Why Go to Church

Matthew 16:18 - "And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it."

For some time I have been hearing negative comments concerning the church and why it is better to stay home and worship rather than going to church and worshiping with other Christians.  What is being forgotten is that the church belongs to God and when we reject the church we are rejecting God.  I agree that the church is not perfect, but it is because we are all human that there is a problem.  It is not because God is doing something to mess things up.  I believe that instead of avoiding church we should be involved and try to remind everyone about what the Bible says.

Following is a short story I found among my papers that might help to make my point.

A church goer wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church.  "I've gone for thirty years," he wrote, "and in that time I heard something like 3,000 sermons.  But for the life of me I can't remember a single one of them; so I think I'm wasting my time, and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor.  It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:  "I've been married for thirty years now.  In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me, I cannot recall what the menu was for a single one of those cooked meals.  But I do know this.  They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work.  If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be dead today."

No comments were made on the sermon comments anymore.

When you are down to nothing, God is up to something!  Faith is invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible.
                                                             Author Unknown

A Good Friday Devotion

The final observance before Easter is Good Friday.  Once again Good Friday is a church term and cannot be found in the Bible, but on that day believers place even more emphasis than usual on the sacrificial death on the cross of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Following is a short poem that is one of my personal favorites.  While I cannot show my devotion to Jesus in the same way as the little dog, there are so many things that I can do.  Everyday in everything that we do we show, not to God but to the world, how much we love Jesus.  As I compare my actions to that of the little dog, I must wonder whose love is greater.

I wonder if Christ had a little black dog

All curly and wooly like mine;

With two long silky ears,

And a nose round and wet,

And two eyes brown and tender that shine.

I’m afraid he hadn’t because I have read

How He prayed in the garden alone;

For all his friends and disciples had fled-

Even Peter-the one called a stone.

And I’m so sure that the little black dog

With heart so tender and warm,

Would never have left Him to suffer alone

But creeping right under His arm

Would have licked the dear fingers

in agony clasped

And counting all favors but loss;

When they took Him away

Would have trotted behind

And followed Him right to the Cross.

Lent Reflection - The Cross and The Star Thrower

Once again I found this in my collection of articles, but am not sure how it came into my possession.  During this Lenten season I believe it is a good article to share.

Loren Eiseley, a naturalist, tells a story about a star thrower.  He was in the seaside town of Costabel, and, plagued by insomnia, spent the early morning hours walking the beach.  Each day at sunrise, he found townspeople combing the sand for starfish which had washed ashore during the night, to kill them for commercial purposes.  Eiseley thought this was a sign, however small, of all the ways the world says NO to life.

One morning, however, Eiseley got up unusually early, and discovered a solitary figure on the beach.  This man, too, was gathering starfish, but each time he found one alive he would pick it up and throw it as far as he could out beyond the breaking surf, back to the nurturing ocean from which it came.  As days went by, Eiseley found this man embarked on his mission of mercy each morning, seven days a week, no matter the weather.

Eiseley called this man “The Star Thrower.”  On the beach in Costabel, everything that Eiseley had been taught about evolution and the survival of the fittest was contradicted by one man.  For this man, strong as he was, reached down to save the weak.  Eiseley wondered if there is a star-thrower at work in the universe, a God who contradicts death, a God whose nature is mercy itself.

During this season of Lent, our focus is on the Cross.  This cross is one of the ways that human beings said NO to life.  And yet, through the cross of Jesus, God says a resounding Yes to life.  Through this cross of Jesus, God reaches down to save us from ourselves.  Through this cross of Jesus, God rescues us from certain death – he hurls us back into the fullness of life.  And he invites us to take up our crosses and follow him – to become star throwers ourselves, cherishing life for all people.  Through the Cross of Jesus, God invites us to join our voices with his in a resounding YES to life.

                                                           

Careful How You Say It

There have been so many serious problems throughout the world that I decided to include something this week that I hope will give everyone a laugh.  It is a little story that came into my presence, but I do not remember how.

There’s a story about a revival where a barber was saved.  The preacher told him that since he was a barber and got to meet a lot of people, he could do a great work for the Lord if he would talk to them about religion and salvation.  When he asked how he could get into a conversation like that with his customers, the preacher said, “Just do it casually.  Talk to them about their soul, ask if their house is in order, if they are prepared to die, and so on.”

The first man to come in the next day wanted a shave, so the barber put a hot towel over him, talking about the weather and what-not, and then after he had lathered the man up good, he figured it was time to get down to the religion part.  He grabbed up his razor, stropped it a few times, pointed at the man, and said bluntly, “Brother, are you prepared to die?”  The man jumped up and ran out of the barbershop with the lather still on his face.

