As we begin a new year in our liturgical calendar, we enter into Advent hoping to identify who God is and who we are in relation to God.  This is the time to prayerfully consider our relationship with God and everything that God loves.

There is a school run by Catholic nuns in Cleveland, Ohio.  I don’t know the name of their Order, but they have committed their lives to working in the Catholic schools in Cleveland’s inner city.  Day after day after day, they focus their faith and energy on the education of inner-city youngsters, youngsters whose lives are at
risk in so many areas.  One day, out of nowhere, a wonderful gift was given to these nuns.  The gift was to pay for the entire Order to go on a vacation.  Vans were supplied, and all the necessary money for their trip was contributed anonymously.

So, that summer, the nuns closed their Order house and headed to the vacation spot of their choice, the Rocky Mountains.  Most of them had never seen the Rockies, except in their imaginations.  They were awed by the glory of the mountains.  They would stop and ponder and behold and not be able to take their eyes off the majesty they were experiencing.  They noticed, however, that every time they stopped, Sister Margaret, one of the smallest members of their Order, would move to the edge of the group, and then disappear for a while.  She’d return sometime later.  They didn’t know what she was doing.

So, on one particular occasion when they had stopped to behold a majestic view, they decided they would follow her.  She stole away from the group and made her way down into a gully.  They watched her as she walked into the gully.  She bent down and reached under a sizable rock, and then turned the rock upside
down.  She brushed her hands and turned around to walk back up the trail.  When she looked up, the entire Order of nuns was watching her.  “Margaret, what are you doing?” they asked.  “I’m turning over a rock.” she replied.  “Why?” they asked.  “Do you do that every time?”  She answered, “Yes.”  “Why do you do that?”
And she replied: “Because I will never pass this way again, and it’s my intent to have made a difference while I was here.  So, I turn some rocks over so that this place is different because I passed here.”

Now, that nun was dedicated to making a difference.  She saw that as her mission whether at school in her teaching role or alone in the Rockies.  What rocks does a rural church like this one have to turn over in the city of Red Bud for the good of neighborhood?  What rocks do I need to turn over inside of me in order for the Kingdom of God to make its way through all of the barriers that I put up?  I think there needs to be some rock-turning going on inside of me and this church in order that we can, with the help God’s Holy Spirit, maybe taste and smell the real experience of Jesus’ birth – in the interior manger of our lives.

As always, I welcome your comments
Pastor Cory

I found this on Facebook.  A pastor/friend of mine shared it.  This is interesting reading and, in my opinion, so true.

NO, YOU AREN’T TAKING THE BIBLE LITERALLY

No, you are not taking the Bible literally when you judge members of your human family claiming “that’s what the Bible says.”

What you are doing is taking your own understanding of an English translation as if it were the original text in its original context.

Because you do not speak the biblical languages, nor know the historical and cultural contexts of a text, you are taking the broken pieces of your own superficial understanding and arranging them into a mosaic that says more about you than the original text.

The purpose of scripture is not to replace our living hearts and minds with an orthodoxy inherited from the graveyards of the dead.  We do not read ancient texts to return to some earlier and more immature understandings but to learn from the past so we can grow into something even better.

Read without reason scripture will be distorted into memorized and cliched interpretations drawn from our own marginal understanding of a text.

Read without love scripture will become an assault weapon used against those whom we personally disapprove of in our own day.

Read without a sense of personal responsibility scripture means surrendering to the understanding of clergy who may know no more about life’s mysteries than we.

There is a reason that, in the biblical story when the tempter wanted to lure Jesus from the path of truth and love, he (the tempter) brought along a Bible.  Nothing takes one further from the call to universal love than taking ink on paper as if it were the living word.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Pastor Cory

Churches need to be mission oriented but often fall into maintenance behavior and many times they don’t know they’ve slipped from mission into maintenance.  Let’s look at the following to gauge how much mission vs. maintenance exist in our congregation:

1.  In measuring the effectiveness, the maintenance congregation asks, “How many pastoral visits are being made?  The mission congregation asks, “How many disciples are being made?”

2.  When contemplating some form of change, the maintenance congregation says, “If this proves upsetting to any of our members, we won’t do it.”  The mission congregation says, “If this will help us reach someone on the outside, we will take the risk and do it.”

