Monday Morning Music Ministry

9-2-24

Recently in these essays I have, without (my own) planning, shared thoughts on our personal interactions with God. “Be still and know that I am God.” Sharing the Good News. Keeping silence at retreats. Listening for His voice. “When God might say, ‘Shut Up!’”

Variations on a theme, I suppose. And I pray the messages might have inspired you, or prompted thoughts or actions, or (so to speak) less action and more contemplation. Anyway, I believe the Holy Spirit has me in this mode, and as some Christians like to say, there are no coincidences, only God-incidences.

I also have realized that my meditations have focused on being a “hearer of the Word”; seeking God’s will for my life (in fact, the title of a book that my friend and I have been discussing); finding new ways to listen and learn from all He has for me.

But then, in a manner of speaking, all this is only half of communion with the Lord.

Yes, there are myriad ways to hear from God. He sent the Holy Spirit to be Jesus living within us. He speaks to our hearts. We have His written Word. We have testimony of saints and martyrs and prophets through the ages. We are blessed with ministers, teachers, preachers, evangelists. We have the testimony of animate Creation. Humankind has been visited by anointed and yielded servants who – you have heard the saying – share the Gospel sometimes even with words.

But. Are these manifestations only half of the story? Half of our fellowship with the Lord? Half of… communication with God?

All the ways we are blessed to hear from God indeed add up to only half of the story. One of Scripture’s strongest and foundational themes is that God desires to hear from us, too. God did not only talk to Adam and Eve and Noah and Abraham and Moses and Ruth and David and Jonah and Daniel… He had conversations. Many times, through the Bible, in fact, He virtually chatted: not always thundering commands and lightning-bolts. The Book of Job – the first-written of all books in the Bible – is a virtual transcript of prayers and answers; discussions and pleadings. And so with prophets.

And so it also was with Jesus – He came to earth to teach and instruct; but also to listen and reason and encourage and persuade. Do we have examples of Christ with people shutting down an argument or attack? No, the Savior of Humankind listened, responded thoughtfully, and had conversations. As the old Gospel song reminds us, “He walks with me, and He talks with me.”

Why should it be different today? Is it? Of course I am referring to prayer.

What a gift prayer is! I could certainly imagine the Creator of the universe being so august that, yes, He might bless us with many things, even sweet salvation… but not necessarily a god lowering Himself to hear (much less solicit) our prayers. How many other religions through history and around the world have invented gods that invite conversations with them? Demands, yes. Threats, yes. Sacrifices, yes. But… chats?

Can we all take a survey of our own prayer lives? Do you pray every day? Did your children say bed-time prayers, and say grace at meals? If you attend a liturgical church, have you memorized prayers and creeds – if so, do you find yourself praying the words, sometimes, without “thinking” them any more? These questions might not have right-or-wrong answers, but can have regrets attached to them.

I similarly am troubled when I see clergymen on television read their prayers at events: it seems to me that addressing God seems less sincere in such cases than spontaneous, from-the-heart. I wonder, when I see athletes cross themselves, whether they actually pray the names of the father, Son, and Holy Ghost every one of those moments. I am not criticizing when I ask these questions! Too often, I myself have assured someone “I’ll pray for you” – when it would be just as easy, and more sincere, to take that moment and pray with them right there.

It seems sometimes that prayer is becoming a lost language in our culture. When I was in elementary school, we prayed in class (and read the Bible each week. Yes, in public school). Oh, what we have been saved from as a society… or see what we have become. Do we pray with our spouses? With strangers? – wouldn’t a quick prayer be more heartfelt, and efficacious with the Lord, than uttering “good luck to you”?

My daughter Heather used to pray, aloud, when doing housework or chores, but not formal prayers as most of us know them. She would have conversations with God – about her day, or challenges at work, “little” things – as if she were talking to her best friend. Which, of course, God is. What a wonderful prayer mode. “Pray without ceasing,” the Bible urges. And it’s not always about ASKING.

The Bible tells us that God can be a jealous God. Literally, he is jealous of our time and attention. He desires to hear from us. He wants to hear what He knows already – our burdens, our needs, even our gratitude – so we can be drawn closer.

