There are many connections and complementary images in Scripture. When I reflect on the meaning of following Christ and being his disciple, Jesus’s word comes clear, “If any wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24). I wonder if this word was not clear in Paul’s mind when he appealed to the Romans “by the mercies of God” that Christians present themselves as living sacrifices? (Rom. 12:1) 

The Call of Jesus: Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me

The image is prominent in the biblical message because it leads us to the Cross, the heart of God’s redemptive plan. In the O.T. story of Abraham offering his son as a sacrifice, God provides a substitute for Isaac, but there is no substitute for God’s Isaac, his “only begotten Son.” Jesus knows the Cross is inevitable, and he describes the meaning of discipleship by reference to the cross, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).

Living Sacrifice vs. Casual Faith

In the second act of the play Gideon, by Paddy Chayefsky, there is a word that challenges us in relation to this call of Jesus. An angel of the Lord recognizes that Gideon has rejected him. Gideon vacillates between love and disenchantment, between a desire to serve and a longing to be served. Finally, he turns away from the Lord’s representative, and the angel speaking for the Lord says, “I meant for you to love me, but you were only curious.” Could that be a personal indictment against us? 

We have been curious but hardly consecrated. We have been flabby in our commitment. The Christian faith and way has been a matter that caught us at the top of our heads but not at the bottom of our hearts. We have time for everything for which those who are not dedicated to the cause of Jesus have time. We surround ourselves with the same luxuries with which those who make no Christian claims surround themselves. What can be said of our Christian faith and commitment when we seek to serve the Kingdom of God with spare money in spare time?

From Curiosity to Consecration: A Challenge for Today’s Christians

With these reflections, the word from the playwright probes to the depth of our being: “I meant for you to love me, but you were only curious.”

Last year, the headlines again pulled our attention to a way too common tragedy. Five policemen were involved in the beating and death of Tyre Nichols and were subsequently fired. Much of the story is told in the cameras of the policemen and the public camera at the scene of the arrest and beating. Even so, the legal battle which grew from this raises the question, who is responsible?

The Question of Responsibility Beyond Racism

It’s difficult for most of us to even imagine something like that happening. When similar things like this have happened, most of it has been stories of whites killing blacks. The too-easy response has been “another expression of racism.” That response is not too easily made in Tyre’s death because the five policemen involved were all black.

Apart from the courts deciding individual responsibility in the case, we need to be giving serious thought to culture and our corporate life. Racism does exist and significantly shapes social decisions and action, but that does not answer the troubling question of responsibility.

Learning from G.K. Chesterton’s Simple but Profound Answer

As the news reported and during the discussion which ensued, I remembered reading a story from a century ago. The London Times posed a question to the public, and anyone could submit a response. The question was, “What is wrong with the world?” You can only imagine the plethora of responses from people giving their answer and pointing to their various qualms with the world, politics, and people groups. But GK Chesterton, the famous English writer, philosopher, and Christian apologist, wrote back, Dear Sirs, I AM.  Yours, GKC.

We may not go as far as Chesterton in claiming responsibility for “What’s wrong with the world.” But we can be honest, admit, and take responsibility for “what’s wrong” with the part of the world in which we live.

Christian Freedom: Not a License, but a Call to Love

But more – the freedom provided by Jesus is the freedom to be responsible. The Christian’s freedom is not license. We are not free from the law in order to sin; we are free not to sin.

Paul sounded this note of responsible freedom when he wrote to the Galatians, “You my friends, were called to be freemen; only do not turn your freedom into license for your lower nature; but be servants to one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”(Gal.5:13-14)

In throwing off the bonds of legalism and rigid moralism, we are sometimes tempted to accept our human imperfection as an excuse for irresponsible behavior. “I am only human,” we mutter. It’s one thing to acknowledge that we are weak sinners; it’s quite another to do so with a shrug of the shoulders and a nonchalant attitude that makes us content with lesser values and a below par performance.

Living by the Power of Christ in Daily Decisions

Paul talked about it in these terms, “... it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20 RSV). Whatever else this means, it certainly calls me to act in my relationship to others in the way Christ has acted in relation to me. My life of faith is Christ living in me, and my actions should be re-enactments of the life of Christ. Do you see how dynamic this would make our discipleship? The freedom to be responsible.

