Whitewashed Tomb?*

 

photography by: Omri Westmark

A retired pastor from another church once told me I was  a “whitewashed tomb.” He was not a kind man and if he weren’t a man of the cloth I would have had no respect for him. But what if he was right about me? These were the same words Jesus had used to describe the Pharisees, referring to their sparkling outward appearance, but dead hearts full of hypocrisy.  These religious leaders, in their self-perceived superior positions, used their power and training to shame their followers, and exalt themselves. I didn’t want to be a “Whitewashed Tomb!” So, I began having lunch each month with another retired pastor for whom I had a great deal of respect.  This friend was one of about 10 pastors I have known in my life, who seemed like true shepherds full of the Spirit and Truth, but also humble and full of grace.  This pastor listened a lot then thoughtfully asked questions that guided me to a healthier and more authentic relationship with Jesus. He guided me toward becoming a healthier shepherd.  I thought back on leaders that I had wanted to emulate, who were so shiny on the outside, but I learned later they were bad on the inside. They reminded me of Mark Twain’s classic book, Tom Sawyer. When Tom was whitewashing the fence, he convinced all his neighbors to give up a prized possession to enjoy the “privilege” of whitewashing the fence. Pharisees convinced people to give up their souls to have the “honor” of being whitewashed tombs like themselves.  The Spirit convicted me that I had sometimes made this very exchange.  I was learning how to stand at a distance and shame people about their moral lives, while ignoring their broken soul’s need for Jesus. I also refused to come close to them when they had messed up.  This righteous sounding moralism left us all like sitting ducks when it pertained to sin and it lacked any ability at all to really save us. This included my own soul. There is no way we can ever follow all the rules or be good enough; that is why we ALL need Jesus.  I still have much to learn and my old whitewashing habits die hard, but I’m so thankful for those pastors who helped me learn what it really looks like to belong to Jesus. 

 

Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”(Matt. 23:27-28)  I would much rather be among those to whom Jesus says in Matt. 11:29, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,  I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Our true faith is lived out by having a close relationship with Jesus, so close that we begin to mirror His actions. Just trying to follow all the rules will leave us feeling self-righteous, hypocritical, and exhausted. 

 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Who's Your Daddy?*

 Photo cred: Costumes.com

Remembering back to my first spiritual memory. It is vague, but goes something like this: I was preschool age going to my Baptist Church on a Wednesday Night. The kids wore their Halloween costumes that night because it was Halloween week. Some wore their bathrobes and were Biblical figures like Joseph, Mary, Moses, etc… One may have even had a John the Baptist outfit made of a burlap potato bag. Unfortunately, the outfit I wore that night was a Biblical figure too, but it was a Little Red Devil suit, complete with a plastic pitchfork. Mrs. Borge, the preschool teacher that night, was a little concerned about a kid who would wear a Devil’s suit to church. So, in a very simple way Mrs. Borge told us about how much Jesus loves us and how He wants us to belong to Him. I thought that sounded good, because, in spite of my attire, belonging to the Devil sounded pretty scary.  Fast forward a few years to age 10, I decided that I wanted to let my church know that I belonged to Jesus. I was baptized and did my best to do what I thought Jesus would want me to do. Fast forward a few more years to a mission trip in my teen years and I felt like God was calling me to be a minister of His Good News. I initially accepted, but then slowly, eventually rejected that call. I plunged into rebellion against what I knew to be right and good for the next several years, though I still attended church infrequently. I loved myself much more than I loved God or anyone else. Finally, God got my attention one day while I was sitting alone reading the Bible, reflecting on the moral bankruptcy of my life and the ways I had mistreated so many other people, even some who loved me a lot. God spoke to me inaudibly. He said, “Bill, you are my child and I am your Father, you belong to Me, but you are acting like a child of the Devil.”  I wept and began a journey of repentance. God began to disciple me, reminding me how those who really belong to Him act and don’t act, think and don’t think, speak and don’t speak. I eventually accepted His call on my life to serve Him, I went to Seminary and began to serve Him as a pastor.  Sometimes I still need to be reminded how God’s children act. 

