Sealed with Glitter

"Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit..." Ephesians 1:13b

Sealed with Glitter
By Rev. William Dohle

It's Christmas time, that time of year that we celebrate with items made by little hands by little children.  It's a time to celebrate the little letters that spell "I love you"...and it's a time for my least favorite part of Christmas...glitter!

Of all the inventions we have, glitter I think is my least favorite one of them all.  Even how we apply it freaks me out.  First you take some glue and smear it all over your paper.  Then you take the glitter and dump it on the glue.  And then you take the paper and dump the glitter off of it.  If you do this right, the excess glitter will go back in the container while pieces of it remain on your paper.

That's how it's suppose to work in theory.  In practice?  Well, first the glitter gets all over the place right from the start.  Then you dump a little too much on and get it on the table.  Then the excess stuff never magically lands back in its container.  In the end, even the glitter that lands on the glue itself doesn't stay for long and will soon land up somplace in your house where you don't really want it to be.

That's glitter for you.  It's not good sealing material.

And yet... our kids spend their time and energy and, most of all, their love glittering their "I love you's" to us, as if their cards and hearts are bound by glitter.  And we, loving parents that we are, see past the potential mess to see the love they have in their hearts.

Glitter may not be good binding material.  But we have something more binding than anything.  Something that, in the end, binds us to God.  It's not so glittery or even nice to look at, but it does last forever.  In the end, what binds us to God is the blood of Jesus Christ.

Blood has always been used as a sealer of covenants.  We speak of something being "written in blood" or "signed in blood" as somehow being binding regardless of circumstances.  Well... that's the way it's always been!

The first covenant to be bound this way was with Abraham who, in circumcision, wore the mark and scar of the bound covenant on him.  The second covenant to be bound by blood is this one from Exodus.

"Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls , and the other half he sprinkled on the altar.  Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people.  They responded, "We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey."(Ex. 24:6-7)

This is no glittery binding.  By the blood, the people are bound to obey the Lord and the Lord is bound to care for his people.  That's the way covenants work.  Each side promises to fulfill their part of the contract.

In Jesus, we are brought into a new covenant.  By HIS blood, we are sealed to God.  As the writer of Hebrews says:

"The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean.  How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.  FOR THIS REASON Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance."(Hebrews 9:13-15 emphasis added)

Christ's blood is stronger than glitter.  It's stronger even than the blood of the old covenant, for through him our consciences are cleansed so we can serve the living God.

This is the new covenant we Christians celebrate.  This covenant isn't dependent upon us.  We cannot seal it ourselves.  It is given to us by God.  A gift given in Jesus Christ.  By his blood, the covenant between us and God is sealed and we are God's, able now to "serve the living God" as the writer of Hebrew's declares.

This isn't a covenant that changes or falls away.  It isn't as fragile as glitter which flakes away the moment you touch it.  This covenant, given to us by God in Jesus Christ, lasts forever.

Remember that this Christmas as you open glittery gifts that will fade away.  Glitter may not seal well.  But the blood of Jesus Christ seals us to God forever.

Help me see, Lord, through this transient life, the eternal love and bond you have with us.  Help me see, through Jesus' blood, our relationship is secure.  Amen.

Doing What He Said

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.  James 1:22

Doing What He Said
By Rev. William Dohle

I have a confession.  I didn't really realize what having a 12 year old meant and what this gate into the teenage years would look like. Not really...

For years I have counseled and led kids through this gate in Confirmation.  I've met kids in their tween years and walked through the gates until they were teenagers.  I've seen kids grow up and become able adults.  I've watched them change from their childish ways into the ways of being an adult.  I always saw a difference come to life within them, but I never really realized what it was.  Until now.

My oldest son, William, is in the middle of his 13th year of life(he's 12) and it's scary.  It's scary how grown up he looks...but how vulnerable he is.  It's scary how far into the future he must look...preparing in school for college and beyond.  It's scary how he hears and understands everything you say now.

But what's really scary is how he really doesn't take us, his parents, seriously.  Not anymore...

For instance... we tell him to do something.  Say... take out the garbage.  That is one of his many chores at home.  He responds: "Yes, of course..." and then goes into the other room and does something else.  We follow him in the other room to remind him and he says,"Oh you wanted me to do it now?" We respond yes... and he still doesn't do it.  Finally comes the time of consequence, where groundings occur in our home and phones get taken away.  THEN he does it(sometimes in a mad huff), storming out of the house.

Is that what all teenagers are like?  Am I going to be seriously scared when the younger ones get to be this age?

I've always dreamed my kids would be different.  They, more than anyone else, would know what gentle obedience looks like.  My dream was for them to be like the people of Israel were, back on Mount Sinai.

The people of Israel then, after they heard the law spoken and after Moses relayed what God had told them to do, had the chance to respond.  And the people of Israel responded with one voice:

"Everything the Lord has said we will do."(Exodus 24:3)

 Now that's significant in and of itself...but what's more significant is that they responded like that twice, as if to confirm what they had already said...

"We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey." (Exodus 24:7)

Wow!  What would that be like!?  To ask for something to be done and hear, not complaints or excuses or cries or even silence, but to hear: "Yes, Dad!" And to see it done!  Wouldn't that be great!

Of course the follow through isn't there for my son and wasn't there for the people of Israel.  Following this, the people of Israel strayed and disobeyed, one time after another.  The first disobedience was with a golden calf...but that we will look at later.  For now we see their heads are in the game.  Their hearts were not.
 
The same could be said of us too.  Even the most religious of us stray and fail.  We claim to be people of grace...but find judgement to be so easy.  We claim to love one another...but there's a few people we'd rather have nothing to do with.  We claim to want what God wants...but really we want God to want what we want.  Not the other way around.

We are a flawed, messed up group of people.  We are, in our hearts, just teenagers in older bodies.

Forgiveness is what we need, for our motivation is lacking and our vision blurred.  We fail to see why God would want us to do what he has commanded.  We sit on our couches, daring God to come make us change and make us grow.  We know what we should do, but we just don't do it.

For this we cry: Lord forgive us!  Motivate us to get off our rumps and follow, doing what you have commanded us to do, loving who you have commanded us to love, and following after you, not just because you say so, but because we love you!
 
I am too quick, Lord, to say I will when I really don't mean it.  Help me to bring my words and thoughts and actions in line with you.  Amen. 

Lengthening the Holy Days

"Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me."  Exodus 23:14

Lengthening the Holy Days
By Rev. William Dohle

Well, the Christmas season is upon us.

As much as I've wanted to crawl in a hole and hide from the holiday season, it's here!  Again!  And it's early this year I think.  This year I saw my first Christmas commercial at the beginning of October and already my dear wife has begun watching The Hallmark Channel's Christmas specials.  (12 specials for 6 weeks!)  Already tears have been shed over one sweet story or another.  And already(and I do mean already) the Christmas gifts have been bought for the children and all is prepared.  (Yes, you read that right).

For all the fuss we make over Christmas, it's amazing how fast the holiday truly goes.  We spend two to three months getting everything ready.  The presents get bought.  The tree comes out.  The lights go up.  The candy and cookies are bought.  All is prepared for a holiday that lasts...

