Thoughts about Election Day

               In just a few weeks, people in our community will enter the voting booth to elect persons to serve  our community, state, and nation.   In these days, we are bombarded with messages from the candidates as we drive down the road,  open our local newspaper, and turn on the television.     In these messages, we often hear about the virtues of the candidates for office and the vices of their opponents. 

            We are in a position unlike the fathers and mothers of our faith that we read about in the scriptures.   While we who live in a democracy choose our leaders, the Israelites and the early Christians did not choose their leaders.  No, their leaders were chosen by God.   Israel did not choose Saul to be its first king;  no,  God chose Saul.   David, often considered to be one of the greatest Kings in the history of Israel, was not chosen by the general populace.  No,  God chose David even as a boy to be king of Israel.   Things did not change when Christ Jesus came. Peter, Andrew, James, and John were not chosen by their communities to be disciples;  no, they were chosen by Christ Jesus.  We read in the early pages of Acts that when the disciples chose a replacement disciple for Judas, they did not vote but cast lots for the replacement believing that the Lord God would guide the process. 

            All of us will hear a lot in the next few weeks  about all the candidates for office and from the candidates.   Some may have heard more than we would like to hear.   As a person of faith, I suggest to you that I need to hear from someone else:  God.   Who would God have us choose to be the leaders of our community, state, and nation?

            Below are some questions I am prayerfully asking myself in these days.  I encourage all people of faith to do the same.  Those questions are as follows:

Which candidates are ones that personify the great commandment of loving God and neighbor?

Which candidates for office espouse an agenda that seeks what is fair and just for the most people?

Which candidates live a life that shows Christ Jesus?

            Let us pray for our community, state, and nation during these election days.  Let us pray for ourselves that God will give us wisdom beyond ourselves.  -Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  Lord and God,  we did not choose you, but you chose us to be your disciples.  Give us grace and wisdom for choosing our leaders in these days; through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Black and White: A Way Forward?

            There has been much in the news recently about race relations in our community and our country.   I don’t need to recount the particulars of officer-involved shootings, community protests, and the loss of lives.  Other media can recount the details for you.   All of this has me thinking back to a movie that was released in 2000 and my own high school days. 

              The movie I have been thinking of is “Remember the Titans”  starring Denzel Washington that tells the story of a football team in northern Virginia in the early 1970’s.   Black and white were integrated into T.W. Williams High School and its football team and a black man took the position of  coach of the high school football  team.   What stood out in the movie for me was not just the fact that the football team won the state football championship, but how the attitudes of black and white changed toward each other as they got to know each other. 

            Our high school went through racial tensions and unrest during my days there.    I did not attend  T.W. Williams High School in northern Virginia, but Walter Williams High School in Burlington, NC.   Around 1969, our high school football coach was fired and was replaced by a black man named Jerome Evans as our high school was integrating with the predominately black high school in town.  In the aftermath of that,  there was lootings, riots, curfews, and the National Guard in my hometown.  Unfortunately, one young black man lost his life. 

            One of the things that happened in the aftermath of the racial tension in Burlington is that a student exchange took place between Williams High School (where I attended)  and Jordan Sellers High School (the predominately black high school that was being closed.)    I was elected by my fellow class members in my homeroom to spend a day in class at Jordan Sellers High School and to get to know the students there.   Sitting in class with those students and sharing time with them changed me and how I viewed blacks. .   

            The racial issues in our country are complicated and complex, and not easily fixed.   Perhaps my experience in my high school days at Jordan Sellars High School and the movie “Remember the Titans”  offers an idea worth considering and it is to simply try to be with and talk to each other. Notice I said talk to each other instead of talk at each other.     If we can spend time with a fellow human no matter their color and see them as a person that God has created,  then I believe Christ Jesus is in that moment .  Have a joy-filled week.-    Pastor Randy Wall  

Prayer:  Lord and God,  you have made each and everyone of us.   Help us when we look in the face of each other to see you;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

A Respite Place

Earlier this month,  Ann and I visited New York City.   People go to places for different reasons, and such was the case in our visit to New York City.  While we went largely to see the sights,  we also had a secondary reason for our trip: visiting the 9/11 Memorial.  It had been 8 years since we were in New York City.   They were not finished with the 9/11 Memorial the last time we were there.   Since I worked in New York City in the Fall, 2001 after the terrorist attacks with both the General Board of Global Ministries and the American Red Cross, it was important for me to visit that site.   