3.  When thinking about change, the majority of members in a maintenance congregation ask, “How will this affect me?”  The majority of members in the mission congregation ask, “Will this increase our ability to reach those outside?”

4.  When thinking of its vision for ministry, the maintenance congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our past.”  The mission congregation says, “We have to be faithful to our future.”

5.  The pastor in the maintenance congregation says to the newcomer, “I’d like to introduce you to some of our members.”  In the mission congregation the members say, “We’d like to introduce you to our pastor.”

6.  When confronted with a legitimate pastoral concern, the pastor in the maintenance congregation asks, “How can I meet this need?”  The pastor in the mission congregation asks, “How can this need be met?”

7.  The maintenance congregation seeks to avoid conflict at any cost (but rarely succeeds).  The mission congregation understands that conflict is the price of progress, and is willing to pay the price.  It understands that it cannot take everyone with it.  This causes some grief, but it does not keep it from doing what needs to be done.

8.  The maintenance congregation is concerned with their congregation, its organizations and structure, its constitutions and committees.  The mission congregation is concerned with the culture, with understanding how secular people think and what makes them tick.  It tries to determine their needs and their points of accessibility to the Gospel.

9.  When thinking about growth, the maintenance congregations asks, “How many Lutherans live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?”  The mission congregation asks, “How many unchurched people live within a twenty-minute drive of this church?”

10.  The maintenance congregation looks at the community and asks, “How can we get these people to support our congregation?”  The mission congregation asks, “How can the Church support these people?”

11.  The maintenance congregation thinks about how to save their congregation.  The mission congregation thinks about how to reach the world.

I challenge each of us to look at this list and ask ourselves, “How are we doing?”

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Pastor Cory

Sacrifice is not a word we use much these days, is it?  When was the last time you used it or thought about it in terms of your own life?  When was the last time you sacrificed anything for anybody?  Come to think about it, there’s only one sport as far as I know where the term is actually used.  Do you know which sport
that is?  You can almost hear Harry Carey announcing it over the radio, “And there it goes, a long fly ball to left; back to the warning track, caught, runner on third tags up and trots home.  Sacrifice fly.”

What a great idea — you’re out, but you helped someone else score a run.  Baseball is one of the few sports where you lose but the team still gains.  Comedian George Carlin spelled it out in his routine about the contrast between the hardness of football and the softness of baseball.  He said: In football you Tackle!  In baseball, you “catch flies…”  In football you Punt!  In baseball you “bunt…”  Football is played on a Gridiron!  Baseball is played on a “field…”  In football you Score!  In baseball you “go home…”  In football you Kill!  In baseball you “sacrifice…”

Baseball may be the only sport where you actually can hear this word.  It’s one of the few places anywhere that you hear it in a self-centered, take-care-of-yourself, don’t-worry-about-anybody-else society.  In contrast to football, sacrifice may sound like a sign of weakness but I remember, for a time, how the Cardinals mastered the art of “small ball.”  Even I, as a Cub’s fan have to admit, it was fun to watch.

Baseball’s one thing; life is quite another.  Who sacrifices anything anymore in a time like ours?  Who really denies themselves and takes up crosses anymore?  Actually, sacrifice can lead to bitterness, especially when you thought you were trusting God’s plan for your life and suddenly you realize that you have to sacrifice all your greatest hopes and dreams as burnt offerings on the high altar of the providence of God.

Are we up for it?

As always, I welcome your comments,

Pastor Cory

For the last few weeks, we have been reading the parables of Jesus, telling us about the Kingdom of God.  These parables ask us to move out of our comfort zone, take a risk to share the love of Christ and the Good News of the Gospel.

As a kid, my favorite book was Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Treasure Island.”  I read “Treasure Island” a dozen times.  Of course, I identified with Jim, the kid in the story.  But thinking back, I really loved the adults in “Treasure Island” because I didn’t know any adults like the ones who peopled Treasure Island, grownups who staked all, risked everything, for nothing more than some map scrawled on a piece of paper.

