The Day the Lord Has Made

Greetings,

      Psalm 31 is a Psalm of Praise and Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies.  Of course, we know that our enemies are both the real forces of evil in the world which seek to devour us, and the real forces of evil within us which seek to lead us down that long spiral which descends to the very pit of Gehenna.  I love the expressiveness of the Psalm:

            In you, O LORD, I seek refuge;

                        do not let me be put to shame;

                        in your righteousness deliver me.

            You are indeed my rock and my fortress;

                        for your name’s sake lead me and guide me.

            But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God. 

            My times are in your hand;

                        deliver me from the hand of my enemies and persecutors.

            Let your face shine upon your servant;

                        save me in your steadfast love.

      And from Psalm 118:

            This is the day that the LORD has made;

                        let us rejoice and be glad in it.               

      These verses particularly came to mind today because it is February 29^th.  My mother was born on February 28^th, but her sisters would kid here that she must have been born on the 29^th, birth certificate not withstanding.  However, my son-in-law Timothy was born on February 29^th.  This evening we took him to dinner so he could have a celebration on his actual birthday.  Brenda is having a large party for him on Saturday, when their friends will be able to attend, and we will enjoy that very much.  But this was the special day.  This was the day the Lord made as Timothy’s natal day and this was the day to remember and celebrate his birth and life. 

      We are blessed that Timothy does trust in the Lord, and knows that his times are in God’s hand.  It is always a joy to see Timothy’s concern for others, and to talk with him about the vital issues which confront us in these days.  He is interested in reading and talking about the latest theological issues being written about and discussed. 

      All of us face our enemies without and within.  All of us need to recognize that reality and trust God for our relief.  All of us who are Christian need to support and encourage one another.  All of us need to rejoice and be glad in the day which the Lord has given to us.  This Lenten season reminds us of the necessity of taking our personal spiritual growth, our relationship with God seriously.  Prayer, God speaking to us in our Reading & Writing, Fasting and Almsgiving is still the sacred tripod of that relationship.                    

Yours & His,

DED                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Ask, Seek and Knock

Greetings,

      Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) was considered by his peers and now by new generations as one of the great preachers of the 19^th century.  He built London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle into the world’s larges independent congregation during that century.  Spurgeon was devoted to prayer, writing about it and practicing it.

      During this Lent I invite you to consider this Spurgeon comment on prayer.

                                    “Ask and it will be given to you;

                                    seek and you will find;

                                    knock and the door will be opened to you.”    (Matthew 7:7)

      Let us abound in prayer.  Nothing under heaven pays like prevailing prayer.  He who has power in prayer has all things at his call. 

      Ask for everything you need, whatever it may be: if it is a good and right thing, it is promised to the sincere seeker.  Seek for what Adam lost you by the Fall, and for what you have lost yourself by neglect, by your back-sliding, by your lack of prayer.  Seek till you find the grace you need.  Then knock.  If you seem shut out from comfort, from knowledge, from hope, from God, then knock; for the Lord will open it to you.  Here you need the Lord’s own intervention: you can ask and receive, you can seek and find; but you cannot knock and open- the Lord must Himself open the door, or you are shut out forever.  God is ready to open the door.  There is no cherub with fiery sword to guard this gate, but, on the contrary, the Lord Jesus Himself opens and no man shuts.

      Do you fear that sin has barred the gate of grace shut?  Your desponding feelings fasten up the door in your judgment.  Yet, it is not so.  The gate is not barred or bolted as you think it is.  Though it may be spoken of as closed in a certain sense, yet in another sense it is never shut.  In any case it opens very freely; its hinges are not rusted, no bolts secure it.  The Lord is glad to open the gate to every knocking soul.  It is closed far more in your apprehension than as a matter of fact.  Have faith and enter at this moment through holy courage.

      And if we plead with God for a while without realized success,  it makes us more earnest.  David pictured himself as sinking in the miry clay, lower and lower, till he cried out of the depths, and then at last he was taken up out of the horrible pit, and his feet were set on a rock.  So, our hearts need enlarging.  The spade of agony is digging trenches to hold the water of life.  If the ships of prayer do not come home speedily, it is because they are more heavily freighted with blessing.  If you knock with a heavy heart, you shall yet sing with joy of spirit.  Never be discouraged!