Just...  One... Day.

That's right.  Just one day.  For most of us anyway.  Most of us will spend the our time on the front end of the holiday, getting everything ready for the big December 25th day.  And then, once everything is unwrapped and eaten, we'll be as quick as can be to get it all taken down and boxed away for another year.

It's sad how long our holidays last.  They usually only last a day.  No more.

Even the 4th of July lasts longer than Christmas sometimes I think, with parades in the morning, barbeque in the afternoons, and fireworks in the evening.

But where does this all come from?  Where do our holidays originate from?

The first mention of a holiday, or Holy Day if you want to parse it out, comes from the book of Exodus.  Here the people of Israel are instructed to have three festivals.

"Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me."  And how long are they to be?  Well, in the center of Exodus we only have details of one.  "Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you."  This festival, known as the Passover or Seder, lasts seven days.

The Bible here doesn't go into detail of the rest, but I can say from watching my Jewish friends, that their holidays last a whole lot longer than ours.

Hanaukkah, the festival of lights coming about at the end of the month, lasts 8 days.
The Season of Rosh Hashanna lasts 8 days.
The Festival of Tabernacles lasts another 8 days.

There are others...but these are the most well known ones.

And notice how long they last!?  8 days!  These people of God do not just celebrate for a single hour or even a single day, but an entire week!  8 days is the usual time they spend in holiday dedicated to God!  That's some celebration!

The Christian church tries to extend the celebrating some.  Christmas doesn't last just one day, but twelve.  The season of lent, a time of personal reflection leading up to Holy Week, lasts 40 days.  And the celebration of Easter resurrection takes the cake at a whopping 50 day celebration!

Imagine if we actually celebrated this long.  Imagine if we paced ourselves and instead of using all of our good will on one day(or even on the days leading up to that one day) we used it instead on a whole season from that day on.  What would our lives be if the holidays weren't just one day...but many?

God invites us here to do just that.  To make the celebration last.  God invites us here to extend our festivals whenever and wherever we can, to pause before we take down our Christmas tree after the holiday and just enjoy the season for what it is, and to realize, ultimately, the only thing we have with each other is time.  That time will never come again.

This Christmas stop.  Just stop.  Treasure the moments between each of the gifts opened.  Look deeply in the eyes of your loved ones.  Cherish the smiles and the laughter and the life you see reflected back at you.  Christmas 2013 will never come again.  All you will have to remember it is your memories and the pictures you take.  So cherish it, extend it, and enjoy it, for that is what God would have you do.

May God bless your preparations for Christmas.  May God help you get all ready for the first day.  And may God help you extend your celebrations to the whole Christmas season.

God, you invite us to celebrate and party like no other god can.  Give us grace that we may relax and enjoy the season as we celebrate the birth of your Son.  Amen.

An Interlude on Faith

"These were commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised."  Hebrews 11:39

We Interrupt this life...
By Rev. William Dohle

What has interrupted your life lately?

Good or bad, interruptions come to all of us, disturbing us and challenging us, moving us in ways we never expected.

Some interruptions are good.  A newfound love where love wasn't expected.  The surprise birth of a new child.  The interruption that comes when family arrives for the holidays.

And other interruptions aren't so good.  These we wish had never come because, after the interruption happens, life is never the same.

That was my day last week...and the week before that day as well.

It all started with my son saying loudly in the narthex: "There's a tornado warning!"  And it all ended with the news that a large tornado had hit the communities of East Peoria, Pekin, and, most of all, Washington, Illinois.  As pictures appeared, the worry started.  Who was affected by this tragedy?  How might they be handling it?

That, in retrospect, wasn't the beginning of the interruption but rather the continuation of it.  It began before the tornado when we heard news that a member of the congregation lost her two infant twin girls.  It began when I heard how she and her family held their two little girls in their arms until they passed away later that evening.  The interruption began with that sad news.

And like all interruptions...it disturbed the routine.  Coming to work on Monday after the tornado seemed ridiculous.  How could I continue to work as if nothing had happened knowing that others were suffering just miles away?  Writing a sympathy card, being supportive, seemed hard for me as well.  What could I say to this family that would help?

I really struggled with the interruption.  "Why, God?" I prayed.  "Why has this happened now?  Who is affected by this tragedy?  How will they cope?  What will this do to their faith?"
Of course that does nothing but exasperate the interruption, for interruptions thrive in such questions.  Why questions fuel the interrption's power over our life and immobilize us.

Often we try to answer these questions with our own personal prosperity gospel.  If we are faithful and good enough, (and we always think we are) God will be good to us and nothing bad will happen in our lives.  I've already heard their voices and the estimation of the tragedy has just begun.  I've already heard of the family who cries to the heavens, "I can't pray or believe in a God who would do this to us!"

That's the prosperity Gospel at work there.  That's one answer to the question.  We all have a little bit of that.  It's truly a human response.  We all want some sort of resolution or answer to our problem. Someone to blame always gives us just that.

But that way doesn't lead to any resolution.  It only leads to despair.  The only way to face the interruptions in our life is, not to ask why they happened to us, but how we can get through.  And the only way to get through is through faith.  Our faith may not protect us from all of life, but our faith can carry us through.

The book of Hebrews speaks of faith this way:

"And what more shall we say?... Women received back their dead, raised to life again.  Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection.  Some faced jeers and flogging, while others were chained and put in prison.  They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword.  They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated--the world was not worthy of them.  They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.  These were all commended for their faith."  (Hebrews 11:32, 35-39a)

What these verses are saying is:  Faith doesn't guarantee life.  Some were stoned and sawed in two and put to death for their faith, not because they didn't ask to be released but because, sometimes, that's where faith gets you.  Sometimes the end result of a faithful prayer is the same as it would have been had you not prayed.

Two people experience a tragedy.  One has faith.  The other does not.  Both have experienced the same thing, but each looks at it in a completely different way.  One looks beyond the tragedy.  One focuses solely on the event.  One sees the country ahead.  The other looks solely at the country they are in.  One deals with the present.  The other strives for the future.

That's faith.  Faith gives you eyes to see beyond your current situation.  Faith is the means by which you patiently hold out for something you cannot see or experience or taste or touch, but something you know is more real than the tragedy you are experiencing.

Faith is what Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego had when they responded to King Nebuchadnezzar this way: "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.  But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods..."(Daniel 3:17-18)

Do you hear what they said, "...even if he does not."  That's faith right there.

Faith realizes that sometimes prayers are not answered in the way we think they should be answered.  Tragedy comes upon us all.  And yet, faith asserts that, despite the evidence at hand.  Despite God being quiet, we will still worship.  We still still hold on.  As one amazingly faithful mother said upon the death of her twins, "God is good."

May God grant us such faith that we too might, even in the face of death and destruction, might boldly say, "But still we shall live!"

Faithful God, you have surrounded us with such a cloud of witnesses who held on to you in life and death.  Give us faith that we might trust, not in what we see, but in who you are.  Amen.

Being There

"See I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way to bring you to the place I have prepared."  Exodus 23:20

Being There
By Rev. William Dohle

They say the greatest gift you can give someone is your presence...and I think they're right.  The most treasured thing we have, the one thing we must give away some each day, is time.  It is our greatest treasure.  Those we spend our time with we hold in the highest esteem.  They mean the most to us.  Those we spend less or none of our free time with don't really matter in our lives.