The adults I knew (for the most part) stayed home.  We were farm people.  We had crops to plant, nurture and harvest.  We had animals to tend to.  I loved the farm, but it was no Treasure Island.  In “Treasure Island,” the adults risked everything, they lied if needed, and they had great lives and exciting deaths.

I am haunted at what my pastor said to me at my graduation.  “Cory, remember one thing as you go forth from school into life: Even if you win the rat race, remember, you’re still a rat.”

He was telling the truth.  There is this relentless, virtually irresistible tendency of life to transmute from adventure into tame predictability.  One day you’re an angry, young thing, ready to grab the world by the tail and twist, dying to set the woods on fire.  And the next day you’re some old guy (like me, LOL), slouched in an easy chair, complaining about how the kids today are ruining the world.  One day you’re a kid, excited about the prospect of leaving home, abandoning your parents, and going to college where you can think as you like, and they can’t do anything about it.  And then the next day you’re just a college student, going through the motions, trying to accumulate enough hours to graduate.

Jesus says a kingdom belongs to those with the guts to stake it all on the treasure.  What would that look like for us?  How gutsy are we?  As always, I welcome your comments.

Pastor Cory

Mona, Patty, Sue, Karen and I recently attended a seminar “The American Religious Landscape: A Deep Dive Into the Date,” with Dr. Ryan Burge.  Dr. Burge introduced us to the “Nones,” those who identify religiously as “nothing in particular.”  This group makes up a whopping 30% of our population!  He describes a large portion of “Nones” as coming off a train, standing on the platform with no idea where to go next.

One important takeaway from these sessions is that the “Nones” are simply looking for answers, direction, and a caring community.

If we are going to be effective in reaching people for Christ we are going to have to start showing people that we really care.  Evangelism and missions must be relational in nature.  There is no record of Jesus walking up to someone out of the clear blue sky and saying: I am the Messiah and then him beginning to show his care for them.  No, he showed his care for them first and then he revealed himself to them.

A story is told about a man who was on a luxury liner and suddenly he falls overboard.  He can’t swim and in desperation he begins calling for help.  Now it just so happens that there were several would be rescuers on deck who witnessed the incident.  The first man was a Moralist.  When he saw the man fall overboard, he immediately reached into his briefcase and pulled out a book on how to swim.  He now tossed it to him and he yelled: Now brother, you read that and just follow the instructions and you will be alright.

The man next to him happened to be an Idealist.  When he saw the man fall overboard, he immediately jumped into the water and began swimming all around the drowning man saying: Now just watch me swim.  Do as I do and you will be alright.  The person next to him happened to be a member of the Institutional
Church.  He looked upon the drowning man’s plight with deep concern.  He yelled out: Now, just hold on friend.  Help is on the way.  We are going to establish a committee and dialogue your problem.  And then, if we have come up with the proper financing, we will resolve your dilemma.

The next man on deck happened to be a representative of the school of Positive Thinking.  He yelled out to the drowning man: “Friend, this situation is not nearly as bad as you think.  Think dry!”  The next man on board happened to be a Revivalist.  By this time the drowning man was going down for the third time and desperately began waving his arm.  Seeing that, the revivalist yelled out: Yes brother, I see that hand, is there another?  Is there another?  And finally, the last man on deck, was a Realist.  He immediately plunged into the water, at the risk of his own life, and pulled the victim to safety.

My friends, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  There are plenty of “None” in Red Bud hoping to find a community that cares.  We need to care.  We also need realists in the church willing to plunge into the water and go to work.

Amen?

As always, I welcome your comments,
Pastor Cory

Once again, it’s the time in our lectionary where we pastor’s squirm, trying to sound intelligent, while explaining the unexplainable; the Holy Trinity. I floundered my way through bible study. Several years ago, I gave a sermon on and interesting metaphor for the Trinity—the dance. I must admit I thought it was pretty good, but everyone looked at me with the “deer in the headlights”
look, scratched their collective heads and said, “Huh?” The following are excerpts from an old sermon of mine. Perhaps it deserves it’s own resurrection.

To talk of the Trinity is to dance on the edge of mystery. There is no way we humans can fully grasp the doctrine of “God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.” But we keep trying. The most ancient Christian formula of God was one of 3 persons and one essence. Irish preachers like to use their national emblem: the three-in-one shamrock. Early Christian preachers used the “root, the shoot and the fruit” of a growing plant, or the sun, its ray of light, and the point of the ray where it touches the earth.

