On Record from Bristow

We are now in our house in Bristow, being hosted by Sarah and Bill. Jim drove us from Omaha yesterday, about half of it in a freezing rain. We hope to install vertical blinds in the front room, though it is more likely to be "they"--Sarah, Bill, and Jim--than we. I will probably serve in an advisory capacity, an advantage of age and incompetence.

On Record from Bristow

We are now in our house in Bristow, being hosted by Sarah and Bill. Jim drove us from Omaha yesterday, about half of it in a freezing rain. We hope to install vertical blinds in the front room, though it is more likely to be "they"--Sarah, Bill, and Jim--than we. I will probably serve in an advisory capacity, an advantage of age and incompetence.

On Record from Nebraska

We're in Omaha for the Thanksgiving celebration of the immediate Wilson family, over forty of us connected to my brothers and me as spouses, children, and grandchildren. The Omaha contingent have spacious homes and a gift for hospital. A special occasion connected is the 80th birthday celebration of our sister-in-law, the widow of the oldest brother and a big sister to the rest of us, who had no sisters before she joined the family. We also saw Nebraska win the Big 12 north championship over Colorado (on home theatre television, no less). Now there is just the small detail of beating either Texas or Oklahoma on the way to the Fiesta Bowl. One day at a time!

On Record

Habeas Corpus

I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free,

And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me,

And I gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today,

Cause there ain't no doubt I love this land God Bless the U.S.A. –Lee Greenwood

In the Bible, the Apostle Paul is arrested by the Romans. Then he intimidates his captors with the simple statement that he is a Roman citizen—not only a citizen, but a born citizen. That carried a lot of clout. His citizenship meant protection from mistreatment by his own government. Until this week I felt that protection myself.

"Habeas Corpus" is a subject American citizens don't normally have to think about any more than we have to think about breathing. We have always been protected by its safeguards.

Today, I can only hope I'm free; I am no longer as sure as I was.

The British have a right to explain Habeas Corpus, because its modern history dates from the Magna Carta, accepted by King John of England nearly eight hundred years ago. Here is how the BBC website defines it. "It is a writ which requires a person detained by the authorities be brought before a court of law so that the legality of the detention may be examined. . . It does not determine guilt or innocence, merely whether the person is legally imprisoned."

Habeas Corpus is a guarantee against secret arrest and imprisonment—government kidnapping, as it were. The government may legally arrest you, "have the body," if it suspects you of heinous crime—but it has to be able to explain why, and to do it if called upon.

It is a principal reason we feel safe from the government in the United States. Secret proceedings conducted by people who have their hands on you are the greatest sin against freedom. That is ultimate power. Such a government is able to "disappear" you for any reason it thinks good enough.

We have a Secret Service in the United States. We don't have a Secret Police. Do we?

I happen to love Lee Greenwood's song. I can't help it. It expresses how I felt, and how I want to feel still. But Congress last week took that from me when they took Habeas Corpus from some of our captives. Their action, and the less than thunderous protest of American citizens this week, remind me of the famous words of Martin Niemoller, reflecting on his experience as a German in World War II:

In Germany they first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

It seems to me that we either like Greenwood's song or we like the Military Commissions Act. I don't see how we can like both at once. I, for one, no longer know I'm free—and I can't until this dreadful law is repealed.

Two Sermons

Do Not Dare Not to Dare

Hebrews 10:11-25

By Everett Wilson

Sometimes it’s scary to dare to do what you are called to do, but it’s even scarier not to dare what you are called to do. That’s what Aslan the lion says to Bree the horse in The Horse and his Boy. Bree is frightened, but Aslan says to him, “Draw near. Nearer still. Do not dare not to dare. Touch me. Smell me. Here are my paws, here is my tail, these are my whiskers. I am a true Beast.”

Aslan and Bree are in a fairy tale, where anything can happen. But in real life, how can anyone dare to draw near to God? The answer in real life is the same as in the fairy tale, Do not dare not to dare. Daring to come may be scary, but daring not to come is scarier still.

After all is said and done, just where can any of us go but to the Lord? We will either go as our own choice, or at death we will go at his bidding. And we do not get to choose which God to come to, because there is only One! Just as Aslan was true beast even though Bree did not believe in him, so the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit of the Bible is the true God we meet now or later.

