Humble Hotdishes
I smell of cheese and sausage. I have washed my hands but the smell just won’t go away! You see I just got done slicing 3 metric tons of cheese and one honking enormous summer sausage for part of our volunteer appreciation celebration tomorrow at St. John. I have lived in Wisconsin for well over half my life, but I still don’t think I could eat cheese and sausage at 9:15 in the morning unless eggs and toast were also involved.
Today the book of faith devotions talked about the walking humbly with God part of Micah 6:8. Perhaps there are no better examples of those who walk humbly with God than those we celebrate tomorrow. Ok the term volunteer and church don’t always work for me. Yes I know people volunteer their time, but the work done is ministry. Walking humbly with God is making yourself available to do God’s will. That could be setting up bars and coffee for fellowship time between services, making a hotdish
THE Tater Tot Hotdish, the gold standard of hotdishes
(that is a casserole for those of you non-Midwestern Lutheran types) for a family who is in crisis, folding newsletters so that they might go in the mail, ushering, singing in the choir, setting up tables and chairs for a potluck (an event where hotdishes are served) and nearly anything that brings the kingdom into this world.
I don’t know anyone who slices cheese and sets out the salads for a funeral luncheon who does it in hopes that someday Martha Stewart will show up and discover them so they can have their how HGTV show or whatever. Walking humbly in my view has to do with doing tasks large or small not out of any hope for heavenly brownie points, but simply standing humbly at the foot of the cross, and gazing at God’s ultimate gift to us, it is the least we can do. Walking humbly means constantly turning away from ourselves and returning our gaze to God. I think it is interesting how many times returning to God involves reaching out in love to others. It is doing things that normally you wouldn’t do on a bet, and doing them for the sake of others. The funny thing about humility is that you never really know when you are doing it. It just flows from you. The second you stop to think “am I being humble,” anything resembling true humility vanishes. Humility comes from walking with our eyes fixed on God and his will for us, trusting that God in his love will guide us and provide for us… but now I am getting ahead of myself…
Blessings and thanks for journeying with me this lent. I would love to hear if you have any comments, corrections or questions. I hope on some level to make this less about me pontificating and more about a conversation of faith, and life as we all become what we already are in Jesus Christ.
Spiderman and the will of God
I have been slaving away on my sermon for this weekend. Ok, slaving away is an exaggeration, as my daughter said; “and watching Spiderman 3 helped you write your sermon?” The kid has learned well from her parents 
Our devotions today continued to focus on the will of God particularly focused on the loving kindness part. It seems so simple, but I was reminded after watching Spiderman 3 (gotcha!) how often can we look into the face of ugliness of the world; hate, fear, violence, revenge, hunger, injustice, and pain and not curl in on ourselves in self protection? Loving kindness demands vulnerability, it calls for us to step out into this world to do God’s will not necessarily our will. We do ask in this prayer that God’s will becomes ours even as he strengthens us by his life giving spirit each day.
In doing my prep work for the sermon I came upon this next piece. It didn’t really fit the particular direction I was going but it is too good not to use someplace. It was attributed to a Dr. Ted Loder, from his book, GUERRILLAS OF GRACE. I hope it blesses you.
Humbly-mumbly
Ahhhh… peace and quiet. I love Wednesdays in Lent. Oh sure you say “because of mid-week worship, or is it the soup, bread and pie you had for supper?” Ok, fine, those things are a part of it, but what I love most is now… after all that. In the still quiet of the evening, I am alone in my house. The kids are at youth group, my wife is at choir and it is just me and the cats and right now they are not being demanding, it is lovely.
I didn’t get to the devotions earlier in the day; they had to keep until now. But it was worth it. I sat and read, undistracted, and unhurried in absolute quiet. Listening to what Micah 6:8 was whispering in my ear. Oh, I love this passage, have for years, I have read it over and over again. I have used it for devotions, sermons and to try and focus junior high kids on what it means to walk, live and breathe the Christian life.
It all sounds so simple, “God has told you, O mortal, what is good: and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Easy, right? It is all laid right out there, no complicated directions, and no long list of rules just do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God. Piece of cake I can do that! Oh…humbly, humbly now… oh, that’s right… humbly…
How often do we get in the way of doing justice, or if not outright obstructing justice, just plain old not stepping out and doing it?
How often do we get in the way of loving kindness? I mean who has a problem with being kind, well except of course to those people who don’t deserve kindness, surely God can’t be talking about them?
How often do we, when we actually get around to doing justice and loving kindness, creep ever so slowly into the “look at me” mode of existence?
Our devotions ask, what if everyone who is a Christian and who prays the Lord ‘s Prayer and says the words “your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” actually did the will of God in doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. In fact it states these points should shape our every action as a congregation, church and individuals.
I can’t argue with that, but I do know people, well, at least a little bit. I know that what I consider to be justice isn’t always what God would consider justice, what I consider to be kindness, is not always the kindness that God expects. Then there is that whole issue of remaining humble, I am not going there!
The brokenness of sin raises its ugly head once again, and I have a choice to make, I can either be crushed by the overwhelming demands that these three little statements place upon me, or I can lift up my eyes to the cross of Christ, and dust off the self pity and self centeredness and trust that I and all who are baptized are all becoming what we already are in Jesus Christ. I think that each day I need to “lift my eyes to the hills” and with the cross in full view ask God to guide me as I see to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with him as I seek to God’s will each step of each day.
There… got that done, no one is home yet and I am going to sit here in the silence for a while and just soak it up!
