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What If God Is Really Doing Things!

October 5, 2011 by Mark Woodward

I want to tell you about the goodness of God.  To understand this story, I need you to think as if you were reading it in a split screen on your computer though—two parallel stories that converge at the end.

Split Screen One

Monday was the first working day of October and therefore the end of Let’s Start Talking’s Month of Joyful Giving 2011.  Sherrylee leads this month—as most of you know because you received a personal call from her!  (If you didn’t, it’s not too late! J)

Monday morning though she was struggling a little because the final amount raised in the month appeared to be $71,000 short of the goal that had been very prayerfully set.  She told me she was just questioning whether she ought to continue asking , or maybe she had not been prayerful enough and had not really set God’s goal, but her own—all quite normal questions for us humans who only see in a mirror darkly.

Finally, she said to herself, “It is not up to me. God can make this happen—or not!”

Split Screen Two

A regular Christian guy had been in the audience on Saturday night when Sherrylee told the audience that a goal of $200,000 had been prayerfully set, but that we all knew this was a goal we would never reach unless God worked mightily.

He knew he wanted to make a contribution—but that’s all he really knew. Monday—at the same time Sherrylee was wrestling with God’s will—he called the LST office to see how close we were to reaching the goal.  It was then he found out that LST was $71,000 short of the goal.

He decided then that whatever he made that day on the deal he had had been working on, would be what he would contribute to LST.  He even set a time to make the call.  At two o’clock, he would make the call.

At about three o’clock, he and I were sitting in my office. He started telling me his story of seeking God’s will and of his decision to contribute whatever he earned on this deal. I sat there not knowing whether to hope for $500 or $5000! Either one would have been very appreciated.

By the time he told me that he had earned exactly $71,000, we were both on the verge of tears because the finger of God was so obvious, writing out this story long before LST had a goal and long before he even knew that he wanted to contribute.

One Screen

Yes, I do believe that a really huge, out-of-reach goal set prayerfully and a really huge contribution given cheerfully by someone who is truly just a regular Christian guy—not rich, not anything but a true Christ-follower—I believe both are the result of the providence of an amazingly good God!

One of the blessings of growing older is that the accumulation of these kinds of stories begin to truly teach me not to worry about the future, not to be afraid that God will run out of funds to do what He wants to do.

*I have changed a few details to protect the privacy of this person, but nothing that would exaggerate in any way the true impact of this God-story.

Posted in Christian Culture | 6 Comments »

Are You Depending On a Walk-Off to Win the Game?

September 30, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Wildcard Wednesday was a historic night in major league baseball.  The losers lost after being ahead and appearing to be winners. The winners won after looking like losers until the very last moment.  The losers (Boston and Atlanta) lost worse than anybody before them! No team had ever collapsed as badly as both of these teams did in September.

It was a great day for the game of baseball—but that’s not the way life really works!

Let’s lay out the metaphor to make sure we are talking about the same things. Instead of a game, I’m talking about Life—your life and my life—and in place of the last game, I’m talking about what the Scriptures call the Day of Judgment.   What is at stake is eternal life, not a pennant.

Here’s where I want to go with this metaphor:

First, there will be no surprises on that last day!  Everyone will know what is true. They will also know what is false.  They will all confess that Jesus is Lord! Those who are saved will know why and those who are lost will know why. No surprises.

Second, the winners will all be winners and the losers will lose.  Those who have been saved are guarded, their salvation is sealed, and no one will be lost.  The losers may have pretended at times to be saved, but they don’t fool God. He has seen their heart from the beginning and known its hardness.

Third, no walk-offs –no unexpected victory for the hopeless !  Jesus already has defeated death. He trampled it—so while a last minute conversion may appear to us as a last minute victory, we have not surprised Jesus! He has been pursuing and preparing for that “last minute” since the foundation of the world.

