Pastor Hurst

Don't Tell Them That You Go To Church Here

Years ago a close friend of mine led a group in the summer representing the Bible School from which we had graduated. Back in town after a trip, he and his wife were catching up on business. Paralleled parked in front of the post office, he, when he got in the full size van to leave, he couldn't see the small car parked behind him. As he backed up to exit the parking place, the bumper crashed into the car. Putting the van in park he got to check on the vehicle he had hit. A woman was getting out of the damaged car. It was evident that she was some what upset, but when he tried to assure her that her vehicle would be taken care of by saying, "Ma'am, I'm really sorry about hitting your car. Don't worry I'm from the Bible School (He named it)." and the name of the Bible School came out of his mouth the women went ballistic. It took some calming of the lady and conversing with her, but my friend finally discovered why she had become so immediately angry. Just a week before another former student had also ran into her vehicle. He had reassured her that he was from the school, and not to worry, the school would take care of her vehicle. Although he had been a student, he was not a representative of the school although he gave her a business card indicating he was. His deception had left a terrible perception of the Bible School in the lady's mind. Each member of our church represents our church. People who do not attend, judge the church by the life of the member they know, work with, are acquinted with. What they see in and think of one from the church is what think of the church. It goes a bit further than that: What they think of a member is what they think of the Church is what they think of God. If you run into someone's car and don't take care of the damage, please don't tell them you go to church here. I may run into them next week.

FORGET CHURCH?

However many faults we know it has, the haranguing against our country, the good, ole U.S.A., will get an immediate protective response from most of us. With all its hang-ups, blights, and problems, we know that we are blessed to live in this country. We feel strongly about it. We realize America isn't perfect. Yet, we know we have been recipients of a great privilege to be one of its citizens. Our country does not need apologized for; it needs applauded. Never in the history of the world has any nation been responsible for the freedom of so many, given so much to the unfortunate and victims of catastrophes, made so many advancements from which all of humanity have profited. It's a little early for Fourth of July accolades. But, this article isn't really about the U.S.A. It's about the Church. Never has the Church received such ridicule, scorn, disdain, and criticism. Some of it is deserved in matters where the Church has not behaved as the Church. What is disturbing is that much of it comes from those who were once a part of the Church. Critics are turning many against the Church. As I type this, next to me is a newsmagazine. On the front cover is a full page of a man of modern clothing wearing a crown of thorns. The label is "Forget the Church, Follow Jesus." Books and articles have been written and speeches given to propagate this contemporary ideology. It arises from "Christians." However, a closer look only reveals it is the hijacking of a pop trend of our pluralistic society. The pluralistic theme is "Spirituality without Religion." That's all the rave now. Pollsters are touting that people are becoming less religious but more spiritual. People are admitting to spiritual hunger but want to pick and choose eclectically whatever they feel will meet that spiritual hunger. Their conglomerated "god" is one unrecognizable to any but themselves. In fact, they may not even label it "god." It may just be the practice of meditation. We know that man's real spiritual hunger can only be satisfied by the God who created that hunger for Himself. "Forget the Church, Follow Jesus," is just a churchy expression of "Spirituality without Religion." Probably underlying both is a desire for spirituality without accountability. Sadly, both expressions represent ideology that is turning Church youth against Church. The truth of the matter is, it is seriously questionable whether any can truly follow Jesus without Church. Come tonight to hear more on that. Truth is, I don't like hearing criticism against the Church that has done so much for so many including me. I don't want to forget it.

FRIED PIES BEFORE CHURCH?

Reading through the proverbs again, I am once more impressed how poignant a proverb can be. Portions of Proverbs 30:8-9 proclaim: "give me neither poverty nor riches;...Lest I be full and deny thee." The wiseman observed that those who prosper most often veer from serving and respecting God and even, the word would apply, turn against Him. I am aware that the proverb is speaking primarily of material prosperity. However, it is true with anything one indulges himself. If one is full of something other than God, he has no room for, interest in, desire for God. People receive little of God at church, not because there is so little available, but because so many are so full of other things there is no room left for Him. Even if there were room, the person sees no need for God. While in elementary school, I would walk home from school and go immediately to my grandparents house. Their house was through our backyard on the parallel street. Each day my grandparents would have something for me to go to the corner store to get for them. I realize now they were often just creating a need to give me the opportunity to go. See, if I went to get them something at the store, I got to get me something for going for them. I would get a soda pop and candy bar or ice cream bar or cracker jacks or fruit-filled fried pie. Yum. A school boy is ravenous after getting home. I would make the purchases and then eat my pie and drink my coke as I watched a little black and white TV that hung over the ice cream freezer. It made for an anticipated daily event. There was one problem. My dad got home from work not long after I got home from school. Having had an early breakfast and lunch, he was ready to eat when he got home. Thus, we had supper around 4:30 when he arrived. After my visit to the corner store, my appetite had been temporary curbed. It seems like every time I had overindulged on fried pies, we would have mash potatoes for supper. They seemed the hardest to get down when one was already full. In fact, they seemed to grow as you wollered them in your mouth. Every time my mother nailed me, "You've been eating right before supper when you went to the store for Grandpa and Grandma, haven't you?" "How did you know, I inquired with the mash potatoes I had inserted in my mouth ten minutes ago escaping from its corners. Being full, I had no appetite for supper however wonderful it might have been. When folks have no appetite for God at church, it makes one wondered how many fried pies he's eaten-how much of the junk food of world he has been indulging in that he has no appetite for God.