      Lord Jesus, You alone can open the door that I am knocking on.  Come to me, I pray.  Amen.

Yours & His,

DED

Really Believing in God’s Grace

Greetings,

Lent

We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake

he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become

the righteousness of God.

As we work together with him, we urge you also not to accept the grace

of God in vain.  For he says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to

you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.”  See, now is the

acceptable time; see now is the day of salvation!                      

                                       II Corinthians 5:20b-6:2   (NRSV)

“We urge you also not to accept the grace of God in vain.”  I think that this is perhaps what Lent is all about.  We who are active in the life of the Church have already accepted the grace of God.  We already believe that God sent Jesus to become our sin, to pay our death penalty, in order to bring us to salvation.  We already have said “yes” to God, and accepted that grace, gift, of God’s love and mercy.  Yet Paul warns the faithful that even as we work with God, even as we share the burden with Jesus, we are in danger of accepting the gift in vain. 

It is so easy for us start taking for granted our relationship with God. The fervor with which we first accepted the salvation of Christ can very quickly pass.  We become used to our status as “saved” Christians and it comes to not make any real difference in our lives.  The thrust of Paul’s comments in this passage are that we need to actively engaged on an ongoing ministry of service and reconciliation.  If our acceptance of God’s grace was genuine, if it was truly understood, then it made, and needs to continue making a difference in our lives.  As Christians saved by God’s grace, we not only talk about “being saved,” we live as saved people.  We make a difference in our world.  We bring forgiveness, reconciliation as God’s fellow workers in the world.  The compelling encounter with God in our time of salvation needs to become the compelling mission in our lives.  The experience of God must become our ministry for God. 

Martin Buber, wrote: “Meeting with God does not come to man in order that he may concern himself with God, but in order that he may confirm that there is meaning in the world.  All revelation is summons and sending.  God remains present to you when you have been sent forth; he who goes on a mission has always God before him: the truer the fulfillment the stronger and more constant the nearness.”  In his inaugural sermon in the parish of Safenwil, Karl Barth explained: “I am not speaking to you of God because I am a pastor.  I am a pastor because I must speak to you of God, if I am to remain true to myself, my better self.”  For all of us, you and me as Christians, all ministers of the Gospel, the ministry of reconciliation derives from our profound experience of being reconciled.

During this Lent, I urge all of us to look at our Christian walk and witness. Are we actively engaged in bringing God’s blessing to the lives of those around us each day?  Are we an agent of reconciliation and peace for all people and situations, even when it is difficult to do so?  Do we speak up for God and God’s justice wherever we are, even among friends and family?  It is so easy for our personal ministries to become a routine of postponement and accommodation.  Under the guise of working for “careful” change we easily end up working for no change.  God in this passage confronts us with God’s now.  God has responded decisively in our behalf.  We are now called to respond, and to continue to respond, as decisively on God’s behalf.

Yours & His,

DED

It’s Lent and We Sing Kyrie Eleison

Greetings,

      As we move into Lent 1, I especially find meaning in the daily use of the Kyrie Eleison (Lord, Have Mercy ).  There are three tunes for the ancient Greek text which was one of the earliest hymns of the Church. 

                        Kyrie eleison.                                            Lord, have mercy.

                        Christe eleison.                                        Christ, have mercy.

                        Kyrie eleison.                                            Lord, have mercy.

      I also recall this other form of the ancient Kyrie:

     

                        Kyrie, O God the Holy Ghost,

                        Guard our faith, the gift we need the most,

                        And bless our life’s last hour,

                        That we leave this sinful world with gladness.

                                    Eleison, eleison!

                                                                                                                                                                        (Latin hymn, Eleventh century)

      And with it this modern equivalent:

Lord, I keep so busy praising my Jesus,

Keep so busy praising my Jesus,

Keep so busy praising my Jesus,

Ain’t got time to die.

’Cause when I’m healing the sick

I’m praising my Jesus.

Yes, I’m praising my Jesus when I’m healing the sick.

Lord, I ain’t got time to die.

Lord, I keep so busy working for the kingdom,

Keep so busy working for the kingdom,

Keep so busy working for the kingdom,

Ain’t got time to die.

’Cause when I’m feeding the poor,

I’m working for the kingdom,

Yes, I’m working when I’m feeding the poor.

