The Vinedresser

In my mind’s eye, I can still see the fields.  Drive where you might; look where you might; but you would find no fields as beautiful to the eye as those belonging to Mr. Gaylon O. Knapp, my maternal grandfather.

Grandpa was more than a farmer who raised crops.  He practiced husbandry, caring for the land that would grow the crops as much as he cared for the crops.  Whether one walked through his corn or bean fields, knelt to feel the freshly opened cotton, or marveled at the golden waves of grain, one knew that one who cared for the land was at work in those fields.

Grandpa and Wendell Berry would have liked each other; though Grandpa would have chided Wendell for his penchant for horse-drawn implements.  Yet, Grandpa did have his limits.  Tractors and their implements needed to fit the size of the land; and a farmer’s land needed never to exceed his ability to care for it.  He never bought into the bigger-is-better mentality, nor did he believe in expansion for expansion’s sake.  A man should have what he needs and need only what he has; and he should care for it in such a manner as both to leave it to those who would follow and to leave it better than he had found it.

When I read the story of the Vine, the branches, and the Vinedresser, I think about Grandpa.  Don’t misunderstand me.  Even in my cherished memory of Grandpa, I don’t mean to equate him with God, but I do mean to say that the image of the God as the Vinedresser rings true for me in part because of the manner in which Grandpa cared for the land. 

So, what frightens others brings me hope.  Some read the story of the Vine, branches, and Vinedresser, focusing only on the news that the Vinedresser takes away non-fruit bearing branches.  I’m focused on something far more amazing.  The Vinedresser cares so much for the Vine and the branches that he continually prunes the branches that they may bear more fruit. 

I’m not worried about being lopped off.  My self-assurance does not rest on my own sense of goodness.  It rests on my trust that the Vinedresser loves me . . . loves you . . . and has but one desire: namely, to so care for both Vine and branches that together they may produce the fruit of the kingdom.

Grandpa might be surprised to know that he gave his grandson an image of God that was kinder than the one he often encountered at church.  On the other hand, maybe he would not be. 

The story of the Vine, the branches, and the Vinedresser is not a story of judgment.  It is a story of hope.  In the Vine . . . in Christ . . . there is life.

May we abide in the Vine.  If we do, part of the fruit we bear will be the image of kinder and more loving God than many around us know. 

Worshiping in a House Filled with Children

What follows was written as a preface to the sermon, “It Happened at the Beautiful Gate,” that was preached on April 22, 2012. The sermon can be found at our church’s website.

Those folks who want church to be orderly—totally orderly all the time—and who attend our church this morning will be disappointed.  We will have guests.  The children from The Peapod (the pre-school that meets in our building) will be singing, and the fact that they are singing will result in parents, grandparents, siblings, and others being in church who are not usually present. 

If that is not enough to create a little disorder, we are also having a Parent/Child Dedication Service for three young sons and their parents.  This will bring additional guests.

Wow!  What a wonderfully disordered day we are likely to have!  I can hardly wait.  Eminence Baptist Church has become a place that welcomes children and the occasional disorder that accompanies them.  I’m not sure how we arrived at this point. It wasn’t always so.  I can remember seeing “ordered” adults staring down their noses at children and their young parents who were “not behaving properly for church.” 

With all the extra folks and the additional things we will do as part of worship, there will be some distractions.  Some folks, maybe most of us, will miss some part of the service.  I suspect some will miss an important part of my sermon.  Chances are I will forget to say one of my best lines. 

Without all the extra children and extra activity this morning, we would have a more ordered experience of worship.  Those participating would be less likely to miss something.  Yes, without the children and their families, church would be more of an ordered adult event . . . .

But then it wouldn’t be church.  At least it would not be the church called into existence by the one who declared to disciples who desired order, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs” (Mark 10:14).

I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be this morning than at EBC with a church building filled with the sound of children’s voices lifting their own life-prayers up to the Lord of Lords.  Maybe that was what prompted songwriter Roger Whitaker to write:

Every time I hear a newborn baby cry,

      Or touch a leaf or see the sky
      Then I know why, I believe.

May we never be far away from the sound of a newborn’s cry.

The Circle of Believing

My pilgrimage of believing is circling back to where it all began—almost.

When I was a child, my parents and my teachers at our small, rural church in Tallapoosa, Missouri, told me what Christians believed and, therefore, what I believed; and I did.  As a teen, I began to question if all I had been told was right.  There were some pretty fantastic events in what “they” said I should believe.

