Were You Born in a Barn?

Note:   This will be my last blog for 2018.  Thank you.

For almost the first two decades of my life,   I lived in a home without air conditioning.    That could be challenging at times in the hot, humid summers of the Carolinas.     I was in college before our family home even had window air conditioning.    We were dependent on opening windows and doors hoping that a breeze might make a visit.       Sometimes in my eagerness to go outside and play with my brother or neighborhood friends,  I would fail to close the screen door of our home.    When that  would be the case,  Mom would chide me saying to me,   “Boy, were you born in a barn?”

I have visited a few barns in my days.   None of them had screen doors.  All of them had large doors that were usually wide and opened when I visited them.    The barn would be the place where horses or other livestock would be kept along with farm supplies.     If Mom were living today,  I could answer her comment “Boy, were you born in a barn?” by saying to her,  “No, Mom.   I was not born in a barn but I follow One who was born in a barn.” 

  

More than likely,  Mom would have had mixed reactions to such a comment.   I can hear her now saying as she would now and then,  “Don’t sass me, boy.”     She would think that I was making a wise crack.  Yet, when she got to thinking about it she also would be proud that I was a follower of the One who was born in the barn, Jesus Christ.       Though there is nothing in the life of Jesus that gives us any indication that he or his family were farmers, they certainly lived in an agrarian society.   Jesus uses images of that society like a person sowing seeds… a sheep being lost… and the like.    Jesus knew about things that many rural people in our day know much about.    In these Advent and Christmas days, let us rejoice that the One named Christ Jesus was born not only in a barn, but he waits to be born in the hearts of all who welcome him.   Have a joy-filled week and merry Christmas.- Pastor Randy L. Wall

Prayer:    O God,  you became the word made flesh full of grace and truth in Christ Jesus.  Come among us in these days and be born in our lives.  Amen. 

The Lamb and the Lion

During the Christian season of Advent and in the month of December,  I find myself reading the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah.    While I read them other times a year, they seem to have more meaning this time of year.   The other day, I re-read this passage from Isaiah that says:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
    from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
² The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
³ and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
    or decide by what he hears with his ears;
⁴ but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
    with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
    with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
⁵ Righteousness will be his belt
    and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

⁶ The wolf will live with the lamb,
    the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling^[a] together;
    and a little child will lead them.---    Isaiah 11:  1-6

The words that jump out in this passage in these days for me are those words about the wolf living with the lamb and the leopard lying down with the goat.   In the animal kingdom, I suppose it is fair to say that they are enemies.   The wolf is commonly known to want to eat the lamb for lunch instead of living with them.  The goat would be timid about lying down with the leopard knowing  that it had other things in mind.  Isaiah is saying to us that the coming Messiah  brings peace between enemies. 

I find myself longing for those words of Isaiah to be a reality not just in the animal kingdom, but in the human kingdom.    It seems that too often we label a person who thinks, looks, or believes differently than us as the enemy.   In my heart,  I continue to grieve shootings that left dead congregants in a Pittsburgh synagogue and a Charleston church Bible study because a shooter saw them as the enemy.  I long for a day when Republicans can live with Democrats, when anti-Trump folks can share time with the Trump supporters,  and white supremacists can get along with the ones they say they despise.   Come, Lord Jesus.  Come quickly,  Change us, and change me.   Have a joy-filled week.  -  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  who came  long ago as a fulfillment of prophecies:  come again among us in these days.  We yearn for you to come into our broken world and to heal our broken lives.  Come quickly, Lord, and heal us;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Be the Gift

It is December and Christmas is only weeks away  For the Christian Church, it is the season of Advent as we prepare our hearts for Christmas.  It is easy to know that Christmas is coming if you watch television or open your local newspaper because both mediums want to remind the consumer of the fact so they will buy, buy, and buy for friends and family.  Consequently, there are many people who are wondering what gifts to buy.  They wonder:   Will they like the gift?   Will it fit?  Do they already have one?   The questions about gift-giving are perhaps as many as the people we have to buy gifts for

. 