Sadly I believe many people forget this fact.  Especially couples.  Time is precious and what we spend that time on matters.  Of course, we must spend some time apart.  Work and other obligations must be met.  But our free time is ours to do with as we choose and sometimes even that is misused.  The time we have is precious and we must treat it as such.  In my ministry, I have seen many couples choose to spend their free time in separate places, away from each other.   One leaves for a weekend without the one here.  The other goes away for a weekend without the other there.  One decides to vacation at this place.  The other that place.  It isn't long before the two of them are living completely separate lives which, unfortunately, often leads to divorce.

The same thing goes with our children too.  As parents, we only have a short time with our children to be with them in the home.  The goal of parenting is to raise independently minded, loving, faithful adults, but the time we have to do that is so short.  It saddens me when parents too will spend so much of their free time alone or apart from their kids.  They are only here for a short time.  We need to treasure that.

Thankfully, God knows the value of time.  In fact, we are told in Scripture, that God never leaves us.  He doesn't go away from us or abandon us.  He doesn't go off and do his own thing for a weekend someplace else leaving us to our own devices.  Instead, God is here with us the whole way.

In the center of Exodus, right at the heart of God's law, comes the promises that God will be with Israel...and likewise us.  God is with them, not in some detached way, but in a real, active way.  Here's what God is going to do...

...I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way...
...I am preparing a place for you...
...I will wipe out your enemies...
...I will take away sickness from among you...
...I will give you a full life span...
...I will will make your enemies turn their backs and run...
...I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the [other nations[ out of your way.
...I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines(from Ex 23)

 These are all God's actions for God's people.  This is the result of God's being there.

We can look at that list today and marvel at what God did for the people of Israel then.  And we can look at that list and see what God does for us now.

Few of us know or can even comprehend what we are protected against.  We just don't see it.  When we claim God has left us, sometimes I think it is our perceptions that are at fault.  We just don't see what God is doing.  That's how good he is.  Like an expert magician, God hides much of what God does for us.  He just does it!

In the course of the day, God protects us from all kinds of evil.  He heats our homes and warms our hearts.  He opens our eyes to the needy and gives us the courage to reach out to those who are wanting.  God convicts us our sins and forgives us of them too.  He loves us through our friends and family and strengthens us along the way.

That's only a small list.  God does so much more too!  God is constantly at work all around us, doing what he does unseen, all because he's here.  Because God doesn't take a vacation away from us, his family, he is able to walk with us, beside us, on every step of life's journey.

God never leaves us nor forsakes us.  Maybe because God knows how precious time is to us.  After all, we are like the grass which is here today and gone tomorrow, burned up in the fire.  Maybe God knows this...

But I think it has something to do with how much God loves us.  God loves us so much that he sent His Son to live, die, and live again all for us.  God loves us enough to say, in effect, life isn't long enough with my people.  I want them with me forever.

May we spend our time with our families as God spends his time with us.  Lavishing what little time we have with them on them.

I am on earth but a short time.  Give me wisdom that I may count my days and invest them wisely in those around me.  Amen.

p.s.  If you are struggling with time management, particularly in your relationships, talk to someone, a pastor or a councilor.  Someone who can help.  Silence is the quiet killer of relationships.

Not So Cut and Dry

"Be careful to do everything I have said to you." Exodus 23:13

Not So Cut and Dry
By Rev. William Dohle

There's a song I just loved growing up.  It has the most familiar tune to it too and sometimes, if you've had even just a smidge of Sunday School, you'll sing right along with it.  It's words go like this...

Jesus Loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to him be loved
They are weak, but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
Yes, Jesus loves me.
The Bible tells me so.

I love that song!  It really hits at the heart of our faith as children.  Jesus loves me...so all can be right with the world.  And I know it because the Bible (and most of the time Mommy and Daddy and that nice guy or gal who stands up front in church) tells me so.

That simple faith, based on the Bible, can be found too in a popular Fundamentalist bumper sticker too.  It reads:

"God Said it.  I believe it.  That settles it!"

Unfortunately, read through that book called the Bible, the book we claim God wrote, and we come across a number of things that we don't believe and, quite frankly, don't follow at all.

Take, for instance, some of the laws we find written in the book of Exodus.

Anyone who attacks his father or his mother must be put to death. (21:15)
Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death. (21:17)
If a man schemes and kills another man deliberately, take him away from my altar and put him to death. (21:14)
Do not allow a sorceress to live. (22:18)
Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed. (22:29)

All of these have the penalty of death attached to them.  No exception.  If we are to do what the Bible says.  If God said it and we believe it and that settles it, shouldn't it also settle that we are to kill our children if they attack us or even curse us?  Shouldn't that settle most murder cases?  Take them out and kill them, according to this reading of Scripture.

Of course, even if you agree and say we should follow these statements, there are still other politically charged statements to consider like...

"Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt."(22:21...concerning immigration)
Or...
"Do not take advantage of a widow or orphan."(22:22...concerning possibly welfare?)
Or...
"Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people."(22:28...even if you disagree with them?)

The list goes on and on.  How do you handle these statements if "God said it...I believe it...that settles it?"  It's hard to reconcile an unwavering, uncritical view of Scripture with these statements that we clearly do not follow.

There is, though, another way of looking at it.  One described in the graphic above.  That way involves taking the text and interpreting it.  Here you take what is written and ask yourself, "What am I hearing in this text?  How does it speak to me?"

For example, the rabbis of old would often interpret the texts concerning capital punishment this way.  If the Torah(Bible) said it once, it was a warning.  If it said it twice, it meant that punishment should ensue if the commandment was broken.  And every(or nearly every) instance of capital punishment could be resolved with a monetary fine.

Christians often do the same by ignoring the sections of the Bible that don't speak to them.  We dismiss them as ancient laws and rules of a by-gone era.  We hold the first ten sacred, but fall off when it comes to following the rest.  Martin Luther interpreted Scripture through Christ.  A "canon within a canon" was what he called the pieces of Scripture that spoke of Christ the clearest.  The rest could be discarded if need be.

So, how do you read Scripture?  What do you do with these texts?  Instead of coming up with a iron-clad rulebook, I think it might help if we follow a process.  First we read what is written.  Not what we think has been written.  What is actually there.  Then we read before and after it to take in into context.  We look further into Scripture to see how others have interpreted this passage.  Then, with tradition and the words of the saints, you work through what you feel this passage might mean now for you.  Not for others, but for you.  You apply the words you read first to yourself and your life.  Then you turn to the community of faith, the church, to ask them what they think of your interpretation and what modifications need to be made.  And then you apply said interpretation, bring these words to life through your example.

If we're honest with ourselves and really attempt to follow what God in all of Scripture has taught us, through the Holy Spirit we may slowly become more loving, graceful, and forgiving of others.  We may work for justice for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the foreigner in particular.  We may see God's big plan for the world being, not condemnation, but benevolent salvation.  And, ironically, we may begin to look more and more like his Son, Jesus the Messiah.

