The Meyer Minute

The Meyer Minute for March 29, 2022

The life of faith is not easy. Over the years, I’ve heard seminarians compare salvation by our good works to God’s gift of salvation received through faith. Sometimes they say that salvation by faith is easy. No. Salvation by works is impossible but a lifelong walk with Jesus to heaven is not easy, it too takes work. “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12). 

Think about a young person, any of us really, whose eyes are always on a device. The person playing video games or entertaining himself with virtual reality. The incessant commercials on TV telling us what to buy. The people we associate with who are not Christ-followers, nice people but their view of life is different. Taken together, how influential is an hour in church against the subtle pressures on us in our secular society? Actually, our society is not secular; it’s a different kind of religion than the faith taught us in Scripture. 

I’m still thinking about Sunday’s Gospel lesson, the prodigal son, a naïve kid who went into a Gentile city. What were his eyes and ears taking in? Excavations at Pompeii, a city of 8,000 to 12,000, show what life was like in cities throughout the Roman Empire. At one crossroads in Pompeii, not a big stop-and-go light intersection like we have today, but a close, crowded pedestrian intersection, there is an altar to “lares compitales,” the gods of the crossroads. Intersections could be dangerous then just as they are today. These crossroad altars were common, and our farm boy is taking the sights in. Not far down the street he walks by a shop that sells felt. At its entrance is a painting of Cybele, an eastern goddess who was worshipped with processions and games, public holidays just like our public holidays today. What our young man is seeing is being reinforced by what he is hearing from his new friends. Is it any wonder that he forsook his faith?  

Back to today, the church losing young people… Oh, I have many thoughts, and Scripture has much to say, but I think I’ll just leave it hanging. “How can a young man keep his way pure?” (Psalm 119:9). 

The Meyer Minute for March 28, 2022

Jesus begins His famous parable, “The younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country.” What would “far country” have meant in the first century? It was outside of Israel, a Gentile land, a place where religion and morality were different than back home. Our young man didn’t go to a rural area, people there were poor, but to the city. He has money to spend! Walking through crowded streets, our country boy saw temples to foreign gods, the theatre, public baths, shops, inns, and he heard people speaking foreign languages and people hawking their wares.  

He rented a room in an apartment building. Some people had houses, but most rented a room or two above a business. His street was lined with buildings two or more stories tall. On the first floor opening to the street was a business, maybe a bakery or a cheese shop or a cobbler, maybe a seller of fruit or olive oil or wine, maybe ceramic or metal ware. In that crowded line of shops there was a “thermopolium,” a popular form of restaurant where you could order a warm meal to eat in or take out. Yes, take out. We are not the first fast food society in history! Our prodigal would have spent time at the thermopolium because…get this…most apartments didn’t have kitchens. He hung out with new friends and, if an excavated thermopolium in Pompeii was typical, he and a new girlfriend could have gone up and rented a room on the second floor.  

Jesus’ parable is true to real life. God-fearing parents shield our children from the seamy things of this world. We teach them in church, school, and home to continue in faith and avoid sin and evil, but all our loving care doesn’t take away our worries when they set off on their own. In my ministry, I have come across many older parents who grieve that their children have gone into the “far country” and have left the church. Sociologists call them “nones” and “dones,” no church, done with the church. A better title for the parable is the “Waiting Father.” In countless ways worried parents can never know, the Spirit of God is working to bring wayward children back home to Jesus. He did it in the parable. We watch and pray for the faith of our children today.  

The Meyer Minute for March 24, 2022

I’ve adopted the following prayer that was first offered for a London hospital in the 1940’s (“For All the Saints,” III, 903).

