks to me of Jesus.

So my dear Father, this child of Yours looks out, sees the news, sees our troubles, sees our torn society. My eyes see what they see, but Pentecost assures me that You are close, in my life, in my being, and in Your Church with the hope and help of Jesus. We live trusting the eternal life and justice that You promise us in Him. Oh, we need Pentecost! Amen, it shall be so!

The Meyer Minute for May 28, 2020

Do you remember staying home from grade school because you were sick? If it was for several days, like when I had chicken pox or scarlet fever, my mom would go to school and get my assignments. What puzzled me was that I spent an hour or so doing homework. Why, then, am I spending six hours in school? The answer: Being together with classmates and learning about life from our teacher.

I have the same feeling now. Shut down at home, teaching and meeting virtually is very efficient. Get on Zoom, have your meeting, and then close out the program. Worshipping on line gives me more time too. No need to put on suit and tie (I haven’t adjusted to casual clothes for church), just watch the 45 minute stream, close out and go do whatever I want. Why not keep this up? Answer: Togetherness.

The Creator made us social beings. Think about the Ten Commandments. Except for the First, which is about our relationship to God, all the other commandments have a social dimension. Think about the Lord’s Prayer. “Our Father” it begins, not “my Father.” The prayer has plurals. “Give us this day our daily bread,” and so on. The pandemic reminds us not to take physical closeness for granted. We were made to be together.

Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World is a new book by Dr. Vivek Murthy, former Surgeon General of the United States. I haven’t read the book but did read a review by Matthew Rees of Dartmouth University (Wall Street Journal, May 26; A15). One study says 61% of Americans “feel lonely or socially isolated….” A lonely person feels shame, which Dr. Murthy says “can wreak havoc on our physical and emotional lives”… and creates “a cascade of consequences for the individual and for society.”

“At a time when technology supposedly fosters new levels of interpersonal connectivity, how did we get to this place?” More important, how do we get out of this place? The reviewer says Dr. Murthy “does describe organizations and initiatives focused on overcoming the differences between people and deepening their bonds.” Isn’t that what your congregation does? Gathered together before God, we learn how to interact with other people and together pray to our Father. The Gospel of Jesus is not a virtual experience. It’s flesh and blood Good News for us creatures, shared within our church family and inviting all lonely people to His love.

The Meyer Minute for May 26, 2020

Swarms of beach goers over the weekend suggest some people imagine they’re invincible. They’ve had their fun and now are bringing the contagion home to us? What’s true physically is also true spiritually. I often tell students that I go to church desperate for spiritual insight and help. “Oh for a faith that will not shrink” goes an old hymn, but in many moments my faith does shrink.

So, Sunday I perked up at the reading from 1 Peter. “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what shall become of the ungodly and the sinner?” (4:18). Your salvation is not a slam dunk. Peter was writing to Christians who were under intense pressure to conform to popular spirituality and defect from living hope in Christ and the practices of His church. Sadly, some did defect, went with the crowds. “If the righteous is scarcely saved…” Peter’s entire epistle is a plea to stay with Jesus and the church.

Like physical contagion, spiritual contagion can spread among us. We’ve been living for decades in a society that imagined it was getting along nicely without God. The first weeks of shutdown many watched the streamed services, but now I wonder if “attendance” has declined? And when churches do reopen, will we all come back? Old Lutheran theologians spoke about “Epicurean indifference.” Epicurus was a Roman philosopher whose followers pursued happiness with no thought of the gods. Are some of us so desirous to find happiness out-and-about that we’ll be indifferent to getting back to physical church when it’s safe to do so? “If the righteous is scarcely saved…”

The goal of faith is the salvation of your souls (1 Peter 1:9). Amidst spiritual indifference, Jesus shows us where we get a faith that will not shrink. “I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:14-17). Fear the contagion of “Epicurean indifference.” “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you” (Philippians 2:12-13).

The Meyer Minute for May 22, 2020

A somber Memorial Day weekend invites Americans to rethink how we act toward others.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you” (John 15:12-14).

Normally this is a happy holiday, with get-togethers, pools opening, summer beginning. And yes, we honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the sake of our freedom. Our parades, ceremonies and patriotic displays of the flag are sincere, but soon we’re back to whatever pleasant things we’ve planned for the long weekend. Normally we’re distanced from the sacrifice of laying down your life for another. Not this weekend.

Who cannot see that “greater love” shown by those on the front lines against the coronavirus? While many of us are staying distant, doctors, nurses, police, EMTs, and many others are putting their health and lives on the line to serve our society. Like those wearing military uniforms who died for us, today’s heroes wearing personal protection equipment also command our deepest, lasting respect. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.”

