“Human Resources Counseling”
Luke 16: 1-13 (NRSV)

Behavioral consistency is one measure we use to know our friends, family, acquaintances, teachers, neighbors, and just about anyone else we meet.

As we get to know others we begin to build our patterns of communication and interaction to and with them. Above all we assess our ability to trust and confide in them and come up with our expectations of their future actions regarding us.

We learn what they value, who they love, what they treasure, and what motivates them in their everyday lives.

Employers do the same thing with those they employ. The problem of course, is encountering those people who say or do one thing but have hidden motives, agendas, or beliefs. That’s why most employers have a “Human Resources Department” to deal with employees.

I've always thought that if Jesus is the CEO of Christianity then certainly the Apostle Paul must be in charge of Human Resources and Counseling. Jesus set the standard and Paul interprets them for us.

Today let's look at Jesus' words as advice to employees. 

There is a famous joke that suggests that Frenchmen are smarter than Englishmen. It goes like this: A French Taxi cab driver once played a trick on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The man had driven Conan Doyle from the station to a hotel, and when he had received the fare, he said, “Merci, Monsieur Conan Doyle.”

“Why, how do you know my name?” asked Sir Arthur.

“Well sir,” replied the cabbie, “I read in the papers you were coming from the south of France to Paris. Your general appearance told me you were English. Your hair has been clearly cut by a barber from the south of France. I put these indicators together and guessed at once that it was you.”

“That is very remarkable,” replied Sir Arthur while giving the man a large tip, “you have no other evidence to go on?”

“Well,” hesitated the man, “since you’ve given me a good tip - I will point out to you that your name appears on your luggage!”

Then Jesus said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was squandering his property.

So he summoned him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Give me an accounting of your management, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’

Then the manager said to himself, ‘What will I do, now that my master is taking the position away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do so that, when I am dismissed as manager, people may welcome me into their homes.’

So summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he asked the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He answered, ‘A hundred jugs of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, sit down quickly, and make it fifty.’

Then he asked another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘A hundred containers of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill and make it eighty.’

And his master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly;

For the children of this age are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.

And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of dishonest wealth so that when it is gone, they may welcome you into the eternal homes. Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and whoever is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much.

If then you have not been faithful with the dishonest wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to another, who will give you what is your own?

No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and weath.”

A young preacher had just begun serving his first congregation. It was the only church in a small logging town on the edge of the Maine woods. Everyone who lived in the town and attended church worked at the local lumber mill, which was the town’s only business and in fierce competition with a neighboring mill just downstream.

The preacher wasn’t in town long before he had an experience that shook him to the core.

He was taking a walk in the woods when he discovered by chance workers for the town mill pulling logs branded for the neighboring mill out of the stream, cutting off their branded ends, and re-branding them for their own mill.

The preacher became very upset and went home and worked on a powerful sermon.

That Sunday he got up and preached a sermon entitled, “Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor’s Property.” The sermon seemed to go over very well. Everyone told him, as they left church how much they loved his preaching.

“You really moved me, Preacher,” and “Best Sermon I ever heard,” were some of the remarks.

But that next Monday it was the same business as usual at the mill. They were still stealing logs.

So the next Sunday the preacher delivered a real pulpit pounder called, “Thou Shall Not Steal.”

“Fantastic,” the people told him. “Wonderful,” they cried. But on Monday morning the other mill’s logs were still being swiped by the town’s mill.

The preacher told himself, “Enough.”  A preacher can only take so much, and then he must act. This time he wasn’t going to hold anything back.

On Sunday he got up and preached a sermon he called, “Thou Shall Not Cut Off the Branded ends of Someone Else’s Logs.”

Someone fire bombed his car after church and the congregation asked him to leave at 8 AM on Monday morning.  

Unfortunately even churches and communities can get into habits and practices that no one wants to admit, much less be confronted by. When this unwritten law is broken, it causes the messenger great grief.