Just a thought as you are reading through the best library of religious writing ever compiled.  The one and only Bible!

I am confused, Lord, most of the time I open Scripture, and yet I come to you with an open heart, asking you to speak to me through the words written so long ago.  Amen.

True Religion

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

True Religion
By Rev. William Dohle

A few weeks ago, in a conversation around "Give us this day our daily bread" I sat our Confirmation kids down to show them just how blessed they truly were.  In a video made by Bread for the World, they watched as pictures of children, all starving and suffering from malnutrition, were paraded on the screen.  Each of the pictures seemed worse than the previous one.  And I watched their faces drop and their shoulders slump.

In the end, I asked them all what they thought of what they saw.  They had a few questions, mostly about whether it was real or not.  I explained how children throughout the world suffered from starvation and gave them some of the startling statistics.

World Hunger Statistics
Total number of children that die every year from hunger	1.5 million
Percent of world population considered to be starving	33%
Time between deaths of people who die from hunger	3.6 seconds
Total number of people in the world who suffer from hunger and malnutrition	800 million
Total number of people who do not have enough to eat	936 million people
Total percentage who do not have enough to eat who live in developing countries	98%
Total percentage of world’s hungry that live in 7 countries	65%
Number of people who died of hunger today	20,864
Total number of people who will die of hunger this year	7,615,360
Total percentage of U.S. households that are at risk of hunger	11%

Sadly the video only highlighted the children and the impact hunger had on them.  Most videos go that direction, showing pictures of the children rather than the adults.  Unfortunately, hunger and poverty affect all ages.  No one goes unscathed.  Parents who are hungry raise children who are hungry.  And the cycle continues.

The Bible takes on this cycle head on.  Not only are widows and orphans, the two groups at the bottom of the biblical social scale, mentioned specifically by God to be cared for.  But their cries are the cries God hears most.

"Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan.  If you do and they cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry.  My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword; your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.

"If you lend money to one of my people among you who is needy, do not be like a moneylender; charge him no interest.  If you take your neighbors cloak as a pledge, return it to him by sunset, because his cloak is the only covering he has for his body.  What else will he sleep in?  When he cries out to me, I will hear for I am compassionate."  (Exodus 22:22-27)

 This is not the first time, and certainly not the last time, orphans and widows are specifically mentioned in the Bible.  Care for them is absolutely important.  Commanded by God in fact.  When the poor cry out, God hears them.  God shows compassion for them.  And God acts to turn the world around to care for them.

We too are to join God in his care for the poorest among us.  According to St. James, this is what true religion is.  Caring for the orphan and widow.  That's it.  That's what it means to be a Christian.  To be "Christ-like".  We are to care for the needy, as Christ did.  As Christ fed the multitudes, so we are to join him in feeding the multitudes.  As Christ reached out and touched the untouchable, so we too are to touch those our society deems untouchable.  As Christ healed those who could not repay him, so we too are to heal those who have no power to repay us or anyone.

Is that what True Christianity is?  Caring for the orphan and widow and not allowing ourselves to being polluted by the world?  What if that's it?  It seems so easy and yet so hard.  In church circles, we pride ourselves with things like converting or church planting.  We secretly look up to those with the biggest church, the best car, the largest home, and those who invoke God's name the most.  If we are to take God seriously in Exodus and St. James seriously in his epistle...we're going to need to change our ways some.

What if every "Christian" politician was to produce a record of deeds done to the least and the little and the lost before we believed they had faith?  What if every church was measured by their acts of mercy to those around them?  What if we looked up, not to the congregations and pastors with the largest attendance, but with those who had done the most good in their communities?

We may not be saved by our good works...but we are still called to produce them.  Faith without works is dead, another kernel of wisdom from St. James.  Caring for the least and little is what it means to be a Christian.  That's what it means to have faith.  And if every person of faith in every land reached out to just one widow or orphan, the world could turn around one widow and orphan at a time.

Your eye, O God, is on the widow and the orphan, the hungry and the alien, the wanderer and the outcast.  Open our eyes that we might see them through You.  Amen.

Bending the Rules

"If anyone injures his neighbor, whatever he has done must be done to him." Leviticus 24:19

Bending The Rules
By Rev. William Dohle

Ahh!  My children are getting too smart now!

They have learned that sometimes when I give them a rule I will break that same rule myself a little while later.  Like...

I tell them to stay out of the cookies...but I sneak a cookie when they're not looking.
I tell them to pick up their stuff from the floor when they come home...only my stuff is all over the floor too.
I tell them to clean up their room...when my room is a mess.

The list goes on and on.  Invariably, it seems, there is always something that I'm doing(or not doing) that my kids should(or should not) be doing.  It just works that way.

They've tried to point it out to me.  They say, "Hey!" and "But you don't...".  I try to shrug it off and still keep the rule firm...but I think they're starting to catch on.  You see...

Rules are not as absolute as we think they should be.

This thought applies to biblical rules too, or so it would seem.  Take, for example, that one we know so well quoted from the book of Exodus.

"...if there is serious injury you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise." Exodus 21:23-25

We usually know this rule as the "Eye for an eye" rule.  It says, in a sense, "Do to others what they have done to you."

The rabbis quickly point out that this rule is not meant to be taken literally.  It refers to a monetary fine imposed on people for the injury.  A "just" fee for injuries sustained.

And Christians will point out too that Jesus addresses this very command in the book of Matthew.

 "You have heard it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'  But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person."(Mat. 5:38-39)

And so we both assert: The rule doesn't mean what it says it does.  Either Jesus has thrown it out or we should just take it metaphorically.  One way or the other...the rule doesn't apply.

But still the rule is there.  "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth..." And we face the question: do we ignore it?  Do we dismiss it?  Do we make it into a metaphor?  How do we handle this?  People all over the world still live by this rule.  Do we adopt it as truth?

I think it should be said first that when this command was spoken it was one of grace.  In a society where an offense might not only get you, but your whole family and clan killed, a limitation on the punishment afflicted is a gracious one for the victimizer.  Only what is done to the offender may be done back.  Their family and their clan must be left alone.  Everyone pays for what they do themselves.

So the rule is good in some ways...but not good in others.  As Gandi has rightly pointed out, "An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind."  Even this commandment cannot apply in all situations.  For who of us have not offended our neighbor somehow?  Who of us have not burned them with our words, abused them in our thoughts, or hurt them with our actions?  If we were to take this command literally, each one of us should be left blind and hurting.

Even this command from God needs its exceptions.

Forgiveness is the exception to this command.  Forgiveness breaks this commandment in pieces.  It says: "You owe me an eye, but I will not take it from you.  I will forgive you the offense."  Forgiveness shatters this "eye for an eye" principle in pieces.  It refuses to take restitution, though it is owed it.  It refuses to punish, though it can.  Even a gracious punishment is unthinkable to forgiveness.  An eye for an eye goes unclaimed in forgiveness, for it is the grand exception to the rule.

If this is the case, then the greatest rule breaker of them all is God!  For we believe that in Jesus Christ, God forgives the world of its sin.  God forgives every single person.  God doesn't take an eye for an eye, a life for a life, or any other form of restitution.  Instead, God says: "I forgive you!"  God sets our sins from us, as far as the east is from the west we are told.  And God refuses to exact punishment upon us for them.