Fourth, no triple play can spoil the victory! The opponent is helpless against the righteousness of God. The opponent is helpless—not that he cannot create pain and havoc, not that he can’t challenge and twist and lie—but the opponent does not have the power to pull off a miraculous play that dooms one that wants to be saved and belongs to the Lord.

I love baseball and can’t wait for the roller coaster of emotions during the playoffs this year, but I’m glad that my salvation does not depend on something as capricious as—me!

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“Hesed” and Harding

September 28, 2011 by Mark Woodward

The Original Entrance to Harding University

A trip to Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, is always a bit nostalgic. For four years, this was my home, my community, and my church!  My parents dropped me off at Armstrong Hall in 1965, a couple of days before most freshmen would arrive, so there I was by myself except for the football players who had to report early.

My first class in college was Old Testament Survey under Neil Pryor. He was young, personable, funny, and never forgot your name! He later became the academic dean of the university and a classroom legend.  Dr. Pryor died this week, another saint on the other side.

My freshmen year was also Cliff Ganus’s first year as president of Harding. He inherited the presidency from George S. Benson, another legendary figure in churches of Christ. Dr. Benson had been one of our early missionaries to China, later came to Harding and took it to true collegiate status—then did the same for Oklahoma Christian University.  Dr. Benson stayed heavily involved in African missions, virtually until the day he died.  Cliff Ganus had large shoes to fill, but, in his quietly profound way, he became the heart and soul of Harding.

I saw Dr. Ganus last night at the Harding Lectureship. He and his wife Louise both will turn 90 years-old in the next few months, both still sharp and active. Dr. Ganus reminded me that he first came to Harding as a freshmen in 1939, so he has been a part of the Harding community for 71 years!!!

David Burks followed Dr. Ganus as president of Harding in 1987. His fingerprints are especially obvious on the campus, which has totally been transformed during his presidency. In 1969, the small campus was centered around the Lily Pond and in the years of Dr. Burk’s presidency, the old buildings have been reconstituted, and dozens of beautiful buildings have been built. The small college of my day has become a sprawling university on a beautiful campus.  And Dr. Burk’s is equally as loved by the students as his predecessors!

There are almost 7000 students attending Harding University this year! Sherrylee and I just laughed last night as we were walking out of the Benson Auditorium following the lectureship and award ceremony for Max and Opal Johnson, which I mentioned in the last posting.

In a small, dimly lit alcove near the auditorium, there were a couple of students, dressed in shorts and T-shirts, sitting legs crossed, facing each other.  It wasn’t until I noticed that he had a pen and had started to write on her leg that the couple even caught my attention.

My first thought was, oh boy, Dr. Benson would roll over in his grave if he saw this out in front of his auditorium! Things were very different then. No shorts, no PDA (public display of affection), and light bulbs in every dark corner of the campus!

But what made us laugh came next. Just as we got just even with this couple, we heard the girl say, “No, no, hesed  (which she said with an exaggerated guttural, clearing-her-throat sound) means “unconditional love.”

I don’t know what the context of this conversation was, but where on earth except at a Christian college like Harding would you hear a couple sitting in the dark late at night, discussing the meaning of a biblical Hebrew word?

No doubt, the role of Christian colleges in our fellowship is changing, but I’m very thankful for schools like Harding, where completely committed Christians still spend their entire lives filling up our children and grandchildren with the information about God’s world and faith in the Creator!

 

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Your Parents Are Heavy!

September 26, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Tomorrow Sherrylee and I are driving about seven hours to Searcy, Arkansas, because her father Max Johnson and his wife Opal are being presented with a Christian Service Award from Harding University during their lectureship.

The presentation will probably last a total of five minutes, but good time management is not really a relevant issue here. Sharing special moments with those you love—at any cost—especially your parents—is what it is all about!

Have you ever noticed in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) that “honor your father and your mother” is the first commandment which is about something other than the uniqueness and holiness of God?  Commentators often see a shift of direction in the fifth commandment, moving from God-centered commands to neighbor-centered .