You see, we all want to benefit from the grace of Jesus and the honestly and generosity of Christians, but sometimes we don’t want that same standard applied to us.

Jesus’ parable of the dishonest manager is all too real to us in our time. We have corrupt politicians, pastors, storeowners, stockbrokers, lawyers, policemen, and just about every type of worker you can imagine who wants to be viewed as good and honest and ethical, but who are rotten at their core.

Jesus’ question of trust is one we need to study long and hard. Are we consistent and committed Christians, loyal and true? If not how must we change?

A young woman was soaking up the rays on a Florida beach when a little boy in his swimming trunks, carrying a towel, came up to her and asked, “Do you believe in God?” She was somewhat surprised by the question but replied, “Why yes, I do.”

Then he asked her, “Do you go to church every Sunday?” Again, her answer was, “Yes, I do.” Then he asked, “Do you read from the Bible and pray every day?”

Again she said, “Yes,” but now her curiosity was aroused. At last the boy sighed and said with obvious relief, “Will you hold my dollar while I go in swimming?”

A school teacher was trying to impress her students with the importance of honesty.

She asked her class, “Suppose you found a briefcase with a half million dollars in it. What would you do?”

Little Johnny raised his hand immediately and replied, “If it belonged to a poor family, I’d return it.”

Jesus taught that ethics and codes of conduct are not negotiable, changeable, or different based on who you are. What you honor and esteem is what you will earn.

Start with faith and trust in Jesus and follow through to eternity. We can’t be rooted to the world’s values and see clearly to Heaven. Amen.

“World’s Worst Bet”
Luke 15: 1-10 (NRSV)

Two men from Alabama loved to fish. They went on a trip to Canada and decided to try ice-fishing.

They traveled to a Lake that was famous for its ice-fishing and went in to the bait shop to get the very latest ice-fishing tackle and bait. The owner explained that they would need an ice auger. It was very expensive but the men did not hesitate, they bought the auger to drill holes in the ice.

In a short while they had gathered the equipment they would need and arrived on the ice. They began to prepare for a great day of ice-fishing.

About 2 hours later they returned to the bait shop and asked for another auger. The store owner was confused and asked, “What’s wrong with the auger I sold you?”

“Nothing,” the men answered, “it works fine.” “Then why do you need another one?” the store owner asked.

“It’s cold out there. The holes keep freezing after a while, and we haven’t been able to fish yet. At the rate we’re going, we’re not even going to get the boat in the water before dark.”

A man who was never known for his intelligence returned home after a night out with his friends. He seemed slightly upset. His wife asked him what was bothering him. “Oh, I lost a hundred dollars,” the man answered. His surprised wife asked, “How did you lose that much money?”

“We watching the football game at the Firehouse,” he told her, “and I thought the Redskins were going to win the game with a field goal on the final play of the game. I was so sure I bet Bill fifty dollars that they would score. They didn’t score.”

His wife thought for a moment and asked, “But that’s only 50 dollars; I thought you said you lost one hundred dollars?”

“Yeah I know. I was so disgusted that I lost, I made a second, double or nothing, wager with Bill.” “I thought you said it was the last play of the game?” his wife responded.

“It was,” said the man, “so we bet on the instant replay.”

Hear our Gospel Lesson from Luke 15: 1-10:

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?

When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’

Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Two novice carpenters were trying to build a garage, and one was attaching the siding. He would pick up a nail, look at it, then hammer it in. Then he would pick up another nail, look at it, and throw it away.

His friend watched, as over and over his friend looked at each nail, and either hammered it in or tossed it over his shoulder. Finally the friend walked over and asked, “Hey, why are you throwing away half our nails?”

“The points were on the wrong end,” the man explained. “You bozo,” bellowed the friend, “Those nails are for the other side of the garage!”

Sometimes we all get caught doing something pretty dumb and realize all of us has a high “bozo” factor, but we usually hope no one’s watching. Notice how Jesus’ reply really didn’t respond to the accusation? Why do you think he didn’t??

