Psalm 46 – A Meditation for the weekend of Hurricane Harvey landfall

Psalm 46 – A Meditation for the weekend of Hurricane Harvey landfall

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. Amen.

It’s been an interesting week of observing God’s creation around us over the past ten days.

For months we have heard about the eclipse that happened this past Monday. If you were outside, and if equipped with solar glasses, a welding helmet, or a pinhole camera, you saw the moon partially cover the sun for about 15 minutes. Even those of us who don’t pay much attention to the sun, moon, or stars had our eyes drawn to the heavens – if only for an hour or so of the afternoon. And, in those moments you saw the vastness of God’s creation. Humans generally look down: we look where we walk, where we drive, where we are heading. Rarely, I suspect, do we look up except in times of agony when we look to the heavens and cry out with the Psalmist, “How long, O Lord? How long?” (Ps. 13:1) On Monday, your eyes looked up and saw something that was, quite literally, out of this world. You saw the sun, just under 100 million miles away from you, blocked out – at least, partially - by our moon that is roughly 250,000 miles from you. Did you know it took almost 8 ½ minutes for the sun’s light to reach your eyes when it was released from the sun’s nuclear core? That’s right…the light that we see by, that warms the earth, that plants use to produce energy, it’s already old by the time we ever see or feel it.  It was a unique experience, an incredible view, a sight that led us to give thanks to God for the wonder of His creation.

And now, at the end of the week, we are dealing with Hurricane Harvey. While we knew about the eclipse years ahead of time, the hurricane just sort of popped into our radar – both figuratively and literally – this past week.  A sloppy African wave that traversed the Atlantic simply would not die. It sprang back into life after a nearly terminal collision with the Yucitan Peninsula and is now roaring outside your windows as you read this. Wherever citizens of Victoria might be – in your Victoria-area home, in North Texas, or somewhere between - we are all praying the waters do not rise, roofs do not fail, windows do not shatter, and the electricity is able to be restored sooner than later. We pray that lives and livestock are spared, property damage is minimal, and people’s ways of life is not harmed. But with sustained winds of over 120MPH and rain fall rates that will be measured in feet, not inches, we experience a very different side of creation than we saw on Monday. The eclipse was peaceful; the hurricane is, in Hebrew, tohu wabohu – the abomination of desolation. Wonder and amazement, to be sure, are part of what we are feeling, but there is true fear at what might happen as well. And then, there is the sheer humility of mankind standing in the bullseye of a storm of this magnitude: how can anything stand against this kind of force? Again, we are finding ourselves looking heaven-ward, but this time not out of curiosity but out of angst and concern, and with a cry for God’s mercy.

One force of creation is a spectacle that drew our curiosity with amazement and curiosity. One force of nature is a spectacle that draws our attention out of fear and concern for ourselves, our homes, and our well-being.

I wonder what the writer of Psalm 46 was facing as he wrote the lines of this Psalm. Was it a natural disaster? Was it a political coup? Was it a warring enemy? It could be any of those things – it could have been all of those things. The text doesn’t say what his issue, his struggle, his Sitz im Leben, his situation in life was when he wrote the Psalm. Whatever it was, it must have been significant as he turned to God in prayer.

Here, the unknown writer speaks with confidence and certainty: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,” (v. 1). Notice the verb and what is says about God: God is a present-tense reality, an immediate, timely, and positive source of assistance. He is not distant, far-off, and aloof; He hasn’t wound up the earth like a clock and sits back to wait for it to die; He doesn’t demonstrate schadenfreude – pleasure in someone else’s pain. He is a present help in time of trouble.

Good thing, too, as there is plenty of trouble. The Psalmist explains the trouble as he uses several violent pictures: first, forces of creation - an earthquake that both splits the land and tumbles mountains; rivers that turn into storm-driven white-frothed waves; mountains that threaten to stand; second, forces of man – warfare and governments overturning. You are seeing these pictures first-hand, whether it is from The Weather Channel or from your living room window. You are seeing the pictures of the sky being torqued into ribbons of black and grey, the surf salivating angrily as it slams into the beach, and trees bowing down in forced obeisance to the wind. You are hearing the moans of the wind as it demands you be afraid of what it is capable of doing. You are feeling something that can only be described as surreal, unnatural, and, well, beyond description to someone who hasn’t been through a hurricane before.