All thanks to Jesus Christ, we get to keep our eyes, our hands, and all our members because he is forgiveness in the flesh!

You gave the law at Sinai, Lord, and we struggle to understand and keep it.  Help us see and experience your forgiveness so that we may forgive others, instead of inflicting upon them the pain they have inflicted upon us.  Amen.

God of the Itty-bitty Details

I will never forget your precepts for by them you have preserved my life.  Psalm 119:93

God of the Itty-bitty Details
By Rev. William Dohle

I like details, especially in school.  I like to know what the teacher expects, when they expect it, and how they expect it to be presented to them.  I like to know the formatting, how they want things to be cited, and what things should be cited how.

I have learned how important instructions are to me as my children grow into more complicated assignments.  It's often they come home to say, "I need a poster board for a project..." but they don't have any details about the project or what is expected of them in completing it.

Details... that's just where it stands.

One of my favorite college teachers was a guy named Dr. Tonsing.  Tonsing(or Tonz to the students) was a religion professor at California Lutheran University.  Tonz was known to have a very specific way he wanted things presented to him.  He wanted them in an outline.  Each point in the outline had to have so many sub-points and every sub-point had to be documented in a specific way.  Every paper in his class would look exactly alike.  That's just how he liked them.

I remember one of my fellow students struggling with that formatting.  She would leave his class disappointed in her grade.  "Why did he give me this?" she'd say.  Looking over her paper, I knew exactly why.  She didn't format it right.  When the professor says, "Do it this way with these details" you listen to him, especially if you want a good grade out of his class.

Details.  That's just where it stands.

God too is notorious for details.  Small details.  Itty-bitty details even.  Scripture is jam packed full of details of how he wants his people, Israel, to live, and what they are to do in every situation, down to the last detail.  Here are a few of those detailed passages from the book of Exodus...

If men quarrel and one hits the other with a stone or with his fist and he does not die but is confined to bed, the one who struck the blow will not be held responsible if the other gets up and walks around outside with his staff; however he must pay the injured man for the loss of his time and see that he is completely healed.(Ex. 21:18-19)

If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows.(Ex. 21:22)

If a bull gores a man or woman to death, the bull must be stoned to deaqth, and its meat must not be eaten.(Ex. 21:28)

If a man grazes his livestock in a field or vineyard and lets his animals stray and they graze in another man's field, he must make restitution from the best of his own field or vineyard.(Ex. 22:5)

There are more.  Many more.  Check out Exodus 21 and following for many many more detailed instructions.

As Christians, we might feel tempted to skip over these passages.  I know I do.  I want the "good stuff", the stories and things out of Scripture.  As far as these little itty-bitty detailed laws of God...I'll call them artifacts of the past.  They have no relevant meaning for me today...right?

But what if they did?  What if the Word of God was present just as much in these little itty-bitty details of how to live a good life as the Word is in the Gospels or the Epistles?  What if these laws have something to say to us today?

I think they do.  I think they tell us a little about God himself.  I think they remind us that God is a God of the details, even the itty-bitty ones!

Our God, the King of the Universe, cares about the details of life just as much as he cares about the big picture.  Many of us might be "big picture" people or just "detail orientated" people.  Our God is both.  He cares for the cosmos in the big picture, our galaxy in the big picture, our solar system and even our world in the big picture, but he also cares just as much about the details of our lives.  How we live.  How we walk through life.  What we say or do not say to our neighbor.  How we care for the environment.  Even what we do in the privacy of our own home.  God cares about all of this!

And these laws prove it.  God could have left his people with the beginning of the law, the part we call the Ten Commandments, and let THEM sort it out.  "There you go!  I've said all I need to say.  You figure out the rest..."  But he didn't.  God got involved in the details of law.  He jumped into the details of his people's lives.  And then he jumped, with both feet, into our flesh in Jesus Christ!  That's a God of the itty-bitty, teeny-weeny details for you!

Thank you for caring for how we graze our livestock, how we quarrel, and even how we live our lives in our most private moments.  Help me see your hand in all the details of my life.  Amen. 

Of First Concern

These are the laws you are to set before them... Exodus 21:1

Of First Concern
By Rev. William Dohle

I love to laugh and am always looking for something that makes me chuckle.

Of the things that make me laugh, David Letterman's Top Ten takes the cake.  Something in his lists always makes me chuckle.  Here's one I can relate with having children(and an infant that will soon be crawling...).

Top Ten Unsafe Toys
--------------------------------------------------------------------
10. Junior Electrician Outlet Patrol
 9. Hasbro's Slippery Steps
 8. Black & Decker's
 7. Roof Ranger Paratrooper Outfit
 6. Ramco's Pocket Hive
 5. Traffic Tag
 4. Will it Burn? from Parker Brothers
 3. Chimney Explorer
 2. My First Ferret Farm
 1. The Hold Your Breath Game by Milton Bradley

Of course with any Top Ten list, the most important one isn't the first one listed.  It's the last one.  The #1 is usually the funniest and the most appropriate answer to the question.  Usually we start with #1...but they push you through 10 through 2 so that the most important one gets the most laughs.

The book of Exodus in its list of the laws of Israel and describing God's concern for God's people, does not start with the least important one and work to the most important.  It starts with the group that is most important to God and works the other way.

And the group that is most important to God?  The ones who are #1 on God's list.?  Are they the rich?  The wealthy ones?  Are they those who have the power?  Maybe the priests at the time?  Well... the group that takes the cake as far as God's concern are...

(Drum roll please...)

The slaves!

What?  No reaction?  Did you hear me right?  Let's try this again.  The first ones that God is concerned about are...

(Drum roll again...)

The slaves!

That's right.  Those who are at the bottom of the chain of command.  Those without the power.  Those who are, in many cases, property of someone else.  That's who's God got on his mind.

Here's what God has to say about them...

"If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve you for six years.  But in the seventh year, he shall go free..."(Exodus 21:2)
"If a man sells his daughter as a slave, she is not to go free as menservants do.  If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself he must let her be redeemed.  He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her.  If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter.  If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing, and marital rights.  If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money."(Exodus 21:7-11)

Now perhaps you've tuned out by now...or skipped ahead.  Perhaps you think this has nothing to do with you and why should you care how slaves were treated back then.  Maybe you don't have much of a reaction to this passage because it's not the most important thing to you.  Or maybe you see the seeds of slavery in our own world here and wonder why God didn't take a stronger stand against slavery instead of working through the institution.

Despite all this the fact remains: slaves are important to God.  Very important!  The lowest ones among us and their welfare is first on God's mind.  Make sure they are treated well.

Today, according to the New York Times, there are 24 million slaves across the globe, more than there were in 1860.  To purchase a slave, all you need is $140.00!  Slaves work in a variety of areas, for textile mills to brothel houses.  And, what's more, most slaves are not bonded willingly but either kidnapped or because of debt.  Most slaves will never see freedom in their lifetimes.

The book of Exodus does more than illustrate God's concern for the slave.  It actually demonstrates compassion as well.  True, it does not condemn the practice, what many abolitionists in the 1800's wished it would do, but it does talk about respect and compassion and the ability to be freed at some point.