It is not nearly as scary to go in response to an invitation as it is in response to an order. We are all invited to come; if we do not answer the invitation, we will have to answer the summons. We can say no to the invitation; we cannot say no to the summons.

I suspect that most who say “No” to the invitation, or disregard it, haven’t actually listened to it. It’s stated many different ways throughout scripture. Here are a few of them.

· O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.

· Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

· Come to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!

· Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Hebrews 10 answers the questions of why and how we say Yes to the invitation.

God Has Made it Possible

The answer to the why question is simply that God has made it possible for us to come to Him.

First, He Has Opened the Way. We have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh). In the Old Testament Temple, the Holiest Place was separated from the rest of the sanctuary by a curtain, sometimes called “the vail of the Temple.” The gospel tells us that when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain was torn in two, signaling the opening of the way to God. At the cost of his own life, “the blood of Jesus,” Jesus did what was necessary to open the way. Through Jesus and because of him we may come. Everything has been arranged. We have been invited! All expenses are paid! The work has been done!

Second, God has Provided a Host. In Jesus we have a great priest over the house of God. He is our priest. He represents us in the presence of God. We are his guests! We qualify! We are at home in his house.

What does it mean to be at home? The first answer that comes to mind is comfort. But what’s that?

In Bernard Shaw’s play, Heartbreak House, a houseguest named Dunn goes to bed before the rest of the household. He is not as sleepy as he had thought he was, so he comes downstairs in his pajamas to look for a book. Others are still up, and fully dressed. He offers a mild apology for appearing in his pajamas, saying that he felt so much at home that he hadn’t thought about being in his pajamas! The other guests are pleasant about it, but one, Lady Utterword, wants to set something straight. She says pleasantly, “You would not appear in your pajamas in my house, Mr. Dunn.”

He answers, just as pleasantly, “Then I shall be careful to stay away from your house, Lady Utterword.”

Then she makes a point worth remembering. “On the contrary. You would be perfectly comfortable in my house, because you would always know what to do, and what was expected to you.”

Where are you most comfortable? A place where anything goes, or a place where you would always know what to do, and what was expected of you? In your school days, were you happiest when a good teacher controlled the class, or when the teacher was absent and the class was out of control? When were you more unsure of yourself, when you were with someone you loved and trusted, or when you didn’t know what was going to happen next?

As the great priest, Jesus is the host of heaven. We believe him when he says that whoever wants may come to him, without fear of being cast out. His heaven is more like Lady Utterword’s house, where you know what to do and what is expected of you, than it is like Heartbreak House, where nobody knows what to do next, and nobody cares.

Jesus our great priest is the host of heaven. In his presence we always know what is expected of us! We may not do it, and we may try to forget it, but we know what it is!

Faith, Hope, and Love

So how do we come? With faith, hope, and love. Those are words from Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, but they are here too.

We come with the full assurance of faith. Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Faith doesn’t stand alone. It comes from a true heart and a clear conscience. Dishonest and unrepentant sinners are not people of faith no matter how much they think they believe; if they don’t believe it enough to seek to live by it, they are not believers. One Bible teacher named J. Beard put it this way:

. . those who don't obey the Lord, don't even desire to obey the Lord, don't want to serve the Lord, don't want to please the Lord, why would anyone think that person is a Christian?

So we come with faith. We also come holding fast to our hope. Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering. Hope is not the certainty that comes from physical evidence. Sometimes hope runs contrary to the evidence. Our hope is in God. The power of hope is not in hoping, but in God. When we hope, we act on the expectation that God’s will shall be done. J.R.R. Tolkien put it this way: that what should be shall be. Faith is much more than hope, but hope is a faith specifically in the future.

Finally, we come together, with love for one another.

Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

The shorter the future, the less hope we need; but we need, and the world needs, more love than ever! Amen.

Ready for Whatever

I Kings 17:1-16

By Everett Wilson, Pastor

If we know any Old Testament stories at all. we are likely to know this one about the jug and the jar that never went empty. Invisibly and silently, known only to Elijah, a widow, and her little boy, God provided food for them, day in and day out, for nearly three years.