I wonder what would happen if instead of pondering what gift to buy that we pondered how we can be a gift?   While I am certain that many retailers would not like the idea as it might affect their bottom line,  perhaps it would be a better choice.   Why, it might even akin to what Christmas is about.

Most everyone knows the essence of John 3:16.   Martin Luther, the great church reformer, called that passage “the gospel in miniature”.     That passage of scripture begins by saying “God so loved the world that HE GAVE….”     God love and showed the same by giving Himself.    What would the world be like if we gave ourselves: our time, our prayers, our skills, our compassion to the people we love and the world around us?    The essence of Christmas is “God is with us” and becomes human flesh.   Christmas is the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus.   What if we made our gift incarnate in who we are and what we do in the world around us?    When you get right down to us, perhaps the most precious gift we can give anyway is the gift of ourselves.  I commend the possibility to you.    Have a joy-filled week.  --  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  we yearn for the essence of Christmas to come to us and to our world.  Forgive us for the times that we fool ourselves into believing that Christmas is only about things and not about You.  Amen.    

Mysterious Givers

One of the things our church does this time of year is participate in a program called Operation Christmas child that is sponsored by Samaritans Purse.     Members of our congregation, like many other churches and groups, pack a shoebox filled with various gifts for children in faraway places.   Why I am supportive of the program, I must confess that I have left the preparation of shoeboxes to my wife, Ann, with some assistance from our grown children.   Collection week for Operation Christmas child was held just a few weeks ago and I was astonished at the response in our congregation.   Why, there were more packed shoeboxes present that Sunday than there were people filling our pews.

One of the options that Operation Christmas Child has offered in recent years is that you can pay a small fee to track your shoebox to see in what country it arrived.    My wife, Ann, has paid the small fee a few times and we are excited to get the news about where the shoebox arrived.   When we got the news, we look at a globe seeking to know a little more about the place.    Though we have been fortunate to know something about the place where our family shoeboxes arrived, we know nothing about the children receiving those shoeboxes.    We know nothing about their names, their families, or their community.    All we know is that we gave, and they received.

There is a mystery in life so often about the origin of what we give and what we receive.    You probably do not know who grew, picked, and shipped the banana you ate today if it was bought in a grocery store.    If your generosity led you to put monies in a Salvation Army kettle during these days, your probably will not know the name of the person that will eat a meal or receive a basic need because of your generosity. 

  

In John 6, we hear the story of the feeding of the five thousand by Jesus.   This story is the only miracle of Jesus that we find in all four gospels.   While we know that Jesus feed thousands not including the women and children, we know not the name of the boy who gave the few fish and loaves of bread he had.    His name is remembered in the kingdom of heaven, but it is not known by us.     Every day, each of us are the beneficiaries of basic needs in life provided for us by people whose names we know not.     Though we know not their names, let us give thanks to the God who is the giver of all good gifts.   Have a joy-filled week. -- Pastor Randy Wall

  

Prayer:    O God, we give you thanks for the opportunity to give and the many, many gifts we receive.  Thank you for the opportunity give and the bounty we receive; through Christ our Lord.   Amen.

Eating with the Enemy

I got my hair cut the other day.   People talk to the people cutting their hair, and people cutting hair talk to the people in their chair.  As the hair stylist clipped away, I asked her,  “Do you have any plans for Thanksgiving?”  After heaving  a heavy sigh, she exclaimed,  “Yea, I do.  Our family is getting together.  I am cooking.  I will be glad when it is over because I don’t like some of those people.”

Grocery stores are full on this Thanksgiving Eve with people picking up foods prepared or to prepare.   Highways and airports will be full this day with people heading to Thanksgiving gatherings near and far.  Sometimes, those gatherings are approached with great joy.   Sometimes, those gatherings are approached with fear and trepidation because of the truth that sometimes people even in families do not get along.