The answer was given by the late Bishop Fulton J. Sheen when he said, “To create the world cost God nothing; to save it from sin cost His Life Blood.”

Friends, everyone Jesus encountered during His earthly ministry was a sinner and a total bozo in His eyes. When we are confronted with the perfection of Christ how can we ever be anything other than what we are.

I have a comedy album from the 1970’s by a group called the Firesign Theater  about living on planet earth that’s called, “We’re all bozos on this bus.”

Please realize I am not using this derogatorily but as a way to laugh at the futility of humanity’s failure to do and see things the right way, God’s way.

The story is all about how politics and government are going to grow and develop into a faceless machine that will treat us all as “bozos” who are incapable of making decisions and who will all need to be taken care of. Not a bad summary of our times in some ways is it?

Friends look around, are we making progress toward peace? Are we making progress toward solving world hunger? Are we making progress in upholding the concept of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” Isn’t that what was promised by the utopian “Great Society” ideals of the sixties and in today’s Liberal party promises?

Certainly there may be a reduced chance of a nuclear Armageddon but what are the chances we are heading for a social one? Human ideology is at war in our world and will not rest until there is a winner that mimics or fulfills biblical prophecy.

Yet those of us who are Christians and have faith in our Creator know that human schemes and ideology will fail because the outcome was already played out on that cross 2,000 years ago.

But the bozos on the earth bus are like our friend who lost the money because he bet on the instant replay. You know, I know, God knows, Jesus knows. But they are just willing to bet that God will be wrong somehow or someway.

There is only one thing that makes this good news!

I’ve always heard the phrase “God loves the sinner, but hates the sin” and we are called to do the same. Because God is love, I am convinced that He truly loves all his creation, even the sinners (as stated in Romans 5: 8). But we also read in Psalm 5: 5 and Psalm 11: 5 that he hates the workers of iniquity, and those that love violence. How do we reconcile this?

In Colossians 1:19-20 Paul wrote,

“For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in (Jesus) and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on Earth or things in Heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.”

This doesn’t mean everyone will be saved because of the cross, but that all the sins of mankind were paid for there. Not everyone will accept the Grace offered by God through Jesus Christ. Refusing this grace certainly will be a fatal act that requires God to give that person what they ask for – a world without God.

Remember, John the Baptist called Jesus,

“The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1: 29). 

That’s why whosoever believes in what the Lord did for us there will not perish but have eternal life.

That’s why all of Heaven rejoices when even one sinner repents and reconciles with God.

Not accepting that grace from God is just about the worst bet in the history of humanity.

We Christians know the outcome won’t ever change. God does love sinners and bozos, everyone. Amen.

Finishing Things
Luke 14: 25-33 (NRSV)

64 year old Donna Nyad recently finished swimming from Havana, Cuba to Florida. It took her 55 hours and was accomplished after she failed in her first 4 attempts over 30 years. Most of us would have stopped trying after the first or second attempt. 

A Chinese proverb says, “The great question is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with failure.”  

Dickens wrote: “Every failure teaches a man something, if he will but learn.” 

An airliner is flying across country, when the pilot comes on the PA to announce, "We have some bad news. One of the engines just failed and as a result, we will be delayed by 30 minutes." 

20 minutes later, the pilot returns, "we have some more bad news. Another engine just failed, and we will be delayed an additional hour."  

A few minutes later, "Sorry folks, more bad news. A third engine just failed, and so, since we will be running only on the one remaining engine, the flight will be delayed by another two hours." 

At this point, a disgruntled passenger turns to his neighbor and says, "I sure hope that last engine keeps working or else we'll be up here all night!" 

Did you know the FAA has a device for testing the strength of windshields on airplanes? They point this thing at the windshield of the aircraft and shoot a dead chicken at about the speed the aircraft normally flies at it. If the windshield doesn't break, it's likely to survive a real collision with a bird during flight. 

