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.

What's Wrong with Charlie?

His name was Charlie, and he was one of the interesting people I have had the honor to know in my pastoral ministry.   He lived in a small town in eastern Sampson County called Turkey.  At that point in our lives, he was an old man and I was still a young man.  Charlie lived just down the street from the parsonage, and worked regularly at a local feed store. Charlie had some interesting habits.  For example, he liked to keep the church checkbook locked up in the trunk of his Chevrolet and loved to grind his own coffee beans with the coffee grinder he kept on his kitchen table.   When Sunday would come,  you would find Charlie forsaking his usual bid overalls for his seersucker suit and bowtie to wear to church.   There is something else that Charlie wore and it was this:  a long chain of perfect attendance pins at Sunday School and church he wore on his suit lapel. 

What was wrong with Charlie?    Why did he never miss attending Sunday worship?  Did he never get sick and not feel well?   Did he not have the chance to take a day trip to the lake or the beach?   Did he never have family come for a weekend visit?   What was wrong with Charlie that made Sunday worship such a regular practice week after week for years?    In Luke 4:16, we read the following verse about Jesus:

¹⁶ He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. 

I suspect that Jesus did not have a long chain of  perfect attendance pins; yet, it seems that when the Sabbath would come, you would always find him with the people of faith for worship.  What was wrong with Jesus?   Surely Jesus could have been a more able teacher than some others who spoke.   As the Son of God and the son of man, surely he knew of the truth that some said one thing on the sabbath and did something else the other days of the week.  What was wrong with Jesus?

The answer is that not anything was wrong with Jesus.  No, there was something right about Jesus.  Through his example and practice, Jesus was saying that worship of God was first and foremost.    There are a lot of people today that choose to not worship regularly for all kinds of reasons:   going away every weekend  to a second home in a beautiful part of the world, indifference to organized religion,  disgust at the church because of a bad experience with a church or a church leader, and many more.  Jesus and one of his followers, Charlie, went to their house of worship  regularly as was their custom.    How about you?  Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall  

Prayer:    O God,  you are worthy of all our glory, thanks, and praise.   Help us make the worship of you first and foremost in our lives, on Sunday and every day of the week; through Christ our Lord. Amen.