 

Like that woman cutting my hair, there are many reasons why people do not get along in families.    Those reasons include wounds that cut deep… words that should have been left unsaid… actions that have not been forgotten… discussions that escalated into arguments… and on and on.   As I read Psalm 23 recently,  one of its verses leaped out at me that says:

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

Though I have read those words many times, they spoke to me as Thanksgiving and Christmas approach.   Perhaps eating with the enemy (even with family members who seem to be enemies) is a God-given thing to give us something we need to know and learn.

Most of us know that the first Thanksgiving in what we now call  the United States happened in November 1621 when Pilgrims and their neighbors, the Native Americans, gathered for a meal together.    I am very certain that the Pilgrims and the Natives had their differences in language, faith, and viewpoints.  Historians tell us that there were around 50 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans together.     Despite their differences, they came together.   Though there were ways they differed,  there were many things that united them.  One of them was knowing they had been blessed by their Creator.

Is not the same true in the story we will ponder during Advent and Christmas?    Wise men, royalty from a far away land, will join with lowly shepherds at a stable in Bethlehem to worship a child from a lineage of peasant parents.     Though shepherds and wise men were different, they were united in their worship at the One born of Mary who would make all the difference. 

Perhaps in eating with the enemy in these days   despite our differences we will learn to more fully live together.  Have a joy-filled week.—Pastor Randy Wall 

  Prayer:    O God, bind us together through the love in Christ that unites us and breaks down the walls between us;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen.   

"...For All Things"

¹⁷ Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. ¹⁸ And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, ¹⁹ speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another in the fear of ^[f]God.-    Ephesians 5: 17-21

As Thanksgiving approaches,   I find myself pondering the first part of that word: Thanks.   I suppose it was in Mrs. Cox’s  third grade class when some of the reality of Thanksgiving first became real to me when she assigned us the task to write a paper about the first Thanksgiving.   While I cannot remember all that I wrote in the paper,  I do recall that it must have been an outstanding paper for a third grader because I received a prize from our principal, Mr. Moffett. 

I came across the passage of scripture printed above as I thought about Thanksgiving recently.   There are three words in that passage that are troublesome for me.  Those words are:  “for all things.”    I, along with many others,  find it quite easy to be thankful for the food before us… or for the health that allows us to wake up or work another day.   Most of us are thankful for the friends and family that we engage with regularly or will gather with around Thanksgiving.  Those are good things and it is quite easy to be thankful for them, but Paul does not say be thankful for good things.  No, he says be thankful “for all things.”   

I think of a man named Job who lived centuries before the apostle Paul who praises God even when he hears that all his children have died and he lost his home.   I think of the apostle Paul who gave thanks for his “thorn in the flesh” as he realized with it that God’s grace was sufficient.    I think of Corrie ten Boom’s Christian classic book, “The Hiding Place”, where she writes about the fleas that infested their quarters in the concentration camp and how she and her sister, Betsy, gave thanks for them because the fleas meant that the Nazi soldiers made infrequent visits to their barracks.

“Giving thanks always for all things….”     I am not sure I am always there in my walk with Christ, but I aspire to be in that place.   How about you?   Have a blessed week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

   

Prayer:    O God,  forgive us for being  fair weather followers of yours.  Help us trust you in good times and bad times knowing that you will never leave or forsake us;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Remembering the Veterans

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. ² And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnessesentrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others. ³ Join with me in suffering, like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. ⁴ No one serving as a soldier gets entangled in civilian affairs, but rather tries to please his commanding officer.-  II Timothy 2:1-4

Veterans Day is only a few days away.   While Memorial Day is a day in which Americans remember with thanksgiving those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country,  Veterans Day is a day when we remember those who served in our armed forces.     Since Veterans Day is on a Sunday this year, I am certain that many churches will recognize the Veterans among them in all sorts of ways.  As the father in law of a young man currently serving in our nation’s military and as the nephew of three men that served in our nation’s military in days past,  I am grateful for family who did serve and are still serving. 