Here’s one from the New Zealand Prayer Book:

• God is the Earth Maker,
• Jesus is the Pain Bearer,
• Holy Spirit is the Life-Giver.

For some in the Christian tradition, even stodgy theologians, the metaphor of the dance was used to celebrate and demonstrate the power and majesty, love and tenderness, presence and
movement, of the divine. This divine dance, dubbed perichoresis, using the Greek choreo ‘where we get the word, choreography’ for the way each person of the godhead was contained or filled by
the others. “Perichoresis” was a moving metaphor.

According to theologian Paul S. Fiddes, in his book, Participating in God: A Pastoral Doctrine of the Trinity wrote; “In this dance the partners not only encircle each other and weave in and out
between each other as in human dancing; in the divine dance, so intimate is the communion that they move in and through each other so that the pattern is all-inclusive. In fact, I suggest that the
image of the dance makes most sense when we understand the divine persons as movements of relationship, rather than as individual subjects who have relationships.”

When Jesus commanded his disciples to go, make disciples, and baptize them in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit, he called believers to participate in this divine dance, the
perichoresis, of intertwining attributes and relational rhythms. The greatness of the great commission is not just found in the expanded geography of the mission (“make disciples of all nations”) but also in the totality of these new disciples’ (and our) relationship with the divine.

One of the landmark spots in New York City is called “The Rainbow Room.” At the top of the GE building at Rockefeller Center, it’s famous for two things: a panoramic view of the city from its 64th floor, and a place where you can dance the night away.

The Rainbow Room is another name for the kingdom of God – a place where you can dance the night away – the night of despair, the night of disease, the night of depression, the night of doubt,
the night of death. “The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light. On those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone.” (Isaiah 9:2).

Why then are so many people’s spiritual lives stuck on groundfloors or locked in basements, afraid of elevators that lift life to the Rainbow Room heights? Why do so many of us not feel right?” We know something’s wrong. We don’t feel comfortable in our skin. The tingle of tiptop, tiptoe living is at best a far-off memory.

Life sometimes goes into reverse. The clouds of glory dissolve into feet of clay. When it does, whatever is most cherished in your life, you can bring it to God in trust and confidence, and leave it
there.

• When your heart is wormed out with worry, trust in God for a new heart.
• When the body is willing, but the brain isn’t, keep the Rainbow Room clean and maintained.
• When the music of faith stops playing in your life, let God lead the dance.
• When you can no longer dance even with God as your dance partner, let the church dance for you.
• Then when your mind is healed and your faith secure, you can pick up the pieces, pick up where you left off…and dance.
• Will we be a church to help people dance the night away?

Amen?

As always, I welcome your comments.
Pastor Cory

God’s “glory” is how we describe the sum effect of all of his attributes: Grace, truth, goodness, mercy, justice, knowledge, power, eternality—all that he is. Therefore, the glory of God is fundamental, that is, it is as essential to God as light is to the sun, as blue is to the sky, as wet is to water. You don’t make the sun light; it is light. You don’t make water wet; it is wet. In all of these cases, the attribute is intrinsic to the object.

In contrast, man’s glory is granted to him. If you take a king and take off all his robes and crowns and give him only a rag to wear and leave him on the streets for a few weeks, when put next to a beggar you’ll never know which is which. Because there is no intrinsic glory. The only glory a king has is when you give him a crown and a robe and sit him on his throne. He has no intrinsic
glory.

That’s the point. The only glory that men have is granted to them. The glory that is God’s is his in his essence. You can’t de-glory God because glory is his nature. You can’t touch his glory. It cannot be taken away. It cannot be added to. It’s his being.

So, how do we glorify God? Can we glorify God?

I think the best way to answer this question is to return to our Catechism, and take a look at the first three petitions of the Lord’s Prayer:

1)Hallowed be your name,
2)Your will be done,
3)Your Kingdom come, on earth as in heaven.

Both the Evangelical Catechism and Luther’s Small Catechism say basically the same thing as they claim, God’s name is holy, God’s will is done, and God’s kingdom will come with or without our
prayers.