Jesus probably saw it this way too as you can tell from his summary of the ten commands: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and, love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12).

I like to think about this fifth commandment as being the bridge between the two groupings.  After all, your parents are not really neighbors and they haven’t been divine since you were about ten years old.

Yet, in some ways they still have their feet on both of these banks. My mother is 88 years old and lives about five miles from Sherrylee and me—and so she is my neighbor.  And you can’t call God Father without thinking about your own father, can you?

So what does God mean when He commands us to honor our fathers and mothers?  And what does that look like for me when I’m thirty? Forty?  Fifty?  Sixty?  Or older?  (My mom just lost a friend of hers who was 107. She was being cared for by her 80-year-old daughter—or maybe it was her almost 60-year-old granddaughter—Mom wasn’t sure!).

Mom would laugh if I told her that the core meaning of the word God wrote on the table of stones is weighty. She is definitely not weighty! But the way the word is used has to do with something that is weighty with value. My mental image is of those balance scales that are still used in many countries to determine the value of something. The heavier the scales register, the more valuable the commodity.

The fifth commandment says that parents are to be considered precious, of extraordinary value, like a pair of huge diamonds that always drop their side of the scales to the bottom.

The Ten Commandments were not given to children; Jesus accused the Pharisees and teachers of the law of breaking the command of God to honor father and mother (Matthew 15:3ff).  We never outgrow the command to honor father and mother!

Jesus reprimanded the Pharisees for not using their money to take care of their parents.  I know a good man who was a corporate executive for a multinational firm for many years, who retired financially secured, but who spent all of his retirement taking care first of his wife’s parents, who lived into their nineties, and then his own until their deaths.  He honored his parents and hers at great personal cost—because they were weighty—precious jewels.

Jesus also quotes the command not to curse father or mother to the Pharisees, so I wonder if they were doing that too?   Could your parents frustrate you so much with their insecurities, with their lack of comprehension, with their lack of inhibition, with their legalism, with their insistence on their own way, could they make you want to curse??  Maybe the Pharisees and their parents weren’t so different from us after all???

Honoring father and mother has everything to do with honoring God!  To paraphrase the Apostle John, if we can’t honor our earthly father and mother, how can we truly honor our heavenly Father? (1 John 4:20)

And so we drive a total of 14 hours for a five-minute ceremony to honor Max and Opal—but we do it because they are precious to God and to us.  If our little trip were put in the balance scale on one side, it wouldn’t even register compared to the weighty people on the other side.

 

 

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The Professor Who Dreamed In Russian!

September 20, 2011 by Mark Woodward

 In  the mid-nineties, we visited with a well-loved professor at one of our Christian universities . He really didn’t seem like the “missions” type. He taught in the liberal arts, very scholarly, quite creative, but all who knew him knew that above all he was a very committed follower of Jesus—so that made him the genuine “missions” type!!

In the course of one of our conversations, we discovered that he had this burning desire to go to Russia.  In fact, he had been studying Russian on his own for fifteen years!!  That means he was learning Russian when no one thought the Berlin wall would come down, and when no one dreamed that the Soviet Union would disintegrate like it did in 1990/91.

Professor J was a quiet man, wry sense of humor, tall and thin, and if you stood close enough to him you could hear the mechanical valve in his heart clacking.  He had all kinds of jokes about that!

He volunteered to lead a team of students from his university to St. Petersburg, Russia the following summer. In spite of his position and his many responsibilities, he participated in all of the training and truly participated as one of the team members.

Finally, the summer came and he was just as excited, if not more so, than any of the students.  He had been waiting for this opportunity for fifteen years—if not longer.

Every day for six weeks, he read the Gospel of Luke with Russians, from whom the Gospel had been withheld by Communism for seventy years.  He helped people with their English, but sneaked in some practice for his Russian as well. The Russians loved him for that!

For six weeks, he served the small church that was hosting his group. They even asked him to bring the lesson on the last Sunday that the team was supposed to be in Russia.