I came across the passage of scripture  above recently where the apostle Paul uses a soldier as a metaphor for disciples of Jesus Christ  (“good soldier of  Christ Jesus”).     While I am thankful as an American for the many veterans who served in our nation’s military in days past,   I am thankful as a Christian for those “good soldiers of Christ Jesus” who have kept the faith, shared the faith, and had faith.     They are the ones that have mentored us and prayed for us.   They are the people who have not only talked about Christ, but sought to show Christ-likeness in their daily life.  There are many people in my life who have been a “good soldier of Christ Jesus”.   Some are living, and others have gone on to their eternal reward.   While it is good and right to honor the Veterans of our nation’s military on Veteran’s Day,   it is good and right to honor the  good soldiers of Christ Jesus.   Why not take the time to give one of those “good soldiers” a call, a card, or a visit this week and thank them for their service for the sake of the gospel and impact on your life?  You will be glad you did, and they will be grateful.     Have a joy-filled  week.--  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God, I  thank you those who have fought the good fight and kept the faith as soldiers of the cross.   Grant that through the inspiration of their lives and the strength of your Spirit that I might go and do likewise;  through Christ our Lord.   Amen. 

October 31 is more than Halloween

Halloween is a day that means different things for people.   The young and young at heart might be excited about October 31 because it is Halloween and they look forward to having small children dressed in an assortment of costumes ring their doorbells exclaiming “trick or treat.”     The businessman or employee reading this may suddenly remember that October 31 is the end of the month and they have sales goals to meet or projects  to complete by the end of work today. 

Today is also an important day in the history of the church because it was on October 31, 1517 when Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the doors of the church in Wittenberg, Germany.   While that act might seem inconsequential to you, it led to what church historians call the protestant reformation.   In the middle part of the 20^th century, there was a church theologian named Karl Barth.    He popularized a latin phrase that he said derived from St. Augustine.   That phrase was “Ecclesia semper reformanda”.   For those of you who are not fluent in latin, the phrase means “the church must always be reformed.”   Many shorten that phrase to “Semper reformanda.”   “Always reforming”.

On this date not only did the protestant reformation begin, but a reforming began.   I believe that St. Augustine and Karl Barth were right.   While (as the Scriptures declare)   “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”, the truth is that sometimes the body of Christ, the church, strays like lost sheep from the way of Christ in word and deed.       Today, as in the days of Augustine, Luther, and Barth, the church stands in need of reform as it always has.    “Semper reformanda”.    Let the reforming continue.    Have a joy-filled week.--  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God, I  thank you for the body of Christ, the Church.   Let your Spirit fall afresh on your Church as you continue to reform it and transform it more  fully into your image;   through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

God Knows...

I have mentioned several times in this blog about the fact that we enjoy watching a varied assortment of birds visit bird feeders at our home.   We currently have 5 bird feeders that are filled weekly for the birds that come our way.    We had a little mishap recently with one of the birds.  Unfortunately, one of the birds flew directly into our glass patio door.   The good news is that the patio door was not harmed;  the bad news is that the bird was not immediately okay.   I was in the living room at the time and saw it hit the door through my peripheral vision.   I watched as the bird laid on our patio not certain whether to come to the aid of the bird or not.   Even if I did come to its aid,  I was not certain  what would be best to do.  In a span of time that was short but seemed long to this interested bird watcher, the bird soon regained its faculties and flew away to the joy and relief of this bird watcher.   Later as I thought of what I had witnessed before me, I thought of this passage of scripture  from Matthew 9 which says:

²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.^[a] 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Like many of you, everyday I am confronted with news of our world on the television, radio, newspaper, or internet.   There is much around us to be concerned about:  death, sickness, disaster, injustice, and the like.   There is not only much to be concerned about, but there is much to pray about.   How comforting to know that the mighty, omnipotent God who created the heavens and the earth is concerned not just about world events and national tragedies, but he is concerned about a bird that falls to the ground in Concord, NC.   Surely that same glorious God is concerned about the times when you and I fail and fall too.   Have a joy-filled week. --  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  you are the creator of all things.  I thank you that amid all that is going on in the world today that you have time to be concerned about our lives.   Thank you, O God, from the bottom of our hearts;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen.    