Last week our Board of Regents met. As we were talking about the impact of the pandemic upon churches and the Seminary, Dr. Paul Edmon brought up an article he had read. The article suggests that one possible result of this present crisis could be a revival of religious practice in America. Time will tell, but think what a resurgence of religion would do. It would diminish the block-headed partisanship that has harmed our life together and kept us from uniting with one another to serve the common good. How many Americans will use this somber Memorial Day weekend to rethink how we act toward one another?

If you and I are called to sacrifice, we will, for Jesus’ sake. “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide… These things I command you, so that you will love one another” (John 15:15-17).

The Meyer Minute for May 20, 2020

Starting with the Kennedy assassination, TV commentator Ari Melber looked at national tragedies. Past national tragedies were usually specific acts that immediately plunged the nation into grief. The pandemic is different. Deaths continue to rise beyond our comprehension. This tragedy goes on month-by-month. We’re all coping with day-to-day issues of living in lockdown. We are not having time to grieve. To be healed on the other side, we need to take time now to grieve. Some prayers from the liturgy for a funeral service.

Give to the families who mourn comfort in their grief and a sure confidence in Your loving care that, casting all their sorrow on You, they may know the consolation of Your love. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Give courage and faith to the bereaved, that within the communion of Your Church they may have strength to meet the days ahead in the assurance of a holy and certain hope and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love who have departed in the faith. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Help us, we pray, in the midst of things we cannot understand, to believe and find comfort in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

Draw near to us in our deepest sorrow and comfort us in these tragic deaths with the protection of the cross and resurrection. Lord, in Your mercy, hear our prayer.

O God of all grace, You sent Your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to bring life and immortality to light. We give You thanks that by His death He destroyed the power of death and by His resurrection He opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Strengthen us in the confidence that because He lives we shall live also, and that neither death nor life nor things present nor things to come will be able to separate us from Your love, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

(taken, with some adaptations, from the Lutheran Service Book)

The Meyer Minute for May 19, 2020

One phrase I don’t hear very often from church people is, “Lord willing.”

The pandemic is a terrible reality check. We’re not in control of our lives as much as we may have thought we were. There are plenty of stories about people who ignored physical distancing and became infected with COVID-19. Church people too. Imagining themselves in control, they were not. “And he told them a parable, saying, ‘The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16-21).

The rich man was confident he could make his plans for the future come true, but the pandemic has us all looking ahead with doubt. When will there be a vaccine? When can we all get tested so we know whether we have the coronavirus or not? What will the new normal look like? For every worried question we have about our future, there are many prognosticators. Some are experts trained in their fields; others are people not so qualified but confident filling the media with their opinions. Whatever, most of us are realizing we’re not in God-like control of the future.

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ – yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:13-15).

Church people do a lot of talking about witnessing to our faith. Using “Lord willing” would be a good way to open up a conversation with someone who doesn’t really know the God who comes to us mortals in Jesus.

The Meyer Minute for May 15, 2020

Busy days on campus! Thursday evening is the reception for graduates and their families on the side lawn of the President’s House. This morning is the “Theological Diploma Service” in chapel when students taking their first calls are given diplomas attesting to their fitness for ministry. At noon is the “Honorees Luncheon,” recognizing special people from the church-at-large whom the faculty has chosen for special honors. This evening at 7:00 is Commencement. Sure hope it doesn’t rain! And in the times between these joyous events, the Board of Regents is meeting. By the time it’s all over, Diane and I are thoroughly exhausted but oh so satisfied. What a great place!

But this Commencement isn’t so busy. No reception. The Theological Diploma Service and Commencement will be streamed this afternoon at 4:00 Central Time. And the Board of Regents is meeting on Zoom. A Commencement that will be remembered! Our graduates and their families have worked hard and long for this day. Though deprived of the traditional festivities, many efforts have been made by faculty and staff to celebrate our great grads. And the coronavirus can’t take away all their learning, their friendships, and countless memories. Diane and I won’t be exhausted tonight, but oh, we’ll be as satisfied as ever!

What is not different this year is God keeping His promises. The Gospel can be understood as the promises of God. Often God seems slow to fulfill His promises. “The vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:3). But in the Theological Diploma Service and Commencement, we see here-and-now God keeping one of His promises. “One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts” (Psalm 145:4). Diane and I retire with hope in God and great love for our students and Concordia Seminary.

Saturday the Seminary’s next president will be elected. Heavenly Father, give wisdom to the Electors so that their earthly decision will advance your eternal mission for the salvation of more and more people for whom You gave us Jesus our Savior. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. Amen.

“He remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy 3:16). Join us at 4:00. Watch live at csl.edu/commencement or on the Seminary’s YouTube channel or Facebook page.

The Meyer Minute for May 14, 2020

You’ve noticed that public officials don’t mention God when they speak to us about the coronavirus pandemic. Media talking heads don’t either. Vice President Pence is one who does speak of faith in general ways, but then is put down by some commentators. This is not the way America used to be but it is today.