That last Sunday is always a hard one.  Saying good-bye to people with whom you have talked so intimately, shared subway rides with, walked the streets of St. Petersburg with, it’s hard to say good-by and there are often hugs and tears all around.

Professor J stood that morning in front of the little church, speaking for the whole team, he told both their readers and the church members good-by.  But even in the poignancy of the moment, Professor J brought their attention to God by saying, “We will probably never see you in this world again, but our prayer is that we will all be together again someday in heaven before the throne of Jesus.”

That very evening, that little mechanical valve stopped clacking and Professor J went on ahead to his rest.  From the streets of Russia where he had so longed to visit, from those streets he departed for the streets of Heaven, where he so longed to spend eternity!

His words that Sunday morning now proved to be prophetically true! We were sad, but the impact of Professor J’s life on that little church full of old Communists and new Christians will only produce joy!

May the same be said of your life and mine!

Posted in Christian Missions | 1 Comment »

The Night Train to St. Petersburg

September 13, 2011 by Mark Woodward

The work in Russia in the early days after the collapse of the Soviet Union was extraordinary. Last year, I told you the story of how LST went to Moscow in the summer of 1991, and working out of a local school, began reading the Bible with people who would literally cry sometimes because of their joy at finally hearing a Word from God. (See “A Personal History of LST”)

One of the most moving stories from those days was about the person who had the only Bible in the small Russian community, so he rented pages from his Bible and people paid him to have an hour to read the story of Jesus for themselves.

LST went first to Moscow, but soon thereafter was invited into Saint Petersburg, where we have continued to send workers yearly.  My first trip between the cities is a great illustration of those early days.

Everything had to be done through a Russian liaison. In those first days, many of us hired a Russian couple named Volodya and Lena. ( I can mention their names because half the people in Russia have the same names, so I’m not invading their privacy.)

One of them would meet you at the international airport, take you either to your hotel or sometimes to their apartment, where you could stay, called the people you needed to talk to, negotiated for you for rented space, told you where to eat and where not to eat, taught you how to ride the subway system, and exchanged money for you.

You needed this kind of help for several reasons. Few people spoke English, so you needed them to translate, but Russia was rather lawless in this transition from Communism to Russian democracy and people were poor, so there was a lot of street crime.

 As Americans, we were prime targets for petty crime of all kinds as well as just exploitation. Prices for Americans would not only start out ten times higher than for Russians, but then would be raised again in the middle of the transaction. The people we would rent classrooms from would try to change the rent on us weekly, so it was an environment where you needed to work through a Russian liaison for some assurance and stability.

I needed to go to St. Petersburg to meet with the Christians there about bringing an LST team the next summer, so I decided to take the overnight train, not really knowing what an experience it would be.  Lena took me to the ticket office where she negotiated my ticket for me—getting a price well below what the agent had first said it would cost!

The next day, Volodya accompanied me to one of the Moscow train stations, telling me basically not to talk English in public. I felt pretty cloak-and-daggerish, especially going into the dimly lit train station. We get to the train that I’m supposed to ride and Volodya instructs me to wait for him, so I wait as he approaches one of the train conductors and talks with him for several minutes. At the end of the conversation, he pulls a set of pencils, a small $3.00 calculator, and some chewing gum out of his pocket and gives them to the conductor. This is what he called “tipping” and was what seemed to make everything work in those days.

He called me over, told me everything had been arranged and that I was safe and should not worry. I was taken care of–and handed me over to the conductor. The conductor took me to a small, spartan compartment on the train that was obviously a sleeping compartment, let me in, shut the door and locked it behind him. That was a little spooky!  But I was taken care of . . . so I settled in for the overnight trip.

There were two bunks, and I was given the top one. At the end of the bunk was a rolled up mattress with straw stuffing—yes, I’m pretty sure it was straw—zipped in a mattress cover with a sheet, wrapped in a blanket.  So I unrolled it and lay down and read until the 10 watt bulb in the compartment was no longer adequate to read by and until I relaxed enough to get sleepy.