Lord, I ain’t got time to die.

’Cause it takes all of my time to praise my Jesus,

All of my time to praise my Lord.

If I don’t praise him, the rocks gonna cry out,

“Glory and honor, glory and honor!”

Ain’t got time to die.

                                                                                                (Hall Johnson)

      During this Lent a number of clergy in the clergy study group which I mentor are preaching on people who foreshadow Jesus Christ, who provide glimpses into the life and work of Jesus.  Or to put in more in today’s terms, the Prequels of Jesus. 

      The message for this week is about Adam, of whom Paul writes, “So the first man, Adam, as scripture says, became a living soul, and the last Adam [Jesus] has become a life-giving spirit.”  (1 Corinthians 15:45.)

      It is about the nature of humans, the nature of sin, and the nature of God.  We humans are always a mixture of motives, just as Adam was, which led Paul to focus on Adam as the foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, the second Adam.  We sin for many different reasons, and we are that great mix of good and evil, which is at war within us.  Yet, in spite of our sin, God is the truly amazing One, who is willing to forgive our sin and take just the smallest amount of faith and obedience and grow it into a mighty force which God uses in the work of transforming and redeeming the world.

Yours & His,

DED

Reflections on Lent

Greetings,

Lent.  Repentance.  Penance.  Prayer.  Fasting.  Almsgiving.

Enter into the mystery of silence.

Your goal in life is not to hold your tongue but to love, to know yourself and to receive your God.  You need to learn to listen, how to retreat into the depths, how to rise above yourself.

Silence leads you to all this, so seek it lovingly and vigilantly.  But beware of false silence:  Yours should be neither taciturnity nor glumness, nor should it be systematic or inflexible, or torpid.  Authentic silence is the gateway to peace, adoration and love.    (Pierre-Marie Delfieux ; fr. A City Not Forsaken: Jerusalem Community Rule of Life)

When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but the prudent are restrained in speech.  (Proverbs 10:19)

Men of few words are the best men.   (William Shakespeare; fr. Henry V, 3.2, Sixteenth century)

Silence goes hand in hand with fasting.   (Jean-Paul Aron; fr. The Art of Eating in France: Manners and Menus in the Nineteenth Century)

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.  (Proverbs 18:21)

Every year Benedict met with his sister, Scholastica, to spend the whole day in the praise of God and in holy conversation.  At their last meeting it turned out that, because of his sister’s love and the power of her prayer, they spent the whole night in vigil and comforted each other with holy converse in spiritual things.  But he did this seldom—once a year.  This once was so meaningful, so gratifying, because it was filled with and permeated by a year’s silence.  It was like a seed’s bursting forth after long months of quietly maturing, to grow, to blossom and to bear fruit.   (Emmanuel Heufelder; fr. The Way of God, According to the Rule of St. Benedict)

But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!    (Habakkuk 2:20)

You know that good makes no noise and noise does no good.  In the common life calm is necessary for the brothers and sisters who are praying, reading and writing, or at night, resting.  For love, then, watch your step, your work, your greetings and your speech.  Silence too is charity.   (Pierre Marie Delfieux; fr. A City Not Forsaken: Jerusalem Community Rule of Life)

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.  How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire!  And the tongue is a fire.  The tongue is places among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.  …but no one can tame the tongue—a restless evil, full of deadly poison.  With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.  From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.  My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so.    (James 3:5-6, 8-10)

The language that God hears best is the silent language of love.   (John of the Cross; Sixteenth century)

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.   (Revelation 8:1)

I am as rich as God.

Each dust mote

more or less

do I in common

with my God possess.

See what no eye can see,

go where no foot can go,

choose that which is no choice—

then you may hear

what makes no sound—

God’s voice.

                                    (Angelus Slesius; Seventeenth century)

Yours & His,

DED

Thinking Day

Greetings,

The Girl Scout’s Thinking Day was first created in 1926 at the fourth Girl Guide/Girl Scout International Conference held at Girl Scouts of the USA's Camp Edith Macy (now called Edith Macy Conference Center). Conference attendees decided that there should be a special day for Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from around the world to "think" of each other and give thanks and appreciation to their "sister" Girl Scouts. The delegates chose February 22 as the date for Thinking Day because it was the mutual birthday of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, and his wife, Olave, who served as World Chief Guide.