AN EMPTY, PLASTIC EASTER EGG

I tell it from memory, and, thus, I may not always get it exactly as it was told to happen. I share it often at Easter. Each time I am moved. It took what others would call a mentally handicapped preteen boy to really capture what Easter is all about. Let me just go ahead and tell it as I remember: The Preteen Sunday School class teacher had thought of a great activity that would be an object lesson to go with her Easter teaching. Taking her students outside, to each she gave one of those colored, plastic Easter eggs that come apart in the middle. She instruct the children to scour the church grounds for anything that would remind them of Jesus' Resurrection and to put it in their egg. Later they would return to class to see what each had discovered. Back in class, the teacher had each come to the front of the room and open his/her egg and reveal its contents. Sue opened hers. There was a flower bud. Flowers come with the Spring and so does Easter. Bill had green grass in his egg. The grass had been dead and gray, but it had come back alive in the Spring, just like Jesus had. One after the other came. The contents and explanations were all about the same as Sue and Bill's. Then Philip's turn came. He stood in front of the class and opened his egg. Nothing. There was nothing in it. The students began to chuckle and chide. "Oh, Philip, you always get stuff wrong." Some were more cruel: "Philip, you can't ever do anything right." The teacher shushed her students and gave Philip a chance to explain. "Philip, why is your egg empty. Could you not find anything? That's ok if you couldn't." "No!" Philip spoke with a quiver close to a cry in his voice. "My egg is empty because Jesus' tomb was empty." The class became quiet. Then, someone began to clap. They all clap. Philip had captured the meaning of Easter. Sadly, just weeks later, Philip died. At his funeral at the end when viewers pass by, in line were Philip's Sunday School fellow students. Each held a brightly colored, plastic Easter egg. As each passed Philip's casket, he would place his empty egg with Philip in the casket. One day Philip's casket will be as empty as the egg, as Jesus' tomb.

WHAT ABOUT THE TREES?

When I read the Palm Sunday Story of Jesus' Triumphant Entry, I wonder if any one thinks of the trees. The environmentalists of today would not have been happy. The trees along the path down the Mount of Olives had their limbs exploited by the people looking for something to lay in the path of the donkey of the King or to wave in the air in celebration of Him. Could it be that the trees gave their limbs and fronds as an offering to that King? Could it be that God grew those trees along that path for that very purpose? Jewish worshippers recognized that worship of God was all about giving something. Every time they went to the Temple, they went with a sacrifice or offering. Even the word "offering" connotes giving something. The advent of Jesus' Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem was accented with the spontaneous rejoicing and worship of His attending followers. That worship involved giving: The villager gave up the use of his donkey that Christ might ride it. The donkey gave his back. The disciples gave of their coats to make a saddle for the Lord. The people gave of their garments: They laid them in the path of the donkey as a customary sign of obeisance and worship of a King. The crowd also gave of their time and energy. To accompany Christ to Jerusalem demanded that the people leave their trades, their work, their leisure, and make the steep climb up the east side of the Mt. Olivet. Then there was the one sacrifice that we often forget, the trees gave their limbs and branches. The people cut fronds from the neighboring trees. The trees gave this part of themselves that the Messiah might be worshipped and heralded with Hosannas. All that the people gave that day in worship could not begin to compare to what Jesus was about to give for them. He was headed to Jerusalem, to Calvary, to give His life a sacrifice for our sins. Even there it was a tree that gave its timber to be used as the instrument of Jesus' death and to be soaked by His blood in His sacrifice of Himself for our sins. Whatever we give in worship is a small token response to what Jesus has given us. What will you give in worship this Palm Sunday? Remember on that first Palm Sunday, even the trees gave of their fronds. What they gave, they could never get back. It was a sacrifice indeed. Can we not learn from the trees' example?

A Lilac Lined Lane

This past Friday evening I was driving along a clear, rushing river in a narrow valley between sharply rising Appalachian foothills. Even though it had just stopped raining and dark clouds were still lowering, I was struck with the Spring beauty all around me. As the bright evening sun suddenly broke through the clouds, I was struck particularly with the beauty of the lilacs that bordered the road for miles. The sunlight made their pinkish-purple blooms literally glow as they were accented by the white-flowered trees just above and around them. It was as if my mind took a snapshot. My mind photo froze the sight in my memory-a country highway and a parallel sparkling stream, stretching to a vanishing point on the distant horizon, both lined on the two sides by the lilacs. It will be a sight branded on my mind for my lifetime. But, that sight reminded me of heaven. And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Rev 22:1-2). Though there is some debate of the proximity of the tree(s) of life, the river, and the street-does the river flow down the middle of the street or does the tree grow there and the river goes down the middle of the street?-the lilac-lined lane I was on made me think of this description of heaven. On the country road I was traversed, the lilacs played out and the road ended at a freeway at the end of the valley. Follow heaven's tree lined street and its parallel river upstream, and it will end at the throne of God. If earth's springtime lilac-lined lane was so beautiful, how beautiful must heaven's eternal tree of life lane be?