Much later that night after I was asleep—lightly—I heard the compartment door being unlocked, then slid open. The conductor came into the room—not the same one, but a lady conductor! I pretended to be asleep, but was aware that she was checking on me. Then she took off her jacket and blouse and lay down on the bottom bunk! Well, that kinda woke me up!

But she had been “tipped” to make sure I arrived in St. Petersburg safely—and she did. She got up about an hour before our arrival, put her uniform back on, and went out very quietly, not to disturb me—as if I had done anything but sleep fitfully all night!

Just before arriving, she brought me hot tea and a biscuit for breakfast, then escorted me off the train until I was met by our contact in St. Petersburg.  I thanked her with my best Russian. She acknowledged, but didn’t smile. Russians really don’t smile a lot.

This small little adventure reminded me not only how we are constantly dependent upon God, but that most people in the world are good people, just trying to live from day to day.  For a few pencils, a calculator, and some chewing gum which she probably took home to her kids, she had allowed this unknown American to sleep in her compartment—risking her safety. Maybe she didn’t sleep much either.

I wish I could have told her about Jesus. I hope someone else has.

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If You Wear The Badge: Remembering 9/11

September 10, 2011 by Mark Woodward

The towers had fallen, the Pentagon was on fire, but no one knew what was going to happen next. We had a small TV at the LST office, and as much as we tried to work that day, we all kept drifting back to the TV to watch the reports. 

We didn’t express our personal fears at first, but eventually someone voiced the question of who will want to get on an airplane and fly to a foreign country now? What impact did these terrorists make on the willingness of Christians to go into the world?

I had just finished writing the lead article for LST’s Fall newsletter. It was no longer the right tone, so I sat down and wrote the following:

September 11 re-shaped the world in which all of us live.  Our priorities have shifted as individuals and as a nation; the same is true at Let’s Start Talking.  This newsletter was ready on September 10—but some of it was no longer appropriate by the end of the next day.  If we took a little longer in saying to you what is on our hearts, we knew you would understand.

After the initial shock and outrage came a longer period of deeply felt grief. So many dead and missing, so much destruction, our shattered sense of security at home—the horrific reminder that this world is ruled for a time still by the Prince of Darkness—what could we do but grieve!

While grieving, however, we learned something about how to respond to tragedy and darkness.  You too probably noticed the many people running for their lives, running away from falling buildings, from death and destruction.  Everyone was running away—except for the Rescuers!  In the midst of the crisis, hundreds of firemen and police ran towards death and destruction in hopes of saving a few!  The actions of these men and women changed the future for many others.

The metaphor is powerful.  As Christians, we wear the badge of Jesus Christ, serving as Rescuers for God!  We cannot stay home and protect our own interests; we dare not retreat from going into all the world; we must not isolate or insulate our churches, our outreach, our missionaries, or ourselves in the face of darkness and destruction.  Because of the badge God gave us, because of the Name He lets us wear, we must run towards the darkness, into the danger, and look for those few that can be saved.

We at Let’s Start Talking will not forget the example set by the firemen and other rescue workers in New York.  We are calling on God to make us strong and courageous this year. We need you to go with us and support this army of God more than ever!

For those who wear the badge, the job is not yet done! Ten years later, people are still dying in darkness, buried under steel rafters of Sin. No one worried about cost, distance, or duration. Whatever it takes, wherever they are, however long it takes–those were the parameters on 9/11!

We wear the badge. We have only one choice—only one desire:  to run toward the ashy darkness with the hope of leading one more person out of destruction into light! 

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Do You Know the Way To Santo Domingo?

September 9, 2011 by Mark Woodward

I’m not entering THE BEST LST STORY EVER contest, but I hope you will!  I do, however, have several stories that I want to share with you over the next two weeks as we move toward our big weekend of September 23-24!

