Communion Meditation 1/3

Here is the communion meditation I prepared for worship at Minter Lane today.

Philippians 3:4-11

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

In order to adjust the Philippians perspective, Paul pulls out his personal ledger book and starts recounting the items in it, and how the world sees them.

• Circumcised on the 8th day – Profit
• Israelite – Profit
• Member of the tribe of Benjamin – Profit
• Hebrew born of Hebrews – Profit
• Pharisee – Profit
• Incredibly zealous – profit

To the world, these are are all things to be leveraged for one’s gain and benefit.  In the kingdom of God, however, what counts as profit gets redefined.  God’s ledger book is upside down.  What the world marks as profit, God marks as loss, and what the world files in the loss column God counts as profit.  Paul’s profit column probably reads:

• knowing Christ Jesus
• loss of all things
• righteousness through faith
• suffering
• death

At the table, we affirm and participate in God’s upside down kingdom.  Here we proclaim that in brokenness is health and in shed blood is life.  Here God’s kingdom reminds us what true gain really is.

There’s a hole in the world tonight

Today I am sad because Bill Short, a solid friend and upright man of God is not with us.  He died very suddenly this afternoon and now there is a giant hole in the world because he is gone.  The world is a significantly better place because he was in it, and I hope to be half the man he was.

Bill is missed, and it will take many people to fill the big shoes he leaves behind.  God Bless you Bill, and thank you.

A Short Little Story

Once upon a time there was a little plant that lived in a little planter in a little window of a little apartment of a little town. Every day a the little boy who lived in the apartment with his parents would come out and water the little plant and tend it very carefully. While he did this, he would tell the little plant stories from his day. How he bravely slid down the big slide in the little park across the street for the first time and how up until then, he only went down the little slide. The big slide is so much more fun than the little slide he said. Or he would tell the little plant about school, and the fun he had at recess playing kick-ball with his classmates or about the time he pulled the hair of the girl he thought he liked and ran off across the playground when she tried to kick him. “What fun,” the little plant thought, “to be able to run and slide and kick. I hope one day to be able to run and kick and slide and do all the things my little friend tells me about.” And the little plant was happy.

Something on my mind

I want everyone to know that I have chosen the following words carefully and am indeed grateful to everyone who helped raise me and teach me to be a Christian.

That being said, here goes . . .

I have been meditating on Matthew 25 recently, and it has shaken me and made me rethink many things I was taught about the church. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats. The end of all things has come, and judgment day has arrived. All humanity is called to account for their deeds while on earth. The image he chooses if of a shepherd separating the sheep and the goats into separate pens. The sheep are directed into one pen, and the goats into another. It is only after the separation has been made that the shepherd goes to each group and explains the justification for the choice, implying that there are many in each group who are surprised to find themselves in such company.

Good Friday

This morning, rather than drag my carcass out of bed before the sun comes up and force myself to go to work, I had the day off so I slept in an hour or so, got ready on my own time, and went out to Lake Fort Phantom Hill to commune with nature, do some birding, and not think about work or work related topics.

In this venture, I suceeded, and compared to other good intentions I’ve had recently spectacularly so.  I saw over 30 different species of bird this morning and reminded myself just how rust I am at this.  I firmly believe that God created sparrows, shorebirds, and gulls in their many similar varieties in order to laugh at the meticulous.  When I didn’t have my nose in my field guide trying to determine if that blur I saw was a field sparrow or a song sparrow I did get to see several remarkable looking birds.

First on the highlight list is the Cactus Wren.   I was shadowed by one of these gorgeous birds for a large portion of my hike.  I was obiviously in the middle of his breeding territory and he was calling his heart out to attract a mate.  I have seen them before, but never like this in perfect lighting and in the open.

The other highlight on my list was a Spotted Sandpiper in full breeding plumage on the shores of the lake.  Like the Cactus Wren, I have seen this bird before, but never in such a perfect situation and never in breeding plumage.  It was a rather stunning show from such a small insignificant little bird.