Did I See You at the Fair?

Fall is my favorite season of the year.   As I have shared before, the month of October is the month I fell in love with two persons important in my life:  the Lord and my wife Ann.     There are many things I enjoy doing in the Fall, and one of them is going to the fair.   For many of you, the fair has already happened where you live.   Ann and I usually will make one or more visits to our local county fair.   We have gone several times to a regional fair in Winston Salem called the Dixie Classic Fair and also to the N.C. State Fair in Raleigh.  

One of the things I especially enjoy seeing at a fair are the exhibits of livestock and farm products.  While I certainly do not qualify as an expert on farm animals, I like to see the cattle, horses, and the bees.   I enjoy looking at the displays by 4-H students and the assortment of canned foods, large pumpkins, and the like.

I suspect that there are fewer of us today in this country that are directly connected to agriculture and the farm.  A crisis is brewing in this country I understand as farms are disappearing and fewer persons are becoming farmers these days.   Few of us see the cattle that produce the milk we drink or the chickens that produce our eggs.   As one saying on a farm several years ago put it:   “Don’t complain about the price of farm products with your mouth full.”   The exhibits of  livestock and the like links us to the farm and reminds how important it is not only to our economy, but also our way of life.

These agricultural exhibits at the fair also remind us how much God is apart of the life of the farm.   Through the graciousness of the God who makes things grow, we know the harvest that is important to the food we eat and the things we wear.   Psalm 67: 5-7 puts it this way:  

⁵ May the peoples praise you, God;
    may all the peoples praise you.

⁶ The land yields its harvest;
    God, our God, blesses us.
⁷ May God bless us still,
    so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.

If you make a trip to the fair in this season, take time to look at the livestock and the like.   As you are perhaps eating a fried oreo or a funnel cake, give thanks not only for that food but also for the harvest God provides.  Have a joy-filled week. --  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  thank you for the harvest you provide this year and this season.  Thank you for those who product the fruit of the field I enjoy every day; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Where Did Jesus Hang Out?

Every once in a while, I find myself on the road travelling.   Some times, the reason for my travel is to see family or because my wife Ann and I enjoy seeing this great, big, beautiful world.  Some times, the reason for my travel is church related especially in my duties as President of the United Methodist Rural Advocates of the United Methodist Church.   A few days ago,  I was in Minneapolis for a national meeting of the United Methodist Rural Advocates as we came together to give voice to concerns of rural places, rural people, and rural communities.   One of the things I often do in my travels is to limit the clothing that I take with the expectation that I will be able to wash clothes at the hotel or motel where I am staying.   Such was the case on this trip to Minneapolis;  however, when I was about to run out of clean clothing, I discovered that the place where I was staying had no washer and dryer for their guests to use.   So, I made a trip to the Pilgrim Cleaners and Laundry.   Though I can faintly remember a time when my home as a child did not have a washer and dryer and though I can remember well as a teenager hanging out clothes on the clothes line for my mother because we did have a clothes dryer,  going to a laundromat is not the kind of place I often go.  There were only  a few people in the laundromat besides myself on that evening:   an African American woman working there as the monitor/attendant… an African American man washing linens…  and a Hispanic couple with several young children.  As I sat there washing and drying my clothes, I spend my time watching the people around me… checking the email on the phone… and watching with little interest the television show on the one television in the place.  Suddenly, it hit me:   This is the kind of place where Jesus would hang out.

