Imitation, A High Calling

   We went to a movie last evening, a movie in a film series that a group brought to the Island, one that we probably would not have even heard of unless the Brunswick News had not written about it.

   The film concerned a family of five on vacation in Thailand when a tsunami hits and their subsequent struggles with life and trying to find each other in the midst of all the suffering. It has no Christian theme, but it does have its redeeming moments

   A lot of people died in that true story, but the film does not dwell too much on that. The family is separated, the father with the two youngest boys and the mother with the oldest son, neither group knowing what has happened to the other and fearing the worst.

   I thought about that as I read these verses in The Message this morning, from Matthew 5:

“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that."

   The movie is about the living and how this tragedy brings out some of the best in each.

   The translator of The Message, Eugene Peterson, adds this to the above verses, as a part of Jesus' dialog:

“In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

   In the story, the mother lies in the crude hospital, seriously injured, with her oldest son by her side. As she fights for her life, and the son tries to be there for her, she tells him to go help others, that he has a gift for seeing other's needs and he ought to use it right then.

   He does, and many others feel the touch that his young life can and does give them. He shows those desperate people, that someone cares, and this caring brings reunions that bless those that feel the results and see the outcomes.

   I like those words at the end of that passage:

 "Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.”

   Live generously and graciously toward others. God does and I should.

   Self, get out of the way!

   There is much to be done and much life to be lived, outside of mine.

Lemons and Lemonade

   We had a little mixup at our house this morning, having to do with time.

   It was necessary for us to be up early to get over to Brunswick to make an early appointment to have our car serviced. Unfortunately, someone thought they heard the alarm go off and got up without looking at the clock. Dressing, this party wondered out loud if we had not better hurry, but an examination of that same timepiece showed that it was only 4:45 and we did not have to leave till 7:00.

   Thinking about the best course of action to take, I thought:

   1. We could go back to bed for a couple of hours

   2. We could sit around and moan about making that mistake and paying for it with lack of rest

   3. Or we could realize that we had time before the sunrise at 6:30 to be in place for some photography, and make some lemonade out of those unintended lemons.

   Of course we did No. 3, and, while Mayre waited in the car, I went out into the darkened Village area and then out on the Pier to catch all the light before the sun came up.

   So, here is what was out there waiting for me this morning:

   A store waiting to open

   The lighthouse against a gradually lightened sky

   A shrimp boat coming after a night on the water

   Two blackbirds (one of which is having a spirited conversation), the other?

   Moments before the sunrise

   The pier area in the early light

   No regrets about that Lemonade, it was a fun time....

   And we still had time to get to the tire store, go eat breakfast, go to the drugstore, and the grocery and be back home before 10AM.

   What a Day

 

Four "Rights"

   My rights are the most important thing. Is that the attitude that Jesus is asking His disciples to have as they go through life?

   Consider these verses from Matthew 5 in the Living Bible:

“The law of Moses says, ‘If a man gouges out another’s eye, he must pay with his own eye. If a tooth gets knocked out, knock out the tooth of the one who did it. But I say: Don’t resist violence! If you are slapped on one cheek, turn the other too. If you are ordered to court, and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat too. If the military demand that you carry their gear for a mile, carry it two. Give to those who ask, and don’t turn away from those who want to borrow."

   All over the state of Georgia, in every one of the 159 counties, there is a courthouse. These buildings stand as the symbol of governmental authority and the seat of justice for that particular area. They are not there to just look pretty and for me to take pictures of, although I do like to do that, they are working buildings, or have been, and exist to give justice to all.

   Jesus does not say do away with justice, but He does speak about our attitudes as we live our lives.

   Do we look for revenge for something done to us?

   Do we look for ways to strike back?

   Do we look for the easiest or least costly way to get out of an obligation?

   Do we hold onto our stuff so tightly that we can't help?

   Do we take our own personal "rights" so highly that we are aloof to everyone else?

   Are we like the kid in the classroom who refused to sit down when the teacher asked all to take their places at their desks? When she threatened to call in the principal, he reluctantly did so, but still stated that although "he was sitting down, he was still standing on the inside".

   Sure, I have "my rights", but the emphasis on the pronoun in this phrase speaks of the attitude of my heart toward those around me.

   Perhaps "my" rights should be:

   Right motives

   Right attitudes

   Right actions

   Right living, as Jesus would have me do.

The Weight of Words

   The other day when we were in the North Georgia mountains, we paid a visit to the White County Historical Society and their museum in the old courthouse in Cleveland, GA.

   I had read a passage in Matthew 5 that morning, and, as I sat in the old courtroom, I thought of these verses:

“And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true. Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong."

   How many times over the years had folks in that part of the state taken an oath "to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me, God" as they gave testimony in some matter. How many truths, half-truths and downright lies were told in that place, while under that oath?

   Jesus talks about the words that we speak, how our talk should reflect the lifestyle that He wants us to live, how we are to be real, so real, in fact, that others can count on what we say.