It would be easy to let these terrifying scenes enwrap and control us – after all, they are a present reality.

But to you, dear friend – to you, riding out the storm on the Coast and to you, awaiting the storm in relative safety away from your home further inland – to you, the Psalmist speaks. He speaks clearly and distinctly so there is no confusion in the midst of all that is going on around you – the things your eyes are seeing, your ears are hearing, your body is feeling. He speaks of the power of God over and against the powers you are seeing, hearing and feeling.

Even though all of these things are happening all around us, the Psalmist says, “we will not fear” (v. 2). Pull your eyes away from the scene in front of you; turn a deaf ear to the sounds around you; lay aside the feelings your body is experiencing. Turn your eyes, your ears and your heart to the Word of God and hear His Word.

Three times, the Psalmist declares “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress.” In the midst of earth-riving events, God Himself is with you even in the midst of this chaos outside. In the Scriptures, Jesus is given many names one of which is “Immanuel.” Immanuel means “God With Us.” In the person of Jesus Christ, God Himself is present with His people. He knows full well what it is to live in a fallen world. He even knows what it is to experience nature gone sideways as He calmed the storm that threatened to sink the disciples’ boat (Matthew 8:23-27).

Know that even in the midst of this storm, God is your refuge and strength. The roaring of the wind and the foaming of the waters do not change that, for God is the God of creation. He made it, speaking it into existence. He controls it so that it will not completely overwhelm us. He directs it so it is for our blessing and use. He protects it so that even in the midst of terrible flooding, it will not be the end of creation.

Remember this: the world was once rescued through a flood as God destroyed everything but Noah, Mrs. Noah, their sons and their families, and the animals on the ark. You have been rescued through the waters of Holy Baptism. You have been carried through that Flood in the ark of the church. In that church, you have been taught the faith that is able to say, “I believe.” This side of heaven, in the face of this storm, you may have to add, “…but help my unbelief.” And He will. He will as you open His Word and read His promises contained therein. Read the Psalms – the prayerbook of the church. Join with the Church on earth and in heaven who implores the mercy of God. Pray for protection of body and  soul, property and animals and all of creation. Pray for those in harm’s way and for those who will come in to rescue those who are hurt when the storm passes. And know that those of us who are well out of the path of imminent danger are remembering each of you in our prayers as well.

God will carry you through this storm and through this flood. But, then again, that’s nothing new for Him. He’s already done it.

God is your refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. 

College Dreams and Broken Hearts

Two years ago, I was a dead man walking. No…I hadn’t been diagnosed with a terminal disease, been Hope Solo-ed by a Zika-infested mosquito, or been chomped on a zombie. I felt like a dead man walking because our oldest daughter had graduated from high school and, after a busy summer, was a few days from heading off to the University of Alabama, ten long hours from home. Every click of the clock, every digitally back-lit change of the minutes and hours, each check mark on the count-down calendar, every breath was taking me closer to – with apologies to Raymond Chandler – the long goodbye of a parent and child in front of a college dormitory.

We do have two other children – please, know they, too, are deeply and dearly loved – but this would be our first and  therefore, presumably, hardest goodbye. How would I let go of the hand that used to eagerly grab mine and demand I hold it while we walked along? How would I let go of the girl who would grab my neck in joy when I got home from work? How would I be able to help her if she couldn’t snuggle next to me as she told me about a life crisis? How does a dad say goodbye? I felt like I was dying…and it was a little more each day.

Fast forward… The night we dropped her off at Riverside Dorm took approximately ten lifetimes from our 3pm assigned move-in time until we had everything unpacked and organized. I had tried to stall…parking further away from the doors, walking slower, taking fewer things each trip (granted – some of that was a trifecta of fatigue, being out of shape, and not being quite as young as I used to be), but finally, the boxes were unloaded. We had eaten dinner – well, to be more accurate, we all pushed food around our plates, like Minnesota snow-plows in the middle of a snow storm, not really making progress but putting on a good show for those who watched – while being very careful to not look into each other's eyes, lest the dams burst and a flash-flood of tears overwhelm us all. We had made a last Wally World run for those little things we wanted to get. And, knowing the stitches holding our breaking hearts would hurt like hell no matter how long we delayed, we decided we would say our goodbyes that night and leave in the morning for our long drive home.

