The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for July 30, 2021

Diane and I have been watching reruns of the sitcom “Last Man Standing.” Mike Baxter, played by Tim Allen, is married to Vanessa, and they have three high maintenance daughters. In one episode their pastor tells Mike he’s resigning because he’s tired of spending all his time on meetings and budgets and personnel instead of doing what he got into ministry to do, preach and be a pastor.

 

Do you have a translation of Matthew that goes like this? Jesus says, “I will build My church. I’ll build it with constitutions and bylaws, electing boards and committees, plenty of meetings even if there’s no business, and offering envelopes and fund-raisers. My strategic plan is to build My church by focusing on institutional strategy and tactics.” Nope, no such stuff in the Bible.

 

Sociologist Peter Berger offers an apt illustration, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Many of us know this best from Disney’s “Fantasia.” As apprentice to the sorcerer Merlin, Mickey Mouse has the drudgery of hauling water. One night after Merlin has gone to bed, mischievous Mickey puts on the magic hat and commands the broom to carry buckets of water. Neat trick, until it gets out of hand. In desperation Mickey smashes the broom into pieces, but each piece morphs into a broom, and now a whole army of brooms is flooding everything.

 

Berger sees that as an illustration of how institutions take on a life of their own. “Man concocts institutions, which come to confront him as powerfully controlling and even menacing constellations of the external world. The mighty buckets, magically called out of nothingness by human fiat, are set in motion. From that point on they go about drawing water in accordance with an inherent logic of their own being that, at the very least, is less than completely controlled by their creator.” (“The Sacred Canopy,” 9-10)

 

“Upon this rock I will build my church.” Unlike government, business, and other institutions, the church is not a human creation. Following Jesus inevitably takes on institutional characteristics, some already evident in the New Testament, but joy in the work will follow from the quantity of our time spent in hearing, studying, meditating, and confessing the Founder. Our energy comes from our confession, not from the alluring magic of institutional stuff. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16, 18).

The Meyer Minute for July 29, 2021

The mystery of Jesus Christ grows larger and larger in my thoughts and devotion. For example, where was Jesus during the Old Testament? The “green room” is where people wait to go on TV or relax after their appearance. Many Christians imagine Jesus was in the “green room” during the Old Testament, awaiting His big appearance. “Do you not yet perceive or understand?” (Mark 8:17).

 

“Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush” (Exodus 3:1-2). “Angel of the Lord” occurs 58 times in the Old Testament. “In a number of OT passages there is a certain ambiguity as to whether an angel is simply an angel, that is, a created spirit being, or whether it is THE angel of the Lord, a preincarnate appearance of God the Son, the Word not yet become flesh, Jesus Christ.” (Horace Hummel, Ezekiel 21-48; 1195).

 

Exodus 3 makes clear that this angel is God. God who? When Moses for His name, “God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). What does Jesus say seven times in the Gospel of John? “I am.” “I am the bread of the world” (John 6:35, 41, 48, 51). “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12). “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7, 9). “I am the Good Shepherd” (John 10:11, 14). “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). “I am the true vine” (John 15:1, 5). So, who appeared to Moses at the burning bush? Father, Son, Holy Spirit? Not clear.

 

The Old Testament was not a “green room” for Jesus. The Trinity was already on a mission to save God’s people, then and today. “Great indeed, we confess is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory” (1 Timothy 3:16).

 

 

 

The Meyer Minute for July 28, 2021

We’re in the “Dog Days” of summer, July 3 through August 11. Here in southern Illinois the temperatures are approaching 100 degrees, real, not heat index. The name “Dog Days” comes from the rising of the star Sirius in its constellation, Canis Major, Latin meaning, “the greater dog.” Sirius is a Greek noun meaning “dog star” and an adjective, seirioeis, means “scorching.” How true! The ancient poet Homer wrote,

 

“Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky

On summer nights, star of stars,

Orion’s Dog they call it, brightest

Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat

And fevers to suffering humanity” (Iliad 22:33-37)

 

Remember not having air conditioning? At bedtime my mom would spread a sheet by the front door for us to sleep on, hoping that cooler evening air would come through the screen door. I still see a soda fountain with “Air Conditioned” in big letters on its window. Let’s go in! When I was older, I remember how I felt when I left the house around 5:00 am to run the milk route and stepped into the furnace. We had air then, but work is in the real world. Gonna be a hard day.