In 1932, at the seventh World Conference, held in Poland, a Belgian delegate suggested that since birthdays usually involve presents, girls could show their appreciation and friendship on Thinking Day not only by extending warm wishes but by offering a voluntary contribution to the World Association. This is how the World Association's Thinking Day Fund began. The fund helps offer Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting to more girls and young women worldwide. Girl Scouts of the USA, through its Juliette Low World Friendship Fund contributes to the World Thinking Day Fund.

To emphasize the global aspect of Thinking Day, members at the 30th World Conference, held in Ireland in 1999, changed the name from Thinking Day to World Thinking Day.

I think it is very good that some people have agreed that there is a need to deliberately set time aside to think about other people and the problems which they have and which we all share.  Our life together in this modern society would be greatly improved if we all actually engaged our brains in thinking about the problems which confront us.  Not automated responses to the same old clichés, but actually thinking through the various options for a problem and thinking together with others about solutions which will work. 

In Isaiah we hear the Lord say: Come, let us think this over.  Let’s talk together and settle these problems.  Though your sins, your personal and corporate disobedience and refusal to walk in my way, are as scarlet, if you come and reason together with me, those sins can be washed whiter than snow.  If you are willing to come to your senses and obey, you will eat the good things of the earth.  But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword of your own evil.

In our governments, in our communities, in our neighborhoods, in our own families, we need to think together, reason together, and come to and agreement before and with God as to how we will turn from the ways of self and evil and turn to the Way of being kind to one another, of caring for one another, of blessing one another, and of loving one another.  If we do, we will all feast at the table together.  If we do not, we will be devoured by our own evil.

The Girl Scouts had their Thinking Day on February 22.  We need to have a lot of Thinking Days, starting now.

Yours & His,

DED

Presidents Day – It Is Really Not About Big Sales

Greetings,

            Today is the celebration of George Washington’s birthday.  How wonderfully typical of our society and its government that the day designated to honor Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and George Washington’s birthday can never fall on either of their birthdays.  (The earliest possible date is the 15^th and the latest possible date is the 21^st.)  How also typical of our society that most of what is written about them in our time is designed to tear down their reputations, besmirch their good names, make us feel less guilty about our sins and the sins of those around us (or over us), and to make a lot of money for those who have no shame.  Our own pride is hurt by the notion that there are some people who behaved better than us.  We are now so used to swiping the tar brush across the deeds of the powerful, famous and rich to hid their misdeeds that we can’t let go if it and want to keep on painting anybody and everybody with the same tar.  Such fun.  It makes us feel so good.

            Paul said: “Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due” (Rm. 13:7).  This day we need to remind ourselves that there are people to whom honor is due, and that Washington and Lincoln are among them.  Their names are so prominent in our history, and we are so familiar with them, that we forget just how absolutely vital they were in the shaping of our nation and its history.  Their greatness is in fact so great that it is taken for granted and lost in a mythical haze which ends in our not recognizing it at all for what it truly represents.  We also insist on judging them by our own standards today rather than understanding them in the context of their day. 

            Both Lincoln and Washington were men who would be good, honest, hard working, kind and Godly in any place or time.  True, they might not be famous, for it was the “coincidence of time and place” with their particular needs which brought them to public prominence.  One might even say that it was God ordained that they be in place to fulfill the roles they did.  Both were men of deep faith, even if not conventional.  Both had little use for what they considered the “show” of religion.  Both were devout in their personal lives, well versed in the scriptures, and had a strong understanding of their theology.  Both lived by the scriptural standards of faith, trust, love, goodness and honor.  Both understood and lived the principle stated in Proverbs 15:33: “The fear of the LORD is instruction in wisdom, and humility goes before honor.” 

            As we remember Washington’s birthday, let us reflect upon the example of service he set for us and upon these expressions he gave of his beliefs:

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called Conscience.

It is impossible to govern the world without God.  He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligation.

Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of

religious principle.

Providence has at all times been my only dependence, for all other resources seem to have failed us.  While just government protects all in their religious rites, true religion affords government its surest support.

            As we recall Lincoln’s birthday last week, it would be most appropriate to reread the “Gettysburg Address” and his “Second Inaugural Address” and to consider the following quotations from Lincoln:

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is not God.

