Month: November 2021

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The hymn that has been playing over and over again in my head since Sunday has been Blessed Assurance; one of my top five hymns of all times. Each verse is beautiful and deep, and if you happen to have a United Methodist Hymnal on your shelf, you can find it on page #369. My favorite verse speaks of what true witness looks like:

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of Mercy, Whispers of Love.

This is my Story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Aside from the jovial melody and easy rhythm to clap to, this song is about our witness and the story we wish to tell the world. Written by the beloved Hymn writer, Fanny Crosby in 1873, it is a song that inspires deep faith. Verse 2 speaks about the witness of that faith. While I can admit that I haven’t always enjoyed the word submission (this word has been used to harm women since the beginning of the recorded Scriptures) what I understand about this verse, in particular, is that through submission to Jesus (for male and female) it leads to perfect delight. That is when we fully submit to Jesus as both the Savior and Lord of our lives, there is joy and contentment despite life’s circumstances. The last part of this verse is probably the most poetic of all: Echoes of Mercy, Whispers of Love. An echo can be heard long after the word is spoken and has a farther reach to the hearer. And a whisper of love is something done in close proximity to someone you have a deep relationship with that shares your level of trust.

When we work out what it means to be faithful witnesses of Jesus in our everyday lives, I hope we can lead with Mercy and Love. I hope that the mercy and compassion we share echoes on long after we have left the building. I hope that the love that is displayed is done through trust and deep relationships. In other words, I hope your witness and my witness to the people in our sphere of influence is led by mercy and communicated with love. We can all think of times when we ourselves displayed less than that in our own Christian witness or had it thrust on us in a way that stripped away our humanity or our belovedness. We have seen it done well and seen it done in ways that embarrass us as followers of Jesus. And so, I encourage you this week to think about a person or persons in your life that have been a faithful witness to you. Someone that shared those echoes of mercy and whispers of love in your faith journey.

While I never met Fred Rogers, I have a tremendous amount of respect for the kind of witness he was. Never pushy, or judgmental, he was never drawing lines in the sands or forcing people to comply through guilt. He moved to a different tempo and flung wide his arms of acceptance. If you haven’t had a chance yet to see the Fred Rogers bronze statue on Rollins campus, I encourage you to go. Below is a picture of it. If you are looking for a new way to practice a spiritual discipline, may I suggest that you make this a part of your prayer life this week. Go for a walk on the campus, take in the beauty of the statue and ask yourself whether or not your witness is one of mercy and love. And then spend that time reflecting on the story you wish to tell with your life; the song that you will play with your witness and how others might come to know this Jesus that you will point them to.

AMEN

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If you have been reading my devotions for a while now, you know that I talk often about my two children and what they teach me about God and my faith journey. Today will be no different as a moment with my children hit me in a funny and convicting way of all places while trick or treating.

Earlier on Sunday morning, I had prepared a Pastoral Prayer that quite literally asked God to show us what it means to be generous and joyous through our children; but how quickly I forgot my own words. Sunday night was Halloween and so let me paint a picture for you. My beautiful Princess Ariel and my handsome gruff Pirate began their trick-or-treating journey in our own neighborhood around 5pm. My parents had come over to enjoy the experience and to watch how quickly they got the hang of going door to door saying, “Trick-or-Treat!” Our youngest learned within about 3 houses that the faster he runs from one door to the next, the more candy he will receive, and if he is friendly enough to our neighbors and hugs them, he may even get an extra candy in his bag. After almost 45 minutes of this, we got in the car and headed to a friend’s neighborhood to walk around with them. By this time it was 6PM and Emmaline and Charlie already had 1/3 of their bags filled. When we met our friends in their driveway, my children immediately noticed that their children’s bags were empty and so they each reached into their own bags and pulled out 5-6 pieces of candy to give to the other two kids. You would have thought that I would have been so very proud of their generosity, but I got caught up in the moment when I saw my favorite sour candy being surrendered to these other children. “Wait,” I said, “those are mommy’s favorite candy…”

How quickly I had forgotten my prayer from morning worship. How quickly I grew selfish. How quickly I made it about me.

Maybe you can remember a time like this in your own life. Can you picture what your own children looked like when they first discovered how much fun trick-or-treating can be? Do you remember going house to house and greeting your neighbors along the way? Maybe you used to look forward to the time at the end when all of the candy was combined and the parents secretly figured out which candy they would sneak out of the bag while the children were sleeping (no judgment, we all do it). And can you remember a time in your life past the holiday traditions when your children showed you the generous face of Jesus when you needed to see it most?

These moments happen for me more times than I care to admit. And so, as we look again at our Scripture from Sunday (Luke 16), what might God be teaching us that the youngest amongst us understand and practice intuitively that we grownups can learn from?

As you re-read Luke 16:1-13 again, I challenge you to look for a “glass-half-full” interpretation of the dishonest steward. His title alone, I admit, made me almost discount the story altogether, but the Gospel writer includes it for a reason. While as parents and grandparents; partners and friends, we want to encourage honesty and trustworthiness in all of our relationships, the character of the trickster is a part of Jewish folklore and stories from the Bible (see the story of Jacob and Esau if you need a reminder). And so why is it included here, right after the stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal (lost) son? I believe it is to evoke the sense of urgency one feels if they lose their sheep, or their income, or their child. One commentator wrote of this passage,

“the parable turns on the steward’s shrewd response to the urgency of his situation and invites hearers to understand that they are likewise in the midst of a crisis that demands an urgent decision if a disaster is to be avoided.”

In Jesus’ parables, stewards are expected to invest the talents that were placed in their safekeeping, and when they are faithful, then they are given even greater responsibilities.

One of my favorite preaching professors, Fred Craddock wrote this on the Scripture. He said that very few of us will get to do things that are so very important that they get recorded in history, but those of us living in the day-to-day will have more humble ways to be stewards of our gifts. He writes, “more likely the week will present no more than a chance to give a cup of water, write a note, visit a nursing home, vote for a county commissioner, teach a Sunday School Class, share a meal, tell a child a story, go to choir practice, and feed the neighbor’s cat.”

“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.” Luke 16:10 NRSV

And so my question for us to ponder this day or this week is this.

Are you being a shrewd steward of the talents and gifts God has given to you? Are you being faithful with the smallest of treasures; with the candy at the bottom of your bag? You don’t have to be caring for large amounts of oil and grain-like the debtors in our parable do; it could be something very small and maybe seemingly insignificant that God uses to bless someone else. But do you use your position, your wealth, and your privilege to respond to the needs of others with urgency and joy? Do you hold nothing back in trying to make the world a more fair place to live by using the excess you have at your disposal? And does that graciousness extend to both neighbors and strangers alike? Because in the end, our God is in the business of making sure that everyone has ‘candy in their bag’ and that no one is left out.

AMEN