It’s what friends do.

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Click: I Just Came To Talk with You, Lord

8-12-24

We all have a way of anesthetizing ourselves about things in life – and not only the unpleasant matters. We “go through hell” after this or that experience; and we describe a “little taste of Heaven” when something sweet happens.

In truth, whether you think a bit, or read Scripture, we have no conception of how horrible hell will be, or how rapturous Heaven will be. Why do we humans want to avoid warnings and lessons, and under-appreciate the rewards and blessings that we will meet.

Ah, skeptics may say: it is all metaphoric anyway. We don’t believe, deep down, that there is a Heaven or a hell, they say.

Good luck playing those odds. You will find out; or maybe you won’t. But those kinds of bets – about your life; your soul; your place in eternity – are awful tools with which to navigate your existence. The choices you make. The effects you have on others. The joy you may experience; or not.

There is a God, of course. He did not create robots but children with free will, and with that freedom we choose to defy Him, resist Him often, and sin against His ways. He still loved us (while we rebelled, in fact) and offered His earthly Incarnation, Jesus, to be a sacrifice for sin on our behalf. And if we still rebel, He allows us to believe in that “sin offering,” Jesus, who He overcame death as we can do, in order to be reconciled and deserve a place in that Heaven we mentioned above. Even more, He provides His Holy Spirit to work in our lives to enlighten our way and strengthen our faith.

The simple Gospel. What about that deal, how about those odds?

Yet many people reject God and such a salvation (in spite of the alternative, the “hell” that people risk). There are uncountable ways to reject God… or a million excuses. And there are uncountable options people cling too, ridiculously desperate to find the alternative to Jesus Christ. False gods; dashed hopes; pagan rites; bizarre rituals; broken promises; disproved theories; silly philosophies. And – of course – many plausible philosophies and logical-sounding “faiths.” And let’s not forget the many people who actually admit that their lives’ standards are likely baseless but “they work for them.” They’ll wake up dead some day, having deluded themselves and maybe kept from being awful neighbors… but left the world no better. And, tragically, wasted their lives.

Using words like “uncountable” ways and “millions” of excuses, I want to remind us that on the “God side” of such discussions there are not myriad ways to Heaven. Salvation is not a multiple-choice quiz. All of God’s great workings with humanity points to one Messiah. His revealed Word asserts that Jesus is the only way to eternal life. Jesus claimed it Himself.

There are no loopholes.

People might seek in vain – they do; they have – and, well, we get back to Playing the Odds. How tragic. History is replete with people who think they have discovered a better way; who think, frankly, that they are smarter then God. Lots of folks are smarter than I am, but show me someone who is smarter than God.

Is it arrogant for people like me to believe such things, and to plead with others to believe them? Naw, I just peek at the cheat sheets – the Bible; the testimony of saints (that is, average people who have met the Savior); the accounts of miracles; the smiles of babies; the eyes of the healed; the changed lives. My own changed life.

Those are ways God “proves” Himself. To skeptics reading this – or Christians who might need fresh encouragement – don’t believe me. That is the point! Don’t believe me, or other mortals or traditions or philosophies or those who sell beads and amulets or show lists of junior-gods and counterfeit doctrines. Put your faith in “sure things”?

Believe Jesus, not any of them unless they embody, point to, reflect, and embrace Jesus against any other version of “truth.”

Whether people have debated about (or with) Jesus… or avoided Him all their lives… or ignore Him at every turn… it is futile to say that you have not “met” Him. He is, in fact, closer to you than a shadow. He is with you, whether you want Him there or not, because He wants to be with you.

The comedian Orson Bean abandoned secularism and atheism, he said, when he realized that the “hole in our hearts” we all feel, deep down, can only be filled by Jesus. That’s how God made us. And why He sent His Son.

Every person on earth already has a relationship with Jesus. It is just everyone’s choice whether it is an empty, frustrated relationship, or a beautiful, fulfilling, joyful friendship with Him.