 

How removed we are from so many realities of nature! Childlike faith sees object lessons in the Dog Days. “The Lord appeared to him (Abraham) by the oaks of Mamre, while he was sitting at the tent door in the heat of the day” (Genesis 18:1). In that visit, God promised a son to Abraham and Sarah, a son from whose line Jesus would eventually be born. What if Abraham had been locked up that afternoon in air conditioning? What happens to faith if we try to avoid the facts of life?

 

Heaven will be air conditioned. “The sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:15-17). Until then, “The Lord is your shade on your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life” (Psalm 121:5-7).

 

 

The Meyer Minute for July 27, 2021

Here’s a reason to pray for the pastor and leaders of your congregation. They’re tempted. Now you’ll think of salacious temptations, but that’s not what I have in mind. Satan works in subtleties, and here’s something subtle. 

Gallup surveyed people’s trust in institutions, like police, doctors, business, media, and so on. “How much confidence do you, yourself, have in each one – a great deal, quite a lot, some or very little?” How would you answer that question about the institutional church? Responses to the survey: Great deal, 19%; Quite a lot, 18%; Some, 34%; Very little, 26%; and No opinion, 4%. 

Gallup did not ask, “How much confidence do you, yourself, have in the Father, Jesus, and Spirit?” Which is to say, the church as an earthly institution (fallible leaders and people, budgets, divisions, and the like), is not the same as the Kingdom of God, sometimes called the “invisible” church as distinguished from the “visible” church. Here’s what I pray for pastors and church leaders: That they minimize the earthly institutional aspects of church life and put their leadership focus on God in our lives. For, and here’s the subtle temptation, if the quantity of congregational talk is not centered on God come to us in Christ, then something else will be the focus, and the most likely substitute is the business of the congregation. “Having the appearance of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). 

The survey also asked about confidence along partisan lines. 51% of Republicans and voters leaning Republican expressed confidence in the church. 26% of Democrats and leaners were confident in the church, a difference of 25 points. Do people see your church as a voice for political points of view rather than God’s voice to us, however the implications might fall out when it comes to voting? As I was mulling this over, I read this in “The Hill,” a DC publication. Pastor Greg Locke of Global Vision Bible Church in Tennessee told his congregation, “If they go through round two and you start showing up (with) all these masks and all this nonsense, I will ask you to leave.” “I am not playing these Democrat games up in this church.” Whoa!     

“Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (John 12:21). 

The Meyer Minute for July 23, 2021

Diane’s garden is producing tomatoes. Like a volcano, her garden is spewing out more tomatoes than we can handle, not a lava flow, a tomato flow. We can’t give them away fast enough. Rev. Fred Munchow was a pastor in Altamont, Illinois. I remember his advice to pastors. When you drive to church on Sunday this time of year, be sure to roll up your windows. If you don’t, parishioners will fill your car seats with tomatoes, zucchini, and all the other abundance from their garden, more than you can use. 

“Man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). We do need bread. It was a famine that led the children of Israel into Egypt, and after hundreds of years they were led into a land of milk and honey. Sometimes our gardens produce, our business prospers, our investments grow, but other times we are in want. In every time, the Spirit leads us to “seek first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33). “Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food” (Isaiah 55:2). 

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go…to the priest…. Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 26:1-4).  

Yesterday Diane made a tomato pie. This was a new venture, and she was worried how it would turn out. It was great; I liked it. Still, we have more tomatoes than we can eat, and more blessings than we could have ever earned. Our pastor probably doesn’t need our tomatoes but the Lord and His Church desire devotion and our first fruits. “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine” (Proverbs 3:10). 