There is no news for Christians in this miracle. If believing in God means anything, it means that God can do what he wants, including miracles.

What might be news to you is that miracles require preparation. God himself prepares and he tells us how to prepare. From the first word of the story God was preparing miracles for Elijah and Elijah was preparing miracles for himself—whether he knew it or not. Preparing for miracles doesn’t mean that miracles have been promised or that they are going to take place; rather, it makes us readier for them if they happen.

This story is useful for us because Elijah models shows us how to prepare for miracles—which is the same as preparing for whatever God has for us!

1. Elijah prepared for the miracle when he said what God wanted him to say.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.’

This was not easy to say, because Ahab was one of the worst kings in the Old Testament. In the preceding chapter, we are told Ahab did more to provoke the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than had all the kings of Israel who were before him. Some of those kings were awful, but Ahab was worse! He married Jezebel, the notorious daughter of a pagan king, instituted in Israel the obscene worship of her idols, and persecuted the prophets of the Lord. The court of Ahab and Jezebel was not a safe place for a prophet of the God of Israel to visit. By going at the command of God, and saying what God wanted him to say, he was not only preparing for a miracle; he was almost begging for one.

If the story were about me rather than about Elijah, I can imagine how I, a

comfortable, middle-class protestant, would have responded to this order from God. “You want me to tell the king what?” Then I might come up with several reasons not to say what God wanted me to say.

· You know that it won’t do any good to talk to him.

· He’s not interested in what I have to say.

· I am not your only servant. You can choose somebody who lives a lot closer to Samaria than I do.

· This is a no-win deal, Lord. If it rains anyway I will look like a fool, and if it doesn’t rain I’ll die of thirst like everybody else.

Elijah may have thought some of those things too. We don’t know. What we do know is that he didn’t say them. He said what God wanted him to say—whether he agreed or not, whether he was afraid or not.

Not saying what God wants you to say expresses unbelief. “God doesn’t know what he is doing, or he is not going to follow through.” You are more afraid of what might happen if you speak, than of what God will think if you don’t!

Elijah didn’t lack faith, so he said what God wanted him to say. Because he believed God, he had no choice. He could not control the outcome, but he could say what God commanded him to say.

2. Second, Elijah prepared for the miracle by doing what God wanted him to do, which was to hide himself on the east side of the Jordan River and be fed by ravens. God had said to him, I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.’

Ravens were unclean birds, that ate, according to Wikipedia, a wide range of items including carrion, snakes, locusts and other grasshoppers, stranded fish (in coastal areas), grain stolen from bags, dates and other fruits. “Carrion” is the word for the meat of a creature that dies without being slaughtered for food. But even if the ravens brought Elijah only food that was fit for humans to eat, the only way they could bring it was in their beaks. We don’t want to spend too much time on this subject, except to ask “You want me to eat what?”

3. Third, Elijah prepared for the miracle by going where God wanted him to go. When the water supply dried up, Elijah went where he was told. ‘Go now to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and live there; for I have commanded a widow there to feed you.’ So he set out and went to Zarephath. Easy to say, but it meant a walk of fifty or sixty miles and he would be in a foreign country when he reached his destination.

When Elijah went to Ahab, as dangerous as it was, he went as the prophet of the Lord. When Elijah was fed by the ravens, there was an element of miracle about it. But now he seems no more than a beggar, on his way to depend on a foreign woman in the midst of a famine. But he went, and in that unlikely place, he found a jug and a jar that were never empty.

We can look at it from the woman’s point of view also. God had commanded her to feed Elijah, but when he arrived God had as yet not given her anything to feed him with.

As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die.’

Then Elijah told her to use the meal to feed him, and God would take care of them. So she did. What difference would it make? They were going to die anyway.

It’s a lot harder to live through a miracle than it is to hear about it, especially since I gave you easy version. Christians quite often say what God wants them to, do what he wants them to, and go where he wants them to.

It is the easy version because there are all kinds of good things to say and do, and many useful places to go. So we have to upgrade to make it more like Elijah’s life in the extreme circumstances where he served God. The upgrade is just two words: whatever for what, and wherever for where.

· Not what, but whatever God wants you to say.

· Not what, but whatever God wants you to do.