Jesus once warned those who were against Him but claimed to belong to God, the Father saying,  “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God… You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires… there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies…Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”(John 8:42, 44, 47 NIV11) If for some reason we don’t hear God speaking to our heart, we may need to examine whether we are really one of His. Sometimes though,  we just behave like we have forgotten that we belong to God and we behave like we did when we belonged to the Devil. Listen for God’s voice to remind you Who you really belong to and how His kids act. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all! 

An Irish Blessing?*

Shamrock photo credit: Wikipedia

 After some difficult meetings in a church where I was a pastor, I sought some wisdom and consolation from a wonderful mentor.  This man had pastored  a large church for many years, planted a church (where my wife had attended 10 years before), and in his retirement he served as an interim pastor at several places.  He also took time in his retirement to encourage several younger pastors. As I complained and wondered out loud how he had managed to love this same congregation for a year when he was their interim.  He remained his wonderful cheery self and simply encouraged me to keep being the shepherd God had called me to be regardless of how the people acted. I told him there were moments when I felt like one of the “sons of thunder” when dealing with some particularly contentious congregants. After the Samaritans did not welcome Jesus, James and John asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?”(Luke 9:54 NIV) Jesus of course rebuked them, took them to another village, and reminded them that they were to save the lost, not annihilate them. I asked him to pray for me as I was about to meet with the chairman of one of the committees. He said he would pray for me. But as he was leaving,  in his fun lighthearted way, recited an old Irish blessing.  He said, "May those that love us love us; And those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts; and if He can't turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles, So we'll know them By their limp."  We both chuckled a little at the pastoral humor, until a little later that day when I got a call from the wife of this contentious committee chairman saying that we needed to cancel our meeting because he was in the hospital. I said, “I am sorry, what happened?” She said, “he fell off a ladder and broke his ankle.” I was in shock, but found out where he was in the hospital and went to pray with him. Even though we were often at odds with each other, I don’t want to see anyone get hurt like that.  Interestingly though, he was much kinder to everyone, including me, after this incident.  BTW: I never shared with this man about the Irish blessing that was spoken right around the time the incident happened. 

Eventually, the apostles James and John got it.  They matured enough in their walk with Jesus to no longer want to destroy those who disagreed with them. They embraced Jesus’ mission to seek and to save the lost. James became one of the first martyrs for the Gospel at the hands of Herod. John went on to write about Jesus and the importance of loving God and others in all five of His books in the Bible: the Gospel of John; 1,2,3 John; and Revelation. Jesus reminded his disciples and all of us. “But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”(Luke 6:27-28NIV) I’m not sure if this includes praying an Irish blessing over them, but it does mean we have to love them all like Jesus does. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all.

I Shoulda' Had A V8, or Maybe Not!*

Oldsmobile Delta 88 

credit: 55lincoln on Youtube 

 One Saturday morning, after we had raked a mountain of leaves out of the driveway, my sister was hanging around hoping to drive my mother’s old car back into its place between the garage doors. My sister was in 7th grade, so my father, who had driven a car or tractor since he was 10 years old, thought since she was interested, that it would be a good time to let her begin to learn how to drive.  She would only be moving the car back and forth in the driveway. What could go wrong? My mother had just gotten a new car, so the older Oldsmobile Delta 88 was to be parked outside. My father wanted my sister to place the car exactly between the two garage doors so that when my parents backed out, they wouldn’t hit it. So, she slowly pulled foreward, then backed up again, pulled up, and backed up again… this was not just perfectionism, she also wanted that little bit of extra time behind the wheel. Until the moment when she thought she had put the car in “R” and in fact it was still in “D.”  When she realized that she was headed toward the fieldstone masonry wall, she panicked. She slammed both of her feet on the gas and the brake simultaneously. She lost control because the brake was no match for the giant 455 V8 Olds engine. Its nickname was the “Rocket.” The unequaled early 70’s muscle car torque careened that vehicle into the house so hard it pushed back the concrete and stone wall a few inches, Dad had to put extra jacks under the house to support the second floor. Interestingly, the Olds didn’t have a lot of damage, my sister however, was shaken up and felt terrible, vowing through tears to “never drive again!” My father felt badly for her too, thinking perhaps he may have jumped the gun on letting her drive that soon. He consoled her saying, “everything’s going to be okay.” In my immature sibling way, I teased her about it, making squealing tire and crash sounds for weeks afterward.  She was resilient and did actually drive again in a couple of years. My father taught her to drive a stick shift, and she has had a pretty good driving record ever since. 