In these petitions we pray that God’s name is hallowed, that God’s kingdom will come, and God’s will is done (and God is glorified) FOR US, IN US, AND THROUGH US as well.

What does this look like?

God’s name is made holy in us whenever God’s word is taught in truth and purity and we live like we believe it.
God’s dominion comes when we are inspired by the Holy Spirit when we believe God’s word and live a Godly life.
God’s will is done when we can resist the temptations of this life and keep firm in the word.

In other words, God is glorified when we realize that God is God and we are not, and we are truly happy about this! How are we doing?

As always, I invite your comments,
Pastor Cory

During this season of Lent, we have explored many themes designed to bring us closer in our relationship with Christ. We are called to follow him in our journey straight to the cross. Some of the Lenten disciplines we explored are:

Evangelism-Sharing God’s word to others with love and compassion
Stewardship-Sharing our gifts to those in need out of God’s abundance to us.
Taking care of our physical health-Understanding God gift of our body and mind, as God’s instruments to do good in the world.
Reading/studying God’s Word-How important it is, as people who are loved, to learn all we can about the one who loves us.
At our final Wednesday night service we discovered that all scripture is “God breathed/inspired,” and worthy of our study.
Can this “breath of God” bring us to inspired status? If not, what will?

Some years ago, a new pastor was called to a spiritually dead church in a small Oklahoma town. The pastor spent the first week calling on as many members as possible, inviting them to the first Sunday service. But the effort failed. In spite of many calls, not a single member showed up for worship! So, the pastor placed a notice in the local paper stating that since the church was dead, the pastor was going to give it a decent, Christian burial. The funeral for the church would be held at 2 p.m. on the following Sunday.

Morbidly curious, the whole town turned out for the “funeral.” In front of the pulpit, there was a large casket, smothered in flowers. After the eulogy was given, the pastor invited the congregation to come forward and pay their respects to the dead church. The long line of mourners filed by. Each one peered curiously into the open casket, and then quickly turned away with a guilty, sheepish look. For inside the casket, tilted at just the right angle was a large mirror. Each one saw his own reflection in the mirror as perhaps never before!

That is still what happens when human beings allow the Living Christ to confront them in their sinful brokenness. During Lent, we are called us to make a choice to receive God’s Christ, and
to let our lives be made whole again by the power of God. As you begin this Holy Week, can you truly say in your heart, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” The choice is up to you!

As always, I invite your comments.
Pastor Cory

Forgiveness is part of the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and is an integral part of our Lenten journey. It is the action of Christ through the Holy Spirit in our midst. By the power of the Spirit,
Christ is present both forgiving us and forgiving through us. The Spirit is given to us by Christ himself. He breathed upon the disciples and they received the Holy Spirit.

How difficult is it to forgive?

In one of her books, Corrie Ten Boom tells of meeting the guard from the concentration camp where she and her family had been held by the Nazis. She had been speaking at a large church meeting, and after the meeting he had come forward. He put out his hand to her, and she instinctively pulled back, remembering the horrors to which that hand had been put or in which it had cooperated, but then, she testified, something came over her, she knew not what, and she reached out and grasped his hand and extended her forgiveness as the tears rolled down his cheeks.

There will be those who say this is merely sentimental and who grit their teeth, as they demand more obvious vengeance; I cannot judge them. I only know that to forgive in such a manner is beyond human comprehension; it is the work of God and can only be done by us through the grace of God at work in us. Nor, is it an attitude we Christians carry around with us all the time, like little Mary Sunshines. Corrie Ten Boom received the grace to forgive in the moment the grace was needed, and not before. Our Lord, upon the cross, forgave his executioners while he was being nailed to it; there was no plenary absolution in advance. Forgiveness, like the resurrection, breaks in upon us through shut doors.

We are called and sent to participate in Christ’s message of forgiveness because we have been forgiven. “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” Christ was sent to be the agent of reconciliation, and we are to be such agents in the world. It seems to me a sad fact that forgiveness has been for sale in the church during so much of its history, when it should have been given away.

We need to understand three things about forgiveness. First, we cannot earn it. Second, it is not for sale. And third, if we accept Christ, we already have it.

As always, I look forward to your comments.
Pastor Cory