Our situational decisions are made not according to the whim of the moment, nor by the rule of passion, nor by the pressure of prevailing patterns, nor by whether we get away with it or not, but according to who we are by the power of Christ. The liberty he gives is responsible liberty that draws us out of ourselves with the transforming power to serve others. 

Hopefully, the more we receive and share this, the better the news that will be shared in days to come.

Why the Psalms Still Matter in Modern Worship

The Psalms is probably the most popular part of the Bible. Numerous religious and secular documents quote from it. It has been a significant part of literature and movies in our Western culture. It is a huge resource in Christian-Jewish worship.

Know that the Lord is God indeed, without our aid he did us make. What kind of sentence is that? Though strange to our modern ear, the way the sentence that continues makes the religious aspect certain. We are his folk, he does us feed, and for his sheep he does us take. That’s not on-the-street language.

How Hymns and Liturgical Language Deepen Spiritual Experience

I worship often and am not a worship critic. One season of my life that vividly shaped my experience and understanding of worship are the years I spent as a member of The Ecumenical Institute of Spirituality, led by Douglas Steere. Having been an official observer of Pope John XXIII’s Second Vatican Council, Douglas was inspired to establish the Institute. Its mission was to bring together an equal number of Protestant and Roman Catholic scholars to talk about the horizons of spirituality as it impinges on all aspects of life.

Though we met together only once yearly, each of those meetings included multiple worship experiences. Those experiences transformed my understanding and appreciation of worship, which calls me back to the sentence that started this reflection.

Know that the Lord is God indeed, without our aid he did us make;

We are his folk, he does us feed, and for his sheep he doth us take.

We sang it as our opening worship hymn this past Sunday. To-day I found and read all the words in my hymnal. I remembered a hymn we sang a lot in the past. I found it in my hymnal and sang joyfully the same thoughts of last Sunday,

Praise Him? Praise Him! Jesus, our blessed Redeemer!

Sing O earth-His wonderful love proclaim!

Hail Him! Hail Him! highest arch-angels in glory;

Strength and honor give to his holy name!

Like a shepherd, Jesus will guard his children

In his arms He carries them all day long.

Praise Him! Praise Him! Tell of His excellent greatness.

Praise Him! Praise Him! Ever in joyful song!

The Role of Listening and Language in Christian Worship

Words are important and are a large part not only of our worship, but the whole of our Christian life. In worship we need to listen to what is spoken. In our relationships we need to honor whomever is speaking and seek to honestly hear and respond to what is said.

In my last article, celebrating Father’s Day, I began boldly. Let’s keep it clear. As Chrstians we are to be like our Father. I can’t leave that claim without at least a bit more reflection on who God is. The story of Abraham’s sacrifice of his son Isaac is one of the most powerful, profound, and disturbing stories in the Bible. It is a story of promise…promise made, promise fulfilled.

God promises Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child and that their descendants from this child would be as numerous as the stars.  The story is filled with drama. Abraham is seventy-five years old and Sarah is sixty-five years old when the angel first visits them and tells them they are going to have a baby (Gen. 12:4-8). They trust and follow God’s lead, though it is twenty-five years later when the angel returns to tell them, “Get ready: the baby is coming.” Abraham is now almost one hundred years old. Sarah is ninety. Abraham and Sarah could not possibly, through biological processes, produce this child.

It would be wonderful, as stories go, for the story to end there – an old couple having a baby! The promise is fulfilled. But it doesn’t end there. Now God’s word is not a promise but a command that must have taken Abraham’s breath away: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you” (22:2).

Perhaps more surprising than that horrific command is Abraham’s response. He does what the Lord tells him to do. In an almost matter-of-fact way, Abraham follows through to the point of being poised with the knife over the altar where he has bound his child of promise, ready to take the life of his only son.

But the Lord intervenes. Abraham has proven his faith and trust, and God provides a substitute offering.

That’s our ultimate test. Are we able to let go of everything trusting that the Lord will deliver on his promise? This must be a recurring dynamic of praying and reflecting: God always honors His promises. Do we trust God? Do we trust the One who gives the gift in the first place?

When I was the pastor of a congregation, preparing sermons every Sunday, I paid close attention to culture and timing… what was going on in the world, and particularly in my city and community. The Gospel is relevant not only to a religious calendar… Christmas, Lent, Easter but also, the civic one… civic holidays.