Sometimes feeling shame and sorrow over our out of control actions can produce more maturity in our lives, but only if we humble ourselves under it and let it change us for good.  Healthy shame comes from those who love us like God does and want to see us grow up rather than stay trapped in feelings of humiliation from past mistakes. Unhealthy shame comes from immature people who want to gain an advantage over us because of a mistake we have made. Paul was trying to teach the church at Corinth that shame/sorrow can be a good thing. We have to be careful not to let it lead us to make more mistakes. Paul told them, “I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance {i.e. “turn away” from their mistakes}.” (2 Cor. 7:9a). Then he says, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” (2 Cor. 7:10 NIV) At some point we will all be ashamed of something we have done because we are all “fallen.” We can let God grow us up and redeem us or we can get stuck in regret and more bad behavior. Let’s let the pain of shame always turn us back to Jesus. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

Ministry is Messy Sometimes*

Zebu: Credit JW's Mini Moo's

 

At one church we had a very creative and energetic children’s minister. She had a wonderful ministry with lots of volunteers, kids, and parents.  Vacation Bible School was her specialty. One year the theme was “In The Wild.” Her decorations were exceptional. Every hallway was decorated with a different habitat: Arctic, Antarctic, African jungle, African plains, and Asian animal habitats. She had live animals each night: from sloths, to bunnies, to llamas and alpacas; she also had kangaroos, goats and sheep… and she had a Zebu! A Zebu is a small South Asian cow. They are less than half the size of regular cows and they have a distinctive hump on their back near the shoulders. They look like miniature Brahman cows. On the third night of VBS, the Zebu was featured. This Zebu had large charming cow eyes and a calm disposition in spite of the wild surroundings with loud music, and kids running all around.  The Zebu had just completed its session of parading, and being petted, when, as all animals do… it did another “p” word… it pooped! Fortunately, it was not in front of the children, but it was in one of the hallways where children and their parents would soon be exiting. Several of us quickly got to work doing Zebu dung remediation.  Mind you this is like a cow, they don’t drop biscuits, they leave piles that are the consistency of porridge. At first, I was a little taken aback… as if I expected the poor Zebu to have better manners than to relieve itself in the hall of the church building. But then, I had to laugh. I began to think how many people could say, “yeah, I cleaned up Zebu dung at VBS last night.”  Then I started thinking, “Wow, I’m a part of a church that will go to any length to reach kids with the Gospel, ‘that by ALL means we may save some.(1 Cor. 9:22)’” 

 

I was reminded that ministry is messy (and not just when we have animals at church).  We humans have messy lives and when we love each other well, eventually our messes are revealed.  When we follow Jesus, we become people who love each other in spite of our messes. Peter tells us, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”(1 Peter 4:8 NIV) We could have squeaky clean churches, but they would all be empty. When we do real life ministry, there is always some dung to deal with. Those who love me well have to deal with the still-needing-to-be-redeemed messy stuff in my life.  They help me get cleaned up and I’m grateful. I too have the privilege of helping others clean up. 

 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

(Edit of an earlier post)

Snake Handling Baptists twice*

 Snake handling Baptists. I’m not sure what part of the ministerial job description this was, but a couple of times at the same church I was asked to remove snakes from the church property. The facilities manager, who is even less fond of snakes than I, agreed to be my “wildlife relocation assistant” during our first extraction. I normally would have said, "no" to the request to handle this reptilian varmint, however preschoolers from our Child Development Center were in close proximity to this ovoviviparous slithery creature and no one from the “Aussie Snake Wranglers” happened to be available at that moment. The childcare workers reported that all the kids were looking at a "pretty cable" in the grass next to the playground, THEN IT MOVED! Initially, we couldn't find this "moving cable," but my friend decided to lift a large garbage bin. All I saw was a salamander comfortably snuggled in the mud, BUT THEN that ancient fear of serpents jumped into my throat as I saw the snake near the corner of the bin in the mud. I was trying to stay calm and not arouse fear in the preschoolers while my heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my head. I quickly grabbed the bucket because it was time for a “snake round up.” I laid down the bucket and pushed the snake in the 5 gallon bucket with a broom handle, then covered it with a towel to keep him calm like I had seen the Crocodile Hunter do on TV. My friend and I released this critter into the woods a little ways from the church, but only after we attempted to show him to some petrified secretaries who locked themselves in the office at the first mention of the word "snake" and first glimpse of the bucket that held it.  Oh and did I mention he was just a 10 inch Garter snake? Apparently this was just a practice round though, because not long afterward there was a two and a half foot Copperhead in the bushes of the church courtyard.  This one didn’t go quite as smoothly. My friend had already begun the extraction with a rake when I walked up behind him. He got so scared he flung the venomous creature into the air straight up over our heads. As we know what goes straight up must come straight down, so we screamed like little girls and ran away. We then had to change our strategy, because the snake was angry and much more aggressive. I am glad to say we finally relocated this scaled squatter, but not without a few more church cleansed expletives and screams.