If you are a new follower of my blog, you might enjoy reading the series I wrote last year at this time: “A Personal History of Let’s Start Talking” http://wp.me/pO3kT-7U

Santo Domingo

One of Our Best Travel Stories

In 1994, LST was scheduled to go to work with the church in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for the first time.  It has long been our practice to visit sites before we send teams there in order to make sure that both we and the local Christians/missionaries know what the expectations and commitments are going to be.  LST never goes to work with any church or missionary without an invitation, but a few hours of face-to-face conversation have saved us from many awkward and/or difficult situations.

Our travel agent prepared our agenda and sent the tickets to our office. We threw them into a drawer until the day before we left, but when we did look at them, we noticed that she had us flying first to Miami and then to Caracas, Venezuela, and spending the night there.

I called to confirm this, and she said she was sorry but there were no direct flights from Miami to Santo Domingo!

 And so we left the next day for Santo Domingo via Miami and Caracas.

As we waited in the Miami terminal for our Caracas flight, I noticed on the flight board several flights from Miami direct  to Santo Domingo. I actually called the travel agent from the airport and told her what I saw, but she assured me that she had researched it and we still had to go through Caracas. OK!

We boarded the Caracas flight, flew four hours to get there, then spent the night in a hotel that provided security both from the airport and back because of the threat of highway bandits.

Our adventure began again the next day when we arrived at the international part of the Caracas airport, tickets in hand for the flight to Santo Domingo—but as I looked at the flight board, I didn’t see our flight.  Our flight was VE 122 at 9:25am  and the only flight to Santo Domingo on the board was VD 121 at 9:15am.  Well, it was Latin America, so we just thought someone had made a mistake on the tickets. In these pre-9/11 days, those kinds of errors happened occasionally and were usually no big deal.

We had no trouble checking in for VD 121 to Santo Domingo, boarded the plane—a pretty small plane—and took off right on time at 9:15am.  About thirty minutes into the flight, however,  we started to land. Nobody was upset, so I wasn’t either. It didn’t seem to be an emergency. In fact, we picked up a few passengers on this unscheduled stop and then took off about forty-five minutes later.

Finally we arrived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic—about an hour later than our itinerary said we would—and were met by very gracious, but puzzled missionaries.

After our sincere apologies for being late and causing them so much trouble, I mentioned that we had had an unscheduled stop between Caracas and SD. They said, “Why did you fly through Caracas?”

“Because you have to from Miami.”

“No you don’t! There are six or seven direct flights every day from Miami to Santa Domingo!”

“No way!”

It took only a few more minutes to unravel what had happened . . . . have you figured it out?

Our travel agent had written our tickets for Santo Domingo, VENEZUELA, not Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.  Santo Domingo, Venezuela, is a small town buried in the Andes—not where we wanted to go.

The hilarious part is that with our ticket to this little Andean village town, we had managed to the WRONG flight on the WRONG airlines at the WRONG time—and got to our desired destination!

God moves in mysterious ways—and so do Mark and Sherrylee!

I’ve got another LST story about flying to Siberia that I will tell you next.

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The Best LST Story Ever! Contest

September 7, 2011 by Mark Woodward

THE BEST LST STORY EVER!

 Let’s Start Talking is accepting entries for its first THE BEST LST STORY EVER contest.  Over six thousand workers have had LST/FriendSpeak experiences since this ministry began in 1980. Each of you has stories that only you know. We want you to share the stories that touched you, the stories that inspired you, and the stories that continue to motivate you in your walk with God.

AMAZING PRIZES!!!!!

Submission Guidelines

 

The subject of your story must be related to your Let’s Start Talking/FriendSpeak experiences. The story may be about your experience, a reader’s experience, or a church’s experience, but the experience must be directly related to a Let’s Start Talking project.