That awareness and practice came strongly to mind as I checked my writing schedule… and there it was… July ”the Fourth”? It is probably the most popular civic holiday in the US. Dare I miss the opportunity to address it in my sharing. It’s all about freedom and freedom is a core principle in Christian living.

The Apostle Paul made that clear in his directions to the early Christian communities. In his Letter to the Galatians he wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal. 5:1 NIV) 

I could write pages about it, but feel led to simply register some fundamental convictions. The first is: Freedom requires discipline.

Actually, the freedom Christ gives us, is a freedom to be responsible. The Apostle Paul made that clear: “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom opportunity for the flesh, but through love, be servants of one another.” (Gal. 5:13) He knew that if freedom was interpreted merely as the removal of restraint, sin would seize the opportunity, and use the weakness of human nature to launch attack against the spirit.

The freedom of Christ is a freedom to be responsible. Then this fundamental truth: Christian freedom requires love. 

Paul says that the criterion to guide our Christian freedom is love. “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”’ Interestingly, this is the love that was defined in the law by God to Moses in Leviticus 19:18; and reiterated by Jesus in Mark 12: 29—31. Paul simply restates it. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is what Jesus meant when he said we would save our lives by losing them. If we give our life in love to others, we will find it. But as Paul warned us, “If you keep on biting and devouring each other…you will be destroyed by each other.” (Gal 5:15) Christian freedom requires love. 

If we give our life in love to others, we will find it. 

The clanking chains of slavery, loosed by Christ as we are forgiven and accepted, announce we are then free from the sins that burden us down – free from meaninglessness, guilt, and the threat of death. In Christ’s redeeming love, we are set loose to become the unique sons and daughters God created us to be. 

When we realize that our freedom requires discipline and is practiced in loving through love in action, then that freedom will set the stage and provide the power for us to be all that God intends us to be, and live as he calls us to live.

Let’s keep it clear. As Christians we are to be like our Father. 

Some religions say to their devotees, “Follow me, and the things you fear will not happen to you.” By contrast, Christianity says, “Follow Christ, and some or all of the things that you fear may happen to you; but you do not have to fear them anyway.” Such confidence and courage are born from faith in God the Father Almighty who – even though we face the final enemy, death – will deliver us from the grave. 

Woodie White served United Methodists as a bishop. Some time ago he experienced one of the most difficult things he had ever faced in his life. It is one of my favorite stories and I may have shared it in a prior article. He was sitting at home relaxing, watching his favorite team, the Washington Redskins. The phone rang and a relative exclaimed hysterically, “Woodie! Woodie! You had better come quick. Something terrible has happened to your mother. She has been raped!”

He immediately left Washington, D.C., for New York City. When he walked into his mother’s house and saw her, she was frying chicken. Someone had broken into her home and robbed and raped her. Woodie stood immobile in a state of shock, but then he moved to his mother, took her tenderly in his arms, fighting back tears and anger.

As he was holding his mother, she said, “I’m frying chicken. I thought you might be hungry.” He was so overcome with the beauty of her spirit in the face of tragedy that he broke into tears.

Then his mother looked at him, and in her face was a wonderful light as she told him, “Son, I want to tell you something, and I don’t want you to ever forget it. God is still good! God is good! God is good!”

God’s almighty power is precisely this kind of love, this power of goodness and hope that this mother knew in her own soul and reflected even in the midst of her suffering and pain. This is the power and glory of the Father that Jesus portrayed in his story of the prodigal, and in all of his other stories and prayers. This is the power that Paul described in his praise of God’s love in Christ from which nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us (Romans 8). It is a power and a relationship that Christians have known throughout the ages. It is not a vengeful power or arbitrary force. It does not leave us alone in our suffering. It travels with us through our pain, and it enables us to stand with courage exposing evil even when our own lives are at stake. It is the power of God’s creative and redemptive love as shown to us in Jesus the Son – the power of the Father Almighty.

We call God Father because we follow Jesus’ example. There is a sense in which we can assess how well one understands Christianity by how much one makes of the thought of being God’s child, having God as Father.

The designation of God as Father has nothing to do with gender: God is not a sexual being. It describes a relationship of shared love and fellowship in which God pours out God’s blessings on all God’s children. God is our Creator and Liberator. Our relationship to God rescues us from sin and alienation and helps us remember who we are created to be. As God liberated the Jews from Egyptian bondage, so God rescues and redeems us from whatever bondage may enslave us.