The Meyer Minute for J

How do we hear a Gospel lesson when it’s presented in church on Sunday? Or personally for me and fellow preachers, how do we present Gospel lessons? Last Sunday’s Gospel in many churches was the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44). A typical sermon might go this way: Jesus did a miracle, showed His divine power, and that means xxx for us. This coming Sunday Jesus walks on water and strange things happen (Mark 6:45-56). Again: Jesus shows His divine power and that means xxx for us. Nothing wrong with that, except… 

Retirement gives me more time to study and reflect on my ministry. So, nothing wrong with “Jesus shows His divine power and that means xxx for us” except that it doesn’t present Jesus in the most accurate historical light. Theologians talk about Jesus’ “State of Humiliation.” “As man, Christ did not always or fully use or manifest the divine powers and majesty that were communicated to His human nature” (“Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation,” 183). The State of Humiliation includes His incarnation, birth, life, death, and burial. Then comes His “State of Exaltation” when “His power and majesty are manifest fully and constantly in His victorious descent into hell, His resurrection from the dead, His ascension into heaven, His present reign at the right hand of God, and His future return for judgment” (185). 

What state is Jesus in now? He’s in the State of Exaltation, not Humiliation. But if I preach a sermon and say, and I have on many occasions, “Jesus did such and such a miracle, showed His divine power, and that means xxx for us,” am I not leading the congregation to think of Jesus mainly as a historical person who did wonderful things, and now we are drawing truths from history to apply to our lives here and now? Should I not also present the Gospel lesson saying this Jesus “is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity”? That the Lord reigning here-and-now over our world and in our church is the Lord who did such and such when He was visible on earth? My sense is that we are good at looking back, and we absolutely should, but not so good at pointing our people forward to Jesus’ return. That might give the church more energy for life and mission.  

The Meyer Minute for July 21, 2021

Maybe it’s like cataracts when your vision is blurred. We live so much in our American culture that it’s very hard to appreciate what life was like for the first Christians. For example, the First Amendment guarantees us free exercise of religion. When that is contested, we Christians can go to court. This is “due process,” guaranteed us by the Fourteenth Amendment. I think early Christians would have been amazed at this right, this blessing we have.  

Read what Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia, wrote to Emperor Trajan, around 112 AD: “This is the course that I have adopted in the case of those brought before me as Christians. I ask them if they are Christians. If they admit it, I repeat the question a second and a third time, threatening capital punishment; if they persist, I sentence them to death. For I do not doubt that, whatever kind of crime it may be to which they have confessed, their pertinacity and inflexible obstinacy should certainly be punished. There were others who displayed a like madness and whom I reserved to be sent to Rome, since they were Roman citizens. 

“Thereupon the usual results follow; the very fact of my dealing with the question led to a wider spread of the charge, and a great variety of cases were brought before me. An anonymous pamphlet was issued, containing many names. All who denied that they were or had been Christians I considered should be discharged, because they called upon the gods at my dictation and did reverence, with incense and wine, to your image…” 

Sometimes I think it’s almost impossible for us to put ourselves in their shoes, or maybe I should say see clearly without our modern cultural cataracts. But in trying to see through deep Bible study, deep is key, we are humbled, grow in respect for other Christians in other times and places, and do fix ourselves on what transcends times and cultures, Christ, His Word, and His worship. 

...

The Meyer Minute for July 20, 2021

Do you ever have days when your mind doesn’t focus? Times when your mind flits here, flits there, can’t settle? That’s me today. Feels like "Seinfeld and Friends," “a show about nothing.” 

The magazine “Scientific American” posted a conversation between reporter Karen Hopkin and Leonardo Cohen, a researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Their conversation is about learning to play the piano. Cohen: “We know from previous research that interspersing rest with practice during training is advantageous for learning a new skill. In fact, we recently sowed that virtually all early skill learning is evidenced during rest rather than during the actual practice.” Hopkin: “It’s during those intermittent breaks that the brain starts to sew together the individual movements that make up a seamless piece.” 

Maybe the brain is busy, quietly making scattered things whole? Might this be why the Creator established the Sabbath? “On it you shall not do any work” (Exodus 20:10). 