  • Entries must not exceed more than 750 words.  There is no minimum word count requirement.
  • All stories should be titled.
  • Multiple submissions are allowed.
  • Please:  Send your entry via email to LST@LST.org and put “Story Contest entry” in the subject line.
  • Entries MUST be received by midnight, September 18, 2011.
  • Entries WILL NOT be returned.  It is important that you maintain a copy for your files.
  • Winners will be announced and prizes awarded in conjunction with the LST Benefit Dinner on September 24, 2011.  Information about the awards will be made public on the LST Facebook fanpage
  • Authors give the Let’s Start Talking Ministry all rights to publish any submission as the ministry determines is appropriate.
  • Decision of the judges is final.


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What Do Labor Day and Sunday have in common?

September 5, 2011 by Mark Woodward

We don’t labor on Labor Day! We can’t remember when Memorial Day is! No presidents were born on President’s Day!  Most of us celebrated the Fourth of July on July 3rd this year!

Several holidays have disappeared completely from our calendars since I was a boy. We celebrated Arbor Day, Columbus Day, and Armistice Day as national holidays.

We Americans have become pretty pragmatic about our holidays, putting all on weekends so that we can be both more productive and have more days in a block for recreation.

Symbolism is not very important to us anymore. 

We still think the flag is a pretty sacred symbol. We don’t like people burning it! When I was a boy, we had a ceremony at school every morning when the flag was raised. We had to learn how to properly handle the flag, never letting it touch the ground, and folding it properly for overnight storage. It was an honor to be chosen to raise and lower the flag at school.

The other place where symbols used to be very important was at church. Not so much anymore.

Sunday was the Lord’s Day. Some people called it the Christian Sabbath, but we knew that wasn’t exactly right. Sunday was the day Christians had gathered since the first century to celebrate the Sunday resurrection of Jesus. Sunday became the first day of the week.  You wore your best clothes—whether they were your best overalls or your best suit or your one dress—you wore your best clothes on Sunday because it was the Lord’s day.

But things have changed! Some calendars even have moved Sunday to the last day of the week. Churches don’t care whether you come Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, just so you come. You can’t tell anyone to wear Sunday clothes because Sunday clothes aren’t any different from Monday clothes. In fact, they are often more casual than Monday clothes.

The same change is happening with what we used to always call “the Lord’s Supper” and other churches called the Eucharist and/or Communion.  The symbolism around this moment on Sunday was heavy!  First, there was a table in front center of the sanctuary that said “This Do In Remembrance of Me” so that everyone knew why we were gathered.

Unleavened bread was distributed by solemn men—and while you broke a piece off to symbolize the broken body of Jesus, it was quiet so you could remember why you were participating.  Cups were distributed after a prayer that reminded you that this was “Jesus’ blood, poured out on the cross for our sins”—you had to say those words somewhere in the prayer!

It’s different now at many churches! No central table anymore and no silence—ever! The bread is cooked into little squares, so there is no need to break it any more. The audience is instructed that the crackers and juice are about to be distributed—absolutely correct, but somehow an uninspiring, pedestrian use of language for such important symbols.

Just like with our holidays, we have communion efficiently managed down to a seven-minute exercise where, hopefully, nobody prays too long or makes any extra comments because that will make the service run over!

I hope you don’t hear just maudlin moaning about Then and Now! This is not a nostalgic longing for the way we used to do things!

Let me ask you this:  Do you know why Labor Day is a holiday? Most people will not mention organized Labor and Workers Unions in their answer because the meaning has been forgotten.

Is it possible that the symbolic meaning of Sunday’s celebration of the resurrection by Christians around the world for 2000 years could ever be forgotten?  Is it possible that the symbols of bread and wine could lose their meaning? Is it possible that the symbol of immersion baptism could lose its meaning?

I’m not talking about legalism that makes the symbols into Law!  I’m saying that symbols have a valuable place in every community.  And perhaps we should be extra cautious about messing with symbols that have a biblical genesis and have been recognized by Christians for two millennia.

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