I washed the windows last Friday. It was amazing how dirty they were after the winter months. Open, spray, wipe, clean, return to normal position and move on to the next window. When I finished, I felt really good about what I had accomplished. When Penny came home, she commented on how much better the world looked through clean windows. I felt really good about what I had accomplished. Patting myself on the back, I looked out the windows at the world around us and rejoiced. I had done a good job.
The grass needed mowed. So I got the mower out, and did the job. Back and forth, up and down, cutting the grass, making sure not to miss any part of the yard. When I finished, it looked really good. I sat on the porch and looked proudly at the yard and felt a sense of accomplishment. I had done good once again. I had made things look really nice around the house. Patting myself on the back, I walked back into the house and rejoiced that things were looking so good.
So we are in life. We do something and we feel proud of it. Look at what I have done, the job I have accomplished. Me, not someone else, me! I did this. I did that. I made the company a fist full of money by the way I sold that contract. I convinced a set of people that they needed what we offered. I set the standard for others to life up to because I did so good. Pat yourself on the back and rejoice, you are really good.
The next morning, as the sun came up, I proudly looked at the window I had cleaned. I knew it was going to be a great sunrise because I had cleaned those windows. But...wait a moment. What is that? They are smeared. Really, they are smeared. Not by dog noses, which would come soon enough. They were smeared because when I washed them, I didn't do a good enough job. I looked at the windows with disgust. Really? How could I, me, the great and wonderful window washer, have not gotten those windows cleaner? Oh, they were good enough. They still looked nice, when the early morning sun wasn't streaming in but I knew. I knew that I hadn't done a good enough job cleaning them. My best efforts weren't really good enough.
I got up this morning, looked at the yard as I let the dogs out and thought, what happened? Didn't I just mow the yard? Wasn't it just looking beautiful after this great lawn mower finished? What did it look ragged today? Why did it look like it needed mowing again? What is up with that? I don't really want to mow again but look at it. Just look. Even though this great yard care person made it look so beautiful, today it doesn't look that way. Oh sure, it is good enough. It really can wait a day or two but look at it! It isn't as pretty as the other day when I mowed it. Even though I had done what was needed, today, my best efforts didn't stop it from growing and looking, well, not bad but not good. My best efforts weren't good enough.
As I thought about this, I realized something important. My best efforts aren't good enough. When I look at my life, I mean my spiritual life, I realize that my best efforts aren't good enough. I try to clean up my life and all I do is smear it more. I try to clip down the sin but all that happens is it grows back, often times faster than I can imagine. I try to help others, but it is not always from such altruistic care. I am doing it for myself. When I help that person that needs help, it only shows that I am in a better place than them. I don't need their help, they need mine. (Pat, pat, pat) When I make some serious cash, I find that my greedful self wants more. Make more. You did it before, do it again. Temptation rears it's head. Sin grows back in my life just like my yard. Sin smears my life just like my windows.
I realize it isn't about what I can do because what I do is colored, completely colored, by sin. Sin is always there. It smears my best intentions. It grows back despite my best efforts. It makes my actions self-centered. It creates in me an impure heart, a heart that is self-serving, self-seeking and self-delusional. Yes, I struggle against that old, sinful nature and I cannot overcome it.
Into this picture steps the Lord. He knows my best efforts are not good enough. He knows I am a sinful person. He knows that I will become proud and arrogant about what is accomplished (even when it isn't something I have done, I will try to take credit for it (especially when it comes to the life of faith). So He shows His love. He takes my sin, my unrighteousness. He carries that for me. He carries it to the cross. He hangs there for me, for my selfishness and my my best (actually they are my worst) efforts. He suffers for me. He dies for me. He is laid in the tomb for me. Then He rises for me.
He gives to me what I lack, His righteousness. He gives that in the waters of Baptism. He gives that through the Holy Spirit working in my heart and life. He gives that through His Word. He gives that in the body and blood, bread and wine of the Sacrament of the Altar. He gives me what I cannot give myself - purity. He created in me a pure heart! He made me know. He makes me new every morning. He forgives, upholds and leads me each day.
Smeared windows, growing grass and Christ. The first two are my sins. The last One is His righteousness. I would love to do away with the first two. I can't. But He does. I would love to claim the last one. I can't. He gives it freely. Looking at the window, I see Christ's righteousness for me. I look at the grass and see Him working in my life.
All I can say, "How great Thou art!" No patting myself on the back. Falling on my knees, I now see is the better place to be.
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Thursday, May 11, 2017
Mother's Day ramblings.
Happy Mother's Day!
