Presby-Musings

Did you know that the Bible is One Big Story of God’s love for people who don’t always feel like they deserve God’s love?  It's true--it's the best kind of story, to be honest. And God has a way of always picking the wrong kinds of people to do what God needs doing.  People who think they aren't good enough, people who the rest of the world thinks aren't good enough--heck, people who really aren't good enough... that's who God seems to love to pick to write God's One Big Story. The Bible is One Big Story filled with heroes and villains, great adventures, epic battles, love stories and astonishing tales.  It’s also the story of a “once and future” King who picked the most unlikely people to help him share the story of God’s amazing love, and how far God was willing to go to save the world.    Today we are continuing our summer sermon series, One Big Story.  And what we're going to be learning over the course of this summer is one very simple fa...

Early yesterday morning, as I stood in the stillness of the sanctuary of my new church, I prayed a prayer out loud.   I often to talk to God out loud in empty church sanctuaries.  More than once, throughout my pastoral career, people have showed up at church to set things up and have caught me having a tête–à–tête with the Almighty, which I am sure made them question my sanity.  Yesterday, my prayer went something like this:  "God, I'm kind of exhausted.  I've been running on adrenaline for so many days now, I've lost track.   All of the emotional goodbyes, a cross-country move and lack of sleep have caught up with me.  My tank is empty on one of the biggest days of my life as a pastor.  And I forgot to eat breakfast, which is the most important meal of the day.   And my coffee is cold.   Seriously, though, I need you.  I can't do this without you.  If you don't show up... I'm toast, and I can't be toast rig...

Many years ago, I was serving as a chaplain at Florida Hospital and happened to be pulling a night shift when all hell broke loose.  I was getting multiple calls to multiple floors to deal with one crisis after another.  In the middle of all of it, we had a "code blue" that occurred--a man went into cardiac arrest and was not able to be revived.   I received the call of the "code blue" while I was dealing with someone who had been brought into the emergency room, raving and refusing treatment because of her religious beliefs.  By the time I got a handle on her situation, the code blue was over and I was messaged that he had passed away.  The nurse in the unit where he'd been asked me to come up and to be with the family, who were gathered around his bed.  I was tired.  I had nothing left.  I honestly wanted to run as fast as I could out into the parking lot.  I hadn't had a cigarette in years, but I figured somewhere out there someone ...

There is this story in the book of Judges in the Old Testament about Jewish hero named Gideon, who defeated thousands of soldiers from a rival tribe with only three hundred Hebrew warriors.   But before Gideon was a great hero, he was just a guy--a guy keeping his head down, trying to make ends meet and desperately afraid of having his grain and goods raided by members of the aforementioned rival tribe.   In the story, an angel from the Lord appeared to Gideon and exclaimed, "The Lord is with you, mighty warrior."  To which Gideon replies, "Beg your pardon, but it sure doesn't look or feel like the Lord is with us.  I mean look around you, we're all afraid, we're uncertain, things are bad.  How could the Lord be with us when things are so bad?"   I love this.  The guy has an angel appear to him and tell him that he's favored by God and he argues with the angel.   But how different is that from the way that so many of us act?   Have...