The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for June 29, 2021

Rubble. Today is the sixth day of the tragic condo collapse. Sadly, we’re not the first generation to see our buildings in a deadly pile. The book of Lamentations was written after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. “How lonely sits the city that was full of people!” begins the book, and the lament continues for five chapters. Good news, Gospel? Not much, except for this. “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lamentations 3:22-26). 

Spring semester I team-taught the second preaching class with Dr. Mark Seifrid, a world-renowned Pauline scholar. He often stressed the proper role of lament in our life of faith. When tragedy strikes us, be it individually, in family, community, or nation, pouring our hurt to God is what His children do. “Is there trouble anywhere, / We should never be discouraged, take it to the Lord in prayer” (Lutheran Service Book, 770:2). We do get discouraged; lamenting what has befallen us takes it to God. Why, God, are You letting this happen? 

Many psalms are laments. The psalmist complains to God, thinks through the hurt, and finally comes to hope in the coming justice and mercy of God. Lament opens our hurt to hope. Jesus prayed a psalm of lament on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). When I googled “psalms of lament,” I was surprised to find this: “Approximately 70 percent of the Psalms are laments. Approximately 0 percent of the top 150 CCLI songs (songs sung most in churches) are laments.” At least for me, that reflects the shallowness of so much Christian teaching today. Let us be honest in our faith life together, lamenting before the cross with the glimmer of Easter to come. “None shall ever be confounded / Who on Him their hope have built” (Lutheran Service Book, 451:4).  

The Meyer Minute for June 28, 2021

This weekend I was in Chicago Heights for the installation of Rev. Matthew Dubensky. Saturday I wanted to replace a button that had popped off my sport coat, popped off and I couldn’t find it. My sister Pam said, “Go to Hobby Lobby.”

I’ve never been to Hobby Lobby before, and as soon as I entered I knew I was lost. I asked one clerk about buttons; her directions only got me in the general vicinity. I asked another clerk, confessing my male cluelessness, so she walked me to the buttons. I’m hating every minute of this. When I finally made it to the checkout, I made a wise crack to the clerk. Another male customer heard it and grinned. I saw only three men in the massive store; it is totally “distaff,” as they used to describe the female side of gender relationships. The whole experience was like a lower level of Dante’s Inferno, and this guy was glad for deliverance.

Ready to start the car, the phone rang. Sister Pam says, “I need more napkins for Pastor Matt’s installation. When you’re in Hobby Lobby, could you get two packs?” Are you kidding me, go back in? Men are often at our best when we shut up and do what the woman wants. “Where are the napkins?” I asked. “In party goods, against the wall.” Of course, that wasn’t enough for me. A second clerk got me there. As I walked to the same checkout clerk, that man, the man who grinned at me, said, “You came back?” He enjoyed it, and in a defeated way, I did too.

What’s the religious point? Nothing high falutin’. We need brainy theologians to help make sense of life, but in my experience the theologians most helpful are the ones who bring God’s goodness down to where we live our daily, routine lives. “Male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). After escaping Hobby Lobby, I treated my trauma by going to Home Depot. A few more walks this week through lumber and hardware and I’ll be good as new. 

The Meyer Minute for June 25, 2021

“I will also speak of your decrees before kings, and shall not be put to shame” (Psalm 119:46). 

The Augsburg Confession was presented on this date in 1530, trivia not as irrelevant as it may seem. War was threatening Germany and religious leaders were squabbling, we’re 13 years after the start of the Reformation. “Most serene, most mighty, invincible Emperor, most gracious Lord. A short time ago, Your Imperial Majesty graciously summoned an imperial diet to convene here in Augsburg. The summons indicated an earnest desire, first, to deliberate concerning matters pertaining to ‘the Turks, that hereditary foe of ours and the Christian name…’ and second, to deliberate ‘and diligently to consider how we may act concerning the dissension in the holy faith and Christian religion….”  

Back then, the lands that make up modern Germany were Roman Catholic, but the Reformation blew that apart. In1555 it was decided that the citizens in a state would be of the same religion as the head of their state. Our American system is totally different. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (First Amendment). The government is not to legislate matters of personal conscience and practice in faith and religion. When some think the line has been crossed, the courts decide, but the separation is part of our American DNA.  

What does it mean for us to “speak of your decrees before kings”? The Federalist Papers were written by three Founders as a commentary on the Constitution. Instead of top-down unity of religious practice from the government, the Founders purposely provided for lower-level competition between religious groups. “A religious sect may degenerate into a religious faction in a part of the confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it, must secure the national councils against any danger from that source” (Federalist 10). Which means, I think, that we shouldn’t look to the government to do the work of the church. The “kings” to whom we confess today are one another, in congregation and in community, flourishing congregations serving and witnessing to fellow citizens.     