Near the 9/11 Memorial is a church called St. Pauls Church.  You will see a picture of it above.   This house of worship has been on that site since the 1700’s.   They say that after George Washington was inaugurated as our nation’s first President in New York City, he walked to St. Pauls Church and spent some time in prayer there.   When I was in New York City after the 9/11 attacks, St. Pauls Church was transformed into a respite center for the workers at “Ground Zero”.   In the sanctuary of that church, one could receive a meal, a time of quiet reflection,  and even a massage to soothe aching muscles.  

  I left St. Pauls Church that day reflecting that the church at its best is always a respite center.  On its best days, the church is a place and people that provides a haven for the hurting, the hopeless, and the downtrodden.   In times of terrorist attacks and in all times, the church is a place and people that welcomes us and soothes our aching, wounded souls.   Yet, the church is also a place and people that sends us out into a world to tell of one who came to save us from our sins.     I want to be a part of a Church like that.   How about you?    Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  Lord and God,  you have built your Church upon the foundation of Jesus Christ our Lord.   Let your Spirit blow upon your Church that it might rise to new heights in serving you;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

By Our Love

            In recent weeks, I have been doing some  part-time volunteer work at a faith-based helping agency in my community.   While the agency provides clothing, meals, a nurse, and other things to help the “least of these” in our community, my role is to listen to people’s stories and see what community resources might help with  their plight.   A couple of weeks, a young man and his girlfriend came into the office.   They were struggling with the breakdown of their Ford Fusion.  I listened to his story and made several suggestions that might could help.  As he shared with me his name and phone number, he commented,  “You know,  I must confess that I have never been into faith, the church, and Christianity.  But you know what?   My experience here is starting to change my mind.”

            The comment of that young man made me think of a passage of scripture in the New Testament.   Read this passage from James 2:    which says:

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

There are a lot of folks today for whom the Church, faith, and Christianity is a foreign commodity.   They either have become disenchanted with the same or they have never been introduced to the Christian faith.   What a glorious opportunity for those who are in Christ Jesus to let others know about Christ not through what we say, but who we are and what we do.   As the song says,   “Yes, they will know we are Christians by our love.”     Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  Living God, who dwelt among us long ago full of grace and truth in Christ Jesus:  live in and through our lives in our world today through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Hear our prayers, O Lord.   Amen.  

Fall: The Season, The Danger

            I am taking a conversational spanish class right now at the local community college.  I am taking it for one main purpose:  to learn something new.  Learning a new language is forcing me to do something I usually do not do very often, and that is think about the meaning of words.    With Labor Day behind us,   I find myself thinking about an English word that enters our vocabulary this time of year.   That English word is Fall, one of the four seasons of the year.  Some prefer to use the word Autumn, but I prefer Fall. 

            The season of  Fall is a beautiful time of year.     Just saying the word brings a smile to my face and my heart, for it is the time of year when I fell in love with my beautiful wife and it is the time when I fell in love with a Savior who loved me before I ever knew Him-  Christ Jesus.    The season of Fall brings pleasant thoughts of  autumn colors, mountain trips,  cooler temperatures,  church barbecues,  coastal fishing trips,  blooming mums,  pumpkin carvings, children in costume, and pumpkin pie. 

            While the season of Fall brings smiles and pleasant thoughts, a fall is generally not a good thing.    It is not good when we hear of friends and family who fall and suffer the consequences of surgery, hospitalization, and rehab.    Likewise,  it is not good when a driving motorist falls asleep behind the steering wheel.     In I Corinthians 10:12,  the apostle Paul cautions brothers and sisters in Christ against another kind of fall, and that is falling to the dangers of temptation.   Read this verse from I Corinthians 10:12 which says:

¹² Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing securely should watch out so he doesn’t fall.

