Ten days before he died, Ernest Fremont Tittle reminded his Evanston United Methodist congregation that Christianity brings both pain and joy, but it is first and foremost a religion of joy.
Dr. Tittle recalled how early Christians experienced persecution. They were poor. They were cruelly harassed. Most notably, they were happy. Thus, he concluded, a Christian could say in the third century, “The church is the one thing in the world that always rejoices.”
Before my birth, a teenager left my home community to become a musical evangelist. He became a song writer and developed a hymnology of unspeakable joy. That motif became foundational to my childhood. It has remained throughout my life. He left our community a few decades ahead of me, following his conversion to Christianity.
He began by going with D. S. Warner,a popular evangelist. He started by singing bass in a traveling gospel ensemble. This led him into a life of musical evangelism, as a pastor, evangelist, and songwriter. Across his lifetime he eventually penned more than two thousand songs.
Characteristic of his lyrics was the unspeakable joy and glory that Christians experience when walking with Christ. His music flowed in a torrent of joy and he left thousands of faithful believers singing his messages. Lyrics like the following verse have fortified my life for more than three-quarters of a century.
I have found His grace is all complete,
He supplieth ev’ry need;
While I sit and learn at Jesus’ feet,
I am free, yes free indeed.
It is joy unspeakable and full of glory,
Full of glory, fully of glory;
It is joy unspeakable and full of glory,
O the half has never yet been told.1
Several decades of actively interfacing with people have allowed me to observe the unspeakable joy that other people find in the Christian message. It is a quality of life that far surpasses the cleansing powers of the dish-washing soap I use on the evening dishes.
Barney Warren’s lyric assures me that at the very center of God’s great universe there is a deep, abiding, and everlasting joy.
Perhaps Clement of Alexandria said it best when he insisted that a beautiful hymn to God is an immortal man who is being built up in righteousness, and upon whom the oracles of truth have been engraved.
From Warner's World, there is joy in following Jesus.
________________________________________________________________________
1 B. E. Warren, “There Is Joy in the Lord,“ Worship the Lord. (Anderson: Warner Press, Inc., 1989), p.616.
_____
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Forematting Change
Good Friday was a black day in Hebrew history, but it marked a weekend marked with world-wide change. It is the weekend of the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
There is a huge mistake about Easter, that of imagining that the Easter message is simply a bit of comfort for the dying. It is that! We all find it cooling water upon the lips of a very thirsty person.
Easter, nevertheless, tells us the universe is on the side of truth, goodness, and love. You may give yourself to these values and know that such living cannot be wasted. Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid to live … for God!”
Jesus lived and died on a platform of change. He offered hope of change to a world living with hatred, hostilities, and barriers. He came to demonstrate “For Resurrection Living”:
For resurrection living,
There is resurrection power,
And the praise and prayer of trusting
May glorify each hour.
For common days are holy
And year’s an Easter-tide
To those who with the living Lord
In living faith abide
(Anon)
And year’s an Easter-tide
To those who with the living Lord
In living faith abide
(Anon)
Some refuse to acknowledge that Jesus is more than a story, that he lived and died in human history, yet hundreds of people experienced his reappearance (cf. I Corinthians 15). Since that day, legions of people have experienced changed lives. With living faith, these people laugh, love, and lift--they live real lives--under the rule and reign of the Living Lord.
This is Wayne
@ Warner’s World
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Building Community
Randy Montgomery gave Kentucky Pastors his assessment of the 4 gospel accounts of PALM SUNDAY. The populace hailed Jesus as their prospective King and Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed donkey. The four accounts offer a vivid picture of Jesus fulfilling Hebrew prophecy, but His heart was breaking as He entered the doomed city. He received their affirmation, but He had come "to seek and to save" people He knew were lost (cf. Luke 19:10).
“The church needs a good housecleaning,” suggests Randy, meaning “the body of Christ willingly paying the price for revival.” Jesus offered moral regeneration; He received political affirmation (they wanted a king).
Revival, a word rich in tradition, sometimes offers more rhetoric and emotion than active behavioral change. Times call for living the life Jesus lived. Revival may mean our repenting, then renewing efforts for reconciliation (extending forgiveness, and building community).
Dan Wooding (ANS News) interviewed Harvey Thomas, a British Christian; it illustrates my meaning. Quoting Thomas:
"I was directing the conservative conference for Margaret Thatcher in 1984 and at about three o'clock in the morning, the night before her speech, a bomb went off five feet under my bed and I was blown up through the roof of the hotel, fell three floors, and was buried under ten and a half tons of rubble for two and a half hours."
