What I am the worst at doing. Ok, I don’t like to admit it, but I am probably the worst at doing something Jesus clearly told us to do.  I really don’t do to others (all of the time) the way I would want them to do to me. There, I’ve said it.  However, I don’t feel any less unburdened.  I feel like the alcoholic who confesses the disease, only to realize after 12 Steps, he will always be an alcoholic, even if dry. I would love to know why I am this way.  After all, I am a person of the cloth – ordained. I have taken vows to hold myself accountable for going on to perfection.  I have an accountability person or two in my life who will ask how I have acted in traffic lately and I often have to confess that I denied my call to discipleship.  I must tell you that this has been a pretty good week.  I avoided anger in traffic this week when a lady crossed over two lanes of traffic right in front of me to get to the WalMart entrance.  It didn’t hurt that three staff members were in the car to “ensure” I behaved myself, regardless of how much the act frightened us all.  How do we apply that Gold Standard from God if we first apply the car horn to the situation?  Do we need constant oversight in order to attempt to be who Christ calls us to be? Enough about me – what about you?  What do you do when you notice a car pulled to the side of the road, hood up, in the middle of a driving rain and some poor soul looking to the engine compartment with no clue as to what could be wrong?  Do you stop?  Do you tell yourself, “Well, if it weren’t raining…??  Or, “Well, you know, there are those who pull a ruse like that in order to do harm to another, so we better not stop to help.”  Or, do you call 911 and tell someone with authority and weaponry about the situation? What about those people who always seem to be begging for help at an intersection?  Should we give them cash?  Buy their goods?  Teach them a lesson about the dangers of their actions?  What if they come into the church on Sunday right after worship, knowing you just took an offering, wanting gas money just to get to a grandmother’s funeral in Mexico or Arizona?  Should the church office help drop-in needy and homeless folks until we run out of funds to help anyone?   I can’t tell you how well and quickly all of those people can quote the words of Jesus to you that say “Do unto others…” if you say, “No, I am sorry, I cannot do that.”  How guilty do you want to feel? It can all seem pretty tongue-in-cheek or even academic until you look into the face of someone you just scolded, turned down for help, or when you’ve been there yourself and in need of help.  Is there a way to sort all of that out?  Is there an alternative between the guilty no and ignoring the need, not making eye contact, or the rest of what we do?  I believe there is, and I believe it is informative for us as we go about dealing with the needs that surround us daily, and attempt to understand what Jesus intended for us to know and do.  We will talk about that this week, in the place where He considers us worthy of His love and time.  See you soon. Pastor Mark PS – A great big shout-out thank you to everyone who has responded to the Trustees’ appeal for help in repairing the chiller system and air conditioning.  To date, we have had 35 commitments in cash for a total of $13,774.  Many of our members, I am told, have given far above the amount sought from each of us.  Teresa and I will make our contribution this weekend, and I hope you will join with us.  Together, we can have a new and better system that will carry us through the most difficult of weather days, even hot ones.  Thank you everyone.