· Not where, but wherever God wants you to go.

Preparing for miracles does not mean living a good life generally; it means specific obedience to specific directions, whatever they are and wherever they take us. There may be a series of miracles, as there was with Elijah, there may be none, there may be just one; in any case, we can’t skip the whatevers and wherevers along the way.

For most of three years Elijah stayed with the widow, waiting for the word of God to come—and when it came, God sent him straight back to Ahab! After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.”

So the end of this story begins the story of the greatest miracle in the life of Elijah. He was prepared for it. He had prepared and he had been prepared. He had said whatever God wanted him to say, done whatever God wanted him to do, and gone wherever God told him to go. He was ready for a miracle, because he was ready for God and ready for life. He was ready for whatever! Amen.

On Record

As Barnabas, I used to write about absurdities; now idiocies come to mind. The word is flowing that the Republicans lost the Senate because Senator Allan said something stupid. If the Democrats lost, the word would go around that the loss was John Kerry's fault.
Either way, it is the fault of the electorate for taking seriously such shallow analysis.
We can blame Allan and Kerry for what they said, not for the perceived consequences. Everybody is at fault here, not least the gullible public. Blaming Allan is like blaming a loss on a missed field goal in the last seconds, when it might well have been a missed tackle in the first quarter.
We savage politicians for missspeak more than we do for billions of dollars of waste.

Eternal Redemption

Eternal Redemption

Hebrews 9:1-14

By Everett Wilson, Pastor

To be precise, this message should have the title “Earthly Religion and Eternal Redemption,” but it’s okay that the title in the bulletin is “eternal redemption,” because that is the message. Earthly religion is never the message; only eternal redemption. We have to talk about religion sometimes, because, though it contains the promise of eternal redemption, the Old Testament is mainly about earthly religion. The New Testament is mainly about eternal redemption, though it also teaches us something about earthly religion.

Earthly Religion

In Hebrews 9 we are given a brief look at the religion of the Old Testament as it was connected to the Tabernacle, and then later to the Temple. Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary. The regulations taught what had to be done, how to do it, who was to do it, and where it was to be done. The regulations described the religious practices by which God was to be honored and worshiped.

The place was an earthly sanctuary, a huge portable tent that was actually a tent within a tent. It was magnificently furnished and decorated. The outer tent was where most of the work of religion took place. For a tent was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence; this is called the Holy Place. Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent to carry out their ritual duties.

Once a year, the religion was much more than routine. On the Day of Atonement the high priest alone went into the second, inner tent, taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people.

This sounds quite a bit like church! We also have our ways of doing things, some of them actually commanded of us, like the Lord’s Supper. We do them on schedule in a dependable way. Then during Holy Week and Christmas we make a bigger deal of it, because these days represent Big Things to our faith—the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the coming of God himself into the world in the person of Jesus. As the people of the Old Testament responded with remembrances of Passover and the Day of Atonement, so we respond with remembrances of Christmas and Easter. We dress up the church more than ever and have special services. If we are serious and faithful to the story we have been given, we are taught and inspired by what we are doing.

All of that is religion. It is good, it is helpful. But like the visit of the high priest once a year in the holy of holies, it is still earthly religion. It is a high and true religion, but if earthly religion is the best we have, it is still earthly; and it is still just religion. We need to move beyond earthly religion to eternal redemption, just as the Bible moved from the Old Covenant to the New, from the Old Testament to the New Testament. The New Testament does not replace the Old Testament. Rather, what the Old Testament symbolized the New Testament fulfilled. That fulfillment is not earthly religion but eternal redemption.

Few people use the words “eternal” or “redemption” in everyday speech. They are not very common words even in church, where they mean a great deal. So here are quick definitions.

“Eternal” means “without either beginning or end.” It does not mean “unending time” because then it would still have a beginning. We are stuck with the question that comes up in every confirmation class. Where does God come from? In the beginning he created heaven and earth; to do that he had to be there before the beginning. God was around before time began—therefore, he is eternal—without beginning or end. .

“Redemption” is a picture word for the cost of our salvation.

O Listen to the wondrous story, counted once among the lost,

How Christ came down from heaven’s glory,

Saving us at awful cost.

What did he do? He died for you.

