Church Family

 

 

It was Saturday morning, just before 6 am when I jumped in my truck.  The sun wouldn’t be showing his sleepy head for another hour.  The morning air was cool, and the dewy grass in the various lawns I drove by completely undisturbed.  

Most of the houses didn’t have lights on at all.  The owners of them were quietly (or loudly) sawing the sorts of logs that would build no homes. 

As I pulled up at my church, I could see a group of men already working to get charcoal burning.  It was chilly, but already, there was warmth coming from beneath the grill area where half chickens were lying, waiting with bated breath to get grilled to perfection. 

Over the next three and a half hours, we worked together, chatting, flipping the chicken pieces as they needed it, and checking each one's temperature before taking it off to put in coolers.  Eventually, around 9:30 am we were done, the last chicken had left the grill, ready to be taken over for a fund-raising sale. 

A few days later, our church was together again, this time to help clean up a home that needed a fair amount of work before one of our members could move in.  Once again, there was a good turnout.  People brought tools and spirits willing to work and much was accomplished before we settled down to eat pizza on the lawn. 

I have thought much in the subsequent days about the church as a family.  Luke 14:26 says, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” 

I think that most of us try to turn this passage into a comparison.  Jesus is simply saying that we need to love Him more than our fathers, mothers, spouses, and children.  Maybe that is partially true, but I believe that Jesus was indicating that those who enter into a new relationship with Him are entering into a new family as well. 

We need a church family around us.  It isn’t that we need them to come over and mow our lawns for us, or baby sit our children, or even fix us meals when we are feeling ill – although a good church family can and will help with all of those things.  We need them because they, like us are on a faith journey and together, we can grow closer to our Savior. 

I feel sad for those who say that they love Jesus but do not have a community around them to love and encourage them through life.  

Many years ago, God looked on the first man and said that it was not good for the man to be alone.  So, He made for him a beautiful bride.  In the same way, God looked at Christians and knew that it was not good for them to be alone.  So, He created the church.

The church has such a bad name these days that I sometimes think we should rebrand it.  If we called ourselves, "Fallen people who are desperately trying to follow Jesus the best that we can together, but who still mess up an awful lot," then maybe people would get a picture of what the church really is.

The only thing I know for sure is that whether it is grilling chicken together, studying the Bible together, or even pulling up carpets together, I love doing things with a community of people -- even if we are far from perfect.

Working Hard?

 

“You know,” the older gentleman sitting across from me said.  “I was talking to a neighbor of mine (he's  an older farmer) the other day and he told me that he just ploughed one hundred acres.”

“Oh?”  I said, absently.

“Yup,” he said.  “I told him he didn’t do anything of the sort.  The tractor did the ploughing and he just sat on it.  It took time, but not effort.”

“I guess you let him know, didn’t you,” I said.

“Sure did,” the man said.  “We were at a farmer’s market the other day and this lady was talking about all the honey she’d produced this last year.  Well, I told her that was nothing to be proud of – why, the bees did all the work.  Now, if she had really made the honey herself, well, that would have taken some real talent.”

“You’re pretty good at letting people know when they are taking credit for someone else’s efforts?”  I asked.

“Oh, they know I’m joking,” he said.

I laughed and yet, I wonder how these comments are received.  It is awfully easy to be critical of other people’s effort or lack thereof.  We grow up on the cloud of the knowledge that we have it so much easier than the generations that came before us.  They are quick to let us know how much harder things were in the "Old Days."

When I got into medical school and waded through the challenges that med school offers and after that, on into residency, my mother (who is also a doctor) told me about how much easier I had it than she did.  She did more frequent call nights.  She had to draw her own blood for lab tests and run them down to the lab herself.  Truly, I didn’t know the meaning of hard work.

Now the shoe is on the other foot.  Residency has gotten easier in the 23 years since I completed it and now, I could say that the resident physicians have no idea what hard work really is.  Even if I could say that, I wouldn’t because it isn't true.

The question really isn’t whether people are working as hard as each other or past generations, but whether they are doing their best and fulfilling the tasks set before them.  There are no medals given to residents who stay up for 36 hours straight, nor special awards for farmers who plow a field with a team of oxen rather than a tractor.

Colossians 3:23 tells us, “Whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men.”

Clearly, we are to work hard, but I suppose there is no reason that we have to do something the hard way – even if once upon a time our grandparents did it that way, and they survived.  There is no reason to pit the efforts of one generation versus another generation.  

More than that, we don’t need to judge the effort someone else is putting in.  They know if they are doing their best and that should be good enough -- even if they happen to use bees to produce honey, rather than gathering the pollen by hand and making honey by hand the way real honey farmers do.