"Finally, they dug me out without a bone broken. Five of my friends were killed in that bomb. The bomber was an Irish Republican Army man called Patrick McGee. He was caught about a year later and sentenced to eight life sentences for five murders and three attempted murders, one of them was me.
". . .in 1998, fourteen years afterwards, I was really convicted by God while . . . speaking . . . in Louisville, Kentucky, on reconciliation. I felt that I should write to him and say that I forgave him. So I wrote to Patrick McGee and I said, 'I'm a Christian and I forgive you for what you did.' I told him that I could only speak on my own behalf as 'I have no right to speak on anyone else's behalf.'
The two began corresponding. McGee is a highly educated man with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Ulster in Belfast. Thomas went to see McGee in 2000. He says, "We talked for hours and then he came over to England and talked to my family in my home and he had breakfast together with us. He told my two daughters, and my wife, 'I can't believe I'm here as a friend having tried to kill your daddy and (to my wife) your husband.'
Thomas continues: "We have become very good friends and now, once or twice a year, we try to do a seminar together on reconciliation. He is very much affected by Christian things. He'll say to me, 'Keep praying for us,' and 'the friends in America haven't stopped praying for me have they?'"
When Wooding asked Thomas for background on why the Irish Republican Army had waged war against the British, he gave a brief review of the abysmal British treatment of Irish Catholics in Ireland for 200 years. McGee continued. "I mean in Northern Ireland you couldn't become more than a sergeant in any uniform. You couldn't do anything and it's been very bad;” he then shared how he became personally involved.
When Wooding asked Thomas what he had learned, Thomas replied, "I think the most important thing I've learned, or realized, is first of all and it took me 14 years to understand, was the meaning of the Lord's prayer: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' In that verse in Matthew, Jesus goes onto say, 'If you don't forgive others, we won't forgive you.' It's a very strong verse. I had to realize that I had to forgive and that's the first step in reconciliation.
"One friend . . .a very senior politician, wrote to me and said he was very badly injured in the bombing and his wife was made a quadriplegic through it. His letter said, 'Don't you realize there has to be repentance before forgiveness?' And I wrote back and said, 'Actually it doesn't. Between man and man, forgiveness is the instruction. Between man and God, yes, there has to be repentance of man before God can forgive. But this is between man and man and mankind and mankind.'
"So we still correspond and he still doesn't forgive and I understand that. I have no criticism of him."
We live in a world full of broken fences. We all need good friends and neighbors, but the way to have friends is to be a friend. No one ever lived that life better than Jesus.
From Warner's World,
Wayne
“The church needs a good housecleaning,” suggests Randy, meaning “the body of Christ willingly paying the price for revival.” Jesus offered moral regeneration; He received political affirmation (they wanted a king).
Revival, a word rich in tradition, sometimes offers more rhetoric and emotion than active behavioral change. Times call for living the life Jesus lived. Revival may mean our repenting, then renewing efforts for reconciliation (extending forgiveness, and building community).
Dan Wooding (ANS News) interviewed Harvey Thomas, a British Christian; it illustrates my meaning. Quoting Thomas:
"I was directing the conservative conference for Margaret Thatcher in 1984 and at about three o'clock in the morning, the night before her speech, a bomb went off five feet under my bed and I was blown up through the roof of the hotel, fell three floors, and was buried under ten and a half tons of rubble for two and a half hours."
"Finally, they dug me out without a bone broken. Five of my friends were killed in that bomb. The bomber was an Irish Republican Army man called Patrick McGee. He was caught about a year later and sentenced to eight life sentences for five murders and three attempted murders, one of them was me.
". . .in 1998, fourteen years afterwards, I was really convicted by God while . . . speaking . . . in Louisville, Kentucky, on reconciliation. I felt that I should write to him and say that I forgave him. So I wrote to Patrick McGee and I said, 'I'm a Christian and I forgive you for what you did.' I told him that I could only speak on my own behalf as 'I have no right to speak on anyone else's behalf.'
The two began corresponding. McGee is a highly educated man with a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Ulster in Belfast. Thomas went to see McGee in 2000. He says, "We talked for hours and then he came over to England and talked to my family in my home and he had breakfast together with us. He told my two daughters, and my wife, 'I can't believe I'm here as a friend having tried to kill your daddy and (to my wife) your husband.'
Thomas continues: "We have become very good friends and now, once or twice a year, we try to do a seminar together on reconciliation. He is very much affected by Christian things. He'll say to me, 'Keep praying for us,' and 'the friends in America haven't stopped praying for me have they?'"
When Wooding asked Thomas for background on why the Irish Republican Army had waged war against the British, he gave a brief review of the abysmal British treatment of Irish Catholics in Ireland for 200 years. McGee continued. "I mean in Northern Ireland you couldn't become more than a sergeant in any uniform. You couldn't do anything and it's been very bad;” he then shared how he became personally involved.