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Click: Blessed Assurance

8-5-24

Back in time. I recall Martin Luther’s brave defiance of a hostile court of the Holy Roman Empire and the Vatican, where his death sentence seemed certain. Indeed, he had written his will and testament the previous night in his cell (the original is on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC).

He was summoned to defend – no: in fact to deny and recant – things he had written and said that challenged doctrine and corruption in the Catholic Church. A priest himself, knowing that for a century other reform-minded clergymen had been martyred, he said, “Even if the Emperor calls… in order to kill me, or to declare me an enemy of the Empire, I shall offer to come. With Christ helping me, I shall not run away, nor shall I abandon God’s Word in this struggle.”

Political princes as well as princes of the church gathered at this momentous trial. Responding to direct demands and threats, Luther declared,

Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures or by evident reason – for I can believe neither pope nor councils alone, as it is clear that they have erred repeatedly and contradicted themselves – I consider myself convicted by the testimony of Holy Scripture, which is my basis; my conscience is captive to the Word of God. Thus I cannot and will not recant, because acting against one’s conscience is neither safe nor sound. God help me.

Here I stand. I can do no other.

This moment was a nexus in the history of Western civilization. Luther was spared the murderous intentions of the Vatican as he was kidnapped and hidden by rebellious German princes. He translated the Bible into German – one of his other imputed offenses; the public was increasingly literate but could not read Latin, and was forbidden to read Scripture in any version – and his spirit in large measure sparked democratic reforms in all spheres of life.

The Reformation is commemorated around All Saints’ Day, and that is not my specific focus here. (Besides, the “protests” of the “Protestants” have so reverted today to the relativism and Works Doctrine that motivated Luther in the first place to… oh, another day, another time…)

What I do want to ask is How many Luthers are there among us today?

Here I stand. I can do no other.

How many Believers – let me for the moment say, believers in anything – willingly compromise their beliefs these days? Or just stay silent? Or adopt alternate standards? And I don’t mean issues like turning neighbors over to the state police (although we have read of many people who otherwise look and act like us have done such things…) but seizing, rather, on euphemisms and phony values to ease their consciences.

Do you let you kids get away with things you know are harmful or immoral out of fear of offending them? Do you stay in a church with which you disagree, because friends attend, or it is in your tradition? Do you vote a certain way – or, worse, tell people you don’t vote a certain way – to avoid arguments? These days we hear a lot of “Thanksgiving Dinner disputes” over issues – do you take a stand and defend it, and try to convince people you love, or do you… pass the gravy?

These mostly are matters less weighty than those facing Luther. For the moment, anyway (things are growing more intense these days). So, consider one of (sadly) scores of more consequential issues these days:

If you believe that abortion is murder, do you speak and act against it? Or are you one of many who choose not to “hurt the feelings” of “pro-choice” people? Do you consider the “feelings” of the murdered baby? Do you discuss the “choice” the baby had? Whether in a family circle, or among neighbors, or in councils, if you have strong personal beliefs about murder… why keep them personal? Or would you say,

Here I stand. I can do no other.

In a larger but not any more abstract sense, Jesus Christ challenges us every day of our lives. To make choices. To be His representatives to the world. To… take a stand.

I have a PowerPoint lecture where I show photos I have taken around the world of brilliant, colorful skies with the sun at horizon over oceans, forests, and deserts. Showing no other landmarks, I challenge audiences to identify the images as sunrises or sunsets. It is impossible to tell. Unless… you know where you stand.

The Bible tell us to “stand on the solid rock” which is Jesus, but humans often stray and trust to their own feelings. The Medieval castle of Dunluce on the Northern Irish coast in County Antrim was a magnificent structure overlooking the wild North Atlantic Ocean. Secure and impregnable… until half of it collapsed down the cliffs into the ocean centuries ago. Now, magnificent ruins.

Here I stand? Be careful!

“Life ain’t nohow permanent,” if I may quote Pogo Possum. And it is the case, except for the eternal life we have in Christ Jesus. What is anything worth, outside the things of God, what He offers, and what He promises?

“Life is real; life is earnest” – this time I quote my favorite Longfellow poem, which ends: “Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate.”

Let us be encouraged to stand. To stand for something. To stand for Jesus.