The Meyer Minute for June 24, 2021

Leading the news this morning is the collapse of a 12-story condominium building in Miami. As I write, the number of fatalities is not known. 

Jesus: “Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4-5). 

Biblical Jews believed that tragedies like these came upon sinners, not upon the righteous. “What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted. When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever” (Proverbs 10:24-25). We have those thoughts today too. “It’s not fair what happened to… the people in Miami…to victims of accident or crime…to people suffering unjustly…to me. I’ve tried to do be a good person.”  

“It is the same for all, since the same event happens to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As the good one is, so is the sinner… This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that the same event happens to all” (Ecclesiastes 9:2-3). 

This trail leads to the cross. To remember the cross as the place where Jesus won our forgiveness is true, don’t ever leave that thought, but ponder more fully what the cross means for all that is wrong in life today. “God can be found only in suffering and the cross… For those who have not first been deflated and destroyed by suffering and evil, it is impossible not to be puffed up by their own good works, until they know that they are nothing and that their works are not their own but God’s.” (Martin Luther, Heidelberg Disputation, 21) 

“From all sin, from all error, from all evil; from the crafts and assaults of the devil; from sudden and evil death… Good Lord, deliver us.” (Litany, Lutheran Service Book, 288) 

The Meyer Minute for June 23, 2021

Sola Scriptura is a guiding slogan for many Christians, I among them, but I’m not sure we’re as devoted to Scripture Alone as we imagine.   

For example, consider the First Amendment of the Constitution. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” We understand that as the separation of church and state, but a person who lived under the Roman Empire in New Testament times would have no idea what we’re talking about.  

Or the Thirteenth Amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States.” Good, but no one in the Roman Empire questioned slavery; it was a universally accepted fact of life.  

Or the Fourteenth Amendment: “…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Forget that if you lived in New Testament times. Someone makes an accusation against you, including being an anti-government, seditious Christian, and you go to the governor who will treat you however he wants. 

We read the Bible with American blinders on. Not every sermon or Bible class lifts us out of our cultural surroundings. Not every book by a popular Christian author avoids the myopia. “For man does not know his time” (Ecclesiastes 9:12). That’s why we have biblical scholars in seminaries and universities. That’s why pastors must be life-long students of Scripture. That’s why Bible study for us all can be stimulating and provide practical insight for life today. Our motivation to practice Scripture Alone? Read Acts 4:13. 

“All our knowledge, sense, and sight / Lie in deepest darkness shrouded, / Till Your Spirit breaks our night / With the beams of truth unclouded. / You alone to God can win us; / You must work all good within us” (Lutheran Service Book 904:2). 

The Meyer Minute for June 22, 2021

Are you having the feeling Diane and I have, life is reopening but a voice within us is not convinced? So, my morning scan of news and articles stopped at this by Addison Del Mastro: “We’re inhabiting a weird moment, one in which many institutions and modes of life—both big and small—that we once took for granted remain in a kind of limbo. So many questions about the future are up in the air that optimism and pessimism are tangled and confused.” (“The “Great Unsettledness” in “The Bulwark)  

My mind goes to John 14:27, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” That suggests to me that we should never get too comfortable with things around us. The calm of Christ is best known by the unsettledness of life.   

Del Mastro: “Perhaps most sobering of all, we’ve seen how shallow contemporary America’s capacity for rallying and solidarity is. These are not things that can be unseen. In some ways, the pandemic made more plain the civic rot, institutional fragility, and deep political enmity that many Americans already sensed.”  

If we shouldn’t get too comfortable with things around us, be they nice and routine or unsettled, that doesn’t mean retreating from public life. The peace that Christ gives comes also with a purpose, to do good works in our neighborhoods and communities, to bring lives of the Beatitudes into “civic rot, institutional fragility, and deep political enmity.” “In the Second Table (commandments 4 through 10) not even one word calls attention to the solitary life” (Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, 717). “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). That’s why we can welcome problems. They make the peace of Christ so much more inviting. 

The Meyer Minute for June 16, 2021

 “A dream that will need / All the love you can give / Every day of your life / For as long as you live.” 

Today is our anniversary, and I confess I haven’t given all to my bride that I should have these many years. Diane never bats an eye at my old joke, “Diane has been happily married for seven years,” but there’s some truth in that. Every year she’s given of herself for me as wife, our children as mother, for church and community. She is without doubt the most self-less and giving person I have ever known. Perhaps her greatest virtue after love is patience, with me.  

C.S. Lewis: “Love as distinct from ‘being in love’ is not merely a feeling.  It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both parents ask, and receive, from God.  They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself.  They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else.  ‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise.  It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it.”  (Mere Christianity)  

Happy anniversary, Diane! We’ll be gone for a few days, celebrating  slo mo, appropriate to this time of life. Lord willing, back next Tuesday. 