When Wooding asked Thomas what he had learned, Thomas replied, "I think the most important thing I've learned, or realized, is first of all and it took me 14 years to understand, was the meaning of the Lord's prayer: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.' In that verse in Matthew, Jesus goes onto say, 'If you don't forgive others, we won't forgive you.' It's a very strong verse. I had to realize that I had to forgive and that's the first step in reconciliation.
"One friend . . .a very senior politician, wrote to me and said he was very badly injured in the bombing and his wife was made a quadriplegic through it. His letter said, 'Don't you realize there has to be repentance before forgiveness?' And I wrote back and said, 'Actually it doesn't. Between man and man, forgiveness is the instruction. Between man and God, yes, there has to be repentance of man before God can forgive. But this is between man and man and mankind and mankind.'
"So we still correspond and he still doesn't forgive and I understand that. I have no criticism of him."
We live in a world full of broken fences. We all need good friends and neighbors, but the way to have friends is to be a friend. No one ever lived that life better than Jesus.
From Warner's World,
Wayne
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
"Taps" and Peace
Wisdom of the day: don’t put both feet in your mouth at the same time; leave yourself a leg to stand on.
Longtime friend, Helen Curtis, sent this interesting story --reportedly from 1862 during the Civil War. Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia, across from a Confederate Army. During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a wounded soldier in a nearby field.
Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the Captain opted to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, he reached the stricken soldier and pulled him back to camp.On reaching his own lines, the Captain discovered the soldier was both Confederate and dead. Lighting a lantern, the Captain caught his breath and went numb with shock.
The face of the soldier was his own son. The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in the Confederate Army. The following morning, the heartbroken father asked permission to give his son full military burial, despite his enemy status. His request was granted--partially.
The Captain for a group of Army band members to play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral. That was rejected; the soldier was a Confederate. But, out of respect for the father, they agreed to give him one musician.The Captain chose a bugler and asked him to play a series of musical notes the Captain had found on a piece of paper in the pocket his son’s uniform. This wish was granted and the haunting melody we now know as "Taps" was born.
The words:
----------First Verse
Day is done.
Gone the sun.
From the lakes
From the hills.
From the sky.
All is well.
Safely rest.
God is nigh.
------------ Second verse
Fading light.
Dims the sight.
And a star.
Gems the sky.
Gleaming bright.
From afar.
Drawing nigh.
Falls the night.
------------Third verse
Thanks and praise.
For our days.
Neath the sun
Neath the stars.
Neath the sky.
As we go.
This we know.
God is nigh
-------------End
The story carries an aura of romantic patriotism popular in many quarters and used for rallying support of military forces. As is always the case, people become the collateral damage in times of war.
It is unfortunate that so many in the church have bought into the world of war and violence. To paraphrase Stephen Carter (Civility/154), when we glorify killing in our films and our music, select aggressive metaphors in everyday speech, and declare that our every cause is a war, we are proclaiming ourselves to be people of violence. He suggests (158) that “Television has grown so violent over the past two decades that no serious researcher any longer doubts that over exposure to televised images of violence helps transform gentle children into brutal adults.”
It isn’t just the TV; it is in our speech, our movies, our sports, and in our diplomacy. I saw a book in the public library just this morning that documented the numerous war crimes for which George W. Bush could be legally charged, with his faulty logic and diplomacy.
War is seldom about or between people; it is about government policies, political empowerment, economic investment, and greed, both capitalistic and fascist. On the surface, WWII seemed justifiable and I always supported it, but now that I have read some of the diplomatic history behind it, there were other reasons of power, economics, and personal greed that created the underlying causes, for which we all paid dearly.
Technology has reduced us to a human global community, in spite of the greatest population ever. We need each other now more than ever; if we are to coexist together we must manage the rules of the game so that everybody gets to play with an equal deck of cards.
That means taxes, rules and government (of, for, by, the people) to keep the game straight. That isn’t socialism; it is democracy, because we do not need to be controlled by corporate money barons etc anymore than we need to go back to the ancient feudal lords or to King George and the era of Kingly rule.
It means everyone ought to take up the call of peacemaking. The G20 Conference could go far in levelling the playing floor and deleting the demands of violence and war. War is always anti-social behavior, always anti-people. Greed, political power and special interests always drive the war machine.
The founder of the Christian Church said, seek first his kingdom and his right living and these other things will be given you as well (Matthew 6:33). While many claim his name, they continually deny his most basic teachings: “if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt. 6:15, NIT).
