creating good soil...

And these are the ones sown on the good soil: they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.

Mark 4:20

in preparing sermons, i have come to understand that i must speak in ways that makes the message accessible to the congregation. this is hard work. not only does the preacher have to exegete the scripture, but the preacher must exegete the congregation, in order to speak God's Word to them in their needs.

but the work that a preacher does in preparing the sermon does not do much good if the congregation doesn't understand that they too have a task, which is perhaps even more difficult than the preacher's task. this task is not to critique the sermon - how "good" the sermon was in terms of entertainment or in terms of the preacher's ability to deliver it. instead, their task is to receive the Word of God.

the problem is that we have been trained to listen in a specific way. it is much like the way we are taught to read. we read for information purposes. we read to analyze... to pick out specific details that we find relevant.

further, information is cheap. we are exposed to all kinds of information daily, which we simply put in our information database and move on. this information doesn't affect us.

when we read the Word of God, it must be done devotionally, though. it isn't simply for information... it is to find the living God through the words, which scripture tells us are dead (the letter kills!). if what we are reading doesn't affect us, we aren't reading it correctly.

the same thing happens when we listen to a sermon. if we can listen to a sermon that doesn't affect the way we live, the Word has fallen on bad soil. i realized the other day that most of the time i come out of a worship service wanting to analyze the sermon because i didn't prepare the soil of my heart to receive the Word. i leave the church no different than i went in.

friends, we have not been attentive to God if we are unaffected by His Word. because we are sinful, we cannot receive His holy, perfect Word and remain unchanged. we, by nature, cannot receive it without being affected by it, just as a piece of gold cannot be put into a fire without its impurities being burned away.

may we all figure out how to listen devotionally that the soil may be prepared to receive the seed that will produce fruit in our lives. may we create room for God to dwell within us, burning away all that is not of Him.

cheers,
jw <><

hope in God alone...

Do not put your trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish.
Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God...

Psalm 146:3-5

on this inauguration day of our 44th president, let us remember that we do not put our trust in men and women. our trust is in the Triune God, our Creator and Redeemer. there is one Messiah, and His name is Jesus.

rulers come and go, policies change, nations rise and fall... but there remains one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

cheers,
jw <><

unity in God...

We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people's trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body's growth in building itself up in love.

Ephesians 4:14-16

on this day that we celebrate the life of martin luther king, jr., and all that he did to unify our country, it seems appropriate to speak of our unity in Christ. this is, indeed, a day that we recognize how far this country has come in terms of race relations. we have made progress and, hopefully, will continue to make progress in this area.

dr. king revealed the importance of unity - that no group of people should be treated as sub-human. he helped america see that we were all created in the image of God and that life should be valued in light of this truth.

but i fear that our country is more divided than ever over different issues. we say that we value unity but not at the sake of what we have deemed as necessary "progression" in society. we think that only when we achieve this progression will we be unified.

to this, i fear that we have pushed progress for the sake of progress and seek unity for the sake of unity. may i say that we are confused about what is truly progressive and unifying?

let me explain. someone once asked me if i would support peace and unity over purity in the church. this question is ridiculous to me, however, because peace and unity without purity are only distortions of peace and unity.

peace and unity only occur in Christ. if this is the case, these things cannot occur in a way that is inappropriate to Christ. you see, the only way to be progressive is to come together in ways that seek to support life, not destroy it (do you ever remember Jesus doing anything other than healing people?), in ways that seek to recognize that people are created in the image of God, not to support them to live in ways that are a distortion of this image (does Jesus not heal peoples' afflictions and then instruct them to "go and sin no more"?). as athanasius said, sin is a movement into non-being because it is a movement away from the way God created us to be. any movement for the sake of unity into non-being is no unity at all. do we really wish to be unified in our non-being? if so, that should be a piece of cake. this is not possible, however, because unity does not come at our terms. it comes by the terms of God in Jesus Christ.

we have been deceived by these discussions, however, because they have been masked with language of freedom and rights. friends, freedom to sin is no freedom at all in the end. as paul warns, let us use our freedom, not for selfish gain, but for Christ. in Him, we have been set free. using our freedom for sin only creates for ourselves a prison. in light of this, perhaps we should evaluate things we have deemed progressive. are they, in fact, really regressive... a moving away from God instead of a moving towards God? do we really want to support a freedom that only imprisons people?

further, let us not be confused about the difference between right and privilege. may we stop making demands about things we think we are entitled to. the world owes us nothing.

unity is extremely important. may we grow up together in Christ and discover that it can be used to give people true freedom to live by truth in love.

cheers,
jw <><

bumping into Jesus...

Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city.

John 4:28

Jesus interrupts our lives. He has a knack for doing this. Right when we are in the middle of living our lives, doing things that we have deemed important - maybe even essential - Jesus shows up. we had no expectation to find Him here. we were just trying to get by. nonetheless, He shows up. we had come looking for the ordinary, and we find the extraordinary. we find what really sustains... what really gives life.

and if we are smart, we leave behind what we were doing. we drop our plans, our expectations, and we allow the one who controls the universe to have control over our lives. we allow our lives to be rearranged... re-prioritized. then, we run to the masses to share the Good News.

cheers,
jw <><

desires...

May he grant you your heart's desire,
and fulfill all your plans.

Psalm 20:4

what is it that i desire? it seems that we have translated passages like this to mean that God will bless us with all the material blessings that we want. we have turned the gospel into something to do with worldly prosperity. and what happens when He doesn't give us material possessions? does it mean that He is punishing us?

perhaps God gives us more than material possessions. perhaps our heart's desire is something that is God-given... not human created.

st. john of the cross went through what he called the dark night of the soul. it was during this time that everything was stripped away from him. in this time, he was challenged to love God, even when this came with no extra blessings. could i love God if i went through a job-like experience... a dark night of the soul?

it was during this time that st. john discovered the most amazing thing, though. he realized that God was the blessing. he realized that God is in fact giving all that He can give, which is much, much more than material blessings. God gives us Himself. this is our heart's desire. God has created us with a God-shaped hole in our souls that only He can fill. and He fills it with Himself. we see this in psalm 20:7. it states, "some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the LORD our God."

perhaps we will discover that when we recognize that God is what we desire, our plans are shaped by what He plans for us. for when we desire God alone, we are able to truly participate in His life and work in the world.

cheers,
jw <><

the path...

"You show me the path of life.
In your presence there is fullness of
joy;
in your right hand are pleasures
forevermore."

Psalm 16:11

there are a lot of choices that we make in life. when we come upon a fork in the road, we struggle to decide which road to go down. which way is the right way to go? which way will lead me to God? many times, it seems to me, that it doesn't really matter, though, as long as we are walking with God in the first place.

john calvin says that the right hand of God is omnipresent. this means that no matter what decisions we make, God is there. we spend way too much time deciding which way to go and very little time looking for God along the way. friedrich nietzsche said of tourists: "they climb mountains like animals, stupid and sweating; one has forgotten to tell them that there are beautiful views on the way up." i think that this is me most of the time... just struggling to get up to the mountain, forgetting to enjoy the view that is a product of the effort.

what if we knew that God was always with us? it seems that recognizing that we are in the presence of God is the only way to discover that "there is fullness of joy." fullness... as in lacking in nothing. what a place to be in life...

cheers,
jw <><

the silence...

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.

Wendell Berry