This Sunday, May 14, 2017 is Mother's Day, the annual celebration of motherhood. It is a grand day to remember your mother. It is important to take a moment and thank the Lord for the gift of a mother, since we all have one (either living or departed). For those who have living mothers, I would encourage you to stop by and see her, if you live in the area where she lives or give her a call and talk to her. We all know that we do not live forever. One day, your mother will pass away. At that moment, all the things you wish you would have said or done will weigh upon your mind as guilt. You will wish you would have stopped more often. You will wish you would have called more often. You will wish that you would have told her that you loved her.
So why wait till Sunday? Call her today. Stop by today. Tell her you love her today. Life is fragile. We are not told how many days we will have. Someone that is waiting till Sunday will find that between now and then, their mother will have passed. Don't be that someone.
Mother's Day. I think about the day. I do not know my birth mother. Yes, I have her name. I have vague memories of her but I do not know her. The woman that raised me, that became my mother, died in 1999. So I cannot celebrate Mother's Day with them. But I do celebrate Mother's Day with Penny, my wife of nearly 33 years. She is the mother of our 3 children, yes, 3. You only know 2 of them, Rachael and Matthew. We lost our first child to that unspoken of thing called "miscarriage." It broke our hearts. The Lord healed those broken hearts and broken lives that came from that death. (Do you ever think of a miscarriage as a death? It is. That child was alive, no matter how long he/she was carried.) We were crushed when we lost our first child. I give thanks for the Lord at that moment because we were alone in Wisconsin and received no support from anyone around us. Hurting, lost, the Lord was all we had (and in many ways, He is all we have every day). Penny is a wonderful mother. So on Mother's Day, I celebrate her.
I also celebrate Penny's mother, Shirley. She has become the mother that I don't have. I rejoice that the Lord has given me the opportunity over these years, especially since 1999, to have a mother (though she is technically a mother-in-law). I love her like a mother and give thanks to the Lord that I was able to be a part of her life and family.
I have another mother that I celebrate. That mother is the Church, the Christian Church. Yes, she is my spiritual mother. In the Church I am nurtured and fed regularly. She gives me life. She gives me strength. She feeds me through Word and Sacrament. She gives birth to many brothers and sisters around the world, each one brought to faith through the working of the Holy Spirit. On Mother's Day, I rejoice at the spiritual family that I have been given, here at St. Paul's, Troy; at each of the congregations that I have served as pastor; in each congregation that I have been nurtured in faith; and in the congregations that I have not visited or seen for they too are a part of this Christian family.
So in the end, all I can say is, "Thank You Lord for my mothers, living and departed. Thank You for the life You have given me - physical life and spiritual life."
If you are a mother, happy Mother's Day to you.
This Sunday, May 14, 2017 is Mother's Day, the annual celebration of motherhood. It is a grand day to remember your mother. It is important to take a moment and thank the Lord for the gift of a mother, since we all have one (either living or departed). For those who have living mothers, I would encourage you to stop by and see her, if you live in the area where she lives or give her a call and talk to her. We all know that we do not live forever. One day, your mother will pass away. At that moment, all the things you wish you would have said or done will weigh upon your mind as guilt. You will wish you would have stopped more often. You will wish you would have called more often. You will wish that you would have told her that you loved her.
So why wait till Sunday? Call her today. Stop by today. Tell her you love her today. Life is fragile. We are not told how many days we will have. Someone that is waiting till Sunday will find that between now and then, their mother will have passed. Don't be that someone.
Mother's Day. I think about the day. I do not know my birth mother. Yes, I have her name. I have vague memories of her but I do not know her. The woman that raised me, that became my mother, died in 1999. So I cannot celebrate Mother's Day with them. But I do celebrate Mother's Day with Penny, my wife of nearly 33 years. She is the mother of our 3 children, yes, 3. You only know 2 of them, Rachael and Matthew. We lost our first child to that unspoken of thing called "miscarriage." It broke our hearts. The Lord healed those broken hearts and broken lives that came from that death. (Do you ever think of a miscarriage as a death? It is. That child was alive, no matter how long he/she was carried.) We were crushed when we lost our first child. I give thanks for the Lord at that moment because we were alone in Wisconsin and received no support from anyone around us. Hurting, lost, the Lord was all we had (and in many ways, He is all we have every day). Penny is a wonderful mother. So on Mother's Day, I celebrate her.
I also celebrate Penny's mother, Shirley. She has become the mother that I don't have. I rejoice that the Lord has given me the opportunity over these years, especially since 1999, to have a mother (though she is technically a mother-in-law). I love her like a mother and give thanks to the Lord that I was able to be a part of her life and family.
