Thoughts from John Collins, a United Methodist Pastor in the Flint Hills.
From the August 2009 edition of Reader’s Digest:
“Live your life so the preacher doesn’t have to lie at your funeral.”
— Angi V., Shawnee, Kansas
Amen. In my 15 years as a pastor I’ve never had to lie at a funeral, but I have had to get pretty creative.
I started rereading The Great Divorce today in preparation for Tuesday’s book club and came across this gem:
Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.
— C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, Preface.
John Wesley, in his fullest explanation of the nature of salvation, was very keen to say that our salvation is not something that waits for the life to come, but something (I would describe salvation as a faith-enabled, loving, grace-fueled relationship with God) that begins in the here and now and continues throughout eternity. Thus our present life, if lived with God as it’s aim can be part of Heaven itself.
From the blog of Brian D. McLaren:
I think it was Rick Warren who said, “Bigger isn’t better and smaller isn’t better. Better is better.”
Link: http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/getting-beyond-a-foolish-argumen.html
John Wesley saw very well the need to balance God’s power with God’s preservation of human integrity. God does not override human free will to effect human salvation. As Wesley summarized in a sermon titled “On the Wedding Garment”:
The God of love is willing to save all the souls he has made … but will not force them to accept of it.
From Letters to a Young Doubter by William Sloan Coffin:
Why then do so many judge religion by the worst examples of it?
I think that’s a fair question. Why do so many people judge religion by the worst examples rather than the best? As Coffin notes we tend to judge the value of “poetry, novels, art, and music by their very best works.” My first thought was that there are so many more bad examples than good, but on reflection, I’m not sure that’s true. I can only say that in the religious field, the worst examples have somehow become far more prominent than the best.
The following is from Bishop Will Willimon’s blog. It seems particularly appropriate this for Maundy Thursday and with Good Friday only a day away.
Matthew 9:9-13
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick…. For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”I stand at the front door of the church. It is Sunday. I like to stand here and watch people entering the church. What unites them?
Sinners come in the church. Some are still in their mother’s arms. Sleeping, they come, but not of their own volition. They look innocent enough, but they are still sinners.
Though outwardly, cuddly and cute, they are among the most narcissistic and self-centered in the congregation. When they wake up, they will cry out, not caring that the rest of us are about important religious business. When they are hungry, they will demand to be fed, now. Cute, bundled up, placidly sleeping or peevishly screaming. Sinners.
Sinners come to church. They are being led by the hand. They do not come willingly. Though they put up a fight an hour ago, a rule is a rule, and there they are. They have said that they hate church. They have said things about church that you wouldn’t be allowed to have published in the local newspaper, if you were older. Ten years old they are, and they lack experience and expertise but not in one area: they are sinners.
Sinners come in the church. Sullen, slouched, downcast eyes. Out with friends last night to a late hour, the incongruity between here in the morning, and there last night, is striking. They know it and it is only one of the reasons why they do not want to be here. Dirty thoughts. Desire. Things you are not supposed to think about. These thoughts make these sinners very uncomfortable at church.
Sinners come to church, and they have put on some weight, middle-aged, receding hairlines, “showing some age.” They are holding on tight. Well-dressed, attempting to look very respectable, proper. Youthful indiscretions tucked away, put behind them, does anybody here know? A couple of things tucked away from the gaze of the IRS. And a night that wasn’t supposed to happen two conventions ago. These sinners are looking over their shoulders. They are having trouble keeping things together. Maybe that is why there are so many of these sinners here, coming in the door of the church.
Sinners come in the church, doors at last are closed. The last of them scurry to their appointed seats. The organ begins to play, played by an extremely talented, incredibly gifted artist, who is also a sinner. And the first hymn begins. Something about, “Amazing Grace,” sung, appropriately, by those who really need it, need it in the worst way. They sing in the singular, but it ought to be in the plural. “Amazing grace that saved wretches like us.”
Sinners come into church. And now for the chief of them all, the one most richly dressed, most covered up, the one who leads, and does most of the talking. Some call him pastor. Down deep, his primary designation is none other than those whom he serves. Sinners come into the church, and now their pastor welcomes them, their pastor, the one who on a regular basis presumes to speak up for God, making him the “chief of sinners.”
Sinners, come to church, all decked out, all dressed up, all clean and hopeful. Sinners, sinners hear the good news, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” Jesus called as his disciples, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Mary and Mary Magdalene. Sinners. Only sinners. And Jesus got into the worst sort of trouble for eating and drinking with sinners. Only sinners. Sinners.
Jesus saves sinners. Thank God. Only sinners. We sinners.
Via Sojourners:
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
Gary Beach, Director of Connectional Ministries for the Kansas East Conference directed me to this gem. This probably won’t be the last time you see it.
Via Sojourners:
Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Expediency asks the question: Is it politic? Vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the question: Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular — but he must take it simply because conscience tells him it is right.
— Martin Luther King Jr.,
from his address, “To Chart Our Course for the Future” (1968).
One of the church’s most important jobs is to continually ask “Is it right?” Another important job of the church is to raise a ruckus when the answer is no.
The last words of John Wesley were, “The best of all, God is with us.” I just got back from visiting at the hospital and the longer I live the more I believe that John Wesley was absolutely right. No matter what we go through, no matter what we endure, no matter what we suffer (and likewise, though we tend to take less notice of this point, no matter how well our lives may be going, no matter how well the world is treating us at present, no matter how many blessings we can count), the best thing about life is that God is with us … always.
*More pictures of the Wesley’s can be found at: http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/.