The British had recently built a new locomotive that could pull a train faster than any before it.  They were not sure that its windshield was strong enough so they borrowed the testing device from the FAA, reset it to approximate the maximum speed of the locomotive, loaded in the dead chicken, and fired.   

The bird went through the windshield, broke the engineer's chair, and made a major dent in the back wall of the engine cab. They were quite surprised with this result, so they asked the FAA to check the test to see if everything was done

correctly. The FAA checked everything and suggested that they might want to repeat the test using a “thawed” chicken next time.

When I was entering seminary one of the people I knew told me it was a bad idea. I asked him why he felt that way. He told me that because I was a high school dropout he didn’t think I could ever follow through successfully to finish seminary. 

His background prejudiced his judgment against me. He was a retired high school principal and educator who measured success only by graduation rates. He rejected the idea that I was bored with high school by tenth grade. He didn’t care that I had passed the GED test for Pennsylvania with a score in the top five percent of those people ever taking the test. 

I had to admit to him that in some ways I was not your “average” seminary student.

It took me a while to convince him to write a letter of recommendation (I had to show him my college and graduate school transcripts) but first he had to see if I was willing to admit I had failed the school system. I had to prove to him that I had repented and was now willing to play the school game the way it’s supposed to be played. 

You see, God requires repentance before grace: We must learn to submit ourselves to the teachings and expectations of Jesus to become His disciple. To do so is to admit that we are failures in God’s Kingdom. 

In God’s kingdom you aren’t going to just wander in, hang around, not participate in the kingdom, and still get the t-shirt and hat. It won’t just happen. The gift is free but there is a price that costs everything you own. Listen to Jesus telling us the price of His grace: 

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, “Whomever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” 

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”  

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 

Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” 

This passage is a parable about our needing to build skills to serve in God’s kingdom – at first we may think the demands impossible and set us up to fail. We eventually learn that the sacrifices and commitment are built over time, otherwise the disciple falls away because of how difficult it is. 

Jesus calls us to serve His Kingdom on a personal level. We must commit all we are and what we do. We must live a life that upholds a biblical perspective on everything we do. It’s called a Christian or Biblical worldview. 

And we can’t act disinterested in the people around us either. 

James is walking on a downtown street one day, and he happens to see his old high school friend, Harry, a little ways up ahead."Harry, Harry, how are you?" he greets his old buddy after getting his attention. 

"Not so good," says Harry. "Why, what happened?" James asks."Well," Harry says, "I just went bankrupt and I've still got to feed my family. I don't know what I'm going to do.""Could have been worse," James replies calmly. "Could have been worse." 

A month or so later, James again encounters Harry, in a restaurant."And how are things now?" he asks."Terrible!" says Harry. "Our house burned down last night."

"Could have been worse," says James, again with little emotion, and goes about his business. 

A month later, James runs into Harry a third time."Well, how goes it?" he asks. "Oh!" says Harry. "Things just get worse and worse. It's one tragedy after another! Now my wife has left me!"Harry nods his head and gives his usual optimistic-seeming little smile, accompanied by his usual words: "could have been worse." 

This time Harry grabs James by the shoulders."Wait a minute!" he says. "I'm not  letting you off so easy this time. Three times in the past few months we've run into one another, and every time I've told you the latest disaster in my life. Every time you say the same thing--"could have been worse."This time, for God's sake, Harry, I want you to tell me -- How in Heaven's name could it have been any worse?" 

James looks at Harry with the same little wisp of a smile."Could have been worse," he says. "Could have happened to me." 

But the opposite “everything happened to me” applies as well.

Now I know some of you get tired of me getting negative and “channeling my anti-Joel Osteen” by ranting away on the evils and pratfalls of our society. You might want to close your ears if you don’t want to hear it!

Many things are blamed on the moral decline of American society as individual rights and truths are nurtured and claimed as the new standards of behavior. It seems as if people have stopped feeling shame for their own failures and sins and spend an awful lot of time blaming others instead. “I didn’t fail – you did!”