There’s something wrong with too much busyness. Covid has been a pandemic of virtual meetings. “‘It’s not sustainable,’ she (Angela Nguyen, a healthcare consultant) says. She has watched clients attempt to divide and conquer, hopping on for 15-minute cameos or dispatching various team members to different video calls. Then they sync up after—with another meeting.” (Wall Street Journal, July 19; A11) 

In his weekly address July 18, Pope Francis said, “Let us put a halt to the frantic running around dictated by our agendas. Let us learn how to take a break, to turn off the mobile phone.” (“The Hill,” July 20) 

Is God a man, only concerned about productivity? From Scottish preacher George Matheson: “O my Father, I have moments of deep unrest—moments when I know not what to ask by reason of the very excess of my wants. I have in these hours no words for Thee, no conscious prayers for Thee…. Thou hast received the nameless longings of my heart as the intercessions of Thy Spirit. They are not yet the intercessions of my spirit; I know not what I ask. But Thou knowest (a reference to Romans 8:26-27). Because I am made in Thine image, I can find rest only in what gives rest to Thee.” (“For All the Saints,” IV, 269). 

God’s in heaven, the Spirit of Christ is in us. Let lack of focus be sanctified rest and peace. 

The Meyer Minute for July 19, 2021

I’m mildly embarrassed to say that Saturday was my first visit to Cahokia Mounds after 40 years in Collinsville. That’s akin to living in St. Louis but never going to the Arch or living in D.C. but never going to the Capital. So, after all these years, I went. 

Cahokia Mounds, just west of Collinsville was, as a sign says, “the largest prehistoric Indian community in America north of Mexico. It covered an area of six square-miles, including at least 120 mounds of different size and function.” It was occupied from about 700 AD to about 1350 AD, with a population of 10 to 20,000. In 1814 a man named Brackenridge recounted his first sight of the largest mound, Monks Mound. “When I reached the foot of the principal mound, I was struck with a degree of astonishment, not unlike that which is experienced in contemplating the Egyptian pyramids. What a stupendous pile of earth!” (“Cahokia,” Pauketat and Emerson, 11). 

My embarrassment was mild but my humbling immense. We think it’s all about us, about our way of living, our civilization, our achievements. I’ve driven by the mounds thousands of times over 40 years, and almost always was thinking of whatever was on my mind. That’s natural, mankind turns in on itself, we all do. The Cahokians looked beyond themselves with their religion. Whatever that religion was, it was true to them as Christianity is true to so many of us. “I am the way, the truth, and the life,” says our Lord (John 14:6). The question always arises among Christians, “What about people who never knew Jesus? Are they saved?” I thought about that as I climbed to the top of Monks Mound and came to the answer I’ve settled into after 70 plus years of life. I don’t know. All I do know is that God has made a claim on my devotion through Jesus Christ. Just trying to comprehend that keeps me busy. “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33). 

I’m going back this morning. Walking the paths and climbing Monks Mound are good for exercise but most especially, humbling.  

The Meyer Minute for July 16, 2021

Although just a kid, I remember the euphoria when Dr. Jonas Salk discovered the polio vaccine. There probably were people who refused back then, just as some today refuse vaccinations for Covid. Newscast after newscast shows doctors… the word come from the Latin word “docere,” to teach… We see learned people trying to teach that the vaccine is both safe and necessary for the welfare of us all. But some people for whatever reasons… 

A key concept in 1 Peter is obedience. Christians are “children of obedience” (1:14, 22), which goes directly against deep-seated convictions of independent American individualists, which is on full display in this crisis. St. Paul speaks of “the obedience of faith” (Romans 1:5), meaning obedience is integral to faith, submission to God whom we can’t see and to others whom we can see. Putting others above ourselves is rooted in Jesus himself, who became a servant for our sakes (Philippians 2:3-11) and now is exalted over all things.  

“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:13-17). 

Invincible ignorance is nothing new. The key word is “invincible.” The only sure thing when dealing with invincible ignorance is hope for the Day when the exalted Christ is seen and makes all things whole. Hope “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. In this hope we were saved” (Romans 8:21, 24). Just as there’s “long-haul Covid,” we have long-haul hope.