Almighty God, You sent Your Son into the world to heal our hurts of body, mind, and soul: We pray You to bless the work of all hospitals and medical personnel who are ministering to victims of violence in Ukraine. Bless all who are serving in refugee centers, ministering to the physical and emotional needs of people forced to flee their homeland. Give patience and skill to all workers therein to faithfully fulfill their calling. Give them Your divine grace when their strength and stamina wane under the overwhelming burden of these evil days. Knowing our weakness and inability by ourselves to meet the great need, we commend to You all sufferers committed to their care: praying You to still their pain, relieve their anxiety, to companion their loneliness, and bid them cast their cares upon You, since underneath are Your everlasting arms. We beg this of You, Almighty God, our loving heavenly Father, in the name of Your Son, the suffering servant through whom we have the promise of life and justice. Amen.

The Meyer Minute for March 23, 2022

Last Friday I was paging through the New York Times and came upon this ad: “Abramorama & Osmosis Films Present The Quest for Sleep, narrated by Octavia Spencer.” Huh, is this a real movie? I don’t usually spend much time in the Arts section of the Times, but this got my attention. Yes, it is real. “A new documentary film following real people whose struggles with sleep threaten to unravel their waking lives, along with sleep experts who delve into the fascinating science behind how and why we sleep.”

This is an invitation to joke, but insomnia is a real problem for many people. There’s a time in life when we “sleep like a baby,” but as the years go on, a good night of sleep is a real blessing, and for some people not normal. Stress at work, worrisome family problems, sleep apnea, chronic pain… I have no expertise about insomnia, but I do have a concordance.

“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep. (Psalm 127:2). True when I was younger, a day of work, of physical activity, dependably brought a good night of sleep, but now it’s common to wake up in the middle of the night, and then what does my mind do? Sometimes the darkness makes me worry, not unlike the child who fears the scary monster that must certainly be under the bed. I remind myself, “even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you” (Psalm 139:12). Other times, though, God unravels something that was troubling me, He solves a problem. That puts me to sleep and the morning seems brighter. In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8).

“When in the night I sleepless lie, / My soul with heavenly thoughts supply;

Let no ill dreams disturb my rest, / No powers of darkness me molest.”

“Oh, may my soul in Thee repose, / And may sweet sleep mine eyelids close,

Sleep that shall me more vigorous make / To serve my God when I awake.”

The premier of The Quest for Sleep was at 8:00 pm. Too late for me!

The Meyer Minute for March 22, 2022

Ukraine hasn’t been the first terrible crime by the leader of a country. From Sunday’s Gospel, Luke 13:1-5: “There were some present at that very time who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” They wanted Jesus’ opinion, much like people seeking out commentators today, but as He often does, Jesus responds by taking us deeper. I think that’s what He’s doing in our anguish about Ukraine. “And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans (Ukrainians) were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Huh? “Jesus, we’re grieving for what we’re seeing. It’s Lent, we’re sincerely repenting, but why bother if injustice can willy-nilly wipe us out? You’re saying no good deed goes unpunished?” 

Jesus’ strange answer is profoundly simple. There is life and there is death. Life comes from our Creator, and death comes because we turn away from the giver of life. We say there is spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death, but that’s dissecting what is truly one death, three different aspects of one fundamental turning away from the God of life. But when a sinner turns back to God in repentance, God graciously restores life, period, ever and always, and a Putin or a Pilate can’t take away the life that the great God gives. “Everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:26).

Jesus gives another example to get us to think beyond the immediate injustice, to distinguish the “now” from the “not yet,” from sight to faith. “Or 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.” “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). That’s God, and in His fear we have life forever. “Come when it (death) may, He’ll shield me. To Him I wholly yield me.” What do Ukrainians, what do any of us have but trust in the God of life? “I have come that they might have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

The Meyer Minute for March 21, 2022

Diane and I went Saturday to Soulard Farmers Market. Since 1779, Soulard’s vendors have hawked produce, meats, flowers, trinkets, you name it. One stand had live fish flopping for their lives, until a customer would say, “I want that one.” Whop! In the corner were cut-off fish heads. There were chickens too, live chickens I mean, but like the fish, my bride wanted nothing to do with them. Feeling a bit guilty because I was leaving town Sunday, I offered to buy Diane some flowers. She zeroed in on pussy willow cuttings. Put them in water, the vendor said, they’ll sprout roots, and you can plant them in the yard. Oh, I forgot to mention the saxophone player who works the crowd, always a highlight, always gets a tip. 