Christmas Geese

One possible answer as to why God would want to become human.

There was once a man who didn’t believe in God, and he didn’t hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays, like Christmas.  His wife, however, did believe, and she raised their children to also have faith in God and Jesus, despite his disparaging comments.

One snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their children to a Christmas Eve service in the farm community in which they lived.  She asked him to come, but he refused.  “That story is nonsense!” he said.  “Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man?  That’s ridiculous!”  So she and the children left, and he stayed home.

A while later, the winds grew stronger and the snow turned into a blizzard.  As the man looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm.  He sat down to relax before the fire for the evening.  Then he heard a loud thump.  Something had hit the window.  Then another thump.  He looked out, but couldn’t see more than a few feet.  When the snow let up a little, he ventured outside to see what could have been beating on his window.  In the field near his house he saw a flock of wild geese.  Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn’t go on.  They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter.  They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly.  A couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

The man felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them.  The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought.  It’s warm and safe, surely they could spend the night and wait out the storm.  So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, then watched and waited, hoping they would notice the open barn and go inside.  But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn’t seem to notice the barn or realize what it could mean for them.  The man tried to get their attention, but that just seemed to scare them and they moved further away.  He went into the house and came with some bread, broke it up, and made a breadcrumb trail leading to the barn.  They still didn’t catch on.

Now he was getting frustrated.  He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the barn.  Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.  “Why don’t they follow me?!”  he exclaimed.  “Can’t they see this is the only place where they can survive the storm?”  He thought for a moment and realized that they just wouldn’t follow a human.  “If only I were a goose, then I could save them,” he said out loud.

Then he had an idea.  He went into the barn, got one of his own geese, and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese.  He then released it.  His goose flew through the flock and straight into the barn – and one by one the other geese followed it to safety.

He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed in his mind:  “If only I were a goose, then I could save them!”  Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier.  “Why would God want to be like us?  That’s ridiculous!”

Suddenly it all made sense.  That is what God had done.  We were like the geese—blind, lost, perishing.  God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way and save us.  That was the meaning of Christmas, he realized.  As the winds and blinding snow died down, his soul became quiet and pondered this wonderful thought.  Suddenly he understood what Christmas was all about, why Christ had come.

Years of doubt and disbelief vanished like the passing storm.  He fell to his knees in the snow, and prayed his first prayer: “Thank You, God, for coming in human form to get me out of the storm!”

Everyday Thanksgiving

Thoughts for when you are not sure what to be thankful for.

Even though I clutch my blanket and growl when the alarm rings each morning,

Thank You , Lord, that I can hear.

There are those who are deaf.

Even though I keep my eyes tightly closed against the morning light as long as possible,

Thank You, Lord, that I can see.

There are many who are blind.

Even though I huddle in my bed and put off the physical effort of rising.

Thank You, Lord, that I have the strength to rise.

There are many who are bedfast.

Even though the first hour of my day is hectic, when socks are lost, toast is burned, tempers are short.

Thank You, Lord, for my family.

There are many who are lonely.

Even though our breakfast table never looks like the pictures in magazines and the menu is at times unbalanced.

Thank You, Lord, for the food we have.

There are so many who are hungry.

Even though the routine of my job is often monotonous.

Thank You, Lord, for the opportunity to work.

There are many who have no job.

Even though I grumble and bemoan my fate from day to day, and wish my circumstances were not quite so modest.

Thank You, Lord, for the gift of life.

Thank You, Jesus

This prayer seemed appropriate to me after our study of repentance.

Dear Jesus –

You calmed the raging waters and walked upon the sea,

You healed the lepers, deaf and blind, and caused the blind to see.

Your miracles are endless – yet the greatest one to me

Is when I knelt repenting, you saved me; set me free.

You touched the hopeless sinner so filled with guilt and shame,

Infused me with assurance and made me whole again.

Thank you, for Grace unfailing, forgiveness – Love divine,

That took my sins and paid the price to make me wholly Thine.

                                                            Anna McCalpin

An Apple for Jesus

This story came from a church newsletter written many years ago.  I thought it would be appropriate as we enter apple picking season.

One day an elderly man entered into a hospital.  He was grumpy from being on medication and the nurses thought him to be insane, as he yelled for his wife to get the apple basket.  By the time they had checked him into his room the nurses were exhausted from the fight he was putting up.  “Sir you have to calm down we are doing everything we can for you”  they would try to explain.  “I don’t need your help,” the grumpy man would yell, “I want my apple basket”.  He finally slept.  The nurses sighed with relief and talked among themselves whether they should call the hospital psychologist about the old man and his obsession with the apple basket.  As they talked and laughed about the situation the wife came in carrying the basket of apples.  They looked kind of stunned as she asked if she could see her husband and deliver his basket.  Sure, they agreed as they watched her slip past into his room.  Curiosity consumed them over the next few weeks as they tended to the elderly man.  He was eaten with cancer and the doctors had given him no hope of survival.  He turned out to be a very calm, happy man once he had his basket.  His wife, they noticed, would come in with apples and go out with apples and the curiosity grew even more till one nurse couldn't stand the suspense.