I have another mother that I celebrate. That mother is the Church, the Christian Church. Yes, she is my spiritual mother. In the Church I am nurtured and fed regularly. She gives me life. She gives me strength. She feeds me through Word and Sacrament. She gives birth to many brothers and sisters around the world, each one brought to faith through the working of the Holy Spirit. On Mother's Day, I rejoice at the spiritual family that I have been given, here at St. Paul's, Troy; at each of the congregations that I have served as pastor; in each congregation that I have been nurtured in faith; and in the congregations that I have not visited or seen for they too are a part of this Christian family.
So in the end, all I can say is, "Thank You Lord for my mothers, living and departed. Thank You for the life You have given me - physical life and spiritual life."
If you are a mother, happy Mother's Day to you.
Monday, May 8, 2017
Sheep and Shepherd
The 4th Sunday of Easter (yesterday, May 7) was Good Shepherd Sunday. It is on that day of the Church Year that we focus our attention on Jesus Christ as the Good Shepherd. He says, "I am the good shepherd..." (John 10:11 ESV) We read in Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." (Psalm 23:1) He watches over us and cares for us in our lives. The sheep (you and me) need the Shepherd to care for us in the midst of this world that is filled with many wolves, lions and other dangers. The devil, the sinful world and our sinful nature all seek our destruction. Left to our own ways, we would find that we fall prey to so many things that our lives are filled with pain and suffering.
Isaiah writes, "We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way." (Isaiah 53:6 ESV) Straying sheep, sheep that feel that we know better than the Shepherd, sheep that seek their own way, that is how we are described. And it is true. When we quit following the Shepherd (for a shepherd leads his sheep rather than driving them ahead of himself), we stray off to all sorts of things.
How true this is for my life. Those times when I am tempted by the tuft of grass here or the berry on the bush that looks so succulent, I forget to follow my Shepherd. I figure, "What will one little moment matter? How can I get in very much trouble if I just go over here for a moment?" It is at those moments that the lion (1 Peter 5:8 "Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." ESV) smiles to himself and realizes that yet another little lamb is straying from the flock and is fair game. The simple little tuft of grass leads to another tuft a little further and so on until I have strayed from the Shepherd and the roaring lion gets to devour this little lamb. All because I didn't think that one little temptation would actually lead to something bigger, something called "sin."
That is when the Shepherd comes for me. Now the question that I ask myself and I would ask you is this, "When the Shepherd comes for you, to rescue you, do you fight Him? Do you listen to His voice? Or do you think you are still wiser, more apt to know what is best for you, that you don't listen to Him? Do you run to the Shepherd? Or do you run from Him?"
When called back from sin, we have one of two choices: 1) listen to the voice of the Shepherd, turn from our sinfulness and follow Him, or 2) think that we still have it under control, that we can still hold fast to the sinful action and not be hurt by it. When the Law calls to us, points out our sin, shows our weakness, shows our need of a Savior, how do you respond? I know that often my sinful nature will tell me, "You are all right. You don't have to turn from this temptation. You are still in control. You are safe. Nothing will happen to you." Then the lion sinks his teeth into me, tearing at my flesh, seeking to destroy me completely. That often happens when someone is in a sinful action and doesn't wish to stop - the person who is consumed by alcohol and doesn't want to/is unable to stop; the person who is caught up in pornography; the person who is a gossip; the person who doesn't feel the need for Word and Sacrament in his/her life; and so on. "I can do it myself. I don't need the Shepherd to bother me." Sheep lead astray, sheep getting lost, sheep being destroyed by sinful temptation and sinful actions.
The Shepherd wades into the fray, the battle for the soul of the lamb, giving Himself to the claws of the lion, to the teeth of wolf, to the terror of the angered grizzly bear, all in order to save the little lamb, the sheep who has strayed. That is what the Good Shepherd does. "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:11b ESV) He does that when He goes to the cross. The nails piercing His hands and feet, the weight of sin laid on His shoulders, the Good Shepherd gives up His life for you and me. He takes our place, standing between us and sin, death and the devil, fulfilling the Law for us, in our stead. He dies so that we might live. The Good Shepherd rushing to our aid, fighting off those which would devour us.
In Him, we have life. In Him is forgiveness. In Him is true earthly life. In Him is peace. In Him is all that we need. And so I ask you (and myself), "Do you go rushing back to that temptation? Do you feel that it will still be all right to chase after that one berry of sin, thinking that you will still be all right?" The answer to that question is most generally "yes." Even after all He has done for you and me, sin still holds that power of us. This is why we need to be in the Word regularly. This is why we need to be living in our Baptism. This is why we still need to receive the Lord's Supper when it is offered. This is why we still need to be a part of the "flock" which we call the local congregation. A sheep by itself is easy prey. A sheep surrounded by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the Means of Grace (Word and Sacraments), is protected. He/she will still fall into temptation but will be easily brought back through forgiveness. A sheep that is off by itself, feeling no need at all for the flock or the Shepherd or the Means of Grace, will find that he/she is sliding down the steep cliff to his/her spiritual death (even when he/she doesn't realize it). We need each other as brothers and sisters in Christ for the reason that it gives us support, strength and the power to withstand the temptations to stray. Being a part of the local congregation centers us, anchors us and strengths us each day.