   This old courthouse was built in 1859 and used up until 1964. A saying way back in those earlier times was that a "man's word was his bond". You could count on a "yes" being a yes and a "no" no, no frills needed.

   Would that my words would carry the right meaning with no need of an excess of piety.

   An aside: In the early 1960s, there was a trial held in that 2nd story courtroom, a big trial with a lot of spectators lining the walls around the benches. When the folks who worked on the first floor noticed that the floor above was beginning to sag, and after the judge got the people all down to the first floor and out of the building, it was decided that 100 years was long enough, and that the building had served the county well, so that a new one was needed and built.

   Sitting there in that old courtroom and on one of those wooden benches (they looked like pews), I had the feeling that the words spoken there were still hovering in the room. What if those seats could talk? What would they say? Of all the people who had given testimony in those trials, would some of them look back and be proud of what they had said while others would prefer to forget the words they had uttered?

   If furniture can absorb words, maybe the excess of spectators up there was not the only the only weight bending those floor joists.

   I think I will keep my mouth closed whenever possible.

 

 

Quick Update

   I have been out of pocket for these past few days without Internet, but have time to give a clue about what I have been doing out on the road.

The top photo is Pike County, GA

The bottom one is Stephens Co, GA

The quiz is (without looking): Who are these named after?

Hot Dog, I Can Be Legal!

   I (and those who may be reading along) have come to these verses in Matthew 5:

“Remember the Scripture that says, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him do it legally, giving her divorce papers and her legal rights’? Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’ Please, no more pretending. If you divorce your wife, you’re responsible for making her an adulteress (unless she has already made herself that by sexual promiscuity). And if you marry such a divorced adulteress, you’re automatically an adulterer yourself. You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure."

   There is so much talk about divorce, both in and out of the Christian setting, so many statistics, so many different situations, that I really do not want to go there.

   But I do see something in these verses that goes right along with what Jesus has been saying about issues of the heart. Look at these words:

"Too many of you are using that as a cover for selfishness and whim, pretending to be righteous just because you are ‘legal.’

   Selfishness, whim, pretending, going to the core of the issue. And summing up in the last line:

" You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure."

   Legal cover, the letter of the law, but what about the heart?

   How many times have I heard folks say "Show me where in the Bible I can't do that. Sure I know it says Thou shall not kill, but there are no commands about .........".

   It sure looks like the key word in the above statement is "I", and the other key from the verses above is "selfishness". If I really want to do something, and I can cloak my actions in an absence of Biblical authority, I am OK. I can do this.

   But is it "right". Sure I "can", but "should" I?

   How about those verses that talk about "not causing another to stumble" or even "Present your body as a living sacrifice"?

   I need to be careful in using what the Bible does not say in defense of what I want to do.

   "You can’t use legal cover to mask a moral failure."

Write Your Plans in Pencil

   Several items comprise my thoughts this morning, and they all seem to involve the word "Planning"

   Let's see: There was the movie on Saturday night
                   There was church yesterday
                   There are the things that I plan to do today
                   There is the short trip I am planning for this week, and
                   There is a longer trip at the last of this summer, so how do they all come together, or do they?

   The movie we went to see, Million Dollar Arm, I liked, but the thing that I thought about most, upon reflecting on the story, concerned the change in the lives of the two Indian boys.

   As they lived their lives, ordinary lives, in India, they had no idea of where they would be in a year or so and how that time would impact their lives for the future. They had no clue. They had plans I guess, plans to do what they were doing for a time, plans to work, maybe plans to marry and have families, plans to live a normal (if that is a correct term in this instance) Indian life.

   But then, over in the US, a man concocted a plan that concerned boys in India, baseball, and a way to get his company back in the black. No one knew how all that would work together. No one knew how it would work itself out, much less who would be affected, especially those 2 boys.

   Then in church yesterday, I heard about a couple who belonged to our body, a man and wife living through a hard time. At the end of her pregnancy, as she went to get the final check up before delivery, they learned that there was no heartbeat. The little boy had died in the womb, and she had to deliver a stillborn child into the world. How incredibly hard that must have been for both of them.

   They had plans, I know, and now, what? My heart grieves for them.

   Then there are the puny and insignificant things that I plan for today, and this week, and this year. I know I need to plan ahead, but I don't know the events in the world that will affect any of them.

   God knows, and I have no control.

   I write that, and know that the answer to all that uncertainty I have talked about in the previous paragraphs is right there.

   God knows the past, the present and the future, and He cares.

   I have to plan. I need to have things in place to get things accomplished, but the culmination to those plans are not in my hands. They need to be written on disposable paper, maybe even in invisible ink. Their fruition is not in my control, for today, not for this week, or for farther out there.

   How simple is it to live in the easy and good and be thankful for "Thy will be done"?

   How difficult to live in the hard and wonder about "Thy will be done"?

   The implications of this prayer are huge. I will pray it, but the question is, How will I live it?

   If my plans fly away, will my contentment also?