Have you noticed the genuine lack of commitment?

                I have noticed that increasingly regular people fail to answer a direct question with a direct answer. It is an answer but it is unclear what the question was to both the questioner and the “questionee.” Yes, I coined a word. “Is this blue?” is answered with, “I was looking for paint in the closet.” Huh? I just want to know is this blue? It seems yes or no will get me there. Now, I am mean enough to continue to ask the same question until someone answers with a yes or no.

                I believe people think they are answering the question until they listen to their answer and then wonder what-in-the-world they were asked. I am guilty as well. I often give too much information do contextualize my answer. Clarity takes one on the chin. I wonder if this stems from an aversion to commitment. If you don’t answer directly there is always room to wiggle out from scrutiny if needed. You can always deny the meaning under scrutiny. We see this all too often in relationships. A couple is doing all of the things a married couple would do but they are not married. It gives some wiggle room to get out. What is missing, the commitment.

                Consider a fine breakfast plate with eggs, toast and bacon or sausage! When Geoffrey was small Barbara would ask him what he wanted to go with his bacon. He always answered sausage! I use that answer now. So, our plate has bacon AND sausage. Let’s look at this from a commitment standpoint. The chicken has participated in our breakfast. The egg is a product from the chicken. The pig, well the pig participated but more than that the pig is committed. It cost the pig his life! That is commitment.

                It seems our aversion to commitment has invaded our faith. Maybe delusion is the better word. We confuse the commitment of the pig with that of the chicken believing they are equal. They are not. So many of the “faithful” in American churches come on Sunday and maybe during the week thinking they have made a sacrifice. They have made a commitment to attend one Sunday a month setting aside the lake, travel ball whatever for one weekend feeling like they are “in.” The reality is: they are participating. But what about commitment?

                The example of commitment is not a pig but a person Jesus. Jesus committed to our salvation by leaving Heaven for here (now that is slumming), committed to knowing our experience as a baby, child, teen and young adult, committed to serving through ministry to the hurting, helpless and hopeless, committed to our redemption by a torturous death on a cross though innocent. That is ALL IN committed. From that level of commitment he asks us to follow him.

So I ask you:

Is Jesus more like the chicken or the pig?

Which level of commitment is worthy of your family?

Which level of commitment is worthy of your salvation?

Which are you more like the chicken (participating) or the pig (committed)?

In HIS service and yours,                                         

BroG

Things change when we know them!

Now THAT's Air Conditioning!

                 Barbara (my wife) and I drive busses for our school system. She two years longer (I think) then myself. This past year our local school board approved using ESPLOST (education, special, purpose, local option sales tax (the key word TAX)) dollars to add air conditioning to the regular route busses in the county. Special education busses have been air conditioned for some time but not so with the regular education busses. The cost to refit a bus (I am told) is between $8,000 and $8,500 per bus. The bus costs $82,000plus.  The system will do this to 58 busses and 52 will NOT receive AC. The decision process includes such factors as age of the bus (value) and most importantly length of time students are on the bus. The longer riding students have a higher priority than students on the bus say 15 minutes (yes some routes are that short). The remaining busses will be air conditioned as they are replaced in the next 6 years. Two days ago Barbara got an air conditioned bus. I did not.

                I know what you are thinking. But I’m good with that. I have never driven an air conditioned bus before. I am glad she got one as it seems the heat is harder on her (so she says). Thursday morning as she was leaving I said goodbye and with a smirk, “don’t get too hot.” I expected a short comeback but instead she seemed embarrassed that she had air and I did not. I did not expect that. She felt sorry for me.

                Our perspective changes when we know someone “less fortunate” than us. When those suffering have a name and a face and a relationship to us no matter how skimpy the relationship we “sit up and take notice.” When a young expectant mother “sees” her unborn fetus for the first time through ultra sound it becomes a baby, her baby. Families in California who have suffered years of wildfires. Burned businesses, charred belongings of what once was a home all in the wake of a fire become real when we know them. Those families suffering through flooding in Louisiana are just on the news to us until we know a family or a community or a business. Then we have empathy for them and their plight. Why is that? Why must another child of God become human (in our eyes) before we notice and/or care? Have we become so accustomed to suffering that we ignore it or is it we just can’t see it?

                When Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves some wanted to qualify the “neighbors.” In their mind he could not mean everybody? A lawyer asked the question and we hear of the Good Samaritan. All are neighbors because all are made in the image of God. Some more recognizable than others but all the image of God. That alone connects us by blood to them and their plight. That being the case, how we see those in need, those hurting, those lost, those incarcerated, those in pain, immigrants changes. They are no longer them but us! To see them in that light is to see them as Jesus saw us from the cross!

                Jesus saw us as Lost NOT Losers with Compassion NOT Contempt and with Love and NOT Loathing. He knew and knows the resources of heaven are not taxed or stretched thin and neither are ours. Why Not? Christ is IN Us! The mystery revealed in God incarnate, a man moved into our neighborhood and now our very lives. You see everything changes when we know HIM!   

