February: A Small Month

I can hardly believe that we are already at the beginning of the second month of 2017.  One month down, and 11 more to go even though I am still adjusting to writing 2017 on checks and my correspondence.    February is not only the second month of the year, but it is the shortest month.

  Legend has it that it originally had 30 days.  That changed when Roman Emperor Julius Caesar took a day from February so that the month named after him (July) would have 31 days.  Roman Emperor  Caesar Augustus did not want the month named after him (August) to be shorter than the month named after Julius Caesar so he also took a day from February and made August have 31 days.  If that legend is correct, it was the ego of those Roman Emperors that is behind February having only 28 days.

   While February is the shortest month of the year,  there are some important things we observe in those 28 days.  There is Presidents Day when we remember Presidents Washington and Lincoln;  there is also Valentines Day when we show and tell people we love them on February 14.    I believe that February also in Black History month.    I am certain there are many other special days in February such as birthdays of people we love  (several persons in my own family) and other days of observance.  You see, the importance of a month and  many other things is not always found in their quantity. 

    Just as a small,short month called February can  have importance with only 28 days, Jesus certainly emphasized  the importance of small things.   One lost sheep was important enough for a shepherd to seek out and leave the 99 sheep behind;  one lost coin was important enough for a woman to diligently search for even though she had 9 other coins.   The small gift by  a widow to the temple treasury was considered much greater than the gifts of the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts of antiquity.  In the kingdom of God,  small things mean  a lot. 

     As this new month of February commences, embrace the joy and blessing of each of its 28 days.  And find meaning in the fact that though there may be times when you believe your gifts and talents might be smaller or shorter than the month of  February, we serve a mighty and amazing God.    Have a joy-filled day and month.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  O God, we celebrate that in the kingdom of God no talent, no month, and no person is too small to matter.    Use me and what I have in your work and will; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

Not Always a Box of Chocolates

⁴ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! ⁵ And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. ⁶ For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping.⁷ But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.^[a]   --  Genesis 45: 4-10

I love a good story,and there are no stories  much better than the stories of Genesis particularly the story of Joseph and his brothers.    Joseph was a braggart, and no older brother likes a younger brother saying that he is better than you.  Consequently,  sibling rivalry with his brothers leads Joseph to slavery in Egypt,  imprisonment amid false charges of sexual harassment, and eventually to being a member of Pharoah’s court.    Words of  a young Joseph about his brothers bowing down to him come true when the brothers come looking for food from their famished homeland.   My favorite part of the story of Joseph is found in the words of scripture printed above.     While his brothers intended getting rid of  Joseph for evil,  God intended that act for good in using Joseph to save the life of all Israel. 

I am uncomfortable being around people that act as if they have a monopoly on understanding God.   I don’t know about you, but I live by faith not certainty.    While I look at the future with hope,  I do it only able to see so far into the days ahead.    Most of the time,  I only see (as I Corinthians 13 puts it) “through a glass darkly” at the present and the future.  But then I look back at my life  as Joseph did that day as his brothers trembled before him and I see that in the course of human events God working in ways that I did not know and did not understand. 

I loved the movie “Forrest Gump” starring Tom Hanks, but I do not fully agree with the phrase made popular in that movie that says:  “Life is like a box of chocolates, You never know what you are going to get.”    In my life,  I believe there is a God working even when I do not see Him.   Why, he is even working for my good.   I believe that it was more than coincidence that a United Methodist Church was a few blocks down the road when I was a teenager that had a great youth program and a wonderful pastor.   I believe that it was not simple luck that left the last seat at a homecoming dinner immediately in front of the beautiful woman I now call my wife.  I invite you to take a look back over your life, and what you will see is not luck or coincidence, but God working in the ways only he can.   Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  O God, thank you for my life and the ways that you work even  when I do not see.  I believe; help my unbelief; through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Reaching Out to Those Different than Ourselves

⁷ A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus told her, “Please give me a drink,” ⁸ since his disciples had gone off into town to buy food.  ⁹ The Samaritan woman asked him, “How can you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” Because Jews do not have anything to do with Samaritans.^{[c]   10} Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who is saying to you, ‘Please give me a drink,’ you would have been the one to ask him, and he would have given you living water.”---  John 4:7-10

I hope you had a good Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday whether you worked or had the day off from your job.   This  holiday always motivates me to think about relationships between people of different races.   I got to thinking about race relations early this year because of a Facebook discussion about some events in my high school days.    Any of you ever seen the movie “Remember the Titans” about a high school in Virginia that hires a black football coach at a predominately white high school?   That story was lived out in my high school in Burlington NC in 1970.   My high school, Walter Williams High School in Burlington, was the first predominately white high school in the south to hire a black football coach.    A matter of fact, a book was written about the experience titled Black Coach by Pat Jordan.   I began thinking about that time and those experiences when a high school classmate asked some of us to come speak to her high school class about civil rights and race relationships.