And more than all of this, it illustrates God's concern for the slave.  They are the first ones to be named specifically for laws concerning their condition.  Before the role of the priests are described.  Before we the book of Leviticus with its rules and regulations.  Before all of this.  The first concern of God is...how we treat the lowest ones among us.

Maybe that should be our concern too.  Looking out at the world, perhaps we should put on our "God glasses" and look for the lowest, the least, the little, the lost, and the dead.  For, in finding them, we will find God standing beside them in solidarity, inviting us to join the cause of peace and justice in the world.

We are blind at times, Heavenly Father, to the lowest who are all around us.  Open our eyes that we might see them, embrace them in love, and work for justice and peace, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Nothing Even Beside Me!

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Tell the Israelites this: 'You have seen for yourselves that I have spoken to you from heaven: Do not make any gods to be alongside me; do not make for yourselves gods of silver of gods of gold.'" Exodus 20:22-23


Nothing Even Beside Me!
By Rev. William Dohle

One of the best experiences of my life was the 4 months I spent in India.  There I had the chance to truly experience another culture, to walk into the homes of another people, and to learn things that no book could truly teach.

It was there that I learned about other gods.

Hinduism has a whole pantheon of different gods.  From Vishnu to Brahman to Siva and all their many wives and children.  There is literally a god for everything.  Ganesh, the elephant headed god, is the remover of obsticles while Lakshmi, wife of Vishnu, is the goddess of wealth.  Each god has their own realm of influence, their own temple.  And because you pray to each god for their individual blessing, you are likely to see the images of many gods all standing side by side from each other.  Often even the same temple will have different shrines to different gods.

This is the context to which God speaks.  After the opening commandments, God starts to separate his people out from the rest of their neighbors with one opening difference.  No gold gods for them.  Their God, the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, has spoken to them out of heaven.  He cannot be found in an idol on earth.  No gold image can contain him.

And no image can come beside him either.  God is not one God of many.  He is the only God, King of the Universe, creator of all that exists.  God alone gives life and love and meaning.  God alone does all these things and nothing should come beside him.

God's words here are law.  Nothing shall be set beside God.

It would have been great to say that that actually happened, but Scripture itself is full of people who set something beside God, Old Testament and New.  Even the Kings of Israel were known to place a host of idols alongside God "just in case" they needed something specific they couldn't get from God.

In a way, you could say, we too set up images beside God as if they mattered more than the King of the Universe.  How so?  Well consider these questions...

Is the flag an idol?  Or can it be?  We stand for it and salute it.  We rush to its aid and treat it with honor and respect.  If it is defiled we burn it.  And often it is set it up front of our own houses of worship, along side the cross.  Could we have made it an image we set alongside God?

Or our sports teams.  Sometimes I think the commercial is right.  The sporting arena IS our modern-day church.  It is our religion.  We sacrifice our time and money to its altar.  We drag our kids so they can play one more game.  We sacrifice time to worship for time to play.  We even dress in the color of our faith.  Have we set up a ball alongside God?

Or social media?  Or our i-phones?  Or our families?  Or...the list goes on and on.

We may as well admit that, at some level, we all break this command.  We set up shiny things beside God.  We make them just as important(if not more important) than God is.  We claim to worship one God...while serving a host of others ones.

We are slaves of many masters!

But there is hope.  For the God who sent Jesus Christ to suffer and die for us.  The God who saved us while we were still sinners and idolaters.  The God who loved us no matter what.

Is also the God who gives the command that immediately follows this one.

"Make an altar of earth for me...Wherever I cause my name to be honored, I will come to you and bless you.  If you make an altar of stones, do not build it with dressed stones...And do not go up to my altar on steps, or your private parts may be exposed."(Exodus 20:24-26)

Our God is a humble God, not demanding an altar of polished stones.  Not demanding gold or silver.  But a God who invites us forward in humility.  Our God is a God concerned for us, even when we're at our worst.  A God whose altar isn't up on some high place, but down below where no one will be shamed and all may come.

That's not something any of the other gods can deliver.  Unconditional acceptance.  It's only promised...and delivered...by the Lord God Almighty whose altar has come to earth and who has come to live along side us now and forever.

Clear away the altar of my heart, Lord, and make it your throne so that only you will be praised and honored and worshiped now and forever.  Amen. 

The Story Unknown

"'I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.'" Exodus 20:2

The Story Unknown
By Rev. William Dohle

It's nearly October and the time has come once again to crack open a scary book in honor of my favorite holiday, Halloween.

I usually start here in September and read as many as I can before the clock strikes 12 on Halloween night.

This year I chose "The Shining" by Stephen King with the sequel "Doctor Sleep" coming out in September.  I figure I can finish the first so I can crack open and finish the second the day it arrives.

Now, I have seen the old move, "The Shining", with Jack Nicholson, but I had never read the book.  And now, nearly finished with the book, I must say...

They are NOTHING alike!!

There's no scary children in the book.  Just in the movie.  No rivers of blood flowing down the stairs.  That's only in the movie too.  The book and the movie share the scariest scene, but all the things that I thought were SOO freaky...aren't in the book.  Figures huh?  You think you know a thing...until you actually read it.

That principle applies also to one hallmark of faith.  Something courts and judges have argued over.  Something we teach our children and hang up on our walls.  We're talking the one...the only...Ten Commandments!

This list of laws dating back thousands of years most people think they understand...but they really don't.  And only when looking at the text itself and what comes before and after this list can we see how terribly we have misunderstood this text.

Take their numbering for instance.  Everyone knows that there are just ten of them...right??  The ten commandments are made up of ten.  Sounds like a trick question or something...

But if you actually read the text and start counting...there's actually eleven commandments.  That's right.  There's eleven directives!

So we ignore one, big deal.  We all ignore the same one...right?  Not quite.  Luther's Small Catechism has two covet commandments.  "You shall not covet your neighbor's house" and "You shall not covet your neighbors wife...or anything that belongs to your neighbor" and skips "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything...".

Other ten commandment lists combine the covet commandments leaving room for the "no graven image" commandment.

Ten or eleven, you say.  Big deal.  It's close enough...

Not really... Because there aren't just ten commandments from God.  There are hundreds!  These are just the ones that God chose to begin with!  God doesn't give the ten or eleven and then quit.  He continues commanding his people throughout the book of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

But these ten, or eleven, or whatever are enough.  They're the commands God gave to the world.

Again... not quite.  These commandments are at the center of the covenant God forged with his people, Israel.  He didn't give these commands to the rest of the world or to any other nation.  These are his commands TO THE JEWS.

Furthermore, they aren't really commands at all.  This section is written as the start of a promise, a covenant, between God and his people.  God begins by saying...

"Here's who I am and what I did for you..." I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt out of the land of slavery.

"And here's what you'll do for me..."  You shall have no other gods before me... You shall not make for yourself an idol...etc.

This is the beginning of the covenant-relationship with Israel.  Here God binds Israel to himself.  Here God establishes what His people will look like, and act like, and be like in the world.

It's marvelous how God did this!