Though I frequently find myself in beautiful church buildings and with fine church people,  I really don’t think that if  Jesus were on the earth today that he would hang out at those kinds of places.   Rather, I think he would be hanging out places like a laundromat where people who do not have the monies to afford a washer or dryer in their home hang out.   I believe that Jesus would be there talking to those people on the dark Minneapolis street that I quickly passed by on my way or in the city bus station as people wait for public transportation because they cannot afford a motor vehicle.   If you don’t want to take my word for it, take the word of  the gospel of Matthew  where we read:  

¹⁰ While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”   (Matthew 9:10-11)   

I believe that if Jesus were walking among us today he would hang out at the laundromat, in the bus station, on the city street, and in the places where the “least of these” would hang out even as long ago he hung out with the tax collectors and sinners and hung out on the cross.  I must confess that I hang out too little at those places and if I am to follow Him I must hang out more at those places.  How about you?  Have a joy-filled week.--  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:      God of us all, you have called not only to gather to worship, but to scatter to serve you.   Give us feet that take us to places where the “least of these”  need to know the wonder of your love;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Retirement and Serving the Lord

I mentioned in a recent blog about Dr. Robert Cushman, one of my professors at Duke Divinity School.   While I was young and  in my early days of ministry,  his days of ministry were in their latter stage. He had  taught seminary students and “soon to be” preachers for decades as well as having served as Dean of Duke Divinity School for a time.    I recall being in attendance at the Annual Conference Session for the N.C. Conference in June 1981 when Dr. Cushman retired as a member of the Conference.   It was customary in that day for the retirees to be given an opportunity to say a “few words” to the Annual Conference.   Of course,  the retiring preachers would differ in their  interpretation and practice of what a “few words” would be.   When Robert Cushman got a chance to speak to the Annual Conference, he did make remarks of only a “few words”.   Though it has been decades ago,  I still remember what Dr. Cushman said and it was this:   “While I retire today as an elder of the N.C. Conference,  I will never retire from following Jesus and serving the Lord.”

In my years of reading and study of the Bible, I don’t recall ever reading that there was an expiration date on serving the Lord.    As long as we have breath, we can serve the Lord and be disciples of Jesus.  People like Abraham, Moses, and the like served the Lord way past the age when social security and medicare begins for today’s retirees.   I give thanks to all those persons who continue to serve the Lord faithfully despite being on the social security and medicare roll.  My family and I personally have been the recipient of their ministry and service.  I am glad to serve the Lord with them now and  having served with them in the past.  This world and Christ’s Church are better for them.  Have a joy-filled week. --  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,   I give thanks for all those who continue to serve you in the final decades of life.  Lord, help me to go and do likewise;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

Won't You Be a Neighbor?

I have been thinking in recent  days  about barn-raisings.  You will find a picture of a barn-raising with this article.    A barn-raising was a community event  in rural communities many years ago.   Neighbors would come together to help a fellow farmer built a barn on their property where they would keep livestock, farm  equipment, harvested crops, and the like.   None of the neighbors would be rewarded with any pay for their labors, but they would know that sooner or later the neighbor they helped would help (or already had helped) them.    This sort of endeavor is not commonly done in most rural communities today though I am told that the Mennonite and Amish communities still make this a common practice. 

I have been thinking of the “barn-raising model” these days as I have watched the devastation that Hurricane Florence and its remnants have caused to the Carolinas and other places. As I write this, many are still in the throes of the devastation.   The cities and places  that I have seen on the national news overwhelmed by raging flood waters are not just places far away, but they are near my home.   They are places I have visited or where people I know and love live.      I am certain that friends and neighbors from near and far will come together and help providing time, talents,  money,and other resources.  People will help these Carolinians not raise a barn, but raise hope and raise homes.  

It will be a long recovery process.    In a conversation with my daughter who lives in Houston recently, she shared that friends in their church who lost their home in Hurricane Harvey last year had just recently got back in their home.  Last year,  people like you and I helped our fellow citizens facing natural disasters in Texas, Puerto Rico, and other places.   Several years ago, people of faith and others helped folks who knew the wrath of Katrina on the Gulf Coast.  