Beginning Somewhere

 

“What are you doing Elise?”  I asked my just-turned-four years old daughter.

“I’m drawing,” she told me. 

I looked at the paper she had before her.  Her sketch looked like a bunch of squiggles.  “What is it?”  I asked her.  “Is it a picture of boa constrictors attacking an alligator?”

“No, Dad,” Elise said, much like an abstract painter discovering that a gallery had accidentally hung her painting upside down.  “No, they are balloons!”

“They don’t look anything like balloons,” her older sister, Victoria said.  “They just look like scribbles.”

I squinted at the image.  I’m a bit biased, but I have seen worse artwork in my time on this earth.  “I can see the balloons,” I said.  “You’re doing great Elise.  I’m looking forward to seeing more things your draw.”

Elise didn’t say anything.  Instead, she picked up a different marker and started making more marks on her paper.  Some might have said she was scribbling, but there was an intentionality that belied the abstract nature of her drawing.

This world is full of critics.  Some of them may even live in your own family.  They are quick to tell you how your efforts are not unique, and you aren’t particularly creative.

It is easy to feel discouraged.  What is the point of making an effort when you will never be the best at anything?

I take photos.  I often find myself struggling out of bed at 5 am to wander out to some neglected spot to try to take a few images of the sun showing itself to the waiting world.  I am no Ansel Adams and there are hundreds of better photographers out there, but that doesn’t really matter.

What matters is that it is something that I enjoy.  More than that, if I can capture just a fraction of the beauty that God placed in this scene, that is enough for me.

I worry about the future.  Artificial Intelligence will write better than beginning writers and I wonder if many will simply give up and let computers do the work for them.  If so, where will the future Tolstoys and Tolkiens and Twains come from?

The problem is never that you had to begin somewhere.  The problem is that you gave up and stayed there.

So, I would give encouragement, not just to my own daughter, but to every budding, struggling artist and writer – to every musician and painter – keep on!  The scribbles of today may become lines tomorrow and someday they will even become coherent visions that speak to others.

Carry on!  Even the greatest of painters began, just like my daughter, scribbling balloons on blank sheet of paper.

Parable of a Wife Inspired Visit

 

 

One day, it came to pass than an older gentleman walked through the hallowed doors where I ply my trade as a medicine man.  Though he paid me for his visit, yet it seemed that he little needed my services.

“I take note,” I told him.  “That thy blood pressure seemeth quite high.  Yea, the top number approacheth and verily, it is equal to 170.”

“Thou does not know whereof thou speakest,” replied he, in a gruff voice.  “I didst check it once, six weeks anon and it was more or less fine.”

I paused, assembling the forces of my mind and began again.  “I see as well, that on thy last blood work, thy blood sugar and cholesterol were elevated,” I remarked, in what I hoped was a non-threatening voice.

“I have looked into these-here medicines that “doctors” (this he spake in such a way as to make it sound like as if he was saying the word “quacks”) like you put upon gentle folk like me.  Truly, I would rather deal with sugar and cholesterol than to have any of thy “wholesome” remedies.”

I shrugged.  “Thou must do what thou must,” I said.  “As a wise man once said, ‘I can but show thee the best path, but whether thou takest it is Plum up to Thee.”

The Older Fellow made a face.  “Thou canst show whatever thou desirest,” saith he.  “I am here to make my Wife Happy and now that I have Done My Duty, I will run along.”

I said no more and our interesting dialogue was at an end.  But, lo, I am quite certain that his wife would not be happy, did she know his attitude or the content of our conversation.  For, it doth very little for Someone to Go to the Doctor, if he doth not listen to what the doctor says and avail himself of it.

It seemeth to me that many “Christians” have the same idea.  These well-intentioned folk have the delusion that what makes God Happy is to go to a building once a week and sit with other people, who are also making God Happy.  More than that, they have liked the right posts on Facebook and even shared that post that Facebook was trying to shut down that quoted the Lord’s Prayer.

Micah 6:8 says, “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

It intrigues me that the three things which are spoken of are loving mercy, behaving justly, and acting with humility.  Mayhap the Prophet Micah had not heard of the Wonders of Facebook or even of Church Attendance, yet, even if he had, I think God is still desirous of more than having His children show up and Go Through the Motions.

That isn’t to say that it isn’t good to do these things.  I do attend church, but it is with the understanding that it is not to Make God Happy, but to encourage me in the Pursuit of Righteousness.

For those who show up at church, but do not pursue the path of Jesus wholeheartedly are much like a man who goes to the doctor because his wife wants him to but does none of the things the doctor recommends.