I am thankful that, as a Christian, I too am caught up in this covenant.  Having been grafted to God's people through Jesus the Christ, I too am caught up with God's people as God makes his covenant with them.  As an adopted child through Jesus, I share in the responsibilities that God lays upon God's people.  I too am struck by his voice from the mountain.

And I respond as Israel did, when they say to Moses, "Speak to us yourself and we will listen.  But do not have God speak to us or we will die."(20:19)

And I too hear Moses' words of comfort: "Do not be afraid.  God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning."(20:20)

Let us lay aside the images we have of this event and read it for ourselves.  For in it we see our gracious God keeping us from sinning, forgiving us when we do, and strengthening us to walk in His Way that he set before us both at Mt. Sinai and in his Son, Jesus Christ.

How much, O Lord, do I not understand of You and Your Word.  Teach me to follow after you, to learn, and to be open to what you have to teach me.  Amen.

God of the Dust Speck

The LORD said to Moses, "I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you."  Exodus 19:9

God of the Dust Speck
By Rev. William Dohle

Have you ever gone away from the city lights, way out in the countryside someplace, late at night at watched the stars?  Aren't they amazing!

I have this app I bought awhile ago called the Night Sky.  In it, you can peer in at the objects that you can't usually see with your naked eye.  Galaxies, star clusters, nebula.  The list goes on and on!

I like to stare at those pictures sometime and imagine.  If there are billions of stars in our own galaxy and of them a billion or so have planets and of them a half million of them have life.  If that is true of our galaxy, as they say it might be, just imagine how many trillions upon trillions of stars there are in the sky from all the trillions of galaxies.  Life could be more than abundant.  It could be overflowing.

And all of them stem from just one God!  All those galaxies and stars, all those planets and planetoids.  The countless forms of life just waiting to be discovered.  They are all created by God!  Wow!

That's some God!

That's the vision that comes to us at the foot of Mt. Sinai.  As Moses climbs up the mountain to talk with God, the people are told...

Put limits for the people around the mountain and tell them, ‘Be careful that you do not approach the mountain or touch the foot of it. Whoever touches the mountain is to be put to death. They are to be stoned or shot with arrows; not a hand is to be laid on them. No person or animal shall be permitted to live. (Exodus 19:12-13)

Why would God sequester himself off like this?  Why would this God who chose the people of Israel as His people out of all the nations be so inaccessible to them?

Because that's what God is!  God is bigger and stronger and wiser and incomprehesible.  God evades our limited way of thinking about him.

Is he with the ants as they nest in the earth?  Yes!  After all, he oversaw their creation!
But is he also over the supernova that exploded some 40 million years ago in some far off galaxy?  Yes!  For the same reason!


God is so big and holy and awesome that we might think: Why does God care?  Why does God bother with us?  If we are, as Calvin in the cartoon rightly suggests, a mere dust spec in the universe, why does God give us any mind?  Why does he bother with us?

Because, in his heart, God is love!  God is a compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

In short, God is a God of the details.  He thrives on the details of existence.  True, God is also a God of the galaxies and far flung solar systems of the world, but God is also a God of the details.  A God of the winds of Saturn and the winds of Central Illinois, a God of the cicadas chirping in the trees and a God of the largest star clusters in the universe.

Our God is small and large at the same time.  A God of the details and the big picture.  Busy with the details but knowing the whole.  Loving his creation and tending to even our petty needs.

How can he do it?  How can God be so much and still be here?  I don't know!  It's something we can't even comprehend.  Should we even begin to wrap our brains around it, it would kill us.

Maybe that's why God is inaccessible, even on Mt. Sinai.  For, as much as the Lord tells Moses, "...be ready for the third day because on that day the Lord will come down."

God can't come down as God.  He never does come to the people.

As much as God tells Moses, "Go down and bring Aaron up with you..."

Moses himself knows, "The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, 'Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.'"  And Aaron never comes either.

As much as we'd like to experience God as God...we cannot!

Maybe that's where we see our need for Jesus.  For, in Jesus, we see God.  We see and experience God as Father.  We see what matters most to God in the end is grace, hope, and steadfast love.  In Jesus...we see what God looks like in our flesh and through that flesh we experience the Lord God, king of all the universe.

Take a look up and the night sky.  God is out there...and also right here!

Touch us with your grace, Lord, that the boxes we build for you might crumble and that we might see what you truly look like, face to face, in the faces and lives around us.  Amen.

Chosen by God!

"Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."  Exodus 19:6

Chosen By God!
By Rev. William Dohle

13 years ago, August 22, 2000, God touched my life.  With the hands of friends, my head was touched with his Hand.  In the voice of the presider, I was called by God.  With the grace of my wife, God placed the stoll symbolizing the office of pastor upon me.  In that moment I was called into ordained ministry.  God touched my life.  It's been 13 years but I can still remember it like it was yesterday.  Ordained ministry for me began that day when I stood before Bishop Egertson from Southern California, heard my name called out, and answered timidly the call I believed was from God.

It's been 13 years since I was ordained a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America...but I'm just starting to understand what it means.  Being a pastor I am learning isn't a destination.  It's not something you became, but rather something you are becoming.  It's not a place you go, but rather the call to a journey beyond where you are.  Ministry is a journey into learning how to be a servant to others, learning how to put aside one's own interest for the sake of others.  It's a journey into listening and knowing when is the right time to speak and act.  It's walking the way of the cross.  It's grappling with death and life, depair and hope, with a community of faith.  And it's a journey in understanding and describing how the grand Story of God affects the tiny story of our lives.

Ministry is a journey into understanding what it means to be set apart and chosen...for service to God and to others.

The people of Israel began on this journey back at the foot of Mount Sinai.  After seeing God's wonders in Egypt and traveling through the wilderness to this place, God makes a covanent with the people of Israel.

"Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.  Alghouth the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."(Exodus 19:5-6)

This moment sets Israel apart from the rest of the world.  They are no longer like their Gentile neighbors.  Nobody can claim they are chosen quite like they can.  In that moment, God called them out of all the nations to be His nation!

This moment marks their choosing, it ordains them as God's chosen people, but ordains them as something else.  Notice what God makes Israel to be...

"...a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."

God doesn't make them into kings and princes to rule over the surrounding people.  God doesn't choose them to have a special place in heaven nor do they get to lord it over.  God doesn't make them masters of others.

God makes them priests!  A kingdom of priests!

And anyone who knows what priests SHOULD be like, knows that priests should be like servants.  They should serve the people around them.  They should pray for others, nurturing them in their faith.  They should teach others what God has given them to teach, to pass on the words of God for others.  They are to encourage others, support others, and finally (hopefully) lead others to God as well.

They are not suppose to lord it over others, make others their slaves, or demand with the sword that others agree with them.  They are suppose to minister and love and cherish others and be the arms of God to a world desperate for God's love.

Christians too have been invited into this chosen priesthood.  It is no accident that Peter, taking the words found in Exodus, applies them, not just to Jews but to all Christians.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."(1 Peter 2:9)

These words are straight from Sinai.  Peter declares these promises spoken to Israel back at the foot of Mt. Sinai to all believers.  In Christ Jesus, Gentiles also have been brought into this covenant.  We too are God's chosen people.  Chosen, by the way, not to insist on the world conforming to us or just becoming like us, but chosen to bring God's transforming light to the world, that the world may be transformed and changed by God.