We pulled up to a spot near the dorm and got out of the truck. Hugs were long and surprisingly quiet, no one trusting their voice. All around we heard laughter, music, and the bright sound of playfulness but it sounded in our ears like clunking cast iron. We were surrounded in grief: it was goodbye time. When it was my turn, I hugged her tight, then held her head between my hands. Squeeking out the Aaronic benediction, I blessed our daughter even as she cried, “No, daddy…” With a tear-moistened thumb, I traced the cross that was placed on her head in baptism. And, with a final kiss from both Momma and me, she turned and walked-ran away.

I am writing this for all parents who are preparing to part from their first child who is heading to a college or university, whether its across the county or across the continent. I am especially writing for dads. Too often, dads are expected to be the stoic block of emotional granite, neither shaken nor stirred by the drama of a child leaving home. It’s the moms who are expected to be wrecks, emotionally speaking, while their first-born leaves the nest for the first time. Around me, the men whose children had gone off to college were these Spartan-like macho characters, albeit with more gut and less guns than portrayed in movies. When I would try to express to them what I was feeling, I got strange looks and more than a couple of snide comments about my feminine side, a slap on the back, and with an unstated “suck it up,” I was told its gonna be OK.

They were right, of course, but in the summer of 2015 it was far from OK, and neither was I. I needed someone to listen and desperately wanted another dad, whose heart had broken and then mended, to share their survival story with me. Had just one man, one dad, talked to me and listened to my pain, I might not have crashed and burned, emotionally, the way I did a few months later. (I allude to this in “The Devil is in the Dumbassery” on this blog.)

My brother-in-law, Josh – who, by the way, is one of the smartest and deeply God-fearing men I know – offered me some words of counsel from his own experience of a daughter leaving home the previous year. He said this is what we have been readying our daughters to do: be smart, thinking, deliberate women of faith who are ready to step out into the world. We have done our part, now we trust in God's Fatherly hand to do what we are unable to do. And then, he listened to my story and my grief, and with his “been there, done that” counsel, we commiserated together as dads and as family.

I tell this story so that you, dear reader – and especially those who are looking at a day when you have to tell your own son or daughter “goodbye” – are not alone and so you kniw that some of us are willing to admit how hard it was. I hope your story never becomes as dark as mine did. I pray that you do experience a grief of sorts – that is a demonstration of love and affection at your child who waved his or her own goodbye. I hope you miss your DS or DD (Dear Son or Dear Daughter. Unless, of course, they call at 2am because they ran out of money at Taco Bell and want you to transfer $7.89 to their account to cover their late night need to munch on tacos. In this case, the D might stand for something less adoring…but I digress…) And if you need someone to listen, call your pastor, your brother-in-law, or someone who loves you. If need be, drop me a line – I’ll listen.

If you reach out to me, what I'll tell you is what my pastor shared with me as he went through this feeling two different times: as Christian parents, we already gave our son or daughter away – well, more accurately, we returned them to our Father in heaven through the waters of Holy Baptism. Through that holy washing away of sins and adopting as sons and daughters, God pledged His eternal faithfulness to that child sealed in the blood of Jesus. God will not abandon His children. More than that, He will not break His promise. So, even as I struggled with my feelings and thoughts (many of which were lying to me), I clung to God's promise for my daughter given in her baptism. And, without even realizing it that night in front of the dorm, I did the best thing for us: I blessed her with God's own Word and reminded us all of His baptismal promise to all of us.

She will be leaving, again, in a week and a couple days to begin her junior year. Time is flying by. And as days come and years go, there will be more tears and choked-out goodbyes. But they’re grounded, now, and in faith I trust that no matter what there will always be at least one more “Welcome home,” into the eternal homecoming of the resurrection. 