“Frugality fatigue?”  Really?!!In a December 2010 Newsweek article the magazine observed that after several months of being frugal, the dam has broken.  Americans are spending again despite the warnings against it.  Following the 2008 economic collapse, Americans began the frugal life most of them had grown up living even without realizing it.  We retired almost $1 trillion in debt from various sources and saved more than we had through the previous decade.  All at once, we were finally concerned enough to change our habits with money, save some, retire debt and reduce our expenditures. Now, the article said, it looks like those days are over.  After “suffering” for months in the doldrums of frugality, frugality fatigue took over and began the shopping spree.  Habits had really not changed, they had just been dormant over those few months.  Now we are spending and going into debt again.  Not at the same pace mind you, but spending nonetheless. Telephone equipment purchases are up 16%, childcare spending is up 12% (perhaps meaning someone has gone back to work) and luxury spending is up 14% according to Newsweek. It seems as though we Americans can only be happy if we don’t have to permanently stop a behavior that may kill us financially. (Gives us a new insight on the federal government this month, huh?) In one story, a young lady reportedly had lost her job, home and income. She had to move back into her parent’s home and begin working a poorer paying job at a less fulfilling career. She had defaulted on bank cards, mortgage, and other debts due to the job loss and was trying to make up the losses and get free of her debt.  After several months of living at her parent’s home, paying off debt and saving for her future, she simply decided she wanted some new clothes and surmised a little “retail therapy” would do her some good.  So, she went shopping because, “she was just tired of telling herself she could not.” That is from where the term “frugality fatigue” apparently comes.  We’ve just gotten tired of telling ourselves “no” and being frugal. In his book The Greatest Generation, Tom Brokaw points to the people sociologists term the “Builder Generation.”  Believing they were ensuring the future of America and its way of life, they scrimped and saved and gave away their resources for the building of America, her industries and economy, as well as the institutions designed to keep that America they dreamed of intact.  And build it they did, content to think about the future rather than their own wants and needs. But along the way to a better life, which they believe would continue to the next generation, we failed to learn that lesson of sacrifice and frugality. Instead we became spoiled and incapable of learning the values and lessons of that generation.  I would imagine my grandfather would revile us and perhaps attempt to “slap us into next week.” At the very least, I cannot imagine not getting sick at his stomach over “frugality fatigue” and having an intense desire to know, “What on God’s green earth is wrong with you all?!” If we cannot learn to be frugal, it seems it shall be imposed upon us. All over we hear the sounds of discontent. We are discontent with so many things it can almost seem as though there is nothing good going on at all.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Our discontent, at least as I view it, has less to do with the externals and a lot to do with the internals of life – it is an issue of soul, not “the economy, stupid.” Where and how do we find that elusive reality called contentment?  Could the answer be a who? Stay tuned and we will think about that together this weekend.  And now, a word from our sponsor: “…be content with whatever you have, because God has said, ‘I will never leave you; I will never forsake you.  So, we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.  What can anyone do to me?’” Pastor Mark

What is Life all about?

Four psychologists did a study of notable quotations from famous people around the world about the meaning of life. The study analyzed the quotes of 195 men and women who lived within the past few hundred years. Here’s a summary of the major themes and some of the people representing each theme.  What is really interesting is a comparison of the way they lived and died with their sense about life.

1. Life is primarily to be enjoyed and experienced. Enjoy the moment and the journey. 17 percent of the famous people in the study endorsed this theme (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Cary Grant, Janis Joplin, and Sinclair Lewis). Janis Joplin is best known for her lyric: “You got to get it while you can.” And, “You know you’ve got it if it makes you feel good.”

2. We live to express compassion to others, to love, to serve. 13 percent endorsed this theme (Albert Einstein, Mohandas Gandhi, and the Dalai Lama). Albert Einstein stated: “Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.”

3. Life is unknowable, a mystery. 13 percent endorsed this theme (Albert Camus, Bob Dylan, and Stephen Hawking). Hawking wrote, “If we find an answer to that (why we and the universe exist), it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason-for then we would know the mind of God.”

4. Life has no meaning. 11 percent endorsed this theme (novelist Joseph Conrad, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka, Bertrand Russell, Jean Paul Sartre, and Clarence Darrow). Darrow compared life to a ship that is “tossed by every wave and by every wind; a ship headed to no port and no harbor, with no rudder, no compass, no pilot,simply floating for a time, then lost in the waves.”

5. We are to worship God and prepare for the afterlife. 11 percent endorsed this theme (Desmond Tutu, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King Jr., and Mother Teresa). Desmond Tutu said, “[We should] give God glory by reflecting his beauty and his love. That is why we are here, and that is the purpose of our lives.”

6. Life is a struggle. 8 percent endorsed this theme (Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, and Jonathan Swift). Swift wrote that life is a “tragedy wherein we sit as spectators for awhile and then act our part in it.”

7. We are to create our own meaning of life. 5 percent endorsed this theme (Carl Sagan, Simone DeBeauvoir, and Carl Jung). Carl Sagan wrote: “We live in a vast and awesome universe in which, daily, suns are made and worlds destroyed, where humanity clings to an obscure clod of rock. The significance of our lives and our fragile realm derives from our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning.”