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

I have but to say, the Bible is the best gift God had given to man.  All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book.  But for it we could not know right from wrong.  All things most desirable for man’s welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it.

I recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history that

those nations only are blest whose God is the Lord.

I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.  My own wisdom, and that of all about me, seemed insufficient for the day.

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.

            After contemplating the lives of these presidents, and all of the political “spinning” which surrounds our current President and would-be presidents, I cannot help but think of another verse from Proverbs, “A person’s pride will bring humiliation, but one who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor” (Prov. 29:23).  I will let you draw your own conclusions from this.

Yours & His,

DED

Schopenhauer: The Great Challenger

Greetings,

            Once more I find myself preparing for the season of Lent.  I am considering what to do for my Lenten devotions and observances this year.  John Wesley, following Jesus’ expectations, fasted at least once a week (for much of his life it was twice a week) and urged all Methodists to do so.  So how shall I expand my fasting?  What act of penance and devotions shall I do each day of Lent?  What will I “give up for Lent?”  And, perhaps most important, what additional acts of mercy shall I do during Lent?

      At the same time, my Lenten observances need to fit around my schedule of meetings and efforts to lead the members of the Maryland General Assembly into the light.  The Assembly has made some progress this year, but on many matters of urgent importance, the members are still unwilling to move forward.  You have heard me bemoan the current climate of polarization and the decline of civil discourse.  We are no longer allowed to have reasoned disagreements.  We are seldom willing to listen to "the other side," much less have an intelligent debate about issues.  I enjoy reading contrasting opinions as long as they are well thought out.  One needs to read the conservative Christianity Today, the liberal Christian Century, and the very liberal, yet very orthodox Theology Today.  This week we remember that February 22 is also the birthday of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), so I spent some time with his writings. 

      Along with Friedrich Nietzsche, Schopenhauer was one of the great pessimists of 19th-century German philosophy.  He had much to be pessimistic about.  For most of his life he met the "resistance of a dull world," which took the form of indifference to his work.  He was continually overshadowed by his philosophical foe, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.  Not until a few years before his death did international acclaim come to Schopenhauer.  He eventually had a profound influence on modern existentialism, psychology, philosophy of history, and literature.

      He considered himself the successor of Kant, but equated Kant's thing-in-itself with a blind, impelling force manifesting itself in individuals as the will to live.  Schopenhauer saw the world as a constant conflict of individual wills resulting in frustration and pain.  Pleasure is simply the absence of pain and can be achieved only through the renunciation of desire (a concept that reflects Schopenhauer's studies of Hindu scripture).  His most important work is The World as Will and Representation (1818).  His doctrine of the primacy of the will influenced Nietzsche and Freud.  The publication in England of an attack on Hegel's philosophy led to the appearance of favorable treatises on Schopenhauer's work.  Translations of his books were made, and he was praised throughout Europe.  Amid the prevailing Romanticism of the time his emphasis on vitalism, intuition, creativity, and the irrational found a warm reception.  He spent his last years revising his books.  He died suddenly in Frankfurt on Sept. 21, 1860.

      The following are some of my favorite quotations from his writings.  One certainly may not agree with all he says, but it is all thought-provoking, and therefore very worthwhile.

      "How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life the uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do."

      "In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods."

      "National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country.  Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right."

      "The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable."

      "Rascals are always sociable - more's the pity! and the chief sign that a man has any nobility in his character is the little pleasure he takes in others' company."

      "Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost."

      "Hatred is an affair of the heart: contempt that of the head."

      "There is no doubt that life is given us, not to be enjoyed, but to be overcome-to be got over."

      "Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try to win one another's money.  Idiots!"

      "Obstinacy is the result of the will forcing itself into the place of the intellect."

      "All the cruelty and torment of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality, of the forms under which the will to live is objectified."

      “The only obstacles to happiness are pain and boredom.”

    Having spent a lot of time recently with those with whom I frequently agree, Neibuhr, MacDonald, Chesterton, Spurgeon, Barth, and Lewis, a good dose of Schopenhauer was invigorating.