Love you, Kiddo. Have a great year. And, you can come home whenever you want. Except Tuesday. Then, call first. -Poppy

You're Not the Treasure Hunter - You're the Treasure! -Matthew 13:44-46

You're not the Treasure Hunter - You're the Treasure!
Matthew 13:44-46

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jesus liked teaching in parables.  It’s easy to understand why. We all like good stories, and when a great story is told by a powerful story teller the hearer cannot help but be captivated and pulled into the narrative. When Jesus tells a parable, he’s creating a story that reaches into the lives that the people live. The characters are just like them or their neighbors and the situation is one they could see themselves involved in. Jesus tells these parables, these stories, to help people understand a truth about Jesus, or His Father in heaven, of the Kingdom of God. Some parables were difficult. The last two week’s Gospel lessons were the parable of the sower and the parable of the weeds. Both were sufficiently challenging that the disciples had to ask Jesus, in private, what the parables were about. Other times, the parables are so easy to understand that anyone can grasp the truth Jesus is trying to convey. But, sometimes, the easy parables are a bit deceptive: at first glance, they seem easy to “get,” but on further reflection, a deeper truth is realized.

This morning’s Gospel lesson is one of those parables that is easy to grasp, but if you’re not careful, it can trick you and leave you empty instead of fulfilled.

Well…Let’s go on a treasure hunt this morning. If we’re going on a treasure hunt, we need to know how a successful treasure hunter does his or her job. So, with Pirate Jack Sparrow’s cunning wit, and Lara Croft’s good looks, and Ben Gate’s knowledge of historical minutia, and Indiana Jones’ soundtrack - combined with a dash of plain old good luck and a double-portion of Hollywood happy endings - we have a winning treasure hunting combination.

Of course, we need to have a treasure to find. Jesus gives us the map in this morning’s Gospel lesson: 44“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” There it is: our treasure is the kingdom of God, as precious as the most beautiful pearl in the world.

So, if this is true, it appears that we are treasure hunters who are on the hunt for the kingdom of God, right? That’s what discipleship is all about, right – SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND ITS RIGHTEOUSNESS…? Searching for the truths of what God gives us. So here we go, disciple treasure hunters. The kingdom of heaven is like a buried treasure or a hidden pearl and it is our task to seek and find. It sounds like a great, grand glorious treasure hunt.

I don’t know about you but, other than having a beautiful woman at my side and my own rugged good looks, I don’t have too many of those other characteristics that would make me be the next Indy, Ben, or Jack. I imagine most of you are in the same pickle as me, lacking the cunning, skill, wit, strength, and – of course – a Hollywood writer to be a great treasure hunter. I guess I’m out of the treasure hunting business before I even get started. It’s just as well, I guess…speaking for myself, I am not much of a traveler, I don’t really like the idea of crawling around in tunnels and old buildings that have a tendency to collapse, I dislike spiders and hate snakes, and much prefer the air-conditioned comfort of my study to the humid jungles where treasure seems to be found. Besides…how would we know where to start our search? Then again, how would know if we found the kingdom of heaven on earth? And, if we did find it, how would we pay for it? I don’t have unlimited wealth at my disposal – do you? Do you really think that even if you sold everything you had – like the character in the parable – that would be enough to pay for heaven? But then again, what if – like the ancient knights of the round table – you spent your life searching for the Holy Grail of the Kingdom but never find it --- then what? Does that make you a failure at kingdom treasure hunting? Or what if your treasure hunt adventure doesn’t have a happy ending?

But is that what Jesus is telling us in this morning’s Gospel lesson – that we have to be treasure hunters? Is the purpose of the parable to inspire, fire up, encourage, exhort, and otherwise cause us to leave here in search of treasure, only to leave us as empty-handed as the almost-there-but-not-quite anti-heroes of the treasure-hunting movies?

What if you’re not the treasure hunter at all? What if this parable is not about you? What if this parable is about Jesus instead?

Before we get ourselves tied up in knots, let me read the text again for you. “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. 45“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

The last several weeks, we have heard Jesus telling his disciples of the difficulties of being His disciples. Discipleship is not an easy task. Although the disciples had had early successes – they had been sent out in a ministry of compassion, remember, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, and even raising the dead – and came back to Jesus delivering their wonderful ministry reports, Jesus has since warned them of the difficulties to come. Through the parables of the last few weeks, He explained that the Gospel would be preached all over the world, like a sower scattering seed, but in many if not most locations, the Message would not grow to fruition. In other places, the Gospel would be preached and faith begin to grow, but Satan and his minions would be right there alongside the faithful, seeking to destroy that which is planted and growing.

