Like a Good Neighbor. There was a large white middle class church out of parking in a booming Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Older small homes of minorities landlocked the church. The church pastor and board became possessed with a plan: eliminate the houses around the church to expand the blacktop. So the plan was launched to bulldoze the homes of the Hispanic neighbors and replace them with good, Christian pavement, all the while singing, “We are Standing on Holy Ground.” “Surely, those people know we are expanding the Kingdom of God.” Meanwhile, the historic memory of the departed neighbors was buried under a fresh grave vault of hot asphalt. “Blessed are the parking attendants, for they shall be garbed in florescent green.” How was this church a neighbor to its community? [Based on at true story. Stock bulldozer image and not actual home involved.]
Sample Church Parking
Bulldozers for Christ – “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”! The church’s bulldozers were legal and financial before the real thing arrived. For some church leaders I’ve known, “bulldozer” would be an improvement.
Don’t ask me which church this was lest they shun me again from their fabulous annual “All Church Parking Lot Potluck and Hymn Sing.”
“The issue facing us is not the left versus the right but thecrisis of intolerance.”-Pastor Vincent Woolsey
Tolerance … “The pastor’s wife is a bar-fly who frequents a bar. We don’t want our church money going to a floozy … ”
So, the rumors wafted about the local teetotaling Wesleyan Methodist pastor’s wife and family, friends of mine. Visiting in their home, they came clean to me. Their only beautiful son, a toddler, had serious medical problems. As they couldn’t afford healthcare on his pastor’s chicken feed salary alone, they agreed she would take a job waiting tables at night in a Phoenix restaurant that happened to serve alcohol. To this day I wonder if some of those very church members dined in that restaurant? I, too, am a floozy for Christ .
The COVID-19 pandemic sets “WIIFME” (“What’s In It for Me?”) against the “W.H.O. , Me”?
“I forgot my mask and need an item from Walmart or Home Depot; I’ll pop in. No big deal.”
“I’ll ride as one of 250,000 bikers to Sturgis with no mask in sight. Got to express my freedom.”
The strength of US Capitalism may blister our Achilles heel when faced with a pandemic as the economic theory stands on the “the individuals acting in their own self interest” :
The saddest verse in the Bible captures what’s behind the masks –6 In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. – Judges 17:6.
You may ask, “Pastor Jim, are you against Capitalism?” No, I’m not against Capitalism just in favor of a Service Based Capitalism that includes others at the table, as our Lord said, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28).
Let us reflect on the “W.H.O., Me?” and consider how we can consider the economic needs of other. This will seem foreign to us as we have learned best way we can help another is to help ourselves first. Small steps forward may be to buy N95 masks for our neighbor rather than curse those who don’t read the signs.
The preparation of today’s blog became an exercise in joy itself. For days from my devotional porch swing, I watched the rising sun kiss the sunflowers in a daily greeting, accompanied with a chorus of hummingbirds and bees. I felt joy surround me and the impression from God saying, “My joy is this big!”
I felt Joy surround me and the impression from God saying, “My joy is this big!”
One sunflower can hold 2000 sunflower seeds, with some plants reaching 25 and even 30 feet high. Of the 4000 bee species native to North America (the European Settlers brought the Honey Bee), we see two tiny bees enjoying the sunflower’s bounty.
I set the large sunflower on my desk in front of me, started the video camera and told how the flower became a “joy island” for bees, hummingbirds, yellow finches and then all across the desk … Ants. Ants dropped from the severed head of the sunflower like a rain of crazed paratroopers. Crawling over my notes and my hands, do I smack them while speaking of the joy of the Lord? Should I make a disclaimer that, “No ants were harmed during this filming?”
Out the door with the flower and the ants, or at least the majority, gathered up, the shooting continued. Blessedly, the lens was out of focus and you were spared witnessing the ant assault on Pastor Jim. Though I am certain I would have been a better preacher over the years if I were covered with ants during the sermon.
Crawling with Joy
What humor {wait I feel something crawling on my leg} God must have to watch me swinging at ants like a distracted orchestra conductor while speaking about joy. Now I begin to understand the note CS Lewis scribbled about joy tucked inside a used book –“Real joy … jumps under ones ribs and tickles down one’s back and makes one forget meals and keeps one (delightedly) sleepless o’ nights”. It shocks one awake when the other puts one to sleep. My private table is one second of joy is worth 12 hours of Pleasure. I think you really quite agree with me.”
“Real joy … jumps under ones ribs and tickles down one’s back and makes one forget meals and keeps one (delightedly) sleepless o’ nights”. It shocks one awake when the other puts one to sleep. My private table is one second of joy is worth 12 hours of Pleasure. I think you really quite agree with me.”
This audio blog talks about a journey to joy islands to find the secret to overcoming isolation, depression and anxiety. When Jesus walked with his disciples between the Upper Room and the Garden of Gethsemane, he spoke with them about joy that comes from God. This joy can be yours today! Some resources mentioned: How to use prayer beads: A Bead and a Prayer.
How can a doctor run 22 miles, wear a face mask, and not lose oxygen... while a retired Walmart shopper complains about face masks and can’t run a can opener without getting winded?
