Seminal Sermons

"The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.  Jesus said to them, 'Take off the grave clothes and let him go.'" John 11:44

Either Gayle Erwin or Dick Foth spoke on this text thirty years ago at Urbana Assembly of God. I still remember the point:  it's the body of Christ who is given the responsibility to "take off the grave clothes." Jesus didn't take off Lazarus' wrappings after he raised him from the dead. He charged those around him with the task of unbinding Lazarus' graveclothes. At an art museum in Lafayette, Lousisiana a few years ago, I saw a small sculpture of Lazarus, fresh from the tomb, exalting, but still bound round with fabric. He obviously needed help to get out of those dead clothes.

The speaker that day encouraged each of us in the congregation of several hundred to help each other recognize and remove the shroud of our old thinking.  I"m grateful for that group in the seventies, who helped me recognize lies the enemy had planted in my early traumas. That teaching, of course, was one of many on the topic of loving each other, but that specific imagery has stuck with me, as I, too, have helped others remove the wrappings of habits that bring death rather than life.

Do you have a seminal sermon that comes back to you at important times in your life? An image, a thought, a feeling, even, that continues to guide your choices today? Something someone said at a time of transition, when we are particularly open to new ideas? Maybe a friend spoke God's words to us when we were finishing graduate school and seriously depressed. A time when we faced a tricky surgery, anxious about the outcome. Or like me at Urbana Assembly, a nurturing pastor's good words that laid the foundations for our spiritual lives. If you do, I'd love to hear it.

Father, thank you for those who have spoken your word to us and those who help us release the old lies. You, alone, are truth.

Unfathered?

"A good coach makes an athlete see what they can be, rather than what they are. The same is true of a good father." George Foreman, quoted in the current issue of Today's Christian magazine, one of eleven short quotes the author, Michael W. Michelsen, Jr., lists in a sidebar to the main article on fatherhood. Mr. Foreman also has a book, Fatherhood by George (Thomas Nelson, 2008).

Did you have a father who helped you to see your own potential? Someone who said, "You can make the team." "You'll do well in college." "You'll have a good marriage–you stick with your commitments." If you had a coach/father like that, you probably don't struggle with debilitating performance anxiety. Your father has built into you an expectation that you have the ability and persistence to succeed.

If we did not have that kind of parenting, we need to 1. grieve our losses and 2. trade fathers. After a period of mourning, we need to trade our earthly father for our Papa-God. More than anyone on earth, our Forever Father can help us see what we can be, rather than what we are.

The unfathered among us feel, and believe ourselves to be, lacking ability for the tasks set before us. I've been very aware of that in the last few weeks. Writing a memoir is one thing. I didn't think I could really do that. By grace of Papa-God, it's done. Now, I'm struggling through to believe I can publicize and promote this message God has given.

The core of the message is God is a good father, no matter what we feel or what it looks like. I need to be inspired again, and I will be. Inspired to see what I can be, by grace. By the lavish grace of a good papa. Glory.

Papa, open our eyes to who we can be, who you have made us to be. You are a good father. Thank you.

Through Whose Eyes?

"…call me Mara, for the Almighty has made life very bitter for me. I went away full but the Lord has brought me home empty." (NLT) In the first chapter of Ruth, Naomi speaks to her friends upon her return to Bethlehem from Moab, where her husband and two sons have died.

Ruth, her Moabite daughter-in-law, has relocated with Naomi, vowing to make "your people, my people; your God my God." Naomi seemed glad to have her company and yet quite unaware of Ruth's value to her or to God's plan. Ruth was young and strong, able to glean food for them both. And Ruth, in God's timing and God's way, became the grandmother of David, from whom Messiah was descended.

And yet, in the middle of the journey, Naomi, in the manner of us all, could only see through her own eyes. In her eyes, the basket she carried was empty. In God's vision, the basket was ready to be filled. 

How often we walk in short-sightedness, aware only of the empty basket we carry. We see the fruit all around us that we think we need to fill our emptiness. How do we learn to see what God sees? How do we believe God is even now, picking the fruit to fill our baskets?

How do we believe, in the midst of teenage angst, that God means to give us meaning and purpose? How do we grasp the goodness He means to pour out on us in the midst of the divorce? What helps us hold on to Papa-God's hand when the doctor says, "I'm sorry."

We can gather hope from these characters in God's story who speak without knowledge, just before God fills their empty baskets with his purpose. We are all in the middle of our stories. And we are in the middle of God's great story of creation, redemption, and glory.

Papa, give us eyes to see and hearts to behold the goodness you mean to pour out on us.