Chocolate

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17

In recent years I started giving up a certain thing for Lent. I didn’t use to, as I tended to see such actions as a semi-prideful, almost self-serving exercise in futility. I don’t know what has changed in me; maybe it’s just that I’m getting old.  So be it.

Every Lent over the past few years then I have given something up. I will again this year. 

Chocolate.

Oh, there is still the self-serving element to my sacrifice. Very much so. If I am diligent, I will shed about 5-10 excess pounds. Please don’t feel bad for those pounds; they will not be lost forever however, as they seem to routinely rally back into place by early summer.

The best part of this self-serving exercise is this.  I do, when the chocolate pangs hit, remember what Christ went through for me, the road to the cross, the brutal execution on the tree.  I think back on rather gory scenes from the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” and suddenly my pangs seem rather silly.  I also use those panging times to stop what I am doing, and pray – usually about the first thing or person that comes to mind.

I hope and pray that is actually why I give up chocolate each year.   It’s just that sometimes it still feels that what I am doing is rather hollow.  Psalm 51 has this great line in it that says “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

And…I don’t think David was writing about chocolate.  But he was addressing a much deeper yearning that believers and trusters in Jesus Christ feel somewhere deep in their souls.  We may not know always how to address those yearnings, but they are there. Somewhere in my past I heard this yearning described as “A God-shaped hole” that we all have.

And chocolate will never fill the hole.

As we move into Lent my prayer for us all is that that God shaped hole that we’ve been filling up with (fill in the blank), will be left open for the Holy Spirit to inhabit; a sacrifice that God will not despise.

May your Lenten observance draw you close and closer to the One that ultimately fills all our yearnings.

Home

Our home yesterday (Feb 1), with tree cutting in progress.

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. - 2 Corinthians 5:1

I attended a well-known worship conference last week, and while there, four or five times I was asked, “Where are you from?”  It’s a common question whenever pastors gather together, and in this case, the same when pastors and church musicians gather from around the country.

But these days when I get asked the question, more often than not, I answer by first saying, “That’s a complicated question.”

Where are you from?

Susie and I have been in western Pennsylvania almost a decade; we are now in our second community since moving east.  Before then we lived in three locations together in Southern California, and a couple of locations each elsewhere in California before we married.

But. 

Susie is originally from the farm belt of Iowa; I am originally from a small town in eastern Washington State.

Where are you from? 

Of course, the correct answer at the moment would be that I am from Rayne Township in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.  That is the answer that is being fished for when I am at conferences. But the question itself stirs up emotions in me these days that surprise me.  Because I really don’t know anymore where am I am from; let me put it this way. If you ask me where home is…I would not know what to answer. Is it Clarkston Washington? Is it La Verne or Lytle Creek or Riverside, California? Is it Uniontown or Rayne Township in Pennsylvania? Honestly, I have no idea anymore, and it bothers me.  

We all have a yearning for home.  And it is a tough proposition when you don’t know where home is.

The short passage above is about a concept that rises up frequently in the Bible. It is about home.  I suppose it  is both metaphor and reality.  The home (whatever or wherever it is) we have on this earth is ultimately temporary.  But God has a permanent home for us, “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Jesus put it like this: “In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (visit John 14:2)  Metaphor? No, far more than that. It’s more likely a literal reality that he wanted his disciples then, and you and I now, to trust in.  There is a place waiting for those who trust in Jesus, it is ultimately our home.

Yes, pastors tend to be a bit transient; but the reality is that we all are just sort of traveling through this thing called life.  And God wants us to consider where our real home is.  It’s not so much about where we are from after all. It’s all about where we are going.

‘Where are you from’ simply becomes, ‘where are you going?’

And that is what is important.

P.S.

Susie and I have been so grateful for the warm ‘home’ receptions we have received at whatever congregation I have served; we feel especially blessed by the Presbyterian Church of Marion Center, PA.  It makes this transient existence far more bearable.  I may not know where I am from, but I am very grateful for where I am.

Icons

And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.  - Hebrews 9:26,27

Sunday, David Bowie died.  If you are anywhere near my age, it is a big deal.  Huge.  I have been surprising emotional about his passing.  For me, Bowie was one of those names, if not an artist, that has been in my life and background since I was in high school.  I can vividly remember a high school friend insisting I listen to some new song by this new singer almost like it was yesterday. To say he was –to me and my generation - a cultural icon would be an understatement.

Don’t get me wrong – I was never that big of a David Bowie fan, although there are probably five or six songs by him that, through the years, I have really, really liked.  And no doubt he was creative beyond most ordinary people.  It’s just that some of his creativity just did not resonate with me.  But he was an icon that has always been there in my life, seemingly.  And icons never die. Right?

Wrong.

The writer of Hebrews is very matter of fact about this. It’s almost a throwaway phrase. Just as the writer is really pointing to Jesus and the promise of his return, he inserts, “just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment….”

We need to stop there.

Because it is true.  Even an icon like David Bowie was not above the fact that we live once, we die, then we face judgement.  And in the background today I hear the populist choirs proclaiming that ‘heaven has gained another musician.’

Maybe its true. Maybe heaven has.  But the idea of judgment must include the fact that it is completely possible that another area of afterlife, you know, uh, the one we don’t like to talk about (that I’ll coincidentally be preaching on this Sunday), has gained…another musician.

Some good news is that I’m not in charge of who gets in and who doesn’t. I’d make a terrible judge, and besides, we are told we are not to judge.  The greater news is that I know, and most of us know, who is the judge.  And I know, and most of us know, what it takes to pass the judgment.  As wonderful as creativity may be, as great as some music may be…or in my case, as good as some of my works in my life may have been to this point, these things will not get me or anyone else in.

What will? It is Jesus.  Always has been. Always will be. Icons will come…and icons unfortunately will go.  But as the writer of Hebrews eventually shares “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (visit Hebrews 13:8)

So I guess  the challenge for us then is this. What are we counting on that will help us pass judgment when it comes?  What is it in our lives that is so iconic that we think it will open the doors to eternity? As iconic as I felt Bowie was, the answer is Jesus. It is in him and on him I place my complete trust.  And I would encourage you, even if you are mourning an icon’s death, to do the same.

It’s all about Jesus.  The name that has always been there, and always will be.          

Works

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. -Psalm 62:1

I believe in works.  James said it quite well when, out of frustration I suspect, he penned, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Visit James 2:17

It is. But.

This snippet of a Psalm by David is an early reminder.  Works are good, but they will not save us. Never have. Never will.

Although it is written in a completely different context than those of us that are Christ trusters and believers might think and see through our lenses, still what he says rings true. David seems to be writing in the context of Absalom’s (David’s son) rebellion against him, the beauty of the Psalms, including this one, is that they can and have been applied to people’s circumstances throughout history.

David had done all he could to get out of this trouble. Finally he admits that ‘from him alone comes my salvation.’ 

At a lot of us, OK, mainly me, plus a mess of other people, have spent too much time trying to secure our salvation, thinking that if only we could work/pray/worship/believe/harder, we’ll get there.  Nothing wrong with any of those things, as I said, I believe in works.

But they won’t get you there.  If you can claim the name of Christian in any way shape or form, please know that he work has already been done.  As Paul wrote in Ephesians “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Visit Ephesians 2:8,9)

Let me repeat these words, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Or as David wrote some 1000 years earlier, “For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation…”

Yes, I believe in works, we need to do them. But I believe in and trust in Jesus.  Nothing is more important.

And let the works spring from that.