       

In HIS service and yours,                                         

BroG

Nothing gets simpler!

                 Sure it may start out simple enough but before you know it we have to make exceptions and qualifiers for this and that and simple gets complex real fast. I drive a school bus. Driving the bus is the easy part, managing the kids now that is hard. It doesn’t have to be. If the children would simply sit in their seat and ride the bus home all would be good. Really anything other than that is wrong and will cause problems for me, them, their parents etc. The thing is no one wants to do that. There is always a reason why they did more than sit in their seat and ride home ALWAYS.

                The thing is it is never much of a good reason. So-and-so made me…really they made you how? How did they make you? No, you chose to do that in response. We are so good at coming up with reasons why someone or something else influenced us to do what we did all-the-while ignoring our part in the complicated mess we made. Therein lies a key to faith in Christ Jesus.

                To die to ourselves and be raised to new life in Christ we must admit we are and have done wrong. We must admit we played a role in his crucifixion and death. We must admit that he died because of our sin. The sin we committed. Until we acknowledge that we can’t be forgiven. Until we say we are bad we can’t be made good. For those who struggle with addiction the first of 12 steps is to acknowledge that we are powerless over our addiction. We must take responsibility for our actions before Christ will assume responsibility for our actions. It is as simple as that.

                Even in matters of faith simple does not stay simple. This is ancient. Paul writes of the need to focus on the basic message.

This mystery has been kept in the dark for a long time, but now it’s out in the open...The mystery in a nutshell is just this: Christ is in you, so therefore you can look forward to sharing in God’s glory. It’s that simple. That is the substance of our Message. We preach Christ, warning people not to add to the Message. We teach in a spirit of profound common sense so that we can bring each person to maturity. To be mature is to be basic. Christ! No more, no less. Colossians 1: 26-29The Message.

I have heard so many times that we need to do this or that or study this or that. In the first century not 100 years after the death of Christ people were making following Jesus much more complex. Jesus said repeatedly “follow me” no more no less. That is simple, basic non-complicated. Is that what we do? Love God and love your neighbor. A lawyer asked him to define who his neighbor was. It seemed simple enough but we would try to exclude someone based on…well you fill in the blank. It’s almost as if we believe Christ is not enough! If we just add this or that then…really? That’s what I tell those children who have done more than sit in their seat and ride home, really? It seems like a simple thing. It’s not but oh it is!        

   

In HIS service and yours,                                         

BroG

Ch…Ch…Ch…Changes! Turn and face the strange changes!

                Queen Elizabeth is attributed as saying, “Change is constant.”  That has been stuck in my brain. On the surface it seems to be an oxymoron but with just a little thought I realized it is true. My dad used to say, “Today was tomorrow yesterday.” That’s just another way of saying the same thing. Change happens each moment one second at a time. Like the groom at the altar of marriage we don’t want it/her to change. Whereas the bride chooses change and may yet regret it.

                The school year has begun and with it changes for me. I am driving a new route. I had been in the same general area of the county (Guyton) for 12 years and now I have changed (Shadowbrook subdivision). All seemed ok until I stopped in front of the sheriff’s office on Hwy21 Thursday at 7:58am because of backed up traffic going to the school. Slow and go, creeping inch by inch we went. I did not realize how long it took until leaving the high school and turning onto 119 I looked at my clock and it had taken 22 minutes. That’s when my route change seemed like I was short changed (Friday was much easier and less time). Sometimes we need to learn to make change.

                Barbara and I were in Dairy Queen the other evening when we overheard a manager talking about having to teach a cashier how to make change. There had been a software glitch and the register was not showing the amount of change to return to the customer for those who pay with cash (you remember cash). We do get lazy to the point of not knowing other ways to do things when technology fails of glitches. Now you remember how to make change? You take the total of the sale and then count money up to the amount the customer gave you. Counting change to the dollar and then up etc. until the exchange is equal. That’s how you make change. Sometimes we need to agents of change.

                Last week I had the opportunity to share a message from Colossians chapter 1 where Paul describes Jesus. It is a magnificent treatise of the identity, character and ultimate role Christ holds and keeps in God’s kingdom. It is written with soring majestic language. Paul reminds us that Christ; holds it together “everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him.” (The Message); is all encompassing, time space etc.; worthy of our gaze; But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God’s side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. (v. 22 MGS). Now Jesus has been the change agent to make the opportunity to radically alter our existence from death to life, mortal to immortal, visible to invisible. That’s what he has paid. So, what is his change?

                His change is how you make life count in response to this great gift. Not that you can ever pay back what Christ has done any more than a child can pay back a mother for her lifetime of care. “Change is constant,” the queen said but my Jesus lived it first in his service and sacrifice paying my debt of sin. In response he asks me to make change. Make change in my actions and lifestyle. Make change in my family as I relate and love them. Make change in my community, state and nation. Make change in this world. We do that by living, loving and serving up to Jesus’ example. No register required!        

     

In HIS service and yours,                                         

BroG