As a young adult, I began to find my own way along the faith journey.  Well, I found my own way as much as one can ever find his own way.  (We are never as independent as we want to believe and sometimes behave.)  So much of it seemed so unbelievable: Noah and his ark of animals two-by-two . . . Moses and the burning bush and the staff turned snake and the parting of the Red Sea . . . God sending His Son . . . a crucified, dead man rising to life . . . men and women risking their lives to tell such stories.  Could this stuff all be true?  My inquiring mind wanted to know . . . needed to know . . . was determined to know.

Throughout most of my adulthood, the questions have continued to surface and swirl.  The intensity of my struggle has, at times, been more intense, made so by the reality that my faith was no longer just my faith.  I was actually spending my life inviting others to believe these fantastic stories and to stake their lives on them.

Today finds me in what is surely the last third of my life, and I am almost back where I began.  I believe, but I no longer believe because others told me that I should.  Nor do I believe because I have been able to prove all that I believe.  I believe because I cannot do otherwise.  The stories and the events they record have become part of my being.  They have become my stories.

I believe the story of Noah’s rescue and of God’s promise because I have experienced rescue and renewed promises.  I believe Moses’ call and his daring deeds because the same God has called me; and, empowered by God, I have done some amazing things.  Oh, I’ve not parted the Red Sea, but I’ve crossed some treacherous waters and lived to tell.  I believe the story of the Son sent by God because I know the Son and through the Son, I’m getting to know God.  I believe the story of men and women who risked their lives to tell such stories because I know what believing those stories has led me to do. 

My pilgrimage of believing is circling back to where it all began—almost.  The difference is that the believing is now mine.

What is it that brought me home again?  The same thing that sent those early disciples out from the security they sought behind locked doors into the streets, cities, provinces, and nations of their day.  The Son of God has breathed on me.  I live.  It has not been instantaneous and it has not ended.  His breath continues to blow; and with each breath, I come a bit more alive.

Like Thomas, I have seen and I believe.  Having seen and having believed, I can tell you what to believe, but it will be necessary for you to live toward your own believing before you can say with assurance: He lives, and because He lives I live.

to know truth

Once upon a time, I thought that after much study and meditation, I would know truth. Older and wiser, I now know that to know truth, particularly the Truth that is Jesus, requires a lifetime . . . and maybe then some. In Anton Chekhov's book "The Duel," one character is being rowed out to a steamer. The main character watches as the rowboat slips into the mist and observes: "The boat goes on and on now it can no longer be seen, and in half an hour the oarsmen will clearly see the steamer’s lights, and in an hour they’ll already be by the steamer’s ladder.  So it is in life . . . In search of truth, people make two steps forward and one step back.  Sufferings, mistakes, and the tedium of life throw them back, but the thirst for truth and a stubborn will drive them on and on.  And who knows?  Maybe they’ll row their way to the real truth. . . .”  It is a hard and sometimes tiresome journey, but I journey on, believing truth worth the effort.

Resurrection Sunday 2012

With our lips, we too easily and too joyously declare Christ risen from the dead.  We and He might be better served were we a bit more like the women whose experience at the tomb was described by Mark as leaving them amazed, trembling, afraid, and silent.  They expected to find a dead and decaying body. 

We are so sure the tomb will be empty on Easter morn that we hardly take notice of what precedes it—Friday, which can be described as “Good” only after the fact.  We so easily and so joyously declare Christ risen that we do not pause to consider what that means.

Oh, it means we too shall live!  Yes, but in the meantime, it means that we are to live by dying, by giving away our lives in service to others, and by loving others—loved ones, friends, and enemies—as we have been loved.

Maybe that is why Mark presents the women as silent—non-responsive to the instruction of the young man dressed in white.  Maybe they understood.

If He be risen from the dead, dare we leave Easter worship and  return to life as it was before Friday?

Tremble in amazement and be afraid.  He bids us die that we may live. 

He is risen!  He is risen, indeed!

Have we?

Michael

Post Those Commandments Where They Belong

This blog was originally written and published as the introduction to a sermon that was preached March 11, 2012.  You can find the sermon on our church's web site: www.eminencebaptist.org. 

 

Ah, for the good old days when all was as it was supposed to be!

When was that?  Maybe it was the 1950’s when the American economy was in a dramatic upswing following World War II.  Wasn’t that the time in which all schools opened the day with prayer, the pledge to the flag of the United States of America, and the recitation of the Ten Commandments?

I started to school in 1955; and, quite frankly, of those three sacred things, I remember only one happening—the pledge to the flag.  I don’t recall seeing the Ten Commandments posted anywhere.  I did learn those.  The little church in Tallapoosa, Missouri, where my family attended thought it important that children learn those.  Some in the church even dared to believe adults, as well as children, should obey them. 