Jesus taught applied Christianity as (1) loving God supremely, and (2) loving your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). And since the Apostle Paul is accepted as the greater interpreter of Christianity, how did he interpret such teachings? He said, (1) restore the fallen, (2) watch yourself, (3) carry each other’s burdens, (4) don’t overestimate your worth and deceive yourself, and (5) test your own actions so you can live with them, and (6) everybody carry his share (Galatians 6:1-5).
It is past time that we prioritize people needs and peace-making rather than patriotism, pride, profit, and profane purposes.
From Warner’s World
Longtime friend, Helen Curtis, sent this interesting story --reportedly from 1862 during the Civil War. Union Army Captain Robert Ellicombe was with his men near Harrison's Landing in Virginia, across from a Confederate Army. During the night, Captain Ellicombe heard the moans of a wounded soldier in a nearby field.
Not knowing if it was a Union or Confederate soldier, the Captain opted to risk his life and bring the stricken man back for medical attention Crawling on his stomach through the gunfire, he reached the stricken soldier and pulled him back to camp.On reaching his own lines, the Captain discovered the soldier was both Confederate and dead. Lighting a lantern, the Captain caught his breath and went numb with shock.
The face of the soldier was his own son. The boy had been studying music in the South when the war broke out. Without telling his father, the boy enlisted in the Confederate Army. The following morning, the heartbroken father asked permission to give his son full military burial, despite his enemy status. His request was granted--partially.
The Captain for a group of Army band members to play a funeral dirge for his son at the funeral. That was rejected; the soldier was a Confederate. But, out of respect for the father, they agreed to give him one musician.The Captain chose a bugler and asked him to play a series of musical notes the Captain had found on a piece of paper in the pocket his son’s uniform. This wish was granted and the haunting melody we now know as "Taps" was born.
The words:
----------First Verse
Day is done.
Gone the sun.
From the lakes
From the hills.
From the sky.
All is well.
Safely rest.
God is nigh.
------------ Second verse
Fading light.
Dims the sight.
And a star.
Gems the sky.
Gleaming bright.
From afar.
Drawing nigh.
Falls the night.
------------Third verse
Thanks and praise.
For our days.
Neath the sun
Neath the stars.
Neath the sky.
As we go.
This we know.
God is nigh
-------------End
The story carries an aura of romantic patriotism popular in many quarters and used for rallying support of military forces. As is always the case, people become the collateral damage in times of war.
It is unfortunate that so many in the church have bought into the world of war and violence. To paraphrase Stephen Carter (Civility/154), when we glorify killing in our films and our music, select aggressive metaphors in everyday speech, and declare that our every cause is a war, we are proclaiming ourselves to be people of violence. He suggests (158) that “Television has grown so violent over the past two decades that no serious researcher any longer doubts that over exposure to televised images of violence helps transform gentle children into brutal adults.”
It isn’t just the TV; it is in our speech, our movies, our sports, and in our diplomacy. I saw a book in the public library just this morning that documented the numerous war crimes for which George W. Bush could be legally charged, with his faulty logic and diplomacy.
War is seldom about or between people; it is about government policies, political empowerment, economic investment, and greed, both capitalistic and fascist. On the surface, WWII seemed justifiable and I always supported it, but now that I have read some of the diplomatic history behind it, there were other reasons of power, economics, and personal greed that created the underlying causes, for which we all paid dearly.
Technology has reduced us to a human global community, in spite of the greatest population ever. We need each other now more than ever; if we are to coexist together we must manage the rules of the game so that everybody gets to play with an equal deck of cards.
That means taxes, rules and government (of, for, by, the people) to keep the game straight. That isn’t socialism; it is democracy, because we do not need to be controlled by corporate money barons etc anymore than we need to go back to the ancient feudal lords or to King George and the era of Kingly rule.
It means everyone ought to take up the call of peacemaking. The G20 Conference could go far in levelling the playing floor and deleting the demands of violence and war. War is always anti-social behavior, always anti-people. Greed, political power and special interests always drive the war machine.
The founder of the Christian Church said, seek first his kingdom and his right living and these other things will be given you as well (Matthew 6:33). While many claim his name, they continually deny his most basic teachings: “if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins” (Mt. 6:15, NIT).
Jesus taught applied Christianity as (1) loving God supremely, and (2) loving your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27). And since the Apostle Paul is accepted as the greater interpreter of Christianity, how did he interpret such teachings? He said, (1) restore the fallen, (2) watch yourself, (3) carry each other’s burdens, (4) don’t overestimate your worth and deceive yourself, and (5) test your own actions so you can live with them, and (6) everybody carry his share (Galatians 6:1-5).
It is past time that we prioritize people needs and peace-making rather than patriotism, pride, profit, and profane purposes.
From Warner’s World
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