In anticipation of the integration of our high school with the local black high school that would be closing,   students from our high school in the Spring 1970 spent a day in classes at the black high school getting to know the students.     I must admit that I had spent limited time with black persons until that experience.   That day with those students at Jordan Sellers High School changed  my perspective.   Black persons were no longer persons to fear. 

In John 4 (a portion of which is printed above),  we see Jesus reach out to a Samaritan woman even though they did not see things the same way.  This was not the first and only time that Jesus reached out to those different than him.   If I want to be more like Jesus, I need to do the same.  When I do that, I find myself being richly blessed.    Have a joy-filled week.- Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  Lord and God, your love knows no boundaries.  I am grateful for the love of God that crosses  all the boundaries humans create.   Help me go and do likewise;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Look at the Birds, and Learn

²⁶ Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t plant or harvest or gather food into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are more valuable than they are, aren’t you?-     Matthew 6:26

We have a number of friends and family who have pets such as dogs, cats, and the like.  Some have only one pet, and others have multiple pets.   It is fair to say that we do not have pets in the traditional sense of the word.  You will find no dogs,cats, and the like that belong to Ann and I wandering to and fro around our house.  However, we do have pets, but not like most people do.  You see, we have wild birds that “come home” to our house regularly.  Outside the window of our home we have not one bird feeder, but 5 bird feeders that are frequented by wild birds winter, spring, summer, and fall.    We fill these bird feeders about once a week.  When the grandchildren are here, they help fill the feeders.

Ann and I enjoy watching the birds that visit the feeders outside our home.  I was struck the other day at the variety of birds that were there.  There were the small chickadees, and the beautiful cardinals.  There was an assortment of birds in various sizes and colors at the feeder that day.  Though they had different names and looked different, they found a way to get along together as they fed at the bird feeders.   Somehow, the birds were getting along.

Perhaps we have something to learn from the birds.  Many point to the fact that birds don’t seem to worry even though they know not where their next meal will come from.   Yes, that is an important lesson.    Perhaps there is something we could learn from the birds about getting along with others.   There seems great divisiveness and disagreement   in the world today in our nation, our state, and even the church at large.    The reasons for those divisions are many.  Perhaps we would do well to look and learn from the birds about getting along even with those different from you.  A good hope and wish perhaps as we begin this new year.  Have a joy-filled week.- Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  Lord,  bind us together with the power of your love.  We pray in the name of the one who unites us,  Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

New Days, New Times

“We must be careful with our lives, for Christ’s sake, because it would seem that they are the only lives we are going to have in this puzzling and perilous world, and so they are very precious and what we do with them matters enormously.”   — Frederick Buechner

2017.  The very sound of this new year just a few days old seems strange to my eyes and feels strange coming off of my tongue.  If this new year is like most new years,  I will struggle for weeks to write this new year on checks or in correspondence.  This new year is  as new as a freshly fallen snow or as a new born baby. 

            There are a few times throughout the year when I think about time.  Of course, I think about time when we “spring ahead” or “fall back” when the time changes.  I also think of time when I travel to another part of the country.  In these days as we begin a new year,  I find myself thinking of time.    We tinker with time with our time zones and our time changes in the Spring and Fall.  Perhaps we are naïve to believe that it was humans that created time with our Rolex watches and our digital clocks.    Yet, when you really take away all the bells and whistles,  time is a gift of God.  God gave us time when he created the first day and night.

            And with great regularity and order, God gives us new times.  God gives us every day of our life a new day.  And every year,  God gives us a new time called a new year.    Psalm 118:24 captures the truth of new days and new times when it says:

This is the day that the Lord has made;  let’s rejoice and be glad in it.

This is a new year, a new day, and a new time. Use this new time preciously. May God give us wisdom to live wisely this new year and new time before us.  Have a blessed new year.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  Lord and God, you give endings and beginnings.  Thank you for new days and new times.  Help us to use it for your glory;  through Christ our Lord. Amen.