We didn’t begin our day at school with formal prayer, though I prayed often at school.  The only at-school formal praying I remember occurred at ballgames.  Usually, a local minister would do the honor.  I don’t recall any of the prayers verbatim.  I do recall that they often included a plea for the forgiveness of sins and for sinners to come to know Jesus, and they usually included a request for the Lord to keep the players safe.  Safe?  We were decked out in pads and helmets and were wearing spiked shoes.  Part of what we learned was how to “take out” the other guy.  I remember wondering at the time how God would honor that prayer for our team while at the same time honoring it for the other one. 

No, prayer and the Ten Commandments, in spite of what some remember, were not a regular part of my public school days.  Well, more accurately stated, they weren’t on the agenda of the school.  They were a regular part of my public school days because the good folks at our little church taught us that we were to be Christians both at church and at school, and anywhere else we were.  We learned to pray at church and so we prayed at school.  I recall sitting with my good friends Sallee and Jim Fletcher at recess during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Jim’s dad, who was Sallee’s uncle, was in the Air Force Reserves and had just been activated.  Three young believers gathered quietly, away from others, and, without show, prayed for Jim’s dad and for a peaceful resolution.

The Ten Commandments were not posted on the walls of my school; they didn’t need to be.  Parents and churches posted them on the walls of the hearts of their people.  Posted there, they were mobile, going wherever the believers went. 

I believe in the validity of prayer, and I believe in the importance of knowing and obeying the Ten Commandments.  Furthermore, I believe that, were believers in Jesus to pray unceasingly and were they to know and obey the Ten Commandments, our families, churches, communities, schools, and nation would be better than they are.

Let’s post those Commandments . . . on the walls of our hearts.

Which Jesus?

Each week that I am preaching, my sermon goes out to a group of folks via email.  I refer to these folks as my "Faithful Readers."  Some of them are.  Each sermon is preceded by a note that is not in the sermon body, though I often end up incorporating parts of the note in the sermon.  Today's seemed appropriate for this spot.  You find it below.

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Which Jesus?  Who is the Jesus in whom you put your trust?  Is it the Jesus presented in the gospels?  Is it the Jesus anticipated by those who read and interpreted the Hebrew portion of Bible to point toward a military/political king?  Is it the Jesus of your own imagination and creation?

Personally, I’ve lived too long and watched too many politicians and military leaders use God language to trust my fate to one of them.  I’ve read my Bible—the whole thing.  It seems to me that even God grew weary of the political/military king idea.  It didn’t work out so well for his chosen people.

I like Jesus, but which Jesus do I like?  Well, some will say, there is only one.  Yes . . . maybe . . . NO.  Even the gospels present Jesus in slightly different lights, but I am not referring to that when I ask “which Jesus.” 

I like Jesus, and I like him best of all as I’ve created him in my own mind.  Jesus is kind, loving, and forgiving.  He comes alongside me to keep me out of trouble and to help me come out on top any time I am challenged.  He comforts me in my sorrow and heals my hurts. 

I like Jesus.  I like to spend time with him.  In fact, I would like to schedule some alone time with Jesus (an hour or two) on a monthly basis.  I would like to do so more often, but sometimes after spending even that hour or two with him, I actually feel worse than before.  I like Jesus.  I believe he likes me, but you can’t imagine some of the things he says to me in those quiet times.  He dares to ask me about . . . .  I don’t know why he thinks that has anything to do with my spiritual life—that is what is his concern, is it not?  Why does he insist on messing with my personal life?

I’ve been to a mountain with Jesus.  It is grand.  On the mountain, I seem to get a glimpse of who Jesus is; and, in that moment, I can even see who I might be were my whole life in union with his.  If only I could withdraw from the world and stay there on the mountain in perfect harmony with Jesus.  It is what I want, and surely, such union is what he wants for me, for all of us. 

Alas, to stay on the mountain is to be alone.  Jesus will not stay there.  He will retreat there, but he will not stay.  A faith that is only good enough for the mountain is not a mature faith or it is misplaced—maybe in the mountain rather than in the Jesus who retreated there.

The Jesus one meets on the mountain is the Jesus who comes down to mingle with the masses—to hear their cries, to feel their pain, to touch their brokenness and to be touched by it.  He is the Jesus of the Gospels—the one that dares to follow the Father’s will though it cost  him his life, the one who bids those who would follow to surrender the whole of their living to him, the one who bids us die that we might live.

I like Jesus.  I’m just not sure the Jesus of the Gospels is the one I like.

Michael