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Click: Stand Up

8-26-24

I invite you today to swim with me in a Stream of Consciousness. Or float downstream. Maybe to swim a little bit against the current… but it is a gentle current. Choose the analogy. Random thoughts, but in the same stream, so to speak.

I have visions of a gentle mountain stream, not of riding on roaring waves or fighting strong billows or tacking through surface winds. Rough seas are exciting, even when dangerous. These are busy times… and loud, and fast, and demanding. But calm waters have a place in our lives too, even metaphorically. So I have been longing lately for quiet times. Respite. Even solitude.

Some Christians are suspicious of “meditation,” but that is because it sometimes has been hijacked by secular and pagan folks. The Bible, however, tells us to mediate on God’s word. Contemplate. Reflect. Do we do that, often enough, in the year of our Lord 2024?

Let us remember the Scriptural injunction, “Be still and know that I am God.” Whew! What power and wisdom in that quiet command. Softly and tenderly Jesus calls to us. To be still… before anything else.

One of the most profound experiences of my life was spent at an abbey in California. I signed up for a week of silence – no lessons or leading or programs; just a room in a rural monastery with monks. No phones, no electricity, no talking allowed except for one common meal of the day… when, actually, very few brothers or visitors spoke anyway beyond prayers and a brief homily. Overnight there was a library lit by candles if one chose not to sleep. On the spacious grounds there were pathways, benches, and Stations of the Cross.

I thought by the end of the week, between my Bible, notebook, and myself, I would have new insights about God. I did not, really. However I felt incredibly closer to Him. I cannot explain that, other than receiving blessings from Being Still… and knowing He is God. Softly and tenderly He called to me.

At the other end of the spectrum, perhaps, I recall a friend, the heir to a giant industrial fortune, who adopted a Discipline of Silence, wherewith he chose to not speak a peep for one day a week despite conducting his routine activities. It was not a spiritual (that is, Biblical or Christian) exercise but something closer to, in fact, an aspect of a character in one episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I am not sure of its efficacy, but the last I heard of him, he made the news for twice taking a pick-axe to Donald Trump’s stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Strange. I suppose he did not speak in his own defense in court either, but otherwise I saw no blessings or insights from wearing his virtual Cone of Silence.

Back to the other extreme. Also in a Catholic setting, I was invited once to an ancient priory (nunnery) in rural France. In the evening service lit by candles, the sisters and novitiates chanted for a full four hours. Whether in Latin or French or ancient French I do not remember, or could not distinguish: I was a visitor, not a participant. It was equivalent, therefore, to a form of enforced silence, accompanied by quiet a capella chants, as I was alone with my thoughts.

I also cannot explain it, but the soft and tender musical solitude had me thinking, and meditating, and contemplating, and praying, and reflecting. I found myself smiling and crying, sobbing and refreshed, convicted and liberated, guilty and free. All in all, closer to God that evening than I could have planned or imagined. Softly and tenderly He called to me.

Back in the 1800s Henry Adams wrote about visiting a world’s fair where a main attraction was something called The Dynamo. This was at the dawn of what we now call the Industrial Age, and the Dynamo dominated an exhibition hall; several stories high, it was a busy conglomeration of valves and pistons. It shook and made noise and… did nothing, produced nothing. It was a form of industrial performance-art, meant to represent the coming Machine Age.

And so it did. Adams went further, in his mind, seeing it as a modern version of the cathedral: a symbol of society’s hope and faith and trust and devotion. And so it proved to be. It was also something he could not anticipate. It was huge; noisy; overwhelming – just as our life, today, has manifested those characteristics, totally eclipsing our privacy. Our own space. Our solitude. The nearly extinct qualities of contemporary life!

“Be still.” How hard has that become? When sometimes we might feel the need of the Holy Spirit to shout at us – to remind us of God’s Truth, Jesus’s love – the Word gets through to us best when it comes, instead, softly and tenderly. Father knows best.

Be creative; be intentional. Find a quiet time… get to a quiet space… savor a quiet moment. And be still, knowing of great things, softly and tenderly.

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Click: Softly & Tenderly