It was a good morning.

Birds seen:  Red-winged Blackbird, Spotted Sandpiper, Red-Tailed Hawk, Mallard, Northern Shoveller, Brown-Headed Cowbird, Osprey, American Coot, Great-Tailed Grackle, Cliff Swallow, Cactus Wren, Mockingbird, Cardinal, Song Sparrow, Forster’s Tern, Least Sandpiper, Ring-Billed Gull, Vesper Sparrow, American White Pelican, Curve-Billed Thrasher, Common Grackle, Killdeer, Blue Grey Gnatcatcher, White-Crowned Sparrow, Field Sparrow, European Starling, Snowy Egret, Great-Blue Heron, Mourning Dove, Barn Swallow, Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher, Blue Jay

Happy List

While walking to work this morning, I experienced another addition to the happy list.

Random 80’s music popping up on my iPod’s shuffle.  It’s great.  I’m walking along enjoying some of the standard fare on my iPod when it shuffles to “We Built This City” by Starship.  It’s 32-bit sound and big hair the rest of the way to work.

Excerpts from the Notebook part 1.

Here are some reflections from the curse of the fall from Genesis 3.

“I will put strife between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

We still feel his bite, do we not?
That nagging numbness, dulling our senses
drowning our reason.
We wish to drink deeply from that well.
forgetting all but ourselves
becoming god.
So we grab the serpent by the head
bring it to our lips
pucker up and kiss the snake.

2008 . . . 2009

New Years Gift!

Entering the new year, I am adopting a new outlook.  I’ve used it piecemeal in the past, but I believe it’s time for me to forge ahead with it.  Here it is:

The past is useful only if we learn from it.  Therefore it doesn’t matter how bad I screwed up, the only thing that matters is what I do next.

I tend to dwell on my past failures to an unhealthy degree.  From now on, when I find myself doing that, I am going to remind myself that what really matters is what I do next.  Do I learn from that mistake and make better choices, or do I keep repeating the same bad choices?  I’m going to focus on doing better than I did the previous day, and I hope that you do the same.

~Harry.  Abilene, Tx.  Between 2008 and 2009

Eating my words

This morning as I was walking to work I was confronted by a unique situation.  I had to eat the words I had just prayed.  As I was walking I was set upon by a friend who can be annoying sometimes.  Just as I was about to get annoyed and think about how to ditch him and go back to my iPod a new thought popped into my head.

“Help me see Jesus in everyone I come in contact with, and help me be Jesus to the same.”

Words I had just prayed not 5 minutes earlier.  I was immediately forced to decide.  Did I pray a lie, or not?  Do I really want to try to be Jesus to everyone I meet and do I really want to see Jesus in them?    These are really nice, high-falutin’ words to say, but they can be really nasty to try and live out.  Do I really want to see Jesus in my neighbors, and would that change in the way I acted toward them.

I am going to continue to pray that prayer, because I have faith (albeit small like a mustard seed) that that is a better life than the selfish one I currently live.

Pecans

Whether you call them pecahns or peacans, Abilene is obsessed with them.  Or at least they were.  Probably well over half of all the trees growing within the city limits of Abilene are Pecan Trees.  At least that’s the way it seems.  I can’t walk to or from work without crushing an unripe or overripe pecan beneath my boot.  Most of the time the only benefit I get is hearing a healthy crack as I break the unsavory nut into dust.

This is not my favorite thing about pecans.  It’s the wrong kind of crack.  When it comes to tasty goodness, I much prefer a subtle crack that takes finesse and skill as I lean just enough of my weight on the nut to split the shell enough to open it’s sweet tasty inside.  As all the pecans trees (and they are plentiful) begin to drop their ripened nuts, there is a veritable bounty of heaven sent goodness on the ground.  All you have to do is stoop and pick it up, crack it open and enjoy.  It makes me happy.