Yours & His,

DED

A Prayer by W. E. B. DuBois

Greetings,

            As part of focusing on Black History Month I was reading again some of the writings of DuBois.  There is much happening our lives, and throughout our society there is a great need for people of character and strength, for people who have the truth and power of God.  The following is a prayer by W. E. B. DuBois who was a writer, teacher, theologian, civil rights leader and a founder of the NAACP.  The prayer was written while Dr. DuBois was professor of economics and sociology at Atlanta University, an institution which included a primary school, grammar school, high school and college.  It was for its students that Dr. DuBois wrote this and many prayers.

            "It is the wind and the rain, O God, the cold and the storm that make this earth of Thine to blossom and bear its fruit.  So in our lives it is storm and stress and hurt and suffering that make real men and women bring the world's work to its highest perfection.  Let us learn then in these growing years to respect the harder sterner aspects of life together with its joy and laughter, and to weave them all into the great web which hangs holy to the Lord."

            An appropriate prayer not only for young people, but for all of us.

Yours & His,

DED

The Reality of Be Ye Perfect

Greetings,
      First, From time to time I ask for your prayers for a particular situation or person.  Today it is for the Mission Team going from Catonsville United Methodist Church to Costa Rica.  There are 59 people on the team and they are returning to the Christian Camp with which CUMC has been associated for twelve or so years, returning each year to conduct a Vacation Bible School for the area children, witness to the adults, and assist with the work projects which the local leaders have prepared.  This on-going partnership provides support and encouragement for our sisters and brothers there as well as being a blessing for the team members. 

Now, you have often heard me refer to the need to believe what Jesus says, and to achieve, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the perfection which Jesus expects of each of us here and now.  Here are further comments on living the Christian life in practical terms, and on Jesus’ expectation of us to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).  C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian apologists of this century, continues to have a profound and far reaching effect on people.  The following is a passage from  Mere Christianity, Book IV, Chapter 8.

            The real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it.  It comes the very moment you wake up each morning.  All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals.  And the first job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other point of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in.  And so on, all day.  Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind.

            We can only do it for moments at first.  But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us.  It is the difference between paint, which is merely laid on the surface, and a dye or stain which soaks right through.  He never talked vague, idealistic gas.  When He said, “Be perfect,” He meant it.  He meant that we must go in for the full treatment.  It is hard; but the sort of compromise we are all hankering after is harder—in fact, it is impossible.  It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.  We are like eggs at present.  And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg.  We must be hatched or go bad...

            This is the whole of Christianity.  There is nothing else.  It is so easy to get muddled about that.  It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects—education, building, missions, holding services.  Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects—military, political, economic, and what not.  But in a way things are much simpler than that.  The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life.  A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden—that is what the State is there for....

            In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs.  If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.  God became Man for no other purpose.  It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.

Yours & His,

DED

Jesus’ “Come Unto Me…” and Paul Tillich

Greetings,

Sunday the Confirmation Class toured the church and in the sacristy saw on the worship table the two foot replica of the 10 ½ foot statue of Jesus, the Cristus Conselator, in the rotunda in Johns Hopkins Hospital, with its inscription “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden.”  Today I reread this passage from an old Paul Tillich book, The Shaking of the Foundations (p. 93) and want to again share with you.

When I was of the age to receive confirmation and full membership of the Church, I was told to choose a passage from the Bible as the expression of my personal approach to the biblical message and to the Christian Church.  Every confirmand was obliged to do so, and to recite the passage before the congregation.  When I chose the words, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden,” I was asked with a kind of astonishment and even irony why I had chosen that particular passage.  For I was living under happy conditions and, being only fifteen years old, was without any apparent labour and burden.  I could not answer at that time; I felt a little embarrassed, but basically right.  And I was right, indeed; every child is right in responding to them in all periods of his life, and under all the conditions of his internal and external history.  These words of Jesus are universal, and fit every human being and every human situation. They are simple; they grasp the heart of the primitive as well as that of the profound, disturbing the mind of the wise.  Practically every word of Jesus had this character, sharing the difference between Him as the originator and the dependent interpreters, disciples and theologians, saints and preachers.  Returning for the first time in my life to the passage of my early choice, I feel just as grasped by it as at that time, but infinitely more embarrassed by its majesty, profundity, and inexhaustible meaning.                                                                                                                               

My years observing the statue and the people who turned to it, and its influence in my own life and functioning causes me to say an emphatic Amen.

Yours & His,

 DED