Where is he now? In heaven, interceding.

Eternal Redemption

Eternal redemption means that the cost of our salvation has been paid once for all, not just for all time but for all eternity. That is the message this morning. Most of you have heard it before. Maybe some of you have a hard time believing it, and think you would rather have earthly religion than eternal redemption:

I goes to church and I gives my money and I does the best I can;

And then somebody comes up and says, you must be born again!

If all that happens is what you do, even if it is very good stuff, you are caught in a perpetual repetition. Like the high priest, you have to keep coming back. Again. And again. The high priest’s offering of blood had to be made again and again, until the end of time.

If that is the best that can be done, “gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper,” there is no eternal redemption. There is only earthly religion.

We praise God that earthly religion may be the best that we can do, but it isn’t the best that God can do. The time comes to set things right.

But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.

The writer of Hebrews offers the gospel of salvation by reflecting on the Old Testament religion. What the high priest could only symbolize, Jesus accomplished. The true offering, the true sacrifice that paid the cost of our rescue, the true redemption, was the offering of Christ himself on the cross. We know where and how that happened, on a little hill outside Jerusalem around A.D. 30. Then Hebrews tells us that the death on that hill was the entrance of Jesus into the holy places, where he offered his own life to God for our sake.

Once for all. You are not saved on a pay-as-you-go basis, hoping that this week you can scrape up enough good behavior to pay your dues. You are not saved on the installment plan, 60 payments plus money down and the car is yours. We are not saved on the same terms on which we enter a good retirement home because we can afford it. We are saved because Jesus died for us once for all, and secured an eternal redemption. Don’t even think of paying for it yourself, because the whole world together cannot meet the price of redemption.

It wouldn’t be enough, no, it wouldn’t be enough

To buy one splinter of the cross that Jesus died on.

And I couldn’t pay the price of a single drop of blood

That was shed for my salvation.

Salvation is free to us, but it was not free to the one who paid for it. Grace means that we receive without paying for it ourselves. It doesn’t mean that nobody paid. Jesus paid.

When Jesus broke the bread and shared the cup with his disciples on the last night of his life, he commanded, “Do this in remembrance of me” and Paul picked up on that. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” In Holy Communion we remember and proclaim that Christ entered once for all into the holy places, and “by means of his blood he secured an eternal redemption.”

An eternal redemption cannot be undone; it is permanent in its consequences. It is not just a nice try. Every one who wants to be saved can be, if they accept the gift. The price has been paid, the victory has been won, the sacrifice has been made. To overlook this, or dismiss it, is to miss eternal life. Don’t do that! Amen.

Solo Pastor

I think "pastor" is a better noun than verb. I was out of seminary
before I heard it used as a verb, and it struck me as odd. I am a
pastor, which is a role, not a function. I perform many functions in
my role, some better than others, but the role requires me to do
whatever needs to be done at the moment in the name of Christ, if
there is no one else available who can do it more effectively.

The only way this is different from the responsibility of every
Christian is that the pastor has been granted this special role; by
call, by training, and by the affirmation of the people, the pastor is
the default leader.

What is default leadership? I'm reminded of an episode of "Benson"
where the governor and his staff are marooned in a ski lodge, with one
of them (of course!) about to give birth. The governor immediately
speaks calming words and moves to the woman to assist her. Benson
murmurs to him, "You don't know much about this, governor." "You're
right," the governor answers. "But I think I know more about it than
anyone else here."

To shift the analogy: The ministry is more like a baseball team.
Though everyone on the team has a position to play, the game requires
all to do the same things well: throw, catch, and hit.
Indifference to what you are not good at ultimately means that you
aren't much good.

The solo pastorate is still the definitive job in the church. If you
are a solo pastor just marking time until you can be a lead pastor, or
can get a staff position where you do only what you are good
at--well, I will quote the Methodist author of "How to Be Successful
in the Non-Electric Church" back in the seventies: "You had just as
well turn in your credit cards, because you will never be effective."

Saturday Prayer

Dear Lord, Sunday's coming and I am not ready. I am never completely ready, but now the feeling of unreadiness comes more often. So help me, Lord, that I will have my part in what you are doing. In the name of Jesus, Amen.