            None of us are free from the temptation to fall away from being the people Christ called us to be.  If Peter succumbed to temptation,  why would we think it would be immune to the possibility?     When my children were young and learning to walk,  it seemed to me that they were less likely to fall when they stayed closed to me.    If we can each stay close to Christ,  we are certainly less likely to fall to temptation.  Have a joy-filled week.-  Pastor Randy Wall 

Prayer:  Lord and God,   draw us closer to you that we might not succumb to the temptations that lurk nearby.  When we do fall,  lift us up with your grace and forgiveness;  through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 

The Work of our Hands

            Many years ago before cable television and when most persons only had less than a dozen television stations to watch, there was a television show called “Dobie Gillis”.     One of the characters on the show was named Maynard G. Krebs and was played by Bob Denver.   As I remember Maynard G.  Krebs,  he always had an adverse reaction when the word “work” was said.    Maynard G. Krebs was a character who wanted to avoid work like most of us want to avoid a toothache. 

            I think about Maynard G. Krebs as another Labor Day approaches.  I give thanks to God for those who work and add  to my quality of life.    While many folks are looking forward to having a long weekend with a view of the mountains or water,   Labor Day is a time to celebrate the American worker.    Perhaps there was a time when what people ate, wore, and lived in was a direct result of the work of their own hand.   I think it generally true that such a time is no more in the part of the world I live.   Most of us everyday eat food that someone else produced or prepared.    Most of us wear clothes that someone else made and live in homes that someone else built.  In many cases,  we know not the name of the person that produced that food, built our home, or made our clothes.   We are indebted to workers whose names we know not. 

            The feeding of the five thousand is the only miracle of Jesus found in all four gospels.   The stories are similar in nature, but Johns gospel tells us something the other gospels do not mention:  the few loaves and few fish that Jesus used to feed thousands of men, women, and children were the direct result of the generosity of a little boy who shared his food with Jesus.    As Labor Day comes, I encourage you to enjoy a holiday and time away in your favorite places.  However,  I also encourage you to take a moment to give thanks to God for the worker who adds to your quality of life.  You may not know their name anymore than we know the name of a little boy whose food  blessed by Jesus fed thousands long ago.     Have a joy-filled week and Labor Day.-  Pastor Randy Wall

Prayer:  Lord and God, thank you for the blessing of work and the difference it makes in our lives.   I give thanks for those whose name I know not who bless me through the work of their hands; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

Where Have You Been?

            “Where have you been?”    That seems like an appropriate question for readers of this blog to ask this writer since it has been about 2 months since I wrote in this blog.    I am glad that to say that I have not been ill of body or spirit nor have I been pouting about a comment someone made about this blog.    “Where have you been?”  Well, let’s see.   Since the last time I wrote in this blog I have had  fun-filled hours playing with my 5 grandchildren… and some short trips to the coast with my beloved wife, Ann.    I have read books and listened to books on CD.   I have enrolled in a conversational Spanish class at a local community college.   I have watched new movies and old movies.    I have exercised regularly and finally started doing a daily log of the foods I eat.   

“Where have you been?”    I know you were specifically asking to know what happened to my blog and the answer is this:  I simply decided I needed to take a break from writing.   Those of you who have known me for several years  may recall that I have been writing a blog of some sort for some time.     The earliest record that I can find is back in 2004, 12 years ago.   I have written a devotion or blog as least once a week for those 12 years though I did take a break over  some holidays.   After 12 years and since I am in this new season of my life called retirement (or semi-retirement),   I felt that I needed to take a break.

            When someone takes a break and goes “below the radar”  we often think that someone must be mad or something must be wrong.    We have this expectation that people must always be busy and productive.    One of the things this new season of life called retirement is teaching me is that it is okay to take a break and rest.    It is not only okay to rest, but it is also Biblical.  We see that truth in the scriptures.    If you read the Bible from the beginning,  you  only read through one chapter of the Bible before you encounter rest in Genesis 2:2-3 where we read:

² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. ³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.

            Everyone and everything needs a time of rest.   I not only wish that for you, but I believe that God desires that for you.    I will be back with my blog again on a regular basis, and will talk to you again soon.    Have a joy-filled day.-   Pastor Randy Wall

 Prayer:  Living God, forgive our arrogance to think that the world is indispensable with us.  Remind us regularly, Lord, that there is a time to work and a time to rest;  through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.