God is all-powerful, almighty; but God’s power is always defined, perhaps even limited, by God’s love. Though we may not be delivered from pain and suffering, God is with us in our pain and suffering, sustaining us with almighty love. Even though we face the final enemy, death, God will deliver us from the grave, giving us eternal life.

And it is by His strength and through His grace, that we too can be like our Father.

James Rowe is a prolific music composer, and yet most of us have probably not heard of him. He was born in Ireland and worked for the Irish government before immigrating to the United States in his late 20s. Eventually, he became a full-time writer, composing hymns and editing music journals for publishers. One of my favorites songs among his best-known works is “Redeemed,”

Redeemed—how I love to proclaim it! 

Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb; 

Redeemed through His infinite mercy,

His child, and forever, I am. 

Redeemed, redeemed…

Another well-known favorite is “Love Lifted Me.”

Love lifted me!

Love lifted me!

When nothing else could help,

Love lifted me!

One of his songs I have never heard sung in a congregation. It is entitled, “You Never Mentioned Him to Me,” and it speaks directly to an essential function of every Christian. We are witnesses.

O let us spread the word

where’er it may be heard,

Help groping souls the light to see,

That yonder none may say, “You showed me not the way,

You never mentioned Him to me.”

Scripture charges us to take the good news about Jesus to others, to sow the seed. We know that not all soil is fertile; the responsibility to respond to the gospel lies with the hearers, not with us. The prophet, Ezekiel, encourages us, “But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, that person shall die in his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul. (Ezekiel 33:9) Our charge is to be faithful. Paul was rather adamant about it. “I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” (1Cor.3:6-7)

O let us spread the word

where’er it may be heard,

Help groping souls the light to see,

That yonder none may say, “You showed me not the way,

You never mentioned Him to me 

 A few sweet words may guide a lost one to his side,

Or turn sad eyes on Calvary;

So work as days go by, that yonder none may cry,

“You never mentioned Him to me.”

The song pictures Judgment Day as we stand to hear our fate pronounced. Before our appearance at the bench, another is condemned to eternal death. He cries out an accusation toward us:

“You never mentioned Him to me,

You helped me not the light to see;

You met me day by day and knew I was astray,

Yet never mentioned Him to me.”

That is a harrowing thought. Perhaps that is why the song is sung so infrequently. It makes us uncomfortable. But the hymn isn’t intended to make us feel guilty about our shortcomings in talking about Jesus. It has an end in itself. As followers of Christ, we are called to witness. How often do we share Him with others? When was the last time we had a serious conversation with someone about our faith? Dare I ask? When was the last time you mentioned him? More painful perhaps, “when you mentioned him, what did you say?”  

You never mentioned him to me. You may have difficulty with the imagery, but reflect. The imagery reminds us of what is happening, in reality, every day of our lives. If we are faithful to our commission, whether we are successful in our efforts or not, this hymn should be an encouragement. But if we are not, songs like this should be a powerful appeal to redouble our efforts. Which is it for us?

My friend, George (Chuck) Hunter, has told a thrilling story – one of those lively vignettes of Methodist history that gives us our vision for now and the future.

A great Methodist leader named C. C. McCabe was the leader of new church extension for the Methodist Episcopal Church in about 1881. He was a prodigious planner, strategist, fund-raiser, and mobilizer. Under his leadership for sustained years, the Methodist Episcopal Church averaged starting one new congregation a day, and some months averaged two congregations a day.

One particular day he was traveling to help launch a round of new church plantings in Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, when he picked up a newspaper that had recorded the speech delivered in Chicago by Robert G. Ingersoll, a famous philosopher and agnostic, to the annual convention of a group that imagined itself to be the wave of the future, the Free-thinkers Association of America. In this speech, Ingersoll contended that the churches of the United States of America were in a terminal condition and in another generation there would be few, if any, of them left, which, on the whole, would be a good thing. That incensed McCabe. He got off the train at the next town, went to the Western Union office, dictated a telegram, and sent it to Ingersoll at the convention that was still meeting in Chicago. The telegram read, “Dear Bob: In the Methodist Church we are starting more than one new congregation a day, and we propose to make it two. Signed, C. C. McCabe. P. S. All hail the power of Jesus’ name.”