In Luke 10, we read of a time when Jesus is asked the question:  “Who is my neighbor?”   Jesus then proceeds to tell a story about a man left for dead on the Jerusalem to Jericho road where we see a Samaritan reaching out not only to a neighbor, but acting quite neighborly.   This is a time for us to reach out and be neighborly to people in the Carolinas and beyond. This is a time to help the people of the Carolinas and beyond to rise up and out of the flood waters.    To paraphrase Mr. Rogers:   “Won’t you be a neighbor?”    Have a joy-filled week.-   Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  we pray for all those affected by the effects of Hurricaine Florence.    Lord, give us hearts of compassion to reach out;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

This is the Day

September 19, 2018.    Google tells me that it is the 262^nd day of the year and that there are 103 days left in the year.     This day is significant for births and deaths.   For example,  singer/songwriter Red Foley died on this day and so did popcorn guru Orville Redenbacher.  I wonder if there was a “bat signal” in the sky back on this day in 1928 when “Batman” actor Adam West was born or whether it was a “rainy night in Georgia” on this date back in 1931 when singer/songwriter Brook Benton was born?

September 19.   There are things about this day like many other days.   Again, the sun will rise and the sun will set.   Again, you will experience the “comings and goings” of home, school, work, and the like.   Yet again, there will be things in this day that will delight you and things that might disappoint you.   There will be things in this day that will be totally new or even not come your way again   There is a uniqueness to September 19, 2018 that is different and unlike any day you have ever lived.     This seconds or minutes that it even takes you to read this very blog will not come along anymore.

I have to believe that the Israelites had a different way to look at time and their world without the schedules and the technology we have today.  There were no clocks or watches as we know them today.    In Psalm 118:24, the writer exclaims these words, “This is the day which the Lord hath made;  we will rejoice and be glad in it.”    Whether this day is filled with joy or filled with sadness, rejoice in this unique, God-given day.   Enjoy every minute and second of it.   It is a gift from God.   “Rejoice and be glad in it.”     Have a joy-filled September 19, 2018 and a joy-filled week.--  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  thank you for this day.    Give me the strength to live it wisely and well for your honor and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. 

A Professor and A Poem

One of the gifts of having lived a few decades and lived in several different places is getting to know and meet so many people through the years.     While I am grateful for the people I encounter regularly,   I also give thanks for the people who have gone on to their just reward and who are now apart of the “communion of saints”.   Recently,  I got to thinking about the late Robert Cushman, one of my professors at Duke Divinity School.    He was in his final years of teaching at Duke when I was his student  after having served in former years also as Dean of the Divinity School.  

I found myself intimidated by Dr. Cushman though I am not totally sure why.  Perhaps it was his reserved New England gentlemanly manner or his common use of words that were far beyond my own vocabulary.  I particularly remember one day in class when Dr. Cushman shared the following poem:    

“I met God in the morning,
When my day was at its best
And His presence came like sunrise,
Like a glory in my breast.

“All day long the Presence lingered;
All day long He stayed with me;
And we sailed in perfect calmness
O’er a very troubled sea.

“Other ships were blown and battered,
Other ships were sore distressed,
But the winds that seemed to drive them
Brought to us a peace and rest.

“Then I thought of other mornings,
With a keen remorse of mind.
When I too had loosed the moorings
With the Presence left behind.

“So, I think I know the secret,
Learned from many a troubled way;
You must seek Him in the morning
If you want Him through the day.”

The poem moved me that day.  What was even more moving was the fact that I discovered the poem was written by Dr. Cushman’s father, Bishop Ralph S. Cushman.    While anytime is a good time to commune with our heavenly Father,   I have made it a custom to regularly spend time with Him  in the morning.  I commend to you the practice of spending concentrated time with the Lord each day whether morning, evening, or noon-time.    As it is important to spend time with our friends and family, so it is important that we spend time with our heavenly Father.    Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:    O God,  we are grateful that you desire to have a living relationship with us.  Give us the discipline to take time to spend with you;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen.