On the Way to Wonder

Johnny Wooden is a famous basketball coach of UCLA that I knew about as I am a UC graduate. What I did not know is that he is a graduate of Purdue, a Hoosier! One of his famous sayings I was tempted to use yesterday to introduce my sermon was, “When times get tumultuous, get back to the basics.” He was known for starting training by going over with his winning teams how to put on their socks, or how to tie their shoelaces. Players cannot be at their best with blisters or loose shoe laces tripping them up. Go back to the basics in tumultuous times! Certainly these days feel tumultuous to me as there are riots, illness, and political posturing. Proverbs 27:18 caught my eye this morning with a similar message, “He who tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and he who looks after his master will be honored.” Making first things first, reminds me of going back to the basics of faith and making sure God is my first priority. Perhaps the putting on of shoes is starting the day with prayer or Bible reading. Tying my shoe laces may be a quick mental check to see what the loose strings of anger or bitterness that I need to deal with, forgive, and not let me trip on today. Taking care of the fig tree, that which feeds us and is life to us, is first importance or we will run out of energy to engage in the game of life. Perhaps we need to ask who the master is that we will be serving today – the Lord or the doctor or the family or the job. Putting God as our first priority may not be easy but it is going back to the basics and we will be honored! Blessings as you put on your socks and tie your shoe laces today!

Baptism is one of the first sacred acts we do as parents when our children are born. Tomorrow in worship we will see proud parents, godparents, grandparents, relatives and congregation raise their voices together praying for God’s presence in a young child. It is an action we prioritize in our faith journey. By our actions, our prayers, our faith, we proclaim God as a first priority. I do not usually talk from the Psalm reading but as I reviewed my plan for tomorrow, I was touched by the Psalm.

Psalm 119:129-136

¹²⁹Your decrees are wonderful;
therefore I obey them with all my heart.
¹³⁰When your word is opened it gives light;
it gives understanding to the simple.

Baptism is not a “decree” invented by people even though literally it means, a washing and setting aside for a special use, but it is part of the Great Commission of Jesus, go and make disciples baptizing them… Tomorrow we will come before God with “all my heart” to pray God’s presence and blessing in a young life. We pray for “light” during our confusing day, for wisdom for parents and family who guide the child. Our hearts’ prayer is for understanding as the child grows from a “simple” child to a wise elder taking a place among peers. One of the ways we show God as a first priority is living into his decrees with joy, obedience and faith in his faithfulness. We need light and understanding! Blessings as you prepare for tomorrow.

Trying to get my mind around our theme for the month, “God, our first priority,” I looked up priority and Matthew 6:33 came up. “But first seek his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” We know this verse. We’ve made this verse into a song. When putting the verse in context, the verse right before explains that pagans run after all sorts of earthly things but our “heavenly Father knows that you need them.” The verse after admonishes us against worry.

Of course, we would never call someone a “pagan” in today’s culture. The Message, a more modern day interpretation, talks about people who do not know God who fuss and worry over things. “What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving.” “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out.” We are advised to look to the beauty of wild flowers that are so beautiful and often are unseen in their short life span. I am also struck by the use of the word “Father” as in the Lord’s Prayer.   When I put seeking in the context of family, the advice softens.

So I ponder if I am seeking to get or seeking to see my “Father’s” gifts to me today. The frustrations and challenges of today perhaps are calls to focus on God and not on my unmet wants. The image of all of us like little flowers blooming on a hillside is fun. Our first priority is to check our focus and make sure we are tuned in to God’s presence in our life today. Your blooming blesses my life. Thanks.

“What is the greatest commandment?” Asked an expert in the law to test Jesus that last week of his life on earth. Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. (Matthew 22:34)”

Love is such a slippery word these days. As a young adult, it was code for “I want to sleep with you, no strings attached.” Perhaps as middle aged spouses, the pain of divorce scarred your life and left a sour taste in your mouth for “love.” Is love something like “magic” as in the movie Sleepless in Seattle? You just know because of a feeling somewhere in a place Americans identify as the heart. At a Marriage Encounter weekend I attended back in the early 70s, we were told that love is a verb, not some feeling floating inside our mind, and thus love is a commitment that comes from the will.

As we ponder this month God as our first priority, it seems that is only possible because we are a first priority to God. We love because he loved us first. We hang in there with that wayward teenager, negligent spouse who doesn’t appreciate us, and forgetful friend, because God gives us the strength to do so. We hang in when things don’t go the way we want and bear that pain. 1 Corinthians 13 has a whole chapter on the characteristics of love, and ends, “Now faith, hope and love abide but the greatest of these is love.”

We started thinking about the command to love God but really, love is not something I can manufacture. I believe love is not magic but a gift. Love is not floating in the air like covid but is embedded in life choices to respond to God and to others. Love is a decision to forgive and persevere. Today as you face challenges to your capacity to love, do not look to self but to God who is love! Blessings.

“God—Our First Priority” is our new theme for the next month. Do you hear Maria singing in your ear, “Let’s start from the very beginning…” I thought I would start with Genesis, creation, Adam and Eve who “heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of th day (Gen 3:8)” … and they hid because even in paradise they had already forgotten that God was their first priority. Ouch.

That realization turned my mind to the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)” Adam and Eve had never been in Egypt and did not know what slavery was. They had only known perfection. Hard to imagine.

Surrounded by perfection and having all needs met, I imagine, how do Adam and Eve develop as creations of God and learn to use their free will? If I always carry my baby, how does that baby learn to walk. Choice then becomes a key element in making God our first priority. First implies a second and implies that I choose to follow God because that relationship is a priority in my life. Hmmm. What choices will we face today? It might be what to watch on TV, or what to eat, or whether to pass on a piece of gossip, or perhaps whether to believe the news about the politics of our country. Those are rather passive choices. But we also have active choices that are harder, forgiveness, taking time to call someone who is tired of sheltering, writing an email to a past friend, or even spending the time and energy to settle our racing minds to pray. Making God our first priority is indeed a choice. As you face choices today, may they reflect God as your first priority! Blessings.

For thirty days we have read Luke 4:14-21. What new way will God touch my heart today? As I read through, I noted today that Jesus when he arrived in Nazareth, his home town, went to the synagogue on the Sabbath as was his custom, BUT he was “handed” the scroll of Isaiah and then he found the prophecy and said, “Today this is fulfilled,” and sat down. He did not ask for the scroll but when handed it, he knew (I do remember he is called The Word) it well enough to find and apply…fulfill.

Today we will be “handed” challenges of many sorts. Here in Florida, I will meet friends, see their homes, travel back to Cocoa Beach and meditate on all the “he-said, she-saids” of the day. But what I am “handed” is not out of the periphery of God’s knowledge and love. Today is not random. Last week I read in my devotional that prophecy is not the future cemented in place and forced upon us like a dictate. We are not robots. But it is more like the sense of today’s reading. We are handed a day and as we open it, we find the hand of God working and fulfilling his love and desire for us, freedom, recovery, release, and the year of the Lord’s favor.

I do not know what we will find as we walk into the happenings of today, but I do believe God knows what is coming as he walks before us helping us forge a path, walks beside us as our friend who knows our feels, and goes behind us cleaning up our messes and guarding our backside. I pray that as this unfolds we can sit down and say, “Lord, thank you for helping me fulfill your will for me today.”

“Sent,” Luke 4:18 says that the Spirit of the Lord “sent” the prophet with a message that Jesus claims was fulfilled in him. Proverbs 17, the proverb for today, says in verse 2, “A wise servant will rule over a disgraceful son, and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.” This morning I sat on the little porch of our room and enjoyed the early morning breeze from the ocean. The heat was not oppressive, the seagulls were flying and squawking, and people were beginning to walk to the beach about 6:15. One thing was missing. My daughter was “sent” to the grocery yesterday to get a few things as the cupboard of the cottage was bare. No creamer for the morning cup of coffee. The creamer made it to her house a few blocks away and I sat watching people carrying their cup of coffee to watch the sunrise.

The faithfulness of the person sent is a big thing, creamer is not. I could have toughened it out without creamer and I did enjoy the early morning and I am not upset with my daughter but… the word “sent” jumped out at me. A wise servant becomes equal to the brothers. Proverbs has a lot to say about wisdom. So how is a servant wise when “sent”? Using my situations, the servant does not argue with the master and point out that most people like coffee black and that creamer is made of artificial chemicals. The servant trusts the wishes of the master. The servant is timely. I think that the servant does not think about when the master wants to use the creamer or how, just fulfills the request. I am guessing the servant does not get two bottles of creamer, pocketing one and returning the other to the master, knowing the master has entrusted him with the cost of the request. The master may not be determining where the path of fulfillment ie whether the servant goes to the corner shop or to the big supermarket. The servant goes in a timely and efficient way.

“Sent” actually implies many things about the relationship between the Holy Spirit and Isaiah or Jesus or us. As disciples we are “sent ones, messengers.” We are entrusted with a message, with instructions about how to treat those we meet along the way, and given power to execute our task. The master does not define “who” or “when” but merely asks us to share the good news that the kingdom of heaven is near. To love and forgive those we interact with. To be humble, obedient and faithful. I do not know where God is sending you today as his servant and what challenges or thieves you will meet along your path but I do know God trusts us to do a task, to be his rep wherever we are. And I do believe that if we are wise, God knows, rewards and cares. Blessings as you go about your tasks today.

“Went,” Jesus went to Nazareth, his hometown, to stand up and read and read his mission statement. He sat down and said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:16, 21) Today we are going and by next week can say we went. I envision Jesus walking along dusty roads that were familiar to him from childhood, perhaps the road he walked at age 13 on a trip to Jerusalem where he got separated from his parents because he stayed behind talking to the rabbis. We are not going to our hometown but to a familiar airport, Orlando. We go not to preach but to see a beloved daughter. We too have a mission as our daughter is soon moving to Canada to be an assistant bishop.

Like Nazareth, Orlando is a ethnic hub with people from all over going to Disney World and vacation. Nazareth was in Galillee, northern Israel that was a very international area. I’m sure because of Covid, we will be masked and checked and double checked for safety. I doubt Jesus had checks although there might have been Roman stations to keep peace and observe visitors. Instead of airplanes, I imagine donkeys and horses and walkers along the roads and travelers carrying burdens, not rolling suitcases racing to meet waiting cars or transport. How different and yet how similar our worlds are.

“Going”, as I am preparing to do now is facing forward but “went” faces backwards. Today we stand between “going” and “went.” Tomorrow we will look back on today. The challenges and tasks that loomed so large on the horizon will become part of our narrative. I do not know the journeys you will face today but it is a comfort to me that I have a God who traveled as I will today, who understands the thoughts and anticipations that swirl in the mind, and who does not tire of helping us face the future. For sure I can use the Swahili farewell (go well), “Kwa heri!” (go with blessing) on your journeys today for Christ goes with you on whatever your mission.

“Oppression” is a heavy word. Jesus read the scroll proclaiming release from oppression in Luke 4:18. More than blindness or captivity, oppression is harder for me to pinpoint. Oppression is cruel or unjust treatment or control or mental pressure. Having a kind husband, a fulfilling job, wonderful friends, and financial stability means that the ole scale is my most oppressing opponent. So how is that so?

In Ecclessiastes 4:1 I read, “Again I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed – with no one to comfort them! On the side of their oppressors there was power – with no one to comfort them. And I thought the dead who have already died, more fortunate than the living, who are still alive, but better than both is the one who has not yet been, and has not seen the evil deeds that are done under the sun.” Oppressions drive us to cry out, drive us to despair, drive us into isolation and hopelessness.

Perhaps when Jesus proclaims release, he is proclaiming that we are heard. He is proclaiming there is hope and a future. He is proclaiming that we are not alone. As Avatar would say, “I SEE you!” I do not know what the your battle is today and what voices seek to diminish you but the truth is that Jesus came to release us from those lies. We are valuable not because of our talents, our wealth, or our looks but because we are his creation. Let’s focus on that today! Blessings.

“Stood up,” Jesus stood up to read when he went to the synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath. Let “stand up” or “stood up” roll around in your mind for a sec. Several pictures come to mind in addition to the pastor and congregation standing up for the reading of the Gospel.

We stand up to pledge allegiance to the flag of our country and sing our national anthem. Standing up as in going to one’s feet has a long history. In the 1600s it referred to being ready to defend one’s country. In 1902 in became connected to not appearing for an appointment eg I was stood up. In 1966, my life time, it was connected with comedy – Red Skelton. And then in 1956 it was used on the game show “To Tell the Truth” to identify truth: “Will the real ___ stand up.” But our text would add to the internet explanation of the origin that, in fact, back in Jesus time, it was customary to stand when reading Scripture: respect, defense, not forgetting, testifying and identifying the real thing. Jesus stood up to read and then sat down saying, the Scripture is fulfilled. He is the real thing.

Jesus stands up for us in the presence of God. He does not stand us up even when we do not feel his presence. He shares truth not humor. And we stand up in return to show respect when the Gospel is read. The Gospel reading is the high light of the church service, not the sermon.

So what are we standing up for today? That is a serious question in our present culture of demonstrations and demands. It is possible to stand up without respect and honor, only knowing partial truth and led by oratory, defending causes that do not touch our lives. Stand up comedy is still alive but not a one person show on TV. What do I stand up for? That is a serious question worth pondering today. But never forget that Jesus is standing up for you, not just in the synagogue but at the right hand of the Father. We may be caught in a battle but he is with us. Thank you Lord.