The Meyer Minute for June 15, 2021

 

I was asked to review a sermon preached in chapel at Concordia Seminary, and it was a fine sermon. Due to Covid restrictions, I watched online. As I reviewed the written manuscript, I was struck by how much I missed because I experienced it online.  

The ancient teacher of rhetoric, Quintilian, said about the hearer: “He will have many other thoughts to distract him unless what we say is so clear that our words will thrust themselves into his mind even when he is not giving us his attention, just as the sunlight forces itself upon the eyes. Therefore, our aim must be not to put him in a position to understand our argument, but to force him to understand it.” (Institutes, VIII, II, 23) 

True enough, my mind wandered watching the stream. I wasn’t part of a captive audience in the sanctuary. My eyes could flit and my mind wander to other things in the room. I could talk with Diane, not whisper to her as you might in church. I could get up and go get something to drink if I wanted. A pressing question as we come out of Covid is why in-person worship is preferable to online. Before the internet, we would say you go to church to hear the Word of God, but now a parishioner can do that without getting out of pajamas. There are many good reasons why in-person worship is most desirable, but I just highlight that hearing a sermon in person is a more immersed experience. Watching online is a spectator activity, helpful but not as engaging as being there. The sounds that stir the air, the churchly surrounding, the interaction between the speaker preaching and the listener thinking… these are incomparably heightened by in-person worship. I was blessed watching that sermon online, and how wonderful that technology gives us this capability, but would that I had been there!  

The Meyer Minute for June 14, 2021

In the Gospel lesson many of us heard yesterday, Jesus said that people who know the gracious rule of God in their lives are like birds who take shelter in a large tree. When the mustard seed sprouts and grows, “it puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade” (Mark 4:32). 

Young people raised in church have life before them but leaving the nest they sometimes leave God’s shelter behind. The toils and worries of middle age make us appreciate retreating to the nest. “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Ah, but life marches on. How do we make peace with retirement and old age, now spending so much time in the “nest”?  You may say, and I can too, “I’m so busy now that I don’t know when I had time to go to work,” but keeping busy can be a way to avoid the truth. You’re not needed the way you used to be, and your body and energy isn’t the same.  Where in retirement and age are you making your nest?

Clarence Macartney was a Presbyterian minister who recovered from a serious illness. He compared his illness to Arabia, the desert where many biblical characters found themselves alone and away from their normal life. “In these Arabia periods of withdrawal and retirement we have time to be alone, to ‘salute our soul, and see what it doth wear.’ What seems at first to be only a lonely desert place and experience, with our spirits chafing to get free of it, turns out to be a place that draws us nearer to God, for there we confer not with flesh and blood, but with God.” (“For All the Saints,” VI, 105). 

The nest in Jesus’ parable is not just home; it’s knowing that you’re surrounded and safe in the grace of God. “Nestling bird nor star in heaven / Such a refuge e’er was given.” (Lutheran Service Book, 725, 1) 

The Meyer Minute for June 11, 2021

I have long been perplexed that the people who most often cause me problems are church people. I get it if it’s someone like “the judge who neither feared God nor respected man” (Luke 18:2), but more it’s someone or some group that goes to church, professes Jesus, but causes us harm in some way or other.  

Psalm 50 gives insight. “Gather to me my faithful ones, who made a covenant with me by sacrifice! The heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is judge! Hear my people and I will speak against you…” (Psalm 50:5). Will judgment vindicate me and will the person who hurt me be punished? To us “good guys,” God says, “Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you” (50:7). God’s judgment stops us in our self-righteous thoughts. “To the wicked God says: ‘What right have you to recite my statutes or take my covenant on your lips?'” (50:16). So, God’s judgment doesn’t promise to be good for any of us church people. 

“Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness / My beauty are, my glorious dress; / Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed, / With joy shall I lift up my head” (Lutheran Service Book, 563:1). OK, but the church people who hurt us believe and sing that too. In Jesus’ parable of the wheat and tares, the enemy has sown weeds among good wheat (Matthew 13:24-30, 326-43). Instead of cultivating out the weeds, “Let both grow together until the harvest,” AKA, the final judgment. About that, Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “Perhaps more evil may come from the premature judgments of men about themselves and each other… There is a judgment beyond our judgment, and there are fulfillments beyond our fulfillments.” (in “For All the Saints,” IV, 86). 

Life together as Christians does require some judgments and actions, but they should always be done in the fear of God. “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, knowing that you were ransomed…with the precious blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:17-18). All should be done in humility with prayer. “The Day will disclose it… the fire will test what sort of work each one has done” (1 Corinthians 3:13).