To be blunt, there would be times in the disciples lives of ministry where it would appear that the Gospel is not powerful enough to overcome the Devil’s work, that it might seem they are wasting their time in serving Jesus, and that this Good News of Jesus being preached wasn’t enough to overcome the world’s own power. He spoke plainly of being rejected because of His name, and having to flee for their lives, being rejected by their own family members and even being arrested and brought before the civil authorities.

We understand these struggles of being a Christian in today’s world, don’t we. We continue to see these prophetic words of Jesus being fulfilled in our own country, in our own community, in our own lives and even in our own homes. Across the globe, Christians who dare to confess Christ are marched down main street, bound in chains, and beheaded in a public demonstration of militant Islam’s power. Christian bakers, who refuse to bake a cake because of their Christian principals, are fined into bankruptcy by civil court. An employee is called into the HR department because there is a cross and some Bible verses on her cubicle wall and is told those things need to be removed so no one is offended. A middle schooler is teased by his friends for going to Vacation Bible School instead of going over to watch a sexually explicit DVD. At a family gathering, when the father says something about what the Bible says concerning a hot button issue, the adult son laughs at his father saying, “You still believe in that religion stuff, Dad?” and walks away. When you go out to eat today and bow your head at a restaurant, someone snickers at you. While we know, and we believe, all of God’s promises fulfilled in Christ Jesus for the eternal well-being of His Church and that not even the gates of hell shall prevail against it…if we are honest, there are some days that frankly, our faith is shaking, our knees are weak, our resolve is questionable, and – like the disciples – we simply pray, “Lord, I believe…help my unbelief.”

To the disciples – and to the church today --- to you, the people of God in this holy place, Jesus speaks this parable about treasure hunting. He is not telling you to get busy treasure hunting and that “failure is not an option.” Rather, He is giving you a picture of what He is willing to do for you, His faithful.

In the parables, the Kingdom of Heaven is what God is doing in the world to establish and re-establish His reign in the fallen world through the life, work, and ministry of Jesus Christ. The treasure is the church, which includes all who hear and believe the Gospel of Jesus in all of time and into eternity. You are the treasure, not the treasure hunter. The field is the world in which the church lies, hidden. The man who finds the treasure and the pearl, and then who re-buries it, is Christ Himself. To redeem – to buy - the treasure and the pearl, the man sells everything. Jesus does not redeem us by selling everything he has --- how ironic that would be since all things are His anyway by virtue of His being God. Jesus redeems by giving Himself into death. He gives His all – His very life – to buy the Church. He does it because to Him, the Church is of greater value than any treasure or pearl.

He tells this to give us, His disciples then, His disciples now, His disciples of all ages, a Word of comfort. This world in which we live may be opposed to the church, it may speak against the Gospel, it might even become physically, violently an enemy of God seeking nothing more than to destroy all Christ has done, but Christ has redeemed the Church. He has purchased the Church with His own blood. He did not abandon His disciples than, He will not abandon us, His disciples now, and He will not abandon us in the future.

We often feel as if we’ve been buried under the burdens of this world with its challenges and dangers. We wrestle with our own sinful nature and desires. The devil, the father of all lies, continues to roar around trying to deceive us into thinking all is lost. But do not doubt that we belong to Jesus. You have been acquired. You were purchased at the price of Jesus giving up everything He had, including His own blood. In a remarkable picture of grace, you are worth more than any treasure or any pearl. This is his promise, given you in this parable.

There is one hidden promise I haven’t mentioned. Remember, the man finds the treasure and pearl, buries them, and sells everything to buy the field. But that’s where the story stops. Here’s the hidden promise: after he buys the field to redeem the treasure and the pearl, He returns. And when he returns He will dig up His treasure and bring it into the light. This is a picture of the resurrection; When Christ returns, He will raise you from the dust of the earth into His own light of resurrection. You will stand, in your flesh, in front of Jesus, the great treasure, the great pearl, that He died to redeem. On that day you will see the ending of this parable, and you will see yourself as the greatest of all treasures, the greatest of all pearls, that Jesus gave everything to save.