My parents failed me, my genetics are bad, my schools and teachers were bad, I was abused mentally and bullied as a child, I got the addiction gene, the fat gene, didn’t have enough money to buy the right clothes, go to the right parties, hang out with the right friends, or go to the right schools. Waa, waa!

 
It ends in personal conspiracies that prevent a person from ever having the right job, the right house, the right boyfriend or girlfriend, and so on always because of someone else.
 
The excuses and complaints become an endless spiral to what I call “hyphenated” living. People define themselves with some characteristic “label” that doesn’t celebrate a positive trait but instead condemns one to a lifelong obligation to be limited in your own mind to being just a statistic such a “recovering alcoholic” or some such.

The truth? Our society has shot itself in the foot and is destroying itself because we no longer hold the family central in our lives. If you don’t value in a family how can you be valuable to others?

The family used to be where we learned everything we needed to know about love, relationship, responsibility, and respect. And despite what some might say, the church and other community organizations had the family’s back. Society acknowledged God’s role in creating the family and held it in high regard.

Within the family each person’s role and expectation came from God’s natural order and depended on each person developing a relationship with God first and then with each other. 

With the advent of instantaneous communications, computers, cell phones, an increasing divorce rate, and other sociological factors, we are in the process of destroying the family and hence any hope we ever have of recovering from the blame game. No wonder church and social organizations are in the toilet. 

Jesus calls us to do the right things in the right ways. We can’t honor our father until we honor God. We can’t learn about how important family is until we belong to God’s family.  And even failure can teach us not to quit.  

As Christians, the most important aspect of life is to recognize that we can only succeed if we admit failure. Amen.

Choosing Your Place

Luke 14: 1, 7-14 (NRSV) 

A joke to start: A friend of mine named Butch once told me, when Bryce Harper was in Hagerstown that, "You know, Bryce Harper and I are buddies."

I said, "Sure you are." He said, "No, really! Just turn on your TV tonight to the Nats game. You'll see me." Sure enough, I turned on the TV and there was Butch, sitting and talking to Bryce Harper in the Nationals Dugout during the game.

Not long after, I was talking to Butch about how much I admired Arnold Palmer as a golfer. Butch said, "Oh, he's a good friend." I said, "Noooo!" Butch said, "Let's hop in my car." He drove me to the golf course Arnold owns, and as we sipped a Lemonade/Iced Tea mixture, Arnold happened to walk by, immediately exclaimed "Butch!" and gave Butch a hug.

This was getting spooky. Butch seemed to know everyone! I tested Butch with a few more people. We were in Tennessee. Butch was telling me he was buddy-buddy with Charlie Daniels. We went to Charlie’s concert, and as Charlie rosined up his bow he said, "I see my friend Butch out there."

Same kind of thing happened when we went to Donald Trump’s house and rang the bell. Donald answered the door, said "Butch!" gave my friend a big hug, and invited us in for drinks.

 
I was becoming a believer, but then one day we were having another conversation and Butch said something about "my friend Pope Francis." I said, "You can't know him, too!" Butch said, "Wanna bet?"

Butch happens to be very well off, so he flew the both of us to Rome on his private plane. We took a cab to St. Peters Square. We were standing in the big crowd below the balcony of the Pope's apartment. Butch said, "Excuse me for a little while" and disappeared into the crowd.

A little while after that, Francis appeared on the balcony and started blessing people. And who should be up there beside him but...you guessed it! I was utterly amazed! I nudged a fellow standing next to me, pointed to the balcony, and said, "Look!"

The guy shaded his eyes with his palm, peered up at the balcony, turned back to me, and said, "Who's that guy up there with Butch?"

Arthur Miller once said, “The famous are balloons far up in the sky, to be envied for their quiet freedom or shot down as enemies.” Andy Warhol wrote, “In the future everyone will be world famous for 15 minutes.”