“Fundamentally, religion is a response and alternative to chaos; it is an attempt to provide structure, order, and meaning….” So wrote Karl Galinsky as he described the practical value of religion in restoring stability and peace in the days of Roman emperor Caesar Augustus. History refresher: In the first century before Christ, the Roman Republic collapsed into civil wars and chaos. By the end of that century, Caesar Augustus had gained almost total power. He saw the restoration of religion as an important help to providing general stability and peace. “Religion is a response and alternative to chaos” (Augustan Culture, 288).

That’s why Christian congregations are so important right now, not just in today’s America but especially in these ongoing months of grief over what we’ve lost, of fear for our lives and the lives of loved ones, and collapse of much of the economy. Clear Christian proclamation of hope in the resurrected Jesus Christ, of His identification with human suffering so that we can look forward to life without end… “Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” (Luke 24:26).  Clear proclamation from churches through streams and posts and sharing the hope within us in private conversations can fill the God void in public life.

The First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”) did two things. First, it acknowledged that we have two sovereigns, the government and our conscience, not just government. Second, it originally applied only to the federal government but beginning in the 1940s the Supreme Court began applying it to individuals. Hence a growth in suits against religious practice. No wonder leaders back off religious talk in public. When religion was neglected in the Roman Republic, it was neglected by the elites, not by private people. So may it be today. You and your congregation have a mission like never before.

The Meyer Minute for May 12, 2020

Diane and I are getting ready to move back to our old home in Collinsville, just 20 miles from campus. Last weekend Diane posted a photo of what she called my “future office/tool room.” That’s a good description. Down in that basement place, near the furnace, I hope to write a commentary on 1 Peter but also use my many tools for man-projects. I’m a blue collar guy. The focal point of the “office/tool room” is a large analog clock. For younger people, an analog clock is the old style clock, a circle with numbers and two hands. I can’t take time to explain it now.

I was delighted last weekend by a short article written by Deb Olin Unferth of the University of Texas. “The clunky digital clock…jerks along, stopping every minute…. Falsely implying that time is a series of snapshots, a stop-action film rather than the seamless flux that it is. On the elegant analog clock, meanwhile, time swells and recedes, like waves and seasons and life. The hands evoke the rotation of the earth, the movements of celestial objects, the cosmos” (New York Times Magazine, 14-15). I think of Genesis, “The evening and the morning were the first day,” the second day, and so on. Night and day, sun and moon, seasons… did God make us and redeem us to be dominated by digital jerks?

Scholars observe that how we think about time reveals more about us, our assumptions and beliefs, than how time really is. “How we keep and segment time, along with the value we attached to these segments, are already culturally-specific expressions of ideology” (Wei Hsien Wan, The Contest for Time and Space in the Roman Imperial Cults and 1 Peter, 28). Really, how often do we need to know the exact time? Sometimes, but not most of the time. I tell my students that some of their most appreciated teaching and preaching will be showing how Christians view time differently than those around us. “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke (a legalistic digital clock) of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).

Jesus said to Peter, “Could you not watch with me one hour?” (Matthew 26:40). You think they looked at their digital clocks? I’m retiring to my big basement analog!

The Meyer Minute for May 8, 2020

“When in the hour of utmost need / We know not where to look for aid;

When days and nights of anxious thought / No help or counsel yet have brought.”

Doesn’t that describe us today? Death tolls continue to rise. Imposed isolation is increasing mental health problems. Unemployment is reaching Great Depressions levels. Emotionally we have but two options, despair or hope. Despair overwhelms us so we see no way forward. Hope acknowledges how bad things are but sees a way forward, Someone to Whom we can go.

“Then is our comfort this alone / That we may meet before Your throne;

To You, O faithful God, we cry / For rescue in our misery.

Notice the plurals. You and I are isolated but we are still together before God’s throne. All you who are reading this Minute, I who wrote it, all of us are together before the throne. Because there’s no distance in prayer, we are relearning the togetherness of being the Church.

“For You have promised, Lord, to heed / Your children’s cries in time of need

Through Him whose name along is great, / Our Savior and our advocate.

“And so we come, O God, today / And all our woes before You lay;

For sorely tried, cast down, we stand, / Perplexed by fears on ev’r hand.

God hears us, hears our spoken prayers, hears our unspoken fears, hears our crying hearts. He hears because His beloved Son Jesus has taken all our woes upon Himself so that we might have life and immortality. The One who created and redeemed us is faithful. He keeps His promises. “He cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy 3:13). “If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come” (Habakkuk 2:3).

“So we with all our hearts each day / To You our glad thanksgiving pay,

Then walk obedient to Your Word, / And now and ever praise You Lord.”

This hymn was written in the 16^th century by Paul Eber. The eloquence of the ages offers us hope today. (Lutheran Service Book, 615)