8. Life is a joke. 4 percent endorsed this theme (Albert Camus, Charlie Chaplin, Lou Reed, and Oscar Wilde). Charlie Chaplin described life as “a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in the long shot.” The rock star Lou Reed said “Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.”

How would you answer the question?  What does give meaning to life and what makes it important to you?  I can imagine that on any given day, with any given set of circumstances, we might echo any and all of the above comments.  From cynicism to confusion to worship, we can all echo each at some point.

This weekend, we will be thinking about a moment in Jesus’ life when he wanted some disciples to know what he considered important.  You will hear me say again Sunday that we cannot serve others until and unless Christ serves us.  It is what washing Peter’s feet was all about, and it is what his conversation with Martha was all about.  Our response to his ministry to us is that we minister with and to others.

See you Sunday, in the place where we all find truer meaning for ourselves, from God himself.

Blessings,
Pastor Mark

An Anxious Freedom
Thanks to a number of you who apparently took note of a few things I said in the pastoral prayer on Sunday.  Several of you have asked if I could send a copy of the prayer, and I have had to confess that I wrote nothing down.  All we can offer is a CD which contains the service along with the prayer.  A couple of you noted the theme of freedom in the prayer which I said was the result of our freedom in Christ.  Freedom from the penalty and power of sin led those first Americans to seek a land in which religious freedom would mirror their freedom in Christ.  Churchill once quipped that in every one of our decisions and dreams to move forward in life are also the seeds of our own demise.

The national holiday that is upon us has caused me to reflect a bit on things that I continue to observe about our expression of freedom in this era.  Perhaps it is due to my age, but I believe Churchill’s words are prophetic, particularly as it regards the nation.  As I view items in the news and experience life outside El Paso, I realize we are anxious as a nation in spite of our desire to celebrate freedom.  I don’t sense that we are anxious about terrorism as much as we could be.  I don’t sense that we are anxious about being at war in two Muslim countries.  We are anxious about our futures.

We are anxious about our financial future more than anything, for we know it is not love that makes the world go ’round, it is money.  We are anxious about becoming more and more of a debtor nation, regardless of the credit rating we’ve always enjoyed.  We are anxious about low interest rates created by the printing of bills without the economics to back them.  We are anxious as we continue approaching retirement years and realize that companies, municipalities and Social Security retirement funds will remain under-funded. Ours will not be the same as we once anticipated and that our parents have enjoyed.  We know that the words of the Proverbs are correct – “the borrower is slave to the lender.”

The question for me seems to be, “How did we get here?”  We mostly know that we ourselves are the culprits – we are complicit in what the government does when we don’t resist our own compulsion to self-interest.  We are complicit when we don’t work for and insist on change in the course of the culture so that our self-interests are not impacted. We are anxious because we know the sacrifice required to get back to reasonable realities will impact that self-interest and rather than enjoying the sacrifices of the “greatest generation” we will be those who finally understand that sacrifice is needed in every generation.

That makes the question a spiritual one, one that needs at its core, a spiritual answer.  That answer of course, is repentance.  Repentance is that practice of noting that we have gone the wrong direction and rather than allowing self-interest to over-ride good sense, we turn around.  We do an about face, we go the other way.  And the repentance is about deeper issues than just borrowing into bankruptcy, it is about an idolatry – we’ve made ourselves and our self-interests as well as our government an idol.  When we do, God seems to be content to allow us to “come to ourselves” and return to our father, with the full consequences of the hang-over of our sin to convince us of our errors.  Our freedom for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness has left us free to ruin ourselves.  And, we have come to the place where we know we can no longer save ourselves.

Little wonder we are anxious.  We know deep down that we have placed our faith in the wrong things and the wrong people.  We know deep down that disappointment is sure to come when we do.  We’ve lost the assurances that once came from the throne of an unshakable God.  Little wonder we are shaken. Little wonder we already anticipate the hangover.

See you soon, in the place where He seeks to have first place and whose Kingdom represents an unshakable resistance to our anxiety.
Pastor Mark