That was the first of many spirited exchanges and debates between them. The word about that telegram got out and there evolved a folk hymn, part of which went like this:

The infidels, a motley band,

In counsel met and said,

The churches are dying across the land,

And soon, they’ll all be dead.

When suddenly a message came,

And caught them with dismay,

We’re building two a day.”

Chorus

We’re building two a day, dear Bob,

We’re building two a day.

All hail the power of Jesus’ name,

We’re building two a day. 

It has happened before. It can happen again. It should happen. It will happen again when we Methodists recover the warm heart, when we provide structures of love and care, and when we get a passion for ministry and mission, believing the world is our parish.  

Then, we can offer Charles Wesley’s great hymn to those so ready to proclaim the church’s death, and truly sing it with the conviction of seeing it again in our day.

And are we yet alive,

And see each other’s face?

Glory and praise to Jesus give

For His redeeming grace. 

Preserved by power divine

To full salvation here,

Again in Jesus’ praise we join,

And in His sight appear.

What troubles have we seen,

What conflicts have we passed,

Fightings without, and fears within,

Since we assembled last.

But out of all the Lord

Hath brought us by His love;

And still He doth His help afford,

And hides our life above.

Then let us make our boast

Of His redeeming power,

Which saves us to the uttermost,

Till we can sin no more.

Let us take up the cross

Till we the crown obtain;

And gladly reckon all things loss,

So we may Jesus gain.

I read T. S. Eliot’s poetry, even though I have to struggle to read and understand it. I keep reminding myself that what he expresses is worth the arduous effort and energy I might exert in reading him. One of his geniuses is his creation of power-packed phrases and images. Here is one of them:

“For most of us, there is only the unattended Moment.”

The unattended Moment.  I want to ponder that image as we continue our reflection on Jesus’ call, “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow.” In our last article, pondering this call, we made the case that when we are anxious about tomorrow we take on excessive anxiety about things we cannot change and many of us are paralyzed with fear of our inability to live the Christian life.  If fear of tomorrow or the day after tomorrow consumes us, we will miss the possibilities of the richness of living today.

A preacher friend tells of a person who, awakening to how dingy his life and world had become because of his worrying, made a worry table. Analyzing how he and other people worried, he concluded that 40 percent of most worries never happen; 30 percent were about past decisions we cannot alter. 12 percent about criticism (mostly untrue) of us by others, usually arising from envy and misunderstanding; 10 percent were about personal health that only grew worse with worry; and only 8 percent were legitimate concerns that need our attention. All of this means that when we worry we waste a lot of time and energy, and overlook opportunities which may never come again to us, special moments that may occur only once in our lifetime. 

Unattended moments. Think of the hugs that we have shunned because we were worrying, the spontaneous surprises of children growing up, the wayside miracles in nature, the fun of playing together, the secrets that we could have known, the beauty we could have shared.  The unattended moment is packed with possibilities for richness, meaning, and growth. But we miss it because we are not focusing our eyes on the present and are anxious about tomorrow. The greatest price we pay for worry is the loss of the richness of living today.

We need to hear clearly, and heed Jesus’ words: “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O men of little faith?”  I’m seeking to live by the conviction that we can trust God for tomorrow, because we can trust God for today.

A member of our congregation and a dear friend knows this truth as well as anyone I know. He is an alcoholic, but has celebrated over twenty years of sobriety. He remains sober because of his one-day-at-a-time trust in the Lord. He wrote a contemporary gospel song which expresses this truth in a memorable way. The title of the song and its message are a simple prayer he heard an old man pray: “Lord, we know what you’re gonna’ do ’cause we see what you’ ve already done.”

Focus again on the powerful image with which I began my reflection: violets cracking rocks. It’s a powerful picture. A tiny, fragile violet with so much life in its tiny structure, with so much thrust for sunlight and air that it literally cracks the rocks and pokes through so that it can peek at the sunlight and finally burst forth in its pristine purple glory. Paul said that nothing in all the world can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. We can trust God for tomorrow, because we can trust God for today. 

Someone reminded me recently that what lies behind us and before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.’ I know that I have the Holy Spirit within me. That means I have power, like the violet, to crack all the rocks of circumstances. So I listen to Jesus: “don’t be anxious about tomorrow”!