Some people say celebrity is only good if you can use it. Rich and famous people have no lines to wait in, their phone calls are instantly answered and so forth. They also get respect and admiration and seem to get away with things.

A beautiful Woman was in the VIP lounge going to Seattle. She was waiting to meet a very important client, who would fly to Seattle with her. She noticed Bill Gates sitting in the lounge enjoying a drink.

She approached Mr. Gates and introduced herself. She explained, "I am conducting some very important business and would appreciate if you could say 'Hello, Sharon' when I am with my client." Bill Gates was inspired by her look, so he agreed.

Ten minutes later while she was talking with her client, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning she saw that it was Bill Gates right on cue. Acting pleasantly surprised, Bill smiled at her and said, "Hello, Sharon, how are you?" To which the woman replied "Get lost Bill Gates. I'm in a meeting."

Listen to Jesus’ take on fame from Luke’s gospel, verses 1, 7-14:

On one occasion when Jesus was going to the home of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely.

When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable.

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place.”

“But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher:’ then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

He said also to the one who invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they might invite you in return, and you would be repaid.

But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.

And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Our reality TV show parallels continue. Jesus addresses the question of fame and social etiquette in an unexpected manner that makes perfect sense.

Jesus’ ministry was all about service and care. If people thought he was too famous to be treated like everyone else His mission would never be accomplished and His teachings, healings, and interactions with others wouldn’t work.

Besides, Jesus doesn’t really care for human rules and the “we’ve always done it that way” codes of conduct. Jesus came to shake up and change the world. He came to call us from sin.

We tend to forget that this is the Jesus who has already set the expectation of a positive relationship with neighbors, co-workers, friends, relatives. Respect, courtesy, and humility are the watchwords.

A state trooper being presented with an “Outstanding Trooper” award was questioned about what the governor said when presenting the award. “He said you haven’t once roughed up a drunk or used excessive force on anyone. How can you be a state trooper for fifteen years, dealing with the kind of stuff you deal with, and not have that happen?”

“Two things,” the trooper said. “First, if I am called to break up a fight at a tavern, I never say to myself, ‘There’s a drunk’; I always say to myself, ‘There’s a man — someone’s husband, someone’s son, someone’s neighbor — who got drunk.’ I try to think of him as a man, not a crime.

“Secondly, the Bible says that a soft answer turns away wrath. So whenever I walk up to the window of an automobile, I always speak a little softer than the person I’m speaking to.”

President Theodore Roosevelt was known for, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”

But most people don’t know that in 1901, Roosevelt changed the saying to “If a man continually blusters, a big stick will not save him from trouble; and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength.”

 

When Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” he was not speaking of armies and foreign policy, but the principles are the same.

The meek Christian does not need to bluster, as if self-confidence could win the day.

Whether we’re contesting a point, responding to criticism, or speaking of the hope within, we can do so in meekness, with quiet confidence. For in “back of the softness” within us lie the strength and power of God.

God desires a personal relationship with us and it’s not based on any honors, awards, or tasks we’ve received. It’s based solely on His love for His creation, His love for each of us, created in His image.

It’s why we need to hold “Luke 14” banquets. We do so at the mission each month, and we could do more here at the church. We are called to invite those who are hungry, alone, or needy, and feed them. We can do it.

Imagine our reaching out to those needing to stretch their resources in our community and getting help directly from us even one day a month. We could do it. I have seen the joy on your faces as you have done this in the past.

Listen to our last verses for today: “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.” 

Each of us will have our moment with God to walk in the garden, side-by-side. We need not hurry, be impatient, or demand our fair share. It is already allotted not because of who we are, but because of who God is. 

I suggested to Glenda last week that we put a new saying up on the “blue board in the yard near Route 40:” 

“If your destination is heaven don’t wear your earth shoes.” 

That’s what Jesus tells us every day. 

Let’s figure out how to celebrate God’s Love and Jesus’ Grace on that journey.

Amen.