WE are called and chosen for this task, not just ME.  I may be chosen and called by God and this community of faith, but you too share this calling.  For together, as the people of God, we are all called to be priests to each other.  We are called to be God's people, though we once were not.

"Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."(1 Peter 2:10)

I believe our call and the call God spoke to the Jewish people long ago are the same.  We are all to be ministers of God, witnesses to his love, faithful servants and priests to him, until the day when we stand together with the whole world under God's great glory on that New Day, clothed as the kingdom of priests that we are called to be.

O God, as you called the people of Israel long ago and renewed their covenant through the ages, so we pray you would call us and renew our covenant that we might join them in declaring your love.  Amen.

Death of the Renaissance Man

When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?” Exodus 18:14

Death of the Renaissance Man
By Rev. William Dohle

When I was growing up, my father tried very very hard to expand my horizons and talents.

It started with cars.  We had a VW bug out back and he tried very hard to teach me how to change a tires and the oil...but that didn't interest me.  He tried and tried...and finally gave up.

He tried with construction... we had a playhouse out back and my father did half the work on it and left the other half for me to finish.  It never got finished.

He tried electronics, and though I did enjoy playing video games and eventually programming and stuff, I never got into the hobby quite like he would have liked.

Sorry, Dad...  Guess your son is just mechanically challenged...:)

Everyone has different gifts, but sometimes we forget this.  Everyone has different interests and different talents, but sometimes we wish not.  Sometimes we wish we(and everyone around us) could do everything!  Every need we can fulfill.  Every problem we can fix.  We can do it!

Our ideal is the Renaissance Man, a modern concept out of the 1600's that imagined a man who was totally self-sufficient.  He needed no one to do anything for him.  He could grow his own food, kill and cook up his own meat, build his own house, tend his own family, and do everything that needed to be doing all by himself.

Such an ideal is still alive and well in the world around us.  I myself have encountered it in many places throughout my travels.

But this ideal is not biblical.  It is, in fact, what Moses was counselled against.

Back when the people of Israel were wandering in the desert... before they received the commandments at Sinai...Moses had the task of judging the people of Israel.  With so many people, you can imagine the job that was, and Moses took it well.  The people would line up outside and Moses would tell them what God had in mind.

At that time, Moses' Father-in-law came with Moses' wife and children in tow to visit his son-in-law and return Moses' family to him.  When Jethro saw what Moses was doing, he saw beside himself!

"What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you.” (Exodus 18:17-22)

Moses had good reason.  He saw these people needed help and he wanted to help them, but in helping them, Moses was taking on too much.  He couldn't do it alone!  He needed help!

We too need to realize that we need help.  Even the greatest Renaissance Man cannot operate on himself.  They may have built their own homes, but they do not diagnose their own illnesses.  They may have built their own cars, but they still need someone to make their clothes.  And at the end of their lives, even the most self-sufficient man cannot bury themselves.

We need others to do things that we cannot.  We need them.  We need mechanics to fix our cars and plumbers to fix our pipes.  We need famers to grow our food and truckers to bring the food to the store and store keepers to put it out on the shelves for us.  We need construction workers of all varieties to do their individual jobs that they do so well.  We need them to be specialized, not generalized.  We need each other.

No one would want a construction worker on the street doing brain surgery.  You want a brain surgeon.  Unless that construction worker has hidden talents and has gone to school, we don't place a scalpel in their hands.  But we do trust them to build our roads and our schools and the very hospitals we are in.  We need them to do what they were called to do.

May we remember Jethro's words to Moses and not demand or expect others to have the gifts that we do, but instead may we use the gifts that God has given each of us for the common good and to the glory of His Name.

God you have given me with unique gifts and talents that no one else has.  Help me use them for others.  Humble me too that I may see where I need other people as they need me.  Amen.

God Against My Enemy

"The Lord will be at war against the Amalekites from generation to generation."  Exodus 17:16

God Against My Enemy
By Rev. William Dohle

This past year I had the privilege of studying with a group of God's faithful here at St. Paul Lutheran Church, where I serve.

Our class began last August and finished up this July.  In addition to reading four spiritual books, we each read through the whole Bible, writing in a journal as we read. When we arrived in the middle of our study, when the verses took us back to the Hebrew Bible, we heard a common refrain: "These passages are just so bloody and violent!  How could God allow them to do that?!  Why are these stories in our Bible?"

I've heard it before when people discover how human the Bible truly is.  Passages where God commands the Israelites to slaughter every man, woman, child, and animal surprise many people.  They want God to be loving toward everyone.  They see a difference, as the ancient Marcian did, between the New Testament and the Old and they want to isolate the New Testament from the writings they feel portray God too tribal.

But, what if you were persecuted, struck down, chased from place to place, hated, abandoned, and wandering?  What if you were former slaves facing down a group of slavers?  What would you want God to do?  Love them?  Or would you want God to stand up to them because you can't?

The Amalekites, sworn enemies of God's people Israel, are as ancient as they are.  Abraham himself is said to have fought against them.  Throughout the years, as Israel grew stronger and larger, these two people became hostile toward each other.  Wars against the Amalekites started in Genesis continued to rage for centuries to come.

So...what makes them so different from the Israelites?  Why were they fought against each other?  No one really knows.  What is known is that the Amalekites become the devils and demons of their day.  They are, in the biblical writers view, the enemies of God!  They are remembered to be those who disobeyed God and who hunted down God's people.  In Deuteronomy we read:

“Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you came out of Egypt, how he attacked you on the way when you were faint and weary, and cut off your tail, those who were lagging behind you, and he did not fear God. Therefore when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around you, in the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance to possess, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget."

So what do we make of this today?  Well, contrary to what we might think of our "peaceable" New Testament, God is still raging against our enemies even there.  Only difference is that our enemies are not people of flesh and blood, but things of the spirit.  In the New Testament, God rages against... sin!  It is said that God will defeat death!  God will trample down the devil and his minions.  In the New Testament, we are told that nothing can separate us from God.  Not any enemy that we can think of.  Nothing!

This is the same message, I think, we ought to take from this story in Exodus.  God doesn't give up!  He never stops fighting for our cause.  God will never stop fighting cancer or depression.  He will not give up the war against despair and heartache.  God wrestles down to the ground the forces of selfishness.  He wipes away the scars brought about by injustice.

These are our Amalekites.  These are our enemies!

I take great hope in knowing that God doesn't abandon his people.  He didn't abandon them in the desert to the Amalekites who hunted them down.  He didn't abandon them to exile or to the sinfulness of their ways.  And he won't abandon us too.

That's comfort for the ages...right there!

Good God, though we are separated by centuries from your people and their wars against the Amalekites, we struggle with enemies ourselves.  Open our eyes that we might see you fighting beside us on our behalf.  Amen.

About the photo:  "Davidster" (Star of David) by Dick Stins is a World War II memorial in The Hague. The text at the side (in Dutch and Hebrew) is from Deuteronomy 25:17,19 - "Remember what Amalek has done to you...do not forget."