 

In a similar manner, we read that the ancient serpent called the devil was hurled out of heaven straight to the earth and he led the whole world away from God.  Rev. 12:7-9 says,  “And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down — that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” He has wreaked havoc here ever since. But his time on earth is not long,  because Jesus has defeated him by His death on the cross and his work to free us from sin and hell.  Rev. 12:12 says, “He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.” We later read in Rev. 20:10 that “the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” The Good News is that everyone who belongs to Jesus is saved from this same fate and will live in peace with God, but unfortunately those who still belong to the ancient serpent will share his fate of burning torment forever and ever.  So, now would be a good time to insure Who you belong to.  When we belong to Jesus, we act like Him, we tell the truth, we love everyone He loves. But when we belong to the serpent, we act like him, angry, resentful, and deceptive. 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!

What Are You Full Of?*

What are you full of?  My father, as a retired physician, had an old John Deere tractor on his small farm on the French Broad River near Knoxville. He loved that old tractor, but it was frequently in need of repair. The hydraulics leaked and the tires were old, but it seemed to always run. He had to carry a tool box with it, just in case it had a problem. I suppose this was a flashback from his childhood.  His father, who was also a physician, would leave the house and tell my father, about aged 12 at the time, to make sure the field was mowed by the time he returned. My father would go to start the tractor, but it wouldn’t start. Rather than give up and make an excuse, he would start working on the tractor until he got it running. He would then mow the field.  My grandfather passed away unexpectedly a few years later. My father was just a teen.  My father’s repair skills came in handy many times around his family’s house when no one else was there to help. In his seventies, my father bought an old John Deere to help around the 18 acres. He re-lived his early years of tractor repair.  As my father reached his late 70’s the tractor was still having problems, but my father was not as physically able to fix it. So, when I was in town, he asked me to help. However, I was not quite as handy as my father. One particular day, one of the air valves on the rear tractor tire was leaking. These tires have air, water, and antifreeze in them. The water to help give better traction and the antifreeze to keep water from freezing and ruining the tire. Fortunately the valve was in a position where the water and antifreeze was not leaking out. However, when I used the air valve puller to remove the faulty valve, the air pressure from the weight of that tractor sprayed the air and fluid out of that tire right into my face. Temporarily blinded, I struggled to put the new valve into the tire to stop the flow. Once I finally accomplished the task, I was soaked in water and antifreeze. At that moment I remembered that antifreeze was toxic when ingested or absorbed through the skin. I began spitting and spewing all I could get out of my mouth and maybe a bad word or two. I also started taking my soaked clothes off. I found a towel and wiped off all I could. But the tire task was not finished, we still had to refill the tire with air. So half dressed, I grabbed the air compressor hose and filled the tire. I then went to the house, rinsed my mouth out, and took a shower. 

 

When Jesus was a boy, the scriptures say He “…grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.”(Luke 2:40 ESV) Jesus was known by having God’s favor and the wisdom he was filled with. He had so much wisdom at age 12 at the Temple in Jerusalem, the Gospel of Luke says, “all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.” (Luke 2:47 ESV) When we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we undergo pressure, patience and kindness comes out. When things get hectic, peace and joy come out.  When someone is unkind to us, love comes out. However, when we forget Who we are filled with, other toxic things spew from us onto those around us.  What (or Who) are you filled with? 

 

Hang in there people! God is glad to be with us! I’m praying for us all!