I love the market because of the people. Black, white, brown, young, old, Ph.D.’s, dropouts, and everything in between, rich, poor, people enjoying Saturday morning with people. What do you look for in a minister? Several things, obviously, especially faithfulness to God’s Word in Christ, but I think most of us also want a minister who knows life, whose hands are no strangers to dirt or to engine oil, who has more jeans and flannels than clerical garb, a guy who knows the outdoors as well as his study. Persius, Horace, and Juvenal were Roman satirists, poets who wrote about the foibles of people, the stuff of sermons. Of them Juvenal was “a realist of the realists; he grapples with the real things of life, and derives all his inspiration from the doings of the men and women of his own day” (G.G. Ramsay, LCL, xxxiii). That, I think, is where preachers become pastors, when they know people as people really are and bring to them words of help and hope in Jesus.  

Diane had walked ahead of me, so I said to one vendor, “Let me buy that rock. My wife won’t know.” I bought a quartz from Brazil, called “citrine,” but Diane in fact wasn’t out of sight, caught me in the act. “This is what we need, a rock?” She’s wonderfully patient with me. I once bought a postcard in Germany that I have kept and treasure. It says, „Die Stärke der Männer ist die Geduld der Frauen...“  “The strength of men is the patience of women….” In celebration of people! 

The Meyer Minute for March 18, 2022

Among other fun things, St. Patrick’s Day is the traditional day to plant potatoes. Diane did, in two places. In the ground, she dug down about six inches, put the seed potato at the bottom of the hole, and when it begins to grow upward, she’ll keep covering it over with dirt. She also put seed potatoes in the bottom of two large pots on our deck. Same thing, keep covering them up as they grow, but the nice thing about the pots: When it’s time to harvest, just dump the pots over and there are the potatoes. No shovel needed.   

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). With all the troubles in our obviously sinful world, be it in Ukraine or some trouble from sin in your own personal and work life, let’s take heart from the continuing growth our Creator gives. Isn’t spring a sermon from our Father that you and I should always hope? 

I just visited the forsythia. “Dale, I’m about to brighten your life.” And oh, how I love the hellebore, popularly called “Lenten rose.” They are blooming now. The first time I saw one bloom, I thought the plant had been faked out by some unseasonably warm weather. Nope. This hellebore blooms in Lent. To me a reminder that we don’t have to be dour and gloomy in Lent, alleluia! “When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites” (Matthew 6:16-18).“Ye flowers, so wondrous sweet and fair, / Ye live to show His praise alone, / With me now make His glory known” (The Lutheran Hymnal, 30:3) 

A friend asked Diane about planting potatoes: Eyes up or eyes down? Eyes up, because the potato doesn’t send roots down but grows up. My dear asparagus too. Plant down in a hole and cover with dirt as it grows up. Tulip bulbs are designed with a point: This way up! Couldn’t we go on? The just God whose judgment will come upon evil, also says to His beloved people, “Grow heavenward. Have hope.”  

“Earth’s crammed with heaven 

And every common bush afire with God. 

And only he who sees takes off his shoes. 

The rest sit around and pluck blackberries.” 

(Elizabeth Barrett Browning) 

The Meyer Minute for March 17, 2022

“I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls,” wrote St. Paul to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12:15). That’s what St. Patrick did. Born in England in the fourth century, young Patrick was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. He escaped, studied theology, and returned to Ireland as a missionary. Tradition says Patrick established 3000 churches and baptized 120,000 people. 

No one spent and was spent like Jesus. “Though he was in the form of God, (Jesus) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant … He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). 