One night as he was nearing the end, the nurse sat down in a chair by the wife.  “May I ask why do you have that apple basket?  I just don’t understand the significance.”  “I am an apple farmer by trade he sighed.  From the time I was 20 till the day I do die I will forever have my apples.”  The nurse nodded thinking she understood.  He just likes his work, she thought, assured now he was a little bit crazy.  As she started to leave, the old man asked her to sit down.  “At age 20 I was saved, I accepted the Lord as my Savior.”  Oh no, the nurse thought.  Here comes the lecture on religion.  The old man continued.  “The day I accepted the Lord as my Savior I got this basket, and each time I had a problem or concern that I could not handle, I put an apple in the basket un-shined.”  “Why?”  the nurse said shaking her head.  “Because it reminded me to give those problems to the Lord for him to shine.  See my basket now, he stated.  As my problems disappear so do the apples.  As I get new problems, ones I cannot handle alone, I put an apple in.”  The humble nurse looked into the basket . .  only one apple was there.  With that, he took a big breath and grabbed his wife by the hand and faded into eternal sleep.  The wife paused for a moment and got up from her place to take from the basket the last remaining apple.  She whispered in his ear that his reward awaits him in heaven.  The nurse stayed still and asked with tears in her eyes, “What do you think his riches will be?”  The wife knew what they were, eternal life with Jesus Christ.  But she could see the concern and sadness upon the young nurses’ face and handed her the apple and said, “The biggest apple pie you can imagine!”  That was the day the young nurse was saved, and from that day on she always had a basket by her bed.

Peace UCC newsletter

Small offerings are important

The following is from a book of devotions written many years ago by Pastor Theophil H. Twente titled "Chores of Life".  This poem stresses the importance of remembering that we can do small daily chores to the glory of God.  Often these little things are far more significant than the large ones we hope to accomplish.

Lord of Pots and Pans

Lord of the pots and tipkins,  Since I've no time to be
A saint by doing lovely things,  And vigiling with thee,
By watching in the twilight dawn,  And storming heaven's gates,
Make me a saint by getting meals,  And washing up the plates.

Although I must have Martha's hands,  I have a Mary mind;
And when I black the boots and shoes,  Thy sandals, Lord, I find.
I think of how they trod the earth,  Each time I scrub the floor;
Accept this meditation, Lord, I haven't time for more.

Warm all the kitchen with thy love,  And warm it with thy peace,
Forgive me all my grumbling, Lord,  Make all my grumbling cease.
Thou who didst love to give men food,  In room or by the sea,
Accept this service that I do --- I do it unto thee.

Who'll take the son?

I do not know who wrote this short story, but I wonder if we, in an attempt to acquire what we consider important, don't forget Jesus, who gives us everything.


A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art.  They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael.  They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.

When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war.  He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier.  The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.

About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door.  A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.  He said, "Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life.  He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly.  He often talked about you, and your love for art."  The young man held out his package, "I know this isn't much.  I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this."

The father opened the package.  It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man.  He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting.  The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears.  He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture.  "Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me.  It's a gift."

The father hung the portrait over his mantle.  Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.

The man died a few months later.  There was to be a great auction of his paintings.  Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection.  On the platform sat the painting of the son.  The auctioneer pounded his gavel.  "We will start the bidding with this picture of the son.  Who will bid for this picture?"  There was silence.  Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, "We want to see the famous paintings.  Skip this one."  But the auctioneer persisted.  "Will someone bid for this painting?  Who will start the bidding?  $100, $200?"

Another voice shouted angrily, "We didn't come to see this painting.  We came to see the Van Gogh's, the Rembrandt's.  Get on with the the real bids!"  But the auctioneer continued.  "The son!  Who'll take the son?"  finally, a voice came from the very back of the room.  It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son.  "I'll give $10 for the painting."  Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.

"We have $10, who will bid $20?"  The crowd was becoming angry and shouted, "Give it to him for $10; let's see the masters!"  The auctioneer pounded the gavel, "Going once, twice, sold for $10!"  Then the auctioneer laid his gavel down and announced the auction was over.

"What about the paintings?" the crowd asked.  "I am sorry.  When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will.  I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time.  Only the painting of the son would be auctioned.  Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings.  The man who took the son gets everything!"