Presby-Musings

  “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.” —Leonard Cohen One of my favorite stories from the Gospels is the story of how Jesus dissuaded a crowd of overly religious men from executing a woman who was accused of adultery.   John's Gospel tells it like this:  2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at ...

  “Peace is not merely the absence of some negative force—war, tensions, confusion—but it is the presence of some positive force—justice, goodwill and brotherhood.” —Martin Luther King Jr. Some years ago, I was working on a sermon on reconciliation and forgiveness when the message landed hard on me before I could even preach it.  After twenty years and hundreds of sermon preparations, you'd think that I wouldn't be surprised when that happens, but it still floors me when it occurs.   The idea of the sermon was that there couldn't be any reconciliation in our broken relationships if there wasn't truth spoken into why they were broken in the first place.   Inconveniently, some of the truth that needed to be spoken was that most of the time, we played a part in the brokenness despite our narratives of being the injured party.   In that moment, I thought of a long relationship with a former friend that ended poorly.  I'd felt a great deal of bet...

  “The cross is not the suffering tied to natural existence, but the suffering tied to being Christians. The cross is not accidental suffering, but necessary suffering.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life?  - Matthew 16:24-26 When I was in high school in the small town of Winter Garden, Florida, a guy would walk up and down the main highway that led in and out of town, carrying a large cross on his shoulders. I saw him dozens of times, but never got the courage to stop and ask him why he was doing it.  I kind of wrote him off as a religious nut, and would shake my head every time I saw him on the road.   Eventually, he...

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.” —C. S. Lewis As I  have been doing my best to embrace the challenge we've set before our congregation to ask "What Would Jesus Do?" in every aspect of our lives, I've discovered some interesting things.  First, for every step forward that I take in this challenge, I seem to take two steps backward.   Just when I feel like I'm getting things right and totally nailing being like Jesus, I turn around and do some seriously un-Jesus-like stuff.  Which brings me to the second thing I find interesting.  In those moments, I often find myself wishing Jesus were more like me and would react the way I'm reacting.   Thankfully, I find that I'm not alone in this because none other than St. Peter himself has a similar moment in Matthew 16:21–23 Peter had just gotten it right. Earlier in the same chapter in Matthew,  Jesus asked, “W...

“The church is the church only when it exists for others... It must tell people of every calling what it means to live in Christ, to exist for others.” —Dietrich Bonhoeffer Scripture: Matthew 16:15 A fascinating moment in the Old Testament book of Joshua occurs when, right before a battle against another tribe, Joshua encounters a mysterious figure described as the "commander of the Lord's army." Joshua immediately asks the question human beings have probably been asking God forever: “Are you for us, or for our adversaries?” In other words: Whose side are you on? The answer is startling. “Neither.” Joshua wants to know whether God has joined his side. Instead, Joshua discovers that the real question is whether he has joined God's. Those of us who call ourselves Christians struggle with this.  We want Jesus on our side. Our political side. Our theological side. Our cultural side. Our side of the argument. Our side of whatever division happens to be consuming us at the...

  What Would Jesus Do? Reclaiming a Christ-centered Faith   This series will help us rediscover what it means to follow Jesus—not the Jesus we’ve created in our image, but the Jesus revealed in Scripture.   But first, a bit of history about the whole What Would Jesus Do? Thing.    In 1896, Charles Sheldon published a book entitled In His Steps, a fictionalized account of what happened in a traditional, well-to-do church congregation when they were challenged to ask the question, "What Would Jesus Do?" in every aspect of their lives: business, relationships, politics, money, purpose, etc.   The essential idea behind this book was to challenge Christians to begin living differently.  Instead of just giving lip service to their faith in Jesus, would they be willing to actually follow him and do their best to live as Jesus did?   This book emerged following the Industrial Revolution in American history.  This would be a time of great ...

This past Sunday, we began a new sermon series at my church entitled, "What Would Jesus Do? Reclaiming a Christ-Centered Faith."   The idea behind this series is to rediscover what it means to ask that question in every aspect of our lives as we do our best to follow Jesus more closely and be led by the example of his life and ministry in Scripture. We also invited members to take a one-month challenge to intentionally ask "What Would Jesus Do?" every day when it comes to business and work, relationships, money, our purpose, politics, compassion and generosity, decision-making, and much more.   Many people gathered after worship to pledge to do just that, and I would like to extend that invitation to you, my dear readers.  The link to the sermon video is below if you would like to watch it, and then make the same pledge: to spend the next month asking "What Would Jesus Do?"  If you find you need a conversation partner at any time during the next month of a...

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” — C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory We live in a culture fascinated by greatness. We celebrate people who build enormous companies, gather huge audiences, achieve extraordinary success, or leave their names in history books. Without realizing it, we can begin measuring our own lives by similar standards. When I was in high school, my mom used to watch Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous  hosted by Robin Leach.  I used to joke about his last name and how he couldn't be more aptly monickered if he tried.   It was one of the first of those kinds of shows on TV where you had a chance to see how the "one-percenters" lived lavish lifestyles of decadence, conspicuous consumption, and the like.   I get the allure of that kind of thing.  When you're sitting in a small concrete block house in the thriving metropolis of Ocoee, Florida, you can start to feel not-so-great when you see some old ric...

“A rule of life is a schedule and set of practices and relational rhythms that help us create space in our busy world for us to be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did.” — John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way In a commencement speech he gave in 2014 at the University of Texas, Austin, Admiral William H. McRaven offered a simple rule of life: "If you want to change the world, start by making your bed."  He went on to say:  If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter. If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. I have to admit, I have not been the best at making my bed every day until the last few months, a...

  “I used to get irritated by interruptions to my work until I realized that interruptions were my work.” — Henri J. M. Nouwen Most of us begin our days with a plan. We have tasks to accomplish, places to go, emails to answer, appointments to keep, and lists to check off.  We may also have in our head when and where all these things are going to happen.   If you're like me, you probably don't leave much margin in your day, so all your plans depend on finishing one thing so you can move on to the next.   Then someone interrupts us. A friend calls. A coworker needs to talk. A child needs attention. Someone asks for help at precisely the wrong moment. Our first instinct is often frustration because interruptions disrupt the day we planned and the timing of everything within it. I like to think of myself as a free spirit, open to the whims of the universe, able to pivot quickly when the need arises, not bound by the strictures of the plans I have in my head....

When I was in high school, I played football and soccer for a couple of seasons, but my main sport was basketball.   I played it competitively from 6th grade through my senior year.  I can't tell you how many hours I spent practicing my shooting, dribbling, and rebounding, both at home and on the basketball court, but it must have been well beyond the 10,000-hour mark.   One of the things my high school basketball coach told me that I remember to this day is simply this:  "You play like you practice."   What he meant was, if you took practice seriously and practiced as hard as you would play in an actual game, you have a much better chance of playing well, and improving on the court.   All the fundamentals we practiced over and over were meant to prepare us to perform well under pressure and rely on muscle memory when it came to shooting, passing, and moving the ball.   Practice mattered.  Our habits mattered.   ...