The cross! Another legend would have us believe that St. Patrick rid Ireland of its snakes. When Israel complained about their hard lot in the wilderness, God sent fiery serpents. The people repented and God had Moses raise a bronze serpent on a pole. Anyone who looked up to that bronze serpent was saved from death (see Numbers 21:4-9). “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). 

Whether the stories of legend about the saints are true or not, their purpose is to point us to Jesus. “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2). 

“Ev’ry wound that pains or grieves me / By Your wounds, Lord, is made whole; 

When I’m faint, Your cross revives me, / Granting new life to my soul. 

Yes, Your comfort renders sweet / Ev’ry bitter cup I meet; 

For Your all-atoning passion / Has procured my soul’s salvation.” 

(Lutheran Service Book, 421:4) 

The Meyer Minute for March 17, 2022

“I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls,” wrote St. Paul to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 12:15). That’s what St. Patrick did. Born in England in the fourth century, young Patrick was kidnapped by pirates and sold into slavery in Ireland. He escaped, studied theology, and returned to Ireland as a missionary. Tradition says Patrick established 3000 churches and baptized 120,000 people. 

No one spent and was spent like Jesus. “Though he was in the form of God, (Jesus) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant … He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8). 

The cross! Another legend would have us believe that St. Patrick rid Ireland of its snakes. When Israel complained about their hard lot in the wilderness, God sent fiery serpents. The people repented and God had Moses raise a bronze serpent on a pole. Anyone who looked up to that bronze serpent was saved from death (see Numbers 21:4-9). “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15). 

Whether the stories of legend about the saints are true or not, their purpose is to point us to Jesus. “Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2). 

“Ev’ry wound that pains or grieves me / By Your wounds, Lord, is made whole; 

When I’m faint, Your cross revives me, / Granting new life to my soul. 

Yes, Your comfort renders sweet / Ev’ry bitter cup I meet; 

For Your all-atoning passion / Has procured my soul’s salvation.” 

(Lutheran Service Book, 421:4) 

The Meyer Minute for March 16, 2022

What image does the word “devotion” call up for you? Quiet time, an adult comfort blanket? 

When Israel was about to enter the promised land after 40 years in the wilderness… Let me take that back. I said “enter.” No, when they were about to invade the land, a land whose inhabitants had lived there for centuries, God spoke to them about being devoted. “The city and all that is within it shall be devoted to the Lord for destruction.” Is anything to be spared? “All the silver and gold, and every vessel of bronze and iron, are holy to the Lord; they shall go into the treasury of the Lord” (Joshua 6:17, 19).   

The Hebrew word translated “devoted” is “cherem.” Here’s the definition of cherem from the standard Hebrew dictionary. “Most often of devoting to destruction cities of Canaanites and other neighbors of Israel, exterminating inhabitants, and destroying or appropriating their possessions.” That’s hard. Destroy everything. Give the precious and useful metals to God. That’s what devotion meant in the conquest of Canaan. How is that different from the destruction Putin is wreaking in Ukraine? 

The difference is this: Who ultimately wins? Sin and evil or goodness and righteousness? Those who fashion God after their own image, the Canaanites or Putin or anyone seeking his own advantage, or those who believe God is working for His own good and gracious will? In a new commentary on the book of Joshua, Adolph Harstad writes, “Divine warfare is God’s mean for saving his chosen people.” The divine warfare began in Eden when God promised, “I will put enmity between you (the serpent) and the woman…” (Genesis 3:15). The engagement that turned the tide against idolatries and sin was the cross of Christ. Harstad: “Without this divine warfare, mankind would have been doomed to eternity in hell, but God’s warfare enabled Israel to inherit the promised land, and his victory on the cross has made all believers heirs of eternal life in the new heavens and new earth.” 

Our part in the battle is Lenten cherem, putting to death all in us that is sin, and giving to God what we regard as precious. The divine warfare will end at the final judgment, when “he has put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:25-26). As Daniel Niles wrote, there are now only two alternatives for us, “death or faith.”