All right, so this blog didn't go the direction I thought it was going. But as a sheep of the Lord, the under shepherd of the flock here at Troy, I see that the Spirit leads where He wishes and I follow. Will you follow today? I pray that you will. More than that, I pray that I will follow as well.
Isaiah writes, "We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way." (Isaiah 53:6 ESV) Straying sheep, sheep that feel that we know better than the Shepherd, sheep that seek their own way, that is how we are described. And it is true. When we quit following the Shepherd (for a shepherd leads his sheep rather than driving them ahead of himself), we stray off to all sorts of things.
How true this is for my life. Those times when I am tempted by the tuft of grass here or the berry on the bush that looks so succulent, I forget to follow my Shepherd. I figure, "What will one little moment matter? How can I get in very much trouble if I just go over here for a moment?" It is at those moments that the lion (1 Peter 5:8 "Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." ESV) smiles to himself and realizes that yet another little lamb is straying from the flock and is fair game. The simple little tuft of grass leads to another tuft a little further and so on until I have strayed from the Shepherd and the roaring lion gets to devour this little lamb. All because I didn't think that one little temptation would actually lead to something bigger, something called "sin."
That is when the Shepherd comes for me. Now the question that I ask myself and I would ask you is this, "When the Shepherd comes for you, to rescue you, do you fight Him? Do you listen to His voice? Or do you think you are still wiser, more apt to know what is best for you, that you don't listen to Him? Do you run to the Shepherd? Or do you run from Him?"
When called back from sin, we have one of two choices: 1) listen to the voice of the Shepherd, turn from our sinfulness and follow Him, or 2) think that we still have it under control, that we can still hold fast to the sinful action and not be hurt by it. When the Law calls to us, points out our sin, shows our weakness, shows our need of a Savior, how do you respond? I know that often my sinful nature will tell me, "You are all right. You don't have to turn from this temptation. You are still in control. You are safe. Nothing will happen to you." Then the lion sinks his teeth into me, tearing at my flesh, seeking to destroy me completely. That often happens when someone is in a sinful action and doesn't wish to stop - the person who is consumed by alcohol and doesn't want to/is unable to stop; the person who is caught up in pornography; the person who is a gossip; the person who doesn't feel the need for Word and Sacrament in his/her life; and so on. "I can do it myself. I don't need the Shepherd to bother me." Sheep lead astray, sheep getting lost, sheep being destroyed by sinful temptation and sinful actions.
The Shepherd wades into the fray, the battle for the soul of the lamb, giving Himself to the claws of the lion, to the teeth of wolf, to the terror of the angered grizzly bear, all in order to save the little lamb, the sheep who has strayed. That is what the Good Shepherd does. "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." (John 10:11b ESV) He does that when He goes to the cross. The nails piercing His hands and feet, the weight of sin laid on His shoulders, the Good Shepherd gives up His life for you and me. He takes our place, standing between us and sin, death and the devil, fulfilling the Law for us, in our stead. He dies so that we might live. The Good Shepherd rushing to our aid, fighting off those which would devour us.
In Him, we have life. In Him is forgiveness. In Him is true earthly life. In Him is peace. In Him is all that we need. And so I ask you (and myself), "Do you go rushing back to that temptation? Do you feel that it will still be all right to chase after that one berry of sin, thinking that you will still be all right?" The answer to that question is most generally "yes." Even after all He has done for you and me, sin still holds that power of us. This is why we need to be in the Word regularly. This is why we need to be living in our Baptism. This is why we still need to receive the Lord's Supper when it is offered. This is why we still need to be a part of the "flock" which we call the local congregation. A sheep by itself is easy prey. A sheep surrounded by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the Means of Grace (Word and Sacraments), is protected. He/she will still fall into temptation but will be easily brought back through forgiveness. A sheep that is off by itself, feeling no need at all for the flock or the Shepherd or the Means of Grace, will find that he/she is sliding down the steep cliff to his/her spiritual death (even when he/she doesn't realize it). We need each other as brothers and sisters in Christ for the reason that it gives us support, strength and the power to withstand the temptations to stray. Being a part of the local congregation centers us, anchors us and strengths us each day.
All right, so this blog didn't go the direction I thought it was going. But as a sheep of the Lord, the under shepherd of the flock here at Troy, I see that the Spirit leads where He wishes and I follow. Will you follow today? I pray that you will. More than that, I pray that I will follow as well.
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